To Hamish he said, 'It's hard to say what Mr. Miller's motive was in telling me what he just did. Unless it was to speed the police in finishing their business here sooner than later. Offering us lies we want to hear.'
He had caught that slight movement when he'd asked Miller about appearing at the inquest for Brady's death.
Miller hadn't expected his admission to be taken any further than a statement. Certainly not to be sworn to under oath and in public. And that rather reinforced the possibility that he hadn't told the truth.
Rutledge thought he understood now why Slater had called Miller an evil man. Those arresting eyes, coupled with an unfriendly nature and impatience or outright antagonism toward a man with a simple view of the world, must make the smith very uncomfortable in Miller's presence.
Hamish said, 'It's no' likely that he showed you the same face he showed the ithers.'
Rutledge had just reached his motorcar when Hill came down the road toward him and waved him to wait.
He got out of his motorcar and came across to Rutledge, his face sober. He said without preamble, 'We managed to get our hands on something Brady wrote before he moved to the cottage. It was a list of what he wanted to bring with him. Somehow it had fallen behind the desk and out of sight. But it was enough for us to compare handwriting. If Brady wrote that list-and there's every reason to believe he did-then he didn't write the suicide note we found, confessing to the murder of Willingham and Partridge.'
He held out a sheet of paper, and Rutledge took it.
The list wasn't long. But there were references to 'my green folder,' and later 'my black coat' as well as clothing, books, and personal items. It ended with 'the file MD gave me.'
Martin Deloran…
'I wasn't completely convinced-' Rutledge began, but Hill interrupted him.
'That's as may be. The question is, what are we going to do about this? And I've brought two constables with me. They'll take turn about, watching the cottages day and night. Until we get to the bottom of it.'
Two middle-aged men in uniform had stepped out of the motorcar behind him and were walking up the lane. They went into Brady's cottage and shut the door behind them.
'The list of suspects isn't long,' Rutledge said, thinking about what Allen had said to him. 'Quincy. Allen. Slater. Miller. Singleton.'
'You've left out the woman.'
'Do you really believe she could have wielded that knife?'
'I doubt it very much. But I'm not taking any chances.' He marched off after his men, head down and mouth a tight line.
Rutledge turned the motorcar in the middle of the road and drove back to Partridge Fields.
It had represented many things in Gerald Parkinson's life.
A happy childhood for two young girls. A mother's illness. A father's obsession with his work. A death by suicide, and then a house left to stand empty.
But not abandoned. Rebecca Parkinson may have seen to the flower beds, but it was her father who made certain that the lawns were well kept, and someone was paid to clean and polish and see that the rooms stayed fresh.
Parkinson had even used the name Partridge, after the name of his house. Gaylord Partridge.
The gate was always closed and today was no exception. But he let himself in and walked around to the kitchen. He was in luck. The housekeeper was there-a dust pan and brush stood beside a mop and a pail of old cloths just outside the door. And from the kitchen he could hear a woman humming to herself as she worked.
He called to her, but she didn't immediately answer. He stood there, his back to the house, looking past the kitchen garden to the small orchard on the left and the outbuildings just beyond. Shrubbery, tall with age, partly blocked his view, but there appeared to be a small stable for horses, a coop for chickens, and a longer building where everything from carriages to scythes, barrows, and other tools could be stored. Leading to the buildings was a cobbled walk, to keep boots out of the mud when it rained, and someone had put a tub of flowers to either side.
He walked to the orchard, where plum and apple and pear grew cheek by jowl, and beyond there was another outbuilding, this one low, foursquare, and without grace. Apparently built for utility not beauty, it was one story so as not to be visible at the house over the tops of the orchard trees. A pair of windows was set either side of the door.
Someone had tried to make it prettier, for it had been painted green and there was a lilac avenue leading up the walk to it, three to either side. A silk purse and a sow's ear, Rutledge thought.
Hamish, regarding it with dislike, said, 'The laboratory.'
Rutledge went up to the windows and looked inside.
The workbenches in the center of the floor were too heavy to be overturned, but someone had taken an axe to them, and the rest of the room was littered with glass and twisted metal, broken chairs, and a scattering of tools and equipment. Someone had come in here and destroyed everything that could be destroyed, with a wild anger that hadn't been satisfied by mere destruction. It had wanted to smash and hurt and torment.
Who had done this?
Gerald Parkinson's late wife?
Or his daughters, hungry for a revenge they couldn't exact on their father?
Hamish said, 'The elder one.'
It was true. Rebecca Parkinson was riven by an anger that went bone deep, unsatisfied and uncontrolled.
But Sarah might have been jealous enough of her father's passion to hate the laboratory just as much.
He heard someone calling from the direction of the house and retraced his steps, coming out of the orchard to see the housekeeper standing in the doorway, a hand shading her eyes as she called.
'I saw your motorcar from the windows. Where have you got to? There's nobody here but me-' She broke off as she heard him approaching and turned his way.
'You mustn't wander about like this, it isn't right,' she scolded him. 'Policeman or no.'
'I called to you. I could hear you humming in the kitchen,' he said lightly, shifting the blame for his walk squarely onto her for not answering him.
'I was arranging fresh flowers for Mrs. Parkinson's bedroom and taking them up. I do sometimes. It cheers me.'
'A nice touch,' he said. 'You must have been very fond of her.'
'I was that, a lovely lady with gentle manners.' She sighed. 'It seems to me sometimes that I can still hear her voice calling to me.' At his look of surprise she smiled wryly. 'No, not her ghost, of course not. But her voice all the same, in my head, just as it used to be. 'Martha, do come and see what I've done with the flowers.' Or 'Martha, I think I'll take my luncheon in the gardens, if you don't mind making up a tray.' Little things I'd do for her and knew she'd appreciate. But that time's long gone, and I don't have anyone to spoil, not even Miss Rebecca or Miss Sarah.'
'Do you recall when Mrs. Parkinson was ill-some years ago when her daughters were young?'
'I've told you, it isn't my place to gossip about the family.'
'It isn't gossip I'm looking for,' he said, 'but something to explain what makes Gerald Parkinson's daughters hate their father. It might be traced back to her illness, for all I know.'
'I don't think they hate him, exactly-'
'What else would you call it? I've spoken to both of them, and I'd be deaf not to hear the way they felt about him.'
'Yes, well, I expect there's some hard feeling over poor Mrs. Parkinson's sudden death.'
'On the contrary, I think it went back longer than that. Sarah Parkinson remembers how happy she was before that illness. But she was too young to understand what the illness was. Or why it changed her parents.'
'Come in, then, I was just about to put the kettle on. You might as well have a cup with me.'
She led the way into the kitchen and set the kettle on the stove. He could see that it was already hot, and she said, 'I like to cook sometimes when I'm working. Nothing but a bit of warmed-over soup and some tea, once in a while my bread baking for the week. This is a better oven than the one I have in my little house.'
'No one objects, surely?'
