charge. “Thank you, sir. Good night.”
“Good night, Mrs. Millbridge,” Knox answered.
When she had retired to her bedroom, Knox at last took some tea, which was now cold. He said nothing, but it was clear in his face the strain this questioning placed on him. Narraway was overwhelmingly grateful that his professional years had not put him again and again in this position. Not seeing the confusion and the grief so closely, but dealing instead with the greater issues of danger to the country. Having to distance himself from the individual human loss had insulated him from the hard and intimate reality of it. The responsibility he had carried was heavy, sometimes almost unbearably so, but it still did not have this immediacy. It called for courage, strength of nerve and accuracy of judgment; it did not need this endurance for other people’s pain. He looked at Knox with a new regard, even an admiration.
The butler, Luckett, knocked on the door and came in. He looked exhausted, his face deeply lined, his eyes red-rimmed. Still, he stood at attention in front of Knox.
“Please sit down, Mr. Luckett.” Knox waved at the chair where Mrs. Millbridge had been. “I’m sorry, the tea’s cold.”
“Would you like some fresh tea, sir?” Luckett asked, without making a move toward the chair.
“What? Oh, no, thank you,” Knox replied. “I meant for you.”
“I’m quite well, thank you, sir,” Luckett said. He followed Knox’s gesture and sat down. “The house is in order, sir, and I have checked that all the doors and windows are locked. We’re safe for the night.”
“Did you find where anyone had broken in? Or any open windows, where someone could have pushed them wider and climbed through?” Knox asked.
“No, sir. Nothing out of place, and all the windows were locked when I checked them. I don’t know how he got in.”
“Then it looks for now as if he must have been let in,” Knox said.
“Yes, sir,” Luckett agreed obediently, but his face was tight with unhappiness.
“Have you known Mrs. Quixwood to have visitors late in the evening, and see them in and out herself, on any other occasion?” Knox asked.
Luckett was acutely uncomfortable at the question and all that it implied. “No, sir, I haven’t,” he said a little stiffly.
“But it is possible?” Knox pressed.
“I suppose it is.” Luckett could not argue.
“Was the front door locked when you found Mrs. Quixwood’s body tonight?” Knox asked.
Luckett stiffened, and for seconds he did not answer.
Knox did not ask again but sat staring at Luckett with tired, sad eyes.
Luckett cleared his throat. “It was closed, sir. But the bolts were not sent home,” he said, looking back at Knox levelly.
“I see. And the other doors, from the side, or the scullery?”
“Locked, sir, and bolted,” Luckett said without hesitation.
“So whoever it was, he came in the front, and left the same way,” Knox concluded. “Interesting. At least we have learned something. When you went for your walk in Eaton Square, how did you go out, Mr. Luckett?”
Luckett froze, understanding flooding into his eyes, his face.
“I went out through the side door to the area,” Luckett said very quickly. “I have a key. I lock the door as I leave-but, of course, I can’t fasten the inside bolts. Then I come back through the same door. It was after that, when I went to check the front door a last time … that was when I saw Mrs. Quixwood.”
“Do you normally do it that way?” Knox asked. “Walk, then come through and check the front door?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So the side door bolts would be undone while you were out?”
“Yes, sir, but the door itself was locked,” Luckett said with certainty. “I had to use my key to open it. There was no doubt, sir. No doubt at all. I heard the latch pull back, I felt it!”
Knox inclined his head in agreement. “Thank you, Mr. Luckett. Perhaps we’ll speak again tomorrow. I think it would be a good idea if you went to your bed now. This isn’t going to be easy for you for quite some time. You’ll be needed.”
Luckett rose to his feet with something of an effort. Suddenly he seemed stiff, and moved with obvious pain. He was an old man whose world had imploded in one short evening, and the only guard he had against it was his dignity. “Yes, sir,” he said gratefully. “Good night, sir.”
When he had gone Narraway wondered who was going to lock up the house after he and Knox left. He turned to Knox to ask, just as there was a loud ringing on the bell board outside the housekeeper’s door.
Knox looked up. “Front door?” he asked of no one in particular. “Who the devil can that be at two o’clock in the morning?” He hauled himself up out of his chair and led the way from the servants’ quarters to the front hallway. As he stood there, Narraway almost on his heels, the bell rang again. In the hall it was only a dim chime.
When they reached the front entryway, there was a constable standing to attention on the outside step. Narraway could see his shadow through the hall window, and another person a little farther away.
Knox opened the door and the constable turned to face him.
“Gentleman of the press, sir,” the constable said in a voice so devoid of expression as to be an expression in itself.
Knox stepped out and approached the other man. “When there’s something to say, we’ll tell you.” His voice was cold and had an edge of suppressed anger in it. “It’s past two in the morning, man. What the devil are you doing knocking on people’s doors at this time of night? Have you no decency at all? I’ve half a mind to find out where you live and wait until you’ve had a tragedy in your family, and then send a constable around to bang on your front door in the middle of the night!”
The man looked momentarily taken aback. “I heard-” he began.
“I told you,” Knox grated the words between his teeth, “we’ll tell you when there’s anything to say! You damn carrion birds smell death in the air and come circling around to see what profit there is in it for you.”
Narraway saw a fury in Knox that took him aback-and then the instant after, he realized how deeply the inspector was offended, not for himself but for those inside the house, who were shocked and frightened by events they could not even have imagined only hours ago. There was a raw edge of pity in the man as if he could feel the wound himself. Narraway was about to go out and add his own weight to the condemnation when he heard a step on the polished floor behind him and turned to see Quixwood standing there. He looked appalling. His face was creased and almost bloodless, his eyes red-rimmed, his hair disheveled. His shoulders drooped as if he were exhausted from carrying some huge, invisible weight.
“It’s all right,” he said hoarsely. “We will have to speak to the press sometime. I would as soon do it now, and then not face them again. But I thank you for your protection, Inspector … I’m sorry, I forget your name.” He ran his fingers through his hair as if it might somehow clear his mind.
“Knox, sir,” Knox said gently, then: “Are you sure you want to talk to him? You don’t have to, you know.”
Quixwood nodded very slightly and walked past Narraway to the open front door. He went out onto the step, acknowledged the constable, then looked at the man from the press.
“Perhaps I should say ‘good morning’ at this hour,” he began bleakly. “You have no doubt come because you heard we are in the middle of tragedy so overwhelming we hardly know how to act. I was summoned here before midnight because my wife was found assaulted and beaten to death in the hallway of her own home. At the moment we have no idea who did this hellish thing, or why.”
He took a deep, shuddering breath. “We don’t seem to have been robbed, but on further search we may find we have. The servants were in their quarters at the back of the house-except for the butler, who was out for his brief walk-and they heard nothing. The butler was the one who discovered my wife’s body, when he returned. I have nothing more to say at the moment. I am sure the inspector will inform you when there is anything that is of public interest rather than private grief. Good night.” He turned toward the door.
“Sir!” the man called out.
Quixwood looked back very slowly, his face like a mask in the light from the lamp above the door. He said nothing.
