The Red Door

“I don’t think his calling has anything to do with his illness.” Leticia was adamant.

“Then how else would you explain it? Coming on the heels of his letter from the Society?” Mary regarded her with exasperation.

Rutledge, listening, could see that the two women had very little in common. Their relationship by marriage was their only connection. And even that was tenuous.

Interrupting again, he said, “Do either of you have any idea where he may be?”

But they didn’t. And he could see that both women were far more worried than either of them was willing to admit to the other.

“I just want to see Jenny happy,” Mary said, as if she’d read his thoughts. “She tries hard and she loves Walter without question. And that could lead her to heartbreak.”

Leticia said grudgingly, “I must admit you’re right, there. Walter is not like his brothers. He lost something out there in Africa and China. Part of himself.”

“He lost it when he failed in his first living. It was the wrong church for him to be sent to, and the congregation was not prepared for an intellectual priest. They wanted someone more like themselves. A local man who understood them.”

Leticia said, “You didn’t even know him then. How can you judge that?”

Mary turned to Rutledge. “I met Walter when he spoke at a meeting I was attending. About his work in China. In fact, it was I who introduced him to Jenny.”

The tension between the two women was interesting. Rutledge thought perhaps the root cause of it was familial. Mary was bound to protect her sister, and Leticia’s loyalty was to her brother.

He said, interjecting a new question before hard feelings arose on either side, “Have you heard Mr. Teller mention anyone by the name of Charlie Hood?”

They stared at him, the question completely unexpected. It was clear that the name meant nothing at all to either of the women.

And possibly he had made too much of it as well. But there had been something in the man’s face that he couldn’t identify, something he felt he ought to recognize.

Harry came racing back, gleefully informing his aunts that there had indeed been lemonade.

Rutledge, watching him, could see in him the boy that Ian Trevor would be at the same age. It was an unexpected insight, and it touched him.

He took his leave, refusing Miss Teller’s lukewarm invitation to stay for tea. He thought it had been in a way a suggestion that Mary Brittingham should also refuse it in her turn. That she had also out-stayed her welcome.

Miss Teller walked with him through the hedge and around to where he’d left his motorcar, saying as they went, “Will he come back, do you think?”

“Your brother? When he’s ready to be found. If whatever reason he left the clinic is resolved for him, in a fashion he can live with. The problem is, how lucid is he? Is he thinking clearly or still in the throes of his illness, even though the paralysis has apparently disappeared.”

She nodded thoughtfully, and then stood there as he cranked the motorcar. He was on the point of driving away when she came to his side of the vehicle and put her hand on the door.

“Even as a child, Walter would take to something new with almost ferocious enthusiasm. And then he would tire of it and lose interest. Domestic life may have—palled.”

“Are you telling me he’s bored with his marriage?”

“No. That he may have decided to do good works among London’s poor to salve his conscience. Rather than converting the heathen. If he doesn’t come back, this may be of some comfort to Jenny.”

“When you went to Portsmouth, you didn’t actually believe that your brother would take ship without a word to anyone? Such a journey requires an enormous amount of preparation, I should think,” he asked her.

Leticia Teller shrugged eloquently. “In the first shock of his disappearance, anything seemed possible. It was a chance I didn’t feel I could take. And my brothers agreed, even while they disagreed.”

Hamish said, “She’s lying.”

“I’ll keep that in mind as well,” he told her, and let in the clutch. She stepped back and let him go. Over her shoulder, he could see Mary Brittingham standing at the opening in the hedge, watching them.

But then Mary smiled and waved when she saw him looking in her direction.

“Twa women, ye ken, with a child holding them together,” Hamish said as the boy ran up to Mary and clung to her hand. And then he darted forward, to take Leticia’s hand as well and wave good-bye to the man from London who had come unexpectedly.

It was late when Rutledge reached London. He stopped by the Yard to see if there were any developments in the search for the boy he called Billy, or if Hood had been located. But like many of their ilk, they had disappeared into the dark corners of a city that knew how to keep secrets.

Chapter 13

The journey to Kent had been successful, and both Frances and David Trevor were in high spirits, carrying Melinda Crawford’s greeting and best love to Rutledge and telling him about the great pheasant hunt that had left them all exhausted and hurting from laughter.