The Red Door

“Released to whom?” Rutledge asked. “There’s no family. You said as much yourself.”

“What else are we to do? I’ll be there. And some of the village women, no doubt. She won’t be put in the ground without someone by her.”

They drove through the dark streets of Thielwald, light from house windows making bright patches on the road. Satterthwaite pointed out the doctor’s surgery, and they knocked at the door. Dr. Blake answered the summons himself, nodding to Rutledge and saying to the constable, “Another five minutes and I’d have gone up to my bed. But I’m glad you’ve come. Any word on her killer?” He was a short man, graying at the temples, perhaps fifty-five, with pale, heavy-lidded eyes.

“No, sir. But this is Inspector Rutledge from Scotland Yard. He’ll be looking into her death.”

Dr. Blake took them back to the room where Florence Teller was being kept, and lighted the lamps. He carried one to the sheet-draped figure and held it high so that Rutledge could see her clearly.

In the flickering light, Rutledge studied the body. A slim, trim woman of perhaps forty, he thought, older than the Teller wives he’d just dealt with. The doctor was pointing out the location of the wound, but Rutledge only half heard him, seeing the look of peace that Constable Satterthwaite had spoken of. With the lines that sorrow had put in her face smoothed away, she looked young again.

“Is there anything more you can tell me?” Rutledge asked.

“I’m afraid not. That one blow on the back of the head, near the base of the skull, was enough. I should think the killer was right-handed, considering the direction of the blow, and possibly on a level with her, rather than shorter or taller. And he was either very strong or very angry. No one interfered with her, no one moved the body from where it fell. There were no other wounds.” He shook his head. “A tragedy. I knew her,” he added to Rutledge. “She was seldom ill, but her son was my patient. He had measles when he was very young and never fully recovered. He died of typhoid fever, and I thought she would go mad with grief. There was nothing I could do. There are times when I curse my profession for its ignorance.”

After a few more questions and a promise to release the body for burial, they thanked him and left.

Rutledge drove the constable back to Hobson and asked where he might spend the night. There was no hotel in the little town, and after the long day of driving, the thought of going another ten miles or more to find lodging was daunting.

The constable sent him to the house of a Mrs. Greeley, who sometimes took in summer walkers. The room was at the back of the house, and as she led him there, she said, “I was just putting the kettle on for my tea. There’s bread and butter, creamed eggs, and some slices of ham, if you’d care for it.”

He thanked her and offered to pay for the meal as well as the room. She accepted his offer, and he could tell that she was pleased to have the money.

She insisted on serving him at the small table in her sitting room, though he was perfectly willing to sit in her kitchen. But Mrs. Greeley was agreeable to talking as she laid out his cutlery and brought in a soup that she had made with beans from a tin and bits of bacon.

“Did you know Mrs. Teller very well?” he asked, after complimenting her on the soup.

“None of us knew her really well,” she said. “She was a quiet sort, kept to herself. I remember she met the lieutenant in Morecambe, where she had gone for a few days by the sea after a chest cough lingered beyond the winter. He was on a walking tour, but he came back later in the summer and called on her. Then back again he came before the end of October. I could tell she liked him. And he was very taken with her. They were married two years later. He liked the Army, he said. It gave him the opportunity to travel. But he couldn’t take her with him. Not then, and later, with the boy being sickly, he never wanted to take her to his postings. I always thought she must be very lonely, out there on the West Road, as they called it then. But she seemed to be happy there.”

Over the flan, he asked if she could think of anyone who held a grudge against Mrs. Teller.

“Her? Never. She wasn’t one to attract trouble, if you know what I mean. I don’t know what’s got into folks these days. The war changed everything, didn’t it People could live anywhere and be safe, no one would think of any harm coming to them. I’ve taken in strangers, young men on holiday, and never feared for my life.”

“I understand she painted her door red to welcome her husband back from the war.”