The Red Door

It was a long, rectangular slab of stone, smoothed to serve the doorway. Rutledge walked over to it and ran his hands along the edge. Someone could have shoved the head of the cane under the slab, and with the force of anger or of fear, managed to snap it off. Brush the earth back again, where the head had dug in, and who would notice what had been done. If the police hadn’t found the cane, the slab of step would hold no significance. Someone, having just killed, had taken the time to think through what to do with the weapon.

That was an interesting look into his state of mind, whoever he was.

Rutledge began to sift the earth very gently through his fingers, moving aside a plant and reaching down under the stone. The head of the cane wasn’t there. He hadn’t expected it to be, but he’d had to be sure.

He was just smoothing the earth back into place when Hamish said, “There!”

Rutledge stopped. There was nothing he could see at first, and then he recognized what was caught in the roots of the pansy.

It was not as big as a toothpick. Just a fine splinter of wood, like the proverbial needle in a haystack. It was, in fact, more like a needle than anything else, one that had been held to a flame and tarnished.

He dug it out carefully, blew away the earth that smothered it, and put up his hand for the broken end of the cane that Satterthwaite was still holding.

There was no match, of course, but there was no doubt that it was the same wood.

Satterthwaite said, “It was savagely done.”

“He’d have liked to hit her a second time, I expect. One blow was not enough to satisfy him. I wonder why? Because she died so easily? Or would her battered head give him away?”

“The walker. Larkin.”

“I doubt it. The only thing taken was a box of letters.”

“I wonder where the head of the cane might be? Was it valuable, do you think? Larkin indicated he had no money to speak of, this summer.”

“He might have found the cane here, and stolen the head. But that would be after the murder, and her body would have been lying here in plain sight. Still—” Rutledge turned to stare beyond the gate, in the direction of Thielwald. “It’s just as well we’re keeping an eye on him.” He returned to the cane in hand. “It will be a miracle if we ever find the rest.” It must have been distinctive, he thought, this head. They were usually ivory or gold, with initials or a figure that could easily be identified and therefore was equally damning. He wondered if Edwin Teller would be willing to describe his brother’s cane.

Teller’s motorcar? Teller’s cane? But none of these was proof of murder. Only that he was here on the day that Florence Teller died. Or one of his brothers was here . . .

“The man in the motorcar. He didna’ have a cane when he left,” Hamish pointed out.

“But we don’t know if he carried one with him when he arrived. For all we know, he found the body and panicked.”

He’d spoken aloud.

Satterthwaite said, “The man in the motorcar? That could be. He didn’t have the casket of letters either.”

“What if he’d already put them in the boot? He might have returned to the house to destroy the cane.”

“True enough. I’d sworn we’d searched that hedge carefully.”

“I’m sure you did. But not the ground below it. Only for something caught in it.” Rutledge put the splinter of wood carefully away in his handkerchief and then dusted his hands.

Looking up at the sky, at the heavy dark clouds drawing closer, he said, “We’ll be caught yet.” Turning to Satterthwaite, he said, “Did you sift the ashes in the stove? In the event anything was burned in there?”

“We did. And nothing came to light. Of course, it might not have, if there were no hinges on that box. Or clasp. It’ud burned right up. But that would take time. In my mind, he took the box with him.”

“All right then. I think we should be on our way to Hobson, before that storm gets here.”

As it happened, they had only just reached the police station when the dark clouds, heavy with rain, rolled in on their heels. Satterthwaite thanked Rutledge, and said, “You’re staying the night?”

“I want to take the cane to London as quickly as I can. I’ll see that you know what we found out.”

“You think the answer is in London then? One of those brothers.”

“I don’t know,” Rutledge told him. “But you and I have run out of suspects here. Let me try in London.”

Satterthwaite grinned. “You’ll drown before you get there.” And he made a fast dash for the door of the station just as the first heavy drops of rain became a raging downpour.

Backed with wind, it was a cold rain for June. And it followed Rutledge nearly as far as Chester. He ran out of it there and considered staying the night another fifty miles down the road. But his mind was busy with new directions, and he was in a hurry to test them.

Chapter 22