The Red Door

He stayed the night in Cheshire and drove the rest of the way to Hobson just after first light.

The village was awake and the shops busy when he got there. Constable Satterthwaite was pleased to see him, standing in the police station doorway with a packet of tea biscuits in his hand and smiling.

“Did you learn anything more about Larkin?”

“I went to his college in Cambridge. The porter there vouched for him. Meanwhile, I’ve been searching for the real Peter Teller. Not the man you thought you knew. That man never existed.”

“I met him—we saw him time and again here in Hobson,” the constable argued. “He wasn’t a figment of her imagination. Or ours. Besides, there’s the boy.”

“He was someone else. There’s much to tell you,” Rutledge said, taking the chair across the desk, as they reached the office.

“The man in London, then,” Satterthwaite said with resignation.

Rutledge proceeded to outline what he had learned so far, and how he believed it all fit together. Satterthwaite listened in silence, but his face reddened as the evidence against Peter Teller mounted.

“Why did he have to kill her, then?” he asked finally. “She thought he was dead. It was finished.”

“I don’t know. Yet,” Rutledge admitted.

“Damn the man!” he said heavily, and then to Rutledge, “I’m sorry, sir, but you weren’t here, I was. I’d like very much to watch him hang for what he’s done. Not just the murder, you understand, although that was bad enough. But for her empty life, for not being there when Timmy died and she was half out of her mind with grief, wanting to bury him at the farm, and not in the churchyard. We had all we could do to convince her to let us take him away. She wanted him there, where she could see him every day.”

Rutledge was reminded of Mr. Cobb, who spoke to the memorial to his sons, every morning and every evening. He could understand her need.

Satterthwaite got up and paced the floor, his feet heavy on the boards as he traced the same line back and forth, back and forth.

Then he stopped and looked at Rutledge. “It all fits together. I must say it does. But in spite of what I feel about the bastard—begging your pardon, sir—it’s hard to believe, isn’t it? That someone could be that cruel? I never got to know Teller well, of course, but I wouldn’t have put him down as that cold-blooded. Selfish, yes, he was that.” He shook his head. “It’ull take a little getting used to. You’ll bring him back to Hobson to face charges?”

“Yes. On Monday.”

“I’d like to be with you when you take him to Thielwald.”

“I’ll see that it’s arranged.”

“Thank you, sir. And thank you for telling me. It means more than I can say. I’ll keep it to myself until you bring the man here.” He cleared his throat. “Will you be staying the night?”

“I might as well. And get an early start tomorrow.”

“Mrs. Greeley will be that pleased to see you. She was asking only yesterday if there was word of Jake.”

“He’s with my sister,” Rutledge told him. “In good hands.”

Satterthwaite nodded.

Rutledge went back to Sunrise Cottage in the late afternoon. He couldn’t have said why he was drawn there. Satterthwaite offered to go with him, but Rutledge thanked him and shook his head.

The day was fair, with a stiff breeze that cooled the air and made it feel more like early spring than June. Fat lambs followed slow-grazing ewes in the pastures along the road.

As he drove, he asked himself again, as he had on the journey to Lancashire, what had become of the cane’s head? It was the last piece of crucial evidence, and he wanted very badly to find it.

If it had been taken away and dropped from a bridge, as Satterthwaite had suggested, it would never come to light. Which meant that the rest of the evidence against Peter Teller had to be damning.

“He’ll have a verra’ good defense,” Hamish agreed.

The house was just ahead, first the roof and then the hedge coming into sight on its knoll. He left the motorcar on the road and walked through the gate, intending to dig around in the flower beds with his fingers, to see if the cane’s knob was there. It was hopeless, he knew that very well, but he had to try.

But someone had watered the plants, and pulled out any weeds that would mar their appearance. He bent down to touch a leaf.

It was still wet.

Instead of opening the door, he went out the gate again and walked around the house to the gardens by the kitchen door.

The man squatting beside one of the beds leapt to his feet with surprise as Rutledge suddenly appeared, braced for anything that might come at him.

It was Lawrence Cobb, his trousers stained from working the earth and pulling weeds. A pile of wilting debris lay on the grassy path next to his boots.

“Oh—it’s only you, then,” Cobb said in relief. “I’ve come here to keep the gardens for her. Until someone knows what’s to happen to this place. It’s the least I can do. Her flowers shouldn’t die too.”