The Red Door

“You will all remain here at the farm until further notice while your brother’s death is being investigated. When Inspector Jessup is willing to release the body, you may proceed with burial arrangements. I’ll arrange for the inquest as soon as possible. You won’t find it pleasant, enduring one another’s company for a few more days, but there it is.”

“There’s Gran,” Edwin said. “We need to go to London.”

“And what about Harry?” Walter said. “What are we to tell him?”

“The truth,” Leticia said. “That his uncle met with a terrible accident, and we must all grieve for him.”

Rutledge said, “I’m sorry. I must go. There’s another case in London that is demanding my attention.”

He turned and walked out of the room.

Mollie was waiting in the passage and took him to the room where the telephone had been put in.

Rutledge had expected to hear Sergeant Gibson’s voice on the telephone. He had expected a summons to London to carry out Inspector Mickelson’s plan. Once the Chief Superintendent was set upon a course of action, there was really no good way to deflect him.

He thanked Mollie, picked up the receiver, and waited until she was out of earshot. Then he said, “Rutledge,” and waited for Gibson to speak.

The voice traveling down the line was Gibson’s. He said, without preamble, “It’s Lancashire, sir. You’re to go there at once. If you need someone in Essex to deal with the situation there, the Chief Superintendent will send someone else from the Yard.”

“It’s stable at the moment,” Rutledge answered, unwilling to turn the inquiry into Peter Teller’s death over to anyone else at this stage. There were secrets here that he would have to get to the bottom of before the final verdict on Peter Teller’s fall was handed down. And he wasn’t prepared for anyone else to muddy the waters.

“That’s good news, sir. You’ll be leaving from there?”

“As soon as I speak to Inspector Jessup, the local man.”

“To be sure,” Gibson agreed. “A very wise decision, if I may say so, sir.”

Rutledge swiftly translated that to mean that avoiding London at the moment was a good thing.

“And Mr. Rutledge, sir?” Gibson was saying, his voice lowered and barely audible.

“Yes? What is it, Gibson?”

“Inspector Mickelson has just informed the Chief Superintendent that he feels the trap cannot be sprung by anyone else. Just a friendly warning, sir.”

Chapter 27

Sunday evening had been nearly insupportable. Leticia, complaining of a headache, had excused herself early and gone up to bed. But not to sleep.

She lay awake, her windows open, the cries of an owl in the distance loud in her ears. She had always disliked owls. Their haunting calls spoke to her of grief and sadness and something to be feared. As a child, she’d run to her nanny’s bed and flung herself under the covers, to shut out the sound.

Her mother had always maintained that Leticia must have overheard one of the servants claiming that owls were omens of ill fortune. Leticia herself didn’t know if it was true or not. She just knew she had always felt that way.

And, of course, with Peter only newly dead, the cries of the owl were particularly appropriate. She got up once to close the windows, but the room still held the heavy closeness of the day and she could hardly breathe in the resulting stuffiness.

She couldn’t stop herself from thinking about her brothers. They had always been a close family. Edwin’s illness had brought them all together in a pact to keep him safe. When their parents died, it had fallen to her lot to watch over Edwin while Peter went off to the Army and Walter had gone into the mission field.

Now Peter was accused of cold-blooded murder, Walter had been different ever since his mysterious disappearance, never satisfactorily explaining it to anyone except perhaps to Jenny. And Edwin was withdrawing even from her.

She turned to one side, trying to shut out the sounds from the wood in the distance.

It was odd that now there was still a conspiracy to protect Jenny. The mother of the heir. The youngest of them. They hadn’t told her about Florence Teller. It had seemed the right thing to do. But it would all come out at the inquest anyway. Someone would have to tell her before the questions of the police aroused her suspicions, before she found herself hearing in public what Peter had been accused of and why.

And there was Susannah as well. Something would have to be done about her. Her distress and anger were understandable—natural. But she couldn’t be allowed to upset everyone by involving the Yard and trying to clear Peter’s name. She’d stood by him, even when Leticia had told her what the man from London had said about the evidence. All the same, Leticia had had the sneaking suspicion that Susannah was already worried about Peter. Something in her eyes . . .

She sighed, and turned over again, and finally got up to walk to the window, defying the owls.