The Red Door

“After great provocation. It was that or strike her back. All I can do is wonder how long she’d have kept that cane’s head hidden, if I’d stayed. Or begged to come home again.” It was what Rutledge himself had wondered.

“Why did you keep the head of the cane?”

“I didn’t. If I’d found it, I’d have come to the police.”

“Then how did it wind up among your tools? Your wife has sworn in her statement that she’d found it there.”

“I don’t think it bothered her to swear to a falsehood. She was that angry. At a guess, the knob came from Mrs. Blaine, Betsy’s mother. She found the body. If she’d seen the cane and realized that the head was gold, she’d have taken it. She’s like a magpie. Always had an eye for herself, or anything to her advantage. She’ll offer to buy Florence’s land. See if she doesn’t. I hope Teller tells her to go whistle up the wind.”

“All the same, it was interfering with the scene of a murder.” He paused. “Peter Teller is dead.”

“What? How? By his own hand?”

“We don’t know yet. Early days.”

“My God.” Cobb shook his head in disbelief. “She’d have been a widow after all. As for the cane, I wouldn’t have kept it, gold or not. There’s blood on it. Constable Satterthwaite made certain to point it out.”

“We’d like to ask you one last thing. What became of the rosewood box with Mrs. Teller’s letters in it?”

“I wouldn’t have taken them. What good were they to me? But they meant a lot to her. It would be like taking Timmy’s photograph. A cruelty.”

“What else was in that box? The deed to the house?”

“How do I know? I never saw the contents. Only her reading a letter to Jake.” He frowned. “Even my mother-in-law saw her reading them. She thought it was a love letter from me. And didn’t I get a flea in my ear! But I could look her in the face and tell her it wasn’t true. The only time I’d ever written Florence Teller was when Timmy died, to tell her how sorry I was over his loss. I doubt she kept it.”

Into the brief silence, he said to Rutledge, “You haven’t asked me if I killed her. Only what I had to say for myself.”

“Did you kill Florence Teller?”

Beside him he could feel Satterthwaite stir and then be still again.

“I did not. If I hang, I will tell the hangman I never touched her.”

“Then who did? Teller?”

“He must have done.”

Rutledge turned away.

The constable holding the lamp said, “Will that be all, then?” He shifted it to his other hand, preparing to close and lock the cell’s door.

“No. Not yet.” Rutledge walked away, through the gloom of the station and out into the cool morning air.

Satterthwaite’s silent accusation, as if Rutledge had betrayed him, kept him from thinking, and the beaten spirit of Lawrence Cobb, feeling his own sense of betrayal, clouded the issues.

And what were they? A dead woman. A broken cane with blood on the knob. A missing box of letters. Those were the facts, irrefutable, and the evidence must encompass them or it was faulty.

It was also a fact that Teller—or someone—had driven away around the same time Florence Teller was murdered. And Larkin, a walker, was a witness to that. The cane was a witness as well to Peter Teller’s presence. If he’d been chary with information about his regiment while living here in Hobson, he’d never have left that at Sunrise Cottage in his absences. It hadn’t been there for the killer to find ready to hand, until Teller himself brought it.

Teller—or Cobb? Where did the truth lie?

He walked on up the street, shops still closed, the milk van making its rounds, the sound of clinking bottles off in the distance, a crow calling from the church tower down another street, and wheels somewhere clattering over cobbles. A dog trotted up behind him, sniffed in his direction, and trotted on, looking for company. A cat in a house window silently meowed at him as he passed.

Go back to the evidence.

Hamish said, “It hasna’ changed.”

And that was true. It hadn’t altered. Going back over it was fruitless.

Rutledge swore.

He needed a night’s sleep, to clear his mind. But there wasn’t one in the offing.

Hamish was right. The evidence was the same. What was new?

The cane’s head had been found. Peter Teller’s regimental crest on it showed that Peter had been in Hobson, at Sunrise Cottage, on the day of the murder.

But that was all it showed. It couldn’t speak and identify who had used it.

Cobb’s words came back to him: She found the body. If she’d seen the cane and realized that the head was gold, she’d have taken it. She’s like a magpie . . .

And Satterthwaite’s voice: Mrs. Blaine reached for the paperweight, and I had to push Cobb back to the only cell.

After that, his own: What else was in that box? The deed to the house?

Cobb again: She’ll offer to buy Florence’s land. See if she doesn’t.