The Red Door

Rutledge gave him time to recover, then said, “I must do my duty, however unpleasant it may be for me and for the family at such a time. The inquest will want to consider your wife’s state of mind.”

“Her state of mind? My God, I haven’t even told my brother or sister—I haven’t spoken to Mary—much less found words to tell my son his mother is dead—and you’re talking about the inquest. Damn it, man, have you no decency?”

“It isn’t a question of decency. Have I your permission to look into your wife’s state of mind?”

“Do whatever you need to do. Just leave me alone.” He got up to refill his glass, looked at the amber liquid, and put it down again with distaste. Rutledge could see that he was remembering his brother Peter’s drunkenness.

Rutledge said, “Did your brother always drink as much as he did in the short time I knew him?”

The change of subject brought an irritated frown. “I—the level of pain he has—had—to endure must have been unimaginable. But no. He was more careful. What difference does it make now?”

“Would you say he drank in excess after he came back from Hobson?”

“Look, he’s dead, you can’t arrest a dead man. What difference do his drinking habits make now?”

“He was the catalyst for Florence Teller’s death. Some of this will have to come out at the inquest into her murder. I’d like to know why he went to see his wife after such a long silence, and what she said to him when he was there that made him rush off in such a hurry that he left his cane behind. It became the murder weapon.”

It was clear Walter Teller hadn’t considered an inquest in Hobson or what it might reveal.

“Dear God, will it never be finished? Get out, Rutledge, do you hear me? I’ve lost my brother and my wife. Just leave me the hell alone.”

Rutledge left him there and went in search of Mollie. She was in the kitchen, and as he came down the passage, he heard her singing hymns in a low tearful voice as she rattled the pots and pans preparing breakfast.

He made a fuss over opening the door into the kitchen, to give her time to recover.

She turned quickly, then said, “I thought it was Mr. Teller. I don’t know what to say to him. First the Captain, and now Mrs. Jenny. I don’t see how the poor man will survive this blow. And what will Master Harry make of it all, poor lamb? He adored his mother. It’s such a tender age. Have you sent for his aunt? Miss Brittingham? She’ll have to stay awhile. He’ll need her. She should have stayed after the Captain’s fall. Mrs. Jenny needed her then.”

“Why did she leave?”

“They were all at sixes and sevens. Quarreling and slamming doors. This was after you’d left. Miss Brittingham said she’d had enough and went home. Mrs. Jenny went to bed with a headache. So she said, but I think it was an excuse to leave them to it.”

“What rooms did Mrs. Teller most often use for her own purposes?”

“She liked the bedchamber where Master Harry was born. It’s bright and cozy, she said, and sometimes when Mr. Teller wasn’t here, she’d sleep in that room. And of course the nursery. She spent a good bit of her time there. When the nanny left two years ago, and Master Harry went to the local school, she would sit with him there and help him with his studies. The nanny’s old room she made into her sitting room, with her desk and things about her. She could rest there and hear Harry playing or working. Or listen to him sleep. She said she found that the most peaceful sound in the world, a child’s soft breathing.”

Mollie had been working as she talked, her hands busy preparing tea and boiling eggs, making toast. She looked up now, and said, “Nobody has told me how she died.”

Rutledge said, “An overdose of laudanum, apparently. In a glass of milk.”

“Ah, that explains it then.”

“Explains what?”

“There was a little milk spilled last night. Someone was warming it. I’d just wondered. She must have been having trouble sleeping. It just seemed odd that she’d leave the milk and the pan for me to clear away. She’s—she was so tidy about things like that. She liked a gleaming kitchen, she said. It made her feel good that what Harry ate was prepared in clean surroundings.” She bit back another round of tears. “Would you care for a cup of tea, sir? It has steeped long enough.”

He thanked her and left, unwilling to intrude on her grief.

Going back to the bedchamber where Jenny Teller lay, he looked again at the room itself, and he could see what Mollie meant, that there was a warmth here that a woman might want to draw around her in times of great emotional need. A comfort that the master bedroom in its masculine formality lacked.