A cold treachery - Charles Todd [39]
“Very bruised,” she told him wryly. “And quite tender.” Her glance slid on to Rutledge, as if half expecting him to argue with her. “It was kind of the inspector to bring you to me.”
“Yes, he explained there'd been a nasty accident. Whatever took you out in such a storm? Foolishness, I'd call it! Now let's have a look at you and see what Mary has done for those ribs.”
Follet and Rutledge left the patient with her nurse and the doctor, and returned to the kitchen. Follet offered Rutledge a chair and sat down himself, asking about the condition of roads beyond the farm.
Rutledge gave him a brief account, and then asked, “You found the valise? I thought I had seen one, when I drove back to the scene. But I didn't relish going after it on my own and in the dark.”
“Wiser not to! As it was, I had to use tackle to keep myself from going arse over teakettle. And her purse was there as well.” Follet reached across the table and set the salt and pepper in a line, then looked up at Rutledge with uneasiness in his face. “There was a revolver under the seat,” he went on after a moment. “I didn't know what to make of it.”
“Where is it now? Have you returned it to Miss Ashton?”
“Lord, no! I've set it in the barn, in the tackle box! Nor has she asked for it. I saw no harm in bringing in the valise and purse. And she was grateful to have them.”
“A woman traveling alone,” Rutledge suggested, “would be glad of some protection.”
“At a guess it's a service revolver,” Follet continued. “Not one of them German weapons. They're a nasty piece of work.”
“German pistols were much sought after as souvenirs.”
“Yes, I'd heard that said, but I've never seen one. Wicked, like their makers, in my book. I never held with the Germans.” The farmer leaned back in his chair. “Truth is, I've been unsettled since the search party brought the news of what happened at the Elcott farm. It might have been any one of us—senseless killings such as that—and they say lunatics look no different from the rest of us. How is a man to tell what's outside his door!”
“Did you know, when I brought her to your house, that this woman was Grace Elcott's sister?”
“Lord God, of course we didn't! I doubt I'd ever heard her called anything but ‘Mrs. Elcott's sister.' She came to visit from time to time, mainly in the summer, but I never met her face-to- face. Mary passed her once coming out of the tea shop on market day and was told later who she was.”
“And Mrs. Follet didn't remember her face?”
Follet grinned. “Only the hat she was wearing. It was new, and London made. And the fact that she was dark.”
“What does gossip have to say about her?”
“I was asking Mary that same question last night after we'd gone up to bed. She said she'd heard that the sister stood up with Grace Elcott when first she married Gerald—that was in Hampshire—but not the second time. There was some talk about that, of course, but the ceremony was private, and the sister was still living in London. She came later for the lying-in.”
“Does Miss Ashton know what happened to her family?” Rutledge phrased the question carefully.
“She was saying to Mary as we were helping her up the stairs to her room that she wished there was some way she could send word to her sister Grace—she didn't want her to be worrying. Grace who? I asked, thinking she was speaking of the Satterthwaites over to Bell Farm—their eldest is marrying a girl from Carlisle, and for all I knew that's who Miss Ashton was speaking of, being from Carlisle now herself. When she said her sister was Grace Elcott, the hair stood straight up on the back of my neck! It was as if we'd been dragged into the midst of something fearful. And how was I to go about breaking such news?”
And yet to Rutledge she had denied having any family at all. “Go on!”
“Meanwhile, my Mary was telling her not to fret, saying that with the storm they'd have expected her to take shelter where she could.” He