A False Mirror - Charles Todd [115]
And with that he turned on his heel and walked away.
Rutledge saw him out of sight.
Not five minutes later, Dr. Hester arrived and, following instructions, brought Mr. Putnam with him. The rector was shown up to Mrs. Hamilton’s room and Bennett went to find the constable who had been on night duty at the house. Rutledge took Hester to the servants’ hall.
He examined Nan Weekes, and said, “Very likely smothered as she slept. Taken by surprise, she didn’t have much chance to fight her murderer off. A knee already on her chest, a determination to see it through. That’s what it took.”
He lifted the maid’s hands one at a time. “See, she grazed her knuckles against the wall there. But her nails are clean. He’d have been wearing a coat, long sleeves, something that protected him.”
“A man or a woman, do you think?”
“It would depend on the killer’s state of mind, I should think. A timid man might fail where a resolute woman succeeded. Hatred breeds strength, oftentimes.”
Hester looked around the room, bare and yet somehow holding on to the anger and fear trapped with the woman confined here. “She couldn’t have run, even if she had been awake; there was nowhere to go. But he didn’t give her a chance to escape. He must have been very quiet, coming through that door. Dark as it was, she never saw his face, even if the pillow had slipped.” He turned over the pillow on the floor. “It’s one of the feather pillows from an upstairs bedroom, I should think. Servants don’t often sleep that comfortably. Fairly new too, and therefore better able to do the job.”
“I’m told that bedding was brought down from one of the guest rooms.”
“Yes, that fits. Well, that’s all I can tell you. Sorry.”
“Mrs. Hamilton is in the house, and in distress. Will you leave something to help her through this?”
“I’ll see her, if you like. As for Miss Weekes, shall I take her back with me?”
“If you would.”
“Yes. I’m getting quite a collection of Dr. Granville’s patients.” Dark wit from one professional to another. “But I daresay he won’t feel up to returning to his surgery for a few days yet. Not until after his wife’s funeral.” He closed up his case. “Whose hand is behind this, do you know? It’s not a very safe thing, to have whoever it is loose on Hampton Regis. But he failed with Hamilton, so I’m told. First try at any rate. I wonder what this poor woman did to make herself a target?”
“As far as we know, nothing. Mistaken identity?”
Hester turned to look at Rutledge. He was quick, his mind already leaping ahead. “Really? If you’re telling me that first Mrs. Granville and then Miss Weekes were killed because someone thought they were Felicity Hamilton, then I’d see to it that that policeman spent the night outside her door, not under that tree by the road.”
Bennett joined them then, with word that the constable had seen no one come or go from the house during the night. Hester gave him an abbreviated account of his preliminary examination. Then he prepared to move the body.
Looking down at the woman, Bennett said to Rutledge, “My money is still on Mallory. Hamilton’s dead, a scapegoat. Problem is, how are we going to prove any of it? You were saying before we have a clever bastard on our hands. But even clever bastards make mistakes. Let’s hope nobody else dies before he makes one.”
Putnam spent some time with Mallory, and then went back a second time to knock on Felicity Hamilton’s door. When she answered, his heart went out to her.
“My dear child!” he said and held her as she cried on his shoulder.
It seemed to ease her a little, although he could see that she was frightened and feeling the onslaught of responsibility for all that had taken place since her husband had been carried into Granville’s surgery.
He sat with her, brought her tea and a sandwich he’d managed to put together in the kitchen, careful to avoid the room where Nan Weekes had died.
But he had gone in to the maid before her body was removed, giving her the comfort of the church, wishing that she had heeded his