A False Mirror - Charles Todd [142]
“I want to speak to Dr. Hester as soon as possible. We still have no murder weapon for Mrs. Granville.”
“Here—did Hamilton have his keys with him, when you found him in Exeter?”
“He did. I’ve got them now.”
With that Rutledge was already walking out the door. From the station he went to call on Miss Trining. Afterward he went to Miss Esterley’s house.
“You didn’t see fit to sit up with Felicity Hamilton last night,” he said as soon as he was shown into her sitting room.
She said, “I couldn’t face it. I’m no match for anyone breaking into the house. Worse than useless, come to that. Mr. Putnam was a better choice.”
“I think, perhaps, a woman’s company would have been more comforting. But it doesn’t matter, now. We’ve brought in Matthew Hamilton.”
“My God, where was he?”
“A lorry driver found him along the road to the west of here.” He gave her the same account he’d given Miss Trining and Dr. Granville.
She listened with increasing anxiety. “You’re telling me that he’ll live? That in time he’ll be whole again?”
“There’s some hope of that, yes.”
“But what about Mrs. Granville? Are you saying she was still alive when Matthew walked out of the surgery?”
“He’s not clear about that. Not yet. In time, with good medical care, we’ll know a little more. On the other hand, he may not remember anything, in spite of all we can do.”
She smiled wryly. “Having refused to help Felicity last night, I shan’t be very welcome coming to call on Matthew now. But I’d like very much to see for myself that he’s all right.”
“There won’t be any visitors for a while. He may even have to be taken to London for care.”
“At least he’s being given it. I was so annoyed with Dr. Granville, you know. Miss Trining had suggested a specialist, and I agreed with her. But he told her that as long as there was swelling in the brain, rest was what Matthew most needed.”
“I’m sure it was true. Now that he’s awake, time will be on his side.” He rose to leave.
Miss Esterley said, “Truly, I wasn’t a coward, last night. You have to understand. I wasn’t supposed to walk again. Ever. The doctors told me how lucky I was that the damage to my knee could be repaired, but even so they held out little hope I could use it properly. It required all the faith I possessed to go through the long, grueling weeks of treatment and exercises and manipulation. They’d learned, you see, from wounded soldiers. But they weren’t entirely sure it would work for me. In the end, it did. I keep my cane as a reminder of how close I’d come to being dependent on the care of others for the rest of my life. I didn’t want to take the risk, you see.”
Hamish said, “She doesna’ blame him.”
“No,” Rutledge answered silently. “Not openly. But it’s there, underneath. If he’d been less kind, perhaps her true feelings would have risen to the surface.”
Aloud, he said, “I should have thought the debt you owed Hamilton would have been well repaid by helping his wife—or as we thought then, his widow. Whatever the cost.”
She blushed, the warm color rising in her face. “That’s cruel. And that wasn’t the choice, was it?”
“I think you were afraid of what Matthew Hamilton might have become.”
“No, Mr. Rutledge. I saw that two innocent women had already been murdered,” she told him firmly. “And I was afraid I might be the third. Mr. Putnam didn’t face that risk. What comfort would it have been to me this morning, lying somewhere dead, to have you admit you’d been wrong to ask me?”
At his next stop, Rutledge found Mrs. Reston on her way out the door to a luncheon. She was wearing a hat that framed her face and added a softness to it.
“My husband isn’t here,” she told him. “If it’s George you’ve come to see.”
“We’ve found Matthew Hamilton. He’s alive, but his memory is still unreliable.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Whatever you may think of me, I had no reason to wish him ill. Do you know now who it was who killed Mrs. Granville? Or Nan Weekes?”
“We can’t be sure until Hamilton is well enough to tell us who it was who carried him out of the surgery and