A False Mirror - Charles Todd [52]
“I don’t see why it isn’t simple. Go to his house, inspect the cane, and you’ll have all the proof you need,” she pleaded. “And I can sit with Matthew.”
Mallory winced but said nothing.
“Yes, as soon as possible. Can you tell me who Clarissa’s mother is, and how I can find her? I’ll need to speak to her.”
Felicity Hamilton went flying from the room and came back with a sheet of paper bearing a name and an address. “Here. Call on her, whatever you must do. But today, please! I can’t bear any more of this.”
“Yes, thank you, Mrs. Hamilton. If there’s anything else you can think of, just ask Mr. Mallory to call to the constable standing near the gate. He’ll see that I get word.”
She seemed to have bloomed into brightness, her face flushed with the prospect of resolution, her hopes high. Like a child waiting for a treat, he thought. Would this soon grow tiresome to a man like Matthew Hamilton? Or was he still enthralled with his wife’s beauty and brightness and waywardness?
Hamish had no answer for that as Rutledge asked Mallory to allow him to look in on Nan Weekes.
She was still angry and resentful. After a time, he was able to calm her tirade sufficiently to say, “I’m here to ask if you’ve thought of anyone we might question or investigate. Someone who may have come to the house and quarreled with Mr. Hamilton, or someone who upset him in any way.”
“You know who it was struck down Mr. Hamilton. He’s standing there behind you. Or if it wasn’t him, it was her. You’d do well to arrest both of them before I’m murdered in my bed.”
“You think he might harm you, rather than Mrs. Hamilton?”
“He’s barged in here, hasn’t he, and had his way with her. When he’s tired of that, he’ll likely rid himself of both of us. And she’d like to see me dead now, so there are no ears in this house to hear what goes on.”
Mallory was already objecting vociferously, his voice rising in fury above hers. “No one has touched her, and if you say I have, then you’re a liar—”
Over his shoulder Rutledge ordered him to be silent. “This must be done, and you know it.”
Mallory turned his back on both of them and slammed the door behind him.
“He’s got a temper on him. It’s just a matter of time before he kills again,” Nan said spitefully. “Mark my words!”
Rutledge said, “Listen to me, Miss Weekes. Your anger does you credit but it won’t serve you here. Do you understand me? You’ll only antagonize your keeper. If Hamilton dies before he can speak, we may never get at the truth. And whether you like it or not, your life may come to depend on something you can tell us, something you may know that we don’t.” He tried to keep his voice level, reasonable, in an effort to break through the maid’s stiff resistance. “Put aside your feelings and help me. There must surely be others in Hampton Regis who had a reason to dislike Hamilton, or even his wife. You keep house for people, you overhear conversations in the course of your duties. You have friends who clean for other families and who gossip with you.”
“We were God-fearing people in Hampton Regis, before he brought her here. A good Christian woman wouldn’t have let him put those idols up in plain sight in his drawing room. She encourages him, if you ask me. All very well in parts of the world where people believe in such nasty things, but not here, rubbed in our faces. And when she tires of that sport, she lures her lover here. If she didn’t wield the stick that struck down her husband, she drove that man into doing it for her. If that isn’t true, tell me why she and her lover plotted this business of keeping us locked up here? Oh, yes, I saw it with my own eyes! You’d think if she truly loved her husband, she’d want to be there, sitting beside him, and nothing would stand in her way. That man has to sleep some time.”
“You’re telling me that it was Mrs. Hamilton who devised the plan to hold you both at gunpoint?”
“I heard them, didn’t I? And I’ll testify to that in a courtroom. See if I don’t.” With another spiteful glance at the closed door where Mallory must be listening, she added,