A False Mirror - Charles Todd [90]
Hamish said, “It’ll no’ be your inquiry for verra’ long.”
And Mallory would not care for that.
He drove again to Miss Esterley’s house, and knocked at the door. She received him with concern writ large in her eyes. But her cane was nowhere in sight.
“I’m told that a body was removed from Dr. Granville’s surgery this morning. I’m also told that it appeared to be too slight for a man’s. I warned you earlier that Matthew was dead, if he hadn’t gone to Casa Miranda and to Felicity. Was I right, after all?”
He followed her into the room where they had spoken before, and took the seat she offered him. “There has been a death. Yes. But it wasn’t Hamilton’s body that was brought out. It was Mrs. Granville’s.”
If he had slapped her hard across the face, she wouldn’t have been more shocked. Blood rushed to her cheeks and she said, her voice not quite steady, “But—Mrs. Granville? I don’t quite—”
“She was found behind her husband’s desk this morning, dead of a blow to the head. Meanwhile, we haven’t found Hamilton, alive or dead. But the only conclusion we can draw now is that he was killed as well. If not at the surgery, then elsewhere.”
It was blunt, and he’d intended it to be, though Hamish growled at him for it. But if she had helped Hamilton to leave the surgery last night, he wanted her to know the cost. And where was her cane? He had seen it this morning.
Tears welled in her eyes, and to keep them from spilling down her cheeks, she gripped the arms of her chair until her knuckles were white. Whatever she might tell him about her relationship with Matthew Hamilton, on her side it went beyond simple friendship.
“I thought policemen,” she said huskily, “were taught to break bad news as gently as possible.”
“There is no gentle way to speak of murder.”
After a moment she replied, “That’s a frightful word. I don’t like it. I can’t believe anyone would wish to harm Mrs. Granville. What does she have to do with Matthew? She was always so eager to please. And she adored her husband. She’d have done anything he asked of her.”
As an epitaph, it summed up the doctor’s wife very well. She had lived for her husband, and perhaps died in his place.
“We don’t know the full story. But it appears she was there in the surgery when Hamilton went missing. That she either knew or saw something that she shouldn’t have. And that knowledge was costly.”
“Then Matthew couldn’t possibly have left of his own accord. He’d have done his best to defend her. Why was she there, in the middle of the night? Had he been waking up? That’s what everyone was hoping for. Was she sitting with him?”
“Dr. Granville had gone out to a patient and Mrs. Granville had retired for the night. Someone may have seen him leave, realized that Hamilton was alone, and took the chance that it would be safe to walk into the surgery. But something—a noise, a light, we don’t know—must have disturbed her and she went to investigate. She couldn’t have known there was an intruder. Either she thought her husband had returned home or she was afraid that Hamilton had come to his senses and was disoriented or in pain.”
“Yes, yes, it would be just like her. I didn’t know her well, but well enough to recognize her sense of duty.” She smiled sadly. “She hadn’t wanted to be a nurse, you know. She didn’t have the stomach for it. She told me as much when Dr. Granville sent her round with flowers the day I was brought home from hospital. She worked with him simply because she liked to be close to him. How is he coping? He’ll blame himself, you know. I don’t want to think about what he must be feeling. I’ve known loss myself.”
“Did you know Dr. Granville well, before your accident?”
“We met socially from time to time. He’s a fine doctor, I can tell you that. I’ve