A Fearsome Doubt - Charles Todd [125]
“It’s part of my duty to ask unpleasant questions,” he told Mrs. Webber. “Inspector Dowling would have done it better—”
“No,” she said tiredly, “he wouldn’t have asked at all. But then he knows me and Peggy Bartlett and Alice Taylor.”
“Or thinks he does?”
She smiled faintly. “Yes, there’s that, too. I understand, Inspector. But I didn’t kill my husband. What’s between us is between us. Or was. Better or worse, the vows read. And I didn’t make it easy for Kenny to kill himself, either. Whoever did that never thought about those Kenny was leaving behind, did he? I expect the one you want doesn’t have children to bring up. Or he’d have thought of us before handing the wine to our men.”
“At one time, I was fairly certain that Jimsy Ridger had a hand in it.”
“That one? Jimsy always lands on his feet. His kind generally does. I can’t see him coming back to Marling. We’re none of us good enough for him now. Jimsy did well in the war, I expect. Kenny told me once that Jimsy found a teakettle full of gold buried in among the onions in some Frenchie’s garden. I expect it’s true, though Kenny swore he never saw it. Luck follows the Jimsy Ridgers of this world.”
“Not always,” Rutledge told her. “I’ve learned that he drowned in the Thames and is buried in Maidstone.”
“Did he now!” she said, with some surprise. Something in her face changed. “What I wouldn’t have given to be there, at his funeral!”
RUTLEDGE HAD NO better luck with Peggy Bartlett or Alice Taylor. Though Mrs. Taylor was more unsettled by his questions.
“I don’t understand why you’d want to believe any such thing!”
“It isn’t what I believe,” he answered. “It’s what I must do, ask unpleasant questions and suggest unpleasant possibilities.”
“Yes, well, you must be desperate to think one of us turned murderer.”
“I am desperate,” he admitted. “I need to find the truth before there’s another death.”
“I heard there’s someone taken in charge. If that’s true, why are you wasting time over the likes of me?”
“Because the evidence against him is not satisfactory.”
“Whose fault is that?” she demanded. “Not mine!”
RUTLEDGE DROVE FROM his last call, the Bartlett house, toward Melinda Crawford’s home on the Sussex border.
She was in a chair by the windows watching the play of light across the lawns and the distant Downs.
“It’s very beautiful,” she said, turning as Shanta ushered him into the sitting room. “I don’t know why. I’ve seen far more exotic landscapes in my time. How is Elizabeth?”
“I don’t know.” He sat down in the chair she indicated and closed his eyes. “Will you answer a question honestly?”
“Of course. You know that.”
He opened his eyes. She saw the wretchedness in them, and caught her breath for an instant.
“Was there ever anything—anything between Richard Mayhew and my sister?”
She regarded him for a moment. “Who told you there was? Elizabeth?”
“I’d—rather not answer that. Not yet.”
Melinda Crawford said, “I can tell you truthfully that I never saw any relationship between them that exceeded the bounds of friendship. I think they cared greatly for each other. But that was all.”
He couldn’t be sure whether it was a denial—or an affirmation that she herself had not witnessed any untoward relationship in spite of her own doubts.
It troubled him.
“It’s not precisely the answer I wanted to hear,” he said after a moment.
“Are you asking me if they were lovers?”
“Yes,” he replied baldly.
“I don’t know, Ian. But I can tell you that they never gave me any cause to suspect them of misbehavior.” She smiled. “My dear, do you think either Frances or Richard would be so stupid as to arouse suspicion, if they were intent on adultery?”
“I’d always wondered why Frances hadn’t married. It never occurred to me that she couldn’t marry the man she loved.”
“Ian, who told you this? You must always consider the source when there’s malicious gossip.”
“That’s just it. I have. And I don’t believe it, I don’t want to believe it. But it’s there, a worm niggling in the back of my head, and I can’t walk away from it.”
“Someone has