A Pale Horse - Charles Todd [103]
“Is Hill still giving you trouble over Willingham’s death?”
“He’s told me I’ll be taken in to sign my statement. I don’t know when that will be. Or if he’ll keep me once he has me there.” He was morose. “I’ve not done anything wrong. But the sexton has said I’m a liar and a cheat. I don’t see that that leads a man to murder, but Inspector Hill seems to believe it does.”
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think he actually believes that you did this. But he has to look at all the possibilities. Did you know Willingham before he moved here?”
“I didn’t know any of these people. Including Mr. Partridge.”
“And what do the other inhabitants of the Tomlin Cottages have to say about the murder?”
“They aren’t saying anything. No one works in their garden, even as warm as it is this morning. No one answers the door. You’d think we collaborated on the murder, drawing straws to see who did the actual stabbing. Like Julius Caesar, in Shakespeare’s play, when everyone turns against him. I remember reading that, and thinking he should have known the Ides of March meant trouble. But I suppose there wouldn’t have been a play at all, if he’d listened to his wife in the first place.”
Rutledge smiled. “You cut through the chaff to the kernel.” The smile faded. “Are you all right, Slater?”
“As best as I can be. But I’m too anxious to work. And if I can’t work, in the end I won’t eat either. No one will bring business to me if I’m under a cloud of suspicion.”
“I must go to Brady’s cottage,” he said, “but if there’s anything you need, let me know.”
“How? If they take me away, there’s nothing you can do.”
“I can try,” Rutledge replied simply.
He left the smith’s cottage and walked on down the lane to Brady’s. There was no answer to his knock, and he’d expected none. A stranger arriving here would have sworn that all the cottages were empty, their inhabitants fled. But behind the shut doors and the drawn shades of the windows, there were people who had nowhere else to turn.
Dublin came to greet him as he returned to his motorcar, rubbing herself against his ankles, and he bent down to pet her just as a sparrow flitted by and she turned to give chase.
What did Dublin know about the murder of Willingham? She prowled the cottages, looking for mice. Had she been outside Willingham’s two nights ago when a murderer came to call?
Hamish said irritably, “It wouldna’ matter if she did. She’s no’ able to tell ye what she saw.”
He climbed to the muzzle of the horse and sat there, watching scudding clouds cross the sky. It would rain before long, and he’d be wet if he didn’t leave while he could. But still he sat there, waiting for someone to stir. He could feel the eyes watching for him, wondering where he might turn up next, and whether or not he was doing his own work or Hill’s.
And then Mr. Allen stepped out of his door. Rutledge could hear him coughing, the sound captured and bounced up the hill to where he sat. Allen puttered a little in his front garden, casting wary eyes toward his neighbors.
Cabin fever, Rutledge thought, watching him. And a small defiance in the face of death. I’m alive, you haven’t gathered me in yet…
Or was it because they all knew that Rutledge was sitting here, watching, that they felt free to move about.
Quincy opened his door and set a bowl of water down for Dublin, and looked up at the building clouds.
Mrs. Cathcart timidly crept out, and moved a flower pot to where it better caught the waning sun.
Miller was next, putting something in the dust bin by the corner of his house, and then looking fixedly at Rutledge. As if to ask why he was still here, when it was clear that Partridge wasn’t coming back.
Rutledge hadn’t met the man, but it wouldn’t do any good to hurry down to the lane. Miller would be inside long before that.
They were all accounted