A Pale Horse - Charles Todd [107]
Quite a convenient windfall…
“Where did she go from here?”
“There’s a nice home run by a Mrs. Deacon in the Cotswolds. She’s well known for taking in elderly ladies without families. A bit pricey, but Miss Chandler could afford it now, couldn’t she? She was very pleased. And she’d hardly got the good news when Mr. Brady came round asking about a cottage. They must have come to an agreement, because she left him most of her furniture.”
“What did he offer as a reason for coming here to live?”
Slater brought in the tea tray. “How should I know? But she told me he was looking for a quiet life.”
Deloran had been very clever. First the sizable bequest, and then someone there to take the cottage off Miss Chandler’s hands at the right moment.
Rutledge took his cup from Slater, and said, “Did Partridge have any contact with Miss Chandler?”
“Fancy your asking that. I’d quite forgot. She was a typist, and the week before she left, he took her a handful of papers to type up for him. He had a machine and she told him she knew how to use it.”
“Do you know the direction for Mrs. Deacon’s house?”
“It’s in the Cotswolds, a small manor house just outside Fairford. It’s called Thornton Hall. I took Mrs. Chandler there in my cart, with her boxes and trunks. Why are you interested in what she typed for Mr. Partridge? Why is it important?”
Rutledge finished his tea. “There’s no way of telling what’s important and what isn’t. Until all the information is in hand.”
But Slater wasn’t to be put off. “Why is it that people think I can’t understand what’s happening? Why do they think I’m easily distracted, like a child?”
Rutledge set his cup on the tray. “Mr. Partridge had another life before he came here.”
“They all had other lives. Except for me.” He shook his head. “No, that’s not right. I’d lived in Uffington, hadn’t I? I don’t like remembering my life there. Still, I depended on the smithy for my livelihood, and I couldn’t go very far.”
Hamish was saying, the soft Scots voice just behind Rutledge’s shoulder, “He’s puzzled, and no one has the time to set him straight.”
“Sometimes it isn’t distance that matters. For Partridge I have a feeling it was the White Horse that brought him here, not the miles from where he’d lived before this.”
“You don’t believe that Brady killed Mr. Partridge, do you?”
“Let’s say I’m keeping an open mind until all the facts have been collected.”
“It’s a waste of time going to Miss Chandler.”
“Possibly. But I won’t know until I speak to her.”
He left, dashed through the puddles to where Slater had left his motorcar, and drove to the nearest road that would carry him up to Fairford.
Hamish kept him company along the way.
As it happened, the house he was looking for was three miles outside of the pretty little town, set just beyond a small grove of beech that had been planted sometime in the eighteen hundreds, judging from their size. Age had begun to take a toll, and three closest to the road looked to be near collapse.
Thornton Hall was a handsome stone house built in classical style, with a portico and dormers on the slate roof. A porch to one side had been closed in with long windows looking out over a large garden, and beyond that, fallow land rolled into the distance.
Mrs. Deacon wasn’t what he’d expected.
A maid in crisply starched black that rustled as she walked led him through the hall to a small sitting room at the back of the house. A tall, spare woman with auburn hair rose to greet him and offer him a chair by the cold hearth. She took the other and nodded to the maid.
When they were alone, she asked Rutledge what his business was with Miss Chandler.
“I’m afraid it’s private,” he told her with a smile.
“Miss Chandler is a woman of means, but she’s lonely and easily taken advantage of. I’d like to know that you won’t upset her.” Her gaze was sharp,