A Pale Horse - Charles Todd [123]
“What does Miller think about events?”
“He’s a rather timid man, and he overcomes it with bluster. Once you get past that, he’s all right. Though I don’t count him a friend, you understand. He’s not convinced that Brady is our man. He favors poor Slater, telling me that he’d not be predictable in taxing situations. Miller says he grew up with one such and there was murder done because of a misunderstanding that got out of hand. I can’t say that I agree. I’ve never seen Slater violent.”
“That leaves you, Singleton, and Quincy to be cast as murderers.”
Allen smiled. “I daresay I’m not in Inspector Hill’s sights, given my health.” The smile faded. “What’s become of Mrs. Cathcart? I haven’t seen her today. Has someone looked in on her?”
“Yes, she’s fine. She was enjoying breakfast earlier.”
“Is Partridge dead, as Brady claimed?”
“Yes, I’m afraid he is. But under rather different circumstances than Willingham’s murder. It will take some time to learn what Brady’s role was in his death. If any.”
“I must say, I’d have not thought it of Brady. He was a weak man, in my view, troubled by his drinking and whatever it was that brought him here to live.”
Rutledge prepared to take his leave, watching Allen’s face sag with fatigue, one hand clutching the arm of a chair with white-knuckled fingers.
Allen was saying, “I’ll tell you something about Partridge. For what it’s worth. I wouldn’t have, if there was a chance he was still alive.”
Rutledge waited.
“I don’t think that was his real name. I’d seen him at a party in Winchester several years ago, and although we weren’t introduced, he was pointed out to me as one of the people doing some sort of hush-hush work for the government. There were a number of important guests at the dinner, and he seemed to know most of them. I never asked him about this, partly respecting his privacy and partly because I heard later that he’d fallen from grace and was in bad odor with the government. You can imagine my surprise when I looked out my door one morning and saw him walking down the lane. He was calling himself Partridge then, but for the life of me I can’t remember how he was called at the party. Something similar, but I’d have remembered Partridge if it had been that. It’s not a common name.”
“And you said nothing about this to anyone else?”
Allen responded with irritation. “I told you. I respected his privacy.”
“Later on, did you tell the friend who’d first pointed this man out to you that you’d seen him here in Berkshire?”
Allen’s face flushed. “Only because I thought it might reassure him that all was well. I was in Winchester to see my doctor when I ran into him.”
“How long after that did Mr. Brady come here to live?”
“A month, possibly less. There can’t be a connection. I’d have sworn they didn’t know each other.” But Allen was no fool. “You aren’t trying to say there’s a connection, are you? That word spread, and that’s why Brady came here? I refuse to believe it.” But the dawning realization was shattering. “If your charge is true, why did the man wait so long to kill Partridge? Answer me that?”
“Brady’s dead, and there’s no way we can ask him.”
Allen said again, “I refuse to believe my casual comments had anything to do with Brady or the murder of Partridge.” He stepped forward, forcing Rutledge to move back outside the door, and shut it with firmness.
“That was how Martin Deloran found his missing scientist,” he said to Hamish as he walked back the way he’d come.
A chance encounter, a remembered name and face, a chatty reference in a conversation, and somehow the news had reached Deloran’s ears.
Hamish said, “Ye ken, Parkinson knew as soon as the watcher came, but didna’ understand how it was that he’d been found.”
“I’m sure of it.”
He stopped to tap at Miller’s door in Number 7.
This time to his surprise it opened. “The police have been and gone. I’ve nothing to say to you.”
Rutledge said, “I happened to call on Miss Chandler, and she asked to be remembered to you and to Mr. Allen.”
“Kind of you. Good day.”
But Rutledge