Legacy of the Dead - Charles Todd [106]
Rutledge nodded. “If you can tell me how to find the house, I’ll be on my way.”
“I’ll do that if you’ll come and have lunch with me. My wife’s in Edinburgh for the week, and I’m damned tired of my own company!”
THE HOUSE STOOD in a street of houses that had well-kept gardens and a remarkable view of the hills. Two nursemaids with prams passed him as he stepped out of the car, deep in earnest conversation while their charges slept. Rutledge studied number fourteen for a time, then went to the door of number fifteen. But no one appeared to be at home. He tried number thirteen, and an elderly woman opened the door, peering at him over the top of her spectacles, the silver chain attached to them almost the same color as her hair.
“Yes?” She looked him up and down. “If you’re here to see Barbara, I’m afraid she’s out.”
“Inspector Rutledge, Scotland Yard,” he told her. “Can you give me a few minutes of your time? I’m interested in the Burns house. At number fourteen.”
“Inspector, are you? Why should anyone in London care about the Burns house? It hasn’t been lived in since poor Robbie’s death.”
“Yes, that’s what I’m told. He died in France. Do you remember when?”
“In the spring of 1916!” she retorted as if he had doubted her mental alertness. “It’s my legs that are giving out, young man, not my brain!”
“I meant no offense, Mrs.—”
“The auld biddy—” Hamish interjected.
“Raeburn. Robbie used to tease me about that. Burns and Raeburn, he said. A better name for a law firm than Burns, Grant, Grant, and Fraser.” She stepped back. “Do come in! I can’t stand here the morning long.”
He followed her into a sitting room cluttered with glass bells covering specimens of dead animals. Giant fish and heads of deer decorated the walls. She caught his eye and said, “My late husband liked to kill things. Birds, red deer, fish—never understood it myself, but there you are. That chair, over there, if you please. I can hear you better. Barbara—my niece—calls it barbaric. But I suppose I’ve grown used to seeing them. That’s a particularly fine fox, you know. I’m told several of the birds are nice as well.”
Hamish said, “I wonder who killed her husband?”
Catching the eye of a snarling lynx, Rutledge took the chair Mrs. Raeburn indicated. After a moment, he said, “I’ve just come from speaking with Mr. Fraser. He tells me Captain Burns had given you a key before he went away to France.”
“Mr. Fraser is wrong. Captain Burns gave me the key in 1912, when he joined the practice. I was to let in the painters and carpenters. After they’d finished, he told me to keep it in the event more work had to be done.”
“Did he have guests often?”
“At first he did. His fiancée and her family came to dinner any number of times. After the war started, there was less entertaining. But he came home when he could and sometimes brought friends.”
“Do you recall hearing the name Eleanor Gray?”
“He was in mourning. His fiancée died unexpectedly in late 1915. There was never any other young lady. The Captain never said anything to me about another young lady!”
“Fellow officers, then,” Rutledge amended hastily.
“Oh, yes, he sometimes offered them the house. There was a blind officer who stayed for a month. And a flier with severe burns on the face and hands. Better off dead, if you ask me. And one or two others on leave, with no place of their own.”
“Was there an officer here—just about the time word came that Captain Burns was a casualty? I believe he might have brought a woman with him.”
“There was an officer about that time. From London. I can’t tell you his name. But he came alone, arriving quite late. That’s why I remember him.”
“Because he came later than expected?”
“No, no. He woke me out of a sound sleep, all but knocking the door down. It was raining, and he was wet through. I handed him the key, then slammed the door shut against the wind. But I watched from the window to see he got in all right. The lock is sometimes stiff