Legacy of the Dead - Charles Todd [76]
Finance—banking or— He tried to keep his voice level, his words without emphasis. Hamish was hammering at the back of his mind, almost drowning what he was saying. “Was his father by chance a procurator-fiscal?”
But her face was blank, as if she had never heard the title before. Shaking her head, she gestured to the chairs neither of them had taken. “Please, do sit down! May I offer you tea or a glass of something?”
Buying time, Rutledge said, “Yes, I’d like a cup of tea.”
She rang for the butler, who must have been hovering nearby, expecting shortly to show Rutledge out, and gave her instructions.
As Rutledge sat in the nearer chair, he said, “Tell me about Eleanor Gray. As you remember her.”
“She knew her worth. But she was never condescending. A dependable friend. Good company as a house guest. Independent. She told me once that she had no real hope of becoming a doctor—her mother would see to it that no one took her seriously. I think that’s why she was a suffragette. It seemed frightfully vulgar to me, but Eleanor laughed and called it an adventure. I think it made her mother furious, and that pleased Eleanor. They never saw eye to eye.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. She adored her father and would have done anything he asked. But he never told her what to do or not do. He said she should please herself. It was odd how much she loved him. I thought he cared for her, but I could never quite see it as love. Some fathers dote on their only daughters, you know. Spoil them, that sort of thing. But Evelyn Gray was— fond of her. Merely—fond. Perhaps they had little in common. . . .”
She let the thought trail away as the butler arrived with tea. Hamish warned, “It’s no’ like her to talk so much.” Rutledge agreed.
Mrs. Atwood thanked the butler and dismissed him, settling herself to pour. As she handed Rutledge his cup, he said, “Why did Eleanor Gray want to be a doctor? It’s an odd choice, given her wealth and social position.”
“Ah, that was something I never fully understood. Humphrey—my husband—rather thought it was a passing fancy, with the war and all. But I don’t see it that way. At a dinner party once, Eleanor said that doctors were woefully ignorant and uninterested in what caused diseases. She argued with the Army doctors, too, when she felt it was warranted. She cared intensely about the patients, but it wasn’t sentimental in any way. It was practical and realistic. She would have made a good doctor, in my view.”
Rutledge said, “And when she didn’t contact you for three years, you accepted the fact that she must be in America? If not Boston, then somewhere else there.”
She was silent so long, he thought she didn’t want to answer the question. Hamish, responding to the odd tension in the air, said, “You made the right decision, coming yoursel’. ”
Then Mrs. Atwood replied, “You’ve made me afraid. The police. You and Sergeant Gibson. The last time I spoke to Eleanor she was in London—it was a strange conversation. She said something—I thought she must be a little drunk that night, and I was worried that she was contemplating driving to Scotland in that condition. And she said, ‘I could die.’ And I took it to mean she was so happy, she could die. But what if that wasn’t what she meant—what if she truly wanted to die. . . .” Mrs. Atwood looked at him, pain in her eyes. “Was there some terrible accident? Is that what happened?”
“No,” Rutledge told her. “It wasn’t an accident. It’s more likely that someone murdered her.”
She turned so white, he thought she was going to faint, and was halfway out of his chair.
“No!” she said in a strangled voice. “No—I’m all right. It’s just—” She tried to breathe deeply and instead her breath caught on a sob. “I’ve never known anyone who was murdered—that’s horrible—horrible—”
“If she was driving north with a soldier to spend his leave in Scotland, she must have known him well enough to go with