Search the Dark - Charles Todd [46]
“What was she wearing? When you saw her at the gate here?”
“Oh—I remember thinking how wonderfully cool she looked, on such a warm day. A floral pattern, quite pretty. Mauve or pink or lavender, I’m not exactly sure. It was the overall effect I noticed, and the hat.”
“Hat?” He remembered that Mrs. Hindes had mentioned a fetching hat.…
“Yes, a straw, with an upswept brim on the left side. Many women can’t wear hats like that—I’m one of them! Aurore—Mrs. Wyatt—could, of course, and certainly Miss Tarlton does them justice. It’s the height, I’m sure.”
She herself was wearing a very conservative hat, in a medium shade of blue. It had an air of efficiency about it rather than style. She was a very efficient woman, Rutledge thought. In a courtroom she would make an unflappable witness, her words well ordered and to the point.
But if that indeed was Margaret Tarlton murdered in a field, where was her hat? Suitcases, hats, children …
“I’d like to ask your son if she was wearing her hat when she came to your door.”
“May I ask why all this interest in Miss Tarlton’s apparel?” She looked from Simon to Rutledge. “Is anything wrong?”
Besides being efficient, she was clearly no fool.
“Just a matter of routine. We’re interested in everyone who arrived in Singleton Magna on the train last week.”
“Ah, yes, that poor man who killed his family. I sometimes think the war has driven all of us into madness!”
Rutledge turned to Simon Wyatt. “You still haven’t answered my last question.”
Simon took a moment to remember. “No. Because I don’t know how to answer it. I told you, I thought Aurore was going to take care of it. You’d better speak with Edith, I suppose. The maid. I’ll see if I can find her for you. Mrs. Daulton? I’m sorry—”
“No, no. Come to see me when you have time, Simon, there’s no hurry!”
Rutledge held the door for Mrs. Daulton and walked with her as far as the gate.
“What’s this all about?” she asked him. “You were questioning Simon as if he’d done something wrong. I’ve known him since he was a child; I won’t see him treated like a miscreant without knowing why!”
“It’s just a matter of checking information, Mrs. Daulton—”
Joanna Daulton stopped and looked up at him, seeing more than he expected she might. “Young man, I’m not simpleminded, and I won’t be spoken to as if I were. If there’s anything that connects Margaret Tarlton to this wretched Mowbray affair, I suggest you ask her about it. Simon still has a great deal of work to do before this museum is set to open, it’s all he thinks about. And if you want my advice, it’s best to let him get on with it! The war nearly destroyed him, and I’ve never been so grateful as I am to that ridiculous grandfather of his for putting the notion of a museum in his head. It’s brought Simon back from the edge of despair. Never mind whether it’s a roaring success or not, it has stood between Simon and self-destruction. I won’t let you upset that balance, do you hear me?”
“We can’t find Margaret Tarlton. We’ve looked in London where she lives and in Sherborne, where she was expected next but never arrived.”
Joanna Daulton stared at him, and for the first time since she had walked into the museum he watched her grapple with something that was outside her usual experience as community leader. She seemed uncertain how to take him. “You can’t find her? In the sense that you don’t know just where she may have gone—or in the sense that she’s missing?”
“That’s our dilemma, actually. We aren’t sure.”
“Well, Aurore—Mrs. Wyatt—drove her to the station. I should think that’s clear enough. Which means to me that Miss Tarlton left Dorset on the train. I should think London is a better place to start searching than Singleton Magna. I was always under the impression that the police knew their business!”
Rutledge said