Watchers of Time - Charles Todd [49]
“There’s another way it could ha’ happened. If the killer was waiting for the priest.”
“Which puts an entirely different complexion on it, doesn’t it?” Rutledge replied thoughtfully.
Monsignor Holston was right about one thing. There was something odd about this murder scene. It told conflicting stories about the sequence of events. Were the drapes open—or closed? Was the lamp on the desk burning? Where had the killer been standing? And when had the room been torn apart? Had the priest seen his killer? Or had he been struck down before he was aware that he was in danger? Had the murderer come here for the money in the desk—or for something else altogether?
A sieve through which a defense lawyer could walk at will . . .
Rutledge found Mrs. Wainer in the kitchen, staring out the window that looked out onto a stand of lilacs, the back garden, and beyond that, to the churchyard.
She turned as he came in.
He asked her to show him where the footprint had been found, and she pointed to the largest lilac bush on one side of the lawn. Its branches arched and then dipped nearly to a grown man’s waist. And there was a bare spot where the grass didn’t grow, just by it. The shadows of the bush would have made an excellent place to watch the house. . . .
Rutledge asked the housekeeper if she left the lamp in the study lit when she went home each evening.
“No, not that night, if that’s what you’re asking me. And I think about it time and again. I wasn’t sure, you see, when he might be coming back, and I didn’t want to leave it burning untended if he was going to be very late.” She hesitated and then said anxiously, “Do you suppose it made any difference?”
“No, I’m sure it didn’t. A policeman makes an effort to be thorough, when picturing the scene in his mind. And the draperies. Were they left open or were they shut?”
“They were shut,” she replied firmly. “That’s what I do when I leave of an evening, except in the summer when there’s light well past nine.”
“What did Father James generally do when he came in? Did he walk in this way or through the door at the front of the house?”
Rutledge took a moment to look around him. It was a friendly room, painted a very pale green, like early spring leaves, and the curtains at the windows were a rose pink. Feminine, in a way, but not exclusively so. Had Mrs. Wainer had a voice in choosing the colors? Most certainly she had a hand in its care. The great iron stove was polished like rare furniture, the table well scrubbed beneath the hanging lamp, the stone sink empty of unwashed dishes. A small rag rug lay by the door, for wiping feet. It, too, was spotless.
She was saying to him, “Father always came in by the back. He left his bicycle in the shed, then stood his boots there by the door, on the little rug, and hung his coat on a peg if it was wet. I’ve known him to walk through the house in his stockinged feet, rather than dirty my floors. He was that thoughtful! And then he’d go up to his room, to wash up if he needed to or to leave his coat if it was dry. If the meal wasn’t ready, he’d work at his desk, or if there were visitors, he’d come back down to the parlor to speak with them.”
“Other people would know this was his habit? To come in through the kitchen door?”
She smiled. “I shouldn’t wonder if half the village did the same. Tradesmen come to the kitchen door, and a neighbor bringing over an extra loaf from her baking or a jar of pickles or jam she’d just put up. A man would never think of walking into the front hall with muck on his shoes, or children running in from the rain. I daresay there’s not a kitchen door in Osterley that’s ever locked, though there’s the key on the nail just beside it. There was no need—”
Without warning her face crumpled, the smile dissolving into a grimace of pain. “He was like my own son. I’ve such grief I don’t know how to cope with it.” Turning away, she fought