23.

For a time Rutledge stood by the hearth in Allen's cottage, listening to the ticking of the carriage clock on the mantelpiece.

The old man had been sitting in his chair when he realized that the end was near. A handful of papers had scattered across the floor as he struggled to his feet and dragged himself to the door to call for help. It must have taken enormous will to travel even that short distance. But he hadn't died alone in an empty house. It was even possible that from his windows he'd seen Rutledge sitting by the horse, and held on until the man from London got to him.

Rutledge gathered up the papers to set them neatly on the table beside the chair.

They were mostly letters from Allen's family, and he put them down without reading them. But among them he saw that Allen had begun his statement, writing out the first sentence in a trembling hand before realizing that his malaise that morning was the precursor to death.

The sheet below that one caught Rutledge's eye, for it was a list of the occupants of the Tomlin Cottages. Partridge's name had been struck off, and then Willingham's and Brady's. There was a question mark by Miller's, and the notation "The likeliest choice, I think. Mostly because he doesn't belong here."

Allen had been playing at amateur detective.

Beside Quincy's name was another notation. "Armstrong? Or perhaps Remington? Can't be sure, must write to Halloran and see..."

Next to Slater's name was an X as if Allen had crossed him off as a suspect. The notation beside it read, "He might manage one killing, but not a second. Not in his nature..."

And after Singleton's, he'd written, "Soldier, trained to kill. Still-"

It appeared that he'd come to no particular conclusion.

The door opened and Inspector Hill walked in. "You're sure Allen died of natural causes?"

Rutledge said, "Very likely. See for yourself." And Hill went into the bedroom. Rutledge pocketed the list Allen had made, then looked in the desk. As Allen had told him, there was an envelope with the words "To be opened after my death" written in the same hand as the list. Rutledge took it out and set it against a lamp, where Hill would notice it.

Slater was still outside, his face pale. Rutledge went out to him. "I know. It was what he wanted, all the same."

"What are we to do? I think these cottages are accursed. They shouldn't have been put here in the first place. It was a desecration."

"Slater. If I were you, I'd sleep at your smithy tonight, not in your cottage."

"I'm not afraid, if that's what you think."

"If you aren't here, you can't be accused."

The man's eyes widened. "But what about Mr. Quincy, and Miller? And Singleton. You can't leave them."

Inspector Hill came out of the cottage and cast a glance in the direction of Brady's where his men had been stationed. "Why the h.e.l.l didn't they come? Slater said you were here alone."

"You'd better have a look."

Hill gave him an odd glance, then set out for Brady's cottage at a trot. He went through the door without knocking, and even from this distance, Rutledge could hear him shouting angrily at his men.

He came back, still furious, and said, "They thought it might be a trick. They were told to watch, and d.a.m.n it, they watched, watched, their eyes glued to the other cottages for any sign of trouble." their eyes glued to the other cottages for any sign of trouble."

"There wasn't anything they could do."

"No. All right then, I'll take over here. Thanks." And he turned to go back into the cottage.

Rutledge walked down the lane with Slater. "Will you leave?"

"I'll think about it."

"Good man."

Quincy was standing in his doorway. "Allen, was it?"

"Yes," Rutledge answered shortly. He was still angry with Quincy for not coming to the man's aid.

"I'm glad you were there," Quincy said, and went back inside.

Rutledge left then, knowing it was too late but driving anyway as fast as he dared toward Pockets, the house where Rebecca Parkinson lived.

When he got there, Sarah's motorcar was gone. He wasn't surprised, but she hadn't pa.s.sed him on the road, and he thought he knew where else she might have gone.

And he'd guessed right. She was at Partridge Fields, sitting in the motorcar just outside the gates, crying.

He pulled up behind her and got out. She looked up, and said, "You've done enough damage. Go away."

"I'm sorry."

"No, you're not. I went to Rebecca to ask what we were to do, she and I. And she said there was nothing we could do. If you arrested us, so be it."

"A charge of murder is a very serious matter."

He looked up. Rebecca Parkinson was peddling toward them on her bicycle. She hesitated when she saw Rutledge's car pulled in behind her sister's. And then she came on, resolute.

"Sarah? Are you all right? I was worried," she said, ignoring Rutledge.

"Yes, I'm fine."

"Come inside. It's one of Martha's days. She may still be here. She can make us some tea."

"I'm not sure I want to go in."

"Then why did you come?"

"There was nowhere else to go." It was said with great sadness.

"I know. Come along in, and it will be all right, I promise you."

Sarah cast a glance in Rutledge's direction. "What about him?" she asked her sister. "I don't think I can bear any more."

"If he comes after us, I'll have him up on charges of trespa.s.sing." Rebecca turned to Rutledge, challenging him to argue with her.

Leaving the motorcar where it stood in the middle of the road, Sarah opened her door and crossed to where her sister was still astride the bicycle.

Rutledge waited.

Sarah said, her back to him, "There's something you've forgotten, Mr. Rutledge. In your concern for my father, and whatever justice it is you seem to want for him, you didn't have to live in this house all your life. We did. Push too hard, and we could choose the way out that our mother chose, because right now there isn't much left of our future. If you really want justice, what about a little for us? As for those men in the cottages, I'm sorry about them, but I didn't know them, and neither did Rebecca. I won't take their deaths on my soul."

Rutledge said, "Your father is dead. He doesn't care now what you think of him, what you owe him, or what he made you suffer. For all you know, his own life was as wretched as yours."

Sarah started through the gate, still not looking at him. "Then we're even, aren't we, he and the two of us."

Rebecca followed her, propping her bicycle just inside.

There was triumph now in the glance she cast over her shoulder toward Rutledge.

Hamish said, "She's got her sister under her spell."

And they were gone up the path, walking side by side in silence.

Rutledge swore. It was as if they drew their strength from each other, secure in the knowledge that if neither of them confessed what they knew, there was nothing the law could do to them.

Hamish reminded him that one of the lorry drivers had seen a woman alone and crying in a motorcar drawn to the side of the road, near Wayland's Smith.

"I'll give you odds," he answered aloud, "that it was Sarah, while her sister returned their father's motorcar to the shed. Waiting to take her back to Pockets when it was finished."

The timing would be about right, although it would be hard to prove exactly which night that was. Or find the lorry driver who had seen her.

It was late, but there was still one thing he could do. He drove back to the crossroads and began searching for a doctor's surgery. If Butler had been called to attend Mrs. Parkinson during her pregnancy, he must be near enough to summon at need. And whoever took over his practice might still have Butler's records.

In a village not two miles distant to the west, he found the first of them, and then another just a little farther to the east. A third was due north. But none of them had treated the Parkinson family, or knew what had become of Dr. Butler's records.

He kept moving, first down this road and then that, and as the sun began to set, he turned on his headlamps, determined to find what he was after.

Hamish said, "They had money, the Parkinsons. They would ha' seen a London doctor."

"Not for measles or a fall or a sore tooth. There would have been someone closer who could be called."

"No' for the lost child. For the despair that followed."

Rutledge considered that possibility. But he'd got the impression that for many years Mrs. Parkinson had withdrawn into herself, shutting out her husband, and would never have been persuaded to see a London doctor of his choosing. It would have been an admission that they shared a grief. Mrs. Parkinson had hugged it to herself instead, and in the end, used her death as the ultimate punishment.

He gave up after another two hours. He was too far afield.

He was halfway back to Partridge Fields when he saw a house well off the road, sheltered by a small copse. Its lights were burning in the dark and a drive wandered in their direction. It was just outside the first village he'd tried.

What had caught his eye, in a flash of his headlamps, was not a doctor's board but a small, elegant stone pillar at the end of the drive. He'd almost pa.s.sed by it a second time when he realized that the scrolled name inset into the pillar was THE BUTLERS THE BUTLERS. He backed up and turned into the drive, pulling up by the door.

The knocker was a worn bra.s.s caduceus, and he felt his hopes soar.

A woman answered, her face framed in soft waves of reddish-brown hair, and behind her, peering around an inner door, was a girl of about twelve.

"Betsy, dear-"

She stopped when she saw a stranger standing on her threshold.

"Oh, I do beg your pardon. I was expecting a friend, and she's late. Are you lost?"

"My name is Rutledge," he said, offering her his identification. She peered shortsightedly at it.

"Scotland Yard? Oh, dear. Perhaps I ought to call my husband." She turned to the girl. "Will you fetch Papa, darling? There's someone here to see him." She sounded uncertain.

The girl disappeared, and in a moment or two a man came to the entry. He was dressed in rough work clothes and there was paint on his hands and across his face.

"Sorry, we're doing up my mother's room. How can I help you, Mr.-er-Rutledge, is it?"

"Yes, from London. I'm looking for a Dr. Butler, who once practiced in these parts. Are you by chance related to him?"

"Good G.o.d, how did you ever find us? Yes, he was my father. Dead now, I'm afraid. I don't think he practiced after 1910."

"One of his patients was a woman named Parkinson. I'm trying to learn more about her, and the illness he treated. You don't, by any chance, have his records?"

Butler brushed a hand across his forehead, pushing his light brown hair out of his eyes and leaving another streak of paint there. "I doubt they'd do you much good. But yes, we do. Somewhere. In the attic, at a guess. Well, not his records, actually, those went to the man who took over his practice. And he's dead, as well, killed in the war, worst luck. I don't know who might have taken over from him. him. But my father kept a series of diaries, and they're boxed up just as he left them. Would that be of help?" But my father kept a series of diaries, and they're boxed up just as he left them. Would that be of help?"

"If I'm lucky," Rutledge said.

"Do you need them now?" It was clear Mr. Butler would have preferred another time. "We'll be up all night with our painting. My mother arrives in the morning. This morning."

"It would be best."

"Let me clean up a bit first, then. Come in, man!"

Rutledge followed Butler into a sitting room and waited there for nearly three-quarters of an hour before Butler came back with a wooden box in his hand. Inside were rows of small leather-bound diaries, each with a year printed in gold on its spine.

Rutledge had been trying to calculate which year he was after, based on what Sarah Parkinson had told him about her holidays as a child. He pulled out a likely diary, but there was no mention of the Parkinsons at all save for a reference to a cough that had kept Sarah in bed for three weeks and a burn that the housekeeper, Martha Ingram, had sustained while cooking a Christmas goose.

Butler was sitting across from him, clearly anxious to get back to his painting, and Mrs. Butler, held by curiosity, sat quietly knitting and watching from across the room. The girl was nowhere in sight.

Rutledge had to go back two years before he found the diary entry he was after. There was a date, April 27, and then the notation "Mrs. Parkinson went into labor at two o'clock in the afternoon. All proceeding normally. Three weeks short of full term."

Was that the reference he'd been after? The housekeeper had distinctly told him there was a miscarriage. This child was nearly full term.

"Yon housekeeper wasna' there. She left to wed a scoundrel."

On the twenty-eighth there was a second entry. "Eleven in the morning. Boy survived only an hour. Gave Mrs. Parkinson a strong sedative and told the housekeeper, Mrs. Fortner, to sit by her through the night, until I can arrange for a nurse. Four o'clock same day, set Robert Dunning's leg after he was kicked by a horse. Five o'clock, Peggy Henderson brought in with a splinter in hand. Six-thirty, looked in on Mrs. Parkinson again. Sleeping. Nurse Meadows with her now, replacing Mrs. Fortner. Just as well, not impressed with housekeeper's skills. Had long talk with Parkinson, explaining situation. Question about who should see to burial. He left arrangements with me. I did what I could. Sad day for that family."

There was nothing else about treating Mrs. Parkinson, except for the daily visit to be sure she was recovering from the birth.

Rutledge scanned ahead.

Two months later there was a final entry. "Mrs. Parkinson refuses to leave her room. Have advised husband to let her mourn in her own fashion. Would have been easier if she hadn't heard the child cry and knew it lived. Better to have told her it was stillborn. But it was out of my hands."