The Red Door (29 page)

Amy said quietly, “Go away. Let her drink her tea and cry a little, if that’s what she needs to do. Then I might persuade her to lie down for a bit.”

He ignored her. To Gran, he said, “You must be prepared to work with Harry. He will need your support and your care.”

“To be sure,” she told him impatiently. “What I don’t understand for the life of me is why Jenny took laudanum.”

“Captain Teller’s death unsettled her.”

“Oh, my dear, I could hardly bring myself to walk up those stairs. I can’t think what Jenny must have felt. But there are the arrangements for Peter. The flowers, the food, airing the beds. Who is to see to them now?” she demanded fretfully. “Why didn’t Susannah come with us? But I expect Leticia will know what to do.”

“Why would Jenny not have taken laudanum to sleep?” he pursued. “It must have seemed to her the sensible thing to do, so that she’d be rested.”

“But they gave her laudanum before,” Gran said, “and she didn’t like it. It made her so deathly ill.”

Amy started to speak, but one look from Rutledge and she held her tongue.

“When?”

“When I was here, of course. She’d hurt her back, and I came to stay. She found it hard to wake up. She felt all muzzy. She didn’t like it because of the baby.”

Amy said, “But Harry was away last night.”

Gran took another slice of cold toast. “Is there any of that nice jam left, dear? The one I like so much.”

Amy brought her the pot of strawberry jam.

“Thank you, my dear.” She spread it across half a slice of toast. “Has anyone told Susannah we’re here? I don’t understand why she didn’t come down with us.”

“Mary is here. You’ve always liked Mary,” Amy pointed out.

“No, I haven’t. Just because she’s Jenny’s sister, she thinks she’s invited everywhere. I much prefer Jenny.” Frowning she began to cry again. “It’s so sad, you know. First Peter, and now Jenny. It’s very trying.”

Rutledge prepared to go. “Mrs. Teller?” he said to Amy. “I’d like to speak with you privately, if I may.”

“If it’s about Jenny and the laudanum—”

“No.”

With a glance at Gran, happily spreading jam on another slice of toast, Amy rose. He led her out of the dining room, but Leticia was in the study, sitting at the desk, making a list, and at the top of the stairs, he could hear Walter speaking earnestly to Mary.

As she answered him, Rutledge caught the words, “ . . . your fault, Walter. You must accept that.”

Rutledge said, “Will you find your coat? There’s no privacy here.”

“It’s raining, if you haven’t noticed it.”

“Your coat.”

She came back with it and said, “Edwin wants to know if I’ll be long.”

“Nothing will happen while we’re gone.”

Irritably, she handed him her coat to hold for her, and then together they walked out past the constable and into the rain. Rutledge opened the door of his motorcar for her, and then turned the crank. Reversing the vehicle, he drove past the rain-laden roses. Amy said, “I’ve just driven from London. Edwin wasn’t feeling well enough to take the wheel. I’m not in the mood for a tour of Essex.”

They had reached the gate, just out of sight of the house. There Rutledge stopped.

Without preamble, he said, “Florence Teller wasn’t married to Captain Teller, was she?”

Amy opened her mouth, then closed it smartly.

“What I need to know is why Walter used his brother’s name.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, looking at the trees that overhung the road.

“Look. I’ve seen his will. That rose garden, the one we just passed, is to be a memorial to his wife’s memory. And interestingly enough the will doesn’t specify Jenny Teller. There’s been a conspiracy of silence from the start. You’ve known the truth all along, haven’t you? And helped to cover it up,” he accused her.

She had turned to look at him again. “Jenny loved roses.”

“No, she didn’t. But Florence Teller did. Do you remember the rose that Lawrence Cobb dropped into the grave?”

“Was that his name? Yes, I remember. I remember that day very well.”

“Peter didn’t kill her. Someone else did. Lawrence Cobb’s wife. But I rather think I’m to blame for Walter believing he did. And it’s possible that in revenge he killed his brother.”

“You mean Peter’s fall—no, that’s ridiculous.”

“What I don’t know is how much he loved his wife. Or if he cared anything for his dead son. And I need to know, or my judgment will be flawed.”

“It’s pathetic,” she said angrily. “You hounded Peter to his death with threats of taking him into custody. And so he drank too much. That meant he wasn’t steady on his feet, and with that leg, it’s not surprising he fell. If there’s any blame in his death, it lies at your door. All you’re trying to do is shift it to Walter. Well, I won’t let you.”

Rutledge had both hands on the wheel. Between them in the far distance, over the tops of trees, he could just see the tower of Repton’s church, floating like an island in the sweeping curtains of rain.

Hamish was there too, the Scots voice loud in his ears.

Rutledge turned to look at Amy Teller.

“You aren’t protecting Walter. I don’t think you’re even fond of him. And you let Peter take the blame without compunction. Well, Jenny is dead. Nothing can hurt her now. It’s the boy. It’s young Harry. It was always Harry.” He turned to look at her. “As long as Peter shouldered the blame for marrying two women, Harry was safe. Even Susannah, his wife, was willing to say nothing, for Harry’s sake.”

She refused to answer him.

“Why did Walter Teller use his brother’s name, instead of his own? Neither of them had married in 1903.”

And still she sat stubbornly silent. But Rutledge could see tears bright in her eyes, tears of anger, frustration, and helplessness.

“How long have you known? At a guess, not very long. Was it during Walter’s illness? Did something happen then?”

He waited, giving her a chance.

Finally he said, “Peter Teller died trying to preserve that lie. When you got to him, he said, ‘It was me.’ And instead, so that it wouldn’t arouse any suspicion, you told everyone that he had spoken your name.”

He thought for a moment she would fling open the motorcar’s door and run down the drive in the rain to get away from him.

“And Leticia, you and your husband, along with Mary, tried to pry the truth from Walter on Sunday after I’d gone north. Did Jenny overhear you? Is that why she took an overdose of laudanum?”

She broke down then, her face in her hands.

It had mostly been conjecture on his part, putting together what he knew with what he suspected, and holding the two together with a tissue of guessing.

He added as he prepared to let in the clutch and start down the drive, “Peter didn’t kill Florence Teller—but I tell you again it’s possible Walter thought he had, and killed him. That’s why I need to know how he felt about Florence Teller, and if he would avenge her when the chance presented itself.” He handed Amy Teller his handkerchief, adding, “I think you can see my dilemma. Inspector Jessup is already suspicious. If I walk away, and don’t do my duty, someone else will. And it will be worse. I’ll do my best to protect Harry. But I will need help.”

A
my was out of the motorcar almost before Rutledge had come to a stop. He watched her dash through the rain into the house as the constable opened the door for her.

He sat where he was, feeling distaste for what he had just done. But Amy Teller was the only one he thought might eventually tell him the whole truth.

“Ye may be wrong,” Hamish warned him.

The study door was shut, and Rutledge opened it, expecting to find most of the family gathered there. But Walter Teller was sitting alone.

“If you’re looking for the others, they’re in the drawing room. I don’t know whether they’re leaving me alone to grieve or if they can’t bear my company.”

His voice was dispassionate, as if he had shut off his own feelings.

Rutledge said, “They’re still trying to come to terms with your brother’s death. And now this—”

He was interrupted by a knock at the door.

Teller said, “Tell them I’m not seeing anyone.”

But it was the rector, Mr. Stedley, who stuck his head around the door. “Walter? They told me you were in here.” He was tall and robust, with a deep voice. “I thought I should come. Mary is with Harry. There’s nothing I can do in that quarter at the moment.”

Walter, rising, said, “Ah, Stedley. Thank you for your care of Harry. It’s very kind of you and Mrs. Stedley to take him in. It’s been very difficult for all of us. And it will be hardest for him.”

“The question is, what can I do for you? Would you like me to go to Jenny and say a prayer?”

“I—yes, if you would. I’m sure she would have wanted that. She’s in the room where Harry was born.”

As the rector went up the stairs, Walter said, “It’s beginning. The flood of mourners. And each time I speak to them, her death becomes a little more real.”

“You must have seen death many times in your work abroad.”

Walter laughed without humor. “My first posting, I buried twelve people on my first day. A cholera epidemic. It was only the beginning. I should be accustomed to death. And then the war. I lost count of the number of men who died in my arms inside and outside the medical tents. Sometimes kneeling in the mud, sometimes watching shells scream over my head. Sometimes by a cot with bloody sheets, or in an ambulance, before the stretcher could even be lifted out. I was quite good at giving a dying man the comfort necessary to make the end easier. And all the while, I knew I was lying to them and to myself. I will say one thing for the King James version of the Bible, the words are sonorous and speak for themselves. All I had to do was remember my lines.”

Rutledge thought about the curate reading from the Psalms for Florence Teller’s service. He had seemed to speak from the heart.

“If those men were comforted, then it didn’t matter what you felt.”

“I wish I could believe that.”

“There must have been rewarding moments in your mission work?”

“That too was a sham,” he answered tersely.

“But you spoke eloquently about fieldwork in your book. So I’m told.”

“That was worse than a sham, it was a fraud. But it bought me time. And that’s all that mattered.”

“Time for what?” Rutledge asked, but Teller ignored him.

“You have no conception of what Africa is like. There was a tribe on the far side of the river. Which was hardly more than a stream that fed into the Niger. Still, it kept them from our throats. We only had to guard the crossing. But then their crops failed in the rain. My God, I’d never seen so much rain! And then it was gone, the soil baked nearly to brick in days. I’d been frugal—thrifty. So they came for our crops, pitiful as they were. And I abandoned my flock. I stood in the pulpit and exhorted them to put their faith in a merciful and compassionate God, knowing all the while they’d be slaughtered. And I’d be dead with them if I stayed—the foreign priest who had lured them away from the old worship. I can still see their eyes, you know—looking up at me, believing me, putting their trust, their lives in my promise, and the next morning I was packed and walking out before first light. I dream of their eyes sometimes. Not the poor slaughtered bodies.”

Rutledge said nothing.

As if driven, Walter went on.

“And then there was Zanzibar. We’d had a disagreement with the bishop, and we thought we knew better how to deal with the Arabs. Better than he, surely? And instead we found ourselves charged with insubordination. Zanzibar is an island—have you ever been to a spice island? My God, pepper and mace and allspice, cloves and vanilla and nutmeg—you ride down a hot sunny stretch of road where they’re drying the cloves on bright cloths spread almost to your feet. Small brown spikes, thousands of them, like a carpet that moves with the wind. And vanilla pods—or tiny green seeds of pepper. Mace. That thin coating of a nutmeg is worth its weight in gold. Amazing place, and the sea so blue it hurts your eyes to look out across it. But the smell of slaves is there in the town as well. Misery and grief and pain and helpless anger. That’s Zanzibar as well.”

Hamish said, “You mustna’ let him finish.”

But Rutledge refused to halt the flow of this man’s confession. He could see how the soul of the man had been scoured to the bone.

“In China we used the opium traders. They carried messages where no one else would, and sometimes were the only protection a traveling man of God had from bandits we found on the road. So we lived with the devil—quietly, mind you—while we preached that opium was evil and led to madness and death. Double standards, Rutledge. We preached and didn’t live a word that came out of our mouths. Sanctimonious, self-righteous prigs, that’s what we were, and I was ashamed of all of us in the end.”

“Do you think you were the only missionary who felt that way?”

“I hoped I was.” He laughed harshly. “I wasn’t like the rest of them. I had no calling, you see. I became what my father told me to become. And Peter hated the Army as much as I hated my own work. I’d have liked being a soldier, I think. But who knows? I might have hated that too.”

Which, Hamish was remarking to Rutledge, explained why he had told Florence Marshall that he was a soldier. Living a lie because it made him feel better about his lack of choice in the matter, made him appear to be dashing and romantic in the eyes of a young woman who had never seen the world beyond where she lived. And yet, cowardly enough that he used his brother’s name, for fear his father would somehow learn of his rebellion.

They could hear Mr. Stedley, the vicar, coming down the stairs.

Teller shook himself, as if awakening from a reverie, as if he’d been talking more to himself than Rutledge.

“She’s very peaceful,” Mr. Stedley said, coming into the room.

“Yes.”

“Is there any comfort I could offer you, Walter?”

“Thank you, Rector, for coming. You might wish to speak to the rest of the family. We’ve been overwhelmed by events. I’ll be in touch about the service. I think Jenny would have liked you to conduct it.”

“Yes, of course.” He looked from Teller to Rutledge and back again. “If you need me, you’ve only to send for me.”

And he was gone. Walter Teller sighed. “Next it will be the police cornering me, asking questions. And then Mary will be at me again, or Leticia. And then my brother. I’d like to lock the door and pretend I’m not here.”

Rutledge rose. “I’ve brought Timmy’s photograph from the cottage.”

Walter Teller was very still. Then he said, “Perhaps his mother would have preferred to have it buried with her.”

He lost his temper. “What did Timmy do? Fail his father by dying when it wasn’t convenient to come home and pray for him?”

Teller’s face went so white Rutledge thought for an instant his heart had stopped. And then catching his breath almost on a gasp, he said only, “Peter would be grateful to you.”

R
utledge went outside to walk off his anger. The rain had moved on, black clouds toward the east, the sky overhead still roiling as the weather fought for stability. He went to the other side of the house, unwilling to pass the roses, and instead crossed the lawn toward the little stream, swollen with rain and threatening to overflow into the grassy water meadows on either side. He could feel the soles of his boots sinking into the soft earth, and moved a little above the soaked banks.

Jenny Teller was well out of it, he told himself. And then he found himself thinking that she would have managed, as she had done in London, whatever she had discovered about her husband’s past. She could have been married again to regularize her union, and she would have said nothing that would endanger her son’s future. Whether she could bear to live with Walter Teller again was another matter. He might have had to accept the Alcock Society’s next posting to the field until he and his wife could come to terms with the ghost of Florence Teller and her son, Timmy.

Hamish said, “Perhaps that’s why she had to die?”

“Don’t be a fool,” Rutledge told him harshly.

“Ye’re looking at black and white. It’s a man’s way of thinking, no’ a woman’s.”

In the distance, he could hear someone calling his name. Looking up, he realized that Leticia Teller was trying to attract his attention.

He turned back toward the house, and she waited by the French doors for him. When he was within hearing, she said, “There have been two telephone calls for you. One appears to be urgent. Scotland Yard.”

He thanked her and took the message she was holding out to him.

Inside, he looked at the first. From Inspector Jessup in Waddington, it read, “Mrs. Susannah Teller wishes to know when her husband’s body can be released for burial.”

He called the police station and left a message for Jessup:
At your earliest convenience
.

Murder, accident, or suicide—it didn’t matter. The police had no reason to hold Peter Teller’s remains any longer.

Next he put in a call to the Yard. When Sergeant Gibson came to the telephone, Rutledge could hear the tension in his voice.

“Sir? There have been developments. In the inquiry concerning Billy.”

Bowles was growing restive.

“Go on.”

“Inspector Cummins took your place last night.”

“I thought you told me that the constables had tried again, with no luck.”

“That’s true, yes, sir. But Inspector Cummins decided he’d try his chances. Without notifying the Yard. He gave as good as he got, the Inspector did, but he’s in hospital, and they’re stitching him up.”

“And Billy?”

“Got away, sir. There was no one posted on either end of the bridge to stop him.”

Rutledge swore under his breath. “All right. What does the Chief Superintendent want?”

“You on the bridge tonight. He said to tell you that unless what you’re doing is a matter of life and death, you’re to be here. No later than nine this evening.”

“I’ll be there. I’m coming from Essex.”

“Yes, sir.”

Rutledge put up the receiver, then stood there for a moment thinking.

He asked himself how he would have viewed the death of Peter Teller and the death of Jenny Teller if he hadn’t known the background of events in Hobson. If he’d come here as Inspector Jessup had done with nothing to color his perspective but a man with a bad leg who’d had too much to drink and simply fallen down the stairs. Or a woman distressed by a death almost literally on her doorstep and very tired but unable to sleep, miscounting the drops from a bottle of medicine that she expected to give her some relief.

Hamish said, “But ye ken, it isna’ sae simple!”

Rutledge went to find Leticia.

“I’ll have to leave for London later in the afternoon.”

“There’s a cold luncheon in the dining room. I need to speak to you.”

He followed her there, and as she filled a plate and handed it to him, she asked, “What did you say to Walter?”

“What is it you think I said?” he asked.

She shook her head irritably. “He’s gone up to his room and locked himself in. The dressing room door, as well. They’ve come to collect Jenny’s body. Shall I tell them to wait?” She began putting food on her own plate with scarcely a glance at what she was choosing.

“Let them go ahead. What about Harry?”

“Mary has decided it would be too upsetting for him to see his mother’s body. She’s staying with him at the rectory.”

“If his father finds that acceptable, the police will have no objection.”

“It wouldn’t matter if you did.”

He smiled. “What do you really want me to say, Miss Teller? Very well. The inquiry is closed in Hobson, with the arrest of Florence Teller’s killer. It was someone who knew her. And while the evidence was unequivocally pointing to your brother—Captain Teller—he was not the cause of her death.”

He could hear the hiss of breath as she released it. “Then Peter was never guilty. Even though he died expecting to be arrested at any moment. Dear God. That breaks my heart.”

“He couldn’t see how events unfolded after he’d driven away. Until we tried to account for certain missing items, nor could we. But we might have reached our conclusions earlier if there hadn’t been so many lies to cover up who Florence Teller really was.”

“But I thought you knew,” she said forcefully. “She was Peter’s wife. The foolish mistake of a young man whose father refused to allow him to marry his cousin.”

“I’m sure Florence Teller would be happy to hear she was only a foolish mistake.”

Leticia had the grace to flush. “I wasn’t referring—”

“Yes, you were. She’s been a thorn in the side of this family since you first learned of her. Did you believe your brother Walter left the Belvedere Clinic to travel to Hobson? Is that why you sent Peter there to find out what he could?”

“Peter didn’t discuss his private affairs with us.”

“Come now. I was told that he’d gone to Cambridge with Edwin. And that was a lie; he was in Hobson. Susannah told me about Lieutenant Burrows, and that was a lie. She knew the truth and was trying to help conceal it. But Jenny knew nothing.” He considered her for a moment. “What did you do, go through his papers looking for some clue to why Walter was ill and not responding? At a guess you found something that set off alarm bells. And you haven’t put it back, have you? Because I saw the file this morning, and it held only a will.”