The Red Door (3 page)

Lonsdale had said nothing about light duties. This was Rutledge’s punishment for not taking his assailant into custody. And having him do Mickelson’s paperwork was intended to drive the point home.

J
enny Teller woke from a deep sleep, disoriented. Sitting up in bed, she stared at the room. This wasn’t the clinic—what was she doing
here
? And what was that strident sound in the distance?

A telephone.

This was Edwin’s house, she realized, brushing back a tendril of hair that had come loose as she slept. And this was the bedchamber she and Walter always used when they were in London.

The telephone was still ringing. Should she answer it?

Rubbing her face with her hands, she tried to collect her wits. She’d had no idea how tired she was. Everyone had been kind at the clinic, but she hadn’t been able to shut her eyes, her worry driving her, and only an occasional nap snatched when Walter was with the doctors or asleep himself had kept her going. Why was there no change in his condition? Why was he refusing to talk, to look at her, to eat? Why couldn’t the doctors
do
something?

She remembered now: Amy and Edwin had begged her to come away for a few hours of rest. Walter was sleeping, it would do her good. And they would bring her back in time to have dinner with him.

Oh God, had they let her oversleep?
But no, sunlight was still pouring through the curtains, making bright squares on the mauve carpet. It couldn’t be more than five o’clock—perhaps half past.

The telephone had stopped ringing.

She lay back against the pillows, one part of her begging to sleep a little longer, the other lashing her with guilt for leaving the clinic even for such a short time.

There was a tap at her door, and she called, “Come in, Amy. I’m awake.”

But it was Rose, the housekeeper. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Teller, but there’s someone on the telephone asking for you.”

“Who is it?” She swung her feet out of the bed and stuffed them into her shoes. “My sister?”

“It’s the clinic, Mrs. Teller. I told them you were resting, but they said it was urgent.”

She rushed past Rose, nearly tripping over her untied laces as she raced down the stairs. At the door to the telephone closet, she paused, trying to catch her breath, then she snatched up the receiver and leaned toward the mouthpiece. “Mrs. Teller here.”

She listened, her mouth so dry she couldn’t speak.

“I’ll be there. I’m on my way.”

Putting up the receiver, she called, “Edwin? Where are you?”

He opened the study door, and she hurried down the passage to meet him. And then to her surprise she saw over his shoulder that the family was gathered there. Amy, of course; Peter and his wife; Leticia, Walter’s sister. Their faces, turned toward her, were strained, as if they already knew.

But of course they couldn’t. She’d only just been informed herself.

“It’s Walter,” she told them baldly, and then, unable to say the words, afraid that to do so would make them real, she added, “Oh, please hurry, we must go—!”

There was a deafening silence, and then everyone was moving at once, and someone, Amy, she thought distractedly, was kneeling to tie her shoelaces for her.

She stood there, waiting for the motorcars to be brought around, counting the minutes, refusing to answer their questions. Her mind was filled with only one thought: what she must say to Harry, how she was going to explain.

R
utledge was walking out of his office at the end of the day when he encountered Bowles bearing down on him.

The Chief Superintendent waved Rutledge back into his office and sourly regarded the stack of folders beside his blotter.

“Something has come up,” he said, taking the chair and forcing Rutledge to sit again behind his desk.

“Walter Teller has gone missing,” he went on, as if the name should mean something to Rutledge. “Teller? Author of that book in 1914 on the reality of the missionary’s life in the field?”

But Rutledge had been on the point of joining his regiment in France when the book had come out to critical acclaim. There had been no time to read it. In fact, if asked, he would have been hard-pressed to supply the name of the author.

“Gone missing? In West Africa, was it?” he asked, dredging up a memory.

“No, thank the Lord God. Here in London. He was being treated in the Belvedere Clinic. Some sort of nervous condition, as far as I can judge from what Sergeant Biggin was saying. They’ve searched the place from top to bottom, and there’s no sign of him. They even searched among the cadavers. Ghoulish thing to have to do, but thorough.”

“Sergeant Biggin is a good man.”

“Yes, yes. But this is a matter for the Yard. Important man, shows we’re on top of it, results quickly, and all that. If you take my meaning.”

Rutledge did. He would not fail to bring in his man, this time.

“One other thing. See that you show the family every courtesy. They’ll be worried. Keep them informed.”

“Who made the initial report? The family or the clinic? And when?”

“The clinic. An hour ago. They sent someone around to the nearest station. When he saw the lay of the land, Sergeant Biggin contacted the Yard. And rightly so.”

Bowles stood up, pacing the narrow room. “The facts are these. The clinic contacted the London police, Sergeant Biggin went to have a look, and then he contacted us. It seems Teller had come into the city from his home in Essex to speak to his bankers—there’s a son off to Harrow, shortly—and took ill on the way home. His doctor—man by the name of Fielding—sent him directly to the Belvedere, hoping the medical men there could sort him out.”

Rutledge nodded. “They have a good reputation.”

“That was last week. And according to Biggin, Teller was not showing any improvement at all. In fact his paralysis was progressing. And then as quickly as it came on, it apparently disappeared, because in the middle of the afternoon, today, Teller dressed himself and walked out of the clinic on his own. The clinic’s porter never saw him leave. So they searched the place, then called the police and summoned Mrs. Teller. She’d been resting at the home of her brother-in-law in Marlborough Street, and the family came to the clinic at once.”

It was a measure of Bowles’s personal interest in the matter that he had briefed Rutledge so thoroughly.

“That’s all I can give you.” Bowles turned to leave. “My compliments to Mrs. Teller, and we’ll do everything in our power to bring this matter to a happy conclusion.” With a nod, he was out the door.

Rutledge sat where he was for a moment. Missing persons were seldom brought to the attention of the Yard, unless the search ended in a suspicious death. Or the person in question was important or well known. Many of the cases were closed by the recovery of the pitiful body downriver, others with a trial for kidnapping or murder. He had a feeling that none of these applied to Teller’s disappearance.

But something had caused the man to leave his sickbed. And it was the sort of puzzle that appealed to him.

“Ye ken,” Hamish was pointing out, “that yon puffed-up Chief Superintendent is looking for a scapegoat.”

Suddenly Bowles was there again, poking his head around Rutledge’s door.

“Good. You’re still here,” Bowles said. “Another thought to carry with you. Teller was in the field for quite a few years. For all we know, he may be walking around London suffering from a new plague. That would set the cat amongst the pigeons. It may be the reason why Teller’s doctors are closemouthed about his condition.”

The terrible epidemic of Spanish flu, as it was called at the time, that killed more people around the world in 1918 than the war had done, was still fresh in the public mind.

“I thought you said that he’d recovered—”

“Don’t confuse issues, Rutledge. There’s no telling how long these things might fester. Talk to his doctors and discover if you can what the risks are.”

“When was he last in the field?” Rutledge asked.

“What difference does that make?” Bowles demanded irritably. He pulled out his watch. “You should have been on your way a quarter of an hour ago.”

“And Inspector Mickelson’s reports?” Rutledge asked blandly, unable to stop himself. He gestured to the half dozen folders still on his desk.

“Damn it, man, hand them over to Gibson. Someone else will see to them. This is urgent business.”

Leaving the Yard, Rutledge drove to the Belvedere Clinic. It was housed in what had been the offices of a large Canadian firm that had returned to Ottawa with the end of the war, ironically enough because it had suffered severely in the Spanish flu and the depressed state of business after the Armistice. The clinic, looking for new quarters, had taken it over because they were expanding. It was not far from the British Museum, and traffic on the busy thoroughfare it faced was heavy at this hour.

When Rutledge went up the steps to the ornate entrance the clinic had kept during renovations, a porter in a dark blue uniform nodded to him and opened the door for him. Inside was a high-ceilinged foyer, and his footsteps echoed on the patterned marble floor as he crossed it. The orderly seated at the reception desk greeted him and asked how he might help.

Rutledge had intended to ask for Mrs. Teller, but at the last moment he changed his mind. “Matron, please. Inspector Rutledge, Scotland Yard.”

“Indeed, sir.” The orderly pressed one of six buttons on a pad to one side of his desk. “A sister will be here shortly to take you to Matron’s office.”

“Were you on duty this afternoon when Mr. Teller left the clinic?”

“Yes, sir, I was.” He cleared his throat, his fingers fidgeting with the panel of buttons. “Our visitors leave at four o’clock, you see. It’s quite busy for several minutes. Mr. Teller must have been amongst them, but how was I to know? I had no reason to notice him in particular.”

“You don’t recall anyone who could fit his description?”

“No, sir. They’re mostly relatives, discussing their visit. It’s the usual pattern, I see it every day.”

“And today?”

The porter squinted at the ceiling. “There was a man and a woman. Three sisters—they visit nearly every afternoon, it’s their father who is ill. Another man with grown daughters. A priest. A woman alone. An elderly woman in a chair, with her son. A larger family, five or six of them.” He returned his gaze to Rutledge. “I’m sorry, sir, it’s the best I can do. We’re more careful about who comes in, not who goes out. If they’re very ill, I’m to summon Matron directly.”

If Teller had come out this door, he had been clever enough to pretend to be with others. A comment before opening the door, and a response that appeared to be a part of normal conversation.

How was your visit today?

Thank you for asking. Mama is a little better, I think. And you?

Not much change, I’m afraid, but the doctors are more optimistic now—they feel my brother will recover—

Face turned slightly away, listening to what was being said.

It could have happened that way.

If indeed Teller had left of his own volition and knew what he was doing.

“Which means,” Rutledge pointed out, “that Mr. Teller must have been able to dress himself properly, or you’d have noticed.”

“That’s right, sir.”

A young probationer opened the inner door and came forward to greet Rutledge.

He said to the orderly, “This is the only public exit?”

“Indeed, sir.”

The young woman said to Rutledge, “Matron will see you now. Are you the man from Scotland Yard? She was told to expect you.”

Rutledge thanked the orderly for his help and accompanied the probationer into a busy passage where nurses were coming and going with a minimum of conversation.

“Is this area always busy?”

“Yes, sir. The doctors have their offices here. The wards are through the door at the far end, and upstairs.” She stopped at a door to her left and tapped lightly before entering.

Matron was coming around her desk to hold out a cool hand to Rutledge as he identified himself. She shook his with firmness and gestured to a chair.

She was a tall woman with erect bearing, her hair already showing more gray than blond, her eyes a blue that brooked no nonsense. Her voice when she spoke was cool as well. “Good afternoon, Inspector. Thank you for coming so promptly.”

“She doesna’ care for the police,” Hamish said.

And she corroborated that almost at once. “It is distressing that your presence here is necessary at all. But Mrs. Teller has been quite worried, and although the local police are doing all they can, it will reassure her that the resources of Scotland Yard are now involved in finding her husband.”

The sister who had brought him had quietly shut the door behind him.

He found himself thinking that Matron had had a very difficult few hours, first searching the clinic and dealing with the police, and then answering the questions of Teller’s agitated family.

“Do you have any reason to think Mr. Teller was intending to do himself harm?” he asked her. “He’s been very ill, I’m told.”

“We haven’t been able to diagnose his illness,” she said. “But there’s reason to believe he was disturbed about something and his distress took a physical form. The fact that he recovered so quickly leads us to hope that his mental state was also restored to normal.”

She hadn’t answered his question. “Is he likely to kill himself?”

She looked at him directly. “We can’t answer that.”

The door behind him opened again, and the same probationer ushered in a tall, slim woman with fair hair who was wearing a dark blue walking dress. Her eyes were red with crying, her face pale.

Rutledge guessed at once who she was. Rising, he went to her and took her hand, identifying himself.

“Mrs. Teller? I’m so sorry to learn of your husband’s disappearance. The Yard will do everything in its power to return him to you as soon as possible.”

“Thank you,” Jenny Teller replied, her voice still thick with tears. He led her to the second chair, which was already placed to one side of Matron’s desk. In doing so, he glimpsed Matron’s face. She was not happy that he had so quickly taken the interview away from her.

Jenny Teller took a breath. “Has there been any news?” she asked, hope in her voice.

“That’s why I’m here, to collect more information to aid in our search.”

“But I’ve told the sergeant—”

“Sergeant Biggin has noted it in his report. But sometimes as we ask our questions, we are able to elicit new details that could be useful. Would you mind telling me a little more about your husband’s illness?”

She began haltingly to describe her husband’s journey to London and how it had ended, with their family doctor sending him to the Belvedere Clinic for further examination. “I didn’t want to go to London with him. We’d had words the night before—about Harry going to school so soon—and now I blame myself for not being there when he became ill. We might have found help for him sooner—and perhaps he would have recovered sooner—and none of this would have happened.” She found a handkerchief in her pocket and pressed it to her eyes, then took a deep breath, giving Rutledge a watery smile. “This has been the worst five days of my life—”

“And there was nothing wrong with your son? Then or later?”

“No, he was and is perfectly fine. I can’t imagine what the Montleighs thought of me, but I’d caught some of Walter’s fear, and I’m afraid I sounded rather—
hovering
.”

“Did you have any idea what was wrong with your husband?”

“My first thought was that his malaria was returning. But after I’d told him that Harry was all right, Walter tried to step out of the motorcar, and he
couldn’t
. It took three of us—my housekeeper was the third person—to get him into the house, where Dr. Fielding could examine him properly.”

“What was his opinion?”

“Walter’s heart was racing, and Dr. Fielding asked me if he’d had a shock or bad news—that sort of thing—but of course I didn’t know, and Walter couldn’t remember anything happening to him. And the motorcar was all right, there hadn’t been a crash.”

Rutledge turned to Matron. “And the doctors here examined him as soon as he was brought in?”

“Yes. Mr. Teller had a history of malaria, and he’d lived abroad. We had several specialists in to see him, and one was concerned about parasites. But Mr. Teller hadn’t returned to the field since before the war, and therefore parasites weren’t likely. Dr. Sheldon, an expert in tropical medicine, came to examine him, and he could find no evidence of disease.”

She glanced at Jenny Teller and then went on. “We asked another specialist to speak with Mr. Teller, to see if his problems were more likely to be the result of some illness of the mind. But Mr. Teller was quite rational in his answers. And then that night—the second day of his having come to the Belvedere—he refused his dinner, turned his face to the wall, and was unresponsive to the staff or to Mrs. Teller. And he was that way for the remainder of the week. We could see that his paralysis was growing steadily worse, and we had to do everything for him—from lifting a glass of water to his lips to helping him turn in bed.”

Hamish said, “Ye ken, there was something on his mind.”

Rutledge nearly answered him aloud. Instead, he said to Jenny Teller, “Do you know of anything that was troubling your husband?”

“No. I’d have told the doctors straightaway.” She sniffed. “I was the one in distress, over Harry going to school. Walter was insistent that we carry out his father’s wishes. And his father has been dead for six years!”