Charles Todd - Search the Dark

The next best choice was Thomas Napier’s daughter.

It was time to ask Elizabeth Napier a few blunt questions.

She was in the museum, a pinafore over a pretty summer dress in blues and greens, busily dusting the new shelves that had replaced the fallen ones.

Rutledge greeted her and asked her to come for a walk with him, out of the house and away from other ears. Somewhere he could hear the maid Edith beating a carpet and Aurore’s voice speaking to Simon.

Surprised, Elizabeth removed her pinafore and said, “I don’t see the need for such secrecy, I’ve nothing to hide. But if you insist-very well.”

They walked down toward the common and the pond. A dog slept peacefully by the water’s edge and ducks swam smoothly in small flotillas, conducting loud conversations as they went. Rooks called in the trees, and he could hear the blacksmith’s hammer. There was a bustle in Charlbury’s streets, the shops doing a brisk business, but here it was quiet enough except for Hamish, muttering in the back of his mind.

“You promised Bowles you’d no’ tread on toes!” he was reminding Rutledge with vigor. “Do you want to end your career on a political blunder?”

Someone had set a bench under a tree some ten feet from the pond, and Rutledge led Elizabeth to it. She inspected it, then sat down, leaving space for him to join her. A light wind lifted the curls at the sides of her face, giving her a vulnerable, almost childlike quality as she turned expectantly toward him.

“I want to ask you about Margaret Tarlton. I find it helps if I understand the background of the victim. Not just where she came from, but how she must have felt about those around her, how she lived her life, how she arrived at a time and place where someone believed she had to die. It often brings me closer to finding the murderer.”

“I thought the police in Singleton Magna were satisfied that Mowbray had killed her. Inspector Hildebrand is not a man who changes his mind lightly.”

“Mowbray is a strong possibility. We can’t overlook him. The problem is, so many pieces of this puzzle don’t fit together properly. And that tells me that I’ve yet to fill the empty spaces between them. It seemed to me that you’d rather not have the Wyatt household hear what I’m about to ask you.” He was choosing his words carefully, aware that she might leave when he finally got to the point.

“I’ve nothing to hide from Simon!”

“No, but your father might. I’ve heard-from a number of sources-that your father was more than fond of Margaret. He was very likely in love with her.”

She turned to face him, her eyes bright, her face shocked. “Who on earth has told you such lies?”

“Are they lies?” he asked gently, apparently watching the ducks.

“My father is very fond of Margaret. You’ve known that from the start! As for love, I don’t believe he’s paid more than polite attention to any woman since my mother’s death.”

“Sometimes a daughter is the last to know a father’s feelings.”

“No, you don’t quite see what I’m telling you. My mother was very important to him, and I’ve done what I could to fill her place. But superficially. I sit at the head of his table, I entertain his guests, I attend public functions with him, and I spend hours with very dull women who must be handled with the greatest care because either their husbands’ opinions or their money carries weight. My father is a man who keeps his emotions tightly locked inside. He hasn’t spoken my mother’s name since the day he buried her. I’m well aware that men have physical needs, but for all I know my father buried those with my mother too.”

“For all you know,” he repeated, no inflecton in his voice.

“Since her death I’ve never seen him show affection, even to me, in public. He doesn’t touch people if he can avoid it, he doesn’t care to be touched. Whatever natural human contacts there are, he accepts but doesn’t encourage. To Margaret he was kind, considerate, and protective, as he was of me. He told me once that she had no family to speak of, and he felt responsible for her as long as she resided under our roof. He saw to it when she was required to spend time on his affairs that she was properly escorted home afterward. I daresay any man of breeding would have done the same!”

She stopped. In the silence that followed he thought about what she had said. If she was lying, she was practiced at it. He considered mentioning the child and decided against it. It was a tenuous charge and, right or wrong, could hurt a goodly number of innocent people. But if Sergeant Gibson’s information was correct, Thomas Napier now had a son to put in his daughter’s place.

“Very well. You believe that your father has no more than a natural fondness for Margaret. Let’s turn the coin over. Was she fond of him?”

“Of course she was. He’s a man who engenders loyalty. And that’s not a daughter’s blind assessment, you can ask anyone who knows him well.”

“Miss Napier, Margaret lived with you for five or six years-”

“No! If Margaret was in love with my father, she successfully kept it from me. And very likely from him as well. She was ambitious, I grant you, but she also understood that scandal of any kind was political fodder. Margaret was very like my father, you know, not a woman who wore her heart on her sleeve. The pair of them would make very dull lovers!”

And yet Shaw had said he saw passion, hot and raw, in Napier’s eyes.

“Why had Miss Tarlton chosen to leave your employ? I’ve been given several reasons for her decision, but I’d very much like to hear the truth.”

Elizabeth shrugged. “She wanted a change. The museum reminded her of India, possibly. Or she was tired of London.”

“She carefully concealed her Indian background, Miss Napier. I don’t believe she would elect to come here to Charlbury and open that door again. Nor was Dorset likely to foster an ambitious young woman’s prospects. I think you persuaded her to come, to give yourself an excuse to call on Simon Wyatt from time to time. I’m sure that’s why you felt some sense of guilt when you were told Margaret was dead-”

“I wouldn’t-”

“But you would. You’ve come now yourself and you’re staying. A foot in the door. Still, your motives aren’t important. What matters is why Margaret agreed to your scheme. Was she happy for an excuse to break her ties with you, to leave London and to put some distance between herself and your father? Or, if she wanted to marry him, she must have realized that he wouldn’t ask her as long as she was a nobody, your secretary, vulnerable to cruelties from women who took pleasure in reminding her of her place. Even moving to another house hadn’t changed that. She was, as she put it herself, still a servant.” He smiled, to take some of the sting from his words. “She wouldn’t be the first woman to feel that leaving him might make up a man’s mind for him. He was already jealous, he knew that Captain Shaw was living here. He must have told her he was afraid she’d rekindle that old romance, that Shaw might persuade her that a ring on her finger was better than the shadowy life of a mistress-”

“Nonsense!” Elizabeth’s face was flushed with anger. “You’ve twisted the truth to fit your own muddled evidence! She was never my father’s mistress!”

Rutledge turned to her. “I don’t intend to embarrass you or your father, Miss Napier. I simply want the truth so that I can sort out the rest of this tangle and find Miss Tarlton’s killer. And I think I have found the truth, finally.”

Elizabeth got up, her skirts brushing against him as she turned to go. “I’d like very much to know who gave you this information. You said ‘a number’ of sources. Was that true? Or simply a euphemism?”