Racing the Devil: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery by Charles Todd

Author:Charles Todd
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780062386212
Publisher: William Morrow
Published: 2017-02-12T19:00:00+00:00

13

Rutledge passed through East Dedham on his way to call on Mrs. Grant, and saw Mr. Barnes in close conversation with Edgecombe, Wright’s solicitor. Standing in a shop doorway, out of their line of sight, Mrs. Saunders clutched her market basket in both hands, watching the two men.

If she knew the contents of the Rector’s will, she was probably wondering if the dead man’s gift to his church would influence the Bishop’s man to stay.

And that brought him around to the possibility that Wright would most likely have changed his will if he was seriously contemplating marrying Miss Wilding. And Rutledge rather thought he was, awkward as that might be, given the social ambitions of her parents. Perhaps that bequest would have given Elizabeth Wilding a sense of independence and free her from her father’s dictates. Wright would have wanted that too. But he hadn’t expected to die so soon.

He found Mrs. Grant holding court with a number of neighbors.

After greeting the women, Rutledge asked if he could speak to Mrs. Grant alone, and her guests reluctantly said good-bye, promising to return.

When the door had shut behind them, he asked, “How are you holding up?”

She wiped away tears and said, her voice husky, “I can’t stop thinking of him lying out there, not all that far away, and me, here, saying terrible things about him.”

“How much money is missing?”

“I had saved up thirty-five pounds.”

A goodly sum for a poor family.

“How did you earn it?”

She looked away. “Doing mending and washing and cleaning houses in East Dedham. I never told him. He was sometimes gone a few days at a time, depending on how far he had to travel to make enough for us to live on. I knew Tim; if I told him what I had, he’d say we could live on that for a bit, or it would tide us through the winter. But I wanted to keep it for a time when he couldn’t work any longer.”

Rag-and-bone men scraped a precarious living, but it was work suited to some who preferred the freedom it also offered. Still, it had its hardships. Searching through rubbish and knocking on doors, asking if there was anything to collect, these men were out in all weathers, bags over their shoulders, stick in hand, walking miles in a day. Sometimes being paid a pittance for what they brought in to the merchants who used the scavenged goods in their own professions.

“Why do you think he took this money?”

“I was sure he had. Tim was gullible in some ways. Easily talked into any scheme that promised to make him rich. But where did it go? Who took it? That’s what I want to know.”

He couldn’t be certain whether she was telling him the truth—or was incensed that Tim had taken her own hard-earned pounds and now she must wait for the authorities to find them and return them to her.

If Grant had had them on him when he was killed, surely Wright wouldn’t have pocketed them.

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