A Lonely Death by Charles Todd Page A

last.”
    Together they went up the walk. A curtain twitched in the room to the left of the door.
    Even as they reached for the knocker, a woman was opening the door to them, her face anxious, her fair brows drawn together in a frown of uncertainty.
    “Constable Walker,” she said, her glance flicking to Rutledge’s face.
    She was very unlike her brother, Rutledge noted. Smaller boned, fair hair where his was the color of wheat, her face softer and her eyes a pretty brown. Behind her, just visible in the shadows over her shoulder, was a man in a wheeled chair, his face pinched and sour.
    “Mrs. Winslow, this is Inspector Rutledge from London—”
    Her face crumpled. “It’s Theo, isn’t it? Oh, my God, I knew it—I knew it when he didn’t stop by last evening—”
    “I’m afraid so, Mrs. Winslow. He was found early this morning in Hastings.”
    She put her hands to her face and began to cry.
    Behind her, her husband put out his hand, as if to offer comfort, and then dropped it.
    Rutledge gently led her from the door and into a small sitting room, where he’d seen the curtain twitch earlier, settling her on the stiff horsehair sofa. The man in the invalid chair followed them into the room, saying, “What happened to him then? Tell me what happened?”
    Rutledge turned slightly toward him and said, “In due course. Constable, perhaps Mr. Winslow will show you where you could make some tea. I think his wife will be grateful for it.”
    At first he thought Walker would refuse, but then the constable realized that getting the husband out of the room was important at this stage. He turned to Winslow and said, “Where’s the kitchen, then?” as if in such a small house it would be hard to find.
    Winslow cast a glance at his wife, then looked at Rutledge and saw that the suggestion was, in fact, a command that brooked no argument. He spun his invalid chair and with poor grace led the constable away.
    Rutledge found a clean, dry handkerchief in an inner pocket and gave it to the weeping woman. She took it gratefully. He said, his voice pitched not to carry beyond this room, “Was your brother in the war?” It was an attempt to distract her from her immediate grief.
    She nodded.
    “With the rest of the Eastfield volunteers?”
    A muffled yes came from behind the handkerchief. And then she raised her eyes to meet his gaze, a slow and awful truth dawning. “He—was he—like the others?”
    “I’m sorry. Yes.”
    “I thought—I thought perhaps there had been an accident on the road. He wasn’t feeling well, but he went to Hastings anyway yesterday, taking the van. The shipment of varnish from London hadn’t come. Mr. Kenton asked him to see if he could find a few tins to tide them over. He shouldn’t have been driving at all, but he wouldn’t tell Mr. Kenton that. I thought—I thought he might have taken his own life. Trying not to shame us.”
    Her voice failed, and Rutledge found himself thinking of Rosemary Hume. Murder was sometimes not the worst news to reach a household.
    “Why did you fear he might do himself a harm?” he asked, after giving her a moment to collect herself. In another room he could hear the rattle of cups and low voices as the two banished men talked quietly.
    “His stomach. It hasn’t been the same. He was always one to like his food, but now he had to watch what he ate. No cheese or rich sauces, not even an occasional curry. Nothing with spices. And he did like his mulled cider of an evening when it was cold. He had to give it all up. Only the plainest of boiled meats and potatoes and vegetables. His favorite dish was parsnips roasted in goose drippings, but he couldn’t have it. Everything was tasteless, he said, and still his stomach would reject everything sometimes, and he’d be violently ill, you could hear him all over the house. Virgil said it kept him half nauseated as well, but I felt for Theo, and lay there in bed listening to him, and praying he wouldn’t begin