Page 71 of The Case of the Curate

“Dear God, did she?”

“I don’t know, but we must admit the possibility. Who else was up last night when I came to you? Do you know?”

“I didn’t see anyone else. The servants were all abed, apart from Kemp. There was not even a light showing under my wife’s door by the time I retired. I truly think our culprit must be an outsider, you know. Like that drunken fellow who claims he was at Waterloo.”

“Tell me about the squire and his son,” Lady Ambrose suggested.

*

Having been welcomed back almost like the prodigal son—by Mr. Bancroft, at least—Rupert sat down in his own comfortable bedchamber to write his sermon for Sunday. There were many things he wanted to say, but the right wording would not come to him. His mind was too distracted by his own experiences, by Kate’s, by the whole mystery of Dinah’s murder.

He was idly tickling his chin with his quill feather, contemplating the abandonment of his sermon in favor of Chadbon Court, when Mrs. Dale the housekeeper knocked on his door.

“There’s a fellow at the kitchen door who claims you want to see him.”

The way she pronounced fellow gave him all the clue he needed. “Scruffy old soldier with one arm?”

Mrs. Dale sniffed. “Don’t know about the soldier part, but he’s certainly scruffy. Don’t smell too good, neither.”

Rupert, who had already enjoyed his first thorough wash in three days, wasn’t surprised. He stood up. “I’ll come down in two minutes, Mrs. Dale. He won’t steal the silver, so don’t worry.”

With regret, Rupert changed out of his second-best suit of clothes—the first, which had adorned him during his imprisonment, was already in Mrs. Dale’s capable hands—and rummaged in his cupboard. He pulled out the frivolous, no-longer-new yellow pantaloons which had once pleased him enormously, and couldn’t help grinning as he donned them and fastened the buttons. Hardly suitable to his current position, but damn it all, they were cheerful.

He left with a bundle of clothes over his arm and made his way down to the kitchen, where he found Salter sitting by the fire, grubby hat in hand, drinking tea and being harangued by Mrs. Dale.

“Thank you, Mrs. Dale,” Rupert said. “Drink up, Salter. We’re going to the stable.”

The stable contained only one small but game old horse called Matthew, who pulled the vicar’s even more ancient gig. Bancroft had looked after the animal himself until his illness, since when Mrs. Dale had remembered to feed it, but she had otherwise no knowledge and no time to care for it. Rupert had taken over the duty unasked when he first arrived, and the beast issued a pathetically grateful whinny to see him now.

“First things first,” he said to Salter. “There’s a tap behind the stable. Use it and put these things on. I’ll ask Mrs. Dale what can be done with your own clothes.”

“I got my own kit,” Salter said, sounding aggrieved. “It’s in a safe place.”

Presumably the last barn or disused shepherd’s hut he’d slept in before his arrest. “Not up to standard, though, it is?”

“Not like your rig,” Salter said, eyeing the yellow pantaloons.

“Be grateful I’m the one wearing it,” Rupert retorted.

“Oh, I am.” Salter took the towel, the soap, and the bundle of clothes, and went in search of the tap while Rupert made a fuss of the old horse, whom he led outside for a mild grooming. “So what am I doing here?” Salter asked from behind the stable, to the sound of splashing water.

“Well, I’ll need to get the vicar’s permission, but you could bed down in here in return for mucking out the straw and looking after Matthew here. Mrs. Dale will see you’re fed. Beyond that, I can’t promise much.”

“I wouldn’t be doing much.”

“As to that, I need you for scouting duties. Um, do you still have a rifle amongst that precious kit of yours?”

“Course I do,” said the rifleman. “Here, this coat’s better than the one you’re wearing! You want me to be mistaken for a nob? Swap you coats and it’s a deal.”

*

Just after midday, the sun came out, and in the flurry of everyone fetching coats and hats to spill outside into the gardens at the front and rear, Kate managed to slip out of the side door to revisit the scene of the shooting. But someone was ahead of her.

She stopped abruptly, a strange flutter of fear and confusion in her stomach.

A man crouched on the gravel path, gazing up at the house. He wore a clean shirt and coat and rather natty yellow pantaloons, his hat pushed rakishly to the back of his head—presumably so that it did not impede his view.

“Rupert!” She hurried toward him. “What on earth are you doing?”