A Place of Hiding

This admission on his part seemed to satisfy Ruth Brouard in some way, as perhaps did the gentleness with which he replaced the picture on the table. For she looked to the model in the centre of the room and she spoke quietly and without any rancour.

“I can tell you only what I saw that morning, Mr. St. James. I can tell you only what I did. I went to my bedroom window and watched Guy leave the house. When he reached the trees and passed onto the drive, she followed him. I saw her.”

“You’re certain it was China River?”

“I wasn’t at first,” she replied. “Come. I’ll show you.”

She took him back along a shadowy passage that was hung with early prints of the manor house. Not far from the stairway, she opened a door and led St. James into what was obviously her bedroom: simply furnished but furnished well with heavy antiques and an enormous needlepoint tapestry. A series of scenes comprised it, all of them combining to tell a single story in the fashion of tapestries predating books. This particular story was one of flight: an escape in the night as a foreign army approached, a hurried journey to the coast, a crossing made on heavy seas, a landing among strangers. Only two of the characters depicted were the same in every scene: a young girl and boy.

Ruth Brouard stepped into the shallow embrasure of a window and drew back sheer panels that hung over the glass. “Come,” she said to St. James. “Look.”

St. James joined her and saw that the window overlooked the front of the house. Below them, the drive circled round a plot of land planted with grass and shrubbery. Beyond this, the lawn rolled across to a distant cottage. A thick stand of trees grew round this building and extended up along the drive and back again to the main house.

Her brother had come out of the front door as was his habit, Ruth Brouard told St. James. As she watched, he crossed the lawn towards the cottage and disappeared into the trees. China River came out of those trees and followed him. She was in full sight. She was dressed in black. She was wearing her cloak with its hood drawn up, but Ruth knew it was China.

Why? St. James wanted to know. It seemed clear that anyone could have put his hands on China’s cloak. Its very nature made it suitable for either a man or a woman to wear. And didn’t the hood suggest to Miss Brouard—

“I didn’t depend on that alone, Mr. St. James,” Ruth Brouard told him. “I thought it odd that she would follow Guy at that hour of the morning because there seemed to be no reason for it. I found it unsettling. I thought I might be mistaken about what I’d seen, so I went to her room. She wasn’t there.”

“Perhaps elsewhere in the house?”

“I checked. The bathroom. The kitchen. Guy’s study. The drawing room. The upstairs gallery. She wasn’t anywhere inside, Mr. St. James, because she was following my brother.”

“Did you have your glasses on when you saw her outside in the trees?”

“That’s why I checked the house,” Ruth said. “Because I didn’t have them on when I first looked out of the window. It seemed to be her—I’ve learned to become good with sizes and shapes—but I wanted to be sure.”

“Why? Did you suspect something of her? Or of someone else?”

Ruth put the sheer curtains back in place. She smoothed her hand over the thin material. She said as she did this, “Someone else? No. No. Of course not,” but the fact that she spoke as she saw to the curtains prompted St. James to go on.

He said, “Who else was in the house at the time, Miss Brouard?”

“Her brother. Myself. And Adrian, Guy’s son.”

“What was his relationship with his father?”

“Good. Fine. They didn’t see each other often. His mother long ago put that into effect. But when they did see each other, they were terribly fond. Naturally, they had their differences. What father and son don’t? But they weren’t serious, the differences. They were nothing that couldn’t be repaired.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Of course I’m sure. Adrian is...He’s a good boy but he’s had a difficult life. His parents’ divorce was bitter and he was caught in the middle. He loved both of them but he was made to choose. That sort of thing causes misunderstanding. It causes estrangement. And it isn’t fair.” She seemed to hear an undercurrent in her own voice and she took a deep breath as if to control it. “They loved each other in the way fathers and sons love each other when neither of them can ever get a grasp on what the other one is like.”

“Where do you suppose that kind of love can lead?”

“Not to murder. I assure you of that.”

“You love your nephew,” St. James observed.

“Blood relatives mean more to me than they do to most people,” she said, “for obvious reasons.”

St. James nodded. He saw the truth in this. He also saw a further reality, but he didn’t need to explore it with her at that moment. He said, “I’d like to see the route your brother took to the bay where he swam that morning, Miss Brouard.”

She said, “You’ll find it just east of the caretaker’s cottage. I’ll phone the Duffys and tell them I’ve given you permission to be there.”