Hearing her husband shut the front door, Mathilda Tipple had time to plate a helping of her thick fish stew and place it on the table for him before Horace joined her in the kitchen.
“Love,” he said. He squeezed her hand in one of his in gentle greeting and then seated himself at the table with a sigh. Without further ado Horace began to eat.
Mathilda puttered about the kitchen to give him a few moments of peace, but joined him at the table as he was sopping up the last of the stew with a bit of sourdough bread.
She poured her husband a spot of tea while he finished, pondering his silence.
Her Horace would never be described as garrulous in any circumstance. His temper was generally amiable, reserved, and thoughtfully (if quietly) attentive. He’d schooled his expression to remain mild even when angered by the unavoidable vulgarities of his work. The ‘calm policeman’ mask hid a quick wit and sharp intellect so well that many mistook him for a dullard (to their ultimate upset). Beneath it all was a kindness 22 years of bleak police work had never driven to cynicism, and she’d always found his rare smiles and rarer laughs precious.
Tonight, however, his dusty blue eyes were leagues distant in thought, and his short, curly grey hair was fuzzed about the ears, as though he’d plowed his fingers through it absently. Which was something he only did when he found a problem particularly vexing. And he was frowning ever so slightly; Mathilda could think of only one thing that might work this change on him.
“The trial’s taken a turn, has it?” she asked.
“Why might you say that?”
She knew she’d hit the nail on the head as Horace turned his pensive eyes on her, and she could almost see the thoughts flitting through his head as he tried to work out her reasoning. After all, it was far too soon for the newspapers to report anything amiss, and the police weren’t in the habit of blurting things to the public, et cetera.
“At times I think I’m as good a detective as you are,” Mathilda returned with a smile. “For weeks you’ve thought of nothing, spoken of nothing save your case and how the world will at last be free of the Harkers. You’re brooding, so I can only think something’s happened to sully or muddle the proceedings somehow.”
“Hm.”
Horace had once told her he wasn’t sure how many policemen actually confided in their wives regarding their work; even if he were the only one who ever did so, she would always hold his confidence. Truth be told, Mathilda felt she’d often urged him along particular courses of action to good ends simply because her commonsense and intelligence weren’t so mired in a policeman’s world.
He now told her that his murder suspect had disappeared, and that the Harker lawyers – speaking on the family’s behalf – had tried to muck up the case in retaliation.
“I hope this will be only a temporary setback,” he concluded, “though we made little enough headway in our footwork this afternoon.”
“Well, seems to me as though the lawyers are grasping at straws,” Mathilda replied. “You oughtn’t worry on that front.”
“How so?”
“I wouldn’t attack my opponent’s professional character unless every other means were lost to me. I think they must be desperate.”
Horace considered this and nodded.
“Be that as it may, love, I still need my murderer back in the dock.”
“You’ll find him, Rory,” she said with a smile and a pat on his hand. “Of that I have no doubt.”