The Red Door

Rutledge had even driven to Essex, to the house of Dr. Fielding, arriving there just as Fielding was preparing for his first patient of the afternoon.

The man reluctantly put aside the pipe he’d been smoking and addressed himself to Rutledge’s questions about Walter Teller.

“I can give you a brief sketch of his background. Missionary for many years, and then he married Jenny Brittingham. Rather than returning to the field, he chose to write a book about his experiences.”

“And this was . . . ?”

“Just a year or so before the war—1911? 1912?”

Rutledge thought how the war had defined time—before the war—after the war. As if that great cataclysmic event that had interrupted and ended so many lives was still with them like a personal watershed.

“And of course there is Harry, the son. Quite a nice child, and not at all spoiled, as you’d expect with doting aunts and uncles surrounding him. Jenny—Mrs. Teller has seen to that. She’s a very good mother.”

“Did Teller serve in the war?”

“As a matter of fact he did. Chaplain. But he was struck down with malaria in that rainy spring before the Somme and was sent home to recover. It was decided not to send him back to France, and so he worked among the wounded here.”

“Was there anything in his war years that might have affected what happened to him last week?”

Fielding raised his eyebrows. “Not to my knowledge. In fact, I remember Teller commenting that he’d seen death in so many guises that he’d lost his fear of it long before going to France. There was something about a famine in West Africa—people dying by the droves. And of course in China death was as common as flies, he said. No, you’re barking up the wrong tree there.”

“Then what caused his illness?”

“That I can’t tell you. Which is why I sent Teller to the Belvedere Clinic. And the last progress report I received was rather grim. He was showing no improvement, and in fact was beginning to feel paralysis in his arms and hands as well as in his legs.”

“Do you think this paralysis was genuine?”

Fielding said, “Are you asking me if his illness was feigned? No, of course not! I’d take my oath on that.”

“Then how would you account for the fact that three days ago, Walter Teller got out of his sickbed while his wife was resting, dressed himself, and walked out of the clinic?”

“He did what? You’re saying there was a full recovery? And what did his doctors make of that?” Leaning forward, Fielding stared hard at Rutledge.

“They had no better understanding of events than you do. But Teller is missing, and there’s been no word from him since he walked away.”

“My God. He’s still missing? How is Jenny? She must be distraught.”

“She’s taken it very hard, as you’d expect. Now, I repeat my earlier question—can you shed any light on his illness? Or his miraculous recovery?”

“If that’s what it was. I can’t imagine—look, Inspector, the man was ill. I saw that for myself. It was all I could do, with Mrs. Teller’s assistance and that of their maid, Mollie, to get him into their house, so I could examine him properly. He was a dead weight. And that’s not easy to fake. I’d look on the road between his banker’s and Essex for my answers. As for his recovery, someone else must have been there when he dressed and left the clinic. I can’t see how it was managed any other way.”

“Why should anyone help him leave the clinic, and not inform Mrs. Teller that he was safe and well elsewhere?”

Fielding said, “You aren’t—do you think there was foul play? No, that’s not possible.” He shook his head. “Walter had no enemies. Except perhaps himself. Because if this illness is in his mind, the reasons must go deep into something none of us is aware of.”

From Fielding’s surgery, Rutledge drove on to Witch Hazel Farm, and knocked at the door.

The housekeeper, Mollie, answered the summons, and as Rutledge introduced himself, she said quickly, “Don’t tell me something has happened to Mr. Teller!”

“Why should you think something has happened to him?” Rutledge asked, misunderstanding the direction of her question.

“Because you’re a policeman. And he wasn’t himself at all that day when he came home from London so ill.”

“His doctors are still uncertain about the cause of his illness. Tell me, was he in pain, when you were helping Mrs. Teller work with him?”

“Pain?” she repeated. “No, I’d not call it that. He was more fearful. I heard him ask Mrs. Teller twice if she thought it was his heart.”

“Were there any visitors to the house before he went to London? Any letters or telegrams?”