“He was murdered yesterday and we were hoping you could answer a few questions.” Theo watched the attitude of Mrs. Henderson go from eager to solemn in an instant and continued, “You obviously have not heard. He was murdered outside his home yesterday. We are contacting all the nurses who used to work with him. You did work for him?”

“Yes.”

“Were you aware that he has included you in his Last Will and Testament?”

It took a few moments for Mrs. Henderson to reply, she sat there silent and stunned, when finally she spoke it came out in almost a whisper, like she was speaking to herself, “I always thought he would die of old age or boredom, but murdered? Are you sure? How?”

“He was stabbed outside his home,” said Theo.

“Who would stab him? He only had one leg.”

“Yes, there are a lot of questions. Were you aware you were left some money as part of his Will?”

“I think I knew. Yes, yes, I was aware, but it is not much is it? A few hundred pounds, that is not much to get all excited about, is it?”

“It may actually be close to a thousand pounds when everything is settled,” remarked Theo.

Mrs. Henderson just stared at Theo, letting his words sink in.

“Still, a thousand or so, really not worth anything is it. What can one buy with that? Can’t even buy a settee with that nowadays.”

“You are trying to sell books or something, not quite sure. It seems to me that you may be in need of funds at the moment,” said Theo, aware that his remark may be somewhat offensive.

“Anyway,” Dorland stepped in, “have you seen Mr. Tipring lately?”

“No. Not for many years.”

“Where were you yesterday morning around seven?”

“Whatever you are trying to imply you can take back this moment or I will make sure your superiors know about this sort of . . . questioning. You can’t come in here and accuse me of something. You don’t even know me.”

With that, she stormed off into her house, leaving the two detectives sitting in the yard.

“What was that about?” Dorland asked. “Seems a bit touchy if you ask me. Guilty conscience perhaps?”

“Let’s not assume that.” Theo led his partner around the side of the house and they made their way toward their car. “For a moment, she looked genuinely surprised and grieved. Everyone handles grief differently. Perhaps it’s a sensitivity toward money than anything else. Many who have quickly inherited power and money haven’t had enough time for their humility to catch up. She probably doesn’t think she deserves the money she has so she has to work harder at convincing us she does.”

“You think she married Mr. Henderson, for his money?” Dorland asked.

“No, I would like to think that she married him because she loved him but money is a hard thing to handle properly. I know of Mr. Henderson, he’s a scientist who has made a great deal of money on pharmaceuticals.”

“I wonder how the two of them met?”

“Mrs. Henderson was a nurse; she could have worked in a clinic or known the man for a long time. Who really knows? We will have to confirm what she says but I suspect that our Mrs. Henderson had nothing to do with the death.”

Chapter Nineteen

Exactly at eight, Sophia arrived at the Connell Road address. She could see Theo’s Jeep sitting in front of the house. As she approached, Theo opened the door to his vehicle and stepped out. He looked exactly the same. She didn’t know why she thought he would look different, older maybe. She felt she had aged many years in the last few months. In fact, she had started to notice gray hairs growing in. All of a sudden she began to feel conspicuous.

“Thank you for coming,” he said, putting out his hand.

She accepted it, feeling flustered as soon as she did. “I-I don’t know if I can help, but I’ll try.”

“Even if you can’t, at least I tried another angle.” He patted down his pockets and reached inside his right trouser pocket. “I have the key so we can go in.”

“I hear you’re investigating the Maddock Tipring murder,” she said.

“Yes. How did you know?” He held up his hand. “Never mind, I know. It only happened yesterday but we don’t have a single suspect. It’s like the killer just randomly picked our victim and stabbed him in the chest.”

He led her to the front gate and pointed over the fence. “That’s where he was stabbed. He was fetching the paper. The knife was found in the bushes there.” He pointed to his left.

“Did he do that often?”

“What, fetch the paper? Yeah, every day apparently.”

Sophia looked up and down the street. It was pretty deserted. Only two cars had passed since they had arrived. His house sat in the middle of the block. “I guess the bushes could hide someone short from his view, however, whoever stabbed him would stand out on the street. Did no one notice anyone walking?”

“There were many people who noticed many things but nothing we could go on. A white woman. A black man. A young woman running. A teenager wearing a school uniform. All the statements were vague and led nowhere. No one could give a proper description. No one saw Mr. Tipring get stabbed.”

“The murderer could have arrived in a car and left the same way.”

“Either way, it’s still nothing we can follow up on. CCTV in this area has not been helpful. Come, I’ll take you inside.”

The house was quiet and dark and Theo had difficulty finding the light switch but when he found it, the house lit up throughout. Sophia took her time going through each of the rooms before saying anything.

“He’s very neat. What was he wearing when he died?”

“His pajamas and a bathrobe,” he said and then stopped. Theo reached into his jacket and pulled out a photograph. “We did find this in his robe pocket.”

“Why run backwards you’ll vomit,” she read. “What does it mean?”

“It’s an electrician’s code,” replied Theo.

“Oh, I see why you rang me. Was Mr. Tipring an electrician?”

“Yes.”

“So then, the code could mean nothing at all.”

“We suspected that,” he said quietly.

“You were hoping I would come in and enlighten you about it, hand you the name of the killer based on that alone?”

“No, nothing like that,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “I hadn’t really any expectations.”

“Was he still working as an electrician?”

“No, he was retired.”

“Was he a clean person?”

“He’s very clean. Look at the state of his house: not cluttered and clean.”

“How did a one-legged man clean his house so well?”

“Oh, he had a nurse.”

Exactly. “So then, how were his clothes? Were they clean?”

He squinted at her. “Yes. They were clean as far as I could tell. Why?”

“Well, it’s an odd thing for an electrician, one who does not work in that field anymore, to have that mnemonic in his pocket.”

“Maybe he’s sentimental. He does keep things for sentimental value.”

“Oh, like what?”

“He had a box of earrings. We don’t know what value they held for him, but they were important enough that he wanted the box buried with him.”

“That seems a bit odd, doesn’t it?”

“Everything about the case is a bit odd.”

He led her to the drawing room. “Have you seen anything like it? I really don’t see the purpose of the room.”

She went over to the chair and sat down. She could feel the springs in the cushion. The victim must have sat there a lot. “Turn on that light will you, the one near the fireplace.”

Theo flicked the switch. Spotlights above the tiled art lit up. Sophia turned on the lamp and looked at the table. She opened the small drawer. Inside was a blank pad of paper and a pencil. She ran her hand over the top of it. She could feel the indentations the pencil made from the previous page. She took the pencil and rubbed the top of it.

Only a few words could be made out: girl, Rosie, brush. They weren’t even in a line, it was as if he wanted to remember a word and wrote it down.