Chapter Fourteen #2
A woman in her middle twenties opened the door.
Her fair hair was pulled away from a freckled face with a kerchief and left to hang down her back.
She wiped her hands on the end of her pinafore, which had a patch of flour at her waist. Her curious gaze said that she didn’t have many strangers knocking on her door.
After we’d introduced ourselves, she identified herself as Maggie Rallison and asked if we wished to speak with her father.
“If he has a moment, we would greatly appreciate speaking with him,” I said. “And you, as well.”
After pulling the door open, she led us into a sitting room, flooded with light from the three windows I’d observed outside.
The furniture was worn, and there was more of it than one might expect, considering the size of the room.
It gave the impression that this was the family’s usual gathering place.
“I’ll see if he’s about,” Maggie said and left us alone.
“How do you plan to approach him about his late wife’s illness?” Hetty kept her voice low as we settled into chairs near the hearth.
“I’m not certain, but I’ve found it’s often best to pretend to know nothing.”
“Pretend?” Hetty arched a brow.
“Some occasions require less pretense than others.”
I was saved from more of my aunt’s sarcasm by the return of Maggie, who had doffed her kerchief and pinafore.
She was accompanied by a man, who I assumed was her father.
A pair of wire spectacles perched on his thin nose.
His stooped back and thinning fair hair had me guessing that he was past the average working age and that his former work was at a desk.
He greeted us, introduced himself as Ralph Rallison, Maggie’s father, and rather than take a seat, he stood behind a plumply stuffed chair and rested his forearms on the back of it. Maggie perched on a bench by the door.
“How can I help you ladies?” he said.
“We are staying for the Christmas holiday at Hadley Grange,” I said. “No doubt you’ve heard that we found the body of Dr. Penhollow near there two days ago.”
His eyes widened. “I’ve heard he died. So, it was you who found ’im.”
Maggie grimaced. “That had to be horrible.”
“It was not a pleasant experience, no.”
“What do you suppose happened to him?” she asked.
“We’re just starting to learn about that now. It’s quite possible that he was murdered, though we’re not entirely sure how. Since Dr. Penhollow was the coroner, we brought a doctor in to determine exactly how he died.”
“Well, ain’t that ironic,” Ralph Rallison said. Watching him closely, I could see he was struggling not to smile. “The coroner needing an autopsy of hisself.”
“Dad,” Maggie admonished.
Mr. Rallison held up a hand. “Don’t take me wrong. Nothing against the man, but he was so determined to have that job, and now he finds hisself in this situation.”
“I rather doubt he sees the irony at this point,” Hetty said.
“I guess not.” Mr. Rallison wiped a hand across his mouth, as if to erase the smile. He cleared his throat. “So your doctor thinks Penhollow was murdered?”
If only the doctor were ready to give us his opinion.
“Evidence is pointing that way. He left his house early that morning and was on his way to the train station. He mentioned to his stepdaughter that he had a meeting with someone first. We assume that person must be from the village. I don’t suppose you have any thoughts about who that might be? ”
Both Rallisons shook their heads, and if I was any judge of expressions, they truly had no idea.
“Maybe a patient,” Maggie offered.
“I wondered that myself,” I said. “But he didn’t have his bag with him, so that would seem unlikely.”
“Then I haven’t the foggiest,” Mr. Rallison said. “Are you saying that whoever he met with was the person who murdered him?” His gray brows shot up. “Shouldn’t you wait for the sergeant or the superintendent to come back?”
“That person may have killed him or may simply have more information to provide. While Sergeant Hewitt is away, we’re speaking to those who knew Dr. Penhollow or had dealings with him—”
“Or had a wife killed by him?” Mr. Rallison could speak volumes with nothing more than his eyebrows. This time they were drawn together in an angry line.
“Or a mum?” Maggie looked every bit as furious. “Did someone tell you to come talk to us? You think we had something to do with him dying?” She jerked to her feet. “I think you should leave.”
“Now, Maggie girl.” Mr. Rallison’s voice was appeasing, but his daughter was having none of it.
“Fine. I’ll leave,” she said before marching out of the room and down the hall.
I was momentarily at a loss, but, thank heaven, Hetty had a cooler head. She came to her feet and placed a hand over Mr. Rallison’s as it lay on the back of the chair. “I am so sorry for your loss,” she said. “My husband died from an illness many years ago, so I understand.”
Mr. Rallison blinked rapidly. “You’d do anything to keep them alive.”
“Can you tell me about your wife’s illness?” she asked gently.
He eased himself around and into the chair.
Hetty slipped onto the sofa. “We don’t know exactly what it was,” he said.
“Some infection in her lungs, the doctor said.” He tipped his head downward to glance at Hetty over his spectacles.
“I mean the doctor in Norwich. Dr. Penhollow didn’t have much standing around here, and we didn’t go to him at first.”
“We’ve heard the villagers weren’t clamoring for his services,” Hetty said.
Mr. Rallison shook his head. “No, I think that’s why he wanted the coroner job—to keep hisself busy.
I don’t know why the man kept at it. He inherited the manor.
His children were grown and gone. He could have lived a nice, quiet life of retirement.
But he was too crusty for that. Martha was one of the few people around here who was fond of him.
They worked together on some of the summer fetes we have in the village.
He tried to take charge of those, too. I guess he just couldn’t keep hisself from telling people what to do, whether it was how to run the village or what food they should eat. ”
“Goodness, what food one should eat?” Hetty looked appalled at the arrogance of a doctor dictating one’s diet.
“Packaged cereals made in a factory. Dry flakes! As if we haven’t been feeding ourselves just fine all these years. Well, nobody paid him any mind.” He shook his head in exasperation.
“As for Martha,” he continued, “she took on this infection. It started with her losing her breath climbing the stairs. Then she couldn’t walk to the vicarage anymore.
She liked to tend the gardens there. The doctor in Norwich told her she wouldn’t get any better and she ought to slow down and conserve her strength, but she hated that.
After a couple of months of slowly getting weaker, she decided to follow Dr. Penhollow’s diet.
After a few weeks, she didn’t look any healthier or stronger to me, but she thought she felt better, so I didn’t argue.
Then she started trusting Penhollow and stopped going to the Norwich doctor. ”
He stopped there and drew a long breath, as if to compose himself. “But then, when the wet weather came on, she got worse again. Maggie treated her with poultices, and I tried to get her to go back to the Norwich doctor. But Penhollow told her about a drug that was used for tuberculosis.”
That must be the phosphorus.
“We talked about it,” he said. “I wanted her to see to the real doctor, as I thought of him, but she said all he wanted to do was keep her going a little longer. Eventually, she’d waste away, so she wanted to give Penhollow’s cure a try.
” He opened his hands, palms up. “She wasn’t wrong.
The doctor in Norwich said he couldn’t cure her.
We all knew she would slowly get worse. If she wanted to try for a cure, how could I stop her? ”
“But it wasn’t a cure, was it?” Hetty said.
“She was gone in three weeks. Penhollow said he diluted the medication to give her doses she could manage, but her body wasn’t strong enough. Maybe the medication would have killed the infection eventually, but it killed her first.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. Such paltry words for his loss.
It sounded like Martha Rallison would ultimately have died, but she needn’t have been taken away from her family so soon.
And if what Hetty had told me about those treatments was correct, she’d suffered through three miserable weeks before her death.
“To be fair, Penhollow had said it was a gamble,” Mr. Rallison said.
That was generous. It hadn’t been a gamble so much as a waste. If I were Mr. Rallison, or any of the Rallisons, I might want to kill Dr. Penhollow for ruining the final weeks of Mrs. Rallison’s life, perhaps cutting it short.
Hetty had begun to share her story of her husband’s battle with influenza when Maggie Rallison tapped me on the shoulder and beckoned to me. I followed her from the room, down a hall toward the back of the house, and into a kitchen. When she turned around, she wore an angry glare.
“What exactly are the two of you up to?” she asked.
“We’re just trying to gain an understanding of Dr. Penhollow’s relationships with his neighbors,” I said.
“That’s not what I’m seeing,” she said. “What I see is two genteel ladies coming into our house and looking at us like suspects in the doctor’s murder. You aren’t the police. You have no business asking these questions.”