Read Online Death of a Dyer by Eleanor Kuhns - Free Book Online

speak.” She hesitated and he knew as clearly as if she’d shouted at him that she knew something important. “You have seen him, haven’t you?” he asked. And then, with dawning understanding, he cried, “You saw him the night of the murder, didn’t you?” He leaned toward her. “Kate, he’s facing the rope. If he’s guilty, he should be punished. But if he’s innocent, then I need to know everything I can to save him from hanging.” Still she did not speak, although she swept her eyes away from him, her cheeks reddening. “One of the hands saw Richard come up from the cottage,” Rees said. “I know he was there and argued with his father.” He watched the words percolate through her mind, and finally she nodded.
    “I saw him that night from the window of Ben’s room.” She gestured to the house at the foot of the slope. “I was putting Ben to bed.”
    “And what time was this?”
    “Dusk. Just getting dark.” Rees nodded. It was probably about seven, then. “Munch had been barking for a long time. Unusually long. Then he stopped. I glanced out the window and saw Richard.”
    “Was he going down to the cottage or coming back?”
    “He walked across the field and went inside. But he came home only a little while later. Ben was saying his prayers.…”
    A sudden clear picture of Kate, lingering by the window, hoping to see the father of her baby, popped into Rees’s mind. Poor child. “How long?”
    “Just a few minutes, really.” She stopped short and then added in a hushed voice, “I heard him arguing with his father. And then Richard came flying up the road, Munch at his heels, back into the house.”
    “What did he look like?” Rees asked. “What did you see?”
    “He … he…” She stumbled to a stop.
    “Tell me,” Rees demanded. She flinched. “Tell me.”
    “His shirt was dirty, the right arm spattered with—with dark splashes.”
    Rees sat back, nodding. Blood, of course. “And what time did you leave Ben’s room?”
    “I sat with him until he fell asleep. It was dark by then and Mrs. Bowditch’s grandfather clock was striking the half hour.”
    “Seven thirty,” Rees said.
    Kate nodded in confirmation. “You don’t really think he killed his father, do you?” She looked down at her clenched hands. “He wouldn’t. I know him.”
    “It’s possible he didn’t,” Rees said, pitying the poor wench in front of him. She did not know Richard as well as she claimed. “But what you told me helps.”
    “Then someone else killed the master,” she said, raising hopeful eyes. “Maybe one of those wandering tinkers?…”
    “Maybe,” Rees agreed, although he discounted that possibility as unlikely. “Please don’t worry about this anymore. I’ll discover the truth. You concentrate upon your baby.”
    She smiled sadly. “But they’re connected. Don’t you see? How will my baby have a name if Richard is hanged?”
    Rees said nothing. Likeliest, Richard would not acknowledge the baby anyway, but it seemed cruel to say so. She must know it, too. As Rees set off down the slope, she threw her apron over her eyes and began sobbing again.
    As he passed the house, he looked up, trying to identify Ben’s window in the row of three. On the house’s top level, the windows were high enough to easily overlook the weaver’s cottage. Pausing to study those windows, Rees wondered if Kate might have seen something else and not realized its importance. She lacked the mental quickness possessed by Grace, and he had asked only about Richard. He made a mental note to ask her if she’d seen anyone else.
    From the crest of the hill, he could see the cottage and imagine a witness watching Richard hurtle out of the door and sprint up the incline. The boy would be easily identifiable. Deciding he would speak to the stable hand as soon as possible, Rees descended the hill and went through the cottage’s open door. The spoiled food on the kitchen floor was gone, but neither the ashes in