Free A Duty to the Dead by Charles Todd

would sail up the Thames before she could pack her boxes.”
    It was a handsome house, with a front garden set off by a low wall and a cat curled on the doorstep, waiting to be let in. I smiledwithout realizing it, and she said, “Yes, the cat goes with the house. It or its ancestors have always lived there. Arthur was fond of cats, did you know?”
    But he hadn’t said anything to me about cats or dogs. I would have replied, if anyone had asked me, that we’d spoken of everything under the sun. I realized now that “everything” hadn’t included his childhood or his family. How much had I told him about the Colonel? I couldn’t remember…. We’d lived in the present. It turned out to be all there was, though he’d wanted a future.
    At the next corner, where a row of shops began, we paused. “Did you know this was once a famous smuggling area? Goods were brought up from the coast and hidden wherever the Hawkhurst Gang believed they were safe. There’s a hotel now where the inn stood—it provided the horses and wagons for the smuggled goods, and the story has come down that an underground passage ran between The Rose and Thorn and the church. We couldn’t find Arthur and his brothers one afternoon—he must have been twelve or thirteen at the time. We finally discovered them in the church, searching for the secret door to the tunnel. I had to explain to them that nearly every village with a smuggling past has such stories of underground passages. They were sorely disappointed.”
    I smiled as we turned back the way we’d come. “It was probably a story the smugglers themselves invented to keep Customs officials busy searching in the wrong places.”
    A little silence fell. I could sense that Mrs. Graham was on the point of asking me about what I’d told Jonathan, and I was bracing myself to meet her pleas. I was grateful when a young man came out of one of the other houses we’d just passed and called a greeting to her, heavy with relief.
    “Just the person I was after. Could I borrow your Susan, Mrs. Graham? I’ve got an emergency on my hands, and Betsy is with Mrs. Booth, awaiting the baby.” He caught up with us, nearly out of breath and flushed with worry.
    “Certainly not,” Mrs. Graham answered him. “We have a guest at present, and Susan is indispensable.” She turned to me, her face stiff with disapproval. “Miss Crawford, this rude young man is Dr. Philips.”
    “My pleasure, Miss Crawford. And my apologies. But I’m shorthanded, and there’s little time for polite exchanges—”
    I interrupted him. “I’m a trained nurse,” I said. “Can I help in any way?”
    The doctor stopped short. “Are you indeed? Oh, thank God. Will you come with me?” He hesitated. “You aren’t put off by swearing, are you?”
    “Not at all.”
    “Then I must take her, Mrs. Graham, and return her to you later in the day. Forgive me, but it’s urgent.”
    Mrs. Graham wanted no part of this arrangement. She said, “Dr. Philips. Miss Crawford will not accompany you. You may have Susan—under protest—but you must make certain she’s back in time to serve our luncheon.”
    He glanced at me and then said, “Miss Crawford volunteered, I believe. I’ll have her back to you, no harm done, as soon as possible. Come along, there’s no time to waste.”
    “Dr. Philips—” Mrs. Graham was indignant.
    “It’s quite all right, Mrs. Graham. I have a duty to help. Forgive me, but I must go.” I could see the anger in her eyes. I’d disappointed her in some way, but there was nothing I could do about it now. “Dr. Philips?”
    He touched his nonexistent hat to her, then took my arm and led me away, his strides twice the length of mine.
    “I expect I’ve caused you no little trouble, Miss Crawford. But I’m rather desperate, and my patient comes first. I’ll do my best to smooth matters over for you.”
    He was a tall man, prematurely graying, with dark eyes. A strong odor of pipe tobacco swirled in