The Gate Keeper

by Charles Todd

  He smiled grimly at her. “I think there’s an even chance in their minds that if you didn’t kill Wentworth, I did.”

  3

  Rutledge had never been to Wolfpit. The unusual name, he learned later, came from a pit used centuries before to hold captured wolves. For some reason it hadn’t been changed, though it certainly no longer fit the pretty village he found himself driving into.

  It was still quite dark, and the church clock was just striking five.

  “Are you sure you don’t need to have Dr. Brent give you something to help with the shock? I can stop by his surgery,” Rutledge asked Miss MacRae, but she shook her head.

  “I don’t think I could bear to see Stephen’s body one more time,” she said. “Please? I’m staying with my aunt. Just there, beyond the church.”

  He could see the church—could in fact hardly miss it, for it was quite large with a tall, slender spire piercing the night sky. Turning away from the other two motorcars, he drove in that direction.

  “Why were you so long at the dinner party? They generally end at ten or eleven o’clock.”

  “We stayed on. Mrs. Hardy’s son was expected. He’d sent a telegram earlier from Dover, saying he’d been delayed in France. And so we waited. We sat and talked for a while, and I expect we lost track of the time. We had just gone down to the kitchen to make tea when her son arrived. But we had to leave soon after, and I hardly had a chance to do more than meet him.”

  She pointed to a house on her right, and he pulled over.

  “This one?” He couldn’t see a light showing.

  “Yes, please.”

  “These were your friends you were dining with?”

  “No. They were Stephen’s. Evelyn’s brother had known him for ages, and of course everyone was eager to see Mrs. Hardy’s son. Stephen had invited me to this dinner because he needed to have someone with him—the numbers, you see, at table.” Her voice caught on a sob as she remembered, and she hurried on, changing the subject. “I’m staying with my aunt for a bit. I often come to visit her. That’s how I knew Stephen, through my aunt. There’s no attachment, you understand. Just a friendship. I think that’s why he feels—felt—comfortable with me, and I enjoy—enjoyed—his company.”

  It was said simply, and he believed her.

  He’d studied her as she spoke. She was attractive, a pretty face, silvery fair hair that she wore in a becoming style, and blue eyes. Hardly a last resort to make up numbers, he thought. Whatever Stephen Wentworth might have led her to believe.

  Had he chosen Miss MacRae because she was quite so attractive? Was there someone at the dinner party he wanted to see him with a pretty girl on his arm? It would be worth considering.

  Hamish had said it. Jealousy.

  “When did you first meet him? How long ago was that?”

  “I was here one summer—it was just before he went up to Cambridge—and he was looking for a tennis partner. I was fifteen, but a good player. My aunt suggested me. And we continued to play, whenever I was in Suffolk. Sometimes we went to lunch or dinner. And, of course, my aunt knows his parents.” She clapped a hand over her mouth, leaning toward him, as if for comfort. “Oh dear God, what am I to do? Someone will have to tell them that Stephen is—is dead. I can’t bear it to be me.”

  “That will be the duty of the police,” he told her gently. “Although you might wish to write to them later—to give them the peace of mind of knowing he didn’t suffer.”

  “Oh. Yes, of course. I shall do just that.” Her relief was so great that tears came to her eyes. “I didn’t love Stephen. But I was quite fond of him. It was a friendship I cared about. We are both great readers, and I was fascinated by his stories of his travels. He showed me photographs, places I’ll never see, exotic and exciting and romantic in the larger sense. There was an ancient fortress outside of Cuzco, and in it was a throne-like stone structure. The altitude was terrible, thirteen thousand feet, and he found it hard to climb up to the throne. Even after taking days to get to Cuzco, over the mountains, he hadn’t acclimated. And in the desert, down at sea level, there were lines that made no sense, just stones set in what appeared to be an aimless pattern. But when you climbed high enough in the surrounding hills, they weren’t aimless at all. Birds and spiders, all sorts of designs. You’d have to be a bird yourself to see them properly. How had these ancient people managed such a tremendous plan? It was stunning, beyond belief.”

  She had changed as she spoke, animated by the memory of what she’d been shown, her face alight. And then the light dimmed as she remembered. Catching her breath on a gasp of pain, she turned and opened her door before he could come around to help her, and still holding the rug around her shoulders, she hurried up the path to the house door, letting herself in without looking back.

  He watched until a lamp was lit in a room on the ground floor. She might not have been in love with Stephen Wentworth, but she had been caught up in the excitement of the life he’d led, and how short a step would it have been to love the man as well as his stories and photographs?

  Rutledge found the doctor’s surgery easily enough. Wentworth’s motorcar was standing in the front of a fair-size house just beyond the triangular square, and there were lights on in one of the wings.

  He went to the door and tapped lightly. Constable Penny came at once, saying as he let Rutledge in, “We were beginning to worry.”

  “I made certain Miss MacRae was safe,” he said. “Has Dr. Brent found anything of interest, examining the body?”

  “He’s given it a preliminary examination,” Penny said reluctantly, “but prefers to wait for morning to do more. I was just leaving to go back to my own cottage.”

  “Someone will have to let Wentworth’s parents know he is dead.”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll see to that.” He nodded across the square. “There’s a fairly decent inn just there. I’ll rouse the clerk, if you like, and make certain you have a room.”

  “Very kind,” Rutledge answered, and leaving the motorcar where it was, he crossed the square with the Constable.

  “No luggage, sir?” Penny asked when Rutledge made no move to collect a valise.

  “It’s in the boot.”

  “You said Ipswich. How long were you expecting to stay?”

  Exasperated, although he knew the man was only doing his duty, he said, “I don’t know, Constable. My sister was married today. Yesterday. I went for a short drive to clear my head, and it just seemed the right thing to do to keep on driving. I’m not expected back at the Yard until Tuesday. I’m on leave until then.”

  “I see.” They had reached the inn. Rutledge looked up at the sign. A swan in black wrought iron. After stepping through the front door, the Constable disappeared through another one behind the desk and came back in a few minutes with a very sleepy woman.

  “You’re wanting a room?” she asked.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Well, there’s no one staying here just now. Would you like a front or a back view?”

  “Front, please.”

  She opened a drawer, found what she was after, and handed him a key. “Number two, that is. Will you be wanting breakfast this morning?”

  “Please.”

  “We begin serving at seven. Through there.” She pointed to a room to one side, set with tables and chairs designed for meals. And with that, she turned and disappeared through the door, shutting it firmly behind her.

  Bidding the Constable a good morning, Rutledge took the stairs two at a time and found himself in a very dark passage. Wishing for his torch, which was in the motorcar, he paused to let his eyes grow accustomed to what light there was, and saw a door just in front of him. The key fit, but he discovered that the door wasn’t locked.

  The light from the windows helped him find a lamp, and after two tries, he managed to locate the matches. As the glow brightened, he saw that he had found number 2 quite by chance, and he shut the door before walking to the window. The street was quiet. Apparently Cons
table Penny had gone home, and the only light that Rutledge could see was from the bakery down the street—faint enough that it must be shining through the windows from a back area where the ovens were.

  He drew the curtains, undressed, and went to bed. He hadn’t realized how very tired he was. His eyes seemed to close of their own weight, and he was asleep.

  It was a little after eight, just after dawn, when Rutledge woke. He could feel his beard rasping against his hand as he rubbed his chin. And he hadn’t brought in his valise, he thought ruefully. It was still in the boot. What the hell had he been doing, driving cross-country like that? And yet at the time it had seemed the best thing to do . . .

  Hamish, in the back of his mind, would have none of it.

  “Face it, man, ye couldna’ settle. Else, why did ye bring yon valise? A half hour around London doesna’ require a razor and a change of clothes.”

  Rutledge tried to shut him out. He wasn’t prepared to look too deeply into last night.

  He got up, dressed, and went down to the dining room, where he poured himself a cup of tea and drank it down. Then he went out to his motorcar and retrieved his valise.

  While he was shaving, he considered what to do about Stephen Wentworth’s death.

  He was the best choice to take over the inquiry—after all, he’d been first on the scene. He had a feeling he would have to convince Constable Penny that this was his decision.

  But he found, when he arrived at the police station, that the Constable had been busy with his own arrangements.

  “I’ve sent a message to Inspector Reed in Stowmarket, sir, asking him to come to Wolfpit and take over this inquiry. It’s for the best. I don’t know that I can be objective enough, having been acquainted with Mr. Wentworth as long as I have. And to tell truth, I don’t know that I find what Miss MacRae told us to be convincing. An odd story at best.”

  Rutledge quickly changed his mind about arguing with the Constable, given what he’d just said. It would do no good, and could potentially do a great deal of harm.

  Instead, he commented, “It might be best to ask the Chief Constable to call in the Yard. Since the party Wentworth and Miss MacRae attended probably isn’t in your jurisdiction or Reed’s.”

  “Sir, I considered that too. But you’re a witness after the fact, and I don’t know that it would be right to ask you to conduct the inquiry. Still, it’s out of my hands. The Inspector will know what’s best to do.”

  “How well does he know the village?”

  “He’s been here a time or two, just looking in. He took over Stowmarket in 1919, after the war. Inspector Gray had been set on retiring before the war but stayed on for the duration, as many of us did. I daresay he was very glad to hand over to Mr. Reed.”

  “Much trouble here?”

  “The usual miscreants. Nothing to speak to Inspector Gray or Inspector Reed about. Much less the Chief Constable. The last murder here was in 1910. Jealous husband. We didn’t have to look far to find out who did it. He was standing in the kitchen with blood all over him and a butcher’s knife in his hand. He was in no state to answer questions then, but the next morning he confessed readily enough. I think it was a relief, in a way, to get it off his chest. I always felt I should have seen it coming, but his own mother hadn’t, nor his wife—the victim. I don’t know to this day whether there was an argument precipitating what he did, or if wondering and not knowing had driven him to be done with it.”

  “Had she been having an affair?”

  “Yes, sir. With the postmaster. He was nearly twice her age. Odd choice, if you ask me. But there’s no accounting for tastes, is there?”

  “No.” Changing the subject, Rutledge asked, “Any word from the doctor?”

  Penny hesitated. “I don’t know that I should tell you, sir. Seeing that you’re a witness.”

  “I hardly think Dr. Brent has uncovered any earth-shaking information,” he countered dryly.

  “Well, as to that, he hasn’t done anything but examine the gunshot wound. It was close range and straight through the heart, just as he expected.” Penny paused, looking around the spare little room that was his kingdom. “Which says to me that it isn’t likely a stranger shot him, not coming in that close.”

  Rutledge said, pulling out the only other chair and sitting down, “It’s also rather surprising that a woman, having an argument with her escort of the evening, was such a good shot.”

  Penny raised his eyebrows. “I hadn’t considered that, sir. Did they have an argument?”

  “I’ve no idea. But both parties were out of the motorcar when I arrived on the scene. Either something had happened on the road, just as Miss MacRae has claimed—or they had argued, Wentworth had stopped the motorcar, and one of them got out, followed by the other.”

  It was clear Penny hadn’t got that far in his own thinking. And Rutledge had a feeling that it was because he knew Wentworth but not Miss MacRae, just as he’d said.

  “How did you become acquainted with the victim?” Rutledge asked, intentionally not using Wentworth’s name, but driving home the point that he could no longer be viewed as simply another inhabitant of the village.

  “He owns the bookshop down the street. Owned. He was well off, he didn’t need to earn his keep, but he bought the shop when old Mr. Delaney took ill and wanted to sell, and he’s made a go of it. During the war, he asked Mrs. Delaney to keep it open, and to her credit, she managed to do it, even after she lost her husband, poor woman.”

  “You’re a reader, then?”

  “I am, sir. I’m fond of biography, and Mr. Wentworth made a point to look out interesting titles for me. The latest was about King Harold, and what might have happened if he hadn’t had to race north to stop the King of Norway’s army, then south to face William of Normandy. Quite a rousing account, even though it’s only speculation.”

  “When do you expect to hear from Inspector Reed?”

  “By ten o’clock, I should think, sir.”

  “Have you spoken to Miss MacRae this morning?”

  “I did step around to her aunt’s house, but there was no one awake at that hour.”

  Rutledge rose. “I need to find a telephone. Is there one in the village?”

  “Mr. Wentworth had one put in for his shop just last year. He said it was the coming thing, and paid for it out of his own pocket.”

  “I should like to use it. Do you have Wentworth’s keys? Or are they still at the surgery?”

  The Constable hesitated. “I don’t think it would be proper to give you the keys to his shop, sir. Not until Inspector Reed has had a look.”

  “He wasn’t killed there. And I shan’t disturb any evidence. I simply need to use the telephone,” Rutledge answered, quelling his desire to swear.

  Reluctantly, Penny pulled out the drawer in the table he used as his desk and brought out a small ring of keys. “That’s to his house, farther along The Street. The High, if you will. This is to the shop.”

  “How did you know?”

  “I tried them this morning, in order to label them for Inspector Reed.”

  Rutledge kept his voice level as he took the keys and thanked Penny. With a nod, he left the police station, and after walking one way then the other along The Street, he found the bookshop. A sign hung above his head, an iron book with lettering that read delaney’s. And just under it, as if stamped into the outer corner of the cover, was a silhouette of a wolf’s head, muzzle raised in a silent howl.

  Inserting the key and turning it, he opened the door and stepped inside, closing it behind him.

  The shop had that particular smell of books, and he saw that there were shelves arranged precisely around the interior space, with two tables displaying a range of stationery, cards, and diaries. On the wall just behind the counter was a telephone, but Rutledge walked through the shop before using it.

  It was spacious, with two smaller rooms in the back, one containing a desk with ledgers and, in one of the side drawers, what appeared to be b
ills for books ordered and sold. In the center drawer there was stationery, with an ornate D at the top, with a similar wolf’s head inside. A cabinet against one wall held other accounts, and unopened boxes were set in a stack against another wall. The second room, the smaller of the two, was more a sitting room, with a comfortable chair and a lamp on the table beside it. On a shelf were cups and saucers, tins of tea, and a small, half-empty bottle of milk as well as a china sugar bowl. This room looked well used, as if Wentworth preferred to sit here to read or work, rather than at home.

  Out back was a shed and a small garden, winter dead but obviously well tended. There were an iron table and a pair of chairs under a section of the main roof that had been extended to protect them.

  In the public area of the shop, Rutledge did a brief survey of the shelves and recognized many of the titles. To his surprise, he even discovered a small volume of poems by O A Manning. Wings of Fire. He knew it well, had carried it with him in the trenches. And after the war, he had been called to look into the death of Olivia Marlowe, who was actually O A Manning. A woman whose poetry haunted him still, as she herself did.

  Abruptly turning away, he walked to the telephone and found it to be working. He put through a call to London, to the Yard.

  It was Sunday, and he hadn’t expected to find Sergeant Gibson on duty. But he recognized the Sergeant’s voice as soon as he answered.

  “Good morning, Sergeant. Rutledge here. I’m in Suffolk at present—”

  “I thought your sister was to be married this weekend,” Gibson said, alarm in his voice as he interrupted Rutledge.

  “Yes, that was last evening.” He hesitated. Was it only last evening? “I had business in Suffolk, and I’ve stopped in the village of Wolfpit.”

  “Sir?”

  “Wolfpit. An old name, Gibson. Recall the tale of the green children? They came from here.”

  “Indeed, sir, my mother read me a story about them. They were found in a field, as I remember, and their skin was as green as grass. No one knew who they were or where they came from.” He paused, confused. “Is that why you’re telephoning, sir? Something to do with those children?”