The Gate Keeper

by Charles Todd

  The master bedroom suite took up the opposite side of the house. Rutledge walked to the windows and looked down on a private walled garden with a gate set in at the back. Roses and boxwoods, laid out in a circular pattern, surrounded a low terraced mound covered by ivy, still green here in mid-December. Atop the mound was an elegant sundial. Under bare-branched trees—spring blooming, he thought—was a wrought-iron seat, painted white. While it was probably a lovely view in summer, with the trees leafed out and the roses in full bloom, it struck him as rather somber now.

  There was a pair of rooms facing the back garden that might once have been the nursery, although the larger of the two was now a guest room.

  Stephen’s room and another guest room faced the street. Rutledge went through these, looking in the tall chest, the tables by the bed, and a dresser between the windows. He found clothing and the odds and ends of a man’s life. Cuff links, braces and belts, shoehorns—one with a handle in the shape of a ram’s head—and the like. Photographs of what appeared to be his parents and his sister were arranged neatly on the mantelpiece, along with one of a young woman sitting in a Cambridge punt, smiling up at the camera. She was slim, fair, and attractive.

  There were books on one of the tables by the bed, and a crystal carafe for water, the glass forming the top. Rutledge leafed through the books—a history and two biographies. He noticed that one of them was inscribed.

  To Stephen, on his Birthday, with Best Wishes.

  Evelyn

  The script was very feminine, with graceful loops and curls in the capitals.

  The girl in the photograph? Or not?

  The guest room next to Stephen’s room had been turned into a sitting room, with bookshelves and paintings of racehorses in the style of Stubbs. Rutledge thought one of them might actually be by Stubbs himself, for the horse could have stepped out of the frame, its sleek coat displaying the fine musculature beneath it. On a shelf were small pieces, strange faces and animals molded in a yellowish clay with red markings. Something the bookseller had brought home from Peru?

  A desk against one wall held personal correspondence and household accounts, along with an envelope marked Last Will and Testament. It was empty.

  The personal letters were from his father, many of them written before the war while Stephen traveled, and during the war when he was in the Navy. They were bundled in packets, and Rutledge found it surprising that Wentworth had kept them. He read one or two—formal accounts of daily life, the sort one might write to an acquaintance, not a son. One packet contained letters from Patricia, clearly Wentworth’s sister, her childish hand growing into that of a woman over the span of years. They were more informative, mentioning the staff and the dogs, and a pet rabbit she had called Peter. But lacking warmth too.

  The one interesting item was in the middle drawer. It was an engagement ring in a small black velvet-covered box. It was exquisite, a diamond with rubies on the shoulder. Who had turned it down? Evelyn? Or was it someone else? Rutledge found it intriguing that Wentworth had kept it, rather than returning it to the jewelers. The name on the satin inside the top listed a very fashionable London jeweler’s address.

  He found no sign of a revolver, not even under the bed pillows or in the desk. Remembering the tall shell decoration at the top of the armoire, he went back to check, reaching up and feeling behind it. And there it was, in a case. It was well oiled but hadn’t been fired recently. The chambers were empty, but there were cartridges in a box closer to the decoration.

  He wondered if Wentworth had brought it home from the bookshop after the child had discovered it in the drawer there.

  Hamish asked the question Rutledge was already considering. “Why did he need it in the bookshop?”

  Rutledge was on his way down the stairs when the outer door opened and a woman in a kerchief stepped in. She was wearing a heavy coat and sturdy brown stockings.

  The daily. Looking up, she saw him on the stairs and drew in a breath. He thought she was going to scream, but she didn’t.

  She dropped the sack she was carrying as her hand went to her heart, and she exclaimed, “Who are you? What are you doing here?” It was a demand in a voice that was noticeably quavering.

  “Sorry to frighten you. Inspector Rutledge, Scotland Yard.”

  “But why are you in this house?” she asked again.

  “It’s necessary to know more about Stephen’s life, if I’m to find out who killed him.” He walked the rest of the way down the stairs.

  “Here! You’re not to touch anything. His mother will be coming, and I’ll not have you worrying her. Do you hear me?”

  “Your name?”

  “Lydie Butterworth,” she answered defiantly, daring him to make anything of it.

  She came farther inside and shut the door firmly.

  “Tell me about Captain Wentworth. Was he a good son, a man who cared about his family? Or was he a troubled man, with secrets?”

  “He was a decent young man who cared about a good many people,” she said stoutly.

  He gestured around him. “How did he come to be a bookseller?”

  “He didn’t need the money. His grandmother on his father’s side had left him her fortune. But he was always in Mr. Delaney’s bookshop, when he could escape from his mother’s eye. When Mr. Delaney sold up, Mr. Stephen bought it, against his parents’ wishes, because he loved books. He had no secrets, and he was shot down in cold blood by a madman who should be taken to the hangman directly he’s caught. And the sooner the better,” she ended pointedly, as if to remind him of his duty.

  “How long have you worked for the Wentworth family?” It was clear that she knew a great deal about them. Listening at doors? Or trusted servant?

  “I watched that boy grow to be a man. He might as well be my own family. I’ve wept for him. Now I have work to do.” She marched off toward the back of the house.

  He had seen what he needed to see. Turning, he started to walk out, then stopped. “Who is Evelyn?” he called.

  She was already at the door down to the kitchen. “That’s Miss Hardy. Evelyn Hardy.”

  “Is she also the woman in the punt—the boat? There’s a photograph on the mantelpiece.”

  “Don’t be silly. That’s Dorothea. He wanted to marry her. But she didn’t want to marry him. Before the war, that was.” She pulled the door closed behind her.

  He went after her, and called down the stairs, “What was her surname? Do you know?”

  “Mowbray. Dorothea Mowbray.”

  5

  “Twa women in his life,” Hamish was saying. “There’s trouble.”

  And there was Inspector Reed’s wife as well. And the Miss Hardy who Wentworth had been set on driving to her home after the dinner party. Not to speak of Miss MacRae.

  But then Wentworth was young, had come home from the war with all his limbs and no disfiguring burns or gassed lungs. And he was wealthy. Women would have found him attractive—and available.

  “One of them might explain why Wentworth chose to go to Peru. If my memory serves, there’s good work just now being done on the Inca. Did he own the bookshop then?” Rutledge mused.

  He went to find Constable Penny, who was just sitting down to ham and roasted potatoes.

  “I won’t keep you long,” Rutledge told him when Penny met him at the cottage door with his plate in hand, in his view a subtle hint. “Who minded the bookshop while Wentworth was in Peru?”

  Penny said, “That would be Mrs. Delaney again.”

  “Where do I find her?”

  Penny was torn between his cooling dinner and arguing with the man from London over meddling in matters he had no right to look into. His dinner won.

  “She’s just down The Street past the bookshop. Look for green shutters.” Salving his conscience, he added, “She didn’t come to services. It may be she’s away.”

  Rutledge thanked him and walked on. He expected to find Mrs. Delaney at her own dinner, but he could see her through the window wi
th the green shutters, sitting in her parlor, reading.

  He knocked lightly at the door, and after a moment she opened it. “The man from London,” she said, and swung it wider so that he could enter. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  She was a tall, attractive woman on the edge of fifty, her dark hair showing little gray. Patrician features, a firm chin—and eyes red-rimmed from crying.

  The parlor was a pleasant room done up in blues trimmed in white and an elegant white plaster medallion in the center of the ceiling. An ormolu clock on the mantelpiece stood between two Chinese-style vases in blue and white, and there was a pale blue Turkey carpet on the floor with rose and cream in the border. A little white-and-black King Charles spaniel looked up from a basket by Mrs. Delaney’s chair and tentatively growled. “Dickens,” she said quietly, and he subsided.

  “You’ve come about poor Stephen,” she went on, offering him a chair. “Dr. Brent dropped in early this morning. He was afraid I might hear the news if I went to services. And later I was told by a neighbor that someone had already been sent down from London.”

  He didn’t explain that he was first on the scene. “I’m sorry. I understand Mr. Wentworth had bought the bookshop from your husband. You must have known him well over the years.”

  “My husband was terribly fond of him and felt that the shop was in good hands. It’s such a lovely one. I don’t know what will become of it now.”

  “Perhaps you would like to have it back again.”

  But she shook her head. “It was my husband’s joy, and I supported him, of course. And I helped Stephen when he needed someone to step in. But I prefer my garden and my own books.” She indicated the one lying on the small table at her elbow.

  When Rutledge didn’t immediately respond, she added, “I’m Tom’s second wife. He and Josephine made the shop what it is today. I came along in its middle years, well established and well known.” Anticipating his question, she went on. “Josephine died before I met Tom. Kidney failure. Oddly enough, that’s what killed him as well. He was in London, appraising a private collection that was coming onto the market.” Her eyes welled with tears. “He wanted to come home, but he waited too long. The wonderful, foolish man.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “And when Stephen asked me to look after the shop while he was in Peru, I almost turned him down.” She refused to reach for a handkerchief, willing the tears away. “It was so sudden, you see, and I was still missing Tom terribly. But of course there was no one else, and so I agreed.” She smiled wistfully. “We didn’t have children, Tom and I. But I would have been pleased if I’d had a son like Stephen.”

  “I understand he had money of his own, that he didn’t have to ask his father to help him pay for the shop.”

  “Yes, that’s right. His grandmother—his father’s mother—was still alive when he was born, and she left him her personal fortune. She lived until he was nearly seven, and so the money was put into trust for him through her bank in London. He came into his inheritance when he turned eighteen. His parents felt that that was too young for such responsibility, but the terms of the trust were explicit.”

  “Why did he go to Peru? There was the bookshop waiting for him.”

  “He bought the bookshop before he’d come down from Cambridge. You’ve never seen a happier man. It was his heart’s desire, and Tom was getting along in years, he’d wanted to sell while he was still able to keep an eye on it. His illness only made that more urgent. A year later, Stephen wrote to me and asked me to take it on, because he was off to Peru. I was angry with him at first. I thought then that he’d bought the shop on a whim, and tired of it. But he hadn’t. It was something else that changed him.”

  “Dorothea Mowbray?”

  She stared at him. “However did you find out about her? But you’re a policeman, aren’t you, and no secret is safe from you. Yes, Dorothea. He wanted desperately to marry her, he’d even bought her the loveliest ring. He brought it along for me to see. And she refused. God knows why. Two days later he’d left England. The war brought him back.”

  “Where is Miss Mowbray now?”

  “I have no idea. I doubt if Stephen could have told you either.”

  But Rutledge rather thought he might have known. The ring in the desk drawer told its own story about Dorothea. To keep a ring for a woman he might not have seen in some years meant he hadn’t forgot her or stopped loving her.

  It had taken Rutledge a long time to get over losing Jean.

  Hamish said, “And there’s Fiona . . .”

  Rutledge winced at the reminder. But Fiona hadn’t refused Hamish. And he would have come home to her if he’d lived.

  Rutledge could still hear the dying man’s voice whispering her name as he delivered the coup de grâce . . .

  He’d lost track of what Mrs. Delaney was saying. “I’m sorry?”

  “I was commenting that lately Stephen has been seen about town with the young woman visiting Miss Blackburn. Miss MacRae?”

  He thought there was more behind the question than idle curiosity. A flare of hope, that Wentworth might be on the brink of finding happiness again? Or worry that he might have been making another wrong choice? He said, “Miss MacRae and Wentworth were driving back to Wolfpit after a party at a friend’s house. About three in the morning.”

  Her brows rose in query. “That’s rather late, isn’t it, for a party to end?”

  “I believe he was asked to take one of the other guests home first.”

  “Still . . .” Then she shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. What does is, who could have done such a thing? Stephen had no enemies. I mean to say, one must hate or fear someone very much to want to kill him.”

  “Or perhaps envy?” Rutledge suggested.

  And Mrs. Delaney frowned at that, but said only, “Booksellers seldom find themselves facing a killer. It’s not that kind of work.”

  He left soon after. Mrs. Delaney had filled in some of the blanks left in reconstructing Stephen Wentworth’s life since Cambridge, but he was no closer to the answers he needed. Most men he’d ever met—and he himself was a fine example—had secrets they would rather not see voiced by the town crier.

  What were Stephen Wentworth’s?

  That brought Rutledge back to what the killer said to Wentworth in that brief exchange before the shot was fired.

  “Ye ken, ye ha’ only Miss MacRae’s word for what happened on yon road.”

  Which was a point he was keeping in mind. It was a beginning, and not necessarily an ending. He didn’t believe that Miss MacRae had killed Wentworth, but the circumstances might of necessity have been changed to protect someone else.

  Her shock could have come from watching Wentworth die, or from seeing who his killer was.

  She had protested taking the Hardy niece home that evening. It could have delayed their expected rendezvous with a killer.

  But that was speculation and more suited to the future.

  He was walking back toward the police station when he saw a motorcar draw up in front. A smart chauffeur in uniform stepped down and opened the rear door.

  A distinguished-looking man in well-cut dark clothing got out. His fair hair was streaked with gray, but his face had remained young, and Rutledge knew at once that he must be Wentworth’s father. The resemblance was striking.

  A woman followed him. She was of medium height and slim, her back as straight as an arrow, and she was dressed in black and wore a black hat with a black veil. It obscured her face and hair, falling almost to her shoulders. Rutledge had seen Queen Alexandra in just such a veil at the funeral for Edward VII in 1910.

  The chauffeur opened the door of the police station for them, and the pair went inside. He took his place by the motorcar, an elegant Rolls, to wait for them.

  Rutledge crossed the triangular square before he reached the station. It was best for Penny to speak with Stephen Wentworth’s parents. It was clear that they had been told of their son’s death and had come to view th
e body and make whatever arrangements they could. Lydie Butterworth would have the house ready for them when they arrived there. Who had informed them? He thought it was very likely Dr. Brent again. It would have been kinder than hearing it from the police.

  Dealing with the bereaved was one of the most difficult duties a policeman faced, and sometimes the worst. To tell a family that one of their own had been killed, whether by accident or murder, and then watch their faces as they realized that someone they cared for was never coming home, took backbone of a particular kind, and an enormous reserve of sympathy.

  And there was still nothing one could say that would make it any better.

  He walked into the inn’s dining room, where he could sit by the window and watch the door of the police station. Ordering tea, he saw that the street was for the most part empty. It was Sunday, after all. And then a couple came strolling from Church Street, her hand in his arm. They were very young and appeared very much in love. His gaze followed them out of sight.

  The woman who had served his tea was standing by his table, watching them as well. “Peter just missed the war,” she said pensively. “He wasn’t seventeen until the last day of November 1918. It’s lovely to see young men again who aren’t in uniform and on their way to war.”

  She was small and dark, with lively blue eyes. He put her age at thirty, perhaps even thirty-five. Stephen Wentworth’s generation.

  Rutledge was agreeing with her just as the police station door opened and the Wentworths stepped out, still speaking to Constable Penny. Then, after a word with the chauffeur, Mrs. Wentworth was settled once more in the rear seat, and Mr. Wentworth set off toward Dr. Brent’s surgery. By the time he’d been admitted, the motorcar had reversed in the square and disappeared in the direction of the house.

  “Poor lady,” the woman beside him said as the motorcar passed the window. “Stephen came home from the war. She must have been so grateful he was safe. And now this.”

  “I hear she and her husband live in Norwich now, with their daughter.”