The Gate Keeper

by Charles Todd

  “My heart aches for Patricia!” the woman said. “Jocelyn was such a handsome man. And kind as well. He was a solicitor, you know. Everyone liked him enormously when she brought him to Wolfpit. And they had two sweet children. He wanted to serve his country, and she let him go. She saw him once after that. Her parents went to stay with her when the news came, and then decided to live there.”

  “How did Stephen Wentworth feel about that?”

  “He was at sea, and when he came home, he appeared to be happy enough about the arrangement.”

  They had kept their voices low, so as not to disturb the last of the diners. He’d noticed that most of them were single women, the majority of them in the black of widowhood. No Sunday family dinners for them, he thought.

  The woman sighed. “I wouldn’t say this to anyone else, but you’re a policeman. I don’t think the family ever quite forgave Stephen for buying the bookshop. And then going off to Peru. He got the idea from the bookshop, you know. The book that man wrote about finding a lost city. Bishop? I can’t seem to recall his name.” She smiled. “I remember the city sounded like mashed potatoes. I told Stephen that once, and he had a good laugh at me.”

  Rutledge searched his memory. “Hiram Bingham. The American who found Machu Picchu. In 1911, I think.”

  “You may be right. Stephen brought me back a photograph, and told me that I was closer to the truth than I knew, because Peru has more varieties of potatoes than any other place in the world. Some of them are actually purple. And there was a little pin he found in a market somewhere. It was a sort of camel, he said, except that no one rode it, it was just a pack animal. And as nasty tempered as anything he’d ever seen.”

  “He talked to you often, I gather?”

  She shook her head. “I love to read. That’s the thing. I went as often to the bookshop as I could. That’s where we talked about Peru.”

  A chair scraped behind her as someone rose to go, and with an apologetic smile for Rutledge, the woman went to the counter to deal with the departing guest.

  She’s as lonely as they are, Rutledge thought. And that’s why she’s serving dinner on a Sunday afternoon. Women whose men never came home, like Patricia Wentworth.

  He waited until he saw Mr. Wentworth leaving the surgery and walking toward his home. Then he rose, settled his own bill, and went across to the police station. He found Constable Penny sitting behind his desk, staring into space.

  “Ah. Inspector. Did you find Mrs. Delaney, sir?” he asked, rising.

  “Yes, thank you. How are the Wentworths?”

  Penny shook his head. “I couldn’t see her face through that veil, but I’m sure she’d been crying. The mother. Her voice was quite husky. Mr. Wentworth was bearing up well enough, but it was a strain.”

  “Could they tell you anything about their son that might be useful to us?”

  “I didn’t have the heart to ask, sir. They wanted to know if any progress had been made in the inquiry, and I had to tell them early days, early days.” He looked at Rutledge. “Has any been made, sir? What did Inspector Reed have to say? I stayed here to wait for the Wentworths. Dr. Brent had informed me they would be coming.”

  “A little. I’m beginning to form an opinion of the younger Wentworth, and that’s helpful.” He paused, then said, as if it didn’t particularly matter, “I would like to speak to his friends. Male friends. They might see him differently than the young ladies he was acquainted with.”

  Penny scratched his chin. “A good many didn’t come back, sir. But there’s Will Holden and Geoff Marshall. They were close when they were young.”

  “And not now?”

  “I don’t know, sir.” He busied himself with his pen. “Some of the men who came back are changed. They keep to themselves. Stephen was a naval officer, he saw a different war. Perhaps that’s it. Holden and Marshall were in France.”

  He understood what Penny was telling him.

  “Where can I find them?”

  “Marshall lives down Church Street, toward the end of it. You’ll have no trouble finding the house. It hasn’t been kept up all that well. His wife left him last year. She found him difficult.”

  “And Holden?”

  “He lives in the house three doors down from Doctor’s surgery. Are you sure you ought not leave these matters to Inspector Reed, sir?”

  “I don’t see him here in Wolfpit, interviewing anyone. I don’t think he cared much for Wentworth. Not the best attitude with which to begin an inquiry.”

  “No, sir. But he did say he’d be back in the afternoon.”

  Rutledge thanked him and left.

  Penny was right. He had no trouble at all finding the Marshall house. It was two-story and had a front garden gone to seed. The window trim could have used a coat of paint, and wisteria vines had taken over one side, clearly out of hand.

  Rutledge walked up the path, bracing himself for what he was likely to find here. Shell shock? Burns? Amputations?

  What he found when Marshall opened the door was a man who had turned to alcohol to hide what he feared most, his own mind.

  His dark hair unkempt, his shirt not very clean, he stared at Rutledge. “And what do you want?” he demanded belligerently.

  “Rutledge, Scotland Yard. I’d like to ask you about Stephen Wentworth.”

  “Do you need a personal reference before buying a book from him?”

  “He’s dead. He was killed Saturday night on the road, coming home from visiting friends.”

  The bleary blue eyes sharpened. “Are you telling me he’s dead?” he repeated.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Gentle God.” He moved aside to allow Rutledge to step inside.

  The house reeked of cigarette smoke and stale beer. Someone had made an effort to pick up in the parlor, but there was dust on the furnishings, and the drapes at the windows were heavy with it in the folds. The antimacassars on the backs of the upholstered chairs needed smoothing out and the hearth rug was rumpled. “Come in and see how a man lives when his wife deserts him.”

  Rutledge carefully chose where to sit. Dog hair covered the cushions of every chair. The hair’s owner was curled up on a mat under the window, and snoring.

  “I’d offer you a drink,” Marshall said sourly, “but of course you’re on duty.”

  “I’m afraid so. How long have you known Stephen Wentworth?”

  “Probably since we were in leading strings. But when he was older, his mother sent him off to boarding school, while the rest of us went to the local grammar school. In the holidays, he’d escape her eye, and we’d play or wander in the fields beyond the village. He liked that, but his mother didn’t care for him coming home covered in burrs and smelling of sweat.”

  “Did you like him, despite his mother?”

  “I couldn’t help it. He was an all-round sport. Never any airs. Of a Sunday, if he couldn’t speak to us, he’d wink. And we’d fight to keep a straight face and not give him away.”

  “Did he make any enemies in the village?”

  “We thought it her doing that he went into the Royal Navy when the rest of us enlisted. No burrs in the trenches, of course, but they were damned sweaty. Not to speak of the lice.”

  Rutledge said, “Being torpedoed at sea is no walk in the park.”

  “I expect Mrs. Wentworth never thought of that. All the girls were agog when he walked down the street in his officer’s uniform.” He shrugged. “It didn’t go to his head. I will say that for him.”

  “Who shot him, then?”

  The suddenness of the question caught Marshall off balance. “Here. You said he was killed—not that he was murdered.”

  “Did I not make it clear?” Rutledge had deliberately left out murder. “Who would want Wentworth dead?”

  “I don’t know that anyone would want to kill him. I mean, why?”

  “Had you seen much of him since the war?”

  “Not really. There was my marriage—and the marriage going sour. We didn�
��t have much in common. And where was the time to read?”

  “I’m curious. What went wrong with your marriage?”

  “What else? My drinking. Betty calls it demon drink, but I drink because of the demons. Were you in the war? An officer, I take it?”

  “Yes. The Somme.”

  “Then I don’t need to tell you about demons. We were stepping on the dead, piling them up behind the trenches, watching men bleed to death because there was no time to help them. Listening to the screams and the cries. The smells—it was July.” He shuddered. “How do I tell my wife about that? She can barely cut up a joint from the butcher’s. How can I tell her, then watch her suffer from nightmares she ought never to know?”

  “You can’t. But you might make her understand that there are some things better left unsaid.”

  Marshall shook his head. “It doesn’t work. She’s led a sheltered life, my Betty.”

  Rutledge attempted to bring the conversation back to Stephen Wentworth.

  “Is there anything else you can tell me about Stephen’s life that might be helpful?”

  Taking a deep breath, Marshall said, “I never understood why he went to Peru. When he’d just bought the bookshop a year or so before. When I asked afterward, he told me it was wanderlust. But he’d never shown any interest in travel until then.”

  “I was told that the books on travel in the shop had enticed him.”

  “Oh, he liked them well enough. I just never heard of him wanting to go badly enough himself. There’s a difference between seeing something in a book and being curious, wanting to learn more, and rushing off to London to buy a steamship ticket.”

  There was some truth in that.

  “Then what precipitated the flight to Peru?”

  “There was a girl he met in Cambridge. She lived in the town. I don’t know if she had anything to do with it, but he told me once that he wanted to marry her. Then I heard no more about her. Not even her name.”

  “Perhaps he asked her to marry him, and she refused.” It was what Lydie had told him, and Mrs. Delaney as well.

  Marshall grimaced. “Girls didn’t refuse Wentworth. He could have had his pick. Betty liked him. I could tell.” Something stirred in his eyes as he said it.

  “Jealousy? Do you think that might have had a role in his death?”

  Marshall got to his feet with an effort. “I have enough worries of my own. I can’t take on Stephen’s too. I’ll thank you to shut the door when you leave.”

  And he was gone, climbing the stairs to the upper floor, making it clear he didn’t expect Rutledge to follow him.

  Rutledge let himself out. The dog lifted its head but didn’t bother to bark.

  He walked down the street, mulling over what he’d learned. There had been envy in Marshall’s voice, but a defeated envy and an uncertainty about his wife’s affections. Not a bleeding wound that might drive a man to remove the source of his pain.

  But there was a corollary to that. Would heartbreak have sent Stephen Wentworth haring off to Peru just when he had bought the bookshop he had wanted so badly to own? Mrs. Delaney had made that connection.

  He’d been young, just coming down from university, and such a rash decision might have seemed to be the right romantic gesture. And yet what people had been telling Rutledge about Stephen Wentworth painted the picture of a stable and considerate man.

  It would be interesting to hear Will Holden’s view of the victim.

  A chill wind had come up, and villagers were hurrying along The Street now, no longer strolling in the sun. Several of them nodded to him. By now most of the men and a good many of the women knew there was someone from London looking into Wentworth’s death, but he found it odd that none of them stopped him to offer information. Not even a “Hope you catch the bastard. Wentworth was a good man.”

  He came to the Holden house. Like its neighbors, it stood directly on The Street. When he knocked, there was no answer. He waited, but there was no indication that anyone was at home. It was a little more imposing than Marshall’s bungalow, and better kept. And there was a pram standing by the door, indicating that Holden’s marriage at least had survived.

  He walked on toward the end of The Street and as far as the smithy and a small brickyard, then turned back toward The Swan. The winter day was closing in, and he could feel the sharp edges of a little sleet jabbing at his face, but by the time he’d reached the inn, it had passed by, although there were dark clouds chasing the squall toward the North Sea.

  He found himself thinking that before the war, Frances might have chosen Italy for her wedding trip. She had always wanted to see Florence. But she had picked Paris as the more sensible choice. He hoped they had fairer weather.

  Last night he’d got very little sleep, and it was catching him up now. He climbed the stairs to his room, found his key, and even though it was barely four o’clock in the afternoon, he turned up the lamp and was about to carry a chair to the window when he saw an envelope lying on the bed.

  Curious, he reached for it. The flap hadn’t been sealed. Pulling out the poorly folded single sheet that had been stuffed inside, he unfolded it.

  The scrawl was written in a water-thinned ink by a narrow point, and the word spidery came to mind. An attempt to conceal the handwriting?

  But there was no mistaking the message.

  Stephen Wentworth is a murderer. He got what he deserved.

  Rutledge’s first thought was the war, that something had happened during the fighting that had made Wentworth a marked man—and someone had come to see that he paid his debt.

  The war hadn’t all been heroism and glory.

  Officers had been shot in the back, men had been sent out in hopeless charges and raids, with the expectation that they would die, and ranks had been reported for courts-martial on false charges. It was easy enough to find a reason to hate . . .

  But Stephen Wentworth hadn’t served in the trenches. On the other hand, he’d lost ships, and men had gone down with them. It was worth keeping in mind.

  What if it wasn’t the war? What if something had happened at Cambridge—and Wentworth had fled to Peru until he felt it was safe enough to come home?

  The writer of the message in his hand had meant to leave the impression that Wentworth wasn’t the man Rutledge had been led to believe he was.

  Instead, it had opened doors that Rutledge hadn’t yet found a key for. And that in itself was suspicious.

  Hamish said, “Ye canna’ ignore it.”

  I don’t intend to, Rutledge answered silently.

  But who in Wolfpit could tell him about Wentworth’s time at university?

  Constable Penny might have an answer for that.

  A knock at the door brought him back to the present, and he turned to open it.

  Melinda Crawford stood there in a dark red wool traveling dress, a fashionable ermine hat on her head and a matching ermine muff in one hand. Raised in the heat of India, she claimed that English winters tested her. He had wondered if they had also given her an excuse for indulging in pretty winter clothing. In spite of the long drive from London, she looked entirely fresh, and her dark eyes were bright with curiosity.

  Behind her, Ram, her Indian chauffeur, carried a valise that Rutledge instantly recognized.

  “I thought you might need a few things,” she said, taking the valise from the chauffeur and passing it to Rutledge. “You’ll find your identification in there as well.”

  He hadn’t got around to thinking about the fact that he’d only brought one change of clothes. How had she known?

  Collecting himself, he asked her to step into the room. “Have you had your dinner?” he asked. “I can’t speak for the food here, but I owe you for this.”

  She walked in and took the chair by the window. “Wolfpit is a lovely village. We took the lane by the church to have a better look at it. Quite splendid. David would find it interesting, I think.”

  His godfather, David Trevor, was a well-known architect.


  “I came here quite by chance,” he confessed. “I couldn’t sleep, and I went for a drive. And it went on longer than I’d expected.”

  “Yes, I thought that might be the case. But you wanted your identification. You said something on the telephone about a murder.”

  “I stumbled on a murder. Well, not stumbled. I was driving, there was a motorcar in the middle of the road, and a frightened woman standing over a dead man. He’d just been shot.”

  Melinda nodded. “And you’ve taken over the inquiry?”

  “I expect to. I’ve asked for London’s blessing.”

  She turned to look down into the street. “I believe I know the Chief Constable. He’s the son of a very dear friend. We met in Hong Kong. We were very clever to take it over, you know. Hong Kong, I mean. Too bad we couldn’t have owned it outright—a hundred years will pass in no time, and China will want it back after we’ve made something of it. But I was speaking of the Chief Constable’s father. He had connections in Peking, and he took me to see the Great Wall.” She smiled at the memory, then turned back to him, going on briskly, “But that’s neither here nor there. Will you come and see me on your way back to London?” She added, “It isn’t terribly far out of your way.”

  He knew what she was asking. To come and reassure her that he was all right.

  “I’m happy for Frances, you know. And I like Peter.”

  “Still, you and Frances have drawn closer after the death of your parents, and it will be different now. For a little while.” And then as she picked up her muff, she said, “I do like Kate Gordon. I’m so glad Frances invited her to the wedding. We had a chat over the champagne. She’s quite fond of you, you know.” And without waiting for an answer, she swept to the door and held up her face for his kiss.

  As he bent to kiss her cheek, he said, “You see too much.”

  “My dear Ian, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  And she was gone, down the stairs to her waiting motorcar without giving him a chance to escort her.

  Rutledge stood by the window, watching her drive away.

  And then when he opened his valise, he saw that it was expertly packed, with the foresight and the efficiency of a soldier’s wife. Her Captain Crawford had been a very lucky man, Rutledge thought. A tragedy that he’d died so young.