The Gate Keeper

by Charles Todd

  Rutledge said, “It’s possible that your son won’t be released for burial for some time. There must be an inquest, for one thing, and questions to be answered first.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Mrs. Wentworth told him sharply. “My husband will have a word with the Chief Constable.” And before he could answer her, she was out the door.

  Wentworth shrugged apologetically. “She’s distraught—” he began, then with an arm outstretched to usher Rutledge toward the door, he added, “Another time?”

  Rutledge found himself out on the step, the door closed firmly behind him.

  It had been an interesting interview, he thought, staring at the brass knocker. He had seldom seen parents so untouched by a child’s death. And that was something he would ask Constable Penny about.

  Striding down the path to the gate, he heard Hamish say, “Look behind you.”

  Rutledge turned as he closed the gate, and he was just in time to see Mrs. Wentworth’s face vanishing from view in an upstairs window. Stephen’s room?

  He found Constable Penny in the police station, and began with his own news.

  “Did you find my message? I’ve been requested by the Chief Constable to take charge of this inquiry. It’s official now.”

  Penny said, “Indeed, sir.” As a comment it was as careful as the man could make his response.

  “I’ve just called on Mr. and Mrs. Wentworth. They lived here in the village for most of their marriage. Tell me about them.”

  Reluctantly Penny said, “If we were to have a squire, I expect it would be Mr. Wentworth. Not the major landowner in these parts, of course, but the wealthiest man in the village. His word carries some weight.”

  “And his wife?”

  “She came from York. Her father was the MP for the city. As marriage goes, it was advantageous for both of them. But Mr. Wentworth didn’t have political aspirations, or so I’ve been led to believe. Mrs. Wentworth was more than a little upset by that, according to gossip. I expect she rather fancied a house in London while Parliament was sitting.”

  “Instead she had children.”

  “Yes, sir. She was rather strict rearing them. But Stephen grew up to be a fine man, so it didn’t do much harm. The daughter was a pretty little thing, and she married well as you’d expect.”

  “How did brother and sister get on together?”

  “I can only tell you what I’ve heard. Well enough, although never close. Patricia was a lively girl. She went her own way, made her own friends. It was at a party in Leicester that she met Jocelyn Courtney. Her husband. Late husband. He was from Norwich, up-and-coming young solicitor, or so I heard. A fine match.”

  “This was while Stephen was up at Cambridge?”

  “Yes, his last year, as I recall. He came home for the wedding, but wasn’t in the wedding party. There was some talk about that.”

  And Rutledge had just given his sister away, filled the role of her father as best he could. But of course Patricia had a father still living . . .

  “What did the gossips have to say?”

  “That the mother insisted on not having him in the wedding party.”

  “Odd, I should think,” Rutledge agreed. But he had seen Stephen Wentworth’s mother, and was prepared to believe this was true.

  “Most seemed to think she was angry with him for wanting to buy the bookshop. Mr. Delaney wasn’t well, he’d spoken to several villagers about wanting to sell up, and Stephen was eager to buy it while he could.”

  “Since it was his own money, he needn’t ask their permission. Was that a cause for disagreement?”

  “I don’t know that it was the money so much as a Wentworth going into trade.”

  “Were there hard feelings between brother and sister over his exclusion from the wedding party? Did he perhaps feel that she should have insisted?”

  “Now that’s the odd thing. Mr. Stephen came to the wedding, danced once with the bride, the third dance, after her husband and her father. That’s the custom. Was generally pleasant, and seemed not at all put out. He went back to Cambridge the next morning, having slept the night at a friend’s house. Mr. Holden’s, as a matter of fact. Well, the Wentworth house was full of guests. Still.”

  That also fit well into what Rutledge had heard from Mrs. Wentworth about her feelings toward her son.

  “There were no other children?”

  “I wasn’t here until Mr. Stephen was seven or eight. But I never heard of any others.”

  “Who was here? The doctor? The Rector?”

  “I don’t believe so, sir. The sexton at St. Mary’s might know. He’s older. Or the Rector might be willing to look back in the church records. If it matters?”

  “It’s not important,” he said, rising to leave. “Just filling in the family history.”

  “I don’t know who would have it in for Mr. Stephen.”

  “So far, neither do I. But we’ll see.” He nodded to Constable Penny and left.

  Rutledge walked up The Street, as far as the brickyard on the outskirts, then turned and came back. The village was not so large as to offer an unlimited number of suspects. But he wasn’t quite satisfied with the possibility that one of the two friends he’d interviewed held a grudge that had suddenly flared into anger and murder. He decided to find out by asking Miss MacRae if she knew them and possibly might recognize them in the dark.

  When he knocked on the house door, Miss Blackburn informed him that she had given Miss MacRae something to help her sleep.

  “She was awake most of the night. I heard her walking about till all hours. So I stopped by the doctor’s surgery and asked for something. He gave me some drops, and they appear to be just the thing. She’s sleeping like a child, poor darling.”

  He didn’t want to ask Miss Blackburn—he preferred to watch Miss MacRae’s first reaction to his query for himself.

  Hamish spoke suddenly, catching him off guard. “She’s lived here an aye lang time.”

  “You don’t approve?” Miss Blackburn demanded, bristling.

  “Sorry, nothing to do with the drops. It occurred to me—how long have you known Mrs. Wentworth?”

  Frowning, she considered. “Nearly twenty years, I expect.”

  “What can you tell me about her?”

  “She’s a spoiled, vicious woman who should have been given a taste of a belt when she was young enough to change.”

  Surprised, Rutledge said, “That’s rather harsh.”

  “Not if you know the woman. I have had to suffer her presence in situations where I couldn’t very well walk out of the room or the church, but I refuse to be polite to her. And her husband isn’t much better. He will do anything to keep the peace in that house, letting her rule as she wishes. A weak and shallow man. I bid you good day.”

  With that she swung the door shut in his face, but not before he’d seen the flame of anger in hers.

  Whatever her reasons were, it was clear that she wasn’t about to discuss them. He thought perhaps he’d caught her off guard just as Hamish had caught him when he suggested asking her about Stephen’s mother.

  And he rather thought that Miss Blackburn wouldn’t have been at all surprised to hear that Mrs. Wentworth had shot her own son, if the circumstances had been different.

  The rain had let up for now, but lowering clouds promised more to come.

  Folding his umbrella, Rutledge walked on to the church, crossing the street behind a farm cart laden with a half dozen unhappy pigs. Their noisy objections were bad enough, but the odor from the straw under them was foul.

  The Sunday services had left behind a lingering hint of incense, but there was an emptiness that the echoes of his footsteps couldn’t fill. He found himself wondering how long prayers drifted in the stillness of a Monday morning. There were holly branches among the greenery at the altar, and a splash of red berries that stood out in the dimness. Overhead, carved angels holding up the lovely wooden roof watched him as he walked down the nave. He looked around at the splen
dors that wool had built in churches like this. Many of them hadn’t escaped the attentions of Henry VIII or Oliver Cromwell, but Rutledge had always loved fine architecture, and his godfather had cultivated this love, hoping that one day Rutledge would join his firm. But David Trevor’s son, Ross, had been killed in the war, and Rutledge had chosen the police even before that. Trevor had tried to soldier on, but his heart hadn’t been in it, and he sold the firm to take early retirement in Scotland with his small grandson, who was cared for by the young woman who had been the only family the boy, also named Ian, had known for the first few years of his life.

  Pushing that memory away, he tried to imagine what these houses of worship had looked like before Oliver Cromwell’s ravages. Before the Puritan spirit had torn out everything that smacked of Catholic imagery. Henry VIII had left many such architectural treasures untouched after he—with the help of another Cromwell—had decreed himself to be head of England’s Church.

  Rutledge quickly discovered evidence that the Wentworth family had been a large part of village life over the centuries, with plaques honoring them and brasses or memorials marking their resting places. They had been generous with their time and their money, but there was no indication that they had been good men—or bad, with a conscience guilty enough to offer up gifts to save their troubled souls.

  But many men had lost their faith in the trenches and had had no place to expiate the horrors or the killing. One didn’t build churches any longer, or give money toward a chapel, or pay for a fine new window. Sometimes one gave to repair a roof or deal with damp or replace an altar cloth—upkeep was expensive. But it was done as a charity and not as a hope for eternity.

  Suddenly claustrophobic, even here in the spacious nave, Rutledge turned and walked back the way he’d come, taking a deep breath of the cold air as he stepped into the churchyard.

  Hamish, all too aware of Rutledge’s moods, said, “Ye canna’ escape what’s done.” There was a harshness in his tone now.

  “No.” He hadn’t realized he’d answered aloud.

  He began to circle the churchyard, looking for the Wentworth plot, and he was halfway down one side when he felt that someone was watching him. He turned to glance over his shoulder.

  There was a man standing some thirty yards away, near the tower. Rutledge would have sworn that he hadn’t been there before, for surely he would have noticed him.

  His hair was iron gray, his complexion ruddy, and he was wearing country clothes. High boots, corduroy trousers, and a flannel shirt beneath the heavy coat that was not buttoned up. He had no umbrella with him, but his hair and his shoulders were dry.

  The sexton? Rutledge waited to see if he would come forward to greet him. But the man stared at him for several minutes before disappearing around the front of the church.

  Rutledge went on with his search, and on the far side of the church, close enough for the graves to touch its outer wall, stood some twenty older tombstones incised with the Wentworth name, and almost like satellite clusters, later family groupings.

  The voice behind him almost made him jump.

  “Looking for the present family?”

  He turned. It was the man he’d seen earlier. “As a matter of fact I am.”

  “They’re on the far side. You missed them.”

  “Have I indeed?”

  “Nothing to see there, anyway.”

  “I’m told the Wentworths lost a son. Many years ago.”

  “Who told you that?” His gruff manner was now almost menacing.

  Rutledge stood his ground. “Mrs. Wentworth.”

  “Well, now.” The man turned away, looking toward a wood on the far side of the churchyard. “I shouldn’t pry into a family’s grief. Not now. Not when they have another cross to bear.”

  “How well do you know them?” Rutledge asked, deliberately showing interest.

  “Well enough.”

  “Your accent isn’t local.”

  “No?” He faced Rutledge again.

  “In fact, you sound very like Chief Superintendent Markham, a Yorkshireman.”

  The man said nothing for a moment. “I spent some time there in my youth.”

  “I’d like to see the family graves.”

  “Have at it.” He turned on his heel and strode away, not stopping until he’d reached the low churchyard wall and disappeared from Rutledge’s view.

  He spent another half hour looking before he realized he’d been searching for the wrong graves. Where would a child be buried? Not in a plot of its own but in that of grandparents? The problem was, with so many Wentworths buried here, more than a few of them children who had died young, he couldn’t be sure which one might have been Stephen’s brother.

  Turning away, he walked grimly back to The Street.

  Constable Penny was making his rounds, and Rutledge caught up with him outside a haberdashery.

  “Looking for me, sir?” Penny asked, turning as Rutledge called his name.

  “Yes. Do you know the names of Stephen Wentworth’s grandparents?”

  “Grandparents?” Penny frowned. “Why do you need that, sir?”

  “I’ll explain later. Do you know?”

  “Um. I don’t—I believe it was Howard and Patricia.” He scratched his chin. “Patricia doesn’t sound right. That’s the granddaughter’s name.” Staring into the past, he searched his memory. “The family used to put flowers on the altar in their memory. I’ve seen the notice. On the occasion of the father’s birthday. That stopped some years ago. Howard and—” He turned triumphantly to Rutledge. “Margaret. That’s it, Margaret.”

  “Thank you,” Rutledge responded, and was gone before the Constable could ask more questions.

  But when he returned to the churchyard and resumed his search, it took some time to find Howard and Margaret Wentworth. When he did, he realized why he had found it so difficult to locate the right child’s grave.

  The marker was in the shape of a sleeping lamb, nestled between the stones of his grandparents, as if for protection, and half-hidden in the high winter grass. Rutledge knelt and brushed the dry strands away so that he could see the stone and what was written on the base beneath the lamb.

  Robert Emory Wentworth

  And below that a date. 7th July – 10th December 1890.

  Rutledge rocked back on his heels. Robert Emory Wentworth had lived only a few months.

  Thirty years ago. Had Stephen Wentworth done nothing to redeem himself in his mother’s eyes in all that time? Or was it she who refused to relinquish the past?

  7

  Rutledge got to his feet, dusting off the knees of his trousers and then his hands.

  The loss of a child was always dreaded. But early childhood diseases carried them off with heartbreaking frequency. His own parents had been fortunate, but as he was growing up, one friend had died of diphtheria, another of measles. During his first year at Westminster, typhoid fever had killed two boys at school, and another had died of a cancer. And he recalled vividly the stark, grieving faces of parents attending the memorial services. He had thought at the time how painful it must have been for them to walk into an assembly with so many active, healthy boys when they had just buried their own.

  Lines from one of O A Manning’s poems came back to him. The poet he and so many others had read over and over again in the trenches, because the poems somehow put into words what they all felt, officers and other ranks, waiting for the whistle to go over the top—and were afraid to say, when courage was expected of them. Profound courage sometimes, that they had never known they possessed.

  In life we are in death . . .

  The number of our days,

  Long or short, troubling us

  As we stare into the guns

  And wonder, will Death come now?

  Tomorrow? Next week? Or—

  Not at all? Sacrificing

  Some other mother’s son

  In our place.

  Shaking off his dark mood, he looked up at the ha
ndsome tower for a moment, then turned and left the churchyard.

  Who would talk to him about Stephen Wentworth and tell him the truth about the man some admired and at least one person had called a murderer? A man looked up to by some and envied by others? Who had gone his own way in the face of the dreams others had for him? Clearly independently minded, but socially accepted by his peers in spite of his decision to become a bookseller.

  Somewhere in Wentworth’s past surely lay the key to his death. But where to find that key?

  He was about to turn toward The Street when he saw Miss Blackburn hurrying toward him. Stopping, he waited for her.

  “Inspector?”

  “Miss Blackburn?”

  “Elizabeth has gone to the box room for her cases. She had a nightmare—it frightened her, so she wants to go home to Scotland. She says Stephen’s killer will come for her next. Because she was there, you see, and could identify him.”

  “But she can’t. She told me she didn’t see his face clearly.”

  “Well, I know that, and you know that. This murderer does not. And in her dream he found her. And he shot her. She woke up just before she died.”

  “I’m sure it must have been terrifying. Dreams often are,” he said, trying to ease her mind. “They wear off, sooner or later.” It was a lie. He knew that sometimes they didn’t. “Unless, of course,” he added quickly, “there was something in her dream that she can’t remember when she’s awake.”

  “I asked her,” Miss Blackburn retorted, as if he’d questioned her intelligence. “Be sure of that. If she had told me there was, and it put her in danger, I’d have fetched her cases myself and helped her pack them. Whatever Scotland Yard might have to say about it.”

  “Do you want me to go back to the house with you and reassure her that it was only a dream?”