The Gate Keeper

by Charles Todd

  The churchyard was filled with shadows, and his footsteps echoed on the streets. There were few lamps lit in the houses and cottages he passed, while the shops were dark.

  Two murders in a matter of days. In a single village. And no one had seen the killer’s face.

  Rutledge looked up at the windows behind which people slept. Who was next? Or had the killer finished with Wolfpit—and moved on?

  He walked for two more hours, and then, thinking he could sleep, he turned back toward The Swan.

  Hamish said, “’Ware,” as he had so many times on night watches in the trenches.

  Alert now, Rutledge scanned the empty street. And then ahead of him, close by the Wentworth house, something flitted out of the shadows and crossed the road. He realized it was the friendly dog, and relaxed.

  Then he tensed again as he realized the dog had come up to someone he couldn’t see, tail wagging and demanding to be noticed.

  There was a sudden movement, and the dog dodged away, yelping. It turned tail and set off in the direction it had come from.

  Rutledge was already running flat out, cursing the echo of his footsteps in the silence of the night. And then someone else was running, but Rutledge thought he had an edge on his quarry, coming up fast. The echo picked up other feet—and then there were only his own footsteps.

  Had his quarry stepped into a doorway? Slipped into a garden or between two houses or shops?

  Rutledge slowed, then stopped. He was breathing hard, and trying to listen as well.

  Hamish said, “He’s no’ there.”

  “He has to be. He can’t have vanished into thin air.”

  “He has before.”

  Uncertain whether to stay in the shadows himself and wait, or to begin a thorough search, Rutledge stood where he was.

  Was that the creak of a back gate?

  He moved forward, found himself looking down a narrow service alley between two houses. It was pitch-black. But he turned into it anyway, wary with every step he took, and at the end of it, he saw a gate leading into a walled back garden. Rather than risk opening it and giving himself away, he put out a hand and vaulted it, landing silently in the grass on the far side. It was lighter here, open except for a tree at the bottom of the garden. He could see the branches move a little, then stop.

  He tried to stay in the shadows by the garden wall, taking his time, his eyes on the bare limbs of the tree, searching for a thicker darkness that might be a person. Halfway to the tree, he realized that whoever had climbed it had used it to swing over the wall just below it. For he could see the trunk clearly now.

  Swearing, he ran toward the tree, heedless of being seen, and swung himself up into it, to a point where he could see over the wall.

  He was looking down into an alley that ran between this garden and the back gardens of houses, mostly small cottages, as far as he could judge, facing out toward what appeared to be fields beyond them.

  Scanning the alley and the back gardens he could see into, he searched for movement. But whoever he’d been after, there was no sign of him now. As the clouds overhead opened and a crescent moon lit the scene, he went on searching. But it was useless.

  Rutledge scrambled down from the tree, walked back up the garden to the gate, and vaulted over it again.

  What had he seen? Someone up to mischief at this hour? An errant husband on his way home? Or a murderer looking for his next victim?

  Impossible to say. If it hadn’t been for the dog leaping out of reach of a kick, he would very likely never have seen someone there in the shadows.

  As he entered the alley, he found himself thinking of the days when wolves roamed the outskirts of villages, picking off livestock, frightening travelers, and keeping people in their houses after dark.

  The wolves had gone, but there had been something—someone—abroad this night.

  He crossed the street and went into The Swan. Once in his room, he locked the door again and sat by his window for another hour, watching the street from the edge of his curtain.

  But nothing moved except for a lorry coming up from the Bury road and trundling away into the distance.

  Finally, accepting the fact that whoever it was had gone, Rutledge gave up and went to bed.

  This time he slept without dreams.

  Early the next morning, as dawn was threatening to break through the clouds, Rutledge went out again into the street. He retraced his own steps, then went back down the narrow alley and examined the back garden for footprints. But his quarry had been careful to stay on the grass, avoiding any muddy patches, and there was nothing to show that he had ever been there. Rutledge even climbed the tree again and looked carefully at the top of the wall. He was rewarded with nothing of interest.

  Before the householder or his servants had risen, Rutledge had gone away. As soon as he thought Penny was on duty, he stopped in at the police station, then found him at home, toasting slices of bread over the kitchen hearth while waiting for the kettle to boil. Cooked eggs and a sausage were already on his plate.

  He had hoped to ask the Constable to draw him a map of Wolfpit and add the names of householders to it. Compromising, Rutledge found paper on the desk in the station and sketched out the center of the village himself. When he took it back, Penny was just setting his dishes in the dry sink. He looked it over, then said, “You’re a fair hand at drafting.”

  He offered Rutledge a cup of tea, and then began to put names to the spaces.

  The house with the back garden, Rutledge discovered, belonged to two young women, mistresses in the local grammar school.

  “Lost their fiancés in war, and turned to teaching to earn their living,” Penny told him. “Settled, well liked. I’ve never heard a word against either of them.”

  “Do they have friends who call? Or some attachment to a man in Wolfpit?”

  “Women friends, from time to time. But there’s no attachment to anyone that I’ve heard of. If you met them, you’d understand.”

  “And the men they were engaged to? Were they local?”

  “Miss Frost is from London. She took over the lower school when Mr. Hobson enlisted. Hired by the board of governors because her father is something in the government. Miss Dennis is from Dorset. Miss Frost recommended her for the vacancy when Mr. Grady died of the influenza. The house belonged to Mr. Grady, and he left it to the school. A bachelor all his life.”

  Hamish said, “It was the nearest way off the High.”

  While Rutledge agreed with him, he had some reservations. It was still early, and he thanked Penny, rolling up the sheet and taking it with him.

  Children were just making their way to school, and he found a vantage point by a milliner’s shop where he could watch the Grady house.

  Ten minutes later, two women came out the door, leather satchels in their hands, and turned toward the school. They weren’t what he’d expected. While they wore black with sensible shoes, their hair pulled back severely beneath their hats in an effort to make them appear older than they were, it was harder to conceal the spring in their step. The taller of the two had dark red hair, while her companion was fair. They wore only powder, no color on their lips or cheeks. He wouldn’t have called either of them pretty, but he thought that must have been deliberate. He remembered his sister’s governess, an intelligent woman who had also made her living teaching, always dressed in plain dark gowns and wearing her hair in an older woman’s style. And yet her eyes had held laughter sometimes, and it had changed her face completely.

  Rutledge followed the two women at a distance, watching children here and there speak shyly to them as they met along the way. Others walked on ahead, all too aware of who was behind them, and a few—mostly the older lads—lagged behind the women.

  The school was down the road past the church, and had once been a smaller building. He thought it had been enlarged in the early 1890s, for the newer roof was now nearly the same gray as the older one.

  Once the teachers and the children h
ad disappeared through the door, and the last laggard had hurried to catch them up, Rutledge walked on.

  Miss Frost and Miss Dennis were safe enough for the moment.

  Hamish said, “Ye canna’ watch o’er them day and night. It’s better to find yon murderer.”

  There was no answer Rutledge could make.

  He retraced his steps to The Street and began to scan his rough map to locate the firm of solicitors. He found the brass nameplate beside a door just down from the bookshop. Blake and Sons was written in a Gothic script that matched the elegant door set into the plastered wall, painted a pleasing shade of blue.

  An elderly clerk admitted him, and told him Mr. Blake was available. He was shown into an office where the heads of game animals circled the walls, glass eyes gazing down at him from an array of trophies. Mostly giraffe, lion, water buffalo, and several gazelles, although a rhinoceros hovered high above the desk.

  Blake, a man in his forties, smiled as he watched Rutledge’s reaction. “Not mine, I’m afraid. My grandfather was an avid hunter. He was the Blake on the board outside. My father and my uncle were the Sons. I’ve never got around to adding Grandson. It seemed somehow cheeky to change it. Or to change them. I’ve only been here ten years. I did offer them to the school, but Mr. Grady politely turned me down. A pity. Think what a teaching tool they would have made. Africa, watching while the children did their tables.”

  Rutledge returned the smile. “Is there not a box room that would hold them?”

  Blake laughed. “One of my clients would die of the shock. She still compares me to my grandfather.” Rutledge had the feeling that he was speaking of Mrs. Wentworth. Then the laughter faded. “You’ve come about Templeton, have you not? Or Stephen Wentworth? Or both? My clerk greeted me this morning with the news of another murder. I’m not quite sure what to make of it. If I were asked, I’d have said that both men were the least likely people I know to have been murdered.”

  “Were they friends?”

  “Acquaintances. But they moved in different circles. Templeton was older, married, a settled man. I’d have said Stephen Wentworth was settled too. Half the eligible ladies in the village would have been happy to attract his notice. He was polite, attentive, he’d dance with the wallflowers, but he showed no interest in a closer relationship. I’d heard that there was someone he’d met while at university, but as far as I know, nothing came of it. As for Templeton, his wife’s death was too recent. He’s kept to himself as a rule.”

  That fit with what Rutledge had already learned. “Who inherits, in each case?”

  “Templeton has left everything to his wife’s sister. She lives in St. Albans. Married, several children. The two women were close, and there’s no surprise there.” He looked up at Rutledge, suddenly stricken. “Dear God. I just realized. I shall have to go and break the news to her.”

  “And Wentworth?”

  “He left the bookshop to Mrs. Delaney. Again, not too surprising, he’d bought it from the Delaneys. And I’m sure his parents wanted no part of it. They were against his purchase of it in the first place. Like Templeton, he made the usual bequests to the staff and to the church, as well as the Widows and Orphans fund. The sort of thing that was expected of him. But the bulk of his estate goes to the Bodleian in Oxford. Rather an odd choice, but there you are. It was his to do with as he pleased.”

  “Not to Cambridge?”

  “Yes, that surprised me as well. I’d have thought he might have left something to his sister’s children. A gesture. But he told me they were well looked after, and the Bodleian would be grateful for the funds. And I expect they will.”

  “How long ago did he make this bequest?”

  “Oh, shortly after he came back from Peru. Before he enlisted. I asked him after the war if he wished to make any changes to his will, but he told me he was satisfied with it as it stood.”

  Rutledge could see that this was going nowhere. “And nothing in either man’s life was unusual—nothing that would lead you to question his associates or his decisions?”

  “I can’t say there was nothing. I didn’t know them that well. But I’ve lived here all my life too, and there’s been no particular gossip about either man. I’ve heard that Stephen and his family were at odds, but I don’t know if that’s true. He did spend a good many of his holidays with friends. Still, he was quite popular and never lacking for invitations to stay. Perhaps that’s how the rumors got started.”

  “Did they share an interest in racing—chess—fishing? Anything?”

  “If they did, I never heard of it. Templeton loved his wife, don’t get me wrong. But he was devoted to his land. He cherished it, worked to improve the soil and his yields, rotating crops, plowing with the contour of the land, looking for the best quality seeds. He’s—was—a rather quiet man. He seemed to be most at home walking across his land, but he was in demand to talk about some of the innovations he’d put in place, and he was generous with his time in that regard.”

  Which, Rutledge thought, was why “Young” had made that arrangement to meet Templeton. He knew it would work.

  “What you’re telling me is that Templeton and Wentworth were random targets, and yet there’s some evidence that the killer planned each death, patiently waiting for his opportunity. Stalking both men. I need to know why, because I have a feeling he’ll kill again.” He studied Blake for a moment. “Do you fit the pattern?”

  Startled, Blake stared back at him. “Good God. Are you serious?”

  “I don’t jest about murder.”

  He straightened in his chair, sudden anxiety in his face. “I’m close to both men in age. Closer perhaps to Templeton. At the moment I live alone. My wife’s mother is ill, and she’s in Derby just now, staying with her for a bit. I’m hoping she’ll be able to come back for Christmas, or I’ll travel to Derbyshire instead. Meanwhile—what the hell should I be doing, meanwhile?”

  “Be careful. Don’t go walking out at night alone. Don’t stay here after your clerk has left. Be judicious answering your house door. And if you get a summons to a bedside for a last change in a will, be sure it’s genuine.”

  “This time of year it’s dark early on. And I sometimes dine out, rather than eat alone in that empty house.”

  “You’ll have to change your habits. Or ask your housekeeper to see that you have dinner waiting for you. Loneliness is better than leaving your wife a widow.”

  “Good God,” he said again, then cleared his throat. “Surely—” Breaking off, he stared beyond Rutledge at the lioness above the door. “I expect I’m as brave as the next man, I spent three years in France, and I learned how to kill or be killed. But this is different. I still have my service revolver. I expect it’s in my trunk.” His gaze came back to Rutledge. “I ought to thank you for the warning. Somehow I don’t feel suitably grateful.”

  “I understand.”

  “Damn it, what about you? Why aren’t you a likely candidate yourself?”

  Rutledge said, “I might well be, when he realizes I’m looking for him.”

  He left soon after. Blake had gone over everything he knew about Templeton and Wentworth again, searching for a clue to their deaths. But none of it was new information, and in the end, he had shaken his head.

  “Will you tell me if you learn anything more? Anything useful, I mean. Anything that might make a difference?” Blake asked.

  “I will.” He made an effort to mask his own frustration, and out in the street once more, he asked himself if these killings had been random. Hamish argued against that, pointing out that some effort had been made to locate the victim in Wentworth’s case, and to lure him away from his home in Templeton’s. In Rutledge’s experience that was unusual in random murders.

  What then was the connection?

  The killer had taken nothing from his victims. But he had asked a question of Wentworth, and presumably had asked one of Templeton as well.

  What answer was he looking for?

  Or perhaps more
to the point, what was he searching for?

  And had he believed it was necessary to kill those who had the right answer? Or had he shot each victim precisely because he’d given the wrong answer and therefore couldn’t be left alive to tell anyone what the question was?

  That, he thought, trying to ignore Hamish, might be worth bearing in mind.

  Well, then, Rutledge asked himself as he walked the streets of Wolfpit, what was the question?

  One searched for a person. Or an object. A man . . . or a woman. Something that was lost or taken. Even for a place.

  Hamish said so clearly that Rutledge turned to see if anyone else had heard the voice, “Ye can search for a witness.”

  And that opened up an entirely different line of thought.

  Rutledge hurried back to The Swan, and once in his room, he took out several sheets of paper and began to make a list of everything he knew about the dead men.

  It was damned little. The only item on the list that both shared was living alone. Why should that matter? Neither man was killed in his house.

  Rutledge flung his pencil down on the desk and stretched the tight muscles in his shoulders.

  Collecting his hat and coat, he went down to the motorcar and drove out to the Templeton house, but stopped short of the gates. They were still standing open, as they had been the day before.

  Beginning at the road, he quartered the drive up to where the body had been found, scanning for anything that might make a difference.

  Hamish said, “Anither wolf?”

  “Or bear—cat—crow,” he answered absently, his eyes on the drive. But search as he would, there was no carving to be found. He did see, not far from where Templeton had fallen, the stub of a cigarette. Flattened and torn, it lay in the hollow of a rut.

  Frustrated, he moved to the verge of the drive. And there, beneath a bough of rhododendron and a clump of grass just touching the edge of the drive, he saw it, so well hidden in the shadows that only a determined search had found it.

  Feeling a surge of excitement, he reached for it, closed his fingers over it, and then straightened. In the palm of his hand was another, almost identical, wood carving of a howling wolf. He thought it must have been kicked there inadvertently by Martin or the doctor or even the undertaker, for it was clean and smooth this time.