The Gate Keeper

by Charles Todd

  Rutledge got up and walked to the window, trying to shut out the voice.

  He stood there and watched children hurrying toward school, women setting out to do their early marketing. A few men stopped to have a look at his motorcar, but they walked on soon enough. The High was empty after that, for a cold wind had come up.

  The chimney in his room wasn’t drawing well, the smoke irritating his throat. He finally went down to the kitchen to ask for a plate of chicken and an ale.

  A few minutes later, someone from the pub brought up a tray with his meal, and an hour later, he carried it back down again, ordering the other half.

  He brought it back and set the glass on the tiny table by the bed. He slept for several hours, but not deeply enough to dream.

  The day seemed to drag by. And then the light began to fade, helped along by a bank of clouds hovering in the west.

  Watching the street, he saw someone walk as far as his motorcar, then turn and go back the way he’d come, his hat pulled low over his face. Montgomery now knew where he was staying—and how many rooms the pub boasted.

  He tried to sleep for another hour or two, but the silence left him restless. The pub must have closed early. Or wasn’t all that popular. He had the place to himself now. The old building seemed to creak and groan around him, pressed by the wind, which hadn’t dropped at sunset.

  The rain came close on to ten o’clock, but lasted for only an hour before moving on. The street outside glistened wetly, and not even a cat was out there.

  Another hour came and went. He crossed to the other room and gathered up pillows and blankets, arranging them on his bed to give the appearance of someone sleeping. He took a pair of trousers and a shirt out of his valise and draped them over the only chair, as if he’d undressed for bed. Then he put on his heavy coat, banked the fire—and waited.

  18

  He eased his shoulders as the church clock struck midnight. Standing in the deep shadow on the far side of the wardrobe was tiring, but the room was too small for him to conceal himself anywhere else. What’s more, he could just see the motorcar from there.

  One o’clock. Montgomery would have to wait until he was sure his household was asleep. Stifling a yawn, Rutledge leaned his head back against the wall. In the trenches he’d learned to sleep anywhere, even standing up, but now he fought sleep, alert to every sound in the pub, from the creaking of the stairs to the groaning of the structure as the night temperatures dropped.

  It was almost two by his calculations when he heard a different creaking from the stairs. A rhythm to it, not random this time.

  Someone was coming.

  He stayed very still. It would do no good to give himself away before the shot was fired.

  Someone was standing outside his door now. Listening for his breathing? He swore silently, then put his hand over his mouth and smothered a cough as if rousing a little from his sleep.

  Minutes passed.

  Over the top of the wardrobe, he saw the door open quietly, first a crack, and then wide enough for the figure on the bed to be visible. There was just enough light from the hearth to make it look quite real.

  He waited. He couldn’t see whoever it was, but he could hear the hammer pulled back on the revolver. And the pillow and blankets jumped as the room filled with the sound of the shot. A second shot followed, then someone was feeling for the key. The door closed and then the key was turning in the lock.

  Rutledge sprang forward, racing to reach the door before the key sent the bolt home.

  But he was too late. Footsteps clattered down the stairs as he grasped the knob and tried to open the door.

  He was locked in.

  Swearing again, he kicked at the door, but it opened inward and he had no leverage. Giving that up, he tried to pull the hinge pin out at the top of the door, but it appeared to have rusted in place. He took out his pocketknife and worked at it, and suddenly it popped out. The bottom hinge pin was easier, coming out straightaway. He caught the door as it came toward him, shoved it against the wardrobe, and was down the stairs and out the main door of the pub, racing for his motorcar.

  Montgomery had a head start, and Rutledge was counting on overtaking him before he reached the drive up to his house.

  But Rutledge drove as far as the house door at the head of the drive without encountering anyone. Had he cut across the small park to another door?

  Leaving the motor running, he started around the house. He glimpsed a figure ahead of him now, hat pulled low, greatcoat flapping, and he followed. Montgomery reached the terrace, dashed across it, and the door into the garden room opened and closed.

  Rutledge leaped up on the terrace and raced for the door, hesitating only an instant. It opened easily, and that should have warned him.

  Hamish was shouting “’Ware!” as he stepped into the room.

  Rutledge threw himself to one side, felt the shot pass close enough that he heard the familiar, deadly sound of a bee at his ear. Glass in the terrace doors shattered.

  The killer fired again, this time hitting the wall just to one side of Rutledge’s shoulder.

  Four shots. Only two left.

  He dropped like a stone behind a table, reached up for anything his fingers could find, and touched a glass paperweight. He hurled it toward the hearth just as the door to the passage opened and then closed again.

  He got through it fast, ducking into the shadows of the staircase.

  He could hear voices now, servants calling to one another. And a lamp glowed at the top of the stairs.

  The revolver clattered to the floor and was kicked in his direction.

  And then a woman’s voice cried, “Help, help me! He’s armed!”

  Rutledge realized that he’d walked straight into a trap.

  Footsteps hurrying down the stairs, another lamp shining now, and he could just see Prue Montgomery standing in the middle of the hall. She was wearing a nightdress, her hair down her back.

  He wheeled, heading for the garden room. But it was too late. Montgomery, roaring with anger, was at his heels.

  Someone was coming the other way, through the shattered doors, and Rutledge knew that he was well and truly caught.

  Montgomery seized him and was dragging him toward the foyer, where lamps were blindingly bright after the darkness. A gardener or chauffeur, still in his nightdress, blocked the passage door, and Montgomery himself, in nightdress, with his hair tousled, was shouting something.

  And Mrs. Montgomery, crying now, one shoulder of her nightgown torn, was clinging to an older woman, who appeared to be a housekeeper.

  “I heard a noise,” she whimpered, “and I came down to investigate. He was in the garden room, and he fired at me twice. He meant to kill me.”

  “But who is he?” the housekeeper was asking, staring at Rutledge.

  Montgomery was standing just to his left. Without warning, he whirled, raised his fist, caught Rutledge on the side of his jaw, and sent him staggering back against the wall. “Break into my house, will you, attack my wife? I ought to kill you!”

  The other man walked into the foyer and picked up the revolver, looking at it. “It’s been fired recently,” he said, handing it to Montgomery.

  His hand unsteady, Montgomery pointed the revolver at Rutledge’s chest.

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” Rutledge said, shaking his head to clear it. “My name is Rutledge. Inspector, Scotland Yard. I’m here to take you and your wife into custody for the murder of three men.”

  He thought Montgomery was going to pull the trigger out of sheer surprise.

  “Liar!” he shouted. “You were here blackmailing me earlier this morning. Yesterday morning.”

  Mrs. Montgomery said sharply, “Desmond, no! Just shoot him.”

  Rutledge slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out his identification. As he did, one of the little carvings fell out and bounced on the floor.

  All eyes were drawn to it.

  Except for his. He was staring at Prue
Montgomery.

  Rutledge said quickly, “Look at Mrs. Montgomery’s feet. She’s not barefoot like the rest of you. She’s wearing boots, and they’re muddy. And,” he added, “if you go to my room upstairs at the pub, there are two shots in the pillow where my head should have been.”

  The other man held out his hand for the revolver. “I think it’s best if I send for Constable.”

  “Damn it, no, I’ll deal with him myself,” Montgomery objected, but his gaze was still on his wife’s feet. “I’m the magistrate.”

  “You’ll find a man’s hat and coat and trousers in the garden room. The hearth? Behind one of the chairs? Where they could be put away later. As you can see, they aren’t mine. I’m wearing my own,” Rutledge told anyone who would listen.

  The housekeeper was listening. Moving away from her mistress, she went into the garden room, and he thought she was intent on proving him a liar. But after a moment, she came out again with a bundle of clothing in her arms. “These are Mr. Julian’s things,” she said, looking at Montgomery. “But he’s at Cambridge now.”

  Montgomery stood there, frozen. After a moment he said quietly, “What have you done, Prue? Whose revolver is this?”

  “He’s lying,” she began. “Don’t you see?”

  “You said three men,” Montgomery asked over his shoulder to Rutledge. “Who were they?”

  “Stephen Wentworth, the bookseller in Wolfpit. Frederick Templeton, who ordered a book through Wentworth’s shop. And Harvey Mitchell, Miss Moss’s solicitor.”

  “But why?” Montgomery demanded.

  “To find that book and destroy it. It had been safe enough in Miss Moss’s possession. She wasn’t likely to remove the bindings. But Wentworth had bought her book for Templeton, then had to substitute another one. Templeton didn’t even know he hadn’t been given her copy. Nor did you. When he talked about the book about apples at dinner, you recognized it at once, and then heard him say something about having it re-bound. That could prove disastrous. He probably mentioned that it was a rare find, and you had no reason to think otherwise. You were in a panic. Wentworth had to be stopped before he could send that book to the binders. Templeton had to be killed because he knew Wentworth would be seeing to the binding for him. The third victim, Mitchell, didn’t have to die. You didn’t know it was a blind sale, didn’t know he wasn’t even acquainted with Wentworth and Templeton. I don’t know how you found him—possibly through the bank that handles the pension you set up for Miss Moss. He represented her. Something else you didn’t know. That book was already back in Miss Moss’s hands, none the worse for wear. Three men died for no reason at all.”

  “Who is this Miss Moss?” the housekeeper asked.

  Montgomery ignored her. “Prue?” he asked his wife, his face ravaged by fear and anger. “Please tell me he’s lying.”

  “That night after the dinner party,” she said furiously, “you told me all this. You were drunk and maudlin. All but helpless with fear of what was about to happen. And you were going to let it happen! I couldn’t believe my ears.” When her husband went on staring at her as if she were someone he didn’t know, she exclaimed, “This is Julian’s birthright. Did you think I would sit idly by and let it be taken from him by someone like that? For all you know, your brother was tricked into marrying that woman. And her bastard had no right to this house. But once that piece of paper got out, who knows what the courts would decide? If she was pathetic enough, they might find for her.”

  The other man there in the entry had been listening silently. Now he spoke up. “I’ll send someone for Constable. Let him sort this out.”

  “Who are you?” Rutledge asked.

  “I live on one of the tenant farms. The nearest one. I heard the shots.” And he walked away, had second thoughts, and came back for the revolver he’d set on the table by the door.

  “My motorcar is out front,” Rutledge said. “Take it. It’s faster.”

  And they stood where they were like a tableau vivant until the front door opened again, and a man in the uniform of a Constable stepped in and said, “Now then, what’s this all about?”

  It took an hour before Constable Wiggins had sorted it all out. His sleep had been interrupted, and he hadn’t even taken time to shave. He was in no mood to trust anyone’s word.

  But he had gone back to the pub to look at the pillows in Rutledge’s bed, and found the door to his room battered and off its hinges.

  What’s more, the key was in the trouser pocket of the clothes that Mrs. Montgomery had worn. Sniffing at them as he examined them, Wiggins said, “That’s her perfume, all right.” He had them put aside as evidence.

  Rutledge, waiting for Wiggins to question the staff, said to Montgomery, “Do you smoke at all? Cigarettes? A pipe?”

  He thought the man, sitting across the room with his head in his hands, wasn’t going to answer him. But he looked up after a moment and said, “I smoked a pipe some years ago but gave it up. Why does it matter, in the midst of all this trouble?”

  “And the little wolves?”

  “We moved all of my brother’s belongings to the attics. They’re probably still there, along with the rest of his carvings. I didn’t care to look at them. His birds were larger. We sold them to a collector. The irony was, he’d have taken more if we’d had them. I was glad to be rid of them. He hadn’t wanted the smaller pieces, the wolves and horses and other creatures. Only the birds. In God’s name, why did she take them? Did she believe she was being clever?” He dropped his head into his hands again, then said, his voice muffled, “What’s to become of Prue?”

  “When Constable Wiggins is satisfied, I’ll take her back to Wolfpit for the inquest. And she’ll be charged with the murder of Wentworth and Templeton. I’ll have to inform Inspector Stevenson that Mitchell’s murder is also solved. But I expect Wolfpit will take priority in the matter.”

  “What possessed her to do such things?”

  “You should never have told her about your brother’s marriage or where the lines were hidden. She couldn’t take the risk that someone else would find them.”

  “It was on my conscience. I had to tell someone.”

  “It must not have bothered your conscience too much to give that book to Vivian Moss, knowing that it held the proof of her marriage to your brother.”

  “I discovered the marriage lines in his room. I told her he must have taken them to South Africa with him, and that they weren’t in his belongings when the Army sent them back. I told her they were probably on his body when he died, and they’d had to burn his clothing because of the virulent fever.”

  “It doesn’t matter. As soon as Wiggins is satisfied that I’m right about your wife, he’ll have to know about the inheritance.”

  “You can’t do this to Julian.”

  “You did it to Eric Moss.”

  Disgusted, Rutledge got up and went to pace the terrace until Constable Wiggins sent for him.

  “They claim you tried to blackmail them,” Wiggins said as he read over Rutledge’s statement.

  “I let them think that’s what I was offering. If I hadn’t, we’d never have found out what Mrs. Montgomery had done.”

  “Such a fine lady, a pillar of the church—I can’t quite wrap my mind around it. I’d find it easier to accuse her husband, strange as that may sound.”

  “I had expected it to be him. She’s nearly as tall as he is.”

  “Well, that about finishes it, sir. Do you need me to accompany you to Wolfpit? I wouldn’t trust her, if I were you.”

  “I’ll manage. But there’s another matter, one you’ll need to take up with the Montgomery family solicitor,” he said and watched the Constable’s face change as he explained about Vivian Moss.

  “But I remember her, sir. Such a sweet little thing. She left abruptly, and there was gossip about her carrying on with young Lawrence. I found it hard to believe. And then he was killed. Nearly killed his mother too. But you say they were married, sir?”

&n
bsp; Rutledge explained once more, and Wiggins nodded. “Mr. Warren, the solicitor, is a solid man, sir. He’ll want to look into this. If you’ll write out Miss—Mrs. Montgomery’s direction, sir, I’ll give it to him.”

  It was after three o’clock when Mrs. Montgomery was settled in the motorcar, a small valise in the boot. Her husband stood there, trying to find words as Rutledge shut the motorcar’s door and went to turn the crank. Finally he said, “What shall I tell Julian? I’ll have to tell him something.”

  But she didn’t answer him.

  It was a long drive back to Wolfpit, and Rutledge was already tired. Mrs. Montgomery seemed to understand that, and watched him with hawk-like intensity.

  Halfway there, she said, “I have money. I can make your life very comfortable. You have only to stop along the road, and let me disappear. It’s for the best.”

  “What did you ask Wentworth, that night on the road? About the book? Or Templeton?”

  She laughed. “I simply asked if he was Stephen Wentworth. And he said yes. It was all I needed to know. I didn’t want to shoot a complete stranger. Frederick I knew. He didn’t recognize me at first. It was quite dark there at the foot of the drive.”

  “You left the pipe tobacco and the carvings to confuse the police?”

  “Yes, of course. Do you think I wanted to get caught?”

  “How did you know how to find Wentworth? Along that road at that hour of the night?”

  “I didn’t. I came to Wolfpit to look for him. And I saw him leave the bookstore, go home to change, then drive out of the village with a woman beside him in the motorcar. I went out the road he’d taken and decided to wait for him to drive back. I’d brought the revolver, the pipe, the tobacco. I didn’t count on having to stand about until three in the morning.” She shrugged. “I’d already told Desmond that I was going up to London for a little shopping. I couldn’t very well reappear too soon. I had to make the best of it. I hid the motorcar two miles away and waited in that wretched hayfield for hours and hours.”