by Charles Todd
“I’ll look for him,” Rutledge said. And added to Aurore, “Please lock the door when I leave. You’ll be safe enough.”
“You’ll come back?” she asked.
“Yes.” He knew why she was asking. Come back to arrest her.
“That’s all I need to know.” She went with him to the door, and as he stepped out onto the walk, she said, “Please—Simon—”
“Aurore. I must find the hat. That’s why I’m going.”
She seemed startled, remembered it, and said, “Yes, of course!” as she shut the door firmly.
The townspeople had gone back to their beds, reassured by Mrs. Daulton. He could see her lantern bobbing up to the rectory again. It occurred to him that she was a very courageous woman. But then she was no longer young or pretty. As Margaret Tarlton and Betty Cooper were said to have been. As Elizabeth Napier was. Perhaps that was why she had felt safe. Or perhaps it was in her nature to take risks for the sake of others. Some women did. He had seen them nursing the worst influenza cases, working with septic wounds, braving weather that would have given a strong man pause.
As he walked toward the church, his mind was busy. What was it Mrs. Prescott had said about Margaret Tarlton, and Truit had told him about Betty Cooper? “She had such lovely hair.” Mrs. Prescott’s voice came back to him, admiring, envious. And Truit had said “—sleek as a cat sunning itself in a window,” or words to that effect.
They weren’t merely pretty women. They were both quite sure of their attractions … not flaunting them, just sure of them.… Tantalizing. Tempting.
But that still left Shaw out of the equation. He’d been in love with Margaret. At least he’d claimed he was.
If it had started with Betty Cooper—and Rutledge was now almost certain it had—then love had a great deal to do with the murders. But there wasn’t time to go into that now.
With Hamish alive in his mind, Rutledge was already scanning the shadows, looking for Wyatt, looking for Shaw. The hat was nowhere to be found, although he searched carefully. The small case that Aurore had left leaning against the trunk of a tree was still there. He walked up to the church, on guard, wary.
But there was nothing there. The stand of trees, the graveyard beyond, the shadows by the heavy walls, were empty of life. He went around the church itself twice, moving cautiously, slowly, taking care to be sure. Then he tried the door on the porch.
It opened under his hand, swinging with a deep groan across the stone paving. In an island of darkness, there were candles ahead, burning on the stone altar, casting strange, flickering shadows across the aisles, the Norman pillars, the high arched roof. There was a golden warmth to the light, and the man sitting in one of the chairs in the nave turned to look at him, his own face golden in its reflection.
It was Henry Daulton. “I’ve looked everywhere. There’s no sign of anyone. I stepped in here instead of going back to the house. It’s quiet here. I thought Simon might come back. I don’t like to hear a woman scream, it tears at my nerves.”
“Yes. It’s very quiet,” Rutledge answered, his voice echoing and his footsteps rebounding from the stone paving as he walked down the aisle toward Henry. “Did you see what happened?”
“I was out looking for Simon Wyatt. He was walking again, Shaw told me. He’d seen him and then lost him. A few minutes later Elizabeth asked me to help her find him. She was worried about him. I told her it was all right, that he’d come home on his own, but she insisted.”
“You knew he walked?”
“I don’t sleep well sometimes. Once or twice I’ve seen him go out on the lawn and stand like a statue for a quarter of an hour or more. Another time I met him coming down the shortcut from the farm—it ends over by the churchyard. My mother’s concerned about him, she says he’s on the edge of collapse. But he isn’t. He’s worried about money and Aurore and the museum. He doesn’t see how it’s going to work out, and that’s what makes him black out. To stop thinking.”
Which was an oddly penetrating observation.
“About tonight—” Rutledge reminded him.
“He was in the church earlier. Standing there in front of the altar, lighting candles. Praying, I thought at first. Then he took one of them and started in the direction of the crypt. I don’t think he was walking then.”
“What would interest him in the crypt?” He remembered something Henry had confided to him when he first came to Charlbury. “There are hiding places in the church, aren’t there? Does Simon know about them?”
“I don’t know. He probably does. I didn’t stay very long. But later he came out with a suitcase. I’d seen it before, someone had left it under that stone altar down in the crypt. The old altar, from the Saxon church. Nobody ever uses it, but there’s an altar cloth on it. My mother ironed it every week when my father was alive and kept fresh flowers on it. My father always said it was useless work, but she took pride in it. It’s keeping to tradition, she’d say. I’d hide under its skirts whenever I didn’t want to be found. I think I told Simon about that, but I can’t be sure. I don’t always remember things now.”
“Henry. He knew the suitcase was there—or looked and found it there?”
“Well, he came out carrying it. And don’t ask me where he went with it, I can’t tell you because I don’t know. But I don’t think he wanted to be seen. And almost in the next instant Elizabeth Napier was coming up the church walk again. And you were there under the trees talking quietly to Mrs. Wyatt. I thought it best to go home then.”
If Simon had collected the suitcase, where would he have taken it?
Rutledge thought he knew. The farm—And the police were going to search there in the morning. Damning evidence against Aurore, if it was found there!
He said to Henry, “I’ve got work to do still. Will you be at the rectory or here?” He hadn’t finished with Henry, but there wasn’t time to ask him any more now. It could wait. Simon couldn’t.
“Here, probably. When I can’t sleep, I come here to think. My father had always hoped I’d be rector, just as Simon’s father had expected him to stand for Parliament. But the war put paid to such hopes, didn’t it? I suppose that’s why I can’t sleep. Guilt that I’m not the man I might have been.”
It was a poignant remark, but Henry seemed to accept his circumstances stoically, whether his mother did or not. As if he knew, and shielded her as best he could from the truth. Her insistence that he was making steady, observable improvement must have hurt him many times. The scar was very deep. It had healed. But not the brain behind it.
Rutledge nodded and left, his footsteps echoing again in the stillness. From the nave, Henry called, “If Simon is wandering, don’t startle him. Let him finish whatever it is he wants to do first. Will you be careful about that?”
“Yes. I’ll remember.” But he didn’t believe Simon was anything but very much himself, well aware of what he was doing.
He went out to his car, started the motor, and drove with haste to the farm. It was dark, dark as the night. He left the car by the gate and walked swiftly up the murky blackness that was the rutted lane, swearing as he missed his footing several times in the deeper patches. A man could break an ankle here with ease, he thought. And who would know? Jimson wouldn’t hear any calls for help!
When he reached the house, he walked carefully around it, staying in the shadows as much as possible. But he couldn’t see any lights, he couldn’t pick out any sign of Simon Wyatt’s presence. Inside the house or out. Hamish was alert in his mind, wary, watchful.
Rutledge moved on, into the barn, and saw at once that the horses had been taken out. Even the barn cat wasn’t anywhere to be seen. He strode swiftly, silently, down the empty, dusty passage to the back doors and discovered that the cows, usually penned for the night behind the barn, had been loosed in the fields. He could just see them, ghostly white patches against the darkness of the pasture. As he came back, he realized that the door of the chicken coop stood open and that the chickens had scattere
d, roosting on the tops of overturned wagons or the roofs of sheds.
He had nearly reached the front of the barn, his mind occupied with myriad possibilities—Hamish was already warning him about the most likely of them.
And then, among the loose piles of hay in the loft, a yellow ball of fire, bright as the sun, began to blossom into roaring life with frightening intensity.
Simon had set the barn alight!
Rutledge ran, his steps muffled by the packed earth, echoed by the paving stones, his eyes sweeping the stalls, the tack room, the loft. Searching every corner, even as time ran out. He began to cough from the heavy, swirling smoke, and then he felt the heat on his back as the flames took hold behind him. He found himself stumbling for the nearest door, and then turned around as something caught his eye at the foot of one of the great oak beams that supported the loft and the roof. It was in the shadow of the beam, nearly invisible, black against black, but the fire was dancing on the silver catches that locked the suitcase. It had been left where the fire would burn the hottest, around that beam, consuming it fully—melting even the metal in the end.
Whatever Hildebrand might suspect tomorrow, there would be no proof. And suspicion would still fall heavily on Aurore. Had Simon intended to save his wife—or damn her?
Although Hamish was calling to him to leave it, Rutledge dashed back into the smoke, palling and black, and reached down to grip the handle, his other arm raised to shield his eyes. Was the hat here too? He groped for it, along the floor, and in an instant lost his bearing. He was blinded, disoriented, unable to tell in the thickening air which way he had come from. There was a curtain closing in on him, choking and smothering, cutting him off. Suffocating him in a claustrophobic cloak, sucking at his will. Hamish was a roar in his mind, louder than the roar of the fire, hammering at him to go!
“Simon?” Rutledge shouted, realizing all at once that a fire could destroy a man as well as a barn and a suitcase, and felt the rawness in his throat. “Simon!”
But there was no answer and time was down to seconds before he himself was trapped. He could hear Hamish screaming at him now. Sparks were setting every wisp of straw to burning. He ran again, this time blindly, his face seared by flames as he passed within their sphere. And then he was through them, blundering first into a wall, feeling the draft of air that was feeding the blaze, and stumbling finally out the door. Still coughing hard, he ran on, to pound heavily on the back door of the farmhouse. Once the blaze was at its height, there would be no saving the house either.
He came through the door shouting for Jimson, checking the dark, empty ground-floor rooms already reflecting the dawnlike brightness from the barn, and ran up the stairs, searching there as well. The old glass of the windows on the back of the house mirrored the flames against the wall in shimmering images, lighting his way. In the front it was stygian darkness still, and he quartered each room carefully, making absolutely sure. But Jimson was not here. Nor was Simon. Wherever they were, they weren’t in danger of burning to death.
He came out into the night again, his lungs burning from the smoke. It was rolling now, billows of it, as it fed on old wood, dust, and hay. The grass by one of the sheds was already flickering with fiery dewdrops. He searched the sheds and found them empty, bales of hay waiting in them for the match to come.
The air was thick, heavy. He could hear horses in the distance, neighing shrilly in alarm. Hamish was telling him to go, to hurry.
The sound of the flames was greedy now, soaring into the night on a pillar of black smoke and sparks.
Rutledge hesitated, yet he knew he could do nothing for the barn. There was nothing one man—or an army of men—might do as the flames fed hungrily on the hay and then jumped to the dry, old wood of stalls and pillars and walls. He stood staring at it in despair, knowing what its destruction would mean to Aurore.
Finally retrieving the suitcase from the porch where he’d left it, he turned and hurried back down the drive to his car.
Wherever Simon was, he had to find him. He had the strongest feeling that it was already too late. But he had to try. To live with himself, he had to try.
But there was no sign of Wyatt on the road, and Rutledge thought as he coughed raggedly, I couldn’t have missed him coming here—the fire wasn’t that far along when I arrived. He must have taken a shortcut from here to Charlbury—he must have come out somewhere near the church where no one would see him. He’s ahead of me!
Driving very fast now, his headlamps probing the darkness, he made the trip to Charlbury in a matter of minutes.
The Wyatt house was alight, not with fire but with lamps. He braked hard, skidding to a halt, and was out of the car almost as soon as the engine stopped.
Aurore was in the front garden, her face wild with fear.
“Simon isn’t in the house,” she said. “I can’t find him, I’ve looked everywhere. Oh, God—can you see those flames? We must do something—Jimson—”
“Jimson’s safe. Simon was at the farm—he set the barn to burn, Aurore. It will be gone in a short time. But he wasn’t there, nor was Jimson. And the cattle, the horses are safe. There’s nothing that can be done.”
But the fire bell by the common was ringing loudly, and men, stuffing nightshirts into trousers, were gathering by the inn and piling into carts, wagons, whatever they could find, throwing buckets among the packed bodies. Rutledge caught sight of Jimson among them, yelling fiercely.
“He burned—but why!” Aurore ignored the chaos, her mind only on Simon.
Rutledge said, “The suitcase. He wanted to destroy it and anything else that might have been left there, any evidence that could still be found. It was the only thing he could think of doing before Hildebrand came tomorrow. Aurore, you must tell me now, where did you find that straw hat?”
“The suitcase—Margaret’s?” She was very still. “I don’t understand.”
“It was hidden in the church, Aurore. Henry knew about the hiding place there, and Simon. Simon went to fetch it tonight. You hadn’t destroyed it, had you? If you lied about that, you lied about the hat—”
Elizabeth Napier had come to the door. “I heard voices—is that you, Simon?” She peered out into the garden, seeing only the tall man beside Aurore.
“No, it’s Rutledge.”
“I smell smoke!” she exclaimed as she stepped out the door. Her voice was still rough. She turned in the direction that men and wagons were moving up the road and saw the distant flames leaping into the night sky. “My God!”
“It’s the farm, there’6 nothing we can do. I don’t know where Simon is. Elizabeth, did he know of hiding places in the church? Behind the old altar, for one, under the altar cloth? The one that Henry used as a boy? Who else did?”
“We were never allowed to play there—I’ve never heard of a hiding place. Has Simon already gone to try to save the farm buildings? We ought to be there, helping him! Be quick, Aurore, we need the car!” She started down the walk.
“There’s a suitcase in the back of my car. Will you look at it and tell me if you recognize it?” The hurrying men had disappeared, but there were clots of women near the Wyatt Arms, some staring toward the fire, some of them packing another wagon with picks, shovels, buckets, a barrel of ale.
Aurore began to move, but he gripped her arm, holding it firmly.
Elizabeth said, “I’m not interested in suitcases! Why isn’t Benson here when I need him? Will you take me, Aurore, or not—”
“Please do as I ask.” There was an inflection in his voice that stopped the flow of words as if they’d been cut off. She stared at him, surprised by his intensity.
Then she moved through the gate and turned to look at Rutledge again with an expression that was hard to read—anger he thought, because her primary concern was still Simon. But it was his as well. She went on to the car.
After a moment she called in surprise, “I know that case! That’s Margaret’s! Where on earth did you find it? I thought the killer had taken
it?”
“You’re absolutely sure of that? It belonged to her?”
“Of course I am! My father gave her this case for her birthday two years ago. It’s part of a set.” She turned and said, with sudden understanding, “It means you know who killed her, doesn’t it?”
“I think, Miss Napier, that you’d better go back into the house and telephone Inspector Hildebrand in Singleton Magna. Tell him, please, that he’s wanted here. That there’s an emergency. Meanwhile, Aurore, you must help me find Simon!”
Elizabeth stepped away from the car and looked at him with fierce passion. “What’s happened? Why won’t you tell me! Aurore, make him tell me!”
Aurore opened her mouth to say something just as the silence was shattered by the sound of a gunshot coming from the direction of the museum.
“Oh, God—” She was already running, fleet as a wraith, her skirts lifted, her body tense with fear and terror.
Elizabeth screamed, one long heart-tearing sound, a name, and was after her in a flash of skirts and flying heels.
But Rutledge, swifter, was there ahead of them, at the door of the museum, opening it, rushing into the empty room, and then the next and the next, until he’d reached the small office that Simon had used.
At the door he came to such an abrupt halt that Aurore cannoned into him, and Elizabeth was a poor third, pressing at their backs, calling Simon’s name.
“Don’t come any closer!” he said, putting out an arm to stop Aurore.
“No, I must go to him, I’ve had training, I can—oh, God, let me go!”
Elizabeth, pushing her way past both of them, reached the threshold, and for an instant Rutledge thought she was about to faint. She swayed on her feet, grasped the door’s edge, and began to whimper with soft, short breaths.
Aurore broke away and went into the room.
Rutledge knew what it held. He had seen. In that one brief, anguished glance, he had seen it all in the lamplight. Simon Wyatt, seated at the desk, a sheet of paper on the top in front of him, a pen beside it, and his blood blown across it by the impact of the bullet to his temple. The pistol on the floor beside his chair was German, a war souvenir.