He wasn’t ready to question the hotel staff and alert them to the murder.
Instead, he went outside and found Jarvis’s motorcar, and searched it for the box. Nothing. Looking up and down the High Street, he calculated his choices. It was just after one o’clock when Jarvis had telephoned London. If he were passing through and in a hurry to be on his way, why would he have stopped? For a sandwich, perhaps? The pub nearest the hotel was the Water Wheel. Rutledge went there, but drew a blank. Walking on, he saw another pub, a little larger than the first: the Duke of Monmouth, named for the Protestant bastard of Charles II who had instigated a short-lived rebellion against the accession to the throne of the King’s brother, the Catholic James II. His likeness adorned the sign, a young and still innocent face.
Rutledge stepped inside to find the barkeep sweeping the floor.
“We’re closed,” the man said, barely turning to look at Rutledge.
“Yes, of course,” Rutledge answered pleasantly. “I seem to have misplaced a friend. He was to meet me here today. But he wasn’t at the hotel, and I wondered if I had the days wrong.” He went on to describe Jarvis.
“You must’ve,” he was told. “He was here yesterday. Came in for a drink and a sandwich.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Rutledge said. “He was bringing me a book. He didn’t leave it, by any chance?”
The man shook his head.
“It could have been in a box.”
“The only box was one he had off me. Bought it for the price owed me.”
“Did he indeed? Why am I not surprised? He collects boxes. It was yours, you said?”
“Not mine. An ex-soldier down on his luck sold it to me for a drink. A week or more ago, I should think.”
“What did it look like?”
“A box,” the barkeep said, irritated by the questions. “Wood, with brass hinges and hasp. It was heavy enough to have something inside, but when I rattled it, I didn’t hear anything move. If I’d known he collected such things, I’d have raised my price.”
“Where is that ex-soldier now?”
“I haven’t seen him since, and I’m not likely to. For all I know, he pinched the bloody box from somewhere.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Middling height, brown hair, walked with a limp. Here, I thought you come in about your friend.”
“So I did. Perhaps he went looking for your soldier.”
“Why would he do that? I didn’t tell him how I’d come by the box.”
Rutledge thanked him and left.
Outside, a misting rain was beginning to fall, wetting down the dust of the road.
As he walked back to the hotel, he considered the ex-soldier. Unlikely to want the box back, if he’d sold it for a drink, and unlikely to have the money to redeem it anyway. Unless he’d discovered its worth. But how had he come by it in the first place? It was ordinary enough not to be a tempting item to steal. The church poor box would be a better choice.
Hamish said, “And no one has reported it lost.”
True enough. The box had sat unnoticed for a week at the pub. Then Jarvis had spotted it and bought it, carrying it to the hotel with him to put in his call to London. Afterward he must have requested a room. With the box still in his hand? Or had he left it in the motorcar?
Not the motorcar. It could have been taken from there without killing Jarvis.
Rutledge went to the hotel and asked the clerk in Reception if he had been on duty yesterday when Jarvis had asked for a room.
“I was,” the man said, warily, as if preparing himself for a question he felt uncomfortable answering.
“Did he have anything with him when he came to the desk to speak to you?”
“His hat.” The clerk squinted in thought. “A box or packet or something.”
“Was there anyone else here when he asked for a room?”
The clerk laughed. “Half the county, or so it seemed. There was a private luncheon for Squire’s birthday.”
“When the party was over, did anyone ask you about the man registering just then?”
“Mr. Albert Harrison thought the new guest was someone he’d met in France during the war. But the name he was after was Dunne, Lieutenant Dunne. Not Jarvis. He seemed disappointed.”
“Did Mr. Harrison return later in the evening?”
“I was off duty after five o’clock. I couldn’t say.”
Rutledge asked him how to find Harrison, and went back out into the rain to start his motorcar. Harrison lived in a house just west of town, and Rutledge found it with ease from the clerk’s description of the low stone wall in front. He stopped, went to the door, and asked for Harrison.
The maid who had answered his knock asked him to wait, then escorted him to a small sitting room down a passage, where a thin man with red hair rose from his chair and frowned.
“Do I know you?”
Rutledge waited until the door had closed behind the maid. “My name isn’t Dunne,” he replied. “I used that to gain entry. Rutledge, Scotland Yard. I’ve come about Captain Jarvis.”
“I don’t know anyone called Jarvis.”
“You asked about him at the hotel yesterday after the birthday luncheon. You thought he might have been someone named Dunne.”
“I did no such thing.”
“Someone returned later in the evening, stabbed Jarvis to death, and took only one thing from his room. An old box with brass hinges and hasp.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why should I want an old box? As you can see, I’m comfortably set here. I can buy whatever strikes my fancy.”
“I’m not sure it has anything to do with money. And he wasn’t intending to sell, he was holding the box for me.”
“You say I asked someone about this Jarvis. Who was it?”
“The clerk at the hotel.”
Harrison stood up and went to the door. “We’ll see about this. Take me to this clerk.”
They drove the distance in silence. Rutledge had the feeling that Harrison was very angry, and he was prepared for anything. Except for one thing—when they reached the hotel, they were informed that the clerk had taken the rest of the day off.
“He felt ill, he said, and asked if I could take over,” the young woman behind the desk informed them.
Harrison said something under his breath. Rutledge ignored him. “Where can I find this man?”
“I’m not allowed to give out personal information about the—”
“Rutledge, Scotland Yard.” He took out his identity card and showed it to her.
“What’s Mr. Phelps done, then?” she asked, a worried frown on her face.
“His direction,” Rutledge snapped.
“I’m coming with you,” Harrison said when the clerk had finally complied.
He found the cottage without difficulty. It was down Pudding Lane, the second house from the corner. Rutledge knocked sharply, but no one came. He tried the latch, and the door swung inward. He called the man’s name once more, then walked into the front room of the cottage. There were signs of hasty departure in the bedroom, clothes strewn everywhere and the wardrobe standing open.
He turned to Harrison. “I’m not sure what this means. But I’d advise you not to leave the village. I’ll want to speak to you later.”
Harrison said, “My good name has been impugned. I’m going with you.”
There was no time to argue. Around back, Rutledge saw that a bicycle had been ridden through a muddy patch, the imprint of the tires already filling with rainwater.
“There’s a chance we’ll catch him. Let’s go!”
They ran around to Rutledge’s motorcar, and drove back to the High Street. The question was, which direction had the man taken?
Harrison said, “He won’t have gone toward London. To the hills, then.”
Rutledge agreed, and turned west out of Worthington. He soon found the rough, uneven track that Harrison pointed out.
“Ther
e’s a hamlet tucked under the ridge,” he said. “Several people from our village once lived there. It’s desolate now.” They soon came upon the scattering of cottages, most of them in various stages of decay. Harrison added, “These people lived by the moor. Whatever came to hand, including cutting withies and rushes for thatching. The men died together at Gallipoli, and their families came into Worthington in search of other work. Sad case, really. They were watermen, set in their ways, unwilling to change, any of them.”
“Wait here, in case he tries to leave,” Rutledge said, and began going from door to door down the muddy street.
It was in the last cottage that he found the clerk, Phelps. A bicycle was propped against the far side, almost out of sight, and the door stood ajar.
Someone had got there before Rutledge. The clerk was lying on the rotting floor in a pool of blood, a knife in his chest. And the box was nowhere to be found.
He splashed through the puddles, hurrying back to the motorcar. Harrison called, “Did you find him?”
“I did. He’s dead.”
“Good God,” Harrison said. “What’s so damned important about this box?”
“It belonged to the Dundee Rifles Officers’ Mess. Someone broke in one night in 1903 and took it, leaving behind two dead—a sergeant major and a corporal. Everyone was questioned, but the inquiry got nowhere. Captain Jarvis knew about the box because his father had been an officer in the Rifles. That’s why he believed he recognized it when he saw it in a pub here in Worthington.”
“It was here in Worthington? How did the pub come to have it?”
Rutledge told him about the ex-soldier. “On the whole, I believe the barkeep. He was glad to be rid of it when Jarvis offered to buy it, and then regretted that he hadn’t asked more for the thing.”
“Where’s the ex-soldier now?”
“I wish I knew.”
Harrison said, “There might be a way of finding that out. The rector of St. Mary’s sometimes feeds men looking for work. It isn’t as bad now as it was just after the war. He might remember your man. How long had the box been at the pub?”
“A matter of a week or ten days, according to what I was told.”
He turned the motorcar and drove back to Worthington. The church of St. Mary’s was at the far end of the village, and the rectory stood beside it, an early-Victorian building with scalloped trim on the eaves and the dormers.
Mr. Swift was an elderly man with snow-white hair and bright-green eyes. He recognized Harrison at once, and welcomed both men, leading them back to his study, where a small fire struggled against the dampness of the day.
Rutledge explained the reason for calling, and the rector listened intently, frowning over the deaths of Phelps and Jarvis.
“But what’s there about this box that someone is still killing people over it?” he asked, dismay in his voice.
“If we knew that, we’d be a long way toward finding our man,” Rutledge said. “In the officers’ mess where a regiment is quartered, in this case in Scotland, there are the battle honours, the regimental silver—sometimes quite an impressive display of it—and the regiment’s flags from various engagements, among other important objects. One of these was the box, and the police were told that it was the Honour of the Regiment.”
“Hardly reason to kill for possession of it,” Harrison put in. “Besides, it’s a Scottish matter, I should think. Why is the Yard involved?”
“Because the Scottish police traced the thief to England before losing him.”
“I remember the story now,” the rector said slowly. “Just after the Boer War—I had been living in Carlisle then. The Dundee Rifles were appalled that the box was lost to them. Later, one of their officers wrote a book about the regiment during the fighting on the Somme. It was nearly wiped out, and he blamed it on the loss of the box.”
“Legend has it that the regiment will thrive as long as the box survives. If it’s lost, the regiment will be lost as well. John Graham of Claverhouse, First Viscount Dundee, was one of the first martyrs of the Jacobite Wars,” Rutledge went on. “He was killed at Killiecrankie in Scotland in 1689, fighting to keep James the Second on the throne after he’d been replaced by William of Orange and James’s daughter Mary. As he lay dying, one of his officers cut a lock of his hair and placed it in a wooden box. It was said that he caught the man’s arm, told him to build an army and carry the box before it into battle. As long as he did, the army would be victorious. And the regiment has been very superstitious about that box ever since it was formed.”
“ ‘Bonnie Dundee,’ ” Harrison said. “Yes, of course. I learned the song as a boy.”
“But why wish the Rifles ill?” Mr. Swift asked. “If it was a thief, why take the box and leave the silver? It doesn’t make sense.”
“The speculation at the time was that the thief was interrupted by the sergeant major before he collected the silver. Another theory was that he held a grudge against the Rifles.”
“Good God,” Harrison said. “But that must mean the thief is here in Worthington.”
“Precisely. We must find that ex-soldier, and learn how he came to have the box.”
“He couldn’t have known its value,” Harrison replied. “Not if he sold it for the price of an ale.”
But in spite of all his efforts, Mr. Swift couldn’t recall which of the many soldiers coming to his door was the one they sought. “They’re all so alike, thin and hungry. They eat and move on.”
“A dead end,” Harrison said as they walked out of the rectory.
“Not quite,” Rutledge said. “I can’t imagine that the hotel clerk knew the value of the box. Someone else saw Jarvis with it, and questioned Phelps. He’d have gone to him as soon as he’d lied to me about you—I expect, in the hope of being paid handsomely for keeping his head and sending me off on the wrong track. And he was killed for his trouble. Who are the oldest residents of the village? I’ve often found they’re a well of information.”
“The rector—”
“He hasn’t lived here for twenty years or more.”
“Mrs. Hobson, then. She lives on the other side of the post office.”
The rain was letting up as they drove there. Mrs. Hobson, surprised to find the likes of Mr. Harrison on her doorstep, was flustered. She asked them to step into her front room, and sat on the edge of her chair after they had refused her offer of tea.
Rutledge noted that she looked to be in her eighties, but her back was as straight as a rod, and she was dressed carefully, her white hair done up in a smooth bun on top of her head.
“We’ve come,” he began, “to make use of your memory. I’m told by Mr. Harrison that your mind is very clear about the past.”
“Oh, well now, I wouldn’t go that far,” she said, nervously smoothing her apron over her thin knees. “I do have my off days.”
“You’ve lived here in Worthington all your life, I understand. Do you remember anyone who went off to be a soldier in a Scottish regiment?”
“Oh, dear,” she said, drawn unexpectedly into the past. “That does seem like such a long time ago. We were so young, Willie and I. He swore he’d die if he couldn’t marry me, but I’d already given my heart to Mr. Mills and there was nothing I could say. He went off and tried to sign up with the Buffs, but they turned him down. Coming back through London, he met some soldiers of the Dundee Foot, as it was called then. And he went off to India with them. The next thing I heard he was a sergeant. Then something happened out there, and he was disgraced. Drummed out of the regiment. When he came home he claimed he’d been invalided out. But his wife told me later that it was wrongfully done. That he was innocent.”
“And was he, do you think?”
“He was a broken man. I think he loved the army more than anything. More than me, because he forgot me soon enough and married another girl,” she added with a wry smile. “He died not long after that, leaving a widow and a son. Harry took it hard, went wild after the funeral, always in trouble som
ewhere. Then he left Worthington for a bit, and when he came home, he was a different man. Calm and settled, ready to marry his sweetheart. As if all the wildness was over.”
“When did he come back to Worthington?” Rutledge asked.
“It was just after the Boer War, as I remember.”
The Dundee Rifles, as they’d become, had fought bravely in the Boer War as well as along the Northwest Frontier in India, adding to their reputation.
Rutledge glanced at Harrison. “Where can I find this Harry?”
She shook her head. “He’s in the churchyard, sad to say. He died two weeks ago.”
“Children?” Harrison asked.
“A boy and a girl. Sally is married and lives in Glastonbury. The boy’s been in Borstal, sad to say. Sowing his wild oats, like his pa before him, only his pa never had any trouble with the police.”
But he might well have murdered two men in Dundee, Scotland, Rutledge said to himself. “Where’s the boy now?”
“Teddy didn’t come home for his father’s funeral. He said he was in Manchester, and never got word until he went back to London. But I think he wanted to stay away from people who knew him. Embarrassed, like.”
Or was wanted by the police in Manchester. Aloud, Rutledge said, “Give me his name, if you will.”
She looked distinctly uneasy. “I didn’t intend, talking to you, to get the boy into trouble.”
“We can’t be sure he is,” Rutledge told her. “Until we speak to him.”
“Teddy Miller. His mother, Alice, lives by that copse of trees just at the end of the High Street.” She hesitated. “You won’t tell Alice, will you, that I betrayed her boy? She looks in on me from time to time. I’ve grown fond of her company.”
Rutledge thanked her for her help, and as they returned to the motorcar, he said to Harrison, “It appears your name is cleared.”
“In for a penny, in for a pound,” Harrison replied, stooping to turn the crank. “I miss the war sometimes, and the feeling that I’m alive because I’m about to die.”
Mystery Writers of America Presents the Mystery Box Page 27