Hunting Shadows: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery

by Charles Todd

  Rutledge moved on to the humpback bridge, scrambling down the embankment to look under the arch for a hiding place.

  But there was nothing here either. And in a storm the high water would brush against anything hidden here and possibly dislodge it.

  He clambered back up to the road again and stood there, wiping his muddy hands on his handkerchief.

  Had MacLaren lied to him?

  Or had he hidden his proof where no one would ever expect to find it?

  Think, he ordered himself. If it wasn’t the windmill house, if it wasn’t the bridge or the mill, where then? Miss Trowbridge’s house?

  Hamish said, “He wouldna’ put the lass at risk.”

  That was true. What’s more, she believed MacLaren to be dead.

  What do I know about the man?

  Rutledge stood there, searching through every fact he’d learned about the hurdle maker, and still he came up with nothing.

  Was Thornton his killer after all? At the very least, of the two men, Thornton had easier access to the new army rifles than MacLaren did. After all, MacLaren had used a knife, not a rifle, to kill Miss Hutchinson.

  He refused to believe it. It was Catriona who connected the two dead men. Not Mary Hutchinson.

  Then where was the proof he needed?

  A memory came back to him. The Green Man. The church and the feel of those cold, worn steps leading up into the pulpit, pressing hard into his back. The Rector, Mr. March, finding him there.

  No, before that. What had he seen in the churchyard?

  And then he remembered.

  The mausoleum. But Miss Trowbridge’s parents had not liked Wriston. They would surely have been interred in Bury.

  He hurried back to where Miss Trowbridge was standing with Thornton. “Where was your grandmother buried, do you know?”

  “She had a horror of being in the ground. There’s a mausoleum in the churchyard here in the village.”

  “It must be locked. Most such tombs are. Do you have the key?”

  “Do I—I never thought about it. I expect it’s in my grandmother’s things. My father was not happy about her choice. He wanted her to be laid to rest in Bury, beside her husband. But she insisted, and it was her money, after all. So she built it. I wondered if she hadn’t loved my grandfather very much. She’d married him to please her own father. He died quite young. She went away for a time, to mourn properly, she said. And when she came back, she wanted to live here. In this cottage bought for her. She told me several times that her heart was here, not in Bury.”

  Rutledge said earnestly, “If there is a key, I must open the mausoleum. No,” he added as she started to interrupt him. “Only the outer door. It’s unlikely, of course. But someone could have found a way in.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  She turned, was leading the way toward her cottage, and inside, she left them standing in the small parlor while she went on into her bedroom. In a few minutes she came back with a lovely carved box in her hands.

  “It’s from Africa, this box. She never told me how she’d come by it, but it held her most treasured things. I never felt like opening it. I still don’t. It’s—very personal.”

  She held the box out to Rutledge, and he took it over to one of the chairs by the cold hearth. Clarissa stirred from her bed on the far side, then subsided into sleep once more.

  “It’s locked,” Rutledge said, looking up from his examination of the top.

  Miss Trowbridge, frowning, said, “I believe the key is there. On the side.”

  And she was right. He found the key set into a small opening in the side of the box, invisible if you didn’t know where to look for it. Carefully removing it, he inserted it into the lock and turned it. Lifting the lid, he looked inside. Thornton came to stand beside him. Miss Trowbridge made a movement to stop him, and then stayed where she was.

  There were papers inside. One of them caught Rutledge’s eye. In an elegant copperplate it said:

  My Last Wishes. To be opened by my granddaughter after my death.

  Rutledge glanced up at Miss Trowbridge. It was not his place to look at these papers. But Marcella Trowbridge had told him she had not wished to pry.

  And so he broke the seal and took a sheet of paper out of the envelope.

  Miss Trowbridge cried, “Stop. You were looking for a key!”

  He had already seen a name. He said, “You must read this, I think.”

  “No, I told you. She was a very private person, my grandmother. I won’t pry into her secrets now. It would be wrong.”

  “You have no choice. Look.” He passed the sheet to her.

  She gazed at him for a moment, then against her will, unfolded the sheet.

  “Oh!” she gasped, reading it once, then going back to the beginning. “She wants—she wanted Angus MacLaren to be buried beside her. Angus? The windmill keeper? But why?”

  “I believe it must be the same man,” he said carefully. “Perhaps he was a friend when she needed one.”

  “But I thought he was long since dead. I don’t know what to do.”

  Thornton spoke then. “He died in London this past week. I—happened to come across the obituary. Would you like for me to see to it for you?”

  She stared at him. “In the normal course of events, I’d have asked Mr. Swift.”

  “I owe Mr. MacLaren a debt,” Thornton answered her. “This will be my opportunity to repay it.”

  Unconvinced, she turned to Rutledge. “I don’t know what to think.”

  He said gently, “It would appear that she cared for him. You must do as she asked.”

  “She liked him—she—I was so young, you see.” Frowning, she added, “I liked him too. I’ve told you that. But to bury him beside her? I don’t think that would be right.”

  Rutledge handed her the envelope. “It’s what she wanted. You can see for yourself. She expected you to do as she asked.”

  “But what will people think?”

  “Does it really matter?”

  “No,” she said slowly. “Not really.”

  He went back to the box, and in it he found a record of the marriage of Ellen Trowbridge and Angus MacLaren. Next to it, he found the record of a child’s birth. Catriona’s mother, who had married a Beaton.

  She hadn’t been able to keep the child. But she had kept this piece of paper, if any question had ever come up about its heritage.

  Society wouldn’t have approved of what she had done. Not her family nor her friends in Wriston or Bury. It would appear that there was too vast a difference between the man and the woman in station and in everything else, in spite of his standing in his own glen. What’s more, according to the marriage record, he’d been two years younger. But they had found a way. And no one had ever guessed.

  He felt a great sadness for Ellen Trowbridge and Angus MacLaren.

  The Bower House . . .

  Rutledge set these back into the box. He didn’t think Marcella Trowbridge was ready to learn the truth about the grandmother she’d adored.

  At the bottom of the box, under the papers, lay the photograph of a small child sitting on the back of a pony. The background wasn’t the landscape of the Fens. A baronial hall and mountains instead. Catriona’s mother as a little girl? And beneath that lay the heavy iron key to the mausoleum. Someone had put it there. Had Angus been given another?

  Closing the box, Rutledge gave it to Thornton, who handed it to Miss Trowbridge.

  “What do you want with the mausoleum key?” she asked again, worried. “I don’t understand. Why would someone desecrate a tomb?”

  “I’m only being thorough,” he said with a smile. “We were looking for something and thought perhaps it had been left here. By the ruins—er—where no one would think to look for it. Or in a mausoleum where no one would think to search. I shan’t
disturb your grandmother. It will be all right.”

  “I’ll come with you,” she said resolutely.

  He glanced at Thornton. “I think it would be best if both of you stayed here. This is police business, after all. I’ll bring the key back shortly.”

  Still she protested, and it was several minutes before Rutledge could persuade her that it would attract unwanted attention if all three went to the churchyard.

  “It won’t be in her coffin, what I’m looking for. Just inside the door.” He hoped he was telling the truth. It was what he believed MacLaren had done. Which meant that there was another key to the mausoleum and MacLaren must have kept it on his person. He hadn’t searched the dead man’s pockets, he’d left that to Sergeant Gibson. The list of items would be on file at the Yard . . .

  “Is it something—awful?”

  “Nothing so important. That’s why I haven’t asked for a search warrant.”

  Finally she agreed to allow him to take the key. He could see that Thornton was eager to accompany him, but he didn’t want the man there, any more than he wanted Miss Trowbridge to come.

  Walking out to his motorcar, the key heavy in the palm of his hand, he wondered if he was right. If he would find what he wanted.

  It took no more than five minutes to drive down to the church. He left the motorcar behind some trees, out of sight, and then crossed the grassy churchyard to the mausoleum.

  It was built more like a Greek temple than the usual edifice of this kind, he thought, and perhaps that was what Ellen Trowbridge had wished to have. He stood for a moment, looking up at the inscription above the door. She had been buried under the name of the husband who had died. Had that rankled?

  And then he set the key into the lock.

  He expected the key to turn with some difficulty. Instead it clicked open without a sound, and he swung the gate wide. It moved smoothly on its hinges. The second lock yielded just as easily. And he knew then what he would find inside.

  There was an opaque glass window in the back of the mausoleum. It gave a little light, enough to see the coffin of Mrs. Trowbridge to the right, and an empty ledge to the left.

  And against the back wall in the space between the ledges was a small altar with a photograph and a candle and, of all things, a Celtic cross, not an Anglican one.

  On the floor just inside the door was a large canvas sack.

  So it was here after all. Almost a sacrilege, to leave evidence of murder in the tomb of the woman MacLaren had loved so deeply.

  Or perhaps it was not. Catriona was her granddaughter too. And if she loved Angus MacLaren, then she knew the depths he was capable of. It was possible that she herself would have wanted to see Catriona’s persecutor dead.

  Only MacLaren’s revenge had gone wrong. Was that why he’d killed himself? Or had it been to spare Marcella Trowbridge the truth about her grandmother’s other life? Or for Ellen MacLaren?

  There was no way of knowing now.

  Rutledge knelt on the smooth cool stone, his hands on the length of rope that tied the top of the sack. Then, remembering that he was in the churchyard where anyone might pass by, he decided against opening the sack here. Instead he picked it up to carry back to his motorcar. It didn’t clank or rattle, he noticed. Giving nothing away.

  There was no one about when he locked the door and the gate again. He shouldered the heavy sack, pocketed the key, and started for the motorcar.

  Halfway there, a voice called to him.

  Rutledge turned to see Andrew March striding across the churchyard toward him.

  Tensing in every muscle, he stopped.

  “What have you got there?” March asked, coming up to him.

  “Evidence, I’m afraid,” he said. “It’s a police matter.”

  March looked around. “Did you collect it here, in the churchyard?”

  “It was hidden here. It belongs—belonged to someone in Soham.”

  “Ah. Not a Wriston man, then. Well. I’ll pray for his soul all the same. And how are you? Have you considered my offer of a little talk?”

  “I—don’t believe I’m ready. But I’m grateful, all the same.”

  March nodded. “I understand. But I will tell you that the longer you keep your fears trapped in your head, the harder it will be to free yourself from them. Remember that. And if you don’t come to me, find someone else to trust.”

  Rutledge said, before he could stop himself, before Hamish could warn him to beware, “It was a letter, Rector. I received it just before I came north. It was from someone I cared for. Rather deeply.” He stopped, and then added, “It closed a door.”

  It was offered as an explanation for Hamish’s presence, vigorously pursuing him from the time he left London. He wasn’t certain the Rector would understand. But it was the best he could do.

  The letter had come from Meredith Channing. It had told him she wouldn’t be returning to England, that she was staying in Belgium with the man she believed was her missing husband.

  I must do this, she had written. For my sake as well as yours. We would have nothing if we tried to build on a broken past. But I have given my heart in your keeping. And if you find someone else to love, then you must promise to send it back, so that I will know.

  And enclosed in the letter was a gold locket on a chain. The initials engraved on the front were those of her maiden name, not Channing. He’d thought it must have belonged to her as a young girl, for it was small and delicate, the sort of thing a child might have been given on her birthday. His parents had given his sister Frances a similar gift when she was twelve. Not a heart but a book that opened to show the photographs of her parents.

  He hadn’t opened Meredith Channing’s locket. He didn’t want to see what was inside.

  March, watching him, said, “And so the nightmares have been worse. Yes, it explains so much. Well, I’m here. You can always find me here.”

  And he turned to walk away, not looking back.

  Rutledge carried the canvas sack the rest of the way to his motorcar, and there he opened it.

  Inside, well wrapped in wool, he found the steel helmet that a German sniper had worn, a Lee-Enfield rifle, with the name H. R. I. BEATON roughly carved into the stock, a medal with the same name on the back. Catriona’s father, who had died in the war? Brought home on leave, a gift from a present-day sniper to a man who had served in the Lovat Scouts? There was also a German sniper scope. Under them lay a smaller holdall with what appeared to be the tools of a scissors sharpener, a long-haired wig made of silk threads, and a gray cloth.

  Rutledge stared at the last item and then reached into his pocket for the handkerchief he’d kept there, folded over a gray thread. He gently put the two together.

  The thread and the cloth matched perfectly.

  Rutledge stowed the items in the boot of his motorcar, all except the medal. He saw no reason why that should become the property of the police. It belonged in the African box.

  Driving back to the Bower House cottage, he found Miss Trowbridge and Thornton waiting for him in the parlor.

  She rose at once as he came in the door, saying, “What did you find?”

  He handed her the medal. “I was mistaken. There was nothing to find. Except this, caught in the doorway. Someone must have wanted your grandmother to have it.”

  She looked at it, then turned it over. “Beaton? But I don’t know anyone by that name.”

  “Perhaps your grandmother did. I shouldn’t worry about it, if I were you. I’d put it in her box. After all, she’d have explained if she’d wanted you to know.”

  Nodding, she said, “Yes, of course,” and then took the key from him as well.

  Rutledge turned to leave. Thornton hesitated. “I’ll be in touch,” he said finally to Marcella before they walked to the door.

  Miss Trowbridge, smiling, thanked him for offe
ring to see to the windmill keeper’s remains, and then she stood in her doorway, watching as the two men went out to the motorcar.

  After they were well away, Thornton said, “What did you discover? Surely it wasn’t just that medal?”

  Rutledge pulled to the side of the road. It was empty in both directions, the day quiet, the land basking in the sun. He went to the boot, retrieved the sack, and showed Thornton the contents.

  He whistled. “Good God. Is that what he was wearing when he shot Swift?”

  “Very likely.”

  “Where’s the straw suit he wore when he shot Burrows?”

  “If he was as clever as I think he was, he’s burned it long since.”

  Rutledge showed him the thread and how it matched the gray cloth, explaining the connection with Ely Cathedral.

  Thornton shook his head. “Remarkable. His planning—I couldn’t have—I’d have been caught straightaway.”

  Rutledge put everything back in the boot, got back behind the wheel, then turned to stare at Thornton.

  “If I had obtained a search warrant, what would I have found in your house?”

  Thornton blinked. Then he said, “Only a few unimportant souvenirs.”

  Rutledge nodded. “I thought as much,” he replied dryly.

  Inspector Warren was not happy to have missed the conclusion of the inquiry. He looked at the items that Rutledge had spread across his desk, and said, “You’re sure of your information? You’re satisfied with it?” His glance strayed to Thornton, standing in the doorway. “It will all be in your report?”

  Rutledge said, “Everything you will need to know will be in my report. I’ll finish it tonight.” It was not quite what Warren had asked for.

  But the Inspector was moving on to what had happened in London. “And you say this man Lovat is dead?”

  “Ruskin and others in Soham can show you his place of business and where he lived. They should be searched.”

  “Then why were these items found in Wriston?”

  “Would you keep evidence that would send you to the hangman in your house?”

  “No, I expect I wouldn’t.”