No Shred of Evidence

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No Shred of Evidence Page 14

by Charles Todd


  Absorbed in their confrontation, neither had looked toward the door. Grenville did now, breaking off and clearly intending to tell whoever had opened it to get out.

  Instead, he straightened up and waited.

  Gordon, looking in his turn at the interruption, frowned. “Inspector,” he said after a moment, and then, “What’s to prevent me from removing my daughter from Cornwall?”

  “Good morning, sir. Mr. Grenville will tell you that we have gone to great lengths to see to it that the accused have remained here in this house. The few hours they spent in the small cell in the village were shocking. By all means, take Miss Gordon back to London with you. I can’t stop you. But when she leaves this house, a warrant will be issued for her immediate arrest, and when she is taken into custody, she will be transferred to the nearest prison that can accommodate her. And her friends will be sent there as well, where they’ll remain until this case comes to trial. Neither Mr. Grenville nor I will be able to do anything about that.”

  “This is ridiculous nonsense, and you know it. Kate is no more a felon than I am. It’s time this farce is finished and she’s allowed to return to her family.”

  “Hardly a farce, Major. Harry Saunders has died of his head wound. The charge is now murder. There will be an inquest shortly. I expect the accused will be remanded to prison to await trial. Trevose’s testimony and the blow to Saunders’s head will see to that. Men have been convicted on less. Your best hope was Harry Saunders living to give his evidence.”

  “I don’t see why the statement of a farmer is more trustworthy than that of my daughter. Or Grenville’s for that matter,” Gordon fumed.

  He was a soldier, accustomed to instant respect and men at the ready to carry out his orders.

  “Because at the moment, he’s an impartial witness. If there was an attempt to kill Saunders, there would be collusion among the women in that boat to deny it.”

  “Is this some sort of retribution for Jean’s breaking off of your engagement?”

  Stung, Rutledge could hear Hamish raging in the back of his mind, but he forced himself to say calmly, “You’re understandably angry, sir, and I will overlook that remark. As I was not there in that rowing boat, I can’t tell you what actually happened. And therefore I must depend on the evidence in the case, not any regard I may have for your daughter.”

  “What’s more,” Grenville interjected, “I will not allow you to jeopardize my daughter’s well-­being by countenancing your removal of Kate from this house. If Rutledge can’t stop you, I can. As magistrate, I have some authority here.”

  St. Ives turned to face the room. “You’re outnumbered in this, Gordon, and I expect Langley will side with us as well. Face it. This is one stronghold you can’t charge and overthrow with cavalry and foot.”

  Gordon controlled his temper with an effort. “This Saunders. Why is that name familiar to me?”

  “His father is connected with our local bank.”

  “I’m not acquainted with your local banker. During the war, was he an officer seconded to the military attaché at the embassy in Washington?”

  “He was.”

  “I knew the attaché. He spoke highly of the lieutenant. I am sorry to hear he’s dead. Nevertheless, I will have Kate out of here before London gets wind of this and the story is spread all over the news­papers that she’s an accomplice to murder.”

  “I understand your feelings, sir,” Rutledge said. “But the story will reach the newspapers sooner if Kate and the others are locked up in Bodmin. They are safer here, and a good deal more comfortable.”

  “Bodmin? While they await their trial? You can’t be serious, man.”

  “Where else can they go? Four female prisoners? Neither Padstow nor Wadebridge is able to take them.”

  There was a knock at the door, and Grenville called, “What is it?” in a tone of voice that clearly indicated his displeasure at being disturbed a second time.

  The maid stood on the threshold.

  “Constable Pendennis is here, sir. For the Inspector.”

  “Show him in,” Grenville ordered, and after a moment Pendennis walked into the room, his face as expressionless as he could contrive to make it.

  He’d taken in the situation at a glance. The three men waiting for him to speak were glaring at him. Turning to Rutledge, he said, “Mr. Saunders’s solicitor was just at the police station, sir. And he informed me that Mr. and Mrs. Saunders are pressing for the four young ladies to be bound over for trial. As Mr. Grenville is the magistrate, he will be required to hear the charges.”

  Gordon was the first to recover. “I am sorry for the loss of his son. I have already said so. But victimizing my daughter will not bring the lad back.” He turned on Rutledge.

  “And you, sir, will see to it that this matter is concluded before there is any further persecution of my daughter.”

  Still smarting from Gordon’s dressing-­down, Rutledge kept his temper and asked to speak to Elaine St. Ives.

  Grenville took him to the drawing room, and he waited there for Elaine to come down.

  When the door opened, he was surprised to see Mrs. Grenville stepping into the room and quietly closing the door behind her.

  “I have heard the shouting from the library. I gather there is no good news.”

  “Pendennis has come to relate the Saunderses’ insistence on having the accused returned to gaol. Your husband will have to deal with it. I left Pendennis in the library.”

  “Daniel in the lion’s den,” she said ruefully. “Will he succeed in taking them to Bodmin?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Would it do any good if I were to call on Mr. and Mrs. Saunders?”

  “At the moment, they’re blinded to everything but their own grief. I think it best to wait.”

  She said, with sadness in her voice, “We are all parents. And I know what it is to lose an only son. Do you think those four women are guilty of intentionally killing Harry Saunders?”

  She had not invited him to sit down. He thought it was a measure of her distress that she had forgot her manners.

  “As a policeman it’s my duty to find out the truth. Not to judge.”

  “You’ve interviewed them, Mr. Rutledge. You must know that they aren’t criminals.”

  He understood what she wanted from him: some relief from the worry that was tearing her apart. But there was no way he could offer her that.

  He asked his own question instead of answering hers. “Do you think Trevose is concerned with whether they are guilty or not?”

  If he had struck her, she couldn’t have looked more shocked. After a moment she said in a husky voice, “Are you saying that my daughter and her friends are paying for his brother’s life?”

  “You may be better able to answer that than I am. I can’t read Trevose’s heart any more than I can read your daughter’s.”

  “It’s a long time to nurture a grudge.” It was said almost in hope, as if she wanted very badly to believe it.

  Rutledge disliked having to disabuse her of the hope, but she needed to hear the truth. “He and his brother quarreled before the boy left. It was never made up. It may be that for Trevose, his own guilt is driving him to find someone else to blame for his brother leaving.”

  “Ah. That explains so much.” There was despair in her eyes as she turned away.

  He gave her time to compose herself, and then brought out the small square of cloth. “Do you recognize this fabric?”

  She examined it closely. He found himself wondering if she was trying to decide how to answer him.

  “I don’t,” she said after a moment. Then she looked up and held his gaze. “Is it important, is that why you are asking me?”

  “I doubt it,” he said, deliberately making light of it. “But a policeman must consider even the smallest detail that comes his way. Oth
erwise, how is he to know what’s important and what isn’t?” He put the bit of cloth back in his pocket. Then he added, “I’ve known smaller things to clear a person.”

  She blinked, and he realized that she thought he’d been offering her a chance to clear her daughter’s name, and somehow she had failed.

  He said, “No, it wasn’t a test. Only a query. It changes nothing.”

  The door opened and Elaine came in.

  “Why are they shouting in the library?” she asked uneasily. “I could hear them as I came down the stairs.” She glanced over her shoulder, her face suddenly pale. “We’re being taken to gaol, aren’t we? Harry’s dead, and it’s too late to ask him what happened. But why does that farmer want us to be hanged?”

  Mrs. Grenville caught her breath, her eyes pleading with Rutledge.

  He shook his head slightly, warning her to say nothing more.

  For an instant he thought she was going to ignore it, her sense of responsibility getting the better of her good judgment.

  10

  Recovering her self-­possession with an effort, Mrs. Grenville managed a smile. “Kate’s father has just arrived,” she said. “I expect he’s angry that more progress hasn’t been made in clearing all of you. I shouldn’t worry about it, if I were you.”

  Elaine returned the smile. “Then I won’t.” To Rutledge, she said, “You sent for me, Inspector?”

  With a nod to Rutledge, Mrs. Grenville went out the door and closed it behind her.

  “It’s a tangle, isn’t it?” he said pleasantly to Elaine. “We need facts—­and sometimes there are no facts to be found. Or if there are, they point in different directions, until we’re all in a muddle.”

  He was thinking that he wasn’t more than five or six years older than Elaine St. Ives. And yet he felt old enough to be her father or an uncle. He could sympathize with her bewilderment. She had had only to sit still and balance the rowboat while the others fought to save—­or kill—­Saunders. Was she strong enough emotionally to lie for the others, if they had decided to drown Saunders? To keep their secret even in the face of trial and possible conviction? He couldn’t be sure. Sometimes fragile ­people were made of steel, where their own interests were concerned.

  “It’s like a nightmare. I wish it would end,” she said, with feeling.

  He didn’t want to begin with what had brought him here. And so he said, “I find it hard to believe that someone who could barely swim had a larger craft that he took as far as Fowey, or that he ran about in its dinghy. He wasn’t dressed for swimming that Saturday, was he?”

  “I expect he was meeting friends. He grew up on the Camel. As we all did. He and my brother were always out on the water in the summer.” She smiled, remembering. “That was before the war. I don’t think it worried Harry that he wasn’t a strong swimmer. He was so used to boats, you see.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why he never learned.”

  “He was quite strong, a good horseman, a very fine tennis player. That sort of thing. But he told George that in the water he always sank like a stone. He had no buoyancy. My brother claimed he had no faith in the water. That he didn’t expect it to hold him up. He was a thrasher. Fighting the water instead of going with it.”

  Which he found intriguing. “Then he couldn’t have made it ashore, if you and the others hadn’t been there?”

  “Possibly. Although I doubt it. He must already have been unsettled by the boat sinking as it did. That even shocked me. He wouldn’t have been able to let the water take him, and use it to reach the shore or hang on to something until he reached the village landing. The water was cold, mind you. That wouldn’t help.”

  “You know a good deal about it,” he said.

  “My brother taught me to swim when I was four. We live not far from the water, he was always around it, and I think he was afraid I’d try to follow him one day and drown. We never told our parents. My mother would have been horrified.”

  Rutledge smiled. “I expect she would have been.” But that brother, he thought, had been wise beyond his years. As a rule, girls seldom learned to swim.

  “Why did you go upstream, instead of down?”

  “Mr. Grenville didn’t want us to go farther than my parents’ house or the village landing. These were places we knew well. The harbor at Padstow wasn’t suitable, he said. And beyond there of course was the Doom Bar.”

  He said, “There’s one other matter I need clarified before moving on. Tell me a little more about the young woman who came to ser­vices at St. Marina’s last summer.”

  The question took her by surprise. “What young woman? The vicar’s cousin?”

  “Yes. You were never introduced, but could you describe her for me?”

  “I’ll try. She was quite pretty—­lovely dark hair and a nice smile. Her clothes were rather conservative but beautifully made. You can always tell, can’t you? A soft voice, cultured. Rather shy and uncomfortable in crowds of ­people. I thought perhaps she might be from London, that we might have acquaintances in common. But Mr. Toup told me her father was a vicar in Norfolk, near the North Sea coast, and she acts as his housekeeper most of the year.”

  “A suitable wife for Harry Saunders, do you think?”

  She smiled wryly. “Harry might feel she was. But his father might feel quite differently. Even bankers are ambitious for their sons. Unless of course she was an heiress.”

  He returned the smile.

  “Where does she stay in Rock when she comes to Cornwall?”

  “I have no idea. You must ask Mr. Toup.” She tilted her head, curious. “Why are you so interested in this young woman? It isn’t just because of Victoria and Harry, is it?”

  A very perceptive question.

  “I don’t know,” he told her in all honesty. “Anything to do with Harry Saunders interests me until I have discovered how he died.” Another thought occurred to him. “Who transported this young woman across the river? I haven’t been told that the vicar has a boat. Was it Harry, do you think?”

  “There’s a ferry,” she said doubtfully. “That’s how most ­people go back and forth. Although Harry might well have offered his ser­vices. I did wonder why she chose to stay across the river.”

  He could feel Hamish stirring suddenly in the back of his mind. Hamish had worked it out already, and Rutledge needed time to think.

  Thanking Miss St. Ives, he walked with her to the door. As he shut it behind her, he stood there with his hand on the knob, his mind racing.

  What if Toup had lied to him? What if this mystery woman lived not in Rock but in those cottages for hire between Padstow and Pri­deaux Place? Was this how Harry had met her? He kept his boat there.

  But that would mean that the man in the third cottage had lied as well. A young married ­couple and a pair of spinsters . . .

  Saunders was a banker’s son. He could afford to bribe the landlord.

  It would be fairly unusual for a young single woman to live alone in an isolated cottage let for the summer. And Toup had said he couldn’t allow her to live at the vicarage without a chaperone, indicating that she was indeed traveling alone.

  But if she did live by herself in the cottage above where Saunders beached the dinghy, and she appeared on his arm at Sunday ser­vices, a stranger who kept to herself, speculation would be rampant, her connection with the vicar notwithstanding. Was Toup aware of where she was staying? Or had he been lied to as well?

  Rutledge could see, all at once, why Victoria Grenville would have been angry with the banker’s son for flirting with her, while he was involved with this stranger. Using his flirtation as a cover for an affair. A Grenville would not have found that either amusing or even endurable.

  It didn’t sound like the Harry Saunders everyone had described to him, but Rutledge could see how appearances might be one thing, reality another.

&nb
sp; Even the saints sometimes had feet of clay . . .

  But would Victoria Grenville be angry enough—­would she feel she had been embarrassed enough by Saunders—­that when the opportunity came her way, she might drop an oar on his head?

  He found it hard to believe.

  But had that been what she had been counting on, before Trevose appeared on the scene? That no one would think Victoria Grenville was capable of murder?

  Her mother had been the cause, however inadvertently, in one man’s death. Was she involved in another’s?

  Rutledge realized that he was still standing there, his hand on the doorknob.

  He stepped out into the passage, just as Kate was walking toward the library door.

  Moving swiftly, searching the passage to make sure they were alone, he caught her arm and laid his finger on his lips, to warn her not to speak.

  “Have you been summoned to the library?” he asked softly.

  She nodded.

  “Whatever happens, don’t let your father take you to London. It will mean an order for your immediate arrest and that of the others as well. You’re safer by far here than in a prison cell.”

  “They won’t let us go. Not now that Harry’s dead,” she answered him. “I knew that as soon as I heard the news. Poor man.” She hesitated. “Ian. It will be all right, won’t it? In the end?”

  He released her arm, stepping back. He couldn’t lie to her. “I’m doing my best. Let’s pray it’s enough.”

  He had only just reached the drawing room door when there was a general exodus from the library. He could hear Major Gordon greeting his daughter as St. Ives and Grenville left the room, with Pendennis in tow. He turned and waited, preparing himself for the verdict.

  Grenville was grim. Pendennis looked defeated. St. Ives was still quite angry.

  “Stubborn fool,” he heard St. Ives say under his breath.

  It had ended in a draw, Rutledge thought. But in favor of the accused.

  Grenville stopped. “I’ve to inform you, Inspector, that I feel it is for the best for these young women to remain in my charge. I recognize that the circumstances now are different, that this is a murder investigation. But I do not feel that there is anything to be gained by incarcerating them. I can appreciate the despair the Saunderses are feeling, but I would be failing in my duty as magistrate if I agree to their imprisonment for the sake of appearances.”

 

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