A False Mirror ir-9

by Charles Todd

  “I heard them, didn’t I? And I’ll testify to that in a courtroom. See if I don’t.” With another spiteful glance at the closed door where Mallory must be listening, she added, “Ask anyone. At night he’d drive to the headland across the way and watch this house. He doesn’t think people know about that, but they do. They whisper behind his back. He’s been plotting to murder Mr. Hamilton for months, if you want my opinion, but as long as the poor man is breathing, she won’t leave with him.”

  “Because she loves Hamilton, after all?”

  “Because he’s better off than Mr. Mallory. She’s a little hussy, that one, and she married Mr. Hamilton for his money. Ask anyone, and they’ll tell you the same.”

  And if Hamilton was dead, she’d inherit that money…assuming she came through this ordeal unscathed.

  It was, Hamish commented as Rutledge left Nan sitting there and rejoined a very tense Mallory in the passage, a very good motive for murder.

  They walked through the house in silence. Then, at the door, Mallory asked Rutledge quietly, making certain that his voice didn’t carry up the stairs or into the drawing room, “Are you keeping something from me? Did he say anything?”

  “Why should I lie to you? He was in no state to answer questions. But we can hope that by tomorrow the news is better. Mallory, listen to me, encourage Mrs. Hamilton to remember the names of wedding guests and friends she and Hamilton visited in London. It could be your salvation if Reston is in the clear.”

  With that he stepped outside and walked on, without turning back.

  12

  The child began to scream at two in the morning. When Nanny failed to comfort the boy, she went to his mother’s room and knocked.

  “He’s hysterical. I don’t understand why, there’s nothing amiss that I can find.” The anxiety in her normally calm voice was a counterpoint to the heartbreaking wails issuing from the nursery.

  “Should we summon Dr. Granville?” Mrs. Cornelius asked, quickly knotting her dressing gown around her. “Is he feverish, you think? Has he been sick?”

  “He’s very well. It was the window, you see. He insisted I close it and put down the shade. He said something out there wanted in.”

  “Was the shade raised? Whatever for?” Mrs. Cornelius followed Nanny down the passage and opened the nursery door. She could hear her son before she got there, sobbing inconsolably now and calling for her. She crossed to the bed and put her arms around him. He clung to her, burying his face in the dark hair that tumbled down her shoulder.

  “What is it, my love, what is it?” she repeated in a singsong voice, ignoring the hovering nanny. But he shook his head with some force, as if he didn’t want to tell her.

  Nanny said softly, “Sometimes in the night, he’ll wake up and go to the window seat. It looks out to the sea. He likes that. He’s learned to lift the shade for himself.”

  “Was it the sea that frightened you?” she asked the clinging child. But he shook his head again. “Or the mist? You’ve seen mists before, haven’t you, my love?”

  Nanny had closed the window but had not pulled down the shade.

  Mrs. Cornelius turned to peer out. This window looked down on the street but she could see the water just beyond the next house but one. Or could have done, in the moonlight. A sea mist had crept in, a filmy white wraith that made the street and the rooftops and the outlines of houses seem unfamiliar and unfriendly.

  Cradling the child in her arms, she shivered. Anything could be out there, she thought. What had Jeremy seen? And it was in just such a mist that Mr. Hamilton had been struck down.

  What if someone lurked in the shadows, watching this lighted window, perhaps knowing it was her son’s nursery? What if he had lured the boy to slip down and open the house door?

  They were wealthy enough to pay a goodly ransom.

  She had caught her son’s fear.

  She said to Nanny, “Rouse Mr. Cornelius, if you please. Ask him to send for Inspector Bennett. It may be nothing, but on the other hand, better safe than sorry. Tell him to take Benedict with him.” The footman, she thought, would be protection enough. “And beg him to remember to lock the door behind him. Hurry!”

  When Nanny had gone, she said, soothingly, “It’s all right, Jeremy, there’s nothing to worry you. Would you like to sleep in my bed for a bit?” Anything to take him away from here and the lighted window.

  She could feel his head bob against her breast. “Then you must stand up like the little man you are, and take my hand. You’re far too big for me to carry.”

  After a time, he sat up and then got down from her lap, but held tightly to her hand as they went back along the dark passage and into her room.

  Watching him climb into her bed and snuggle under the bedclothes, she thought, He might be going on seven, but he’s still a baby.

  She took the precaution of locking the bedroom door until her husband returned.

  Moments later, Cornelius, sitting in his dressing room, was dragging his trousers on over his nightclothes and searching for his stockings and shoes, all the while grumbling under his breath. But he was accustomed to doing his wife’s bidding, and pulling on his heavy coat and finding a scarf, he set out in the darkness for the police station, two streets over.

  He had rejected as foolishness taking Benedict with him but had sensibly brought his cane.

  He didn’t like the sea mist any more than his son had done, and he listened to the muffled echo of his heels, thinking that Matthew Hamilton had been walking out later than this, and someone invisible in just such a mist had nearly killed him. Had Jeremy’s terror somehow been intended to bring another prominent man out into the dark streets to be assaulted? Nonsense, he told himself briskly. The child had had a nightmare, and his wife had been frightened by the unexpected intensity of it. Nevertheless he found himself looking over his shoulder whenever there was a sound behind him, and he walked a little faster.

  Why the devil did a street appear to be so different on a night of mist? The shrubbery in back of Mrs. Pickering’s house looked like hunched monsters brooding over a pool of cotton wool shrouding their feet. And a chimney atop the Reston house sported a gull that floated in midair. When a cat ran out of a doorway on the Mole, it startled him so badly he nearly dropped his cane. A black cat, he was certain of it.

  Whatever Jeremy had seen, by the time he reached the police station, Theo Cornelius had convinced himself that something indeed was abroad, and his heart was pounding from a sense of being watched.

  The police station was empty. A lamp stood on the desk in the main room, and beside it a note that sent him on to Bennett’s house, growling as he went. All for a silly child’s nightmare, he told himself now. Otherwise he’d be at home in his own bed, sound asleep. Jeremy had been begging sweets in the kitchen again, and Cook spoiled him recklessly.

  But bravado did nothing to stop the hairs on the back of his neck from prickling as he stepped into the street again.

  It took him several minutes to rouse someone at Bennett’s house. The inspector came to the door, his crutch propping him up as he looked out at the man on his step.

  “Mr. Cornelius,” he said, instantly recognizing his caller. “What’s to do, sir, is there any trouble?”

  “My son is having a nightmare. My wife insisted that I summon you.” It sounded ridiculous, putting it that way, and he took a step backward. “Er-she felt that since Mr. Hamilton had been attacked on a morning when there was sea mist, it might be important to discover what had upset my son.”

  “I see.” But it was evident Bennett didn’t. He cleared his throat and said, “You must fetch Mr. Rutledge at the Duke of Monmouth, sir. He’s in charge of the inquiry into what happened to Mr. Hamilton.”

  “Look,” Cornelius began irritably, “I’ve been to the station, and I’ve come here. I’m damned if I’ll spend what’s left of the night-”

  But Bennett was there before him. He pointed to his bandaged foot and said, “It’s all I can do to walk
down the stairs, sir, much less as far as your house. We’re spread thin, and that’s why Mr. Rutledge has come. You’d do better speaking with him. He’s from Scotland Yard, you know. A London policeman.” He smiled grimly.

  Cornelius turned away, angry and feeling a worse fool. He was of half a mind to go home and to bed, be damned to alarums in the night. But his wife would simply send him out again, and so he went instead to the Duke of Monmouth Inn. The sense of danger had faded, replaced by anger and resentment. What he should have done was hunt the fool down himself! Not come for the incompetent and unhelpful police. The Chief Constable would hear about this-

  It seemed to be the middle of the night when Rutledge came out of a deep sleep to hear voices in the passage outside his door.

  He listened for a moment or two, and recognized the desk clerk’s as one of them.

  By the time the man knocked, Rutledge was on his feet and reaching for his clothes.

  Rutledge opened his door to the desk clerk, his hair disheveled and trousers thrown on with haste. Behind him was a taller man, fair and flustered but well dressed.

  “Mr. Rutledge? This is Mr. Cornelius. Inspector Bennett has sent him to you.” He turned slightly to include Cornelius in the conversation.

  The man said, “There’s something wrong at my house. My son’s had a shock, and my wife sent me to fetch you. Will you come?”

  “What kind of shock?” Rutledge asked, swiftly finishing dressing.

  “I don’t know. He was screaming the house down half an hour ago. There’s a mist coming in. My wife was concerned about that, what with the assault on Mr. Hamilton.” He stopped, seeming at a loss for words. His story hadn’t come out the way he’d intended it should.

  But Rutledge followed him without argument, with Hamish alert and awake in his mind, quarreling and taunting during the silent walk to where Cornelius lived.

  The mist had grown denser, and it was a strangely quiet, soft world, the sea itself hissing somewhere to his left instead of rolling in with its usual thunder.

  The Cornelius house was on Mercer Street, which curved away from the center of town but still allowed a very nice view of the water. More prosperous residents lived here-Reston’s house was just down the road-and the Victorian flavor of money and respectability was reflected in the size and style of the dwellings.

  Rutledge was reminded of Bennett’s comment that fish scales made for slippery social climbing.

  They went up the walk to Number 4 and Cornelius let them in with his key. There was a lamp at the foot of the stairs, but the ground floor was in darkness. Carrying the lamp, Cornelius took the steps two at a time to the first floor, and Rutledge followed.

  The man was annoyed that his wife had locked the bedroom door, and knocked briskly.

  She came out to them, shushing them. “Jeremy’s just gone to sleep again.”

  She stared uncertainly at Rutledge, and her husband hastily presented him, adding, “He’s here in Bennett’s stead.”

  “What seems to be the trouble?” Rutledge asked her.

  “It’s probably a wild-goose chase,” she began apologetically, confronted now with this stranger from London instead of Mr. Bennett. She was beginning to wonder if she’d been wise to call in the police. But the memory of her son’s distress kept her from making light of her fears. “Nanny tells me my son sits by his window late at night, and tonight there was something in the mist that frightened him. He began to cry and it took me some time to calm him down again. But after what happened to Matthew Hamilton-”

  “Yes, you did the right thing,” Rutledge replied, cutting short the apology. “Did he describe to you what he’d seen?”

  “A hunchback creature stumbling along the road at the head of the street. He believes it was a monster of some kind, but of course that’s only a child’s interpretation. I can’t think what it might actually have been.” She glanced at her husband. “Jeremy is possessed of a lively imagination, and his grandfather encourages him by reading to him books that are, well, perhaps a little mature for him. But he doesn’t make up stories. Something was there. I’m convinced of it.”

  “A fisherman carrying his nets down to the boat?” Rutledge took out his watch. “When do the fishermen set sail? Before dawn, surely.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that-but why should that frighten Jeremy? He must have seen them dozens of times. And this-this creature wasn’t walking toward the Mole but away from it, following the west road.”

  “And yet,” Hamish put in, “she didna’ fear to send her husband out in the dark.”

  Which was an interesting point. Mr. Cornelius was a prime target, if someone was intent on distracting the police from the attack on Hamilton by hunting other likely prey in the night. Rutledge shifted his emphasis slightly but that was in effect his next question.

  “If you were concerned about who or what was out there, was it wise to send Mr. Cornelius to the police?”

  She stared at Rutledge. “But he took Benedict with him. And besides my husband has no enemies.”

  Over her head Rutledge and Cornelius exchanged glances. In silent agreement that she needn’t be told her husband had gone out alone.

  “Neither, apparently, did Hamilton have enemies,” Rutledge answered her.

  Mrs. Cornelius refused to wake the boy for Rutledge to question further tonight. “The problem is out there, not in here. I’ve told you everything my son told me. There’s been enough time wasted already, Inspector. If this ‘monster’ is to be found, you’d best hurry.”

  In the end, he didn’t press, and Cornelius saw him out again with heartfelt apologies.

  Walking back through the mist, Rutledge could understand the sense of unease that had triggered the boy’s fear. Nothing appeared to have its normal shape in this white shroud. A cat skirting a garden walk loomed large as it rounded the corner of a wall, as if magnified by the murky light. And a small boat, putting out to sea, seemed to be sailing into a milky curtain that clung to it and draped it until it vanished, a captive of some voracious sea monster. Rooftops appeared and disappeared, chimney pots were heads poking out of the swirls as if strange creatures were dancing there high above the street. A wandering dog knocked over a pail, and the noise of it rolled among the houses with waves of echoes.

  He spent half an hour searching for whatever it was young Jeremy had seen, but there was nothing to account for it.

  “The lad should ha’ been abed and asleep.”

  And if the Nanny had caught Jeremy disobeying rules, he might have invented a monster to distract her. It had to be considered.

  Rutledge had circled back to the head of Mercer Street and now stood still, looking down it toward the Cornelius house. The windows were dark, everyone settled in his bed. He found himself wondering who would see him if he raised his arms high, threw back his head and howled silently.

  Chances were, no one. Perhaps whoever had passed here, briefly crossing Jeremy Cornelius’s line of sight, had counted on that. And in the mist, everyone was all but invisible.

  A straying husband hurrying back to his wife. A drunk, hoping to find his bed at last, or a housebreaker taking his chances?

  “Or yon doctor, on his way to a confinement,” Hamish put in. “It needna’ be more out of the ordinary than that.”

  Rutledge turned toward the inn, grateful for his heavy coat against the night chill.

  Odd that Bennett had sent Cornelius to him, he found himself thinking as the inn came into sight. The sign was disembodied, a floating man high above the street, catching the light from the lamp that Rutledge had left burning in his room.

  Even with its tenuous connection to the Hamilton matter, Jeremy Cornelius’s ghostly figure was not a case for the Yard. Bennett had hoped to make him look like a fool, chasing a child’s hobgoblins in the middle of the night.

  A not-so-subtle attempt to show the outsider that the local man knew what he was about, and at the same time, placating a prominent citizen in need.

  R
ain came an hour later, a downpour that went on until the eaves were dripping and the dawn was lost in the heavy clouds that seemed to rest on the very rooftops, replicating last night’s fog.

  Rutledge awoke some forty minutes later than he usually did, the darkness in his room and the regular pattering of the rain blotting out nightmares, allowing him for once to sleep deeply.

  The dining room was empty, his breakfast set out on the long table by the kitchen door. He filled his plate and sat down, Hamish seeming to hover behind him in the shadows. The woman who was now serving at meals brought him his tea and stood by his table for a moment looking out the windows at the weather.

  He thought to ask about Becky and was assured that she was expected to resume her duties by early next week.

  “Thank goodness this wasn’t a busier time of year,” she went on, and then nodded toward the rain, coming down harder as they watched. “My grandmother told us last night this was coming. Her knees ached something fierce. The barometer bore her out, but we didn’t know, did we, that it would be such a stormy morning.” She sighed. “Poor daffodils, they’ll have muddy faces now.”

  He offered a smile, and she went back to the kitchen. It was a depressing morning, true enough, and Hamish was vigorously reminding him of the rain in the trenches, the sour smells of unwashed bodies, wet wool, mud, and despair in equal measure.

  Finishing the last of his toast and tea, he rose and walked out to the lobby, opening the door to a gust of air so heavy with moisture it seemed to have come from the sea, not the sky.

  He had expected to go back to Matthew Hamilton this morning, to sit there again and talk to the man, hoping to bring him back to the present once more. He had the feeling that Hamilton had understood more than Rutledge or the doctor realized, and that the words flowing around him had partly roused him out of the pain and blackness that engulfed him. But it was late, and his first duty must be to Mrs. Hamilton and her maid.

  The situation there was unstable enough to change by the hour.