by Charles Todd
He fetched his hat and coat, and with a sigh dashed through the downpour to the motorcar, feeling his shoulders and his shoes taking the brunt of what was pelting down and swirling in puddles under foot.
He turned the crank and ran for the driver’s door, nearly colliding with a man half hidden behind a large black umbrella. He seemed to appear out of nowhere from the boot of the motorcar.
The umbrella flexed as it struck Rutledge and dumped a shower of water into his face as he ducked away from the points.
The man holding it swore, and then as it shifted a little so that he could peer under the dripping edge, he said, “Rutledge?”
It was Dr. Granville.
“Are you looking for me?” Rutledge asked, and then added, “For God’s sake, come inside before we’re both wet through.” Leaving the motorcar running, he urged the doctor through the yard door into the inn.
They found themselves in the narrow, flagged passage that led from the back hall, and Granville left his umbrella outside, taking out a handkerchief to wipe his face.
“What is it? Has Hamilton taken a turn for the worst?” Rutledge asked when the man seemed to hesitate.
“Or is he dead?” Rutledge went on, staring hard at the doctor.
“I don’t know.” The doctor’s voice was diffident, as if he were embarrassed to say what had brought him here.
“You didn’t put a guard on him, is that it? After I’d warned you. Well? What has happened to him now? Come on, man, speak up!”
The doctor looked up at him. “He’s gone,” he said simply. “Just-gone.”
At first Rutledge took that to mean that Hamilton had died in the night, alone and without regaining his senses. But then he realized that the doctor meant what he said quite literally. The shock in his eyes was unmistakable.
“Gone? When? Where?” Rutledge demanded.
“I don’t know. For God’s sake, I don’t know. His bed was empty when I went to check on him half an hour ago.”
“Are you quite sure he hasn’t passed out in another room as he tried to find help?”
“I’ve searched the premises. He’s gone, I tell you.”
“To the house. To find his wife.” Rutledge swore, and wheeled toward the door. “Come on, man, we’ve got to search for him.”
“He can’t have made it far, it’s not a climb he can-”
But Rutledge had the sleeve of his coat, pulling at him, and the doctor came reluctantly behind him, catching up his umbrella but with no time to open it.
They made for the motorcar and climbed in, bringing the miasma of wet wool after them, steaming up the windscreen with the heat of their bodies.
Rutledge found a cloth under his seat and scrubbed at the inside of the glass, swearing again. Then he tossed the cloth to the doctor, put the motorcar into gear, and turned in a shimmering fan of spray.
They came out of the inn drive and went toward the street that ran along the Mole. “Have you spoken to Bennett?” Rutledge asked, taking the next turn far too fast, feeling the tires slipping sideways in a spin. He brought the vehicle back under control and headed to the east.
“No. I couldn’t face him. I came straightaway for you instead. I thought perhaps-look out, you fool, there’s a bicycle ahead!-damn it, we’re no good to Hamilton or anyone else if we’re dead.”
But Rutledge paid him no heed. Every second counted now. Three minutes later, he found a very wet constable standing under a tree some distance from the drive to the house, where he’d taken what shelter he could find against the trunk.
“How long have you been on duty?” Rutledge asked, lowering the window.
“Since six, sir,” the man answered, looking as wretched as he must feel. “It’s been all quiet at the house. Not a sound out of them.”
“And no one has come in or out?”
“No, sir. No one.”
But if the earlier watcher had been standing where this man was, it would be hard in the dark to know who had come. Or gone.
Rutledge thanked him and drove up to the door.
The shrubbery by the drive was as wet as a rain forest, he thought, getting out to hammer on the house door. And the downpour had hardly lessened since it began.
Mallory came to answer his impatient summons, looking as tired as Rutledge had ever seen him. “What do you want now?” He glanced over Rutledge’s shoulder and saw the doctor in the motorcar.
“For God’s sake, why have you brought him? I’ve done them no harm.”
“Hamilton has disappeared,” Rutledge told him bluntly. “He may have come here. I want to search the house, and after that the grounds.”
“It’s a trick. He’s dead, isn’t he? Well, you aren’t bringing any of your men or Bennett’s here on a pretense to search. I’ll use the revolver if I have to. Do you hear me?”
“He’s missing,” Rutledge said grimly. “You’d better listen to me, Mallory. I’m not here to play at cat and mouse. If he’s been out in this rain for hours, he’ll be running a fever by now, or he could have bled to death from his internal injuries-God only knows. Will you let me in to search or not?”
Mallory called out to Dr. Granville. “Is this true? Is Hamilton gone?”
“In the night,” the doctor confirmed. “He must have come here, man! Where else would he go? In his condition?”
Mallory swore. “He isn’t here, I tell you!” But his gaze moved toward the dark, silent house behind him. “I’d have known.”
“Stay here if you like, and guard the door. But let me search,” Rutledge said rapidly. “I’ll do it alone, and I give you my word now that I have no other motive. I won’t leave a window or door unlocked, I won’t frighten either of the women. It’s his house, Mallory, he knows it better than you do.”
“I thought he was too badly injured to know where he was, much less walk away. You told me as much, damn it,” he retorted accusingly. “You lied to me!”
“We believed it to be true. But you know as well as I do that badly injured men are capable of heroic effort. We saw that often enough in the war, for God’s sake. If he’s determined to know why his wife hasn’t visited him, he may have tried to reach her, for fear something has happened to her as well. Or he may be out for revenge. It’s better if I find him first, before you come on him in the dark.”
The other man stood there, undecided. And then he opened the door wider and let Rutledge step inside, watching the water dripping relentlessly from his coat and his trousers to puddle on the floor.
Mallory gestured to it and said ruefully, “I can’t even call the maid to clear it up. Just stay away from Nan, and from Mrs. Hamilton. And don’t linger. I don’t trust you, and I’ll be searching the house again after you leave. I’m quite serious, Rutledge, don’t drive me into a corner.”
He said to Mallory, “If Hamilton managed to make his way here, pray that his mind is clear. It could be your salvation.”
And with Hamish behind him, alternately warning and driving him, Rutledge set about his search.
It would be to Mallory’s advantage to bring the wounded man to his wife, Rutledge kept telling himself, since she couldn’t go to him. And yet-
He went into every room belowstairs and on the ground floor, testing the window locks, looking for signs of a break-in while Mallory slept. He searched for wet footprints on carpets and felt for damp draperies where windows might have been thrown open during the heavy rain. And he listened intently for any sounds that might tell him that Hamilton was here, and also a prisoner.
But a quarter of an hour later, he had found nothing except the irate Nan, demanding to know why she hadn’t been set free long since.
Passing Mallory where he sat on the staircase, Rutledge moved on to the first floor, methodically going from bedroom to bedroom even as he began to realize it was hopeless. Looking under beds, into wardrobes, behind screens, even behind the stiff brocade draperies that hung at each window, he tried to think where Hamilton might have gone if he hadn’t come here to
Casa Miranda. But there were still the grounds to search.
The only room he didn’t enter was Mrs. Hamilton’s.
When he’d finished in the attics, he stood outside her door and tapped lightly on the panel. He had the feeling she was cowering inside, unwilling to face him.
Without Stephen Mallory’s knowledge, had she gone to the doctor’s surgery during the night and somehow managed to bring her husband back with her? It would have been a disastrous act of courage and determination even to try, and she couldn’t have moved Hamilton if he’d been unconscious still.
Mallory had to sleep sometime, although he looked as if he’d never closed his eyes. Was that her solution to the need to know how her husband fared?
And if it was, then he himself must now tread with care.
“Mayhap she doesna’ know who is at the door,” Hamish pointed out.
The room must look out to the sea and the headland on the other side of the Mole. She may not have heard his motorcar with the rain making such a racket. “It’s Inspector Rutledge, Mrs. Hamilton. No one else is with me.”
Except for Hamish, he added silently. But how would she know?
After a moment, he called to her again, more insistently this time.
And she said, her voice tremulous, “What do you want? Is there news?”
“Are you alone in there, Mrs. Hamilton?”
There was a pause before she came to the door, opening it a crack. She too looked very tired, her face already losing some of the soft vulnerability he remembered.
Warily she said, “What do you mean? Of course I’m alone.”
“May I come in and look around your room, Mrs. Hamilton? I won’t take more than a moment or two.”
“Look-what is it you’re looking for?”
“I want to see that all is well with you, as Mr. Mallory has assured me it is.”
But with the intuition of a woman, she could sense that something wasn’t right.
“Have you interviewed George Reston?” she demanded suspiciously. “What has he said to you?”
“I’m looking into that, I promise you. Just now-”
Pulling her shawl closer, as if trying to warm herself, she said, “No. I don’t want to see you or anyone else. Go away.”
“Mrs. Hamilton.” He studied her hair, but it appeared dry to him. Yet out in this storm, nothing stayed dry for very long. Had Matthew Hamilton been moved before the rains began? Under cover of the mist?
“I’m not feeling very well this morning. I want to be left alone. Don’t disturb me again until you can bring me good news.” She looked away from him, tears filling her eyes. “I can’t bear much more.”
She closed the door in his face, and he heard the key turn in the lock.
Hamish said, “She didna’ ask how her husband was, this morning.”
There was nothing for it after that but to search the grounds. And the heavy rain hadn’t let up. Rutledge briefly explained to Granville what he was doing and why, then asked to borrow his umbrella.
The doctor said before he handed it over, “I really ought to look in on Mrs. Hamilton while I’m here. When she hears what’s become of her husband, she’ll be distraught. If you’ll have a word with Mallory-”
Rutledge cut him short. “Stay out of it. If you want to be useful, think where we ought to look if Hamilton isn’t here.” He took the umbrella, effectively stranding Granville in the motorcar.
The umbrella turned out to be all but worthless, and after a time he gave up and furled it. There was no sign of Matthew Hamilton on the grounds or in the outbuildings. No sign, even, that someone had been there, no muddy marks on floors in the garden shed or the small stable that had been partly converted to a garage. Rutledge put his hand on the bonnets of the motorcars there-they were cool to the touch-and hunted for deep footprints in the soft wet earth. The lone horse nickered as he leaned into its stall, and blew as he offered his hand to it. And he used his instincts as well, lifting rain-heavy branches, burrowing under shrubs, putting himself in the shoes of a man desperately tired or overcome by weakness. He even poked a hand around the iron seat in the back garden, now draped in a tentlike covering of oiled cloth to prevent rusting over the winter. Mrs. Hamilton and her husband must have sat here and watched the sunset of a summer’s evening. Today the sea and the sky seemed to have merged, a gray mass that was nearly indistinguishable behind the curtain of fresh squalls on the horizon.
Rutledge was just turning away when he realized that closer to hand there was a gathering of men down along the Mole, Bennett among them, leaning on his crutches. They were all getting into a line of carts and carriages and motorcars, hurry evident even at this distance.
Hamish said, “They’ve found him, then.”
13
Mallory was once more sitting at the bottom of the staircase, this time with a whiskey glass in his hand. He was staring at it morosely and barely glanced up as Rutledge stepped through the door. Then something in Rutledge’s face brought him to his feet.
“What? What have you found?”
“Nothing. Here. But I think perhaps Bennett has been more successful in the village. I must go.”
He turned away toward the motorcar but Mallory called him back. “Did you tell her he was missing? I must know-did you tell her?”
“No,” Rutledge said, standing there looking closely at him. How much more would it take to make this man break? He was grateful now that he hadn’t discovered Matthew Hamilton hidden in the house. “I saw no point in adding to her distress. But if we find Hamilton has crept out and died-or has been left somewhere to die-it will be hard to stop Bennett from wanting your liver nailed to the police station door.”
“Damn you!”
The curse followed Rutledge down the drive as Dr. Granville demanded, “What’s that you were saying? Damn it, man, how did Bennett find out about Hamilton?”
“Someone must have stumbled on him. I could see from the gardens-a dozen or two men by the Mole, sorting themselves out into vehicles.”
“Bennett must be wondering where I got to. I should be there when they bring him in, rather than wasting my time here.” Granville was tense with worry.
“It wasn’t a waste of time,” Rutledge said, nodding to the constable under his tree as they turned out of the drive. “After all, this was the most likely place.”
He drove fast, but with care on the wet roads. Air passing through the car brought a chill with it that cut through the drenched clothes clinging to his body, although the morning appeared to be warming up noticeably.
They reached the Mole as the last man was getting into a cart, dragging a canvas sack over his head to keep dry.
Bennett stood up in the wagon in which he was a passenger, thought better of clambering down again, and shouted across to Rutledge, “Where have you been?”
“To the house-”
But the inspector wasn’t interested. He called, “There’s been a landslip. To the west of here. A bad one, I’m told. We’re on our way to see the extent of the damage.” He motioned for Rutledge to follow, but the doctor objected angrily.
“A landslip, is it? Then put me down here,” he said. “In an hour I’ll have a surgery full of patients, and there’s still Hamilton, if-when-you find him. You must tell Bennett what’s happened. I can’t take the time.”
Rutledge paused to set the doctor down, and the man hurried off without a word, his umbrella bent to the wind, his feet sloshing through the rivulets of water running through the street. Then Rutledge put the car into gear again and hurried to catch up the tag end of the convoy heading west along the Devon road.
Hamish was vocal, reminding Rutledge of the alarums in the night.
“What the laddie saw. A man carrying anither man o’er his shoulder?”
“And heading in the opposite direction from the Hamilton house. Yes, I was just thinking about that. Before the rain came.”
“Aye. No tracks.”
“And no tracks the last time
. A wily bastard, this one.”
He followed the convoy along the road that led toward the Devon border, but it wasn’t very long before they stopped and got out in the downpour, moving across a rising green headland that seemed to end in a jagged line across the horizon of the sea.
Bennett stood there, crutch digging deep into the wet earth. “The cottage is gone,” he was saying. “And a good ten feet this side of it.” He raised his voice to call peremptorily, “Damn it, Tatum, don’t go any closer! There’s no certainty it’s finished falling, and we’d have no way of getting you out.”
One of the towns people stopped where he was, then gingerly backed away from the edge, nodding. “True,” he said. “If it weren’t for this infernal rain, we could have a better look from the water.” There were cows grazing peacefully nearer the road, but none had ventured as far as the landslip. Seagulls were wheeling overhead, calling to one another and dipping out of sight to where the land had shifted and fallen. “A feast for the likes of them,” Tatum went on.
The men were strung out in a rough line, staring at the sight. One of them turned to Rutledge and said, “It happens from time to time. In my grandda’s day, three houses and a barn went over. That was a bad one.”
“You said there was a cottage here?”
“If you could call it that. A tumbledown ruin, where no one cared to live. And you can see why, can’t you? The last resident there was a brother to Mr. Reston. The black sheep in the family, you might say.” He grinned. “He’ll be glad enough that the cottage is gone now. People will finally forget it existed.”
“Black sheep?” Rutledge asked, curious. There had been no mention of a brother. “Does he drink?”
The man shook his head. “Nothing so tame. A general reprobate. Wild for the ladies, if you could call them that. Gambled on whether a fly would land on his dinner. A petty thief and a troublemaker. When Freddy died, brother George must have fallen down on his knees in gratitude.”
“What happened to him?”
The man frowned. “Odd, now that you mention it. He drowned on the strand, not a dozen yards from where they found Mr. Hamilton’s body.”