A False Mirror ir-9

by Charles Todd

  “You’ve taken his side. I say again, it was bound to happen. You were in the war, and that’s a tie hard to break-”

  “The war has precious little to do with this! I’d have gladly seen Stephen Mallory die in the trenches instead of-”

  He stopped. But the words were spoken even if not finished. “-instead of Hamish, who had no bishop uncle to pull him out before he broke. Who had had to go on fighting because he wasn’t an officer, and men in the British Army did their duty to God and King, dying if need be without complaint. Instead of all the others I couldn’t save, better men, better soldiers, who deserved a chance to live to see their children and their children’s children.”

  He tried desperately to cover his blunder, ending lamely even to his own ears, “-instead of being accused of murder today, and a dishonor to his uniform.”

  But Bennett said nothing, staring down the road, his face shadowed in the uncertain light inside the motorcar as the sun came and went. Something in his stillness was different now, as if a sudden thought had occurred to him. Or as if he’d read into Rutledge’s short, sharp silence and unsuccessful recovery a revelation that shifted the relationship between the two men. Whether for better or worse, Rutledge was still too stunned to judge.

  17

  Bennett insisted that they go to Casa Miranda directly to speak to Mallory. “He’ll be expecting us sooner or later. And I’d like to know how Mrs. Hamilton feels when she learns she could be a widow. That length of bandage is damning evidence that Hamilton’s dead. And it just might shock her into her senses, make her see Mallory for what he is. But he won’t let me in on my own. It’s the two of us, then, together.”

  Rutledge paused at the intersection where he must make a choice, to rising land where the house stood or back toward the Mole and the police station.

  Bennett was right; it was the next logical step in confirming what they feared.

  But would it turn out the way the inspector was convinced it would?

  Better to be there. To watch faces for himself. The question was, Would Mallory feel cornered and explode? Or would he simply give himself up, knowing that there was nothing more Hamilton could tell the police now? Had that been his reason for sending for Rutledge in the first place, gaining a little time until Hamilton died of his wounds without ever regaining consciousness? If so, he hadn’t reckoned on Dr. Granville’s medical skills.

  Still, without Hamilton to testify against him, with no murder weapon found, with the constable on duty swearing Mallory hadn’t left the Hamilton house last night, there was precious little evidence to hold him, even if Bennett succeeded in taking him into custody.

  The entire complexion of the case had changed.

  “He willna’ give himsel’ up,” Hamish said. “You remember. He was a verra’ stubborn man.”

  Stubborn-and sometimes impetuous, failing to look ahead at the consequences of his actions. He’d shown that impetuosity again in his flight from Inspector Bennett.

  And now it could still drive him to suicide. Guilty or not guilty, it wouldn’t matter if he believed he could exonerate himself in Felicity’s eyes. A last grand gesture. Because the bubble of infatuation had burst, and it was unlikely, even if Mallory didn’t stand trial, that Felicity would marry him now that she was free.

  Rutledge considered postponing the confrontation until he’d made his call to Melinda Crawford. But what she could tell him about Matthew Hamilton had no bearing on what must be said to Stephen Mallory. And what would Bennett do while Rutledge was speaking with Melinda? Decide to storm the heights on his own?

  “He willna’ be put off,” Hamish warned.

  True enough. The die, as it were, was cast.

  Rutledge pulled up the hill in a shower of the brightest light yet, although the wind was cool beneath the warmth of the sun. As he stepped out of the motorcar by the house door, he looked to the horizon. Where the squall line had been hours earlier, a long stretch of pale blue rain-washed sky was spreading.

  Motioning for Bennett to stay where he was for the time being, Rutledge walked around the boot, trying to put words together to make their visit worthwhile. But he had condemned Mallory out of his own mouth, now, and it still jarred him. He hadn’t meant it. He’d never wanted to see any of his men dead.

  The knocker seemed to resound through his head as well as the house.

  In due course, he heard Mallory call, “What’s this visit in aid of, then? Was it Hamilton they’d found in the village?”

  “No. But there appear to be new developments.”

  “You’re not bringing Bennett in with you. I won’t be outnumbered that easily.”

  “A truce then,” Rutledge said quietly. “You don’t want Mrs. Hamilton hearing what we will be shouting at you through the door.”

  Mallory swore. “Don’t take me for a fool.” But the words were more bravado, Rutledge thought, than anger.

  “Unlock this damned door and listen to me. Then make up your mind.”

  The door, after a moment, swung slowly open, a small slit that showed Mallory’s face in shadow.

  “You know Hamilton went missing. We’ve found something to indicate where and possibly why. Bennett and I are here to put you in the picture. It is not going to be something Mrs. Hamilton will find comforting or reassuring.”

  Bennett, peering out of the car, moved his crutch to the front seat. Mallory said sharply, “Tell him to keep his distance.”

  Bennett stopped, his face flaring with anger. But he had the sense to know that patience would gain him more in the end. Without a word, he simply set the crutch across his lap, the shoulder end out the far side window.

  “Step out here for five minutes. I give you my word this is no trap. There isn’t a sniper waiting with a rifle, there isn’t a covey of policemen under cover in the garden. But Bennett is the local man, it’s his problem as well as yours, and the sooner we sort it out, the better.”

  “He willna’ come,” Hamish said.

  But in the end, Mallory, after a long look at Rutledge, stepped outside and behind him drew the door nearly shut. “Mrs. Hamilton is in the kitchen,” he said grimly. “Looking at the larder.” There was a wealth of information in the statement. Food was running low and his own attempts at cooking were a failure. What’s more, Nan Weekes was still uncooperative.

  Rutledge wondered what the maid would have to say when she was told that Hamilton was dead.

  At a nod from Rutledge, Bennett heaved himself out of the motorcar, put his crutch under his arm, and hobbled forward.

  For an instant the three men seemed to stand there like flies in amber, their positions determined by the strained relationships that separated them and made them antagonists, holding them in a pattern that had no beginning and no end.

  Mallory broke the stiff silence. “Get on with it.”

  Rutledge said, “While I was here in the grounds earlier this morning, a house-or rather a cottage-out on the Devon road went over the cliff and into the sea in a subsidence.”

  “What does this have to do with Hamilton?”

  “I mistakenly thought the activity I saw along the Mole meant that Bennett here had found him. Back to the cottage. It was uninhabited, thank God, derelict in fact, and no one was hurt. But I went around by sea to have a look at what was left. It had to be done, in the event Hamilton had been inside and we could recover his body.”

  Mallory had been listening impassively, his face schooled to show no expression. Now he said, braced lines about his eyes, “Cut it short, man, was he there? Is he dead?”

  “There was no hope of digging through the silt without grave risk to the searchers. But I found one of the man’s bandages caught on a broken chair. Dr. Granville has confirmed that it’s very likely the one covering Hamilton’s head and face.”

  Mallory seemed to catch his breath on a word. And then he said, “You can’t prove how it got there. Or why. And without a body, you can’t be sure Hamilton is dead.”

  “The ev
idence is very strong now that he is.”

  “But how the hell-unless you were lying to me about his injuries-could he have walked out of the surgery, much less down the Devon road. How far is the cottage from here?”

  “A goodly distance. A mile or so.”

  “Reston’s cottage, was it? That’s the only one-” He stopped, well aware that he might have said too much. Then he added, “Look, I live here, I’ve driven that road. There’s a working farm just up the way, I’ve stopped there for eggs.”

  Bennett, watching him with intensity, said nothing.

  Rutledge replied, “We’ll be questioning the farmer and his family. Now that we have the evidence from the cottage.”

  “Well, I shouldn’t have cared to walk out on a landslip. But I’m not surprised that you did it. What I find inexplicable is the fact that you can’t put your hands on Hamilton. My God, he was my only hope.” His face suddenly changed. “The problem now is who took him away, and that, my friend, should be proof I wasn’t the one who attacked him in the first place!”

  Bennett said, “By my way of thinking, if Hamilton had come to his senses in the middle of the night, he’d have dragged himself this far to find out what’s amiss with his wife. And in all likelihood, he’d have shot you where you slept.”

  Mallory winced. But he retorted, “If he’s lucid enough to walk this far, he’d have been lucid enough to remember I hadn’t touched him. Why the hell wasn’t someone sitting with him at night? No, don’t answer that, I can guess what the good doctor said-that Hamilton was safe as houses where he was.” His mouth turned down with the bitterness of experience. “Why do medical men assume that God gives them special dispensation? I’ve never met one who didn’t think he could manage very well, thank you, in any crisis.” Something made his head lift and his gaze sharpen. “Did I hear something out there? By the road?”

  “There’s a constable under the tree outside the wall. He’s been here from the start. An-er-precaution.”

  “I don’t intend to shoot anyone,” Mallory told them irritably. “As long as no one tries to take the house by storm. Is that all you have to tell me?”

  “There’s another problem involving Hamilton’s disappearance we haven’t discussed. It appears that someone in the surgery in the dark either mistook Mrs. Granville for Hamilton or was seen by her while searching for him. She came to investigate, and whoever it was killed her.”

  “Gentle God!” Mallory exclaimed. “You can’t lay that at my door.”

  “You have no witnesses to prove you were here all night. Not if Mrs. Hamilton was locked in her room and Nan Weekes was closed up belowstairs.”

  “No.” The word was explosive. “You’re telling me that I must compromise her reputation to prove I didn’t do this murder. And besides, if you’ll think about it, while I was out trolling half of Hampton Regis last night, what was to stop her from setting that blasted maid free and running to your constable out there for protection? Tell me that! Did he see me leave? Did she try to leave? You put him there, by God, he’s your man. And I’m not up to shinnying down cliff faces into a stormy sea, much less clawing my way back.”

  “In her room, she couldn’t hear you go.”

  “She’s not a fool, either, Rutledge. If she’d had any inkling I was not in the house, she’d have screamed the place down. Probably for fear I’d gone back to the surgery to finish what I started. She may be my prisoner, but I’m hers as well. Did either of you stop to think about that? She’s kept me from going near her husband by seeing to it that I can’t walk out this door. And if I do, I’ve lost the only chance I have of seeing myself through this tangle to the other side.”

  Bennett, opening his mouth to speak, shut it again. And then, clearly against his better judgment, he said, “We’ve got off on the wrong foot, you and I, Mr. Mallory.” He gestured with his crutch. “I’m paying for that as well as you. It would be simpler all round if we left this nasty business in Inspector Rutledge’s capable hands. It’s what he was sent here to do. Let him get to the bottom of these deaths. Before there’s another. And in the long run, it will be easier on you and on Hampton Regis, not to speak of Mrs. Hamilton. She’s suffered enough on her husband’s account. She needs to consider how she wants to go about mourning him and marking his memory.”

  It was a reasonable speech, delivered in a reasonable voice. Only Bennett’s eyes belied his calm, professional assessment of events: the local policeman pushed to admit that he’d been wrong at the start and offering a clear way out of a very difficult dilemma.

  A desperate man might have believed it. A tired man might want to believe it. And Mallory was both. But he was also a man who’d spent time at the Front and was used to weighing up his chances. He might well see the hangman’s noose at the end of his present road, but he’d crossed No Man’s Land in the teeth of enemy fire, and he had felt death very close to him. It had left its mark in his courage.

  He turned toward Bennett. “Yes, we did get off to a bad start, and I’m sorry for what happened to your foot, I’ll tell you that frankly.” His voice was also calm and reasonable, stating what he might actually believe and making it sound sincere, just as Bennett had tried to do. “But the damage is done as far as Mrs. Hamilton is concerned. I can’t offer amends to her reputation even if I shoot myself. Hanging me would only make matters worse for her because it will all be dragged through the courtroom and the newspapers, raked up again for gossip and condemnation. And Matthew Hamilton dead is no good to my case. I needed him alive, whether you believe me or not. He could have saved me, he could have taken Felicity back, and I’d have left England. It would all have ended in the only possible way.”

  Mallory stopped. Then he said to Rutledge, “Your brief is still to find who has killed two people who didn’t deserve to die. But make it soon. I don’t think I can take much more of this.”

  He started to step back through the door and then paused with one foot on the threshold. “We’ve got no supplies. Let the rector bring us what we need. I won’t shut him in with us. And he won’t tell Felicity-Mrs. Hamilton-about her husband’s death or Mrs. Granville’s. She doesn’t need to suffer any more than she has already.”

  Rutledge said to the closing door, “Mallory-”

  There was silence behind the wooden paneling. But Rutledge had the most vivid image of Mallory standing there in the dimness on the other side, head bowed, hands over his face.

  Climbing painfully into the motorcar, Bennett said, “I tried. No one can say I didn’t try.”

  Rutledge took a deep breath. “It was admirably done. I’d hoped he would accept your offer. It was generous.” But he found himself thinking that perhaps the visit of the Chief Constable had had a salutary effect on Bennett’s determination to hang Mallory out of hand. It might still be there, but the policeman had triumphed over the broken bones in his foot when it was most needed.

  But Hamish wasn’t satisfied. He said, “Ye ken, he doesna’ wish to go down in flames with you or the Lieutenant.”

  It was a chilling analogy. How many airplanes had they watched crash in flames over the Front? Even if the pilot got out, he seldom survived. But Bennett was determined to see that whatever the outcome for Rutledge or Mallory, he remained the local policeman in Hampton Regis.

  The inspector was saying, “Did you believe him, then? That he’s pinned in that house by Mrs. Hamilton’s fears, and never set foot outside?”

  “It could well be the truth. Certainly if Mrs. Hamilton woke in the night and realized that Mallory was nowhere to be found, her first thought must be that he’d used the cover of darkness to go down to Granville’s surgery.”

  “There’s no telling with women,” Bennett said with a sigh. “She might have decided to cut her losses. Here’s Hamilton dying, and her reputation damaged. She might well decide that her future was safer with Mallory than as a widow whose name was under a cloud. Husband murdered, gossip swirling about her wherever she went.”

  Rutledge tried to
picture Mrs. Hamilton as a schemer. And found to his surprise that while he couldn’t put it beyond her to look to the future, all things considered, she might well be better off with her husband at the end of this ordeal. Just as Mallory had admitted. He also found it hard to believe that any feelings she might have had for Mallory would survive what the two of them were going through now.

  But Bennett was right. There was no certainty with women. They saw their world in a very different light. They had to face condemnation of a different sort, the look in a man’s eyes as he recalled a hint of scandal, the glance that passed around a circle of other women as she walked into a room. A hostess’s hesitation in greeting her, an older woman’s reluctance to present her to impressionable daughters. A whisper behind a fan, a man’s hand slipping as they danced, as if testing her willingness.

  And there was Nan Weekes, who would gladly add to rumors and speculation.

  Rutledge dragged his thoughts back to Matthew Hamilton. Why had he been attacked in the first place? That was still the most urgent question. For once that had happened, Hamilton’s death must have become a foregone conclusion, to prevent him from telling the police what he remembered. If Granville had failed to save Hamilton’s life that first morning, Margaret Granville might still be alive. Or if he’d had the sense to put a guard on his patient, she might not have been killed. But it had all begun in the mist early on Monday morning. An opportunity seized? Or a victim stalked?

  What secret was so important that an innocent woman’s life had to be taken to protect it?

  Rutledge delivered Inspector Bennett to the police station and then turned the motorcar in the direction of the surgery.

  But after an hour of walking through the rooms, putting himself into Hamilton’s shoes and then into Mrs. Granville’s, he was no closer to an answer.

  It was while he was opening closets and searching through shelves that he did make one new discovery.