A False Mirror ir-9

by Charles Todd

  But a policeman was charged with sifting facts and probing truths. Even those secrets innocent people tried to hide from him. If Hamilton had remembered his relationship with her for twenty years, Rutledge found it hard to believe that Miranda Cole cared so little for him. Unless their romance had been one-sided from the start.

  Unrequited love? Or what might have been?

  He turned and walked back the way he had come, through the door and out to the motorcar. Someone slammed the heavy door behind him. He thought perhaps it was the maid. After a few minutes, Constable Mercer came hurrying around the corner of the house, murmuring “Sorry, sir!” as he stepped into the motorcar.

  For a moment Rutledge ignored him, standing there looking up at the house. It was impossible for Hamilton to have come this far, in his condition. And it would be impossible for a blind woman to go to Hampton Regis and bring him here. Neither her maid nor the elderly aunt he hadn’t met would have been able to lift a man of that height and weight.

  A wild-goose chase. But he thought, if it wasn’t Miranda Cole, and it wasn’t Miss Esterley who had spirited Matthew Hamilton to safety, who was responsible for what had happened to the man?

  And the question brought him again to George Reston. Or Robert Stratton.

  Rutledge took Constable Mercer back to Exeter and then faced the long drive back to Hampton Regis.

  “Circles within circles,” he found himself saying to Hamish as they shared the darkness behind the powerful glow of the headlamps.

  “She called you a liar.”

  And a man without pity.

  But why would a man like Hamilton name his home for a woman he’d not seen for many years? Sentiment was unlikely. Guilt, then, a reminder of what he’d done when he was young and felt ashamed of, in later life? Guilt was a strong emotion, it drove people into paths that they hadn’t intended to take. He understood it, in his own case, though Dr. Fleming had first pointed it out to him.

  “You survived the war and can’t forgive yourself for surviving, when others died or were maimed. Until you do learn to forgive yourself, you’ll never be completely whole.”

  “I don’t need to be whole,” he’d responded. “Only to function to the best of my ability. I want to return to the Yard.” May of last year, he’d said those words to the man who’d brought him so far, and could take him no further on his journey back to sanity. He still had an appallingly long way to go.

  “Yes, well, it could be a good thing or a bad thing, Ian, to go back. Only you can know which.”

  “It isn’t a question of good or bad, it’s a matter of working twelve hours in a day until I’m too tired to think. Here, in hospital, I do nothing but think.”

  “Are you trying to leave here to escape me and look for your own way out?” Fleming had asked bluntly.

  “Self-slaughter? I can kill myself here just as easily. Well, not as easily as pulling a trigger, but it can be done. You know that.”

  “Yes.” Fleming had sat there, watching him. “All right then, let’s see what happens. Your people at the Yard want you back. Let’s give it a month and find out whether you are healed sufficiently to face what’s in your head.”

  And it had been a terrifying month, that June. A month without mercy. But he’d survived that and nine more. It was March of 1920, and he was still alive.

  Whether the struggle had been worth it, he didn’t know. He couldn’t stand aside and be objective. Not where Hamish was concerned.

  By the time Rutledge reached Hampton Regis, he was too stiff and too drained to seek his bed.

  Instead he stopped the car some distance past the Mole and for an hour walked along the strand, pacing back and forth, listening to the roar of the waves coming in, feeling the crunch of his heels on the wet shingle, and remembering how he’d nearly been sucked into the mud of the landslip. Was it only just that morning?

  And what the bloody hell was he to do about Matthew Hamilton?

  By the time he had turned for the Mole, he startled a fisherman coming down to the boats tied up there.

  The man swerved, then swore. It was Perkins, who’d taken him out to the landslip. “Damned if you didn’t turn my heart over in my chest, Mr. Rutledge! I thought for certain the sea had given up Matthew Hamilton.”

  22

  Rutledge was up early, waiting at the police station when the extra men came in from outlying towns, arriving on their bicycles.

  He set four of them to work on the west road, knocking on the doors of farmers and householders on either side of the Reston cottage. Two more finished canvassing the shops and businesses along the Mole for anyone who had seen Matthew Hamilton walk down to the strand on the morning he was attacked. And one of Bennett’s men was to finish the last of the names on a list of Dr. Granville’s neighbors.

  That left one man to return to guarding the house on the hill.

  When that had been done, Rutledge set up a room for himself in the back of the station, using what had been storage space until 1914, when it was enlarged to stockpile gear for rescuing men washed ashore in U-boat attacks.

  It was a bare room, painted an ugly brown, no windows, and a deal table for his desk. But it gave the newcomers ready access to him, and it kept them out of Bennett’s way.

  He was just sitting down gingerly in the chair someone had brought him, testing it for a wobble on the uneven flooring, when the outer door of the station was flung open and someone shouted his name.

  Rutledge came on the run and found himself face-to-face with the young constable who had been at the surgery with Bennett the previous morning. He was out of breath and in some agitation.

  “They’re shouting for you at the house, sir,” Jordan blurted out. “I don’t know what it’s all about, but I could hear him, that Mr. Mallory, sir, yelling for me to pay attention, damn it-begging your pardon, sir-and finally I stepped out to the gate to see what the uproar was. I’m to bring you back with me, sir.”

  “My motorcar is around the corner. Come along.”

  Bennett had peered out of his office to listen. “Here!” he said, reaching for his crutch. “Wait, I’m coming as well.”

  Rutledge had the engine cranked and was behind the wheel when Bennett caught them up. He got in, careful of his foot, and had barely slammed the door when Rutledge was moving.

  It was no distance to the house, but to Rutledge the road seemed cluttered with marketgoers and lorries passing through to the west. He threaded his way among them, reached the turning up the hill and gunned the motorcar into a leap forward.

  Hamish, in the back of his mind, was a low, familiar rumble, like the guns in France.

  They reached the front door of the house, and Rutledge said to the constable, “Take up your station again. I’ll call if I need you.”

  Jordan hurried down to the gates as Bennett, already out, pounded on the front door.

  It was opened by Mallory, his face pale and so lined with worry that he seemed to have aged overnight.

  “I sent for Rutledge,” he snapped at Bennett.

  “It makes no difference. What’s happened? Did Hamilton show up in the night?”

  They hadn’t speculated in the short ride from the police station, but it had been in all their minds. Rutledge waited for Mallory to answer.

  “He was here. There’s no other explanation. And he’s killed Nan Weekes!”

  They stood there staring at him, their faces blank with astonishment.

  Rutledge, the first to recover, said, “How did he get in?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve only just found her. If you’ll give me your word that I’m safe with you in the house, I’ll let you both inside. If not, it’s Rutledge only.” He moved slightly, and they could see the revolver in his right hand, half hidden by the doorjamb.

  “Where’s Mrs. Hamilton?”

  “In her room. She’s going to need something. I’ve never seen her so distraught.”

  “That can wait. All right, then. My word,” Bennett told him.
<
br />   “And mine,” Rutledge assured him.

  The door opened wider and Mallory let them pass by him. He nodded to the door behind the staircase that led down to the kitchen passages. “That way.”

  They walked briskly down to the kitchen, and to the small room that had been the maid’s prison.

  Hamish, behind him, seemed to be telling him something, but Rutledge couldn’t make out the words for the thunder in his head.

  She was in her bed, one arm dangling over the edge, the other flung awkwardly above her head. A pillow lay on the floor.

  “Suffocated,” Bennett said, bending over her. “We’ll need the doctor to come and have a look.”

  Rutledge, at his shoulder, remembered Chief Superintendent Bowles’s voice on the telephone: “That’s two murders…and I don’t want to be hearing of another.”

  “Have you touched her?” he asked Mallory, who was waiting by the door, leaving the room to them.

  “I called to her. When she didn’t wake up, I came in and snatched up the pillow, thinking she was playing at something. Pretending to be ill. She’s dead, I know the dead when I see them. You don’t need Granville to tell you.”

  “Was the door to this room locked?”

  “Yes. But the key’s on the outside. Anyone could have used it and still locked it behind him.”

  “When did you last see her?”

  “About eleven o’clock last night. I came to ask if she needed anything before I went to-where I spend the night. As I always asked, mind you. She was not feeling well, she said. Dinner hadn’t agreed with her. I told her, it’s the best we can do. But she thought the meat had gone off. She said the butcher hadn’t given us the best cut.”

  Bennett, straightening up, turned to look at him. “My wife ordered that food. She’d not have sent bad beef.”

  Mallory said wearily, “I don’t know whether it was good or bad. I was very tired, I told her we’d deal with it in the morning. And in my view, she’d eaten enough for two, it was probably nothing more than indigestion. I think I may have said as much, and she called me callous. I told her that if she’d agreed to cook it for us, we’d have all been better served.”

  “So you were quarreling?” Rutledge asked.

  “Not quarreling, it was no more than the long-running tongue-lashing we were greeted with, morning and night. But she surprised me then, telling me that she’d spoken to the rector while he was here, and if I’d call her in the morning, she’d be willing to prepare breakfast. I told her I’d have to watch her like a hawk and wasn’t sure if it was worth the trouble. And she answered that as long as Mrs. Hamilton was here, she wasn’t leaving.”

  “That was an about-face,” Rutledge commented.

  “Yes. I didn’t know if it was a trick or not. I didn’t care. I said I’d consider it, and I made sure she had water for the night. And then I shut the door and turned the key.”

  “And she didn’t pound on the door or scream or cause any other disruption during the night?”

  “If she did, I didn’t hear it. We’ve learned to shut it out, actually.”

  “Has Mrs. Hamilton seen her?”

  “To my sorrow, yes. She heard me shouting for the constable out there. And she came at once to ask what was wrong. Before I could stop her, she’d run down here. I heard her scream, and then she was up the back stairs into her room and wouldn’t open her door.” It was there in his eyes. She thinks I’ve done this.

  “We’ll need to speak to her in good time,” Rutledge told him. “If it was Hamilton, how did he get in?”

  “It wasn’t I. And it wasn’t Felicity. Who else could it have been?”

  “Let’s have a look at the doors and windows, then,” Bennett said. “If Hamilton got this far and killed the maid, why didn’t he hunt you down as well?”

  “Because he couldn’t find me, I expect. I’ve told you, I have found a way to sleep. He may know the house better than I do, but I wasn’t where he looked.”

  “And you heard nothing in the night?” Rutledge persisted.

  “Nothing.” It was curt.

  “Did Mrs. Hamilton hear anything?”

  “She says she didn’t. I asked her.”

  They moved away from the bed, came to the door, and passed through as Mallory backed away.

  It would have been easy, then, to overpower him, word given or not. Two men against one. But he still held the revolver, and in the passage outside the servants’ hall door, any shots fired would ricochet, even if they missed their intended target.

  They made the rounds of the house. None of the doors had been built to keep murderers out. Their locks were old, heavy, the bolts fitting into worn wood. But nothing was broken, and the windows were properly latched.

  Rutledge said thoughtfully, “Hamilton’s keys went missing with him.”

  “So they did,” Bennett answered.

  Whoever had taken Hamilton had freedom of the house.

  Rutledge interviewed Mrs. Hamilton alone. It took some time to convince her to unlock her door, but when she finally opened it, her face tear-streaked and so pale he thought perhaps she’d been sick, she held on to the frame as if to a lifeline.

  “Will you come downstairs and be comfortable?” he asked her gently. “We’ve made tea. It will warm you a little.”

  But she shook her head. “I said to him-to Stephen-that I hated her and wanted her dead. Not two days ago. I never thought he would kill her…” Her voice trailed off into tears.

  And Rutledge remembered that she hadn’t been told that Hamilton wasn’t in the surgery, under Dr. Granville’s eye.

  “He was upset when dinner turned out so badly. I didn’t mean for him to take me literally, I was just torn about Matthew and worried-but it’s no less my fault, is it? I should have been braver, I should have borne with all the trouble and said nothing.”

  She began to cry. “I didn’t truly want her to die. But I’m to blame, I’ll have to be judged along with him. He wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me, and I’m so frightened, I think my heart is going to break.”

  It took him several minutes to calm her enough to tell her about Hamilton. He left out any reference to Mrs. Granville, and he said nothing about the Reston cottage.

  It was cold comfort.

  “Oh, my God, are you telling me that it could have been Matthew? That he thought-but surely, he’d have realized that wasn’t Stephen down there? That it must be Nan. Or-or me.”

  “We don’t know. We don’t know what state of mind he’s in. We don’t know if he could have survived in the cold rain yesterday morning. Please, you must tell me anything you can that will help us find him. It’s urgent, Mrs. Hamilton-you must tell me whatever you know, however impossible it may sound.”

  But she was beyond thinking, and in the end, he brought her tea, told her he would be in the house for another hour or so, and prepared to shut her door.

  “Is she-is Nan still downstairs?” She shivered. “I shan’t be able to swallow a bite of food now. I’m so frightened.”

  “She must be taken away now, to her family. You needn’t know, you needn’t watch.”

  “I must talk to her cousin. I want to tell him that it wasn’t intended, that we were just upset.”

  “Let me speak to him on your behalf. I think it might be better just now. Would you care to have us ask for Mr. Putnam? He can offer you comfort.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t pray. I’m to blame.”

  “I don’t think Mr. Putnam cares about any of that.”

  But she shut her door without answering.

  “She didna’ know,” Hamish said as Rutledge went down the stairs. “It wasna’ her doing.”

  “Not directly,” Rutledge replied.

  Bennett went out to his constable and sent for Dr. Hester.

  He came at length, but before he could reach the house, Nan Weekes’s cousin arrived, in a fury that was loud and uncontrolled.

  “Where is she, then?” Constable Coxe roared from the
drive. “And where’s the bastard who’s been hiding behind her skirts? I’ll see him hang, that I will. Come out, you bloody coward and talk to me. Tell me how a poor woman died doing her duty.”

  Rutledge, on his way to speak to Coxe, had first to deal with Mallory. His face red with a mixture of feelings, his eyes wild, he was about to confront the man outside, his pent-up emotions badly in need of an outlet. “I’m not standing for this, he has no right-”

  “No, don’t be a fool, Mallory. He wants to draw you out there. Are you ready to leave this house and face being locked up in the station?”

  “Little good it’s doing me to stay here. Nothing has gone as I’d expected, I ought to step into the garden and end it. But that’s an admission of guilt, and I won’t make it. I tell you, whether you want to hear it or not, Matthew Hamilton is alive and on a rampage. It’s the only logical explanation. I’m certain he meant to kill Felicity when he killed Mrs. Granville. And when he got it wrong, he came here looking for her. He thinks-God knows what he thinks. But he found that poor woman instead. What will he do when he realizes this is his second mistake?”

  “Why would Hamilton want to kill his wife, and not you? Are you saying he believes she attacked him on the strand?”

  “Use your wits, Rutledge. The Hamilton’s man of business isn’t likely to be here in Hampton Regis after Felicity. If he’s the one who finished Hamilton, he knows his client is dead, and is back in London busily covering his tracks. He doesn’t need to muddy the waters by killing Felicity. He’s hoping I’ll do it for him.” The shouting beyond the door was growing more abusive. “All right, go out and shut up that fool before I’m tempted to shoot him. They can only hang me once.” He moved out of Rutledge’s way.

  Rutledge opened the door and stepped out.

  Coxe was a burly man, his face lined with years in the sun and his eyes, used to staring out to sea, hooded under heavy lids.

  “Mallory isn’t coming out, Coxe. You might as well stop making a spectacle of your grief and go home. We’ll bring your cousin to you as soon as may be. She’ll need you then.”