by Charles Todd
Hamilton swayed on his feet, and Putnam put out an arm to steady him. Mallory was as pale as his shirt.
A boat hook, old, battered, very likely passed down for generations through a fisherman’s family, lay there in the fire’s red glow.
Not quite an African execution club, as Dr. Hester had suggested, but near enough to kill a man with one blow.
Rutledge said, “You told me last night, Mr. Hamilton, that you’d heard someone over by the boats. It’s in your statement. This is what he was looking for. He found it, and before you could hear him come up behind you, he brought you down with one swing. After that he was free to use it any way he liked. Or she. A woman could wield this hook as well. Now tell me, if you will, who else among your acquaintance is a cold-blooded murderer?”
Felicity asked, drawing her feet under her, away from the long, heavy length of wood, “Is-was this the one that was used?”
“I doubt we could prove it.”
“Whose boat did this one come from?” Putnam asked.
“It was drawn up on the shingle, much as it always seems to be. We can trace the boat, of course. But the boat hook was borrowed, dipped in seawater, to wash away any blood, and simply put back again. Ten minutes, at most, I should think. The owner never missed it.”
“I don’t see why I wasn’t killed,” Hamilton said in wonder. “I must have a harder head than he thought.”
“If you were dead, your lungs wouldn’t fill with seawater as you drowned. The battering from the rocks would have masked these injuries well enough, there wouldn’t be any question about what happened.”
Mallory interjected, “And if there was a question, I was the scapegoat.”
“I’m afraid so.” Rutledge bent down, retrieved the boat hook, and rolled it in the motorcar’s rug again, setting it outside the door. “Someone will be wanting this back.”
Hamilton said wistfully, “I wish you could explain away Mrs. Granville’s death as easily.”
“Not yet. But you didn’t kill her, you know. She wasn’t strangled.”
“Then why-? Damn it, I confessed to it!”
“Yes, I owe you an apology for that. It’s what I told you. But your willingness to take the blame was honorable.”
“What are you going to do now?” Mallory asked. “There’s still Bennett to deal with.”
“I want the four of you where I can keep an eye on you. Mr. Putnam, you’re needed here, if you’ll agree to stay. Mallory, you and Mrs. Hamilton will go on as before, if you please. And, in a change of plans, Mr. Hamilton no doubt would like his bed. I propose that he take to it at once and stay there while I report to the world at large that he’s been found, he’s still not fully coherent, and we expect a specialist to arrive shortly from London to tell us more about the head injury.”
He thought they were going to refuse. But Hamilton said, “I for one will do as I’m asked. I’ve not got the strength to argue. Am I to groan when Bennett comes? I can tell you now that the pain in my ribs and that leg will make it authentic enough even for Dr. Granville to believe.”
“Yes, I’m about to address that, Mr. Hamilton. We’ll do something for your pain, I promise.”
Felicity said, “But, Matthew, where have you been?”
Rutledge stopped him from answering. “On the Exeter road, Mrs. Hamilton, where a lorry driver took pity on him. Are we agreed, then?”
While Putnam struggled with breakfast, Mallory helped Rutledge put Matthew Hamilton to bed, with pillows and bedding placed to ease his discomfort. Felicity hovered over him, still uncertain how to behave toward him.
Her fright had gone deep. And she was finding that her relationship with both the men she had loved was on shaky ground.
She was relieved when Rutledge sent her to eat her meal in the sitting room.
She was afraid, in one corner of her mind, that Matthew Hamilton was relieved as well.
28
Rutledge took the teak hook back to the boat it had come from. The mist had lifted inland, but along the water it still swathed the Mole in a heavy gray blanket that left a residue of moisture on his hat and shoulders. He wasn’t sure who might have seen him with the boat hook, but any uproar from the owner over the loss of it would have attracted more gossip. Or so he tried to convince himself. Either way it was a gamble. Someone in Hampton Regis would know very well why he had been interested in boat gear.
Afterward, he went to the rectory to find Dr. Granville, telling him that Hamilton had been found, and that he was in pain.
“I’ve got just the thing for him. Do you want me to examine him? Where in God’s name did you find him?”
“A lorry driver discovered him along the road west. God knows how he made it as far as he did.”
“And what about my wife? What has he told you about her death?”
“I have a confession,” Rutledge said. “For what it’s worth. He’s still rather unclear about details.”
“Is he at the police station?”
“He’s not well enough for that. He’s in the house, and we’ve got a specialist coming down from London to have a look at him. Something we ought to have done in the first twenty-four hours.”
“Yes, hindsight is a glorious thing. I’ve got something in my case that you can give him. It won’t do any harm, but it should keep him quiet until your man arrives. Anyone I know in the field? Baldwin for one. Or Hutchinson?”
“We’ll know soon enough, when he’s here.”
Granville left Rutledge standing in the entry and went up to his room. When he came back he was holding a packet of powders very like the ones Dr. Hester had left for Felicity Hamilton two days ago.
Rutledge thanked him and went in search of Bennett.
“Well done,” Bennett told him, when Rutledge made a brief report. “I’ll be there in a quarter of an hour. I’d like to let the Chief Constable know he’s under lock and key. What’s become of the lorry driver?”
“With any luck he’s on his way back from St. Ives.”
“Good man. We’ll need a statement from him.”
“Understand, Bennett, early days yet to know where we are with Hamilton.”
“He’s said nothing of importance, then?”
“I was able to learn two facts I can be reasonably sure of. He didn’t see anyone by the water when he was walking, but he heard footsteps some distance away, closer to the boats. Whether this was a potential witness or the killer himself, we still have to determine.”
“We’ll send people around to talk to the men who keep their boats there.”
“It’s as well to ask if anything in the boats was missing or misplaced. Fact number two-Hamilton overheard a garbled version of events while he was in Granville’s surgery. Whether it was from one of us speaking too freely in his presence, or whether it was a voice outside his door talking to Mrs. Granville, I can’t tell you. He’s not very clear about it. But he felt for his own safety, he had to leave.”
“When was this?”
“When the sedation was wearing off and he was more awake than we knew.”
“Yes, well, head injuries can be quite severe. Small wonder he couldn’t make sense of anything. But then he could have recognized the voice as the person who’d half killed him, and that put the wind up.”
“I want to speak to Dr. Hester as soon as possible. We still have no murder weapon for Mrs. Granville.”
“Here-did Hamilton have his keys with him, when you found him in Exeter?”
“He did. I’ve got them now.”
With that Rutledge was already walking out the door. From the station he went to call on Miss Trining. Afterward he went to Miss Esterley’s house.
“You didn’t see fit to sit up with Felicity Hamilton last night,” he said as soon as he was shown into her sitting room.
She said, “I couldn’t face it. I’m no match for anyone breaking into the house. Worse than useless, come to that. Mr. Putnam was a better choice.”
“I think, perhaps, a w
oman’s company would have been more comforting. But it doesn’t matter, now. We’ve brought in Matthew Hamilton.”
“My God, where was he?”
“A lorry driver found him along the road to the west of here.” He gave her the same account he’d given Miss Trining and Dr. Granville.
She listened with increasing anxiety. “You’re telling me that he’ll live? That in time he’ll be whole again?”
“There’s some hope of that, yes.”
“But what about Mrs. Granville? Are you saying she was still alive when Matthew walked out of the surgery?”
“He’s not clear about that. Not yet. In time, with good medical care, we’ll know a little more. On the other hand, he may not remember anything, in spite of all we can do.”
She smiled wryly. “Having refused to help Felicity last night, I shan’t be very welcome coming to call on Matthew now. But I’d like very much to see for myself that he’s all right.”
“There won’t be any visitors for a while. He may even have to be taken to London for care.”
“At least he’s being given it. I was so annoyed with Dr. Granville, you know. Miss Trining had suggested a specialist, and I agreed with her. But he told her that as long as there was swelling in the brain, rest was what Matthew most needed.”
“I’m sure it was true. Now that he’s awake, time will be on his side.” He rose to leave.
Miss Esterley said, “Truly, I wasn’t a coward, last night. You have to understand. I wasn’t supposed to walk again. Ever. The doctors told me how lucky I was that the damage to my knee could be repaired, but even so they held out little hope I could use it properly. It required all the faith I possessed to go through the long, grueling weeks of treatment and exercises and manipulation. They’d learned, you see, from wounded soldiers. But they weren’t entirely sure it would work for me. In the end, it did. I keep my cane as a reminder of how close I’d come to being dependent on the care of others for the rest of my life. I didn’t want to take the risk, you see.”
Hamish said, “She doesna’ blame him.”
“No,” Rutledge answered silently. “Not openly. But it’s there, underneath. If he’d been less kind, perhaps her true feelings would have risen to the surface.”
Aloud, he said, “I should have thought the debt you owed Hamilton would have been well repaid by helping his wife-or as we thought then, his widow. Whatever the cost.”
She blushed, the warm color rising in her face. “That’s cruel. And that wasn’t the choice, was it?”
“I think you were afraid of what Matthew Hamilton might have become.”
“No, Mr. Rutledge. I saw that two innocent women had already been murdered,” she told him firmly. “And I was afraid I might be the third. Mr. Putnam didn’t face that risk. What comfort would it have been to me this morning, lying somewhere dead, to have you admit you’d been wrong to ask me?”
At his next stop, Rutledge found Mrs. Reston on her way out the door to a luncheon. She was wearing a hat that framed her face and added a softness to it.
“My husband isn’t here,” she told him. “If it’s George you’ve come to see.”
“We’ve found Matthew Hamilton. He’s alive, but his memory is still unreliable.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Whatever you may think of me, I had no reason to wish him ill. Do you know now who it was who killed Mrs. Granville? Or Nan Weekes?”
“We can’t be sure until Hamilton is well enough to tell us who it was who carried him out of the surgery and left him on a roadside to die.”
“Will he recover his memory, do you think? In his shoes, I shouldn’t like to live the rest of my life knowing that I couldn’t bring a murderer to justice; no matter how hard I tried. It’s sad. What will you do now?”
“We are reasonably sure about certain points. But we need his evidence to bring the case to trial.”
“I see. And am I to tell this to George, in the hope that he’ll rush out to wherever Matthew Hamilton is resting and finish what he started?”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t put it to the test. A good barrister might see fit to ask you to testify to your role in driving him to murder.”
“I remind you that I’m a very good liar. And he’s the father of my children. What sort of life will they have, do you think, if he’s taken up and hanged?”
“You should have thought of that before you tested him.”
“He should have thought of that before he married me.” She put on her gloves. “I’m late, Mr. Rutledge. You must forgive me.”
She walked to the door and waited for him to hold it open for her. “I won’t play your game for you, Inspector. You must do it yourself.”
Rutledge ran George Reston to earth at his bank.
“I couldn’t care less whether Hamilton regains his memory or lives the rest of his life as a vegetable, dribbling down his chin in a wheeled chair,” the banker informed him. “He went out of his way to collect those heathen gods of his. Let him pray to them and wait for them to answer.”
“That’s a rather callous attitude, don’t you think?”
“Is it? I think not. You must remember that we sow what we reap.”
“There are two murders that haven’t been solved, Reston. Mrs. Granville and Nan Weekes deserve to be offered the full panoply of justice.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised if he killed them both in his demented state. Mrs. Granville in his clumsy effort to reach his wife, and the maid in mistake for Mallory.”
“Then how did he manage to drag himself out on the Exeter Road, where the lorry driver found him?”
“You must ask him that. I daresay he had no idea where he was going or why. I have a conference in five minutes. Is there anything else you wish to say to me?”
As Rutledge drove back to the Duke of Monmouth, Hamish said, “Ye ken, it wouldna’ sit well wi’ Hamilton to hear what ye’ve heard.”
“It hasn’t been a waste of time,” he answered.
He found Stratton enjoying a late breakfast. Rutledge nodded to the woman serving tables and asked for a cup of tea. Then he joined Stratton at the table by the dining room windows. The sea mist was gone, and sunlight was reflecting from the glass panes of houses across the road.
Stratton was not interested in what charges might or might not be brought when Hamilton regained his memory. “I don’t know these people. The living or the dead. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“That may well be.” His tea arrived and he poured himself a cup. “But you can look at it another way. If Hamilton doesn’t regain his memory, if he’s permanently damaged by the beating he sustained, then he’s not likely to take an interest in writing his memoirs.”
“Yes, it turns out rather well for me, doesn’t it? Not that I’d wish that on anyone. He has a very astute mind. That’s what made him dangerous. He could cut through a mountain of chaff and find the seed of truth. But he wasn’t the sort you got drunk with, if you know what I mean. There his brain was, still clicking away, recording, while everyone else is acting the fool.”
“I don’t know that he collected information to wield it, in the sense of blackmail.”
“Of course he didn’t. But it was there. Written down, you see. And in the back of your mind, it’s always rubbing at you. If it doesn’t matter, why put it down in black and white? Why bother with it at all?”
“Because it was his nature to remember. And he was lonely. The diaries were his companions, he talked to them and confided in them, and he kept them, as he would a friend. He told me you threatened to burn him out, once. Would you have done it?”
Stratton was caught off guard. “God, no! I was very angry with him at the time, and I wanted to make him afraid. It wasn’t as successful as I’d hoped. And I was left feeling a bigger fool than ever.”
“And if you’d tried again on Monday to persuade him to see reason, who’s to say that your anger didn’t get the better of you again? You could very well have killed Mrs. Granville, becau
se it wouldn’t have done for you to be caught in the surgery, looking for a man who’d already taken himself off in the nick of time.”
“Yes, I can see how you might make that case. But I ask you, why should I go into Hamilton’s house and kill his maid?”
“Because she stood between you and your safe exit from the house. And Mallory was armed. You were taking a chance, trying to look for the diaries. He’d have shot you out of hand, if you’d stumbled over him-or she raised the alarm as you were slipping out again.”
Stratton’s eyes were wary. “You’ve built a very good case. Are you telling me that Hamilton believes I’ve tried twice to kill him? He’s truly off his head, if he has.”
“I’m just saying that you’ve made an error in judgment here, because you’ve shown yourself to be obsessively worried about Hamilton’s intentions. You might have been wiser to let sleeping dogs lie and see what developed.” He pushed back his chair and stood up. “Think about it, Stratton, you’ve put yourself in an untenable position. If Hamilton tells me you’re his assailant, that he left the surgery because he thought you might walk in at night to kill him, then I’ve got no choice but to take you into custody. It would do very little for your career, to be tried for murder. Even if there is a reasonable doubt and in the end you’re acquitted.”
“I trust you’re a good enough policeman that that won’t happen.”
Rutledge smiled. “If Hamilton points his finger at you, whether or not I’m a good policeman doesn’t enter into it.”
He walked away, out the dining room door.
Hamish was saying, “You’ve made a verra’ bad enemy.”
Stratton sat there watching him go, his face closed with speculation.
Dr. Hester had just returned from delivering a baby. He found Rutledge waiting for him in his office. “What brings you all the way to Middlebury?” He sat in the chair behind his orderly desk and added, “Medicine is an odd business. Bury a man one day; bring a child into the world the next. I’ve never quite got used to seeing a mother’s face as I hand her a healthy child. And this was a bouncing boy, if ever there was one. Ten pounds. She thinks he takes after her father, who was a good six inches over six feet. It makes up, a little, for losing him early to a cancer. The husband is just delighted to have a son to carry on his farm.”