A False Mirror ir-9

by Charles Todd

  The door to the gardens was not five feet from his elbow.

  Avoiding the clutter of rakes and shovels, baskets, cutting shears, and aging Wellingtons gathering dust on either side of him, Rutledge reached for the knob, praying that the door wasn’t locked. It was not. He went through it quietly and walked close to the side of the house until he reached the shrubbery. It led to the low churchyard wall. He followed the grassy path there and spent some time wandering among the gravestones, in plain sight. He hoped that he would leave the impression of a man with something on his mind, seeking solace among the dead.

  As the clock over his head in the church tower struck the quarter hour, he went back to the Duke of Monmouth, stretched himself out on his bed, and slept.

  Rutledge spoke to the kitchen staff and arranged for an evening meal to be prepared for Casa Miranda. When someone came to tell him the packages and covered dishes were ready, he put them in the motorcar and took them up himself after one brief stop along the way. While at the station, he gave Bennett instructions that included calling off his own watchers this night.

  Darkness was just falling. To the west a long line of silvery clouds stretched out across the horizon, and under them the fading pink of sunset left a bright afterglow. Fair skies at night, he thought. Sailor’s delight.

  The occupants of the house, fretful after a day of their own company, fell on the food with the pleasure of people grateful for distraction.

  Matthew Hamilton came down, sat in the armchair at the head of the table, and toyed with his plate.

  “You aren’t hungry?” Felicity asked, surprised.

  He smiled at her. “I’ve always liked roasted ham, you know that. I was just thinking…”

  “About Nan.”

  “Yes. What do you say, my dear, to a few days in London, when I’m stronger? We might search for a new house on our way there.” It was an oblique acknowledgment that Casa Miranda was haunted by ghosts, one living and one dead.

  She smiled at him in turn. “I’d like that.” There was no emphasis in the words, merely acceptance.

  “Done, then.” He turned back to his plate and ate with apparent gusto, but Rutledge could see that he was pretending. He wondered if Felicity could.

  They had finished their pudding when Mr. Putnam looked at his watch and exclaimed, “I’m late. If you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment at the rectory. It shouldn’t last long. But I must keep it.”

  Avoiding Rutledge’s eye, he rose from the table, thanked everyone for the meal, and went to find his coat.

  Rutledge listened to the opening and closing of the outer door, then tried to concentrate on something Mallory was saying to him. Soon afterward, he went around the house and looked carefully at each of the windows and doors.

  The fortress was secure. But for how long?

  Between them, Rutledge and Hamilton managed to persuade Felicity to retire early, though she was certain she wouldn’t sleep for hours.

  “I’ll feel better, knowing you’re just there, through the door,” Hamilton told her. “It won’t be long before I’m stronger and can manage on my own.”

  “I wish you would remember everything,” she said suddenly. “It must be very uncomfortable, not knowing. I shan’t be able to walk down a street in Hampton Regis without wondering about everyone I pass, thinking this one or that one might have tried to kill you. How much worse will it be for you?”

  “It’s worrying,” he told her. “What if I never remember all of it?”

  “Don’t think about that,” she replied, and there was a thread of fear in her voice that both men heard clearly. She closed her door and Hamilton listened for the turn of the key in its lock, and then nodded to Rutledge, waiting at the head of the stairs.

  Around nine o’clock that evening, someone came to the house and left a message with the constable on duty outside.

  It was from Putnam.

  Mr. Joyner is ill again. I’m going with Dr. Granville to see him.

  When Rutledge questioned the constable, he identified the messenger as the Allen boy.

  Rutledge closed the door and prepared to wait for Putnam to return.

  It was almost eleven o’clock when the church bells began to ring wildly. Mallory, rushing to a window, said, “What’s that in aid of? Rutledge, I don’t like it.”

  “Nor do I. Go upstairs, Mallory, and take up your post. Tell Mrs. Hamilton there’s a fire in the town and not to worry.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “In the drive. To see what’s happening.”

  He watched Mallory take the stairs two at a time, then let himself out the door. The night was quiet, but he thought he smelled smoke.

  When he reached the constable on duty, the man said, “Must be a fire. I heard the pumps go out.”

  People were in the streets now, shouting and running. Rutledge walked on, far enough down the road to a point where he could see the church steeple, and to this side of it, the line of the rectory roof. Nothing. He scanned other rooftops, nerves taut now.

  Hamish said, “It doesna’ have anything to do wi’ us, then.”

  In that same instant Rutledge caught the first dart of flame licking up the edge of a chimney. He realized that it was Miss Trining’s house, and in the back of it, the pumps were set up and starting to work.

  He called to the constable behind him not to relax his guard, then raced down to the center of Hampton Regis.

  The firemen were busy, Bennett’s constables helping, and the men on the pumps, their faces red in the glare of the flames, were grimly concentrating on keeping the water flowing.

  He glimpsed Putnam in the crowd, then lost him in the shifting light. Dr. Granville was there as well, and even George Reston, though he was standing to one side, watching.

  Rutledge made his way to Granville. “How is Joyner?”

  “He died over an hour ago. Have you seen Miss Trining? Is she out of there?”

  “No, I haven’t seen her,” Rutledge said, his gaze sweeping the milling throng working to put out the flames.

  “Damn! They tell me the fire began in the wood stacked by the kitchen door. There’s been a great deal of smoke. I hope to God-” He broke off.

  The bells had stopped.

  Rutledge could hear people coughing and gasping all around them, but they kept working. “Where’s Putnam, do you know?”

  “He was looking for her as well.” Dr. Granville dashed off, disappearing in the direction of the pumps.

  Rutledge threaded his way across the crowded back garden, helping where he could, still searching for the rector. He finally found Miss Trining, clutching the portrait of her ancestor, watching as others brought out pieces of furniture and carpets.

  He reached her, saying only, “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s the kitchen that’s burning now. The wall where the fire wood was stacked to dry. God knows what started it. A spark from the chimney?”

  She was stoic, her face set in a determined calm, though he could see that her knuckles were white where they held the portrait.

  The shingles by the chimney were smoking heavily now, the flames doused.

  “Have you seen Mr. Putnam?” he asked her.

  “He’s making certain all the servants are safe. I told him they were.”

  Rutledge made one last circuit of the property and then turned back toward Casa Miranda, walking fast.

  Hamish, all the while scolding him for leaving his post, said, “It was verra’ clever.”

  “Yes.” He saved his breath for the last sprint up the hill, startling the constable, whose attention was riveted on the pall of smoke rising up in the night sky.

  “Have you seen Mr. Putnam?” he called to the man.

  The constable turned guiltily to face him. “Sir? I believe he went up to the house not five minutes ago.” He saw Rutledge’s expression in the reflection of the lights around Miss Trining’s house. “You did say to let him pass at will, sir.”

  Damn!

&nb
sp; Rutledge went on to the door, fishing Hamilton’s keys out of his pocket. Letting himself in as quietly as he could, he stopped with his back to the door and listened.

  The house was silent.

  Where the bloody hell was Putnam?

  Overhead Hamilton and Mallory were lying tensely in the dark, waiting. And Mrs. Hamilton, God willing, was in her own room, oblivious.

  He dared not call out.

  The rector couldn’t have let himself in through this door-it was the one with the newest lock. But he had two keys that fit doors to the kitchen and to the servants’ hall.

  Still Rutledge waited where he was, his body tense with listening.

  Hamish said, “Ye ken, yon fire was set.”

  “He couldn’t have known what I’d found.”

  “He could ha’ made a verra’ good guess. Were ye seen, passing through yon shrubbery into the churchyard?”

  “Possibly. Too late to worry about that now. It’s done.” A dialogue with Hamish was so familiar in the dark that he wasn’t even aware of it. “Clever of him not to set the fire in the rectory.”

  The house seemed to creak and then settle around them as the chill of the night began to work through the brick and into the timbers behind.

  Rutledge bent to unlace his shoes and set them to one side, out of the way. Then, moving on stocking feet, he walked softly through the door into the kitchen passage.

  He listened, his eyes blind, his senses alert.

  And far away down the passage, a door creaked on old hinges, then opened with only a whisper of sound.

  Five minutes more and he’d have been too late.

  A breath of air stirred, bringing a hint of smoke with it. Footsteps, moving quietly and without haste.

  Rutledge stood there, nestling into the shadows of the wall. He could follow on the plan of the house he carried in his mind just where the trespasser must be. Through the servants’ outer door. Now down the passage that led to the hall. Slowing, apparently searching in the dark for the back stairs to the floors above.

  But who was it?

  He thought for an instant that he’d caught the flash of a torch, as if the intruder needed the reassurance of seeing a door was open before blundering into it.

  After a few minutes, a chance footfall informed him that someone had made a decision not to go up the back stairs. Rutledge took a silent breath of relief. Better a confrontation here than near Hamilton or his wife. It was what he’d hoped for.

  In another twenty feet, whoever it was would be close to the room where Nan Weekes had been murdered.

  He counted steps he couldn’t hear.

  Half a dozen more, and it would be time to show himself.

  Whoever was there paused by the door to Nan’s prison.

  At that instant, the darkness erupted with light, brilliant, shocking, and blinding.

  Rutledge swore with passion and swiftly moved forward.

  Through the glass in the room where Nan Weekes had died, he saw Mr. Putnam, armed in righteousness and sincerity, standing in the full glow of a pair of lamps.

  And outside, pinned like a startled insect in the brightness, was Dr. Granville.

  What the bloody hell was the rector up to?

  He didn’t think either man could pick him out beyond the circle of light. He stopped short, keeping absolutely still, standing there like the wolf in Russian fairy tales, waiting to see what the carnage would be.

  And Hamish was roaring in his mind like all the imps of hell.

  Mr. Putnam said, “Doctor.”

  “Miss Trining told me you’d gone back to comfort Joyner’s daughter, once you’d learned you weren’t needed at her house.” Granville tried to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

  “Yes, I should have done. What did you give him, that let him die?”

  “I didn’t. It was coming, just sooner than he or I expected.”

  “But you killed your wife. In my workbox there’s a ball-peen hammer I don’t recognize. I expect Mr. Rutledge has already found it. Mine was my father’s, with a worn blue handle. It’s there as well.”

  Rutledge felt his anger rising. Putnam had been ordered to let Rutledge confront Granville, while he stood by as a witness concealed in shadows. Instead he was putting Rutledge’s questions himself. Had the man run mad? Or had he been afraid that Rutledge wouldn’t arrive in time to ask them?

  “Matthew Hamilton killed her,” Granville was saying. “Rutledge has a confession.”

  “Hamilton confessed to choking her. I told you earlier, he was muddled last night. But that’s clearing up with rest and food. As you knew it must, once he was no longer sedated so heavily. Why don’t we go and find the inspector?”

  “The last I saw of him, he was still at the fire.”

  “There’s the hammer.” Putnam was firm. “I can swear to seeing it. The name of the hospital where you trained is on the handle.”

  “The hammer doesn’t exist. Not anymore. It’s burned up in the fire with the wood stacked outside Miss Trining’s kitchen door.”

  “Do you feel Nan’s spirit here with us? She worked for your wife. Conscientiously, as she did for everyone. She even sent you a message about the sheets left at her house.”

  “She’d heard us quarreling. It wouldn’t have done if she’d remembered and told the world what those arguments were about.”

  “Money? You’d already set your sights higher. I expect when the Granville family cut you off, Margaret must have appeared to be a lifeline. She told me not six months ago that you were still repaying them what you owed them for your training. Sadly her inheritance is nearly used up. A foolish pride when there’s little money to support it.”

  “You have no way of proving that,” Granville retorted sharply.

  “Mr. Rutledge put in a call to your foster father, who spoke to your bankers. On the other hand, Miss Esterley is rather well-to-do. And much prettier than Margaret. The only trouble was, she was fonder of Matthew Hamilton than she ever was of you. I’m not surprised that you were sorely tempted to put an end to him.”

  So far, Rutledge thought, stifling an urge to announce his presence, the rector’s keeping to the script we’d discussed.

  Granville said, “In the beginning I was set on Miss Esterley. Then I heard George Reston saying that Mrs. Hamilton would be a very rich widow. But Hamilton refused to die of his injuries, stubborn bastard that he is. I was on the point of quietly helping him to that end when he disappeared. When we couldn’t find him that morning, Rutledge and I, I saw my chance, went back to the surgery and killed Margaret.”

  “Rutledge thought Hamilton’s wounds were more grievous than they were. That was clever of you, a chance to keep him sedated and silent.”

  “Did Rutledge put you up to this? Are there witnesses back in the shadows?” Granville shielded his eyes with his hand and peered into the darkness. “Rutledge, are you there?”

  “You’re quite wrong,” the rector answered him. “I’ve come here because I want to help you.”

  Rutledge had been on the point of showing himself just as Putnam deviated from the script. He cursed the man roundly-instead of distancing himself from Granville, Putnam was letting the doctor approach him. Closer than was safe, already. Before Rutledge could possibly reach either of them, Granville could make the decision to kill again.

  What weapon did the man have with him?

  “A knife,” Hamish said. “It’s what he kens best.”

  “Let me listen to your confession, Granville. It’s the least I can do. Your soul is in jeopardy, man, and you will surely hang. Will you not stop now and give a thought to what is waiting for you at God’s hands?”

  Granville gave up searching the shadows. He stood there, a frown on his face, then walked forward. “I’m not sure I believe in God,” he said slowly, as if considering the matter.

  “But he cares for you,” Mr. Putnam pointed out. “Inspector Rutledge will have you in custody by tomorrow morning. He knows you hid the hammer in
your bag until you could leave it in my house. Make your peace now of your own free will. It will see you through the long and frightening days to come.”

  “You can’t stop me from leaving.”

  “Wherever you go, you take yourself with you. And the ghosts of two women will follow you.”

  To Rutledge’s surprise but not Mr. Putnam’s, Granville said with what sounded like sincere regret, “Yes, I’ve already seen them at my heels.” He hesitated, finally giving in to Putnam’s persuasion. “All right then. Pray for me, Rector.”

  He fell to his knees, contrition in every line.

  Putnam went down more stiffly, and reached a hand for Granville’s shoulder to steady himself or to offer comfort. Rutledge never knew which.

  The rector closed his eyes, lowered his head, and began an earnest prayer. Granville, on his knees, looked upward, as if to find atonement in the air above his head. Or to see if his prayers, like the King’s in Hamlet, had failed to rise with Putnam’s.

  Then without any warning, he sprang again to his feet, and with an arm outflung, swept the two lamps off the table onto the floor, spilling hot oil and sending a spray of fire racing toward the back wall. Before Rutledge could move or Putnam could even cry out in alarm, Granville lifted his leg and with the flat sole of his shoe, shoved the unresisting man of God into the flames.

  30

  The harsh smell of burning oil and charring wool had enveloped the room and was fast reaching into the passage beyond.

  Rutledge came out of the darkness with a roar of rage, his shoulder catching Dr. Granville hard in the chest before he could stumble through the door and out of reach of the inferno behind him.

  Granville went backward, tripped over Mr. Putnam’s sprawled feet, and fell heavily, one arm twisted behind him. As his left hand brushed the flames, he cried out and rebounded like a spring.

  Rutledge didn’t hesitate. He did as Granville himself had done, drawing back his knee and then delivering a blow with his stocking foot directly into Granville’s sternum, pushing him backward and knocking the wind out of him. Gasping for air, Granville went down beside the struggling rector.

  Catching up the blankets from Nan’s narrow cot, Rutledge dragged them over the rector, smothering the fire already taking hold in the shoulder and back of his coat. Then he pulled the rector to his feet and with all the strength he possessed shoved him bodily, still smoking and retching, out into the passage. Putnam bit off a scream as his burning shoulder hit the far wall hard, and he fought to keep his feet even as he tried to beat at the smoldering ruins of his coat.