by Todd,Charles
“Are you quite sure Everett is dead?”
“What? Yes, of course he is. Why do you ask?”
“It’s my responsibility to check every fact.”
“I received a letter from his mother. After Nice. She wrote to say she was told by the Sister who took care of her son that he had fought to live and drive with us. It had given him the strength to endure a number of surgeries with courage and patience. And his mother wanted to know if the race had been all we had expected it would be. What could I tell her? The truth? It would have been cruel.”
“I agree. Who else, then?”
“My God, Rutledge, who could have had such a grievance against all of us? This speaks of madness, not anger.”
“I don’t believe it has anything to do with madness. If you think of anything else that could have a bearing on any of this, write to me. There isn’t a telephone, I’m afraid.” He gave his direction in East Dedham and then finished his drink. Rising, he said, “Thanks for the whisky. And be careful, man. Stay off the road, make certain your doors are locked. Warn your housekeeper not to open your door to anyone she doesn’t know well.”
“What if it’s one of the others? Russell. Taylor. Even Standish.”
“I doubt it’s Standish. I don’t know the others.”
“Nor do I. Not well. But why in heaven’s name would either of them try to kill us?”
“I don’t know. I’d rather hoped you might.”
“It has to be one of us, doesn’t it? I mean to say, who else was in Paris and in Nice?”
Rutledge was halfway to the door when something Brothers had said stopped him.
“What do you mean, who else was in Paris and in Nice?”
“Just a manner of expression. But oddly enough, I did see someone else in Paris. It was the sergeant who’d converted the barn into an officers’ mess. I hardly recognized him. But I’m sure that’s who it was. At least I was certain at the time.”
“Do you recall his name?”
“Sorry, I don’t. Interesting story there, though. He deserted some five months after the Somme. Spring of ’17 that would be. Word got around that an officer had run off with the sergeant’s wife. Apparently she gave him a name, and it’s possible he shot that man in the back in the retreat following an attack. There was no way to prove it, you know how chaotic retreats were. But she told him later that she’d lied, that it was another man. He killed her then.”
He felt like swearing. “Had any of you met this man’s wife?”
Brothers shook his head. “I can’t speak for the others, but I’ve never set eyes on her. He’d shown us a photograph of his wife that night before the Somme. A very pretty woman, though I got the feeling she was no better than she ought to be. A very provocative pose.”
“Do you think any of the others, one of the seven drinking that night before the battle, could have dallied with the man’s wife?”
“God knows, Rutledge. I was never sent back to England on leave. I can’t speak for the others. But look here, if the man was in Paris, he can’t have killed Holt.”
“Enough time has passed. He might have decided that no one was looking for him at the ports.” As they had done for deserters, till well after the end of the war.
“Yes, I see.” He shook his head. “I’m afraid I’m not much help. God knows I wish I’d never agreed to meet and race. I thought afterward that we were putting ourselves in danger again, when we should have been grateful we lived to see the war end. What possessed us that week of driving, to take such a risk? I don’t think I’ll ever understand it.”
“I expect you didn’t believe you’d live to see Paris. It was something to take your mind off tomorrow, when death was staring you in the face. Soldiers make all kinds of promises then. Bargaining with God. Even the Crusaders swore they’d build churches if they lived.”
“It would have been safer to build a church,” Brothers answered him sourly.
Rutledge had arrived in Rye too late to call on Russell and found a room for the night in the Mermaid Inn.
He slept without dreams for once, came down early for breakfast, and walked in the town for a time, finally climbing the hill up to St. Mary’s Church to watch the gulls coming in from the sea. Then he went down one of the cobbled lanes to where he could look out at the water below. In the early-morning light it sparkled, and for once the wind didn’t carry its usual chill. He had always liked Rye, with its long history. It had Saxon roots, had once belonged to a Benedictine abbey in France, and later became one of the original Cinque Ports, a chain of protection on a coast far too close to England’s traditional enemy, France. Warships anchored in the protection of the River Rother, and when they were withdrawn, smugglers and fishing fleets found it just as useful.
When at last the church clock struck nine, he turned and went down the cobbled Mermaid Street to the Russell house.
It was easily found, ivy climbing its walls and framing the bow window with its crisp lace curtains. They formed a backdrop for a black cat curled up on the white window ledge next to a crystal vase filled with silk flowers in shades of rose and cream and lavender. When Rutledge lifted the knocker, the cat lifted its head and stared balefully at him, its amber eyes accusing him of disturbing a well-earned nap. He was smiling at it when someone answered the door. She was an older woman, an apron over her dark dress, her soft white hair in a knot at the nape of her neck. Her eyes were blue, and just now bright with curiosity as she examined the stranger on her doorstep at this hour.
“Yes?” she asked.
“Good morning,” he said, smiling. “My name is Rutledge. I’m from London and I’m looking for Lieutenant Russell. Does he still live here?”
The brightness faded. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “He died a month ago. Did you know him in the war?”
“We had mutual friends,” Rutledge answered, stifling his own curiosity. “I didn’t know.”
“I was just putting the kettle on. Would you care for a cup of tea? I enjoy talking about my son. It helps ease my loss.”
She was far too trusting, and it worried him.
He followed her through to the kitchen, where the kettle was now on the boil, and she said, “If you like, I’ll bring a tray into the front room.”
“I’m comfortable here,” Rutledge said, and she nodded.
“Cedric was such a lovely little boy. He’d sit at the table there while I made dinner, and tell me all about his school day. The war changed him. I expect it was true of any number of young men.”
He let her talk while the tea steeped and she brought cups and saucers to the table. And then he sought a way to turn the conversation to how her son had died.
Before he could think of one, she brought it up herself.
“As I told the other young man, Cedric was depressed after he came home from the war. I couldn’t tell you why.” She poured the tea into their cups and sat down across from Rutledge. “It was her fault, you know. That woman. I tried to tell him what she was, but he was besotted with her. She promised to write, but she never did. He feared something had happened to her. My belief is that she soon found someone else. Then he went off to Paris, some foolishness about motorcars and Nice. He said it would help him. But it didn’t. He came home in an even darker mood.”
It was a rather convoluted account, but Rutledge was able, after a fashion, to understand what she was saying. Was this woman the sergeant’s wayward wife?
He found it hard to believe. For one thing, there was the matter of time.
“How long had your son known this woman?”
“He met her in 1917, when he was sent home to recover from his wound. I have no idea how they met; he never said.”
Still. There were any number of women like the sergeant’s wife, looking for a better life.
He could wait no longer. His teacup was nearly empty, and he would have to go.
“How did your son die?” he asked as gently as he could. “An old wound?”
“He kil
led himself,” she said, her eyes welling with tears. “He left me a lovely note, telling me how much he loved me, and how terrible the war had been, and how Nice had shown him that death was still waiting for him. And he thought it best to be done with it, because he was no good to anyone in the place he found himself.”
Rutledge had been prepared for anything but suicide. He wanted to ask how, to be sure it wasn’t the same hand behind this man’s death. He was trying to find the words when she told him.
“He took his service revolver out on the Weald, where I wouldn’t be the one to find him. And he shot himself. He was careful not to mar his face, because he knew I’d have to identify him. But he was still dead.”
She turned away, pretending to set the milk jug and the bowl of sugar to rights, although they didn’t need her care.
“I’m so sorry,” Rutledge said quietly. “I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have intruded on your grief if I had.” The Weald, rolling and once wooded, came down to the sea at Rye, very much like the Downs at the Gap, although it had once provided timber for building and the charcoal industry that had also flourished here. Russell had left his body to the mercy of strangers, to protect his mother.
“No, you haven’t intruded,” she said. “My friends and neighbors mean to be kind, but they’re uncomfortable with my grief. It wasn’t that way during the war, you know. We read the lists of wounded and killed and went to offer whatever consolation we could to those whose sons and fathers and brothers were named there. In the war it was as if we all suffered the same pain and sorrow. I expect suicide is different.”
He reached out and touched her hand where it lay on the table. “He must have loved you very much.”
“But not enough,” she said with a sad smile. “Not enough.”
He set his cup on the tray and rose to take his leave. She went with him to the door, thanking him for coming, for remembering to seek out her son, even though the war was over.
Rutledge was at the door, ready to step out into the sunlight, when Hamish jogged his memory. Something she had said when he first arrived . . .
The other young man.
He said, “You told me that someone else had come to call. Perhaps I know him?”
She frowned. “It was just a fortnight ago. He didn’t give his name, not at first,” she said. “And then I asked him outright, thinking I might remember it from Cedric’s letters. He said it was Standish. That he was my son’s commanding officer. Captain Standish. Later I wondered about that, and I went to find the letter of condolence from his commanding officer. And it was signed by a Captain Newland.”
“I expect,” he said carefully, not to alarm her, “that your son had also served under Captain Standish at one time, and he remembered him. I don’t seem to recall Standish, myself. I was never under his command.”
“I think there’s a photograph of him in Cedric’s things. It must have been a party. There were eight men in an old barn, the oddest place you can imagine. Do you have time? I’ll look it out for you.”
Suppressing his excitement, he said, “I should like that very much.”
She went down the passage to another room and came back with a small box tied up in white ribbon.
“I’d given Cedric a camera for Christmas 1914. Before he went to France. It was a Brownie 2, from America. I found it in a shop in London. I thought perhaps he’d like to remember his experiences, and that later I could share them with him. But he didn’t want me to see the photographs. He said they brought back too many memories. Still, there were a few that he showed me. Of places he’d been, people he’d known.” Untying the ribbon, she took out a handful of photographs and passed them to him.
He steeled himself to find photographs of the Somme, but then he remembered that these were to share with Mrs. Russell.
Half a dozen men around a downed German plane, grinning at the camera as if they personally had shot it down. As they might well have done. A church half destroyed by shell fire, and a rosebush to one side of it, still struggling to bloom. A dog his company had adopted, playing tug-of-war with a bit of rag. A line of ambulances in the distance, silhouetted against the sky as they drove toward a base hospital. Half a dozen nursing Sisters standing outside a ward tent. To his surprise he recognized Bess Crawford among them, smiling for the camera. And after that, a shadowy photograph of a barn, and a makeshift canteen or mess hall.
A trestle-table bar and a half-dozen scavenged bits of furniture offering seating. One table cluttered with an assortment of cups and candles in tins, as well as several empty bottles, and six men standing around it. He could make out three familiar faces. Standish. Brothers. Holt.
At his shoulder, Mrs. Russell said helpfully, “Cedric took this photograph. The next one shows him.”
Rutledge looked at the next one. The same setting for all intents and purposes. Only this time Holt was missing, and another man had taken his place.
“Yes, there he is,” she said. “Look, in the middle. But of course you know him, don’t you?”
The young Lieutenant standing there was of medium height, his hair dark and his smile contagious. The photograph was grainy, the camera struggling with the low light. He had an arm around Brothers’s shoulders, and what appeared to be a teacup in his other hand, raised in salute. Rutledge could just see the resemblance to the woman beside him.
“Yes, of course,” Rutledge told her. “And Standish?”
“There at the bar. He’s wearing a different uniform. Probably for the party, don’t you think?”
“I’m sure,” Rutledge said, not wanting to contradict her. “He was pretending to serve the others.”
“That’s right!” she said, pleased. “Don’t you think that’s a particularly good likeness of Cedric?”
“It is.” He looked through the other photographs, but these were the only two from the barn on the eve of the Somme. “I wonder, could I borrow this photograph? I think the others would like copies, if I can have them made.”
“Oh no, I’m so sorry! I couldn’t bear to part with it.”
Rutledge understood, although he had to swallow his disappointment. He could have forced her to allow the Yard to borrow it, but that would have been cruel.
“I understand.” He handed the photographs back to her, thanking her for the tea and for letting him see these memories of her son’s war, saying good-bye.
He was already on the sunlit cobblestones, turning back toward St. Mary’s, when the door opened again.
Mrs. Russell stuck her head out the opening. “Mr. Rutledge? I understand so little about cameras. I don’t know if they will be any use to you, but Cedric also has kept the negatives in this box.”
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18
Rutledge drove directly to the Gap and East Dedham, the precious negatives in an envelope in the seat beside him. He had wasted three hours looking for a shop in Rye that could make copies for him. He had found one, but the owner was in Canterbury for the next three days, and only he, it seemed, understood the mysteries of the darkroom.
Dusk was already falling when he arrived in the Gap, the days growing shorter far too fast. He went first to the police station to find Constable Neville.
“Any news of the valise or Mrs. Grant?” he asked, walking in the door.
“Nothing to report. As the weather improved, the tide hasn’t been as high, nor the waves either. But the valise is gone, probably at the bottom of the sea by now. As for Mrs. Grant, I was there only this morning, looking over at the fall, and it appears to be very much the same to me. Shame we can’t put a party with shovels down there, but it’s still such a large fall to shift, and we’d only have a few hours at a time to work.”
“Keep watch, all the same.”
Neville reached into a drawer and pulled out a sheet of paper. “The police along the coast are asking about a body that came ashore near Hastings.
My first thought was of Mrs. Grant, but it’s male, and there’s no one missing here. Nor at East Dedham.” He passed the sheet to Rutledge.
“Doesn’t appear to be anyone we want to find,” he agreed as he read the description of any identifying marks and then looked at the black-and-white drawing. “The sketch here is not very good, he’d been in the water a day or two. But I think recognizable, if you had someone in mind.” He read on. Cause of Death: Broken neck.
He hadn’t yet met with Taylor, as Hamish was reminding him.
Looking at the date given here, he realized that the man had died the Wednesday after Wright’s Saturday-night crash.
“If he jumped from the hill just beyond Hastings, the rocks there might account for the neck being broken,” Neville was saying. “But still.”
“Yes. Still. There’s one man unaccounted for in my own inquiries, but he would be younger than this. Approximately fifty, it says. I’ll show this to Captain Standish. Nothing may come of it, but we’ll have made certain. Has Constable Brewster seen it?”
“I expect he got one as well. Hastings trying to clear up loose ends.”
“Probably that’s all we were intended to do,” he answered as he started for the door. “Apropos of nothing, I’ve been to Rye, once a seafaring town. And it reminded me. Where did the name of The Sailor’s Friend come from? There’s a grave by the same name in the churchyard. You didn’t have that much of a fishing fleet here, did you?”
“There was no safe place to draw up the boats,” Neville said. “But it has nothing to do with fishing. It’s connected with an early parson at St. Simon’s, who urged the building of a lighthouse here. We’d had some appalling wrecks along this coastline in his day.”
“Makes sense,” Rutledge agreed, leaving.
He drove on to Standish’s house. The housekeeper showed him into the dining room, where Standish had just begun his dinner.
“It’s early, but the staff has been invited to an engagement party in East Dedham, and I gave them permission to go. There’s little enough to amuse them in the village. Take a seat. There’s more than enough for two, and I’m afraid we’re on our own. The dishes are on the sideboard, and we’re to help ourselves. Ah. I heard the outer door close. But I expect everything has been thought of.”