by Charles Todd
The legs of Madsen’s chair smacked the floor with a sharp thump. “Early days yet, Rutledge, but we’ll have that soon enough.”
“I’d like the name of the cousin in Addleford. And the direction of the Welsh cousin as well.”
“Where’s the need? We’ve been over that ground already.”
“So you have,” Rutledge responded with more patience than he felt. “But the Yard will require assurances that all the evidence has been thoroughly examined. More to the point, we appear to have some confusion about identity. I’ll remind you that Mrs. Crowell didn’t recognize the drawing, and Crowell himself said he couldn’t identify the body, when he was taken to the doctor’s surgery.”
“Well, they would say as much, wouldn’t they? Crowell because he had no intention of drawing attention to himself, and Al—Mrs. Crowell, that is—because she’s not about to betray her husband.”
Rutledge saw something in Madsen’s face as he said the last few words that was very different from his manner to this point. “Nothing in my conversations with her made me feel she would lie for her husband’s sake. And what about Crowell’s feelings about killing? They’re on record.”
“This is the man who ruined his wife’s face, for God’s sake. It’s all very well to make a public display of forgiving the bastard, but deep down inside? Crowell was probably biding his time for a bit of quiet revenge.” Madsen shook his head. “I don’t hold with conscientious objectors. I never have. They were perfectly willing to let someone else die in their place, weren’t they? I’ll stay home, cozy by my hearth, thank you very much, and leave you to do the fighting!”
“I remind you he drove an ambulance.”
“Yes, that’s all very well. A bit of conscience overcoming him, for a guess.” It was a sneer. “And Alice thought him quite the hero, didn’t she, bringing back the wounded and saving lives. And those of us who had to carry on back in England, doing the job we were meant to do, were not good enough—”
Madsen stopped short, but not before Rutledge had seen more than he was meant to see.
Alice…
And those of us who had to carry on here in England were not good enough…
As Madsen struggled to rein in his temper, Hamish said, “Ye ken, he’s jealous, and he canna’ live with it.”
The inspector looked away from Rutledge, his gaze going to a half-dozen folders lying on top of the table at his elbow. “It could be she’s afraid to tell us what she really thinks. There’s no getting around the fact that every time she looks in her mirror, the scar is there, staring back at her.”
He picked up one of the folders and opened it. “Peter Littleton. That’s the cousin in Addleford. And this man Williams lives outside Aberystwyth in a place called Hill Farm.”
Rutledge took the sheet of paper that Madsen held out to him. “I’ll let you know what I discover.”
“Precious little, I’ll be bound,” Madsen said under his breath as Rutledge left.
Rutledge made a detour to Dilby, to find Alice Crowell. She was trying to keep the school open in her husband’s absence. There were shadows under her eyes and a tightness in her face that spoke of her distress. The white scar seemed to shine in the morning light as if newly burnished by the reminders of how it had begun.
There was a flare of hope in her face as she saw Rutledge in the passage outside the bookroom, and she glanced beyond him to see if her husband was following in his wake. And then it vanished as she realized he was alone.
“Have you seen Albert?” she asked anxiously. “They won’t allow me to speak to him.”
“I haven’t seen him. I’m sorry,” he told her gently. “But he’ll be safe enough where he is, until Inspector Madsen gets to the bottom of this business.”
She shook her head. “But he won’t do that, will he? Where’s the point?”
Mrs. Crowell opened the door behind her and ushered him into the empty room. She indicated a chair for him, but he stood, as she did. There wasn’t a great deal to be said by either of them.
“What’s behind Madsen’s dislike of your husband?” Rutledge asked, coming directly to the point.
“We were about to be engaged once. My parents didn’t care for my choice and I was young, I listened to them instead of my heart. I realized later, when I’d met Albert, that they’d been wiser than I. But at the time I was heartbroken.”
“I understand that Inspector Madsen has since married.”
“Yes, that’s true. But his pride was hurt when I had to tell him my father wasn’t happy with the match. Father promised he’d speak directly to Harry. But you see, my father was in the army, and there was no opportunity. Harry—Mr. Madsen—wrote to him finally, but there was no reply. My mother, who was alive at the time, always thought that the war had prevented Papa from answering. I knew that wasn’t true. He didn’t want to encourage either of us. He felt I was making a poor choice. A working-class man.”
“Is your father still living?”
“Yes. He’s offered to come and fetch me now, but I won’t leave Albert.” She sighed. “I thought, when you first came here, that my father had sent you. I wrote to him when I saw how Albert was being persecuted. I asked him to intervene.”
“And did he?”
“I don’t know,” she answered him frankly. “He’s the colonel of an East Anglian regiment. I thought he might know someone, bring a little pressure to bear in the right quarters. But look how it’s all turned out. I expect there was nothing he could do.”
Her voice trailed off forlornly, and she looked at the windows. There was a bright sunshine outside, but it failed to light the room, as if sensing the despair that filled it.
Rutledge was tempted to ask her outright if she knew one Martin Deloran but thought better of it. Instead he approached the subject indirectly. “Do you know a man called Gaylord Partridge?”
“What an odd name. I should remember that, if we’ve ever been introduced. Should I know him?” Hope seemed to spring awake again. “Is there any way he can help me?”
“Later perhaps. And Gerald Parkinson. Did you or your father know him?”
She frowned, digging for the memory. “I went to school with girls by the name of Parkinson. They were much younger; we didn’t have a lot in common. But they used to tell everyone the most absurd stories about their father. He was eccentric, if half of it was to be believed. Always tinkering with things. I can’t think that he’s the same person you’re asking me about.”
“I agree, it doesn’t sound like it. Martin Deloran. Do you know him?”
“Deloran? No, that’s not a name I recognize either.”
“I’ll do what I can for your husband, Mrs. Crowell, but don’t count on miracles.”
“But I told you—” she began indignantly.
“Yes, so you did. The fact is, you aren’t a reliable witness. If the victim of murder is Henry Shoreham, then you have a reason to conceal your knowledge of him. Or anyone associated with him.”
Her mouth was open to protest vehemently. He held up a hand to stop her.
“I understand. But you must examine this matter in the same way that the police must do. First a book is found by a dead man’s feet, one that has your husband’s name in it. That can be explained away very well. Then there’s some reason to believe that Henry Shoreham disappeared shortly before the corpse was discovered. If the man in the sketch is Henry Shoreham, then you lied to me and to Madsen. If it isn’t, then where is Shoreham? Let’s look at it another way. Until we can identify the victim with absolute certainty, we must investigate all the possibilities. Someone is dead, and he deserves to have justice. The police are bound to see to it that he will.”
Alice Crowell, no fool, looked at Rutledge with weary resignation.
“I don’t know that this poor man will receive justice of any kind. He’s too convenient a whipping boy, to make my husband suffer.”
“Could Albert Crowell have killed him? Either because he was certain he was Shoreham o
r thought he looked like the man?”
Her gaze moved toward the books on the shelves. “He believes in forgiveness. He forgave Henry Shoreham, and when he has done that, he wouldn’t take it back and kill the man.” Her mouth took on a grim expression. “For some time after this happened,” she touched her face, “I could have killed Henry Shoreham myself. I was asked to forgive him, and I said the words. But in the depths of my soul, I knew it to be a lie. And I hid it from everyone.”
Her eyes came back to his face, as she added, “I wouldn’t ask my husband to do murder for my sake. If Inspector Madsen wasn’t so blinded by his own anger over my turning down his proposal of marriage, he’d realize that he has the wrong Crowell in custody. I’m the one who had the best reason to kill Henry Shoreham.”
13
Addleford was a small dale village that had begun to shrink in the nineteenth century as men found work in the mills or mines. It had continued to shrink into the twentieth. On the outskirts of town were barns without roofs and houses with boarded-up windows. But the heart of the town, with its plain church and churchyard, its one pub and its tiny shops, seemed to be hanging on for dear life.
The houses on either side of the winding street were well kept and the white lace curtains in their windows were cheerful against the gray stone of the walls.
There was no police station here, but Rutledge went to that other source of gossip and information, the local pub. He ate tough beef with a mustard sauce and fresh baked bread, enjoying the peace and quiet of the small dining area next to the bar. The man who served him limped, one leg shorter than the other, giving him a swaying walk that spoke of years of pain. He set down the charger with Rutledge’s food and went about his business, taciturn and without curiosity about the stranger who had walked in and asked if luncheon was still being served.
Hamish was telling him that this was a wild-goose chase. Better to leave the troublesome Henry Shoreham to Inspector Madsen.
But Rutledge wanted every loose end tied up before he went south again. And so as he finished his flan, he asked the man who brought it where he might find one Peter Littleton.
“He’s the shoemaker, two doors down from the greengrocer. You have business with him then?”
“Indeed.”
The barkeep looked at him. “He’ll be finished his dinner in a quarter of an hour. He always goes home for it.”
“Then I’ll walk in the churchyard while I’m waiting.” He paid his reckoning and went out in the chilly air. The churchyard’s wall cupped a small purple flower growing in a crevice, and when he stopped to look at it, he recognized heartsease. It seemed forlorn there, as if it had lost its way from someone’s garden.
Hamish said, “It’s Fiona’s favorite among the flowers.”
Rutledge went through the gate and walked among the stones until he saw the shoemaker striding back to his shop.
Crossing the road after him, Rutledge waited until he’d opened the shop before going inside. The musical ring of a small bell above the door announced his presence, and the shoemaker raised his head from the leather he was trimming. He bore a faint resemblance to the dead man—around the same height, the same unremarkable shape of face, brown hair, and blue eyes. Nothing to set him apart from hundreds of other Englishmen.
I’m looking for Henry Shoreham,” Rutledge said. “I’m told you can help me find him.”
Littleton’s face changed from the smile he used to welcome custom to a wariness that went deep.
“Who’s asking?” He smoothed the leather with his fingertips, as if judging its quality without looking at it.
“Rutledge, Inspector, Scotland Yard.”
The shop was redolent with the scents of leather, wood, and polish. A cobbler’s bench sat by the window and there were lasts on the shelves against the back wall. Patterns lay on a table below. And two chairs, high enough to allow the shoemaker to work on the footwear of a client without squatting, were set into the near wall, facing the counter.
“He never went to trial for what he did.” It was defensive, as if Rutledge had come to take Shoreham back to Whitby. “So it never ended, you might say. No one let him forget what had happened. There was the young woman of course, she suffered and was scarred, mind you, but Henry also paid dearly for his drunkenness. And he never set out to hurt anybody. He wasn’t that sort.”
“I’m not here to charge him. The problem is we can’t seem to locate him at present. Is he still living with you?”
“If you’ve come this far, you know he’s not here. Inspector Madsen will have told you.”
“Quite. Why did Shoreham choose to come to Addleford? Because you were here?”
“Because he didn’t have two pennies to rub together. They didn’t want him back at the bank. Bad for business, they said. Everyone recognized him. There was nothing else he knew how to do but clerking. When no one would take him on and his savings ran out, he left Whitby and came to me to get back on his feet. But he couldn’t get the hang of shoemaking, and then a neighbor of his from Whitby moved here as well, and the story was spread about again. He decided to go to another cousin in Wales. Sheep aren’t easy to manage, but they don’t have to fit someone’s foot just right.”
Hamish said, “Ye canna’ judge how he felt about his cousin.”
It was true, there was a distance in what Littleton was saying, as if he were discussing a stranger.
Rutledge asked, “When did he leave?”
“I could tell he’d made up his mind, and I let him go. And the house was crowded with seven people under our roof, I’ll admit it. My wife was just as glad to see him move on. But then he’s not her kin, he’s mine.”
“When did he leave?” Rutledge repeated his question.
“It must be getting on to a week, now.” Littleton shrugged. “A fortnight even. One of the little ones has been ill. I’ve had more to worry about than keeping in mind when Henry set out. I had no way of knowing, see, that it would matter to have the exact day.”
“Did Constable Pickerel or Inspector Madsen tell you there was a dead man at Elthorpe who might be your cousin? Surely that should have worried you.”
“Constable Pickerel said nothing of that when he first came here. He was all for leaving for Wales straightaway. My cousin Llewellyn knew Henry was coming, but there wasn’t a fixed date. You could have blown me over with a feather when the constable reported Henry never got there. Then Inspector Madsen came, going on about a dead man. I was afraid that it might be Henry. That he’d finally done himself some harm, out of remorse. That he never intended going to Wales.”
“Yet you felt no need to travel to Elthorpe, to be sure?”
Littleton looked him in the eye. “It was the inspector telling me Henry was dead. Add to that, he’d never arrived in Wales, had he? So I believed what I was told. My going to Elthorpe wouldn’t bring Henry back, would it? I have a wife and family to feed. A child that’s ill, and the doctor is costing us more than we can pay. I have a shop that brings no money in when I’m not here to open it. Besides, we never had a suicide in our family. I’d not want that getting about.”
“Who told you it might have been suicide?” Rutledge asked sharply.
“What else could it be? I know, the inspector was hinting that it was murder. As I explained to the constable, Henry was persecuted. It might have ended differently if he’d gone to prison instead, but the woman and her husband forgave him. That turned everyone in Whitby against Henry. When the law wouldn’t punish him, everyone else did. There was a great outcry.”
“You never considered the fact that Albert Crowell might have killed your cousin, that they ran into each other by accident, and Crowell took the chance offered to avenge his wife?”
“Then why did this man Crowell forgive him in the first place, if that’s what he wanted to do?”
“To keep Henry Shoreham out of prison? To make sure he could be found and killed? Only he came here to Addleford and Crowell couldn’t find him.”
&nb
sp; In spite of himself, Rutledge found that it made a certain sense—perhaps explained why Crowell had chosen to teach at Dilby. Looking for Shoreham. Madsen could easily make that case.
“That was before the war—a long time to wait to get even.”
“Then you’ll leave your cousin to a pauper’s grave, and let the police sort out how he died?”
“I’ll pay what I can for a decent burial. Inspector Madsen knows that. But I won’t do more. Truth is, the scandal affected all our lives. Harboring Henry was what I had to do, because he was my blood. I’ll not bring him back here and put him in the churchyard for everyone to stare at and remember.”
Rutledge could hear Martin Deloran’s callous dismissal of the dead man. Did no one care what became of him?
“An interesting point of view, Mr. Littleton. Still, I’ll have to speak to your wife and your neighbors. I need to know precisely when Henry Shoreham left Addleford. How he was traveling, and in what direction.”
“You’re not understanding me. Henry kept to himself. Most particularly after the Jordan family moved to Addleford. I doubt my neighbors have clapped eyes on him since. He never came to town, went to church services, called in at the pub. He just sat in his room and stared out the window.”
There was evasion here, almost a washing of the hands. Why?
Rutledge had brought the folder in with him and opened it now to pull out the sketch. “Perhaps you know this man?” he asked.
Littleton looked intently at the face. “He’s the dead man?”
“Yes.”
Littleton shook his head, then glanced up at Rutledge. “The description Inspector Madsen gave of the body was too close for comfort. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. But this is like seeing Henry younger and happier.”
“There’s no cleft in this man’s chin.”
Littleton was rattled. “Should there be? I don’t see it here, and Inspector Madsen never said anything about one.”