Rutledge presented himself at the house on the far side of the bakery, exactly at eight. The door was opened, and the woman invited him in. “My name is Barbara Melford. I’m a widow, I live alone, and I am paid for each meal. The dining room is this way.”
Her house was larger than the constable’s, with good furnishings and a fire in the dining room where the table was set for one.
“You don’t take your meals with Hensley?” Rutledge asked.
“I am paid to feed him, not to keep him company. As I’ve already said, I’m a widow. And I’m not looking to marry again, least of all, not to Constable Hensley.”
He could see her clearly now in the lamplight: a woman in her thirties, smartly dressed—for his benefit and not Constable Hensley’s—trying to cover her apprehensiveness with a chilly demeanor.
Hamish, taking a dislike to her, said, “Why did she invite you to dine?”
For information?
Rutledge took the chair at the head of the table and pulled his serviette out of a china ring with blue violets painted in a garish pattern.
“We’ve had no news about Constable Hensley’s condition. Was his surgery successful?” Barbara Melford asked as she brought in the soup, creamed carrots with leeks.
“Apparently, although he was in a good deal of pain when I spoke to him,” Rutledge answered, choosing his words with care. “Nothing was said about when he might be released.”
“I can’t imagine being driven that far with an arrow in my back!” she commented, returning to the kitchen while he sat in the dining room in lonely splendor. It was a pretty room with drapes of a floral brocade and an English carpet under a table that could seat eight. Rutledge found himself wondering if Mrs. Melford had ever entertained here, when her husband was alive.
He was tired, and it was a very tense meal, as his hostess brought each course in silence and disappeared again, but he could feel her eyes on him through the crack in the door leading to the kitchen.
Once he tried to question her about what had happened, but she answered brusquely, “I can’t see the wood from my windows, thank God! You must ask someone who can.”
There was a flan for dessert, better than many he’d had, but he didn’t linger over his tea. As soon as the first cup was empty, he folded his serviette, and calling to Barbara Melford to thank her, he started for the door to the hall.
She came to speak to him then, following him as far as the front door to point out a silver tray on the small table at the foot of the stairs. “You’ll find your account waiting here every morning. I serve breakfast at eight sharp.”
“I’ll be here.”
He stepped out into the cold night air, feeling it strongly after the heat of the dining room. Hensley’s house was still chilly, the fire struggling to do more than heat the parlor. He searched for the linen cupboard and at length discovered clean sheets and pillow slips as well as two or three fairly new blankets.
Making up the bed, he considered his conversation with Hensley, wrapped in pain still, but alert enough to answer questions guardedly. Why, since he’d been found in that wood, would the constable refuse to admit he’d gone there? For one thing, moving a large man with an arrow in his back would have been difficult, and dragging him would leave marks. That would have to be looked into, tomorrow.
“And where is the bicycle he was riding?” Hamish asked.
“I’ll find out tomorrow. There should be someone who can tell me. The doctor, for one.”
“At a guess, yon widow doesna’ care o’ermuch for the constable. She must be desperate for money, to put up wi’ him.”
“Or she finds him willing to talk more than he should about village business. A man can be flattered into boasting.”
It was late when Rutledge finally got to bed. The house seemed unfamiliar and unwelcoming. And he hadn’t found a key for the door. Yet Hensley had used the parlor for his office.
“Which means,” Hamish answered the thought, “that there are no secrets to be found here.”
Rutledge was up well before eight, dressed, and already searching through the meager files in a box in the parlor. It appeared that Dudlington had no experience with crime as such. The constable had registered every complaint with meticulous care. A lost dog found and returned to its owner. A quarrel over a ram’s stud rights. Pilferage at the greengrocer’s, traced to a small boy with a taste for fruit. A domestic matter, where a wife had accused her husband of spending more time than was necessary—in her view—repairing a chimney flue at Mrs. Melford’s house.
He set the files back into their box and stood, looking around the room. There were no photographs here—or in the bedroom for that matter. And little else of a personal nature. But he’d discovered a letter in a desk drawer, a commendation from the then Chief Inspector Bowles for Hensley’s services in apprehending a murderer in the City.
Then why was Hensley in this outpost of empire, serving his time chasing after lost dogs and calming irate wives?
It was apparent that Hensley had kept the commendation letter with some pride…
Rutledge glanced at the wall clock and saw that he had three minutes to get himself to the Melford house for breakfast.
The meal was as well cooked as last night’s dinner, the eggs done exactly to his taste, but he asked as the toast was brought in, “I tried to find a room at The Oaks. They all but turned me away. Do you know why?”
“Mr. Keating has always been a private sort. He doesn’t seem to care for guests staying there, not beyond one night. Mostly he serves meals to travelers, and of course the pub is popular with the men here in Dudlington.”
“Who was the woman? An employee? Or his wife?”
She laughed, breaking the stern set of her face. “She may wish she was his wife, but Frank Keating is a misogynist. The woman is Hillary Timmons. She lives near the church. There aren’t many opportunities for employment here.”
“Which is why you feed Constable Hensley for a price.”
“Indeed. I’ll just fetch the warm milk for your tea.”
Dr. Middleton was an elderly man, his face lined but cheerful. He welcomed Rutledge with a nod and took him back to his surgery, which was no more than a room at the rear of his house.
“Did you see Hensley? How is he faring?”
“Well enough. In pain.”
“I should think he was. That arrow was in deep.”
“How long have you been the doctor here?”
“Seven years last month. I retired from practice and came here to die. But I haven’t had time to get around to that.” He sat behind the table in a corner that served as his desk and gestured to a chair on the other side. “My wife died, and I lost interest in living. She was born in Dudlington and is buried in the churchyard. I feel closer to her here.”
“Where had you lived before?”
“Naseby. It’s not a very challenging practice, but I’m the only doctor within twenty miles. Babies and burns and bumps, that’s mostly the extent of my duties.”
“Dudlington is a quiet village. There was hardly a soul on the streets when I came in last night.”
“That’s an illusion. For one thing, there’s the weather this time of year. The wind howling across those wide fields doesn’t invite you to stop on the street and pass the time of day for a quarter of an hour. And the men are mostly stockmen, up at dawn and home after the livestock has been fed and bedded for the night. Many of them come home for their midday meal, which means their wives spend a good part of their day in their kitchens. They do their marketing in the morning, and this time of year, it’s dark by the time the children come in from Letherington, where they’re schooled now. We had a schoolmaster before the war, but he enlisted as soon as Belgium was invaded. He hasn’t been replaced.”
“Did Constable Hensley have trouble keeping the peace? His records are sparse, and it’s hard to judge if that’s because the village is relatively quiet, or because he was behind in his paperwork.”
“We’ve had our share of trouble, I won’t deny that. On the other hand, people often don’t bother to lock their doors. Human beings are human beings, which translates into the fact that you don’t know what they’re capable of until they’re pressed. Still, we seldom have the sort of crimes you’d find in London. Arson, rape, breaking and entering, theft of property. It doesn’t mean that we’re better than Londoners, just that we know one another very well, and the man who steals my horse can hardly ride it down Church Street without half the householders recognizing it on the spot.” He smiled. “But don’t be fooled. Everyone knows your business as soon as you set foot in Dudlington. Gossip is our pastime, and you’ll do no better than Constable Hensley at ferreting it out.” The smile broadened. “I shan’t be surprised to see a flurry of patients this afternoon with all manner of minor complaints. Every one of them expecting me to tell them what I made of this man from London.”
“Then what does gossip have to say about someone nearly killing Hensley with a bow and arrow?”
The smile vanished. “Ah. That I haven’t been privy to. I wish I were.”
“Then tell me about Frith’s Wood, where Hensley was found.”
“It’s not a place people frequent.” Middleton sighed. “Case in point. No one has ever cut firewood there, they don’t wander there on a quiet summer’s evening, and they will walk out of their way to avoid having to pass in its shadow. My late wife told me she’d never played there as a child, which tells you something. There’s an old legend about a massacre there in the dim dark past, and such superstitions tend to strengthen with time. Consequently, the wood is avoided.”
“Have you ever walked in the wood yourself?”
“Never. Except for once about three years ago. Not because I’m superstitious, but it would upset people. Why meddle?”
“Tell me about finding Hensley.”
“It was nearly teatime. I was sitting in my chair in the parlor, napping, when Ted Baylor came to my door. His dog heard something in the direction of the wood and began barking. Baylor wasn’t inclined to investigate, but after he’d seen to his livestock, he decided he’d better discover what the dog was on about, before it got dark. When Baylor let him out of the yard, the dog made straight for the wood, disappeared into it, and barked again. Baylor was of two minds about what to do, but he finally went in after the dog, and there was Hensley lying on the ground, cold as a fish. Ted thought he was dead, and told me as much. But it was shock and the cold air, and I managed to bring him around once I got him here and warmed again.”
“And you broke the shaft of the arrow?”
“There wasn’t any choice in the matter. I couldn’t very well leave it sticking out of his back. I asked Ted Baylor and Bob Johnson to hold it steady while I cut it with my knife. I thought the tip would come out without doing more harm, but it was lodged in the rib, and I don’t have the facilities here for major surgery.”
“Do you still have the shaft?”
Middleton pointed to a basket on a table under the window. “It’s in there. Nothing distinctive about it. Just an arrow fletched with blue and yellow feathers.”
Rutledge crossed the room to examine it. Middleton was right, the shaft was wood, and not homemade. The feathers appeared to be a little bedraggled, but from age or use, he couldn’t say. Their condition hadn’t stopped the arrow from flying true—or again, perhaps it had, if the bowman had intended a killing shot.
Hamish said, “It’s no’ possible to tell if this was a woman or a man. Or how far fra’ the target the archer was standing. If yon arrow was aimed at the constable’s back, the archer didna’ care whether his victim lived or died.”
“He lay there in the wood for several hours. No one came back to finish what the arrow had begun,” Rutledge agreed, unaware that he was answering Hamish aloud.
Middleton said, “It’s not likely someone went to the wood to practice at the butts. For one thing the trees are too close together, and for another, it’s just not done. Not here in Dudlington, at any rate. Unless you were an outsider and didn’t know the history of the place. Of course, if you were looking to murder Hensley, I suppose that was a prime place to do it. Superstition or no superstition. But that makes no sense. You could slip into his house and cut his throat while he slept, if that’s what you were after, and not take a chance on being seen walking into Frith’s Wood. Or risk finding out that the tales of haunting are true.”
“What became of Hensley’s bicycle? He claims he was riding it on the main road, before he was attacked.”
“I don’t suppose anyone thought to look for it. I for one believed he’d been on foot. There was no sign of it near his body, I can tell you that.”
“Did Hensley offer any explanation about why he’d ventured into the wood in the first place?”
“He didn’t have to. I could imagine the reason for myself. We’ve always wondered if Emma Mason was buried there. And I think he’s spent the last three years searching for her grave.”
9
“Who is Emma Mason?” Rutledge asked. There had been no file for a missing woman, or a murder, in Hensley’s parlor.
“She was a local girl. Seventeen at the time she vanished. We searched the countryside for miles around. No one had seen her leave, and no one knew what had become of her. Her grandmother was distraught—she would have led the search parties herself, if she’d been up to it.”
“Foul play, then?”
“We couldn’t think of anyone who might have harmed her. And we couldn’t come up with a sound reason why she should leave. Abruptly, without a stitch of clothing missing or even a toothbrush with her.”
“Then why suspect she was buried in the wood?”
“It was the only place,” Middleton answered with sadness, “that someone could have disposed of a body without being seen by half the village looking out its back windows. A logical place, so to speak. But we covered every inch of the wood, and there was nothing to indicate that the ground had been disturbed. I doubt if anyone could have dug a grave there, anyway, with so many roots. Still—the search had to be made, if we were going to be thorough.”
Following the directions Middleton had given him, Rutledge left his motorcar at the church and walked across the fields from there. He had gone no more than a few hundred yards when he realized how open the land was under a bowl of gray winter sky. The grass was brown, there were no trees except along the stream, and all the way to the horizon, nothing broke the emptiness.
He felt suddenly vulnerable.
If someone had followed him to Kent and to Hertford—why not here?
The grass crunched under his feet, and the wind had a bite to it. He could see the wood now. Bare branches stood out darkly against the slate color of the clouds, like fingers reaching upward. It was a larger wood than he’d expected, and denser. Impossible to see beyond the trees to the next field, the trunks and undergrowth weaving a thicket.
Behind him he could see the week’s wash blowing on lines in the backs of houses, the slate roofs dark under the gray clouds overhead, and the tall, thin spire of the church soaring into the sky like a lonely sentinel.
A dog barked from a house on the far side of the church, near a small barn. Ted Baylor’s dog?
By the time he had reached the wood, Rutledge was aware that Hamish was tense and lurking in the back of his mind.
He stepped into the line of trees, sensing the eyes of villagers watching from behind their lace curtains. He had a feeling that if a Saxon warrior met him at the edge of the wood and lopped off his head with a long blade, no one would be surprised.
Hamish said, “It’s no’a very good idea to tempt the dead.”
“No. Not while walking over them.”
Walking was difficult, dead or no. Fallen boughs and rotted trunks were traps for unwary feet under the mat of wet leaves. He stumbled once and caught himself with a hand on the nearest tree. There was a small area where the leaves had been churned by a multitude of feet. Hensley,
then, and his saviors.
Looking around, Rutledge wondered how anyone had managed to get the badly wounded constable out of the wood, tight as tolerances were. Somehow they had got it done.
He examined the ground for some distance on either side of the site where he presumed Hensley had been found. But there were not enough signs to indicate whether the man had been dragged to the scene or fell there. It would surely have been as difficult getting him here as it had been to extricate him. Rutledge realized he needed a good deal more light to be certain. But on the whole, as Hamish was saying, it appeared that Hensley had been in the wood and on his feet when he was shot. Whether he had intentionally lied about that or honestly couldn’t remember any of the events before the arrow struck him, it was hard to say.
Some distance away, in the soft earth by the bole of a tree, Rutledge found a deep indentation that indicated someone had been standing here. But whether it was the man with the bow and arrow, or Hensley himself, it was impossible to tell.
With Hensley down, Hamish was reminding him, there had been no one to do an investigation of the ground in his place. The doctor had been busy with his patient, and his helpers had been in a hurry to get out of the wood as quickly as possible. If they’d searched at all, it was cursorily.
Rutledge moved on, studying the earth underfoot intently before taking each step. But the clues were small and hard to see. A stalk bent here, a leaf dislodged there, a twig broken where someone had brushed by it. There was no way to know who had disturbed any of them, Hensley or his attacker.
The odd thing was, he hadn’t started a rabbit or seen a bird flitting from tree to tree, twittering with curiosity. The wood was empty and quiet.
And that was ominous in itself…
How difficult would it be to dig down into the composted soil, to make a grave? Would that have been Hensley’s fate if he’d died straightaway?
Even a killer might have qualms about burying a man still alive.
Charles Todd_Ian Rutledge 08 Page 6