Watchers of Time

by Charles Todd

  Just below him in the water, a boat was coming in, the man at the oars handling them well, keeping the bow midstream as if he knew his way, his fair hair dark with sweat as he pulled toward the quay. He wore a good tweed coat, and an English setter sat between the thwarts, tongue lolling as it watched the quay come closer. Rutledge turned off the motor and got out, standing there until the boat had reached the stairs, and then walked forward to catch the rope the man threw up toward him.

  “Thanks!”

  “My pleasure.”

  The rower stood up and stepped out onto the lower stair. A man of middle height with a strong face and eyes the color of a winter sea, he was fit and trim. Clicking his tongue, he waited as the dog leaped up the stairs ahead of him, excitement in its movement, waiting for a sign to run.

  “Heel, you ragbag!” he said, and looking up at Rutledge added, “He’s got more energy than I have! But then he hasn’t been working the oars for the past hour or more. I’ll have the devil of a time walking home; he’ll be there and back twice over before I cover half the distance.” It was said with a mixture of impatience and affection. The voice was cultured, without the local accent.

  “Can you go out as far as the sea?” Rutledge asked, nodding toward the distant headland.

  “Oh, yes. It’s quite nice out there. Silent as the grave, except for the waves breaking as they come in, and the birds putting up their usual fuss. I rather like it.”

  He spoke to the dog and the pair set out up Water Street, the dog matching the man’s strides for the first twenty paces and then bouncing ahead like a thrown ball, urging his master on. Then an older woman, coming out of a shop to her horse-drawn carriage, called out, “Edwin? Care for a lift?”

  The man waved to her, and whistled the dog to heel. Rutledge watched him swing himself into the carriage and heard his laughter as the woman agreed to allow the wet, wriggling animal to leap up with them.

  Returning to his motorcar, Rutledge noticed The Pelican Inn, standing at the far end of the quay, where the road turned up. A barmaid had just finished sweeping the entry and was now shaking out the bit of carpet where customers wiped their feet. She was buxom, fair, and middle-aged, with a good-natured face.

  Children rolling hoops ran up the street, shouting to each other, drawing a frown from two well-dressed men conversing under the wrought-iron sign for the baker’s shop. A black cat sat in a sheltered corner, licking its fur and ignoring the small terrier that was trotting at the heels of an elderly man with a cane. The man spoke to the barmaid and she laughed.

  A pub, Rutledge thought, was one of the best places to test the temperament of a village. He left the car at the end of the quay and walked across to The Pelican.

  The barmaid had gone inside and was wiping down the last two tables, her face pink with exertion as she gave them a good scrub. She looked up and smiled at him, saying, “What can I do for you, love?”

  “Is it too early for a lunch?”

  “The ham’s not near done, nor the stew neither, but I can give you a Ploughman’s.”

  “That will be fine,” he answered. Bread and good English cheese and a pint.

  “Here, sit by the windows where you can enjoy the view.” She shrugged plump shoulders and added, “If you like the marshes. I find them dreary, myself. Too much wildlife for my taste. Of the crawly kind, if you take my meaning! More of them than there are of us, and that’s no lie!”

  He sat down by the window that looked out across the marsh and counted a flight of some dozen ducks coming in to what must be a pool hidden somewhere among the tall grasses. The barmaid had disappeared into the kitchen, and he heard the rattle of cutlery and dishes.

  As his eyes adjusted to the dimness created by smoke-blackened beams and tables, he realized that he wasn’t alone. Another man sat in a corner nook by the bar, his head bent over a newspaper. Rutledge wasn’t certain whether he was reading it or using it as a barrier against conversation.

  Decoratively, The Pelican contained the flotsam and jetsam of a seafaring port: an iron anchor in one corner, several ships’ models suspended from the beams, a handful of blue-and-white Chinese plates resting on shelves nailed to the walls with haphazard artistry, carved seabirds of every shape and size perched on the wide windowsills as if trying to find a way through the glass.

  A stuffed greylag goose, enormous and showing signs of moth, occupied one end of the bar, with a sign around his neck advertising a Norfolk ale.

  There were even odd bits and pieces from around the world, hung wherever they might fit. A great hammered-copper dish from Morocco or Turkey, set above the hearth, was large enough to serve an entire family without crowding. A small elephant sat in one corner, carved from teak and caparisoned in fraying velvet, with tiny silver bells in the fringe. What appeared to be a water buffalo’s horned skull was mounted above the door. And on another wall, curved knives in ornate sheaths shared honors with a hideous mask from somewhere in Africa, leering through shell-rimmed eyes and mouth.

  It gave the public house a decidedly eccentric air, as if more than one seaman had settled his account with whatever souvenirs he had in his kit.

  Hamish commented, “I canna’ say the goose is an encouragement to a man’s drinking.”

  The barmaid came toward the table with Rutledge’s lunch—chunks of freshly baked bread and sharp cheddar cheese, a pickle, and a pot of mustard. As she set them before him, she tilted her head to the room at large and said, “We’re generally busier than this, but it’s market day at East Sherham, and most people won’t be back before two o’clock.”

  She went to draw his pint, and added, friendly gossip that she was, “Here on business, are you?”

  He answered that he was, and she continued to chatter for a few minutes longer, telling him that she had been born in Hunstanton and had come to Osterley with her husband, who had since died fighting a house fire, and that she and her two daughters had found a good home here. She seemed to ignore the man in the corner, as if he was another fixture along with the elephant and the mask.

  Rutledge said, “I was shocked to hear that a priest was murdered in Osterley a week ago. It doesn’t strike me as the sort of town where such a thing could happen.”

  She shook her head. “I never thought it, either. None of us has got over it, I can tell you. I keep my girls close, and lock the doors at night. If he’d kill a priest, he won’t stop at children, will he? I shudder to think what sort of devil could do such a thing! I haven’t slept deep since it happened.”

  Rutledge was on the point of asking her another question when a group of men strode in, hailing her with accounts of their success bidding on a pair of rams at the sale in East Sherham and eager to relive it blow by blow. She went off to serve them, and listened with good grace to their rambling story of the day’s best bargain. Underlying their enthusiasm was a more somber thread of strain, and they seemed to be intent on ignoring it. Their laughter was a little loud, a little forced. The barmaid—Betsy, they’d called her—soon had them settled with pints to celebrate their success.

  Rutledge decided, from the strong noses that marked each weather-beaten face, that they were father and sons. He finished his meal amid the general hilarity and a rash of newcomers bringing their own news of the market. It was, as far as he could tell, the only topic of conversation of interest just now: who was there, what they’d bought or failed to buy, how the prices ran, and any gossip gleaned. For an hour or so, the shadow of the priest’s death was being resolutely lifted.

  The man at the corner table had not moved, as far as Rutledge could tell, nor had he turned a page in the newspaper. No one encouraged him to join in the good-humored banter or asked him to drink with them.

  Settling his account, Rutledge left the pub and went out to start his motorcar.

  “It doesna’ appear to be a town with dark secrets,” Hamish said. “And they didna’ stare at you—a stranger— with suspicion.”

  “Interesting, wasn’t it? But then ma
rket day generates its own excitement. When the euphoria of a bargain wears off and night begins to fall, people will begin to look over their shoulders again.” He’d been to towns where the silence hung heavy as mist, faces shut and unfriendly, where there was no distraction from fear and uncertainty. Here there seemed to be a determined refusal to acknowledge that Osterley had been touched by evil. He wondered why.

  Where Water Street turned at harbor’s edge to run back up to the main road, there were two horse-drawn carriages outside the green-grocer’s shop, and a lad from the butcher’s next door was carrying a bulky package out to deposit in a pony cart, accompanying a woman dressed in black with a small touch of cream at her wrists and collar. An elderly woman stepped out of the greengrocer’s with a large basket filled with her purchases, and turned to walk up toward the main road. Rutledge thought she might be Mrs. Wainer. But there was no one to ask.

  “You can feel the water,” Hamish said. “It must be verra’ bitter here in winter. Raw with an east wind.”

  “Sometimes,” Rutledge agreed. “When the storms roll in.”

  Back on the main road, Rutledge braked as he came to the police station, but the sign hadn’t been removed from the door. He drove on to St. Anne’s and got out of the car, staring up at the rectory. Cupolas and mock turrets and gingerbread gave it a frivolous air that the simpler lines of the Victorian frame seemed half ashamed of. There were carvings at the peak of the gables, and he told himself that if the builder had found a place to add gargoyles, he’d have done it. And yet the whole seemed far more pleasing than any one part.

  Next to the rectory was a fair-sized flint house with a small glass conservatory now flecked with moisture from an array of tall plants inside. Most certainly the home of the neighbor who had been away on the night of the priest’s murder. The windows on that side of the rectory looked across a narrow stretch of grassy lawn almost into the windows of the larger house.

  But the rectory windows also looked down the lawn to the road. Had Father James seen someone there, someone he believed would hear his shout? A laborer walking home from the fields? A constable on patrol?

  Hamish said, “Was it luck that the family was no’ at home? Or did the killer choose his time because of that?”

  “Yes, it’s possible,” Rutledge answered. “If he’d been watching the house for several days.”

  The next three houses were more modest in design, curving toward a house closest to the point that must have been part of the port buildings in its heyday. A small hotel? Or a customs house. A placard nailed to a board and neatly lettered in white identified it as a rooming house in its present incarnation. Across the street from where he stood, there were five flint houses, built for comfort more than style.

  Rutledge walked up the short path to the rectory door. The knocker, he discovered, was a bit of whimsy as well: a coffin. He let it drop, and the echoing ring of sound startled him, deep as a bell tolling. Hamish, responding to his unspoken thought, said, “It must ha’ been the last owner’s, an undertaker’s.”

  Rutledge was about to answer him when the door opened and a small white-haired woman dressed in black warily asked his business.

  He explained who he was, offering his credentials for her inspection. She glanced at them with relief and then stood aside to allow him to enter a dark hall with two doors on either side of a wide staircase of worn mahogany. A passage ran down beside the stairs to a third door at the back end of the hall. Mrs. Wainer opened the one to her right and invited him into a small parlor, with a gesture offering the sofa as the most comfortable seat. It was a room of surprisingly lovely proportions, with long windows facing the church, a selection of old but well-cared-for furniture, and an oak mantelpiece that rose nearly to the high ceiling. This was ornately carved with ferns and acorns and leaves, and Rutledge wondered if it had come from an even older house.

  The scent of lemon wax pervaded even the upholstery and rose to greet him as he sat down. The sheen on every wooden surface spoke of the brisk application of a polishing rag, and there was no dust on the green leaves of the large plant in one corner. Hamish eyed it with dislike. “Yon’s the ugliest aspidistra I’ve ever clapped eyes on.”

  Rutledge was in agreement. It seemed to thrive without beauty, out of place here, but certainly well fed and watered.

  Mrs. Wainer was saying, as she stood before him like a schoolmistress, “Did I understand you rightly? Scotland Yard, you said. That means London.”

  “Yes, that’s correct.” Behind her, on the mantel, was a small china clock with a French dial and beveled glass. It ticked with a soft grace.

  Her eyes closed for a brief moment, and she said, “I have prayed for answers. And there have been none. Until now.”

  Rutledge said, not absolutely certain he understood her, “I haven’t come to tell you that the murderer has been found.”

  “No. You’ve come to look for him. That’s what matters!”

  “I’m here because Bishop Cunningham was concerned enough to contact the Yard—”

  “As he should have been! It was a despicable crime. Despicable! I looked at Father James lying there, and I knew straightaway that such a thing hadn’t been done by an ordinary man. Inspector Blevins can’t seem to grasp that. Or won’t. I’m beginning to think he wants to believe it was a thief, come for the bazaar money. But it wasn’t. Now you’re here, something will be done about what happened.” There was an intensity in her face that made Rutledge feel uneasy.

  “Why are you so certain that the killer wasn’t a thief?”

  “Because he wasn’t! I don’t care what they say. You don’t knock a man down for such a pitiful sum, then leave behind a medal around his neck worth more than fifty pounds. If you’d kill a priest, you’d feel no compunction stealing his medal. In my opinion, this was vengeance. Someone wanted him dead!”

  It was an interesting choice of words. Rutledge said, “What had Father James done to bring such wrath down on him?”

  “That’s what you must find out,” she told him earnestly. “I’ve been Father James’s housekeeper since first he came here to Osterley, and that’s been well over ten years now. He was a good man and a wonderful priest. A caring priest. And good people make enemies.” She turned her head to look over her shoulder, toward the door and the stairs, as if expecting someone to come down them and call to her. “I don’t think I’ll ever be free of that horror, him lying there in his own blood, his hand so cold when I touched it that I cried out for the pity of it.” Her eyes came back to Rutledge. “A monster did that killing, retribution for Father James standing up against cruelty and evil and sin. Mark my words, that’s what you’ll find if you search hard enough!”

  Hamish said, “She believes what she said, and she willna’ be satisfied with any other solution.”

  Rutledge answered him silently. “She must have loved him, in her own way. And anything less than a monster will make Father James’s death seem—senseless—to her.” Aloud he said to Mrs. Wainer, “Did you know the money was here? The money from the autumn fair?”

  “Of course I did! Father James gave it to me that evening when the fair was over, and said, ‘Lock this away in my desk, will you, Ruth? I’ll give you the key, and fetch it again as soon as I’ve cleaned up.’ He’d been dressed as a clown, to entertain the children, you see, and the paint was still on his face.”

  “Did you usually lock money away for him?”

  “I did whatever he asked. He trusted me,” she said simply.

  “Was the desk broken into? To find the money?”

  “Yes, it was, damaging the drawer something fierce! But there’s only a small lock on the drawer, a flimsy thing at best. It was secure enough from prying eyes, if anyone came into the room. Hardly more than that—and we never had a ha’penny stolen until now! There was no need for safes and bolts on doors. I have told you, he trusted people, Father James did. It wouldn’t have occurred to him that this house might be invaded the way it was!”


  “Sadly enough, that’s often the case,” Rutledge answered her. “It’s one reason why housebreakers—and the like”—he added hastily—“are often successful. But I have no authority here, Mrs. Wainer. Except to assure the Bishop that everything possible is being done to find Father James’s murderer—”

  “And how, pray, could you hope to assure the Bishop of that, when you haven’t lifted a finger toward setting Inspector Blevins on the right track?” Her eyebrows rose, and she regarded him with a scornful expression.

  “The Yard—” Rutledge began.

  But she was not interested in the politics of the Yard or its role outside London. Like Bryony in Norwich, she was concerned only with finding a reason for an otherwise incomprehensible crime.

  He had disappointed her. And her face let him know it.

  Making amends as best he could, Rutledge said, “You tell me that goodness makes enemies. Can you give me the names of anyone who might have had a reason to harm Father James?”

  “Don’t be daft. If I could have made such a list, I’d have handed it over to Inspector Blevins. And I never heard Father James speak ill of anyone. He had a way with him, listening to what was said to him, considering what was to be done for the best. And, good man that he was, he always looked for the best in people. But he didn’t always find it. There are some that are two-faced, smiling and agreeable under your eye, but mean-spirited and venomous behind your back. He knew that, just as any good policeman should.”

  Her views on the failings of human nature met with approval from Hamish. He said, “Aye, a man owed my grandfather money, and said he couldna’ pay it back, his business was sae puir. But it wasna’ true. He was hiding the profits.”

  Rutledge said, “You were in this house every day, going about your duties. How did Father James behave those last weeks? As he always had? Or could you see that he was worried, preoccupied?”