Watchers of Time

by Charles Todd

  The sheds were empty. Hadley shone his light around each in turn, while Randal peered intently at the contents— farm tools, old gear and wheels, tubs and barrows, often rusted and broken. From time to time he poked the heavy staff viciously into the shadows behind them. “No. Nothing taken,” he said as they finished the outbuildings and turned toward the barn. “And not likely to be,” he muttered. “Damn fool waste of time.”

  But it was a different story in the barn. The stalls where Randal’s horses were stabled lay on the far end, past the heavy wagon and the plows. There were four stalls, two of them occupied with great gray horses, staring back at the light with luminous eyes and pricked ears. The warmth of their bodies and their breath filled the night air, a homey scent of horse and straw and barn dust, and the heavier odor of manure and urine.

  “God damn it to hell!” Randal swore. “Where’s Honey?”

  He broke into a shambling run to throw open a stall door and lean to look inside. Hadley, right behind him, shone his light into the dark rectangle. But the horse that occupied the space was not there. Trampled straw reflected the yellow beam, and a clump of droppings.

  Randal, beside himself, cried, “She’s my best mare—if he’s hurt her—”

  Rutledge looked at the size of the other horses. Norfolk bred, they were very large, heavy-boned, and tall.

  Hamish spoke, startling him. “One of those would bear Walsh’s weight.”

  Randal was nearly dancing with anger now, clutching his staff in a white-knuckled grip, pounding it against the flagstone floor with every other word as he demanded to know what had become of his mare. A string of profanity indicated what he was prepared to do with the thief when he caught up with him.

  Rutledge said, “Was—er—Honey the same size as these two?”

  “Of course she is! That’s her son, the darker one. And t’other is her daughter.”

  They hurried out of the barn, and searched the yard. But there was no sign of the horse, and it was too dark to be sure whether there were other footprints in the dust besides theirs.

  “Where would she go, if she got loose?” Rutledge asked.

  “She wouldn’t leave the barn.” Randal spoke with ill-concealed impatience, as if Rutledge were daft. “She’d never leave the barn, unless someone came in and took her.”

  “The dog,” Rutledge said. “Do you think he could track her?”

  “That old fool? He’s not worth a farthing! I keep him for his bark, not his common sense!”

  Randal was staring around the yard, fuming, as if expecting Honey to come toward them, head down sheepishly, to snuffle his robe for apples.

  But the mare was gone, and Rutledge thought the odds were very good that Walsh had taken her. The farm wasn’t, as the crow flew, all that far from Osterley and Holy Trinity.

  He turned to Hadley. “Where would he go? If he’d taken the horse?”

  Hadley shrugged heavy shoulders. “Through the meadow there, and the trees beyond. After that, who knows? He could travel some distance without being seen, if he kept his wits about him and didn’t stir up dogs.”

  “We’ll have to come back in the morning. We can’t follow him now. Not across the fields on foot.”

  But Randal was adamant that they go after the fugitive immediately. “Honey’s got a soft mouth, but he won’t know that, will he? Bastard’ll ride her until she drops, most like. I want her back, and I won’t wait for morning!”

  By Rutledge’s reckoning, Walsh had a head start of at least two hours. The first part of it on foot, as Hamish was pointing out, but with the horse under him now, he could have covered miles in any direction. South to Norwich?

  It was possible. . . . But Rutledge had the feeling that Walsh wouldn’t box himself in for long—he’d leave East Anglia as swiftly as possible, and lose himself in the crowded Midlands or the outskirts of London, Liverpool, Manchester.

  When Rutledge explained this to Randal, the farmer swore again, went stumping back into the barn, and began to saddle one of the remaining horses. Rutledge tried to persuade him to wait until dawn, but Tom Randal had made up his mind. He threw himself into the saddle with an agility that belied his years, and said with cold determination, “If I find him, I’ll get my horse back. If you wait until dawn, he’ll have ridden her into the ground, and she’d not be fit for anything but the knacker’s yard!”

  He brandished his staff at them as he touched his heel to the flank of the big gelding, and clicked his tongue. The horse, snorting, went placidly out the barn doors and trotted off toward the meadow. For all its bulk, it moved quietly on the thick sod.

  Hadley shook his head. “He’s always been an ornery old devil, Randal has. But he’s right. On horse he has a chance, and I can’t say I blame him.” Farmer understanding farmer. Ingrained for centuries, this caring for livestock was survival.

  “Walsh won’t let Randal anywhere near him. He’ll be tired, frightened—and dangerous.” Rutledge looked around the barn at the scythes and rakes and pitchforks hanging from pegs along the walls, and a barrow with a tumble of trowels, hammers, short-handled mallets, and other implements. “God knows what he’s armed with now. There’re enough tools here to fit out a small army!”

  “Randal’s no fool. He wants that mare back in the worst way, and he’ll be canny. And that staff of his is no mean advantage.” Hadley sighed. “We’d best tell Inspector Blevins what’s happened.”

  Blevins was pacing the floor at the station, trying to coordinate all aspects of the search, but clearly wishing himself out in the field. He looked up as Rutledge walked through the door.

  “You’re back soon enough. Anything?”

  Rutledge made his report, with Hadley’s commentary to support it.

  Blevins scowled. “The mare could be anywhere. And who’s to say that Walsh is on her? Still, precious little else has turned up.”

  He had an old map spread out across his desk and he bent to run his finger down the road toward Cley, stopping at the square marking the Randal farm, with its pastures and fields fanning out to the south. It backed up to a much larger holding, an expanse of pasturage that slanted toward East and West Sherham. Toward the Norwich Road, there was an unbroken chain of farms and estates, miles of what appeared to be fairly uninhabited land.

  A man on horseback could make good time, even in the dark, where only sheep would hear his passage.

  Rutledge leaned over the desk with Blevins, eyes scanning beyond the now-still finger. There was a maze of lanes and footpaths that led in every direction. They were like small streams draining a basin, converging at one or another village. People in Norfolk looked inland from the sea to market towns, where goods and produce could be sold, a more trustworthy livelihood than the shifting coastline in the north.

  Blevins was saying as his finger moved to draw a circle south of the farm, “I’ll get word to the villages in that district, tell them to be on the lookout for a Norfolk Gray carrying a large man. If the bastard’s ahead of us, better to let someone else cut him off. And we’ll get on with the search in the town.”

  Pointing to land that marched behind the Randal farm, Rutledge asked, “Who owns that property?”

  “It was the old Millingham estate. The present Lord Sedgwick’s father bought the lion’s share of it, and the Cullens and the Henleys own the rest. Good sheep country.”

  He turned to issue an order to the harassed schoolmaster standing behind him, filling in for the constables, and then went on to Rutledge, “If you’ll have a word with the Vicar, that we think our man is well away from here, he’d appreciate it. Hadley, I want you to join the searchers down the lane past Holy Trinity. I’ve yet to hear a word from them—tell them to send a report! The Inspector here can drive you as far as the vicarage. And, Rutledge, after you’ve spoken with Sims, go directly to Miss Connaught’s house, if you will. Hadley can give you the direction. She has a motorcar—see if you can persuade her to let us borrow it for the next few hours.”

  Rutled
ge said, “By stealing the mare, Walsh marked his direction. There’s still a possibility that he’ll double back, working his way west until he can find help.”

  “If I were in his shoes, I’d keep going, counting on the head start to see me safe.” Blevins’s eyes met Rutledge’s across the desk. Without words—without the need for words—the message was clear: Walsh wouldn’t have run, if he wasn’t guilty as hell!

  As far as Blevins was concerned, out of the night’s disaster had come one comforting certainty.

  As Rutledge followed Hadley back into the street, he found himself thinking about what Blevins had said—that Walsh would be counting on the miles between himself and Osterley to see him safe.

  Was that true? His mind reviewed the road system he’d scanned on the map. Walsh was no fool. He might well lay a false trail. He’d planned his escape, and while it was a matter of luck that he’d stumbled on Randal’s farm, where a horse could be taken without arousing the household or sending the dogs into frenzies of barking, there must be a dozen farms where the barn was far enough from the house to allow Walsh to break in.

  And the yellow dog must have been an unwitting accomplice, delighted to be set free and not questioning the manner of it.

  Sims was grateful for the news. He looked haggard. “I’m not afraid of Walsh,” he said, and oddly enough Rutledge believed him. “Although Blevins seems to think I was quaking in my shoes for fear I’d be the next victim! And I’m not convinced, somehow, that Walsh is guilty of murder.”

  “Why do you say that? Have you seen him, met him?”

  “No. Which is why I’ve kept my mouth shut. But I’ve had long nights to think about Father James and his death. It seems to me that Walsh took a chance coming back here weeks after the bazaar, expecting to find money at the rectory. Most churches live hand to mouth. It would have been easier to break into a house if he was desperate. Besides, if he was wandering about in the rectory the day of the fair, as Mrs. Wainer claims he was, he’d have seen for himself that there was very little to steal.”

  “He must have assumed,” Rutledge said, echoing Hamish in his head, “that no one would connect his presence at the fair with a theft a good two weeks later.” That was Blevins’s opinion. “Someone at the fair could have calculated, roughly, how much money had been taken in. And there was a last payment to be made on the new cart, before it would be handed over to Walsh.” He was playing devil’s advocate, to give Sims an opportunity to get to the bottom of what he wanted to say.

  Sims took a deep breath. “That’s a tidy assumption. On the other hand—was Walsh that clever? If so, you’ll play merry hell catching him now!”

  “Then who killed the priest?”

  There was a long silence. “I don’t know,” Sims finally answered. “But I have the oddest feeling sometimes. Of being watched. Our festival is in the spring. June. Why would anyone take an interest in the vicarage, if money was all they were after? Look around you—”

  Monsignor Holston had also had the feeling that he was watched. . . .

  Sims was saying, “You’re fairly certain, are you, that what I heard was Walsh chiseling off his shackles?”

  “Certain enough. We found the chains in the church. You identified the tools as yours, and the latch on the shed door was broken,” Rutledge reminded him. “It seems clear that Walsh came looking for a shed or outbuilding he could break into. And the church was a perfect place to hammer off the chains. No one lives close enough to hear the racket. Except perhaps for you.”

  “Yes, well, from what you say, he’s running now and not likely to hang about in Osterley.” He rubbed tired eyes. “All right, thanks. Tell Blevins if he needs me, I’m available. I won’t sleep anyway after all this excitement.”

  “I must be going. I’m to make sure Miss Connaught is safe. Blevins has been trying to see that all the people living alone are warned.”

  A wry smile crossed Sims’s face. “Yes, go by all means. I’ll be fine.”

  But as Rutledge walked out the door to the car, he heard the bolt shot home behind him.

  Hamish said, “Was the laughter real—or his imagination, yon Vicar?”

  Rutledge answered silently. “I don’t know. Shock can play strange games with the mind. On the other hand, it’s easy to hear what you expect to hear.”

  “Aye. Well. He heard something.”

  Priscilla Connaught lived in the house at the edge of the marshes, lonely and isolated, where the wind bent the trees and shrubs into Gothic shapes and the grasses rustled like whispers. The walk to the front door was dark, flowers leaning dry seed heads and wilting blossoms over the path. Rutledge could hear the seeds crunching underfoot. Out on the marshes, a bird called, low and forlorn, like a desolate soul looking for solace.

  Hamish said, “This is no’ a place for a woman alone!”

  But Rutledge thought that it must have appealed to Priscilla Connaught, who carried secrets with her and preferred to use her life as a weapon against a man she hated.

  He knocked loudly on the wooden panels, and then pitching his voice to carry, he called, “Miss Connaught? It’s Ian Rutledge. From Scotland Yard. Will you come down, please? I’d like to pass on a message.”

  A light came on in a window on the first floor, and he stepped back so that it would fall on his upturned face. A curtain twitched, and he could feel her eyes. Hat in hand, he stood there and said again, “It’s Ian Rutledge.”

  After a time another lamp was turned up, and another, tracing her progress through the house. The front door opened a crack. “What do you want?”

  There was something in her voice that struck him. A resistance, as if she was prepared to turn him away. He thought for an instant that there was someone else in the house with her, and then realized all at once that she was braced against his next words.

  He said, warily, “Inspector Blevins asked me to come and see that you were safe. Walsh has escaped, and we’re trying to make certain that he’s not still hiding in Osterley—”

  “Escaped? How? When?” Her surprise seemed genuine.

  “In the middle of the night. We’ve tracked him east of town, but it’s as well for you to be aware of the danger.”

  “But you said he’d killed the priest!” she cried. “How could you let him go?”

  “We didn’t offer him the key, Miss Connaught. He escaped.” Rutledge was tired, and in no mood to mince words. “Have you seen or heard anything—”

  She cut across his words, saying quickly, “I can’t stand here in the night air—I must go—”

  “Are you all right?” he asked again. “Would you like me to search the house, or the grounds, to be sure?”

  “I don’t care what you choose to search. Where did you say he was last seen, this man Walsh?”

  “We’ve found evidence that he was moving east of Osterley. Toward Cley, or possibly south in the direction of Norwich. There’s a horse missing from Tom Randal’s farm out on the east road. Inspector Blevins would be—”

  “Where is this farm, for God’s sake?” she demanded impatiently.

  He told her, adding, “Inspector Blevins has asked—”

  But she was gone, the door slamming shut in his face. He could hear her behind the door, a scream of outrage, as if Walsh’s escape had been designed to torment her. And then silence.

  He stood for a time on the walk in front of the house. He saw the lights turn off, and then the twitch of the curtain in what must be her bedroom. He turned, knowing that she must be watching, and walked back to the car. Winding the crank, he found himself debating with Hamish what to do.

  In the end, he drove off, then left his car down the road, out of sight in a bank of thick shrubbery. On foot, now, he had barely reached her road when he heard the sound of a motorcar coming from the direction of the marshes. There were no lights.

  Standing in deep shadow, he waited. The motorcar was small and there was only a driver to be seen, silhouetted against the clouds out to sea. A woman’s profile
, stiff beneath a cloche hat. He watched as she came to the intersection with the main road. Without hesitation she turned out into it, gunning the motor with angry force. The tires screeched in the grit of the road, and then the car was gone, speeding east—toward Cley.

  Rutledge thought, If she finds him before Blevins does, she’ll kill him if she can. For taking away her vengeance.

  Hamish answered, “Aye, she drives yon motorcar like a spear!”

  But there was little chance of her overtaking Walsh. She’d exhaust herself first, and go home. Still, it was his duty to stop her, bring her back to Osterley, and ask Mrs. Barnett to keep an eye on her.

  Time was running out, and time just now was very precious.

  “It’s a gamble, either way,” Hamish agreed. “If she runs afoul of Walsh, there’s trouble. For her and for you. If Blevins canna’ stop the Strong Man, and Walsh kills again while you’re distracted by this woman, it’s on your head.”

  It was a gamble.

  Rutledge made his choice. The most certain outcome of a night of turmoil was losing Walsh. Once the man was safely out of East Anglia, he had every prospect of staying free. He must have laid plans—

  Striding through the darkness back to his own car, Rutledge’s mind outpaced his feet. What would he himself do, in the Strong Man’s shoes? How would he use this one carefully crafted opportunity?

  Hamish answered, “Aye, it was well done, his escape. I canna’ believe he’d leave the rest to chance.”

  “No.”

  Walsh had apparently been a friendly and popular showman, whatever darker shades of his nature lurked beneath the smiling surface. The success of his act had depended on pleasing the public. “Step up, ladies, and test the Strong Man for yourselves. . . . See, here’s a bench, and all you have to do is seat yourselves at either end. . . . Don’t be afraid, you’re as safe as a babe in arms, I won’t drop you. . . . Who’ll wager a bob to see if the Strong Man can pull this carriage as well as any horse. . . . All right, lads, who among you wants to lift the Strong Man’s Iron Hammer. . . .”