by Charles Todd
“The priest kept working toward a solution to Virginia Sedgwick’s disappearance. The story about two priests at one deathbed was bound to get out, and someone began to worry. I don’t think Father James expected to be attacked. Perhaps his visit to Norwich was the last straw. Even the appearance of having confided in his fellow clergymen would have aroused unwelcome suspicion.”
“Aye, that’s possible. But it doesna’ signify! Truth is no more than what people want to believe.”
Rutledge answered, “Or what they fear.”
“And ye’re as gullible as any man. You canna’ face the question about yon Englishwoman’s guilt!”
“I haven’t forgotten May Trent. But if she killed Father James, there won’t be another victim. If it was one of the Sedgwicks, what’s to stop the murderer from biding his time until it’s safe to kill again? He may already be suspicious of Sims—Holston—or even Miss Trent. Where is my duty toward them?”
“Aye, duty, that’s all verra’ fine. Ye did your duty in France, too. And I’m dead for it!”
CHAPTER 26
FINISHING HIS MEAL AS QUICKLY AS he could, Rutledge paid his bill and then walked toward the hotel.
His fatigue had passed the need for sleep. As he had so many times at the Front, he’d ignored it and pushed his body and his mind to their limits—and then pushed both beyond that.
Retrieving his motorcar, he drove to the police station. There, he asked the sleepy constable on duty how to find two people, and left word for Blevins requesting that someone be sent around to speak to the old farmer in the morning.
The constable grimaced. “A year or two back, a lorry hit one of his piglets, out on the road. Odd place for a piglet to be wandering, you’d think, and the Inspector was of the opinion the sow had rolled over on it. But Randal swore it was a lorry. It was three months before we could satisfy him!”
“He has a better claim this time,” Rutledge warned, and left.
Dr. Stephenson lived on the main road, toward Hunstanton, in a well-kept three-story house that backed up to the marshes. Rutledge turned into the yard, where a gate led into the flint-walled garden with its flagstone walk up to the door. A black spaniel, waiting on the step to be let in again, greeted him effusively, trying to lick his hand. When the housekeeper answered the knocker’s dull thunk, the little dog darted past her crisp skirts and disappeared into the hall beyond.
The middle-aged woman, regarding Rutledge with unconcealed interest, as if his reputation had preceded him, warned him that he had interrupted the doctor at his dinner. Stephenson himself, coming out to speak to Rutledge, told him to make his call brief.
“It’s brief enough. Tom Randal was bruised in a fall from his horse. It might be best to find out if he’s more seriously hurt. I shouldn’t be surprised if he’ll be more grateful than he’ll care to admit. By tomorrow morning, he’ll be stiff as a board.”
“I’ve been trying to persuade him to hire a couple to cook for him and help with the farm. He may listen now, but he’s as independent and stubborn as they come.” Stephenson, his serviette in his hand, sighed. “All right, yes, as soon as I’ve finished my dinner. And I’ll take someone along who can stay the night and see that he has a decent breakfast in the morning. Was it Randal that Priscilla Connaught thought she’d killed?”
“I have every reason to believe it is. Tom Randal is damned lucky to be alive. She was in no state to think clearly about what she was trying to do.”
“And whose fault is that?” Hamish asked in condemnation.
Rutledge ignored his voice. “How is she?”
“I’ve kept her sedated. Mrs. Nutley is staying the night with her.”
“I’ll look in there on my way.”
“Do you have any idea how tired you are? You’re slurring your words, man, you ought to be in your bed. Or I’ll have a new patient on my hands!”
“Good advice. I’ll take it shortly.”
Rutledge said good night and strode down the dark path to the road. As he cranked the engine, his chest protested in fiery wires spreading deep.
Ignoring that, too, Rutledge drove next to Priscilla Connaught’s house. He was surprised to find that she was awake, drinking a mutton broth that Mrs. Nutley had made.
The nurse had explained to Rutledge on their way up the stairs, “An empty stomach sees nothing good. I always feed my patients before the next dose of medicines.”
Priscilla, wearing a very fetching lavender dressing gown, smiled at him as he walked through the door, but obediently drank most of the broth before saying, “You’re here to arrest me.” Her voice was matter-of-fact, but her expression bleak behind the smile. “I’d warned Mrs. Nutley the police would come for me soon.”
“No.” He pulled a chair to the bed and sat down, wondering if he’d be able to get out of it again. “The man you thought you killed is alive, though bruised and bloody. And furious. He must have gone through a hedge headfirst. Still, I’d accept that as very good news if I were you. Nor was it Walsh. Again, good news from your perspective.”
“Dear God!” She set the bowl on her tray and stared at him. “Oh, gentle God!”
“There’s nothing you can do about Mr. Randal tonight. Except to sleep and regain your good sense.”
She said faintly, “You look like a dead man yourself.”
“Yes, I rather feel like one.” He smiled. “Don’t you think it’s time you told me what lay between you and Father James?”
Biting her lip, she turned away. “I told you once before. It doesn’t have anything to do with his death. Only with mine.”
“What did he ask you to do? What ruined your life?” he pressed her.
It was unfair to force her in her present state—as Hamish was pointing out—but he was afraid that when she regained her strength, she would be more than a match for the police.
She glanced at Mrs. Nutley. “I’m half drunk with whatever it is she’s made me swallow. I can’t keep my mind clear!”
He could see it in the pupils of her eyes. Mrs. Nutley, her hands folded in her apron, was unruffled. “It’s only what the doctor instructed me to give her.”
“I understand.” To the patient he added, “Would you like Mrs. Nutley to leave the room? I’m sure she’ll be glad to give us a moment.”
“Yes. No.” Priscilla Connaught fell silent, closing her eyes against his inspection. And then unexpectedly she opened them and said in a despairing voice, “It was so long ago. Nobody cares, nobody remembers. Not anymore. But that doesn’t make the hurt go away!”
He could see the pain in her face, stripping away what was left of her youth, and turning her almost as he watched into a very different woman. “Do you know what loneliness is, Inspector?”
He answered quietly, “I’m afraid I do. It’s how I live.”
She embraced herself with her arms, drawing them across her chest as if they offered a measure of comfort, leaning into them as if desperate for human warmth. “I loved a very fine man. We were to be married. I was over the moon with joy.”
He knew what she meant. He’d watched the same joy wash over Jean when he’d asked her to marry him. On Saturday next she’d be married to someone else. He didn’t want to be in London then—
Priscilla Connaught’s voice startled him, stronger now and thick with grief. “And then one day Gerald came to me to say that he had had an—epiphany—of sorts. A revelation. I asked him what it was, and he said he had always been drawn to the Church, and now he knew that that was where he ought to be. It was what God wanted him to do. I told him if this was what he wanted, of course he should follow his vision. We could marry when he finished his studies. But he explained that he wanted to become a Catholic priest. There couldn’t be any marriage, now or later. He broke off our engagement.”
“And you blamed Father James for persuading him?”
She squeezed her eyes tightly to hold back the tears, as if on the back of the lids, the past was still vivid and clear. “He wasn’t a p
riest then. He was only John James. But he was Gerald’s best friend. I went to him and asked him to persuade Gerald not to do this. He told me the best thing I could do for Gerald if I loved him was to let him go. Let him enter the priesthood.”
The tears began to fall, but her eyes were shut still, closing Rutledge out. “So I let him go. I—I truly believed that once he had his way, once he’d embarked on his studies, he’d quickly discover that it wasn’t what he wanted after all. I was convinced that he loved me too much for this— this fancy—to last. I gave him my blessing and let him go !”
Rutledge waited in the bitter silence that followed, uncertain whether or not she had finished. He could imagine how she must have felt, abandoned for what—to a woman—seemed an inexplicable rejection of her and her love.
Finally she opened her eyes and looked across at him.
Her voice was shaking so much he wasn’t sure he heard her clearly. “In his last year before being ordained, Gerald killed himself. And neither God nor I had him, in the end. I couldn’t torment God. I tormented Father James instead. Gerald’s death lay at his door, and every time he looked at my face in his congregation, he was unable to forget how wrong he’d been, how he’d failed Gerald, and me—what, in his sanctimonious faith in his own judgment, he’d done to us. Just as I could never forget Gerald. . . .”
Rutledge waited by the bedside until the sedative Mrs. Nutley had given her sent Priscilla Connaught into the comforting oblivion of sleep.
“Keep an eye on her, will you?” he asked as they left the room.
“You can depend on me, Inspector.”
As he walked on down the stairs to the door, the older woman, following, said quietly, “In my experience, it helps sometimes to unburden the heart.”
But he wasn’t convinced that confession would do much for the sleeping figure he’d left in the darkened bedroom.
The only certainty was that Priscilla Connaught’s secret had had nothing to do with the priest’s death.
Frederick Gifford’s house was set well back from the road, just past the school. It stood in a small park of old trees that reminded Rutledge of the vicarage at Holy Trinity. Driving through the gates and up to the door, he could see that the house was gabled and probably very old.
The maid who admitted Rutledge left him in the parlor. From another part of the house he could hear people talking, as if Gifford had guests.
Gifford came in with apologies. “A week ago, I’d invited friends to dine with me. We decided not to let the upheavals of last night affect our plans. Though to tell you the truth, no one is in a festive mood! What brings you here at this hour of the night? Shouldn’t you be in your bed? You look like death walking, man!”
Rutledge laughed. “I’ve heard that enough to believe it. I won’t keep you long. I need to learn who arranged for Mrs. Baker—Herbert Baker’s ill wife—to have the treatment she required for her consumption. It’s rather important.”
Surprised by the request, Gifford smoothed the line of his beard with the back of his fingers. “I don’t know. That is, I never knew. Nor did Dr. Stephenson. A bank in Norwich sent me a letter instructing me that an anonymous benefactor had requested a sum of money be set aside for the care of one Margaret Baker, wife of Herbert, of this town. I was to use it to pay any medical bills, as required by her doctors, associated with her illness.”
“Mrs. Baker wasn’t particularly well-known. Her illness wasn’t uncommon. Why should she be singled out by a Norwich bank for such a generous gesture?”
Gifford frowned. “I have no idea. I didn’t ask. I saw no reason to. The papers were in order—and Mrs. Baker was seriously ill. Stephenson told me later that better care extended her life by several years.”
“But surely you must have guessed who was behind this generosity. Baker’s employer, for one.”
“The thought crossed my mind. But I didn’t pursue it. Stephenson does what he can on his own, and there are other people in Norfolk who support a variety of charitable activities. The King has been known to act anonymously. And he knew the Sedgwick family.”
“I can’t imagine how the King discovered that an obscure coachman’s wife, living quietly in Osterley, was in need.”
“No, no, the King doesn’t handle such matters himself; you misunderstand,” Gifford answered. “But he has deep roots in Norfolk and apparently feels strongly about them. The staff at Sandringham raised a troop of their own, during the War. He and the Queen took a keen interest in the men. It’s not impossible that someone in the Household brought the Bakers to the attention of the staff.”
“Yes, I understand. But in my view, they’d be far more likely to have a word with Lord Sedgwick rather than go to the trouble of making arrangements with a bank in Norwich. Is there any way that this—kindness—could be traced through the paperwork?”
“I doubt it. Bankers are worse than stones when it comes to divulging information. Immovable.”
Rutledge thanked him and left. Stones could be moved. If Scotland Yard wanted the information badly enough . . .
Hamish said, “Even if his lairdship paid for the sanitarium, it willna’ prove much.”
“It proves that a debt existed between Herbert Baker and the Sedgwick family. The sort of debt that Baker would have gone to great lengths to repay. As he lay dying, he told the Vicar that he feared he’d loved his wife too much. He could easily have confessed to Father James how he’d demonstrated that love.”
“Aye. But yon Trent woman—she has depths you canna’ plumb. I wouldna’ count her out of the running. You canna’ know for certain if she abandoned an elderly woman when the ship was sinking, to save hersel’. She’d ha’ killed Father James if he came too close to her secret.”
Only a few days ago, when Rutledge had seen the connection between Father James and the Watchers of Time, Observers of Deeds, he had remarked that there were no bodies and therefore no murders that the priest could have uncovered.
Now there were two. The woman whom May Trent had accompanied as a companion. And Virginia Sedgwick, who was—possibly—also lost in the sea.
“Or,” Hamish interjected into Rutledge’s thoughts, “buried here in these marshes. I havena’ seen more likely ground for disposing of a corpse!”
On the way back to the hotel, Rutledge spotted a solitary figure walking among the trees just back from the road. As the headlamps of his motorcar flashed across the pale, expressionless face, he recognized Peter Henderson.
He was about to stop and offer the man a lift, and then Mrs. Barnett’s words made him drive on. “I leave him alone now.” Peter Henderson still had his pride.
Rutledge was so tired his eyes were playing tricks on him as the motorcar’s headlamps picked out the turning for Water Street, and he came close to swerving into the wall of a house.
He had done all he could this night, and he wanted his bed.
But as he neared the hotel, another thought struck him: May Trent and Monsignor Holston were staying there, too, and if they were waiting for him in the lounge, it would be at least another hour—or more—before he could walk away from them.
He passed the hotel, drove along the quay, and turned toward the main road, considering even a pew in the church as a better alternative. There was something that May Trent had said about a blanket kept there for Peter Henderson. It would do. Soldiers were used to sleeping rough.
But as he went up Trinity Lane, Hamish pointed out another choice, one where his presence might be gratefully accepted. Gratefully enough that no questions would be asked.
The vicarage.
Rutledge had to fight the wheel to turn in through the vicarage gates, like a drunk whose reflexes were starting to fail. He drew up in front of the house, his hands shaking as he switched off the motor.
It was a minute or two before he could make it to the front door and lift the knocker.
After a long wait, the window above his head opened. The Vicar said, “Who is it?” in a flat voice.
&nbs
p; “Rutledge. I don’t want to go back to the hotel. But I need to sleep. If I keep you company tonight, will you trade me a bed and no conversation?”
There was laughter from over his head. Bitter and without humor.
“I haven’t slept myself. All right, I’ll let you in. Wait there.”
Sims was still fully clothed when he unlocked the door and opened it to Rutledge. He smelled of whiskey. “I’m beginning to think about posting a sign: Rooms For Let,” he said. “You look like hell.”
Rutledge took a deep breath, unsteady on his feet. “As do you.”
“Have you been drinking?” Sims asked suspiciously.
“No. I’m cold sober. Just—nearly at the end of my tether.”
Five minutes later Rutledge was deeply asleep in the bedroom that May Trent had occupied only twenty-four hours before.
Her scent still lingered in the room.
Rutledge awoke in the dark, startled by a figure walking close by the bed.
“Who is it?” he managed to ask coherently, after clearing his throat.
“Sims. It’s after nine. I brought hot water for shaving, a razor, and a clean shirt. Breakfast will be ready in fifteen minutes, if you’re hungry.”
“Thanks.” Rutledge lay there, an arm flung across his eyes, stunned by exhaustion, his mind working slowly. After several minutes he forced himself out of the bed and across the room to draw open the draperies.
It was pouring rain out of heavy black clouds, a sky that seemed to absorb all light. No wonder he’d thought it was still the middle of the night.
Hamish scolded, “There’s no’ any need for haste, if you’re no’ clear-headed.”
Rutledge went to the washstand and looked at his face in the mirror, shadowed by beard and the dreary light coming in the windows behind him. It was not a face he was particularly fond of. Lighting the lamp, he set about shaving and dressing.