The Black Ascot

by Charles Todd

  “Planning?”

  “It will be eleven years this June. We’re going to begin a monthly piece on the murder and the aftermath. And what might have happened to Barrington. Personally I think he’s at the bottom of that artificial lake on the estate. It was never dragged, as you well know. And the staff is so protective, there’s no way to get that far into the grounds. I’ve been honest with you, now it’s your turn. Book or newspaper?”

  Rutledge had seen the coldness of the woman who had given him the room and the unfriendliness of the man in the grounds of the estate. Over the years the village must have been hounded by the press. Besieged might be a better word.

  “I really have no idea what you’re talking about. What murder?” he asked as convincingly as he could.

  “You’re rude and a liar,” she told him, and left him standing there.

  After a moment he closed the door and lit the lamp against the dark night. He’d have liked more time here to talk to the people who had known Barrington best. But he could see that it wasn’t going to work. Under such circumstances, any questions would rouse immediate suspicion. What’s more, the last thing he wanted at this stage of his own inquiries was for the press to get even the slightest inkling that the Yard was looking into Barrington’s past or had an interest in his present whereabouts.

  The question was, who had searched his room? The woman from the newspaper or the woman from the inn?

  There had been nothing to find. His identification was in his pocket and so was his notebook. Was that why the woman had confronted him, because she’d been frustrated, searching his valise?

  Whatever she’d done, she had put paid to his coming here. He glanced at the door. The woman had expected him to know who she was. But he really had no idea.

  He was the only one down at breakfast the next morning. It was just after seven, and the smell of bacon cooking made him realize how hungry he was.

  The same woman who had shown him his room also served him, and he tried to engage her in conversation, but she wasn’t forthcoming.

  Changing tactics, he said, “The Melton Oak on the sign outside. What is it?”

  “The coat of arms of the Melton family.”

  “The family living at the Hall?”

  “The Meltons lived there until the early eighteen hundreds,” she told him grudgingly. “The last of them died at Waterloo. And the house was sold off.”

  “Who lives there now?”

  “The family that bought it in 1850. If there’s nothing else you need?” Without waiting for an answer, she walked away. It was clear enough that questions were not welcomed.

  He paid for his lodging as soon as he’d finished his tea, and left shortly thereafter. As he was pulling out of the inn yard, he glanced up and saw the red-haired woman standing in the inn doorway watching him go. Her expression was smug.

  He felt like swearing. If newspaper articles began to appear about the case, he would lose any chance he might have had to find Barrington. His quarry would leave or go to ground again. If he hadn’t already.

  There was the man with the shotgun . . .

  Was he patrolling because of the woman? Or was Barrington already there?

  If he had come home after landing in Holyhead, would the village protect him? The staff might be loyal, but could he really count on everyone else? A man charged with murder?

  Hamish said, “Ye ken, if he did appear, there’s the end o’ the mystery. And the hunt would commence again.”

  With a vengeance.

  Hardly a promising beginning, Rutledge thought as he drove past the smithy at the end of the village and found himself in the countryside once more. There, out of sight, he pulled over. Was it worth making a midnight foray to the estate grounds?

  To look for what? The pond where Barrington might have drowned himself?

  The body would have floated in a week or so. Unless it was well anchored to stay at the bottom.

  For the first time, Rutledge considered a completely different theory.

  If Barrington hadn’t escaped, hadn’t killed himself in a fit of guilt—had someone killed him? To be absolutely certain he wasn’t found and tried?

  As long as Barrington was missing, no matter if the inquiry was open or closed, he was still a murderer in the eyes of the world . . . Not just a murderer. The murderer of Blanche Fletcher-Munro.

  And neither the police nor the newspapers would look at anyone else.

  He had no choice but to rule out the pond while he was there.

  Rutledge pulled onto the rutted country lane that passed for a road and drove on until he was a dozen miles from the village. There he found a room for the night.

  After his lunch, he went back upstairs and tried to sleep, so that he’d be rested for what he was about to do. Instead, he lay staring at the ceiling, listening to Hamish in the back of his mind, relentless and wearing.

  When it was fully dark, he went down for his dinner, and stopped in the kitchen afterward to ask if there was any bootblack to polish his shoes. Armed with that, and a ham bone he begged for the dog of the friend he’d be visiting, he returned to his room and took a heavy black jumper and a pair of dark trousers from his valise.

  An hour later, he put on his greatcoat and went down to his motorcar.

  There were Wellingtons in the boot, and he pulled them on before turning to deal with the crank. Driving back toward Melton Rush, he searched for a place to leave his motorcar. There were two choices, the one nearest the village was the better of the two, but he decided on the more distant one, a farm lane that wended its way the better part of a quarter of a mile before the farmhouse came into view. It was dark, and no dogs barked when he explored.

  Back at his motorcar, he drove it far enough up the lane to be invisible from the road. Taking off his greatcoat, he smeared the bootblack on his face, thinking as he worked that if he were caught, Jameson would disown him. His field glasses were already around his neck. Then stowing his compass in a pocket and keeping his torch in his right hand, the ham bone in the left, he began to walk.

  He’d always had a good sense of direction, and he carried his wartime compass in the motorcar. Between the two, he thought he could find his way.

  It was cold. The clouds had moved on and the night sky was brilliant with stars. But the moon hadn’t risen, and he was grateful for that. After a while, walking warmed him, and his night vision was now working. He could see houses and outbuildings silhouetted against the stars well before he came near enough to rouse animals or people.

  As a Lieutenant he’d been on more night reconnaissances than he cared to remember. Hamish had possessed remarkably acute hearing, and Rutledge had as a rule chosen him to accompany him. They had made a good team and between them had often narrowly escaped detection.

  His skills were as sharp as ever. Avoiding tenant farms, making certain that he kept to the edges of fields where he’d leave no footprints in the winter-damp earth, he paused often to survey his surroundings for any threats.

  Finally he glimpsed the great mass of the Barrington house rising to his right, and he stopped. Using his field glasses now, he scanned the terraced front. There was no sign of life, but windows looked out over the lawns, and some men were light sleepers. Or kept a dog by their beds.

  To his left, at the foot of the lawns, there was a small gazebo, reminding him sharply of the one in which he’d proposed to Jean in the golden summer of 1914. Refusing to let that memory distract him, he continued his sweep and saw the faint sheen of starlight on water.

  He’d found the pond. Only, judging from the expanse of it, this was an artificial lake, whatever the world might call it.

  He moved on with great care.

  The edges of the lake were ringed with winter-killed reeds, their long white leaves gleaming in the dark. Among them here and there were young trees, as if the lake hadn’t been kept up with the rest of the lawns and gardens. Circling it, using the growth to shield him from the house, he found a small doc
k jutting out into the water, and a boat tied to it. Both appeared to be unused.

  And that reawakened the possibility that Barrington’s body lay in the deeper stretches. It would explain why the lake had been allowed to go to seed. He walked on, until he was well hidden from the house. Then he stepped closer to the water, feeling at his feet for a stone, and found one. Tossing it out into the center of the lake, he listened to the sound as it hit the water.

  It had a heavier klunk! and he took that to mean there was considerable depth here. For boating, for swimming—

  He heard a soft cry, and dropping down behind the nearest clump of reeds, he parted them just enough to peer between them toward the dock. A figure had appeared, slim in trousers and a short coat, hat pulled low. But the figure didn’t act like a man.

  Watching, it didn’t take long before he realized who it was. That blasted newspaper woman, standing on the weathered wood, struggling with something. He thought she must have come upon the dock shortly after he’d left it, and was finally venturing out on it to look more closely at the boat when his stone hit the water. That had startled her enough that she had made a misstep and evidently caught her heel.

  She was still struggling with it when he heard the distant barking of a dog.

  Swearing, he debated going to her rescue, then decided against it. She would take his presence to mean that she was on the right track, searching for Barrington. And he hoped the household would be kinder to a woman than to two trespassers . . .

  A door slammed. He swiveled so he could look toward the terrace. A dog was just racing across it, leaping down the stone steps to the lawns, and moving fast toward the lake, barking madly.

  Rutledge stayed where he was.

  The door opened again and a man came running out after the dog. He was wearing a heavy coat and had his shotgun in the crook of his arm.

  The dog was nearly to the dock. The woman had managed to free her foot and was looking around wildly for somewhere to hide. As a last resort, she reached down, pulled on the rope, and brought the boat closer. Then, sending it perilously tilting, she got in it and cast off, frantically pushing away just as the dog came into view.

  She hunched down into the well of the boat, making it hard for anyone to identify her, but the dog stood at the edge of the dock, barking ferociously.

  By that time the man had nearly caught up. He came around the curve of the lake, his shotgun ready to be lifted to his shoulder, but as he saw what was happening, he swore impotently, demanding that the intruder identify himself.

  The boat was drifting toward the center of the lake, well out of reach of man or dog. Rutledge could just see white-knuckled fingers clenched on the side of the little craft. And there was only one boat. The man on the dock couldn’t come after her.

  Instead, he lifted his shotgun and fired, the pellets dancing madly across the water as they fell. He’d aimed just short of the boat, but Rutledge saw the woman flinch, rocking it wildly.

  The next shot went well to one side of the boat. By now the man had rid himself of the frustration of losing the intruder on the lake. He stood on the dock, clearly angry and beside himself, but no longer murderous.

  Rutledge kept as still as he could, sinking the ham bone into the mud at his feet before the dog caught wind of it.

  The impasse lasted over an hour. And then the man called off the dog and went back to the house. But he didn’t go inside. He was standing on the terrace, watching the lake and waiting.

  The woman in the boat shifted her cramped position but stayed low. Rutledge thought he could hear her weeping, whether from fear or anger he couldn’t tell.

  But as long as she was there, he couldn’t move either. The water was too cold to try to swim for it, and Rutledge couldn’t be sure there were oars in the little craft. If she couldn’t escape until sunup, there would be men from the tenant farms swarming over the lake, possibly bringing another boat as well.

  The boat was drifting, at first toward his position, then farther along the shoreline where there was a particularly heavy patch of reeds and a willow hanging low over the water. There was no current, but a wind had come up, gently pushing the boat forward.

  In an hour it had touched the thick reeds, disturbing some kind of bird or animal, which shook the reeds in its haste to get away. He heard a muffled cry of alarm. Then the woman looked up, her white face clearly visible in the ambient light, and she reached out to the bare overhanging branches, pulling herself and her boat deeper into the reeds. It must have been shallow there, with clumps of waterlogged grasses growing in a kind of mire.

  She waited, watching the terrace. The man went inside, finally. She didn’t hesitate, scrambling over the side of the boat, using the willow branches to keep her from sinking into the mud. Then, floundering wildly, she somehow got herself to dry land.

  He could just see her figure now. Her hair had tumbled down, heavy with lake water and clinging around her shoulders.

  Without stopping to think where to go, she ran straight back the way she must have come in, not circling the lake but toward a shallow stand of trees in the distance. Rutledge wasn’t sure she would make it to their shelter before the man and his dog appeared again, but fear lent speed to her heels, and she had just flung herself against a tree when the terrace door swung open again.

  The man came out, a mug in one hand, field glasses in the other. The dog, head up and alert, was at his heels.

  Not seeing the boat at first, he carefully scanned the edge of the lake with his glasses, pausing briefly where Rutledge was crouching, then moving on. Spotting the boat, he moved across the terrace until he could see it more clearly. He studied it intently, moved again, then steadied the glasses once more. Putting down the mug, he set off toward the lake, the dog just ahead of him. It was heading toward the dock, but he called it off, and pointed in the direction of the willow.

  Rutledge froze.

  But the man was single-minded. He made for the willow and the boat, reaching them and flinging himself into the shallows to reach for the rope and loop the end over a branch. The dog was circling beside him, then picked up the woman’s scent.

  “Go on, go,” he shouted to the dog, and went after him at a trot in the direction the woman had taken.

  Rutledge waited until the pair were halfway to the wood. His legs and feet were stiff from crouching, but he set out running, bent low, in the opposite direction. He’d carried the ham bone with him, muddy as it was, and he was around the long end of the lake before man and dog had reached the wood.

  Ahead was an allée of evergreens, where the household could walk out of the wind on cold days. He made for that, and reached it without being seen. Pausing for breath, he looked back. The man was nearly through the wood, the dog still on the scent.

  Rutledge turned. The evergreens led to a long arbor of heavy branches, chain tree or the like, bare and twisted, meeting over the top. He ran down that and could see more gardens and beyond them, the corner of the house and ahead, the drive.

  He felt no compunction about leaving the woman. No harm would come to her, although the local Constable might be called in.

  No sooner had the thought occurred to him, than Hamish said, “’Ware!”

  And Rutledge knew then why the man had gone inside earlier. He dodged into the heavy shape of a rhododendron as two bicycles came up the drive at speed. One of the cyclists was wearing the helmet of a Constable, the other the flat cap of a servant.

  He stayed where he was until he’d judged they were either at the main door or already making their way around the house to the lake. Which was, surely, the quickest way to get there.

  And then in the distance he heard the shotgun again.

  He debated. But he had no official position here, and the Constable was on his way. Better to let affairs run their course.

  Taking a deep breath, he started down the drive toward the gates, and walked steadily, keeping to the shadows when he could, until he was out of the village of Melto
n Rush and well on his way to his motorcar. There he tossed the ham bone away for the local fox and was soon back where he’d started.

  Examining the motorcar, he could see that it hadn’t been tampered with in any way. He found a handkerchief in one of the seat pockets and scrubbed the shoe black off his face. Soap and hot water would do more, but he could hardly walk back into the inn looking like the Black Death.

  In his room once more, he took his time scrubbing at his face until it was reasonably clean, but his beard got in the way, and he finally shaved before finishing the work.

  The lake was large enough and probably deep enough for a man to drown. But it would take a team of men to dive down and be certain.

  As he stripped off his damp clothes and got ready for bed, he wondered how the newspaper woman had fared. But he couldn’t risk going back to Melton Rush to find out.

  In the morning over a late breakfast, Rutledge considered what he knew about the estate in Melton Rush, and the others that Alan Barrington owned.

  Who dealt with them? Kept buildings in good repair, saw to the wages of the staff and collected the rents of the tenants, made critical decisions about the properties and the man’s personal finances? Such matters couldn’t be left to chance, in the hope that the owner would eventually reappear. Not for ten years.

  As a rule, the steward handled the day-to-day management for owners. If the owner was away, the tenants and the villagers would turn to him for help or advice. But he didn’t have the authority to do more. It would be a firm of solicitors who stepped in to oversee properties and income for an owner who was traveling or even at war. Much less on the run from the police.

  Hamish said, “London, then.”

  Rutledge debated. The shortest way was to reverse and pass through the village again. But after last night, that would create comment, arouse suspicion. Better the longer way.

  The name of the firm handling Barrington’s affairs had been in the papers he’d brought home from the Yard. And even more importantly, in the notebook he carried with him.

  Back in London, Rutledge found Broadhurst, Broadhurst, and Strange in the City, on a side street not far from the Inns of Court. He stopped in front of a handsome three-story building that spoke of Empire, a baroque gem between two staid brick edifices that spoke of Understated Wealth.