The Black Ascot

by Charles Todd

  To Rutledge it sounded almost as if Blanche had been trying to convince herself that she was doing the right thing. And marriages of convenience had sometimes turned into love matches.

  Or was she afraid she could love one of the surviving three friends—Barrington, perhaps—too deeply to be “safe”?

  “Did she not know that he was suspected of bringing about Mark Thorne’s ruin?”

  “I don’t think she believed the rumors. Or perhaps he convinced her that they were untrue.”

  “Didn’t Strange and Barrington try to convince her not to marry Fletcher-Munro?”

  “They were Mark’s friends. I expect she thought they were biased against him. Or perhaps because they were Mark’s friends, she wanted to believe they preferred to see her remain a widow in his memory.”

  “Perhaps in time they believed she would choose one of them.”

  “There’s that. I met Alan only once. He took us to dinner. I liked him. He was such good company, and we enjoyed the evening immensely. Or perhaps I only wanted to believe Blanche enjoyed it as much as I did.”

  “And Strange?”

  “Yes, I met him as well. There were some papers to be signed regarding the sale of the house, and he brought them to her, rather than asking her to come to him. I liked him as well. But I liked Alan even more.”

  She had mentioned that twice now. As if she might have had an interest in knowing Barrington better, given the right circumstances. I liked Alan even more . . .

  “What was your opinion of Fletcher-Munro?”

  “He was older than Blanche by some years. I wondered if she found him more father than lover.” She set her own cup aside, and added, “I didn’t care for him, and I couldn’t say why. Later I was reminded of something. The story about David and Uriah, wasn’t it? Bathsheba’s husband? King David couldn’t have her, because she was faithful to her husband. And so he saw to it that her husband was removed.”

  Rutledge hid his surprise at her comments.

  “After the marriage, were they happy? Blanche and Fletcher-Munro?”

  “I don’t really know. She never wrote to me that winter. Nor was I asked to be in the wedding party.”

  He could sense the feeling of hurt behind that remark. Even after ten years. Jane Warden had been left out of one of the most important events of her best friend’s life. And the scar was still tender.

  “Why do you think she never wrote?” he asked, avoiding asking her about not being in the wedding party.

  She was staring into the fire, her thoughts far away. After a time, she answered softly, “I was the past. She put me away just as she had put Alan and Jonathan Strange away. Like worn-out toys, when a child outgrows the nursery.”

  He was silent, fearing that she was close to tears.

  Rousing herself, she looked at him and smiled. “I didn’t intend to tell you so much. I can’t imagine why I did.”

  “Because it helps to talk about her?”

  She sighed. “Yes, I expect that’s true. I wondered, you know. Did I actually wish her to stay a widow and grieve forever, as I’d chosen to do? Or did she think that was what was in my mind? The truth is I’d expected her to remarry in a few years, and have children and grandchildren. Not because she loved Mark any less than I’d loved Robin, but because that was somehow in her future. I don’t know why I felt that, but I did.” She added wryly, “Or perhaps no one else has come along in my life, to change my mind about being a spinster. That’s always possible, too.”

  She looked at the tea tray. “We haven’t touched the sandwiches. And we should, because Mrs. Davenport will be hurt if we send them back. Shall I ring for more hot water?”

  In the end they finished the sandwiches without sending for more water. As Jane Warden set the plate down, she said, “I think I’ve told you more about me than about Blanche. I’m so sorry. But you are such a marvelous listener, I forgot myself.”

  “On the contrary, you’ve helped me see Blanche very clearly. Except for the fact that neither of us knows how she really felt about her second husband, and if she ever changed her mind about his role in Mark Thorne’s death.”

  She was quick, he had to give her that.

  “Death. Not suicide? Have you really come here because you think Mark was murdered? I was never quite comfortable with that account of his walking off a cliff in the fog. He loved Blanche. I can’t imagine he wouldn’t try to find a way out, even if he’d lost everything. She still had her money. His friends would have offered loans. It was more cowardly than gallant, if he did kill himself. She would have lived in poverty if she could live with him. She loved him that much.”

  Rutledge countered, “Who had reason to kill Thorne?”

  “Barrington. Strange. Fletcher-Munro. They were all in love with her. Even I could see that while I was in London. You could also make a case that I wanted him dead, so that she would share my own mourning.”

  She was being ruthlessly honest, but he couldn’t quite see her shoving Mark Thorne over a cliff in the fog.

  “I do know how to drive a motorcar,” she added, thoughtfully. “I could have followed him to Sussex.”

  “I find that hard to accept as a possibility.”

  “You’re being kind. I could have done just that. I’ve even asked myself if she thought it might be true, and that’s why she cut me off so completely. But that’s self-pity. Whatever her reasons, she might have changed her mind in time, and written to me.”

  “It could be that Fletcher-Munro made a point of turning her against you. Have you thought of that?”

  Astonished, she stared at him. “That never occurred to me. Why would he do such a thing? I can’t imagine it.”

  “If he was determined to remove the last trace of Thorne from her mind and heart, you would have to go too. Along with the rest of her past.”

  Jane Warden shook her head. “That’s far-fetched. No, I can’t believe she would even consider marrying such a man. Not after Mark.”

  “She might have realized her mistake, if she’d lived. She might have seen the sort of man he was.”

  Constable Grant’s words came back to Rutledge. Forgive me, Mark. As she was dying . . .

  “No. She was too good a judge of character,” she said firmly, and changed the subject as she rose. “Now, I believe it’s time to dress for dinner. I’ve a slight headache, I think I’ll have mine in my room. Would you mind terribly dining alone?”

  “It’s been a long drive. I’d be happy to have my dinner in my room as well. Thank you.”

  She started to object, and then nodded. “I’ll just tell downstairs. If you can find your own way back upstairs?”

  Rutledge spent the evening making notes of his conversation with Miss Warden. She had been more helpful than she realized, until it was too late to take back her words. And she’d defended Blanche to the end.

  Consequently breakfast the next morning was rather a stilted affair. Jane Warden had come down shortly before he’d found his way into the dining room, for she had just begun to serve herself.

  “Good morning.”

  “Good morning, Inspector. I’ve asked the staff to put up a box lunch for you to take with you, and a Thermos of tea as well.”

  A polite dismissal.

  “Thank you. That’s very kind.” But when they had taken their plates from the sideboard to the long table, their voices all but echoing in a room designed for twenty people if not more, he said, “I still have questions about Blanche Fletcher-Munro that I can’t answer.”

  Jane Warden sighed. “I don’t know how I could make her any clearer?”

  “Could she drive, for instance?”

  “I don’t know. Yes, on second thought I expect she could. You aren’t thinking she killed Mark, are you?” She stopped as she was about to pour her tea, and stared angrily at him.

  “No. Just wondering how much she knew about motorcars.”

  She shook her head. “You’re an odd policeman, if I may say so.”

&nbs
p; “You won’t be the first to feel that way,” Rutledge answered, smiling. “No, one never knows which bit of information will be useful and which will not, only serving to muddle everything. And so, like a magpie, I collect all the bits I can, then see how they fit together. If they do, I have my answer.”

  “I’ve never asked. How did you come to know about me?”

  “Fletcher-Munro told me you knew his wife better than anyone.”

  “Did he, indeed,” she said, more of a remark than a question. “I wonder why.”

  “I have a feeling he was uncomfortable, talking to me about his wife. Or the memory was still too raw. It’s possible that he loved her far more than she loved him. But whether he realized that or not, I can’t say.” Watching her face, he could see that his reply had been too personal, as if he’d exposed more about the man’s grief than she was comfortable hearing. To lighten the mood, he added, “Whatever his reasons, he soon tired of my questions and gave me the name of a new victim to annoy.”

  She laughed, a pleasant laugh. “I don’t know whether to believe that or not.”

  Then, sobering again, she said, “I don’t know that Blanche was the mystery here.”

  “Nor do I. But she is the victim, and so the more I learn about her, the better, if I’m to speak for her.”

  “An odd way of putting it.”

  “The only question I have is, whether there is a second victim here—Mark himself. But I don’t know who to question about him. Strange told me a little, and the Inspector who handled the inquiry has been too ill to be helpful.” He didn’t feel free to tell her about Johnson’s injuries. Gibson had been defensive about that.

  “I can’t help you there. I knew him mostly through Blanche’s eyes. But if she loved him so deeply, he must have been the man she believed he was.” She sighed, toying with her food. “Then why didn’t he fight for her, for their marriage? I just can’t quite imagine him deserting her, leaving her not only to grieve for him but to cope with his financial woes and the stigma of his suicide. I thought about this after I went up last night, and it kept me awake for some time. You’ve unsettled me, Inspector Rutledge.”

  There was a cold wind blowing, rattling the windows. For some reason he couldn’t put his finger on, Rutledge was reluctant to leave. And Hamish had been silent since Rutledge had walked through the door of Dalemain House.

  Changing the subject—attempting to buy a few more minutes of conversation—he asked, “Tell me about the clinic here during the war. It was a long way to send wounded men. Were they that desperate for beds, or was it something else?”

  “Everyone was eager to do his or her part. And so the house was made available. Many of the patients were from here, men who might feel more at home in the north than in Oxford or Salisbury, because their families could visit them.” She appeared to be grateful for the change of subject. “We have a box of photographs. Would you care to see them? I’ll bring them in here, and we can spread them out across the table.”

  “Yes. I’d like that.”

  When she’d finished her breakfast, she excused herself and left the room. A few minutes later she came back with an elegant wooden box that might have held tea at some time in the past. It had a small brass key, brass feet, and a brass coat of arms in the center of the lid.

  She took out several photographs of men from the house who had joined the Yeomanry, standing straight and unsmiling as they posed in their uniforms. Then she added photographs that showed staff and invalids in front of the house. There were others of men in cots, or in chairs, smiling or making faces at the camera. A final handful with men taking tea on the lawn in fair weather, eerily reminiscent of prewar scenes except for the bandages.

  Rutledge had never been sent home to England to recover from his wounds. They had not been serious enough to warrant a Blighty ticket, and he was back in action again within a matter of days. Even his shell shock had never earned him more than a few hours of rest—hardly a cure. And so he studied the photographs with interest.

  “Did you lose many patients?” he asked.

  “We were lucky. And grateful. Most of them survived.” She pointed to one photograph. “This is Captain Morton. We kept watch one night at his side. It was touch and go. But he was still with us as dawn broke. I nearly cried with relief. He’s kept in touch with the house. A number of our patients have written to say they survived the war. Or that they’ve managed to live with their wounds.” She went on naming several other men, speaking fondly of them, as if her brief time with them had mattered to her. “My best memories are of the weeks I spent here. Of course there were other moments in other houses, but my heart was mostly here.” She added ruefully, “If my fiancé had lived, he’d have been in the war. That was the sort of man he was. And as I held the hands of wounded men or tried to cheer them up as they waited for surgery or worried about their families, I told myself I’d be so grateful if the man I loved had had caring people around him when he was in pain or dreaded the knife.”

  He picked up another stack of photographs and sifted through them.

  “These,” she went on, “were taken later in the war. I wasn’t here at the time, and so I don’t know the patients.”

  Rutledge was near the bottom of the stack when a face caught his attention. “Who is this?” he asked, pointing to a man in the background of one photograph.

  Jane Warden took the photograph from him, and frowned. “Was he a friend? I’m afraid I can’t tell you his name. This might have been a contingent from Newcastle. Or Yorkshire. We often stepped in when other houses were full up.”

  “You don’t know him?”

  “Sorry. No.”

  He said nothing and went on to the bottom of the stack, then thumbed through it again.

  But there wasn’t another one with that particular face in it. He made a point of looking carefully, without making it obvious. Even in that one photograph, the man appeared to have been caught quite unaware, looking not at the camera but at someone just out of range.

  When Rutledge came back to that one photograph after sifting through the last two stacks, he was certain.

  The man in the background looked enough like Alan Barrington to be his brother. Or Alan Barrington himself . . .

  Thinner, yes, dark circles of pain under his eyes, and the realities of war showing in the lines around his mouth.

  Rutledge had looked at his likeness often enough before leaving London that he recognized the man easily. But he couldn’t believe that he’d found him here, among the wounded. There had been no record of Barrington serving in the war.

  If it was Alan Barrington, why hadn’t Jane Warden recognized him?

  Hamish startled him by answering, his voice echoing in the long room. “She didna’ expect to see him in a photograph here.”

  Rutledge said as casually as he could, “This man. I swear I’ve seen him before. But his name escapes me. You can’t tell me anything about him? I didn’t know he’d been sent up here.”

  She said, “I have no idea. But let me ask Mrs. Jordan.” She went away and came back with the housekeeper. “Do you recall this patient, Mrs. Jordan? Mr. Rutledge here seems to think he knows him. But neither of us can come up with a name.”

  Mrs. Jordan stared intently at the face in the photograph. “That’s Lieutenant Darling, that one’s—let me see—Lieutenant Browning,” she said, identifying the men in the forefront, as if that would refresh her own memory. “And that’s Captain Austin. A lovely man, he was too. Recovered from his wound, went back to his regiment, and was killed not three weeks later. So this would be Lieutenant Maitland. Kept to himself a good bit. Quiet, like. Quite a reader. One of the orderlies told me he’d got a battlefield commission, and didn’t feel right here with all the regular officers.”

  “Maitland,” Rutledge mused, as if trying to recall. “What was his first name? His regiment?”

  “I don’t know his regiment. Well, I did, but I don’t remember it now. His first name was Clive, I thin
k. That’s it, Clive Maitland. Did you serve with him, sir?”

  “I must have done. Well, well.” He tried to keep the excitement rising in him from showing.

  Jane Warden began to collect the photographs and replace them in the box.

  “Did he return to his regiment? I can’t tell from that photograph what his injuries were.”

  “A leg wound. Slow to heal. But in the end, he went back to France,” the housekeeper told him.

  “Thank you for sharing these with me. I’m glad to have seen them,” he said, rising from his chair as Jane Warden prepared to put the box back wherever it had come from. And he was still certain she hadn’t recognized Barrington. Granted it had been a good many years since they’d met. He’d been younger then.

  But she had liked Barrington. Why then hadn’t she connected the two?

  He thanked the housekeeper again, then followed Miss Warden to the stairs. “I’ll just go up and fetch my valise,” he told her. “Thank you again, Miss Warden. For your hospitality and your help.”

  “My pleasure,” she said, but he knew she was wishing he hadn’t come to stir up the painful past. “I hope you find out the truth,” she added. “For Blanche’s sake. She shouldn’t have died so young. Neither of them should have. I must be off, I have other things to do. Someone will bring you the sandwiches and Thermos.”

  And she left him there. In the end it was the housekeeper who wished him a safe journey as he stepped out into biting cold.

  As he turned the crank he looked up at the lovely facade of the house. It had been a welcoming house. He found himself wishing he might have come there in different circumstances.

  The puzzle now, he realized, was how Clive Maitland—if he was indeed Alan Barrington—had got into the British Army without anyone the wiser.

  He could guess at the answer. In the first weeks after the war began, there had been a mad rush to join up. And with the situation in France deteriorating as the Germans had pushed through Belgium and were racing down the Marne, not too many questions had been asked. The Army needed men, and they needed them quickly, trained them as fast as they could, and sent them to France to hold the line. If Maitland had joined in the ranks, who would think twice about him?