“It would,” the doctor said. “As you can see by these papers and such, it did.”
“But not on the man with the weapon?”
“Of course on the man with the weapon. Him more than anything else. He could hardly—”
“But there was no blood on Rushford,” the chief inspector said. “Not on his hands. Not on his shirtfront.”
“Exactly.” Drew pointed to the letter opener. “I was wondering why this struck me as odd, and now I think I know. Suppose Rushford and Mason were standing here arguing, and then Mason picks up the letter opener and the two of them grapple for it. Now suppose Rushford gets the upper hand and stabs Mason. He is a good six inches shorter than my stepfather. I would think any wound to a taller man’s throat would come from below, but look at this.”
The inspector and the doctor both squinted and leaned closer.
“It’s straight on or even downward a bit,” the inspector said, “as if he was already sitting down when it happened.”
The doctor nodded. “Which would explain the, um . . .” The doctor glanced at something over Drew’s shoulder. “Ah, the way it, um . . .”
Drew turned and saw Madeline peering into the window.
“Pardon me, Dr. Wallace.” Drew went to the window and opened it. “What are you doing? You promised me you would go up to your room.”
“I didn’t promise I wouldn’t come down again.”
Her face was tear-stained, but her eyes were clear, and her mouth was set in a firm line that would brook no denial.
“Madeline, darling—”
“Somebody’s been out here.” She looked down at the freshly turned dirt of the flower bed that followed the exterior wall. There was one distinct footprint and part of another leading away from the window.
Birdsong was immediately at the window. “You’re right about that, miss.”
“Don’t disturb anything,” Drew said.
Madeline’s eyes flashed. “I’m not that dumb.”
“Darling, please . . .”
“Stay right there, miss, if you will,” Birdsong said, and then he called one of his men from the hallway. “Go round and bring the young lady in, and then send some of the lads out to search the woods. Mind the footmarks out there.”
“Right away, sir.” The constable touched the brim of his hat and disappeared.
“I’d let you in this way,” Drew told Madeline, “but you can’t get over here except through the flower bed.”
“Someone was in there when Uncle Mason was killed. Someone besides Mr. Rushford.”
“If you’ll come with me, please, miss,” the constable said, and with another touch of his fingers to the brim of his hat he took Madeline’s arm.
“Bring her in here, Davies,” Birdsong ordered, and with a reproachful look at Drew, Madeline accompanied the constable back into the house.
“She’s right, you know,” Birdsong said. “Someone else was in here. But if that’s true, why didn’t Rushford say so?”
Drew nodded. “It does seem as if the blow came when he was already sitting down. From above and maybe a bit from the side, as if the blow came from behind him.”
“Which is why the blood spattered on the papers and not on Rushford.” Birdsong turned to Constable Davies, who had just returned from outside. “Post a man outside Mr. Rushford’s door, Davies. And one below his window.”
“Right away, sir.”
Drew eyed the chief inspector. “You don’t think Mr. Rushford . . .”
“No, no.” Birdsong thought for a second. “Good heavens, no. The man’s scared out of his wits. If Lincoln is still alive and someone is in it with him, it would have to be a cooler customer than our Mr. Rushford. He’d have fallen apart the first time Applegate questioned him.”
“But the evidence . . .” Drew shook his head.
Birdsong remained unruffled. “We’ll just have to go up and have a bit of a chat with the gentleman.”
“I told you what happened. I told you!” Mr. Rushford pulled his bedcovers up to his sagging chin.
“It won’t do, sir,” Drew said. “We know it didn’t happen as you said. You may as well come clean.”
“I tell you, I killed him. I wish I could say it happened some other way, but there it is. I killed him. I killed him! Oh, can’t you give me a moment’s peace?”
Birdsong eyed him coolly. “Certainly, sir. As soon as you tell us what really happened in there.”
“Who else was in the room, sir?” Drew pressed.
“No one. There was no one. Why would I make up such a ghastly story? Why would I tell you I’d been forced to . . . to . . .” Rushford groaned and covered his face with his hands. “I don’t know anything about investigations. I can only tell you what happened when I was there. If someone was in there before I came, how could I know that?”
Birdsong tapped the cover of his notebook with the little stub of a pencil he carried. “You say you struggled for the letter opener—the knife—and you eventually stabbed him to defend yourself. Is that right, sir?”
“Yes, yes. How many times must I say it?”
“There was a considerable amount of blood, sir. On the body and on the papers on the desk and the floor. Why was there none on you?”
Rushford looked panic-stricken. “I . . . I don’t know. I tell you I just can’t remember what happened after I killed him. Not until I was already in the parlor. I don’t know.”
“Excuse, please.” Min bowed to the chief inspector. “I wash Mr. Rushford’s hands after they call for me. They have very much blood on them.”
“I see.” Birdsong was clearly unconvinced. “Was that the palms of his hands or the backs of them? Or both?”
Min thought for a moment. “Palms of hands, sir. Very much blood.”
“But not the backs of his hands?”
“No, sir.”
Drew looked around the room. “Do you still have the shirt and coat he was wearing, Min?”
Min bowed. “I will bring them.”
When Min returned with the garments in question, Drew spread them over the bed, across Rushford’s knees.
“Have you cleaned these, Min?”
“No, sir. I have not yet had opportunity.”
Drew brushed his fingers over the brown stains on the front of the shirt. “Here is where you spilled your tea a bit ago, isn’t it, sir?”
Rushford gnawed his lower lip but said nothing.
Drew continued examining the garments. “Are you right-handed, sir, or left?”
“Right,” Rushford breathed. “I’m right-handed.”
“Hmmm.” Drew looked over the right sleeve of the shirt and then the right sleeve of the coat, and then he leaned down, searching Rushford’s face. “How is it that there is no blood on your sleeve, sir?”
Rushford burst into tears. “He’ll kill me. God help me, he’ll kill me if I say a word.”
“Who, sir?”
“No, no, no.” The old man shook his head and pressed both hands hard over his lips.
Drew took hold of his wrists. “Was it Lincoln?”
Rushford shook his head, making muffled wailing noises down deep in his throat, and Drew shook him a bit harder than he meant to.
“Tell me, was it Lincoln?”
The chief inspector put his hand on Drew’s shoulder, pulling him back. “Let me see to this.”
Drew immediately released his grip and paced to the other side of the room. “Sorry.”
“Now, Mr. Rushford . . .” Birdsong gently moved the old man’s hands away from his mouth. “You’ll have to tell us, sir, whatever it is. You needn’t be afraid. We’ll have officers looking after you round the clock if need be.”
Rushford’s lip quivered, but he nodded and seemed a bit calmer.
“That’s better,” Birdsong said. “Now, tell us what happened this afternoon in Mr. Parker’s study.”
Rushford pulled up a corner of his sheet and used it to wipe his face. Min handed him a clean handkerchief.
>
“I . . . I went to talk to Parker, just as I said I had. I knew he was in this whole plot from the beginning, and I told him so. At first, he acted as if he didn’t know what I was talking about. I told him what proof I had and that I was going to the police. He said he wouldn’t let me do that.” Rushford looked up at Birdsong and then at Drew, his red-rimmed eyes filling again with tears. “It was Lincoln. He had been behind the drapes there in the corner of the study all along. Before I knew what was happening, he came up behind Parker in his chair there and stabbed him with that knife. Stabbed him right in the throat!”
“Steady on, sir,” Birdsong soothed.
Rushford managed to compose himself again. “I suppose he’d grabbed the knife off the desk before Parker came into the study in the first place, in case someone found him hiding there.”
Drew frowned. “But why would he—?”
“Let him tell it, Mr. Farthering,” Birdsong said.
Drew sagged down into the overstuffed chair in the corner of the room, suddenly remembering how he had sat there the night Constance was murdered, wishing he could bury his face in his arms and cry. He’d have to tell Denny to remove this chair when this was all over.
“What happened after Lincoln stabbed Parker?” Birdsong asked.
“He told me I had better do just as he said or he’d give me the same as he gave Parker. He said he didn’t want Parker around anymore. He didn’t want to have to share what they’d taken. He said he’d been wanting to kill him anyway, and my showing up gave him the perfect way out. He said I was to tell the police I’d killed Parker in self-defense.”
“I see.”
“He said you’d believe me, Inspector, because I’d have nothing to gain by lying about it. He’d already made me tell you I was mistaken about hearing his voice that night at the office. He said if I convinced you it was Parker who’d done everything, then you’d stop looking for him. And if I didn’t, he said he’d find me, wherever I was, and kill me, but not as quickly as he had Parker. Then he made me . . .” Rushford’s face turned a sickly shade of green, and Birdsong took his arm.
“Made you what, Mr. Rushford?”
“He . . . he made me put my hands in the blood.”
Birdsong gave him another moment to compose himself. “Then what did he do, sir?”
“We heard Dennison at the study door, so Lincoln went out the window and across the lawn. Into the woods, I suppose. I think I may have fainted then in earnest.” Rushford wiped his face again. “I was so terrified, I was sure my heart would give out on me right there.”
“Perhaps you should bring Mr. Rushford some brandy, Min,” Drew suggested.
Min bowed and left the room.
Rushford let out a breath and then dredged up the tiniest of smiles. “You’ve been too kind, Chief Inspector. Really too kind. I know I should have come to you from the very first, when that mountebank said he wanted to be paid off to keep quiet about my taking that money from the company back in ’22. It would have stopped all this from happening if I’d just stood up to him then.”
“It’s hard to say,” Birdsong said. “It’s been my experience that some men are just dead set on doing wrong. Thwart them one way and they’ll try another.”
Rushford’s brittle smile faded. “He will get me in time, won’t he?”
“Don’t you worry yourself, sir. My men are searching the grounds and the woods for him. He can’t hide himself forever.”
“Did he say where he’d been all this while?” Drew asked.
“No.” Rushford’s lip quivered. “There wasn’t time. It all happened so quickly. He’d killed Parker, Dennison was at the door . . .” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Maybe Parker had been hiding him, but I don’t know how.”
“We’ve searched Farthering Place more than once,” Drew said. “Though I suppose an accomplice might be able to pull it off with a bit of sleight of hand.”
“Never you mind that,” Birdsong said. “We’ll have the dogs on him now that we know he’s out there. You just rest easy, Mr. Rushford. My men will find him.”
Min returned with a snifter of brandy, and Rushford downed it with a little gasp. “It does sting a bit,” he admitted with an apologetic smile. “Thank you, Inspector. I shall try as best I can to put all this from my mind. Oh dear, I shall never sleep again.”
“Try to relax,” Drew said, yet it seemed the brandy was helping already. Mr. Rushford was already looking groggy as his head sagged back onto the pillows.
Min went to the open door and bowed. “If gentlemen will please excuse . . .”
“Quite right.” Drew stepped into the hallway. “Inspector, I believe we have some dogs to see to.”
“Nothing, sir.”
The young police constable stood stiffly before the chief inspector, his face blank.
“What do you mean, ‘nothing’?” Birdsong demanded.
“I’m sorry, sir, but the dogs aren’t picking up anything.”
A pair of chocolate-and-white springer spaniels sniffed around at his feet.
“What did you give them?”
“Lincoln’s trousers, sir.”
“Which ones?” Drew asked.
The constable held up a pair of white flannel trousers. “These, sir.”
“Those are the ones he wore the morning before the party, aren’t they?” Birdsong asked.
“As best I remember, yes.” Drew looked them over. “Are these the only white flannels in his kit?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I expect they’re the ones, then. What about the mysterious shoes we found in the library?”
“We tried those, as well. The dogs get nothing from them. They’re either new or they’ve been carefully cleaned.”
“What sort of dogs are these, Inspector?” Drew asked, scowling at the animals.
“What do you mean?”
“They look a bit seedy, if you ask me.”
Birdsong drew himself up. “Maisie and Ranger have been on the force three years now. If they can’t find Lincoln, he’s just not there.”
“No offense meant, Inspector,” Drew hurried to explain, and then he bent down and touched the brim of his hat. “No offense, Maisie. Ranger.”
Ranger merely looked at him with large, sad eyes. Maisie scratched herself under the chin, not even acknowledging his apology.
Drew looked at the inspector. “So, shouldn’t they be out there? Finding?”
Birdsong muttered something to himself, then turned back to his constable. “Why aren’t they in the wood by now?”
“I’m sorry, sir. We had them there, but they didn’t pick up the scent. We brought them up here to see if they could get it from the footprints in the flower bed, but they still haven’t picked up anything.”
Birdsong took the trousers from him and held them down to the dogs, who eagerly sniffed them. “All right, Ranger, Maisie girl, find him. Go on. Find him.”
Both dogs snuffled around on the ground for a while, in the flower bed and across the lawn in the direction of the forest, but soon they came back and sat at the constable’s feet.
“You don’t think he’s tried to mask his scent, do you?” Drew asked. “I mean, with pepper or some such?”
“It doesn’t seem so, sir,” the constable replied. “Doesn’t seem like anything’s been disturbed apart from the prints in the flower bed there. I understand your gardener had turned it recently?”
“That’s right.”
“And you can see where our suspect carried a bit of the fresh dirt out to the grass here, but that’s where we lose him.”
Drew nodded. “Could he have gone back into the house?”
“That would be rather daft of him, wouldn’t it, sir?”
“Yes, but if he’s been hiding there all along, perhaps it wouldn’t be so daft. After all, where would be the last place you’d look for him?”
“Come on,” Birdsong told his constable. “Bring the dogs.”
But a search of the house, from la
rder to lumber room, turned up nothing. They even searched poor Mr. Rushford’s room. He was lying on the bed still, but had pushed all the bedclothes off himself, shoving them all to the side of the bed against the wall, cowering against them when the police came into the room, fretting and muttering to himself until, their search done even as far as the underside of the bed, they left.
By the time it was all over, the police photographers had finished with the study, and Dr. Wallace had taken Mason’s body away. Tessa, who did most of the heavy work around Farthering Place, was on her hands and knees, trying to scrub the dark stains out of the carpet in the study. It would have to be replaced.
Drew didn’t know if he’d ever be comfortable in this room again. Someday, perhaps, he would be able to look across that desk and not see Mason sprawled in the chair with that evil blade driven into his throat. Someday.
Madeline had at last gone to her room to lie down. He’d wanted to comfort her, to be comforted by her, but he couldn’t afford that luxury just yet. Not with a murderer still on the loose. Besides, if he stayed with Birdsong and helped with the investigation, he wouldn’t have to think about Mason too much. Liar, thief, and murderer.
“What now, Inspector?”
Birdsong stroked his heavy mustache, his brows drawn together in supreme displeasure. “I’ll have him. By George and England, I’ll have him.”
He stalked off, and Drew watched him go.
“No, Inspector,” he said to himself. “I’ll have him first.”
Nineteen
The sun had set before Madeline came downstairs. She sat next to Drew in the library, saying nothing.
“You should see the kittens, darling,” he said finally. “They’re getting bigger, and I expect their eyes will be open soon.”
Her lips trembled into a bit of a smile. “Really?”
“Would you like to come see them? The little white fellow seems about ready to venture out on his own.”
She wiped one eye with the back of her hand, still forcing a smile. “You like him especially, don’t you?”
Rules of Murder Page 25