by Charles Todd
He returned after nearly ten minutes. “Lady Maude will receive you in the library,” he informed Rutledge, and stepped aside to allow him to enter.
Rutledge walked into a columned hall that reminded him of a Greek temple. The floor, paved in marble, was smooth as cold ice, and the staircases-a pair-flaunted their airy grace as they rose like swans’ necks on either side of a niche where an exquisite Roman copy of a Greek Apollo was subtly lit. The stone face, slightly turned and limned by the light, reminded him all at once of Cormac FitzHugh. He buried the memory as swiftly as it had risen.
Hamish said, “Pagan, this is. Like the mistress, no doubt!”
How had the missing Eleanor Gray seen it? Rutledge wondered. Had she played here as a child, sliding across the shining floor, peals of laughter echoing among the columns? Or had it seemed cold to her, forbidding?
A long gallery led off in either direction, with French carpeting, busts on pedestals, and dark paintings of ancestors in massive gold frames.
“There’s space enough here to hold half a regiment,” Hamish said, his voice disparaging. “Aye, and a military band to sit and play on yon stairs.”
The library was a vast room down a passage on the first floor and was undoubtedly chosen to overawe a mere policeman. Its windows rose floor to ceiling, and books filled glass-enclosed shelves. The cream-and-rose carpet on the floor was so old, it had the sheen of antique silk, and the woman waiting for him in the center of it knew that it set her off like a jewel.
Hamish fell silent, in its own way homage.
Lady Maude was a tall woman with silver-gray hair and the carriage of an empress. Her afternoon dress was dark blue, austere in contrast to the handsome double rope of pearls that fell nearly to her waist. In her day she must have been quite beautiful, for the vestiges of beauty were clear in the bones of her face, her violet eyes, and the long, slender hands lightly clasped in front of her. She barely acknowledged the butler’s quiet murmur. “Inspector Rutledge, my lady.” The door closed softly behind him.
“Inspector,” she said as he inclined his head. After a moment, regarding him coolly, she added, “At least this time they’ve had the sense to send me someone who is presentable.”
“I haven’t met Inspector Oliver, my lady. His sense of duty, however, is something I understand, as you must yourself, having been born to it.”
“I will not listen-” she began, but he cut lightly across her words.
“I am not defending him, I assure you. I am merely pointing out that for any policeman, one of the most painful duties is to inform someone of a loved one’s death. If it was not your daughter the Scottish police have found, the sooner they know it, the sooner they can find her true parents. Another mother will have to bear that grief. If you were fortunate and this is not your child, then spare a little pity for the woman who has lost hers.”
She stared at him in astonishment, something moving behind her remarkably expressive eyes. He thought, Her daughter is missing – Then she said, “You came, as I understood Kenton to say, to make an apology.”
“Yes. For the fact that Inspector Oliver did not handle this matter as well as he might have. That was unfortunate. I’ve come in his place to tell you that if you can give me assurances that this young woman discovered on a Scottish mountainside is not your affair, then we can move on to other names on our-”
“She is not my child. My daughter is alive and well.”
“And you have heard from her within the past-er-six months?”
“My relations with my daughter are not open to public scrutiny!” She scanned his face again, noting the tiredness, the thinness. Beneath them, she realized suddenly, was a will as strong as hers.
Rutledge listened to Hamish for a moment, heeding the warning that patience was not Lady Maude’s long suit. A change of tactics was in order.
“Very well. I accept that. Perhaps you can help us answer a puzzling question: Why has your daughter not contacted her solicitor to sign papers relating to her inheritance? I’ve read his statement. He expressed some concern that she failed to appear at the time set in 1918. In fact, his last correspondence with her was in 1916. He has made a concerted effort to locate her in the past year, and failed. It was his anxiety that was communicated to the local police, and this year, when a query about a missing person was circulated by the Scots, it seemed prudent for them to speak to Miss Gray. If only to reassure everyone that she could be safely struck off the list. If you could provide me with her direction, I have the authority to close this matter immediately.” His attitude was cool, as if Eleanor Gray was of concern to him only if she was dead.
“I might have guessed it was Mr. Leeds’s vexatious passion for meddling that lay behind this business. He shall hear from me!” Anger flared in Lady Maude’s eyes, deepening the color to dark violet.
“I’d no’ like to be in his shoes, then,” Hamish reflected.
“He, too, is required by law to carry out his duties to the best of his ability.”
“Indeed. Involving the police is an entirely unnecessary course of action.”
“I cannot believe that a young woman of your daughter’s rank would neglect her duty.” Rutledge paused and then repeated, “It is cause for concern.”
“Nonsense. Eleanor is young, contrary. She has had some ridiculous notion that she wanted to take up the study of medicine. It was the war; it unsettled all of us. But she insisted that she was well suited to it and that her goal was to become a physician. I hoped that with the Armistice and an end to the dying, this absurd dream would be seen in a different light. My daughter is something of a romantic, I must confess. Very like her late father.”
Rutledge, still standing, thought to himself, We’ll have to contact the teaching hospitals – Aloud, he asked, “Would she have settled for nurse’s training instead?”
“A nursing sister? Hardly that!” Impatiently, Lady Maude said, “Sit down, young man! That chair, to your left.” She crossed to the desk and took the chair behind it. As if putting a solid barrier between them. “When my daughter sets her heart on something, she’s single-minded about it. And I must tell you that she doesn’t cope well with disappointment. Eleanor has always been rather impatient of impediments and usually finds a way around them.” Lady Maude gave Rutledge a space to digest that before continuing. “Now, as for this business of climbing in Scotland-or having an illegitimate child-it’s so out of character that I am at a loss to understand how your Scottish policeman arrived at such a conclusion. The man’s an idiot. I won’t allow him in this house. Nor the local man; he’s as great a fool as they come.”
“Your daughter never expressed an interest in climbing?”
“Not at all. She’s not one of these robust women with an enthusiasm for athletic pursuits. She enjoys a game of tennis. And she’s very fond of riding. Before the war, she spent some time at school in Switzerland, and never indicated then or afterward that she cared for climbing. As for the other business, she has far too much respect for herself and her family to find herself in trouble.”
The words were spoken with absolute conviction. Women of Eleanor Gray’s class were taught from birth what was expected of them. They were to be married off to the greatest advantage, social and financial. Lovers taken after marriage-with absolute discretion-were another matter. Never before it.
The more he heard, the more Rutledge found himself agreeing with Lady Maude that the dead woman found in Scotland was unlikely to be her daughter, Eleanor. None of the facts matched. Still-height and age did. And possibly timing?
“Would it be possible to see a photograph of your daughter, Lady Maude?”
“She’ll no’ allow it,” Hamish told him. “But yon solicitor might have one.”
She glared at Rutledge. “To what end?”
“Merely to give me some feeling for the person you’ve described. I have found that faces tell me more than facts sometimes.”
She hesitated. Rutledge was certain he’d given her th
e wrong answer, and had lost. Then she opened a drawer in the desk. From it she drew a silver filigree frame and passed it across to him without looking at it. He rose to take it from her hand, and sat down again before turning it over.
The face staring back at him was smiling, one hand on the horse at her side, the other holding a trophy. Beneath the riding hat it was difficult to see her features clearly, but she was an attractive young woman with her mother’s bearing. There was something familiar about the face all the same, and he frowned as he studied it. All at once he made the connection.
She reminded him quite strongly of one of the royal princesses As if his thought reached her at the same time, Lady Maude extended her hand imperiously, and he had no choice but to return the photograph to her.
Hamish, following his thought, was scandalized.
His sister Frances would know, if anybody did. But looking at the woman in front of him, and remembering the photograph she’d taken from him, Rutledge found himself wondering if Eleanor Victoria Maude Gray was- possibly-the child of a liaison between Lady Maude and the late King Edward VII. The king had had an eye for beautiful women. It wouldn’t have been surprising if she’d come to his notice.
Small wonder, with that heritage, that Lady Maude refused to believe that her daughter had come to die on a desolate Scottish mountainside, or that she had borne a child out of wedlock.
Eleanor was destined for greater things than a career in medicine-if she was the daughter of a King, and heir to this house and the fortune that apparently maintained it, she could take her pick of wealthy and titled men.
But if she was as contrary as her mother wanted him to believe, might she not have rebelled against this golden future and found instead some perverse pleasure in making her mother’s nightmares rather than her dreams come true…?
Lady Maude sat at the broad desk long after the man from London had gone, staring blindly at the closed door.
How had he tricked her into speaking of Eleanor? She had told a policeman what she hadn’t revealed to anyone else-that Eleanor was headstrong, contrary, that her daughter’s heritage had meant so little to her that she had walked away from it and never looked back. She had chosen a common profession instead, one that dealt with poverty and squalor and hideous diseases. It was unspeakably cruel and headstrong.
She would call London straightaway and have that man broken in rank -
Instead Lady Maude went on sitting where she was, reviling him, refusing to acknowledge pain or guilt. Eleanor was not dead. The police were incompetent and stupid. She would not allow them to trouble her again.
Something the Inspector had said came back to her. “Another mother will have to bear that grief…”
Then find her and be satisfied. And let there be an end to this!
Sunlight cast long, narrow shadows across the carpet, and still she sat there. She did not need the photograph in the closed drawer to see her daughter’s face, feel the strong presence of her spirit. A mother would know -if anything untoward had happened They were trying to frighten her into helping them, these policemen, rather than doing their duty as it should be done!
Finally she stood up, took a deep breath, and walked firmly to the door. By the time she had reached the small room where the telephone had been put in, she had made her decision.
5
Rutledge turned out of the drive back onto the main road.
Hamish, reacting to the lessening of tension, spoke after a long silence. “It wasna’ a verra useful interview. But sufficient. A formidable woman, that. I wouldna’ care to grow up in her shadow.”
Was that how Eleanor Gray had felt about her mother?
“My own grandfather was her match,” Hamish was saying, “he could have led the clan into battle, anither time and place. But he had anither side as well, he could recite in a voice that kept the room silent. Verse, and the Old Testament. When it came to the Prophets or Robert Burns, there was none to hold a candle to him. I ken many a night when I lay awake in the loft, listening. Does this one have anither face?”
Thinking it over, Rutledge came to the conclusion that Lady Maude did. If she had been mistress to Queen Victoria’s son, her husband had been willingly, knowingly, cuckolded. Unlike Henry VIII, Edward had chosen his married lovers with great care, to prevent gossip or scandal. And his friends had known which woman to invite to which social engagement. Or had been quietly informed of royal wishes. Still, it must not have been easy for Edward’s wife, Alexandra, or the current favorite herself to live with such an open secret. Or for the favorite to return to her marriage when the Prince’s fancy moved elsewhere.
The problem was, a child seldom recognized a parent’s strength; it saw only stern discipline that couldn’t be easily manipulated by childish whims or caprice. Rebellion was natural-and sometimes dangerous.
Wherever Eleanor Gray might have gone, if she was determined to punish her mother for whatever it was she felt she’d lost or lacked in that grand and cold house, it became a police matter only if she died.
Rutledge found himself hoping that she had not, though Hamish was of two minds about it.
Retracing his route to the town where he had spent the previous night and left his luggage, Rutledge considered his choices. If he made the journey directly back to London today, it would be late when he arrived, far too late to report to Bowles. And this was a Friday. It might be best to find a telephone and make his report orally so that it could be passed along. Inspector Oliver would also be waiting to learn what had transpired.
There was a telephone in the hotel and Rutledge put in his call to London.
Bowles was not in his office, and the sergeant answering the line said, “Rutledge, is it? A moment, sir, I think there’s a message that I’m to give you. Ah! Here it is. You’re not to return to London, sir.”
“Not to return?” Rutledge asked blankly. Hadn’t he finished his business here?
“No, sir. The message reads ‘Tell Rutledge to stay where he is. He’s to call me at nine o’clock on Monday morning.’ That’s all, sir. The Chief Superintendent didn’t explain.”
Even for Bowles it was an odd message. But Hamish was quick to remind Rutledge that the man was vindictive and often intentionally bloody-minded. Rutledge asked the sergeant to repeat the message to be sure he’d been given the whole of it, and then said, “Meanwhile, will you put some men to finding out if an Eleanor Gray is enrolled in any of the teaching hospitals? It’s likely she’s chosen one in London, but be as thorough as possible, will you? I’m told she had a strong interest in becoming a doctor, but if she’s studying anywhere, it’s important that we find her.”
The sergeant laboriously wrote down the particulars and promised to get someone on it right away. Rutledge had a feeling he’d just spoiled the weekend for several unfortunate constables who were on the sergeant’s blacklist for some minor infraction or another. But they’d be more likely to pursue their inquiries with diligence, if only to see their names removed from it.
Rutledge thanked him and hung up the receiver.
He sat there in the tiny, smotheringly stuffy room that had been turned into a telephone closet.
Stay where you are -
Was Bowles sending him back to the Gray house because there were new developments in the Scottish investigation and he’d been chosen to handle it at this end? Or had something else come up? But if that was true, Bowles would have left full instructions, telling him where to report and what his duties would be.
It was also possible that Bowles was being perverse, making the assumption that Rutledge would fail in his attempt to reach Lady Maude, and ordering him not to retreat until he’d succeeded. He’d brought only a small case with him; he’d need more shirts, shoes, and another suit if he was ordered to stay beyond two or three days.
Hamish said, “For all you know, he’s sacked you and is letting you dangle in uncertainty until he tells you himself-” Rutledge shut out the cutting voice.
And meanwhil
e?
He was free to spend the next two days in Lincoln or York. Before the war, he’d have leapt at the chance, having friends he could call on, houses where he knew he was welcome. But two of those friends were dead now, and a third was blind, in hospital, struggling to learn a new profession while his wife waited for him to come home. Still, there were hotels where he could stay At loose ends, alone and with only his thoughts and Hamish as company? It wasn’t a prospect Rutledge relished. He found himself preferring to be called back to London immediately, with another investigation to be handled, keeping him busy, keeping him from remembering that he had ever had a past beyond the last week or even the day before today.
Two days…
Guilt stirred again. He owed his godfather a visit. Or an explanation. He was going to find it hard to do either.
Hamish said, “Why does he no’ come to London?”
David Trevor had turned the London architectural firm over to his partner in the last year of the war. His son’s death had taken the heart out of him, and he had retired to Scotland to heal. He was, according to Frances, writing a book on the history of British architectural style, but it might be no more than an excuse to bury himself in the past until he could face a bleak future.
“For him Scotland offers sanctuary.” But not for me.
Hamish made no reply.
After a moment, Rutledge picked up the receiver again and put in a call to David Trevor. His intent was to make his excuses, to satisfy his conscience. To explain that the press of business made a journey to Scotland in the foreseeable future unlikely. To put off what he could not face yet.
Surely David would be willing to meet him in Durham or somewhere else for the weekend! A compromise to suit them both-on ground that held no memories for either of them.
As Rutledge waited, Hamish said, “He willna’ come-”
“He will. For my sake.”
But twenty minutes later, Rutledge was driving north once more. This time toward the Border. Something in his godfather’s voice, a relief at hearing from him, a need that wasn’t spoken-a surge of warmth when he thought Rutledge had called to give his time of arrival-had made it nearly impossible to refuse or suggest any alternative. It had been taken for granted. As if nothing had changed.