by Charles Todd
Earnestly, he said, “Won’t you tell me which one of my guesses is closest to the truth? Because once I know, I can protect you, I can protect that child.”
“But you can’t give him back to me when it’s over!” It was a cry of anguish. “You’ve already told me that no matter how this ends, I shall never have him back again.”
He looked at her, trying to read her face. “Is that the bargain you’re making with me? If I can guarantee that you shall have your child again, you will finally tell me the truth?”
She bit her lip, torn between duty and love and hope.
He had finally found the key to Fiona MacDonald’s silence. Something she wanted more than life-even her own life. That child.
Then, to his utter astonishment, she replied, “Will you kill someone for me? Because if you can’t, promises will be useless.”
She read his answer in his face.
“No. I didn’t think you could.” There was infinite sorrow in her voice.
He waited, but she said nothing more. No explanation, no self-defense for even asking such a thing of him.
Into the silence he asked, “Do you trust Constable McKinstry?”
Surprised, she said, “Yes. I think I do. Why shouldn’t I? He wanted to marry me.”
Hamish said, “If he wed her, he’d have custody of the child. Is that what began this business, her refusal?”
“Why didn’t you marry him?” Rutledge asked. “Ian would have had a proper father.”
“I didn’t want to marry. I didn’t want to wake up in the morning and find his face on the pillow next to mine. Or anyone else’s. I don’t love him. I gave my heart away once. I never want to do it again. It hurts too much!”
He thought of Jean. Yes, it hurt far more than it should, to love.
Fiona smoothed her hands together. “Have you ever made a house of playing cards? I used to do it for the Davison children sometimes. It always falls in upon itself. That’s my dilemma, Ian Rutledge. How to keep the cards from falling in on themselves. And try as I will, I don’t see the way to prevent it. It will be better for my son to grow up hating me or not even remembering my name and face than for the cards to fall in.”
“Someone tried to kill me yesterday.” The admission was forced out of him. He hadn’t intended to say anything. “Someone shot at me and it wasn’t by accident. It was a clear line of fire and he missed by very little. A warning perhaps. And I can’t fight back because I don’t know how! How many lives will you put at risk for your son?”
She winced, then recovered with an effort. “You’re a grown man. You can fight back, even against shadows. A small boy can’t.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t want you to die. Any more than I want to die. But it’s a risk that I must take. God help me! ”
Rutledge walked back to the hotel, depression settling in like a black shroud. He went to the telephone closet and began the long, wearing task of tracing the house that had been a military hospital during the war. Saxhall or Saxwold.
There was no listing for a Saxhall, but there was for Saxwold.
In the next hour, he tried to locate any staff who had served there. Chiefly the matron or doctor in charge. He found one sister, who gave him the name of three more, and the last one pointed him to Elizabeth Andrews.
In another half hour he was speaking to her. She had been the nurse in charge of Saxwold’s most seriously wounded men, and was now at a hospital in Cambridge.
Her voice came over the telephone clearly, forceful, with the slight accent of Yorkshire in it.
Rutledge explained what he was after. “I’m looking for anyone who might have been friends with a Captain Robert Burns who was at Saxwold in 1916. He was there for nearly a month, then was released to convalesce in London.”
“Ah, yes, I do recall Captain Burns. A very nice man. I heard much later that he’d returned to the Front and been killed. A waste.”
“Indeed. There was a woman, Eleanor Gray, who met him either in London or at Saxwold. Do you recall her?”
“I thought you wanted to know who among the wounded was friendly with him! I have no idea who Eleanor Gray is, Inspector. I had little time to waste on visitors. These were seriously wounded men in my care.”
“The problem is that I don’t know with any certainty whether Eleanor Gray introduced Captain Burns to the man I’m seeking or if she met him through Burns. If she met him through Burns, it might be someone he knew at Saxwold.”
“I understand now. Well, since I have no knowledge of this woman, I suggest we begin with the patients. There were a number of critically wounded men at Saxwold at the time, and they seldom mixed with the other patients. Certainly not often enough for a friendship to be formed. Therefore you must be interested in the men who were more or less able to move about or have visitors. If I remember correctly, there were at least twenty of those. Of them I would say that Captain Burns was friendly with three or four.”
She gave him names and told him how badly each was wounded. Three had lost limbs. Rutledge discounted them. Mrs. Raeburn had said she couldn’t tell how the man at her door had been wounded. The fourth had been blinded.
Trying to begin from another end of the puzzle, Rutledge asked, “Did you have patients from Palestine in Saxwold?”
“There was indeed one man who had served in Palestine. He’d been an intelligence officer, wounded, and sent home. Captured by the Turks, apparently, for he had been severely tortured. We feared more for his mind than his body, I must tell you that. He didn’t know who he was and he was by turns raving, silent, or alarmingly alert. Touch him and he was instantly back in captivity, striking out quick as a snake. We kept him in a room upstairs, under the eaves, where he didn’t disturb the other patients. Once Captain Burns could move about, he spent a good deal of time with the very ill, writing letters and so forth. The Captain made an effort to include Major Alexander in his rounds, though the stairs were difficult for a man with a serious back injury.”
“Alexander? Do you have a first name?”
“I’m sorry, no. He told me repeatedly that he was called Zander Holland, but the only name on his tag when he was brought in was Alexander. Which isn’t surprising, we’ve had men with no name at all. But as he began to improve, the Major was transferred to another hospital. I was told later that he made a full recovery. I was glad to hear it. One of the specialists who came to look at the burn cases had seen him in another hospital.”
“He’d been burned?”
“Oh, yes, it was part of the torture, you see. Systematic burning.”
Poor devil! Rutledge thought. “You have no record of his unit?”
“I told you. Once he began recovering, the Army saw fit to move him.”
“Did Alexander keep in touch with Burns? After he was transferred?”
“I can’t answer that. But I doubt it. Captain Burns would have told me if he’d had news. Whether they met again in London, I can’t say. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Captain did make a point of finding him. It was the sort of man he was. He cheered up a good many people, ill as he was. It was his nature.”
But that was all she could give Rutledge on the patient named Alexander.
He left his telephone number with her. “If you think of anything else that might be useful, I’d be grateful if you got in touch.”
“I shall, Inspector,” she said, and hung up the receiver.
Rutledge spent another hour talking to people he knew in the War Office. But he had no luck there. One official told him that he rather thought he remembered the chap Rutledge was asking about and had heard that he went to France after he’d been declared fit for return to duty. “But I’m not sure his name was Holland. And the only Alexander I recall was a sergeant-major in the Fusiliers. Tracking your man down will be well nigh impossible without more information, old boy. I haven’t time to play hunches. And we have a bloody long list of wounded!”
At the hotel desk, Rutledge said to the young woman on duty, “Co
uld you tell me, please, if there is anyone in Duncarrick by the name of Alexander? He was an officer in the war. I’d like to look him up if he’s here.”
“I don’t believe there’s anyone in town with that name.” She frowned prettily, her hands toying with the pen she’d been using.
Hamish said, “He might not live in the town.”
But Rutledge was already asking that question.
“I’m sorry. Perhaps you could ask Constable Pringle or Inspector Oliver. They’d know. Or Mr. Elliot, perhaps.”
He began with Constable Pringle. Rutledge found him still at his desk and put the question to him. Pringle considered. “There’s an Alexander out on the road to Jedburgh. But he wasn’t in the war, sir. He’s seventy if he’s a day.”
“Children?”
“Two daughters. That’s all I ever heard about. Old maids, both of them.”
Another dead end.
Rutledge went out to walk, restless and angry.
Hamish said, “It’s no’ your fault!”
“Cold comfort!” he retorted, long strides eating up the distance to The Reivers. He passed it without looking and was well out the western road before turning and walking back to the town. “Fiona sits in that cell, waiting for trial, and there’s going to be a conviction. All I needed was a name. They’ve given me one. If Alexander doesn’t live in the neighborhood of Duncarrick, there’s no way to find him. Damn the man!” But it was useless to damn anyone. There were still other names to track down.
Nearing the main square, Rutledge came across Oliver.
He was not a happy man.
“You’ve been meddling again! You told me that you were wanting to see the glen. Instead you went to find the Lawlor girl. And she’s gone missing!” He made it sound like Rutledge’s fault.
“I did see the glen,” Rutledge told him. “And someone saw fit to shoot at me while I was there. Who did you tell that I was on my way to Glencoe?”
“What do you mean, someone shot at you?” He glared at Rutledge. “I called Inspector MacDougal as you’d asked. I don’t know who might have overheard the call. MacDougal wasn’t in his office when I tried from the station. So I waited until after my lunch and called again from the hotel.”
From that stuffy telephone closet. Where Oliver, not thinking about it, must have left the door ajar for air. And who had been in the police station on his earlier attempt to reach Glencoe? McKinstry? Pringle?
“Where was McKinstry most of yesterday?”
“It was his day off. You’ll have to ask him that.”
“There’s no way,” Hamish pointed out, “to be sure it was the telephone. You could ha’ been seen in Brae-or anywhere on the road-and followed.”
“And what’s this,” Oliver went on testily, “about the brooch not being in Betty’s hands for a year or more? That’s nonsense!”
“I don’t think it is.” He gave it a split second’s thought, then said, “I can tell you the name of a jeweler’s shop on a side street in Glasgow. Send McKinstry with the brooch to ask if the owner recognizes it.”
Oliver stared at him. “You’re trying to tell me that my chief bit of evidence is a hoax!”
“No. I’m telling you that it isn’t what it seems.”
“Well, I won’t have it! We’ve got witnesses to what Betty Lawlor had to say-yourself included! You’ll confirm in the courtroom what she said. Or I’ll have you up for perjury!”
Rutledge gave him the name of the jeweler’s shop anyway. “Send McKinstry to look into this. It may not be true. If it isn’t, I shall retract any objections I have to the brooch as evidence.”
Suspiciously: “Why McKinstry?”
“He won’t like doing it. But he’ll be thorough. For the sake of the accused.”
Mollified, Oliver said, “I’ll do that, then!” And he stalked off.
Hamish said, “If the constable took the brooch to Glasgow, he’ll no’ come home and tell Oliver his own name’s put to the engraving card!”
“No,” Rutledge agreed. “It will be interesting, won’t it, to see how he handles such a minefield. If he gives Oliver the right name, he’ll be crucified before the Inspector can draw breath. And if he doesn’t give the right name, it will make him look worse when the truth does come out.”
He walked into the lobby of the hotel. The savory aroma of baked apples and cinnamon reminded him that he’d had no luncheon. There was a rattle of dishes and utensils coming from the dining room, which meant they might be serving still. His stomach growled at the thought.
He was halfway down the passage to find out, when the clerk at the desk called, “Inspector Rutledge? A telephone message just came for you. You’re to return the call at your convenience.” She reached into the drawer where messages were kept and handed one to him.
Rutledge thanked her and walked on to the dining room, opening the folded sheet as he went.
It was from Durham. The office of a law firm.
He knew who had called him.
Thomas Warren.
Abandoning lunch, Rutledge went to the telephone closet and closed the door behind him.
He got through to Warren straightaway and identified himself.
Warren asked, “Have you had any luck? Finding the man you’re after?”
“Not yet. I found a nurse who’d been matron at Saxwold. She gave me another name. Major Alexander. Does it ring any bells?”
“Alexander? ’Fraid it doesn’t. No, sorry.”
“He was in Palestine. Wounded there and was brought into Saxwold while Burns was a patient.”
“No. Perhaps you’ll have better luck with this one! I never met the man, but I have been searching for a letter I’d gotten from Rob when he was in London, convalescing. It was on the occasion of my birthday, and he said”-there was a rustle of paper, as if Warren was turning pages-“here it is: ‘I found seven people to celebrate your birthday. Eleanor, of course, and a girl James had asked me to look up, and Edwards was there with the Talbots, who were rather grim. The other brother, Howard, is listed as missing, and naturally they fear the worst. Edwards felt they needed cheering up! And I also invited Alex Holden, who lives in Duncarrick, for God’s sake, practically next door in Scotland. He was at loose ends, feeling in the mood to celebrate anything. The bone in his leg refuses to mend properly, thanks to the bloody Turks, and he’s got another round of surgery to face. We drank to you and to Victory and again to you but lost count after that, and then ate something before we were completely drunk and forgot what was due the absent guest of honor. I set a glass at your empty place-’ Well, you needn’t hear the rest. Alex Holden. You can add him to your list.”
26
Rutledge sat in the airless closet, his mind racing, Hamish, ahead of him at first, then falling behind as fact after fact dropped into place.
Alex Holden of Duncarrick. Sandy Holden-of Duncarrick Alex or Sandy. Short for Alexander. Zander Holland- Major Alexander. The tags on the wounded were sometimes garbled. Or lost He had met Sandy Holden, for God’s sake, when he first came to Duncarrick-out by the pele tower, with his sheep! And seen him a number of times in the town since. Rutledge said aloud, “I’ll give you any odds you like that they’re the same man-!”
All this bloody time, the man he’d been searching for had been under his nose.
The fiscal himself hadn’t seen fit to give Rutledge that name!
“There’s no proof Burns knew the two men had met,” Hamish pointed out.
“No. Probably not. But you’d think, wouldn’t you, that after he came back to Duncarrick, Holden would have spoken to the fiscal-a simple word of condolence-‘I met your son once, at a dinner in London. I was sorry to hear he didn’t make it home from France.’ ”
“Unless he had something to hide-”
“The fact that he’d spent two nights in Captain Burns’s house in Craigness? With Eleanor Gray? Who is now missing? Yes-if he had anything to do with her disappearance. Even if he’d simply provided her the money to
sail to America.”
The airlessness was making his head ache. Rutledge opened the door and went up the stairs to his room, his mind still racing.
McKinstry had claimed that he couldn’t put a finger on the writer of the poisonous letters, even though he knew the townspeople like a book. As any constable would. But the local gentry would seldom cross McKinstry’s path. An inspector would deal with them. And Holden had come back from France only in the spring of 1919. McKinstry hadn’t had time or opportunity in five months to put him in the tidy mental boxes where the constable kept the pulse of Duncarrick.
“You’ve sent him on a wild-goose chase to Glasgow!” Hamish scolded Rutledge. “About the brooch. Still, it was foolish for Holden to use his name!”
“If Holden was in Palestine, the Army will have a record of it. If Holden was at Saxwold, Elizabeth Andrews will remember him. If Mrs. Raeburn can recognize him after three years, we have him in Craigness.”
“But there’s no proof Eleanor Gray died there!”
“I know,” Rutledge said. “But if Holden took Eleanor there, the chances are he also took her away. And he can tell us where she went after Craigness.”
“Mrs. Raeburn never saw her-”
“It was pouring rain that night. Eleanor could have waited in the car until the worst had passed. By that time, Mrs. Raeburn had gone back to her bed. And there are the notes in the book’s margin.”
“But no date!” Hamish reminded him.
“In a way, there is a date. It was written after Captain Burns died. She noted that he was dead.”
“Where was Holden when you drove to the glen?”
“According to Mrs. Holden, he was in Jedburgh that day.”
“Aye, but was he? She couldna’ know for certain if the man went where he claimed he was going.”
“True enough.” Rutledge ran his fingers through his hair. “All right.”
“McKinstry said that in this town he kens everyone’s business. It’s no’ impossible for Holden to do the same if he put his mind to it.”