Proof of Guilt

by Charles Todd

  “Baxter had a motorcycle with him the night he arrived. He left with it early in the morning on the day he disappeared.”

  “A motorcycle!” Rutledge exclaimed and nodded. “Yes, I’d been wondering—it makes much more sense than a motorcar. The question is, where is it now?” He stood, put down his glass, and said, “You have a telephone, do you not?”

  Belford hesitated, then answered, “Yes, of course.”

  “I’d like to use it.”

  Belford took him into the study and showed him the instrument on the desk, then was about to leave the room when Rutledge said, “No, stay.”

  He put in a call to the Maidstone Police and asked for Inspector Chambliss.

  “He’s just been called away, sir. Is it important? Should I try to see if I can stop him?” asked the constable who’d answered.

  “It’s urgent.”

  “Very well, sir. Won’t be a moment.” The constable put down the receiver, and Rutledge could hear him hurrying out the door.

  It was nearly five minutes before someone returned. The receiver was lifted, and Chambliss’s voice said impatiently, “This had better be important, Rutledge. I have another murder on my hands—domestic matter.”

  “You searched the area around the lock, after I’d left?”

  “We did and found nothing. By the way, they pulled your hat out of the water. I’ll send it to you.”

  Rutledge ignored the comment. “Have you found a motorcycle?”

  There was a silence. Then Chambliss said, “We found one down by the barges. It was chained to the posts on the gangway of the Lucy Belle. Appeared to belong there. The owner is away, we couldn’t question him. But the local constable tells me that he’d had houseguests over the weekend, and we think the motorcycle belonged to one of them.”

  “It could have belonged to Rawlings. Will you send someone to bring it in and secure it?”

  “I can. But if you’re wrong, I’ll take the blame from the owner of the Lucy Belle.”

  “In which case I’ll apologize in person. But I think that’s how Rawlings got to Kent so easily.”

  “I’ll send someone along. Right now, I’m needed elsewhere,” Chambliss said.

  And he hung up.

  Rutledge leaned back in the chair behind the desk, relaying the conversation to Belford.

  “Very good. I hope it belongs to your man.”

  “So do I.” Rutledge rose. “I must clean up and then return to the Yard. Thank you for your help.”

  “My pleasure.”

  But was it? Rutledge again wondered why Belford had been so helpful to the police in an inquiry. He’d claimed he hadn’t cared for a dead man showing up on his street, and that had been logical, an acceptable reason for involving himself. But was there something more?

  Rutledge drove to his flat, changed his clothes, and went on to the Yard, closeting himself in his office to write a report. He did not link Rawlings to the Gooding case, but otherwise gave a full account from his arrival in Allington to his discussion with Inspector Chambliss on the telephone that morning.

  He finished the report, handed it to a constable to put on Markham’s desk, and then took out a sheet of paper.

  Where was the missing man? There had to be another man in the picture.

  Who had watched the Yard while Rawlings was in Kent?

  If Baxter was the dead man in Chelsea, who had driven him there and later left the motorcar in a chalk quarry?

  Who had tried to kill MacFarland and, when the opportunity arose, had taken a shot at Rutledge as he drove the tutor to Dr. Townsend’s office?

  It couldn’t be Diaz, even though he had masterminded all that had happened. The man was too foreign in his appearance to pass unnoticed in a place like St. Hilary. The xenophobic villagers would have reported him to the police straightaway, suspecting him of every unsolved crime within twenty miles.

  The man Baxter had brought to the lodgings for one night?

  Where was he now?

  Hamish was silent, having no opinion to offer.

  Rutledge stood, stretched his shoulders, and decided to walk down to the river. Action of any kind was better than being cooped up in this room, in the shadow of the Acting Chief Superintendent.

  But the river failed him as well. He walked over the Westminster Bridge and back, and it wasn’t until he was within shouting distance of Scotland Yard that he made a decision.

  He went in search of Gibson.

  “I need information on a Mr. Bennett, who lives in Surrey. The one who is married to the lame woman who takes in newly released convicts with nowhere to go.”

  “Yes, sir. Meanwhile, Inspector Chambliss called while you were out. The motorcycle wasn’t there when he sent one of men to collect it.”

  Rutledge thanked him, left the Yard again, and went to Chelsea, to beard Belford in his den.

  “You look much better,” Belford said approvingly. “Sit down. It’s too early to offer a whisky, but there’s tea. Or coffee, if you prefer. I’ve come to like Turkish coffee.”

  “Thank you, no. I need to know what you can find out about a Mr. Bennett.”

  He explained the connection, then said, “It will take the Yard some time to discover what I want to know.”

  “Come into the study.”

  There, while Rutledge stood by the window, Belford put through two telephone calls. When he had finished the second, he turned in his chair and nodded to Rutledge.

  “Very interesting. Percy Hargreave Bennett was in Berlin when war broke out. He was there to visit a friend in banking circles. And he was interned at the Ruhleben civilian detention camp just outside of Berlin. He tried twice to escape, and during the second attempt suffered internal injuries from a fall. He was repatriated at the end of the war, and resigned from his position at the Bank of England. He was rather bitter, I think, about Ruhleben. He felt the bank should have warned him in time to get out.”

  “Was he one of your men?”

  “Good God, no. But we had a list of the internees, you know. It was a rather odd time. The internees ran the camp themselves, even published a newspaper. Unless they tried to escape, they were left to themselves. We wanted to be sure there were no . . . Trojan horses . . . among them, someone put there to spy on them.”

  “Did you find such a spy?”

  “That’s not for you to know, Inspector.”

  “Where is Bennett now?”

  “Our last report had him at that house in Surrey. Inherited property, old family. A younger son even went to the New World on one of the earlier colonization attempts. Virginia, I believe it was. We were satisfied that Mr. Bennett was no threat to anyone.”

  “Was it his own incarceration that led him to take on these ex-convicts with nowhere else to go?”

  “Possibly. Who knows? It didn’t concern us, and so we left him alone.”

  “I think it’s time to inform Mr. and Mrs. Bennett that one of their lambs has strayed from the fold. It will be interesting to see what they have to say.”

  Rutledge thanked Belford and drove directly to Surrey.

  This time he knocked at the main door and waited to be received by Mrs. Bennett.

  “Good morning, Inspector. Or is it afternoon?”

  “Only a little after twelve,” he told her.

  “Then I haven’t missed my luncheon. You must stay and join me.”

  “Thank you. But I’ve come on a sad errand.”

  “Indeed?” There was alarm in her eyes.

  “Bob Rawlings has drowned in the River Medway.”

  “Bob? But he’s in the gardens as we speak, helping Afonso Diaz. You must be mistaken.”

  “I’m afraid not,” he said. “I saw the body for myself. And I’d met Rawlings here. I recognized him.”

  “I don’t understand. He’s been worried about his brother. I know he slipped away once to look for him. I didn’t say anything. I felt that his love for his brother did him credit. But his brother lives in London. Not Kent.”<
br />
  “Nevertheless. Has anyone else gone missing? That’s to say, has anyone else been given permission to leave because of a family matter? An ill mother in Essex, a sister with a sick child in London?”

  She smiled. “Inspector, I trust my staff, and they come to me with their worries. But Bob has been very steady, very conscientious. He’s even confessed to me that he was very much aware of how he’d ruined his life and how grateful he has been for this second chance. If he broke his parole to me, it was done out of love for his brother. I will not hold that against him.”

  Her description of Rawlings was very different from Rutledge’s encounters with the man.

  “She’s blinded by her good deed,” Hamish said. “She willna’ see that she’s been betrayed.”

  “There’s another matter of some importance, while I’m here,” Rutledge said. “I’d like to speak to your husband, if he’s at home.”

  “Alas, he’s in Glasgow. Something to do with a prize bull he was interested in buying. Could I help you?”

  “Does he own a motorcycle?”

  “A motorcycle? Yes, of course, he used to race before the war. A very dangerous sport. I was happy when he gave it up. But he kept the beast, I think to pretend he might someday take up the sport again.” There was a sadness in her eyes. “Men seldom like to grow old, Inspector. Or infirm. That was his youth, that motorcycle. And so I said nothing.”

  “I understand he was interned during the war. In Berlin.”

  “Yes indeed. It kept him out of the war. He’s some years older than I, but he would have been one of the first to enlist. They took men of forty, you know. If they had a useful skill. And he spoke German, because he was sometimes there on business. Perhaps it was wrong of me, but I knew my husband was safe where he was, for the duration. The Germans didn’t mistreat their prisoners. Still, he never wanted to go back to Germany when the war ended and he was sent home. He said it had changed too much and he was afraid the changes boded ill for the future.”

  “Do you have cows, Mrs. Bennett? I’ve never seen them.”

  “Of course we don’t. That’s why he’s in Glasgow, to look into starting a herd.”

  Rutledge was listening to Hamish, who for once was agreeing with him.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Bennett. Could you call your staff together? I’d like very much to speak to them.”

  “Whatever for? I can answer any questions you might have. They don’t care for policemen, which isn’t surprising.”

  “Nevertheless.”

  In the end she had him ring the bell, and one by one her staff appeared.

  Rutledge waited until they were all present, even Diaz, before saying quietly, “It’s my sad duty to inform you that Bob Rawlings has died. I know this will come as a shock to you, and I’m sorry. But I know you would want to be told.”

  Mrs. Bennett gasped, as if finally taking in the news. Then she said, “We must bring him here. To his home. He would want that.”

  “How did he die?” one man asked, frowning. “He didn’t—he wasn’t here last night, but we didn’t know he was ill.”

  The accent was Cornish.

  Rutledge said, “He had gone to Kent on a private matter. Perhaps Mr. Diaz can tell you more about that. He was caught in the storm and drowned.”

  Another man, this one very much a Londoner, said, “I didn’t know he knew anyone in Kent.”

  Rutledge turned to the man, who had been pointed out as Mrs. Bennett’s cook when he had come here the first time. “Was he worried about anything? Not eating well?”

  The man coughed and said hoarsely, “He ate well. Always.”

  Rutledge thanked them and let them go.

  As the door closed behind them, he said, “I don’t remember—what was your cook’s crime?”

  “Harry? He was a junior clerk in a law firm. He told me he’d embezzled a sum of money to help pay for his mother’s care. Wrong of him, I know, but a man who has nowhere to turn can be tempted. He served his sentence in full.”

  He had also most certainly been the voice of Inspector Chambliss on the telephone call to the Yard. Well spoken and convincing, however hard he’d tried to conceal that just now.

  “Do you have a telephone?” Rutledge asked.

  “Yes, we do. My husband had it installed after the war.”

  “Perhaps Mr. Bennett could call me at the Yard and clear up the small matter I’d come to ask him about.”

  “You must wait until he returns from Glasgow. And there’s poor Bob to see to. We have a responsibility, you see.” She reached for a handkerchief. Rutledge tried to see what was embroidered on it. Lilacs? “I can’t quite believe . . .”

  “I understand.”

  With that he took his leave.

  Harry the cook might have made that telephone call, but he was not the third man in the plot. The household could do without a gardener, but the cook? Never.

  The net was closing on Diaz. But not fast enough.

  When Rutledge returned to the Yard, Gibson met him in the first-floor passage and said, “You should know. Gooding’s trial begins Monday morning.”

  “So soon?” It was a shock.

  “Mr. French was a prominent man in some circles. And the case against Gooding is strong. There appeared to be no reason for further delay.”

  “The bodies of the victims haven’t been found.”

  “The hope is, once he’s tried and convicted, he’ll tell us where they are. To keep his granddaughter from being tried as his accomplice. If he’s condemned, he has nothing to lose. He’ll do anything then to save her from the gallows.”

  But if he hadn’t killed French or Traynor, then Gooding had nothing to bargain with for Valerie Whitman’s life.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Rutledge cursed Diaz all the way back to his office.

  And he knew, without the insistent voice of Hamish in the back of his mind, that the fault was his.

  Rawlings was dead. There had been no way around killing him, but Rutledge had wanted him alive. Still, someone had gone to Kent and brought back the telltale motorcycle. Diaz still had a henchman he could rely on.

  Turn it around, Rutledge told himself. Upside down.

  He found the sheet he’d been working on, crumpled it, and tossed it aside.

  Taking out another, he began to draw diagrams.

  He could see before him the evidence against Gooding and his granddaughter, very solid, except for the missing bodies.

  He heard an unexpected sound in the corridor—the mew of a cat.

  Gibson tapped on his door, then opened it, carrying a young white cat in his arms. One eye was pale blue, the other a pale green. Under the sergeant’s elbow was a sheet of paper.

  “What are you doing with a cat?” Rutledge asked, amused. He hadn’t pictured Gibson as an animal fancier.

  “She was up a tree, and a constable brought her in. The owner will be here in half an hour to claim her. She was in Fielding’s office but set him off something fierce. His eyes are red and weeping, and he’s sneezing every breath. I volunteered to take her away. Here’s what I’ve discovered so far about your Mr. Bennett.”

  Rutledge came around the desk to take the sheet from him, and for good measure smoothed the cat’s fur.

  He stopped, his hand in midair.

  “Not you as well?” Gibson said, turning quickly toward the door. “I’ll take her away.”

  “Yes, go on,” Rutledge said absently, his mind elsewhere. “Thank you.”

  He was scanning the sheet as he spoke. It was almost exactly the same information that Belford had given him. Except for the last line.

  According to the constable whose rounds included the Bennett property, Mr. Bennett had not been well after his return from internment. He’d finally been reduced to being pushed about in an invalid’s chair for weeks. The constable hadn’t seen him for some time and assumed that he was now bedridden.

  The eyes of the police—constables walked their rounds and filed away in
formation that was often invaluable when a crime occurred.

  Still, what if no crime had occurred here? What if Mr. Bennett had finally died of the injuries incurred in Germany while he was making good another escape attempt? And his wife, for unknown reasons, had kept his death a secret?

  So that she could hire a staff, even without the money to do so? If her husband hadn’t returned to his position in the Bank of England, what had they lived on? A good many families with lofty bloodlines back to the Crusades were nearly penniless . . .

  And the cook could answer the telephone as Mr. Bennett, just as he had pretended to be Inspector Chambliss.

  Mr. Bennett hadn’t been a party to anything that had happened, because he hadn’t been there.

  Rutledge left in a hurry, driving as fast as he could back to the house in Surrey. It was after the dinner hour when he arrived, the late summer evening already drawing to a close.

  Mrs. Bennett wouldn’t bury her husband in the orchard or under the compost pile. She would find a way to honor him.

  Rutledge took out his torch, shielded it, and set off for the gardens. There was the terrace above the croquet pitch, with formal borders boxing in a broad, sloping lawn, at the bottom of which was a narrow pond. Pretty, open, offering a handsome view from any of the formal rooms that overlooked it. The beds had been planted to reflect three seasons with maximum effect.

  Here? He thought not. Too open, too public, not somewhere to grieve in private. Where, then?

  On the far side of the house, Rutledge found what he was after. The main bedroom wing looked down on a more or less private garden, set behind a wall some four feet high but not solid, the bricks forming a lacy diamond pattern that offered light and air as well as seclusion. At the far end, an allée of shrubbery protected it from storms, with access through an ornate wrought-iron gate. Above the garden was a small balcony, and a light showed in the room connected to it.

  The master suite?

  He found a place where he could climb the wall and let himself down easily on the far side.

  Even in the darkness it was lovely. An old garden, old as the house, very likely, but given new life and color. Roses and other flowers formed patterns that led to the center of the garden. There only white flowers had been planted, and they gleamed in the ambient light like sentinels, marking the circle where a small statue of an angel in white marble held pride of place.