by Charles Todd
Hamish said, "You canna' be sae sure she's telling the truth."
"No, it wasn't Emma's body," he agreed, ignoring the voice. And after a moment, he added, "I find myself wondering if it was her grandfather's."
He held out the gold toothpick and watched her face.
Surprise gave way to a rapid shift in emotions. Recognition. Understanding. Fear.
"It was the last Christmas present Beatrice ever gave him. Where did you find it? Surely not in the wood with the skeleton? Dear God!"
Rutledge said, "How did you know about the toothpick?"
"Beatrice told me about it. She chose it herself, a child of five, in Northampton. Her mother had taken her there to visit a cousin, and she saw it in a shop. I doubt if she knew at the time what it was, she just thought it was pretty, and the cousin let her buy it for her father. Mrs. Ellison wasn't pleased with the choice. But the cousin told her not to be silly, the child could do as she liked. And so it was engraved and wrapped in silver tissue and a green ribbon."
"And you're certain she gave this to her father?"
"Oh, yes, there's no doubt about it. She recalled it vividly and talked about it when she missed him, because she wished she'd found something more-I don't know- more respectable? A watch fob or shirt studs, even a chain for his keys. I expect Mrs. Ellison took mean-spirited pleasure in telling her that a toothpick, even a gold one, was hardly worthy of a Harkness. For whatever reason, Beatrice couldn't forget it." She reached out to touch the slender length of gold with the tip of a finger. "There couldn't be two such, could there?"
"What became of Ellison?"
"He died in London, struck by a runaway horse. It was sudden and dramatic-I remember my father saying that Mrs. Ellison screamed when she got the news. It was so out of character, everyone talked about it."
"Where is he buried?"
"You just told me he was the man in the wood."
"Yes, he probably is. But if he 'died' in London, there must have been an inquest, a funeral? His wife would have had to be present."
"Mrs. Ellison went to London to take care of the arrangements. She left Beatrice here with the rector's wife, because what could a child that young understand? He was buried there. She said she couldn't bear to bring him back to Dudlington, that she herself wished to be buried in London with him when the time came. My father remembered that too. He told me long afterward that he was shocked. But then it's what Mary Ellison wanted."
"And Beatrice never doubted that her father was buried in London."
"She even knew the name of the cemetery-Highgate. There was a great stone lion near the grave, and its name was Nero. Beatrice longed to go there and see it for herself. Surely, if she went to London-but that may explain why she was estranged from her mother. The grave wasn't there!"
"Would you be willing to swear under oath to what you've just told me?"
She clearly hadn't considered that. She glanced toward the window, as if she could see Mary Ellison from where she sat. "Must I? I can't-do you really believe that Mary-"
"If she told everyone that her husband was buried in London, then why is there a skeleton in the wood, with the toothpick that Beatrice had given her father? Do you believe Mrs. Ellison gave away the toothpick out of a callous disregard for her daughter's feelings?"
"I don't know. But why would Mary make up such a complicated story-the runaway horse, the cemetery lion. And how was he actually killed?"
"There's no way to be certain."
"Well, I'm glad that Beatrice isn't here. It would have broken her heart."
"I think Beatrice is dead as well. And Emma."
She stared at him, her hand to her mouth, her eyes wide. "No, please, I don't want to hear this."
"I can't prove it just yet," he said, "but I've got to try."
"But how-I can't see Mary Ellison, for God's sake, taking up a gun or a knife, or a flat iron to her own flesh and blood. She's not-it sickens me to even think such a thing."
Rutledge hesitated, and then told her: "It's often said that a woman's weapon is poison."
29
Grace Letteridge was still upset when he left her. Part of her had wanted to believe him, and another part of her refused to accept that it was possible. Rutledge said as he walked out the door, "You mustn't say anything. Not until I'm certain. And that may take me some time."
"But the constable-who shot him with a bow and arrow?"
"Do you have Emma's archery set? And if you don't, who very likely does? Mrs. Ellison is strong enough to bend a bow, I think, although she's probably not a very good marksman. But she only had to drive the point of that arrow into Constable Hensley's back deep enough to frighten him and keep him away from the wood. It's even possible she intended to retrieve the arrow, only it had struck bone. And everyone in Dudlington would have believed the Saxon dead had attacked him with a ghostly weapon. A perfect threat to keep people out of Frith's Wood, don't you think?"
"Why are you telling me this?" she asked, at the door. "I wish you'd never come here, not to Dudlington and not to my house."
"I had to trace that toothpick. I couldn't think of anyone else who knew the family as well as you did. Mrs. Ellison never let anyone get close to her. Perhaps because of her secrets, perhaps because of her nature. I can't be sure."
"Will you tell me why, when you know?"
"Yes. I'd like the answer to that myself." Rutledge sat by the fire in Hensley's office, the toothpick in his hand.
If all the world thought Harry Ellison was dead and had been buried in London for all these years, no one would have set up a hue and cry over the fact that he had disappeared.
And it was in keeping with Mary Ellison's character that she would rather have her husband decently interred than for her to be gossiped about in Dudlington as a deserted wife.
Hamish said, "She went to the wood two nights ago."
"Yes, she wanted to be sure I hadn't found her husband. She let me believe it was Emma she thought I was searching for, which was clever of her. I believed her, even pitied her. What matters now is that all alone, in the dark of night, she'd ventured into Frith's Wood. She wasn't afraid of it because she hadn't been brought up in Dudlington and taught to fear it. That much she and Constable Hensley had in common. It's not surprising that she'd see the wood as a place to rid herself of her husband's body."
"Aye, but how did she lug him there?"
"I don't know. He may have been alive when he got there, but already feeling the poison. If she was capable of killing him, she could surely think of an excuse to lure him there to die."
There was a sound at the door, and he looked up, palming the toothpick so that it couldn't be seen.
Meredith Channing stood there, her face grim.
"I came back," she said simply. "I'm not the coward I'd hoped I was."
He laughed. "I'd take you to lunch in Letherington if I thought it wouldn't start the gossipmongers talking."
"I'm hungry. And not particularly worried about gossip. For that matter, you look as if you'd be better off out of Dudlington. What's happened?"
"If you wanted to kill your husband, how would you go about it?"
"I didn't kill him, if that's what your policeman's brain is telling you."
"No. I'm not accusing you. I'd like to know how you would go about such a thing, if it were in your mind."
She walked toward the window that gave onto the street, her back to him.
"Women don't care for bloody scenes. It's easier to use poison, if you aren't there to watch him die. I should think that would be the most difficult part. Watching." She turned back to him. "I don't like being drawn into your brutal world, Ian."
Had it been his brutal world that had decided Elizabeth Fraser not to welcome him back to Westmorland? He hadn't thought of that. But she'd had a taste of just how unspeakable murder could be. For the first time since he'd received her letter he could sympathize with what must have been a difficult choice for her, and in turn respect it.
Hamish said, "Aye, you wouldna' care to see her hurt."
And it was true. Taking a deep breath, as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, he brought his mind back to Meredith Channing.
"I'm sorry," he said as he shut the toothpick into a cabinet behind the desk and got to his feet. "I didn't intend to make you a part of it either. Lunch is still on offer. I'll just tell Mrs. Melford that I won't be in."
He left a note for her, when she didn't answer his knock, then brought around the motorcar for Mrs. Channing. As he held the door she stepped into the vehicle and found a scarf in her pocket to put around her hat.
When he turned the crank, he heard Hamish telling him he was unwise. But she was right, he needed to be away from Dudlington for a few hours. Yet he couldn't stop himself, as he got in behind the wheel, from looking up at the bedroom windows where Emma Mason had slept. Luncheon was roast ham and potatoes, with boiled cabbage and a flan. It was the best the Unicorn Hotel could produce, but Mrs. Channing didn't complain. Instead she talked about her life in London, making it seem amusing and interesting. She'd been born in Somerset, she told him, and hadn't gone to the city until her marriage but learned to live there without too much homesickness for the West Country. She never spoke of her husband directly, as if talking about him was still painful.
Rutledge listened, interjecting comments now and then, but a good part of his mind was elsewhere. How does one prove that poison was used-and where were the bodies of Beatrice Ellison and her daughter, Emma Mason? Not in the wood, surely-he'd searched too carefully to have missed them.
But their murderer had learned, perhaps, from her first experience, not to rely on such a public place.
In the house, then-somewhere.
He came back to the present when Hamish whispered, " 'Ware!"
Mrs. Channing was sitting across the table from him, an amused look on her face.
"I'm sorry-" he began, embarrassed, and then realized it was the second time he'd apologized to her that day.
"Do you treat all your guests this way?" she demanded. "I've asked you at least twice if you'd pass the salt."
He had the grace to laugh as he handed the silver saltcellar to her. And then his hand stopped in midair.
It would be so simple to put something in the sugar bowl or saltcellar. So easy to abstain, one's self.
"What is it?" Mrs. Channing asked, watching his face.
As he gave her the saltcellar, he shook his head. "Remembering something, that's all."
But she was holding the saltcellar as if it might bite her, staring down at it with loathing before she set it aside unused. "Yes," she said slowly. "It would work, wouldn't it? Or the almond paste between the layers of a favorite cake. And then you could dispose of what was left without a worry. In the back garden under a pot of geraniums. Even burning it up in the stove, although the smell would be sickening."
A five-year-old child would never suspect that her mother had just killed her father. Death was loss, hard enough to understand.
Folding her napkin, Meredith Channing sat back in her chair, as if her appetite had fled.
"Small wonder you haven't married," she told him, then saw the look on his face and remembered what Maryanne Browning had confided to her about his engagement. "I'm so sorry! That was not called for. I was simply about to say that of all the men I've ever dined with, you're the first to put me off my food."
Her attempt at levity fell flat.
He thought, It's going to be impossible to prove. But if she shot Hensley, the killing hadn't ended.
The hotel receptionist came to his table and said quietly, "Inspector Rutledge?"
"Yes?"
"Inspector Cain has been looking for you and saw your motorcar in the hotel yard. There's been an urgent telephone call from Northampton. I'm to tell you that Constable Hensley is dying, and you're to come at once." Mrs. Channing insisted on driving with him. "If you must stop in Dudlington before you go on to Northampton, you may be too late. There's nothing I can do, but I don't mind waiting until you know whether this is true or not."
"Why shouldn't it be true?" he asked, stepping into the motorcar beside her.
"Telephone messages can be contrived. As I remember, there are some very lonely stretches just south of Dudling- ton, open pasture rather than houses. A perfect place for an ambush."
If his nemesis could hide in the open land of Beachy Head, he could hide along the roadside as he did in Hertford, and wait for the motorcar to come by.
"No. That puts you at risk. If the shot kills me, I'll lose control of the wheel. You could die in the crash."
"I could have died nursing those poor soldiers with the Spanish influenza too. Or on the crossing between Dover and Calais. I could have been one of the nurses who went down with the Britannic. I'm not afraid. And someone else in the car with you might deter him. Who knows?"
She reached into the rear seat to lift up the woolen rug that he kept there, and Rutledge stopped breathing for a heartbeat as she seemed to have trouble retrieving it. Almost as if Hamish had held on to it, he thought. But she said nothing as she finally brought it between their seats and proceeded to spread it over her knees.
That, as he knew too well by now, was no proof that she hadn't sensed a presence there, just that she had chosen not to speak of it. For the moment.
***
They drove fast, trying to cover the miles as quickly as they could, but Rutledge kept his eye to the verges of the road, where Death could also be lurking.
Hamish, in the rear seat, was trying to tell him something, but Rutledge had no time to pay heed to the words that seemed to echo in his ear.
When they at last reached the busy outskirts of Northampton, where industry seemed to thrive, Rutledge felt himself relax for the first time. His neck and shoulders were stiff from tension. It eased as they made their way to the hospital.
"How is your ankle?" Mrs. Channing asked, when he got down and limped around to her side of the motorcar to open her door.
"Much better. Driving aggravates it a little. By the time I've walked a hundred paces, it will be all right."
And it was.
They found Matron in her office, and he asked to see Constable Hensley.
"There was a message to come at once," he said, dreading to hear the news that her patient had already died.
Matron nodded gravely. "His fever has risen- alarmingly last night, but it fell back a little this morning. Is this a relative?" She indicated Mrs. Channing.
"No," she said, holding out her hand. "My name is Meredith Channing. I was a nurse in the war. I was hoping you might let me sit somewhere quietly, while Mr. Rut- ledge speaks to the constable."
Matron, responding to that warm, compelling voice, said, "Yes, you'll find a small room down the passage and to your left, just across from the surgical theater. It's for the staff, and there's usually a fresh pot of tea on the hot plate. You'll find it quiet and comfortable, I'm sure."
"Thank you." Mrs. Channing turned and walked away, leaving Rutledge to follow Matron to the room where the doctors had isolated Hensley.
Hamish was saying, "There's no call to harass him. If he didna' kill the girl."
Rutledge answered silently, We'll see.
Indeed, the constable looked ill, his face flushed, his hands restless outside the sheet that covered him. His eyes were too bright, and as they focused on Rutledge, he said, "God, I'm afraid of dying."
Rutledge sat down by the bed, and said, "I don't know that you are dying."
Hensley shook his head from side to side in denial. "I can feel it, the fever, eating away at me. They've cleaned the wound twice, and it hasn't helped. They're afraid the infection's spread into my blood." He took a deep breath, trying to quell his distress. "I hope you've brought good news."
"Of a kind. While you've been away," Rutledge said, "we've had several new developments in Dudlington. We've found a body in Frith's Wood."
"I knew it!" the sick man sai
d, rousing himself. "I knew that Letteridge bitch had killed her. Where in the wood did you find Emma? I'd searched until I was crazy with dread of that place, but I couldn't stay away."
It was the first time he'd admitted to going to the wood. Rutledge tried to describe where he had made his discovery.
Hensley said, "I'd looked there, more than once. But not as deep as you did."
"You didn't carry a pitchfork."
Hensley flinched. "Poor Emma. She ought not to have died like that!"
"Like what?"
"Alone in that blasted wood. She was afraid of it, you know. Her grandmother had told her tales about seeing lights there, in the winter." He shivered and reached out to pull up the bedclothes. "I freeze and I burn. They've put a hot water bottle at my feet now. I was worried last night when they started going cold. It's the first sign of dying." Rutledge said, "We found a body in the wood, but I didn't say that it was Emma's." Hensley broke off plucking at the bedclothes, to stare at him. "Not Emma's? But I thought-" His eyes glittered in the light of the table lamp. He said wretchedly, "It's this fever, nothing makes sense." "It was a man's body. I have several very good reasons to think it might be Harry Ellison's." "Emma's grandfather? He's buried in London." "I don't think he is. I'll have the Yard take a look tomorrow, but I don't expect them to find a grave." "Grace Letteridge couldn't have killed him. She wasn't born when he died." "I think Mary Ellison may have done it and buried him in the wood, then made up the story about the runaway horse in London." "God help us!" He lay back in the bed with the back of his hand across his eyes. Matron put her head in the door. "Please don't tire the patient, Inspector. He needs all his strength." "Yes, thank you, Matron." When the door closed, Rut- ledge said, "Is Frank Keating actually a man by the name of Sandridge?" Hensley took away his hand and looked at Rutledge. "On my word, he's not." But if Hensley had been a cohort of Sandridge's, he wasn't likely to admit the connection. "What happened in London, Hensley? Did you look the other way when Barstow's place of business was set afire?" Hensley moved restlessly. "You lied to me, you think I'm dying, that I ought to confess. What if it's a ruse, and I pull through this? I didn't kill Emma Mason, that much I'll tell you. But I won't speak of London." He turned his head aside. "You weren't there. And some people have a long memory. They'd know who talked."