A long shadow ir-8

by Charles Todd

  Middleton raised his head to look at Rutledge. "There's not going to be more killing, is there?"

  "Not if I can prevent it."

  "Sandridge is Joel Baylor's mother's name. His father recognized him when they were married, but I don't know that it's official."

  "The brother who was gassed." Rutledge turned to go. "I'll send in Cain. And then there's one more thing I must do." In the event, it was nearly dawn by the time he had finished with Inspector Cain. After that he walked to the barn where the Baylor cattle were housed. As he expected, he found Ted Baylor mucking out.

  The man turned to him. "Haven't you caused enough trouble? That was a wild-goose chase to Frith's Wood."

  "I didn't know at the time that it wasn't a matter of life and death. You've lost nothing except perhaps a few hours' sleep."

  Grunting, Baylor turned back to his work, raking the warm piles of manure out into the center of the barn. "What do you want?"

  "To speak to your brother. Joel."

  "It won't do you any good to see him."

  "It might clear up many things. For instance, why he hid from Constable Hensley. Hensley had known from the start that he was here."

  "I didn't know about Hensley." Baylor sighed. "Not until I heard them arguing one night soon after Joel had come home. After that, they avoided each other. Hensley swaggered on the streets, but he knew better than to show his face here. I don't think they trusted each other, to tell you the truth. I was always afraid it was Joel in Frith's Wood with that bow and arrow. We had them as children. He knew how to use a bow. Look, I didn't know about what Joel had done either. Not until much later. When he learned a man had been killed in that London fire, he joined the army. And he's paid for what he did. I don't think it will do any good to bring him to justice. He won't live to see the hangman, you know that."

  "Still…"

  Baylor said, "All right. I want to be there." He stood his rake against a barn pillar and dusted his hands. "He's still my brother. The only one left. Let's get it over with."

  They walked in silence from the barn toward the house.

  A few flakes of snow began to fall, desultorily at first, and then with gathering intent.

  "It won't last. But it will be colder tomorrow. By March the daffodils will be in bloom. Hard to believe, isn't it?"

  "Yes." And then, endeavoring to bring something good out of so much pain and grief, Rutledge said to his companion, "Barbara Melford deserved better of you. You ought to tell her why you haven't kept your promise."

  "It's not your affair-" Baylor started to say, but Rut- ledge cut him off in midsentence.

  "Good God, man, are you going to throw away your life and hers? She'll wait for you, if you explain about Joel. And who's to inherit when both your brothers are dead, and you're locked in your own bitterness, too stubborn to beg her forgiveness?"

  "You don't know anything about it." But in the snow- filled darkness, Baylor's voice was less sure.

  "No, I don't. That's true. Perhaps you don't care, after all."

  "Don't care?" The words were wrenched from him. "Gentle God!"

  "Then tell her. When Joel is dead, she'll believe you've spoken out of duty. And she'll refuse, from pride."

  "I didn't want to drag her into the shambles Joel had made of things. I thought it best."

  Rutledge held the door for Baylor and followed him into the house and up the stairs. "Rightly or wrongly your brother lived his life as he saw fit. In spite of that, you owe him the obligations of blood. That's admirable. But Barbara Melford shouldn't be expected to pay for his sins too."

  Ahead of him there was a quiet "No. I'll see she doesn't."

  Joel Baylor's windows overlooked the barns and Frith's Wood. He wasn't asleep. Instead he was sitting in a chair, struggling to breathe through burned lungs. The sound of his efforts filled the room. He had been a strong and handsome man at one time. Now his clothes hung on his thin frame, and his face was lined with suffering.

  "Hensley is dead," Rutledge said as he walked in. "I've just been told."

  "Did he talk before he died?" The question was guarded but resigned.

  "No. He was loyal to the end."

  "Is that the God's honest truth?"

  "Did you shoot him with that bow and arrow?"

  "I probably would have, if I could have walked as far as that wood. He made me feel like a prisoner in my own house."

  "Perhaps you'd like to tell me now what happened in London. The only witness here is your own brother. My word against his."

  "You aren't interested in what happened to Edgerton. You didn't know the man. It's evidence you want, against Chief Superintendent Bowles."

  "If he was a party to that fire, even if he had no way of knowing what might happen, then something must be done. Edgerton had a family, they deserve an answer."

  Joel Baylor turned his head to look out the window. "If I'd stayed here and helped run the farm, my life would have been very different. But I was greedy." His words were punctuated with short breaths, his back hunched with the effort. "I wasn't raised to farming, that's the trouble."

  "You can make amends. Even now. If you tell me what happened."

  He turned back to Rutledge. "I don't know," he said, and it was hard to judge whether he was lying or telling the truth. "I can't tell you what lay between Hensley and Bowles. It might have had nothing to do with the fire. I set it, Hensley looked the other way. Barstow swore the building would be empty. Still, a man died. I was paid for my silence and Hensley for his. That's all I was privy to. And it was bad enough. I never asked Hensley who else was involved. You should have."

  But Hensley was dead.

  Joel began to cough, choking on the fluids in his lungs. It was some time before he was able to catch his breath again. His brother had been right. The man wouldn't live to stand trial.

  Hamish said, "He's no' going to help."

  But Rutledge wasn't ready to give up. "If you change your mind, you have only to send me word. Not at the Yard. It's better to send a message to my flat."

  Joel Baylor shook his head in denial. "Nothing more," he gasped.

  Rutledge was halfway across the room, on his way to the door as Ted Baylor quietly urged him to leave his brother in peace. Then he stopped and swung around.

  "Did Hensley ever tell you that the girl you'd known in London had written to ask what had become of you? A Miss Gregory, as I remember."

  That roused Joel Baylor. "No. I thought-no, damn him, he never said a word!"

  "So much for loyalty, then," Rutledge responded, and walked out of the room. It was nearly seven when Rutledge and Mrs. Channing drove to the place where he'd left his motorcar.

  Rutledge was surprised to find it still there. He looked at the blood on the driver's seat and remembered Mary Ellison collapsing in his arms as he'd opened his door. Her body had been heavy, without the strength to help him.

  He thanked Mrs. Channing for the lift, and then walked up the hillside to begin his search again.

  In the early-morning light he found what he was looking for.

  Someone had dug a hiding place out of the earth, making himself a safe haven in this winter pasture where no one came in January. It was so well concealed that Rut- ledge could have stepped on it in the dark and still not seen it. There was a covering built of old wood and straw and earth, shielded by long stalks of grass and even mossy sod. Rutledge lifted it, not sure what he expected to find. Hamish said, "He's gone." In a way Rutledge was glad. He'd expected to find the man dead of a self-inflicted wound. Whoever he was, he must have been a sniper in the war. Or a gamekeeper before it. He knew how to use the land in his favor, how to make it conceal him and protect him. He could have lain in wait for machine gunners to show themselves. Or poachers, coming for the estate game under cover of darkness. He'd learned from the animals he was paid to protect how to disguise himself and how to live off the land. But who was he? Where had he come from? And where had he gone? Hamish said, "The shop where he sw
ept the floor." "Perhaps," Rutledge answered, not sure he meant it. Let sleeping dogs lie. And he wondered what Dr. Fleming, who had brought him out of the darkness, would have made of the man. There was a square of paper in one wall of the trench, caught between the prongs of a split stick. Rutledge reached down to pull it out. It read simply I was wrong. Hamish said, "It was a near run thing." Rutledge slowly let the top fall back into place over the hole. When he reached the motorcar, he found Mrs. Channing still there, waiting. That morning, just before Hillary Tim- mons had come to shut up the inn for several weeks, she'd packed her belongings and set the cases in her car, ready to return to London. Nothing had actually been said between them about her departure. But Rutledge had glimpsed her luggage in the boot. She looked up as he came down the slope of the land, her eyes searching his face. "He was gone," he said. "Yes. I'd hoped he was. Let there be an end." He stood there by her car, listening to the motor ticking over under the bonnet. "I thought perhaps you were behind what was happening to me. You saw too much that first night…" "I know what you thought." She hesitated and then said, "I wish now I'd done as you asked, and taken Mary Ellison to dinner. It might have turned out differently." "No. It was bound to end the way it did." "You can never be sure of that." She met his glance then, holding it. "Don't marry that girl in Westmorland, Ian. She's been through enough. Neither of you would be happy for very long." She put the motorcar in gear and left him standing there, staring after her. Hamish, the first to recover, said, "Ye didna' tell her about Westmorland."

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