by Charles Todd
He explained again as his passenger was urged into a chair, her blankets hastily settled around her like cushions. She tried to lean back and gasped.
The farmer's wife, tightening the sash of her robe about her thick waist, said, “Jim, take the inspector into the sitting room, if you please. I'll just have a look at this young lady.”
Rutledge followed Jim into a small sitting room. It was already losing the evening's heat but was still comfortable, compared to the raw night outside. The man lit a lamp on a table, settled the chimney in place again, and motioned Rutledge towards the best chair. The fire on the hearth had been banked for morning, but the farmer stirred it into life, still holding the poker as he turned back to his unexpected guest.
“If you're a policeman, you'll have something to show me.”
Rutledge reached into his coat and withdrew his card. The farmer examined it. “Scotland Yard, is it, then? You've made rare good time!”
“I was in Preston when the summons came.”
The farmer set the poker back in its place, shaking his head. “Bad business, this! There was a search party come through early this morning. I asked if they needed me as well, but they said they had enough men for this part of the valley. They hadn't found the boy—more's the pity.” He sat heavily in the next chair. “Tonight I put the dog in the barn, with the door ajar. A precaution, belated though it was! I don't put much faith in anyone except myself, out here. There's a shotgun in the entry, behind the pantry door. If I'd needed it.” He held out a rough hand. “James Follet.”
Rutledge acknowledged the introduction, but couldn't stop himself from casting a glance towards the kitchen.
“Don't worry about the lass,” Jim Follet told him. “The nearest medical man is a good twenty mile from here as the crow flies. Jarvis, his name is. My Mary's been doctoring the family and the animals for thirty year or more.”
Rutledge believed him. In such isolated farms, the wife was usually the first and sometimes the only help to be had in an emergency.
Follet stretched his legs out to the hearth. “Where did she go off the road?”
Rutledge told him what he could. Follet said, “Aye, I know the place. She's not the first to come to grief there! Even heavy rains make that stretch hazardous. Well. I'll have a team up there at first light. A pity about the horse.”
“I don't know if there's any luggage in the back. But if she drove from Carlisle . . .”
“There'll be a valise of some sort. Yes, I'll look.”
Follet reached across the table to a pipe rack and began to fill one, tamping it carefully before lighting a spill at the hearth and holding it to the tobacco. His hair was iron gray, his skin toughened by wind and cold. The blue eyes squinting through the pipe smoke were sharp. Rutledge noticed that he'd hastily pulled on his trousers and a sweater over his night clothes, his braces hanging down to his hips.
“Nasty business,” Follet said again, referring to the murders. “Not the sort of thing we're used to. An entire family, by God. It makes no sense to me!”
“Did the search party bring any other news?”
“As far as I can tell, Inspector Greeley has no idea who's behind these killings. To be honest, that question's plagued me as well. Ever since the men left here. And for the life of me, I can't come up with a satisfactory answer. It isn't as if the Elcotts were troublesome, the sort who'd rub people wrong and make enemies! And Cummins—who keeps the hotel—did tell me it appears nothing was taken. That rules out thievery. The best I can think of is a chance encounter—someone quietly passing through, and Elcott spotted him. Once the man was seen, he might've feared word would get out. But even that's far-fetched! It smacks of something vile, to my mind—killing those children.”
“How well did you know the family?”
“Well enough. The Elcott farm lies across Urskwater from us, and I doubt I've been there more than a dozen times over the years. Henry—the father—I knew best, of course. We'd served on church committees together. I'd meet Gerald now and again in Urskdale. He's the older brother, and High Fell went to him when Henry died. Good sheep man. His wife came here in the third year of the war—at the end of 1916, I think, or first part of '17. A war widow, she was, with two children. Late last summer she and Elcott had the twins. Nice enough woman, from all reports. Kept her house well, and Mary claims she was a good cook. A neighbor bought a packet of her sweet cakes at the last church fair, and told Mary they was particularly fine. If the boy's dead, it's a kindness, in a manner of speaking. What's he to do, on his own at that tender age? Besides, I don't see how he could have survived for long out in that storm!”
But what if the boy could identify the killer? What if the killer and not the storm had already reached him and left him dead? A sixth victim?
There was nothing to be done tonight, Hamish reminded him. Except to make all haste to Urskdale.
But Rutledge was considering the homey accolades. They were the measuring stick of small towns and villages all across England. The state of a man's stock and the state of a woman's kitchen told neighbors whether they were dependable or slovenly, careful or spendthrift, reliable or slack. Perhaps more so here, where isolation made a knowledge of one's neighbors rudimentary. To stop next door for a cup of sugar often meant a walk of several miles. Still, a man learned soon enough who was to be trusted and who wasn't. . . . Had Elcott had any suspicion at all that he and his family were in danger? Or had Death simply walked in one evening? A knock at a random door . . .
Hamish, who had grown up in another isolated and independent world, the Highlands of Scotland, said, It's a verra simple life, this. But it can still breed jealousy and murder. Greed, even.
Rutledge, fighting the tiredness that was nearly overwhelming him as the fire's warmth began to seep into his cold sinews, caught himself in time or he would have answered the voice aloud, from habit.
Instead, he said to the farmer, “I think we ought to see what Mrs. Follet has found. I must be on my way again as soon as possible. There's still some distance to travel.”
“The lass can remain with us. It's for the best, if she's bad hurt. And in your shoes, I'd wait until morning myself. But you know your own business—”
He was interrupted by his wife, poking her head around the door and saying, “The ribs don't appear to be broken, but they're badly bruised. I've wrapped them as well as I can. And she's warmed up a bit. If you'd want to speak to her, sir—”
As the two men got to their feet, Mrs. Follet added shyly, “And there's a cup of tea for you as well, if you'd like one.”
He followed her down the passage to the kitchen, and found the woman he'd rescued still huddled by the fire. Her face was very tired, her eyes looking into an abyss, as if she had finally realized how close to death she'd come.
Her wet clothes had been replaced by a flannel nightgown, two sizes too large, and the heavy quilt around her served as a robe. Her carriage blanket and his rug had been draped over chairs by the stove to dry, the odor of damp wool strong in the comfortable room. A glass of warmed milk stood at her elbow, half empty. She looked like a child, with the thick dark hair that fell down her back in a braid. A towel around her shoulders had been used to dry it.
Turning her head as the two men came in, she stirred and began to pluck at the edges of the quilt, as if in modesty.
Mrs. Follet handed Rutledge a cup of tea, and he realized with the first swallow that she'd added a little something to it. Grateful, he smiled at her. Then he nodded to his passenger and asked gently, “Feeling better?”
She said, “Yes.” But her voice was a polite thread in the quiet room.
“What's your name?”
As if surprised that he didn't know it, she answered with more strength, “Janet Ashton.”
“Can you tell us what happened, Miss Ashton?”
That seemed to alarm her, and Mrs. Follet put her hand on the quilted shoulder, comforting her.
“The horse lost the road,” Mrs. Fol
let answered for her. “And dragged the carriage a bit before it went over and pulled him down. He injured himself thrashing about in the shafts and finally was still. She couldn't reach him or coax him to his feet.”
Miss Ashton blinked, as if awakening from a dream. “Yes . . . I—it was frightening, I thought he'd crush the carriage—but I couldn't get out, not at first—” She shuddered, and took a deep breath, trying to shut the experience out of her mind. Then she looked up at Rutledge. “You said—you did tell me the horse is dead?”
“He is.” Rutledge pulled a chair away from the table and sat down close to hers. “Is there someone I can contact? Your family must be worried about you.”
“No—there's no one. No—”
“What brought you out in this weather?” Follet asked on the heels of her faltering answer. “It was foolishness, a lass like you!”
But she buried her face in the quilt, refusing to answer.
Mrs. Follet scolded, “Don't fret her, now! She's that tired. I'll take her up to bed. Jim, there's a warm bottle for her feet. If you'll bring it up in five minutes.” With a soothing croon that would have comforted a child, she coaxed Miss Ashton across the kitchen and down the passage, her arm around the thick wrapping of quilt.
Follet and Rutledge watched them go. “There's my son's bedroom, at the head of the stairs, if you're agreeable to staying what's left of the night. He's over to Keswick, where he's been courting a lass.”
“Thank you, but I must be on my way,” Rutledge replied with sincere regret. “They're expecting me in Urskdale.” He set his cup on the table and went out to the motorcar to bring in the empty Thermos.
As Follet refilled it, Rutledge reconfirmed his directions before stepping out into the cold, windy night. As the farmhouse door swung to, Bieder, the dog, followed the interloper all the way to the motorcar, head lowered and a deep growl in his throat to emphasize a personal dislike for strangers. “I'd not like to come across you unexpectedly,” Rutledge commented as he put up the crank and went around to the driver's side. “Murderer or no.”
Hamish said, It's a pity the slaughtered family didna' have a dog like yon.
“I doubt that it would have mattered, if he was armed. Or the killer might have been known to the animal.” Rutledge turned the motorcar with some difficulty and went back down the farm lane in his own tracks. Miss Ashton was safe. He hadn't far to go to his destination. He'd had a chance to warm himself and the whisky had given him second wind. He should have felt revived, eager to go on. But as the darkness encompassed him, isolating him in the bright beams of his headlamps, he could feel the mountains again, out there like Russian wolves beyond the campfire's light. It was a trick of the mind, nothing more, but he was thrown back into the war, when in the darkness an experienced man could sense movement in the German trenches, even when there was no sound, nothing to betray the congregation of enemy forces before a surprise attack.
As it happened Rutledge reached his destination ahead of the dawn. But not before he'd taken half an hour to backtrack to where he'd found the wrecked carriage. The policeman in him, the training that even war hadn't blunted—in fact had honed—made him thorough. Earlier, the need to safeguard Miss Ashton had been his only priority. Now he could examine the scene.
The wind had died and with it the squalls of snow. With his torch in his hand, he surveyed the overturned vehicle, thinking that by this time—if he hadn't come along the same road—Janet Ashton would be dead.
“She was verra lucky,” Hamish agreed. “And who will res-cue us?”
Ignoring the jibe, Rutledge got out to walk warily to the road's edge. His policeman's brain was registering details even as a part of his mind was picturing himself pinned under the overturned motorcar. It would have been, he thought, an easier way to die than most, to fall asleep in the cold night air. Was this the fate of the missing child? It would be ironic indeed if the weather had claimed the murderer as well! A fitting justice, in a way.
What appeared to be a valise was just a white hump beyond the place where he had trampled the snow to get Janet Ashton out of the carriage. It had been tossed some feet away by the impact of the carriage's tumbling fall. And the off wheel, he noted, was cracked. But the horse, tangled in its traces, was pointing in one direction, the vehicle in another. It was nearly impossible to judge where Miss Ashton had been heading when she had skidded wildly off the road. And he hadn't thought to ask her. She had seemed so vulnerable—detached from the tragedy that had taken place in Urskdale but a victim of the same storm. The miracle wasn't that someone had found her in time, but that she had survived at all. It had been a nasty spill. Satisfied, he flicked off the torch.
Hamish said as Rutledge returned to the idling motorcar, “If she had broken her back, you couldna' ha' dragged her up that slope.”
“No.” Moving her could have killed her or crippled her terribly.
Releasing the brake, Rutledge turned the motorcar with great care and continued on his way.
But Hamish, responding to the weariness that still dogged Rutledge, was in a mood to bring up unpleasant subjects.
He ranged from the case just ended in Preston to the letter that had come from Scotland the day before Rutledge had traveled north. This had invited him to spend the Christmas holidays with his godfather, David Trevor. And he had answered that the weather was too uncertain to plan on driving north in December.
“It couldna' be any worse than this night.”
Rutledge argued for a time and then fell silent, unwilling to be drawn again.
Hamish was not satisfied, and kept probing at what he knew very well was a sore subject. It was not David Trevor that Rutledge was avoiding but his houseguest, the woman Hamish should have lived to marry. . . .
CHAPTER SIX
The stars were just visible as Rutledge drove into the small community hugging the roadside. Shops and houses mingled against the backdrop of the lake on the right and in the shadow of high peaks to his left. The main thoroughfare was churned into muddy ruts, freezing over in the predawn cold and cracking under his wheels. Another quarter of an hour or so, and it would be morning. But now the windows were dark, the streets empty. The door to the police station was shut, and no one answered his call as he stepped inside. He went back to the idling motorcar and began to search for his lodgings.
A long ridge loomed above the village, its irregular outline smooth in the darkness, the rocky slopes shapeless under their white blanket. As if concealing their true nature. Below, Urskdale was oddly quiet, almost withdrawn. Rutledge soon found the rambling stone house that served as the local hotel—hardly more than a private home with rooms to let in the summer for walkers.
Someone had shoveled out the drive after the earlier storm, and the new fall was not as deep. Rutledge made the turning with ease and continued past the side of the house into the yard behind it. Here there was a motley collection of vehicles between the stable and the sheds—carts, wagons, and one carriage—left helter-skelter as if the arriving searchers had been in great haste. Muddy tracks led from the yard towards the sloping land beyond, soon lost in the darkness.
As Rutledge got out of his motorcar, a light came on in a ground floor window and someone peered out through the curtains. He walked around to the front of the house. After some time the door opened, and a woman asked, “You're the man from London?” Wind swirled up in their faces as she looked up at him.
She was seated in a wheeled invalid's chair, her lower limbs covered by a soft blue blanket, and he found himself thinking that she had been brave to open the door to a stranger when there was a killer at large.
“Inspector Rutledge. Sorry to arrive so late—or so early. The roads—”
She nodded. “Do come in.” With accustomed ease she turned her chair and made room for him. “I'm Elizabeth Fraser. All the able-bodied men are out searching for the child. Mrs. Cummins, whose house this is, asked me to keep a fire in the kitchen and the kettle on. She's not well, and I've been sta
ying with her. Inspector Greeley arranged for her to put you up while you're here.”
He stepped past her into the hall and watched as she latched the door behind him before expertly guiding the chair ahead of him through another door that led to the rear of the house. He could feel the warmth as he followed her down a passage, as if a stove was beckoning him.
Or was his mind dazed with exhaustion?
Holding another door for her, he found himself in the kitchen.
It was bright with color, the walls a soft cream and the curtains at the windows a faded dark green that complemented the floral-patterned cushions on the chairs around the table. A door led to an entry from the yard.
“Would you care for a cup of tea?” She gestured to the kettle on the stove.
“Yes. Please,” he answered, already awash with it but suddenly unwilling to be alone. The kitchen was ordinary, quiet, cozy—it had nothing to do with a murdered family or the faces of a jury or the voice of Hamish MacLeod in the rear seat. Nothing to do with the overwhelming mountains outside or the duty he had come to carry out. He wanted only to sit down in one of the chairs and think about the crackle of the fire and the warmth that was spreading through him and the drowsiness that would follow. Without dreams, because the light kept them at bay and the woman in the chair somehow reminded him of Olivia Marlowe. . . .
But Olivia Marlowe—the war poet O. A. Manning—was dead, buried in Cornwall. Beyond his reach.
Shaking himself awake, he began to take off his gloves, scarf, and coat, setting them with his hat on one of the chairs. Miss Fraser was busy with the tea, and without getting in her way he stood to one side of the great iron stove, absorbing the heat. In the cupboard she found a plate of cakes left from tea and said, “I can make sandwiches, if you are hungry.”
“Thank you, no.” He roused himself to ask, regretfully shattering the illusion of peace, “Any news? Have they found the boy?”
“Not that I've heard. One of the men fell and twisted his knee. When he was brought down, he said his party had failed to find any signs. And there haven't been signals from the other search parties. Each carried a flare . . .” Elizabeth Fraser glanced at the window, though the curtain was drawn. “I can't see how Josh—the boy—could possibly survive in this weather. It's been brutal—and he's so young, barely ten . . .” Her voice trailed off.