A Lonely Death ir-13

by Charles Todd

  "How do you remember who brought you each item?" Rutledge asked.

  "I've kept a record over the years. I read it sometimes. There was a gilded sword that had belonged to one of Napoleon's generals. Inscribed as well. I was reluctant to sell it, but money is money."

  He pulled a dog-eared ledger from beneath his counter and opened it at random. Rutledge could see that he had listed each object he'd bought, the date, and the price paid. He'd also drawn a fine sketch of it as well. "Let's see." He thumbed through the pages until he'd found what he wanted. "There it is: 1908. Flint knife blade." He pointed to the clever sketch, filled in with black ink. "Sold to me for fifteen pounds by a Charles Henry. No provenance that it is as old as it appears to be, but it is a fine example of flint workmanship, and I rather liked it. But it never brought in the profit I had anticipated." He turned more pages, and then pointed out that he had sold a button hook to a man from Kent on holiday in Hastings. "This is the half of the ledger where I keep my sales listed."

  Rutledge thanked the man and was on the point of leaving when he changed his mind and asked the price of the flint knife.

  "Sixteen pounds, I'm afraid. Necessary to turn a profit even after all this time."

  Rutledge bought it, and then asked if it could be wrapped and put into a box for mailing.

  Ten minutes later, he walked out of the shop and went to find the post office. There he sent the small parcel to Chief Inspector Cummins.

  He'd added a brief message: I found this in a shop in Hastings, Sussex. It is said to be old, but I should think anyone who knew how to work flint could make one just like it. Add a handle, wrap it well with rawhide, and it would make a formidable weapon. It would most certainly explain the bit of flint found in your victim's wound. And it could explain, in some measure, why he was a sacrifice. This may not be as old as Stonehenge, but it could most certainly have been used to kill men as well as animals. What do you think? A t the Yard, Sergeant Gibson had the direction of the three men whose discs had been found before Rutledge had arrived in Sussex.

  He had had time, on the long drive, to consider which of the men to call on first. And he'd chosen the man whose name was connected with Anthony Pierce. Pierce the officer, the anomaly.

  Corporal Trayner lived in Belton, Yorkshire, and Rutledge drove on late into the night to make up for lost time, finally stopping in Stafford, in a hotel near the railway station. This was industrial country, and the town's buildings were black from coal smoke. Stafford's narrow streets and tall church tower had always reminded him of etchings he'd seen of German villages.

  Late the next morning he arrived in the little town of Belton and asked at the local police station for directions to the Trayner house. It proved to be one of six Victorian cottages down a lane just past the churchyard: solid houses of no particular distinction except for the gardens that grew rampant in the small space between the gate along the road and the door. Hollyhocks stood tall in the back of the gardens, holding pride of place at this time of year. A rose climbed to the small porch of the fifth house, and a small sign by the walk identified this as SPRING COTTAGE.

  Rutledge went to the door and lifted the knocker, a brass dolphin.

  A young woman answered the summons, and asked his business.

  Rutledge identified himself and asked to speak to Corporal Trayner.

  She invited him in, saying over her shoulder, "Dear, there's a Mr. Rutledge to see you. From Scotland Yard."

  She led the way into the front room. Although the curtains stood open, the room felt dark, closed in, despite its eastern exposure and the brightness of the morning sun. A man sat in one of the chairs, a cushion at his back and a white cane at his side. He rose as Rutledge entered and held out his hand. But his eyes were scarred and blind, and he waited for his visitor to come to him.

  Rutledge took the extended hand, and then the chair that Trayner indicated. He was fair, with broad shoulders and a ruddy complexion. He said, "What brings you here, Inspector?" There was only curiosity in his voice, not strain. If he had a guilty conscience, it was well concealed.

  Rutledge briefly explained his reason for driving to Belton, and added, "Can you tell me if you are still in possession of your identity discs?"

  "I don't think I ever had any. Not of the sort you describe. I know what they are. I just sewed labels in my uniforms, mostly in the pockets, and that was that."

  It was an unexpected response.

  Rutledge said, "You're quite sure about this? It's rather important."

  "Yes, I'm sure. To tell you the truth, most of the men in my company were not impressed with the fiberboard discs. We were regular Army, you see. Or I was, until this." He gestured in the direction of his eyes.

  "Did you know an officer by the name of Pierce? Anthony Pierce?"

  Trayner shook his head. "No, the name means nothing to me. Should it?"

  "Does Eastfield, Sussex, mean anything to you? Or these names: William Jeffers, James Roper? Theo Hartle?"

  Trayner frowned but said only, "I'm afraid I can't help. You must be mistaken."

  "Your name was on the disc I saw. I can't be wrong on that."

  "And you say that this must have something to do with me? But what?"

  "I don't know," Rutledge said slowly, feeling his fatigue as he spoke. It had been a long drive for nothing. And time was short. He had three days. Not enough time to go elsewhere. And yet now he felt compelled to try.

  Finally he asked, "Was there anything that happened in France-anything at all-that might make someone feel he had to avenge your blindness?"

  "Revenge is a very strong term. But if any of my men felt that I had been wronged, they'd have taken their anger out on the Germans. Not the British. It was a German shell that did this."

  Rutledge had to leave it there. He asked them to contact the Yard if they could remember any detail that might have been overlooked, and they agreed.

  Mrs. Trayner saw Rutledge to the door. He apologized for disturbing them, and she smiled wryly. "I've never seen anyone questioned in a murder case before. It breaks the tedium of our days. But my husband is telling the truth, Inspector. He always does."

  Rutledge thanked her and turned away. But Trayner's voice called to him from inside the house, and Rutledge heard him stumble as he hurried toward the door. Mrs. Trayner went quickly to help him, but her husband brushed her aside impatiently.

  "No harm done, Lucy! Don't fuss." He came out into the passage and asked, "Are you still there, Inspector Rutledge?"

  "Yes, I'm here. What is it?"

  "I was right when I told you I didn't remember your Anthony Pierce. But there was another Pierce-David, I think it was. A lieutenant in the sappers. He was attached to our division for two or three weeks. I don't think I met him, but I knew of him. Is that any use to you?"

  "David?" Rutledge queried.

  "No, David isn't right." Trayner's sightless eyes squinted in the direction of the sky as he pondered. "Daniel. That was it, Daniel Pierce." His eyes came back to where he thought Rutledge was standing. "He had a reputation for being difficult, as I recall. That's how I came to hear of him. But damned good at his job, from all reports."

  Trayner was pleased with himself, as if this was a small victory over his sightlessness, proving to Scotland Yard that he was a reliable witness, even if he couldn't see as other men did.

  "That's very helpful," Rutledge answered, thanking him and moving on to the motorcar.

  Just as he was about to drive away, Hamish said, "Is he still there?"

  And Rutledge looked back. Trayner was standing in the open door, as if savoring the world beyond his doorstep. His wife hovered in the background, fearful that he might take it into his head to do something that would harm him. T here was a severe thunderstorm as he crossed into Wales, and Rutledge took shelter in a small hotel that was miles short of his destination. The Welsh border had once been as turbulent as the Scottish border, but this hotel catered to day-trippers coming across from Worcester,
and the dining room was crowded with those caught out by the weather on their way back to England.

  He sat in the bar, looking out at the lightning, and wondered what he would learn from J. A. S. Jones, Welsh sapper. He turned as the man behind the bar asked what he'd have, and gave his order. Noting the man's limp and a ragged scar down his arm, he asked, "In the war, were you?"

  The man smiled grimly. "I was that. And you?"

  Rutledge gave his regiment, but not his rank.

  "At the Somme, were you? Lost my brother there, I did."

  "Bloody shambles," Rutledge answered, agreeing with the unspoken condemnation he heard in the Welshman's voice.

  "It was, and all."

  He brought Rutledge's ale, and said, "I've found it hard to settle again. I don't know if it's because of my brother or because I can't see any sense in anything now. We were close."

  "What about your family?"

  "That's what my da asks, over and over again. What about my wife and children. I don't know the answer. I think I've changed. And they haven't."

  He went away to serve another storm-bound driver, and then came back to where Rutledge was still standing.

  "How've you managed, then?"

  "I was wise enough not to marry before I went away to fight. Just as well, as it happened." He regarded the man. "What did you do with your identity discs, when you came back?"

  The man gave a bark of laughter. But it was bitter. "Burned them, I did. In the grate. As if I could burn away all that went with them. Sadly, it made no difference."

  More people were coming in, and he was busy. Rutledge took his glass and went to an empty table by the window. He'd hardly finished his ale when the storm moved on almost as suddenly as it had appeared, and the rain changed from downpour to a light drizzle that barely concealed the sun.

  Moving on, Rutledge discovered that J. A. S. Jones lived in a town so small it hardly took up space on the map he'd used to bring him this far. The small slate-roofed houses huddled together against a hillside, and the road seemed to help pin them there, preventing them from sliding down into the brisk little stream on the far side.

  J. A. S. Jones lived above his father's greengrocer's shop. A stair to one side of the shop door led up to another door at the top, and here Rutledge knocked several times before anyone came to answer the summons.

  Jones was a small, dark man, with thinning hair and a short beard. He looked at Rutledge quizzically and said, "If you're wanting your money, I don't have it. Not this week."

  "My name is Rutledge. From Scotland Yard in London-"

  "Good God, I know I'm overdawn at the bank. They needn't have sent the Yard!"

  "I know nothing about your banking arrangements," Rutledge said. "I'm here to ask a question about the war, to do with a murder inquiry in Sussex."

  "Sussex? I don't think I've ever been there." His frown appeared to be genuine. "What is it you want of me?"

  "Can you tell me what became of your identity discs?"

  Jones stared at him. "I-I don't really know. Is it important?"

  "Very. If they are here, will you look for them, please?"

  "Come inside, then." Jones stepped back from the door. "I'm a bachelor. There's nothing tidy about the place."

  It was true. Half-eaten meals littered the tabletop in the long single room, and clothes had been dropped helter-skelter on the floor, the two or three chairs, and the posts of a bed. Rutledge could see the tiny kitchen at the far end opposite the door.

  "I'm out of work at present," Jones told him, dragging a small battered trunk out from under the high, old-fashioned bed. "My family does what it can to keep me out of the poorhouse, but it's been a close-run thing." Unlocking and then lifting the lid, he considered the contents, mostly the uniforms. "Why would you want my discs? I served out my time, there's been no problem with the Army." He began to delve into a corner, fingers poking here and there.

  Rutledge said, "There have been several murders in a village where all the men served together. In each case, a disc was found in the dead man's mouth. The names on the discs appeared to be random-Yorkshire, Cheshire, Wales. We're trying to find out what connection the discs could have with events in the war."

  Jones looked up from his search. "You're saying one of these men had my disc in his mouth? But that's not possible, I have my discs here. There must be some mistake."

  "If you have your own discs, then I shall have to agree with you there," Rutledge responded.

  Jones went back to searching and finally brought out a thin strand of rope, from which two fiberboard discs dangled. "Here they are, then," he said triumphantly.

  Rutledge took the rope and examined the discs. Both were there, the name on each one worn but still legible. The only difference between the two he held now and the one that had been found in Sussex was a small nick in the edge of the one owned by Jones.

  "You're right," he said slowly. "You have both." After a moment he passed them back to Jones. "Did you ever serve with men from the vicinity of Hastings? Anyone named Theo Hartle, Jim Roper, Anthony Pierce, or William Jeffers?" He deliberately put no rank to the names.

  An army in the field was seldom made up of one homogenous regiment. To bring a regiment up to strength, the army took what it needed from whatever troops were available. And so a company from Hastings might for a time serve with a company from Glasgow, only to see it replaced by a company from Cornwall if it suffered heavy casualties.

  But Jones shook his head. "I don't think so."

  "You were a sapper. Did you ever serve under a Lieutenant Daniel Pierce?"

  "Never served with him, but we knew about him. There were stories of his going back into a tunnel to see why a charge hadn't blown. Or going back after men caught in the tunnel when it collapsed. One such story claimed he broke through into a German countertunnel, and the two men shook hands, then shot each other. I don't know how much of it was true, but we were always willing to believe the tales. It gave us a glamour, you might say. They claimed he dug a hole down to hell one night, and dined with the devil. There was always something being whispered behind the backs of our officers. It was their opinion such tales encouraged recklessness. It was dangerous duty at the best of times."

  "What else was whispered about Lieutenant Pierce?"

  "Oh, I dunno. That he was unlucky in love, that sort of thing." He set the discs back in the trunk, straightened the contents where he'd been digging around, and added over his shoulder, "He wasn't the only one unlucky in love. I came home to find that the girl I was to marry had eloped with a bo'sun from a frigate. An Englishman at that."

  Hamish was saying something in the back of his mind, but Rutledge was already posing the question. "How did you know that Pierce was unlucky in love?"

  "One story said the girl he was to marry had died. Another said that she'd chosen another man. Either way, she was lost to him, wasn't she? And where there's smoke, there must be fire." He shoved the trunk back under the bed and got up, dusting off his hands. "Will there be anything else, Inspector?" he asked warily, as if the discs had been a trick to get Rutledge in the door and the truth was to come out now.

  Preoccupied, Rutledge said, "No. Thank you. I'm satisfied that all is as it should be."

  But when he left, Jones was standing in the doorway, watching him go, as if to make sure Rutledge wasn't playing some sort of game.

  Rutledge could feel his gaze on the back of his neck and wondered what Jones had done that made the man so suspicious of a policeman's visit. On the whole, Rutledge thought, his answers had appeared to be truthful.

  It wasn't his inquiry, and he let it go.

  Hamish, in the back of his mind, said as the motorcar turned around and Rutledge headed for England, "He was verra' careful of yon trunk. He brought back souvenirs he shouldna' have had."

  And Jones wouldn't have been the first to do that.

  Coming through Gloucester, Rutledge realized he would pass not twenty miles from where Rosemary Hume lived. S
he had told him to go away, but that was in the heat of anger and heartbreak over her husband's death. He debated, and then decided to stop and speak to her. She could have changed her mind, and he owed it to Max, he thought, to do what he could.

  When he reached Chaswell, the first person he recognized was Max's cousin Reginald, sitting in a motorcar outside a greengrocer's.

  He pulled alongside and Reginald looked up, greeting him with the warmth of a man doomed to boredom for a good half hour more.

  "Inspector. What brings you back to Chaswell? You're the last person I expected to see this afternoon."

  "I've been to Wales to interview a witness. I'm on my way back to London and thence to Sussex. How is Rosemary?"

  "She's taken it hard-but you know that. She hasn't forgiven poor Max. And nothing I can say will change her mind. So I've given up trying. I'm surprised she wants me here. But she does. And in time that should help the healing." He made a deprecating gesture. "Or possibly she's afraid the journey back to Scotland will kill me, and she doesn't want my death on her hands."

  Rutledge smiled, ignoring a lorry driver sounding his horn as he edged past the two motorcars half blocking the road. "Anything I can do?"

  "No. Just-stay in touch." His gaze went to the shop door as two women emerged, baskets in their hands, chatting together. Then he turned back to Rutledge. "I haven't got much longer. I know that, and so does Rosemary. I expect that's why she hasn't sent me away." He paused, staring down the road, as if he knew where it was leading. He didn't look at Rutledge as he asked, "Will you come and see me, if I send for you? For Max's sake?"

  Rutledge thought he knew what Reginald was saying, that with Max gone, he felt the need of someone to be there at the end. For it was not a death he could ask Rosemary to watch.

  "I give you my word I'll try."

  Reginald nodded. "It's no more than I expected. Thank you, Ian." It was the only time he'd used Rutledge's given name.