A Lonely Death ir-13

by Charles Todd

  Summers cried, "All right, for God's sake, I'll tell you. Get him away from me-she's in the Convent of the Claires. South of Paris. I swear it. Please-"

  Meredith Channing had said something about convents.

  "Why is she there?" Rutledge asked, holding up his hand to stop Bell.

  "I told them she suffered hallucinations after a head injury," he said rapidly. "That what she remembers is confused, erratic. There was never a pet dog, we were never in Sussex-they pitied me."

  Bell hurried forward and caught the dog by its collar, his voice firm, pulling Muffin back. It took some doing, and Summers's ankle was bloody by the time Bell had separated them. Summers reached down and gripped it, swearing.

  Bell turned reproachfully to Rutledge. "That was not right."

  "It was the only way," Rutledge answered harshly. "He killed with impunity. He'd have left her there. She was no further use to him. Nor was her money, now."

  He turned on his heel and walked out of the room while Bell soothed the dog and carried him down the passage to the motorcar that had brought him from Dover.

  Norman left Summers slumped in his chair and followed Rutledge. "You're a cold bastard when you want to be. And you've put Mickelson's nose out of joint, bringing the suspect in. He's to be released tomorrow-Mickelson-and sent to London to finish healing. He refuses to clear you, you know. He claims he's uncertain. But we've found Summers's motorcar. It's very like yours. Mrs. Farrell-Smith was right on that score. I don't think you'll have much trouble over that business."

  "It doesn't matter," Rutledge said, refusing to admit to Norman or anyone else that it did.

  Norman said after a moment, "I'm curious. When did you bring your service revolver to Eastfield?"

  Rutledge said, "I took it to France with me. Force of habit." With that, he walked away, leaving Norman to stare after him. A fortnight later, when Rutledge had given his testimony at the inquest and returned to London, he asked Chief Inspector Cummins to meet him for lunch at a quiet restaurant where they could talk.

  Cummins came in, sat down, and greeted Rutledge cheerfully. "I'm glad to see you survived. It must have been touch and go, according to my sources."

  For an instant Rutledge thought that Cummins was referring to that moment in the wasteland of the Somme, when he'd considered his future and decided against dying there. And then he understood. The reference was to Eastfield. "It was a close-run thing-whether I'd be hanged for murder or would bring in the real killer."

  "Why did he target Mickelson?"

  "Apparently he'd seen Inspector Mickelson standing in the churchyard by his mother's grave. He was afraid Mickelson was looking into his family's past. It wasn't true, of course, but it nearly got Mickelson killed, all the same. By the time he'd retrieved his motorcar and stopped Mickelson by the rectory gates, there was no opportunity to garrote him, and so he used a spanner."

  "I hear Mickelson is being bloody-minded about clearing you of any role in his attack."

  "He's had an epiphany. So I've been told. The KC trying Summers-Julian Haliburton-has informed Mickelson that the Crown takes a dim view of muddying the evidence. Inspector Mickelson's statement has officially exonerated me of all blame." Rutledge didn't add that it would be some time before his arrest on a charge of attempting to murder a fellow policeman had faded from the collective memory of the Yard. That anyone believed him capable of such an act still stung.

  Cummins chuckled. "Yes, Haliburton is a stickler for accuracy." His amusement faded. "You understand that you won't be promoted to fill my shoes? Bloody stupid of Bowles, but there it is."

  "I hadn't expected it," Rutledge said. And yet he knew that he would have liked to follow a man like Cummins.

  "On a more interesting subject than the Chief Superintendent, I haven't thanked you for your help with the Stonehenge murder. This is more information than I'd ever hoped to find."

  "There's something more," Rutledge replied. "I think I know the name of the murder victim."

  Cummins was aghast. "I don't believe it. How in hell's name did you ever get to that?"

  "We'd wondered why the knife was left in Hastings. It occurred to me that there must be another connection. At least a name to be going forward with. And what's the most popular name in Hastings?"

  "Robinson? Turner? Johnson?"

  "William the Conqueror. The first of the Norman kings of England. There's an Inspector Norman there, as well. While I was there giving evidence at the inquest, I asked one of his constables if there was anyone in the Inspector's family who had gone missing in 1905. At first Petty thought I was trying to cause trouble with the police in Hastings, but then he told me that there were several families named Norman in that part of Sussex. And one of them, a William Norman, was lost in Peru in 1906. He was a schoolmaster who was eager to find another lost city of the Incas. As it happened, an American, Hiram Bingham, actually did find a lost city. Machu Picchu. This William Norman sailed for Peru on the twenty-second of June, 1905. The family was told he'd reached Peru safely, had gone into the jungle, and was never heard from again. He was declared dead seven years later."

  "To reach Peru, he'd have had to take passage on a ship going out there. Did he?"

  "Yes. Apparently he did. Someone did."

  "Well, then, he isn't our William Norman, is he?"

  Rutledge signaled the waiter to bring their menu. "The report said that the captain of the S.S. Navigator had described Norman as the worst sailor in Christendom. He never left his cabin throughout the voyage, he was as green as anyone the captain had ever seen, and when he stepped off the ship, his legs would barely hold him upright. But he insisted that he was all right."

  "A great disguise, seasickness," Cummins said dryly.

  "You forget, the ship's captain had never seen Norman. He was nothing more than a name on the manifest, and the few glimpses anyone had had of him."

  "Hmmm. Who then took his place? The killer?"

  Rutledge said, "I expect we'll never know. But if it was the killer, then he's dead." He paused. "He was a schoolmaster in a prestigious public school in Dorset. Norman. Not so very far from Stonehenge."

  "What was his field?"

  "History."

  "Was his journey to Peru carefully planned or spur of the moment?"

  "It was apparently arranged some months before his departure."

  Cummins shook his head.

  "Where did the schoolmaster who planned the Druids' trip to Stonehenge teach?"

  "You've seen the file. At a public school in Dorset."

  "Coincidence?"

  "He was cleared. He couldn't have killed the man nor roped him to that bloody stone. He was within sight of his fellow Druids at all times."

  "No, possibly not. But perhaps someone knew about his adventure to Stonehenge and thought it a very good idea to take an inconvenient body there."

  "But what about Wheeler? He was identified."

  "You know how uncertain identifications can be. At a guess, the Edinburgh police were happy to see the end of Wheeler. I've done some research. There was a Wheeler from Orkney killed at Gallipoli. He'd immigrated to Australia from Belfast in 1904."

  "Did he, by God!"

  "Where is your schoolmaster, now? Do you know?"

  Cummins made a wry face. "Dead of cholera in India. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, Rutledge, but it doesn't solve crimes."

  He himself had said much the same, one day in Eastfield.

  Cummins took up his menu. Without opening it, he said, "I was so sure about Wheeler. Even so, we could find no motive to explain why he'd been killed. And without the identity of the victim, we were still stymied as to motive. It was a vicious circle. That's what bothered me all these years. In spite of the loopholes in your arguments, I expect you've come closer to finding answers than I ever did."

  "How do you suppose someone discovered your grandfather's name was Charles Henry?"

  Cummins gave it some thought. "There was a solicitor connected with the c
ase. His name was Charles Henry. I remember remarking to someone that my grandfather's name was Charles Henry. Charles Henry Cummins."

  "Who overheard you?"

  "Oh, I know who was there at the time. Our Druid leader, the schoolmaster." He smiled. "Before you leap to conclusions, that Charles Henry-the solicitor-was up in years. In fact, he died soon after the inquest. He was probably dying at the time and no one realized it. Weak heart." He set aside his menu and raised his glass. "I always knew you were a very good policeman, Ian. Bowles is a fool, damn his eyes."

  The waiter was hovering, and Cummins looked up at him. "Yes, yes, all right. How is the fish here?"

  When Rutledge returned to his flat at the end of the day, he found a letter waiting. It was from Rosemary Hume, and it was brief. It's time, Ian. Can you come?

  He left a message for the Yard, and set out straightaway for Chaswell. When he got there, it was late, but Rosemary was waiting up for him. Even as he walked through the house door, he could hear Reginald's forced breathing. Rosemary took him directly up the staircase to the room her husband's cousin had been given.

  "He asked to see you alone," she said as she turned back toward the stairs.

  Reginald was in a chair, leaning forward, struggling for breath. He greeted Rutledge with a weary smile and a nod.

  "I'm sorry to see you in such straits," he said, sitting down by the invalid chair. "Is there anything I can do?"

  A paroxysm of coughing nearly doubled Reginald in two, and afterward he lay back against his pillows, drained. But he lifted a hand and pointed to his desk. It was a tall affair with bookshelves above, and then the drop-down front that formed the writing surface. Rutledge walked across the room, opened the desk. It was all but empty, and he turned to Reginald.

  "Left."

  There were cubbyholes on either side of a small central alcove, and Rutledge looked in the left one. He saw an envelope pushed deep into the narrow space and hardly visible. He pulled it out. Maxwell Hume's name was scrawled across it in a firm hand, and then, more recently, that had been crossed out and his own name had been written above Maxwell's. From the state of the envelope, Rutledge realized that Reginald must have written this some years earlier, for the original ink was already fading. "This?"

  Reginald nodded.

  Rutledge went back to sit by him. "Shall I open it now?"

  Reginald said briefly, "Later."

  And so they sat together for the rest of the night, mostly in companionable silence, although at times Rutledge talked quietly about their lives, about the war, and about Max.

  Shortly after dawn, Reginald put out a clawlike hand and gripped Rutledge's arm with surprising strength. Rutledge gave him his own hand, and waited.

  "Forgive me." The words were hardly more than a whisper.

  He said, "You're forgiven. With all my heart."

  "Truly?"

  "As God is my witness."

  After a time, the room fell quiet, the struggle to breathe finished. Rutledge held the thin hand for a while longer, and then laid it gently in his friend's lap and closed Reginald's eyes. He took the letter, then remembering, put it in his pocket where Rosemary wouldn't see it.

  And he went down the stairs to where Rosemary, her eyes red with crying, was drinking tea. She passed a clean cup to Rutledge, and he poured his own. It was lukewarm, but he drank it for her sake.

  A little later she said, "I finally slept. And then I awoke with a start. I didn't know where I was. It was then I heard the silence."

  "I'll speak to Mr. Gramling soon."

  "He didn't want a priest at the end. He said it would be wrong to ask for anyone to save two souls, his as well as Maxwell's." She hesitated. "Did he kill himself, Ian?"

  "No. God, no, Rosemary. He-simply stopped breathing."

  "I thought that was why he wanted a policeman at the end."

  "I wasn't a policeman upstairs tonight. I was a friend. I've sat with the dying before this."

  She reached out and put her hand over his. "I'm sorry. Thank you."

  Half an hour later, he left her still sitting at the table and went out to find Mr. Gramling. R utledge didn't read the letter until much later that day, when he had gone to visit Maxwell Hume's grave. Max,

  I hesitate to put this on your conscience as well as mine. But I face my first battle tomorrow, and if I die, I don't want to carry this with me into whatever hell I find. And so I'm writing to you, and when you read this, you will know I'm dead and out of any man's reach. I must tell you that when I was much younger, I killed a man. I should have taken my chances with the courts. But I was very frightened, and the people I turned to told me that given the circumstances, I would ruin the rest of my life if I went to the police. I listened to them, not because I really believed them but because I wanted to believe them. And so through circumstances that aided us and the careful planning of two other people, we carried it off.

  The victim was William Norman. Do you know the name? He went exploring and never came back. Only it was a poor man who worked for the school whom we dressed as William Norman and sent to sea with the promise of a return ticket two weeks after he landed. For our sins, he died of a fever instead and never came home. I blame myself for that as well.

  William Norman was a schoolmaster who hurt people for his own pleasure. Sadistic and clever, he forced his boys to make choices. Lie about a friend or he would tell the headmaster a worse lie in its place. Steal money and swear that it was one of the servants, who would then be sacked without a reference. Or he would fail someone we liked whose marks were already poor, and see that he was sent down. When it was my turn, the choice was particularly heinous. I refused, I said I'd die first, and he told me he could arrange for me to die, and showed me the knife. He also told me who would be blamed for my death. I didn't know where to turn. He told me he'd leave me for a quarter of an hour, to make my decision. I did. I took the only course I could see. I picked up the weapon from his desk and then bent over it as if weeping. He came in, took my hair in his hand and pulled my head up. I drove the sharp blade into his body. By some fluke, it nicked the great artery and he died. I don't know where I found the strength or the courage to watch it happen. I cleaned up as best I could and went to find my housemaster. He and one of the younger masters and I sat there and decided to cover up the crime. I asked if William Norman's family would suffer, and they thought not. He'd been estranged from them for some years. That was all I needed to know.

  If I survive this war, I'll burn the letter. Don't blame the others, will you? They hadn't known what he was doing, but when I told them, they believed me and did their best to save me. I was always grateful.

  And below Reginald's signature was a postscript. Forgive me, Ian, for exacting a promise once I discovered you were a policeman. In truth, our friendship was genuine. And I have tried to make up for that night, short of confessing. Does that mean William Norman won after all?

  Rutledge read it again, then folded it and returned the sheet to the envelope.

  Would he take it to Cummins-who knew much of the story already? He himself had been zealous in search of a truth not for the sake of that truth but because he was a good policeman and it was his duty to pursue the guilty. What truth would be served by closing the case, when the principals were beyond the law's reach?

  Rutledge didn't know. Just now his duty was to bury the recent dead and mourn them with honor.

  Hamish said, "Do ye regret giving your forgiveness before ye knew why you were being asked?"

  Rutledge said, "I don't. God knows, I need forgiveness of my own."

  He walked back to the house. Rosemary was ready, and it was time to follow Reginald to his final rest.

  FB2 document info

  Document ID: fbd-6f9122-0ce0-4b4f-b584-879b-1e04-4a9533

  Document version: 1

  Document creation date: 09.01.2011

  Created using: Fiction Book Designer, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6 software

  Document authors :


  About

  This file was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.5.0.

  (This book might contain copyrighted material, author of the converter bears no responsibility for it's usage)

  Этот файл создан при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.5.0 написанного Lord KiRon.

  (Эта книга может содержать материал который защищен авторским правом, автор конвертера не несет ответственности за его использование)

  http://www.fb2epub.net

  https://code.google.com/p/fb2epub/