A pale horse ir-10

by Charles Todd

  The bedroom was tidy, the kitchen cleared, and dishes set as if by habit to drain by the sink. Nothing out of place, an empty valise under the bed, clothes still hanging in the armoire.

  Wherever Partridge had taken himself, he clearly intended to come back.

  Rutledge returned to the sitting room and looked at the desk there. He found nothing of interest, as if it were seldom used.

  There was a single framed photograph on the desktop, grainy and yellowed, showing a man and a small boy standing together in what appeared to be the marketplace of a Georgian town. There was nothing in the shop windows to indicate which town or where in England it might be. Rutledge lifted the frame, slid open the back, and looked to see if there was any inscription on the other side of the photograph. And indeed there was. A schoolboy hand had scribbled, "the day we climbed the white horse."

  Had Partridge come here as a boy? Was that what brought him back as a man?

  Rutledge reassembled the glass and the frame, and set it where he'd found it.

  In the basket to one side of the desk, however, was a crumpled sheet of paper. He reached for it, spread it out, and in the shaded light of his torch found that there was only one line on it.

  My dear

  The start of a letter? To a friend, a lover, a relative? There was no way of knowing.

  He crumpled it again and dropped it back into the basket.

  Nothing here to tell him who Partridge was, where he might have gone, or when he intended to return.

  Certainly nothing mysterious enough to make London worry about where he was.

  When Rutledge stepped out of the cottage, he nearly leapt out of his skin as something warm and sinuous wrapped itself around his legs.

  "'Ware!" Hamish warned in the same instant.

  It was all he could do to stifle a yelp even as his brain absorbed the sound of a soft purr.

  Dublin the cat.

  He bent down to pet her, and she accepted the salute but was more intent on finding her way into the house. He managed to get the door shut first, and as if displeased, the cat stopped purring and trotted off.

  Rutledge stood there for a moment as his heart rate steadied and then made his way to the shed where Partridge kept his motorcar. It was still there, and a bicycle stood in the deeper shadows beyond the bonnet.

  The only unusual thing was a small length of carpet that lay crumpled by the boot, a trap for unwary feet. The oil stains down its length, dark as blood in the little light there was, explained its use.

  Wherever Gaylord Partridge had gone, he had left on shank's mare, not his bicycle or his motorcar.

  But then he needn't have gone far to find someone to take him away. For a price, the lorry drivers at The Smith's Arms would have been willing to let him ride with them as far as he liked. From there he might have gone anywhere by train or bus.

  And come back just as inconspicuously.

  Gaylord Partridge's walkabouts, as Quincy had called them.

  Rutledge slipped out of the shed and made his way through the darkness in the deepest shadow he could find, until he was well past Wayland's Smithy.

  Where did Partridge go, and why? he asked himself as he walked without haste, listening to the night around him.

  Hamish said, "If he was in the war, it's possible he doesna' remember where he goes, or why."

  At the clinic where Frances had taken Rutledge to learn how to deal with his own shell shock, there was an officer who went away for days at a time. Physically present, but his mind lost in some other world where his body couldn't follow, Lieutenant Albany would sit by his window staring inward, and simply not hear or see or feel anything. As if the empty shell of himself waited for him there knowing that in the end he would come back to it. And then, quietly, he did just that, moving and speaking and acting as if nothing had happened, incurious about the hours or days that had passed meanwhile.

  Rutledge had no way of knowing if Partridge was a victim of the war. Nothing in his cottage indicated military service, not the way he'd made his bed or the clothing in his armoire. But then that might have been deliberate.

  The letter beginning "My dear" could mean there was someone he regularly went to see. And if the Government had no knowledge of that someone, it could well be a woman he preferred to keep secret.

  A rendezvous far from the War Office's prying eyes, a brief escape from whatever it was he'd done to have people watching his every move? It was distasteful to spy on a man, entering his house without his knowledge, looking at his personal correspondence. The fact that the search hadn't yielded any useful information made matters worse. No body in the bedroom to explain away Partridge's absence, no souvenirs of Brighton to point to his whereabouts, no letters giving Rutledge the direction of the man's family. Was the young woman who'd knocked on Partridge's door a daughter-or a lover?

  Which brought him back to the unseen man who had been questioning Betty Smith at the inn door. If that was Partridge himself, back again and worried about the stranger hanging about in his absence, he'd taken off.

  Rutledge reached the inn, and removing his shoes, went up the stairs as silently as he could. The snores from the Smith bedroom rumbled in counterpoint.

  Rutledge woke to the early arrival of three more lorries, and as he shaved, he considered his instructions from London.

  A watching brief. Waiting for Partridge to come home, and then reporting to the man's masters, whoever they were, through Chief Superintendent Bowles.

  How long had the man been gone? Three days? A week?

  It was time to find that out.

  At breakfast he asked Mrs. Smith who it was she'd been talking with just after lunch the day before.

  "Just as your brother was leaving. I happened to hear the man mention my motorcar." Rutledge added when she frowned, "He seemed to know you well. He called you by your first name."

  "Lord have mercy, half the people in and out this door know me by my Christian name. It was a busy day from the time I opened my eyes until I shut them again, and with Larry underfoot as well, I was behind most of it."

  "It wasn't a man named Partridge, by any chance? I'd been hoping to see him."

  "Partridge? No, that's not likely. And if it was your motorcar whoever it was had an interest in, he's not the first nor will he be the last. Most of my regulars want to know if the King is staying here." She laughed and bustled back into the kitchen, leaving Rutledge to his meal.

  He drove back to the White Horse, and when Quincy appeared to feed Dublin the cat, Rutledge walked down to speak to him.

  Quincy saw him coming. He straightened and waited, while the cat ate its food without haste, unconcerned by the man from London coming to stand close by its dish.

  "You do your duty by your neighbor," Rutledge began, looking down at the scraps minced for the cat.

  "It's a dumb animal, it doesn't know when to expect its owner. When there's no one about to feed it, at least it knows it won't starve."

  "Which is far from being a dumb animal," Rutledge observed. "How long has Dublin's owner been away this time?"

  "How should I know? I'm not his keeper."

  "Would any of his other neighbors be able to tell me?"

  "I feed the cat, not them."

  "What happens if you aren't here by the time your neighbor returns from his walkabout? Surely the woman up the way would take pity on Dublin."

  "Why?" Quincy shrugged. "I'm not likely to be going anywhere. I leave the walkabouts to Partridge."

  "Partridge? An odd name. What part of the country did he say he came from?"

  "He didn't. And it's no odder than Quincy," he retorted. "Why is it you're really here? Not the horse yonder."

  "Does it matter?"

  "It does. Because every one of us in these cottages is afraid of something. And Partridge was always afraid of strangers."

  "What frightens you?" Rutledge asked, curious.

  "My dreams," Quincy retorted, and went back inside his cottage.

&nb
sp; Later in the day, Rutledge drove to London. His mood was mixed, frustration warring with duty.

  Hamish said, "Have ye no' thought? Ye're a red herring."

  Rutledge was beginning to believe that might be true.

  He found Chief Superintendent Bowles in his office, finishing a report.

  Bowles looked up as he entered, frowned, and said, "What brings you back so soon?"

  "There's nothing to be gained by staying where I was. I was beginning to arouse suspicion. And if I'm not mistaken, there's a watcher there already. Partridge's motor is in the shed, his bicycle as well. He's not in the house ill or dead. And with lorries passing through at all hours of the day and night, he has ample opportunity to disappear wherever he pleases. Unless I'm given more resources, there's nothing more to be done." hat same morning, as Rutledge was questioning Mrs. Smith

  "They won't like it at the War Office." Bowles's voice was thoughtful. "But I'll tell them, all the same." about the man he'd heard from his window, Alice Crowell sat down to write a letter to her father.

  He hadn't approved of her husband's declining to fight in the war, but felt that Albert Crowell's duty driving an ambulance had in some measure made up for it. It took considerable courage to pull men out of shell holes under fire and dress the wounds of men lying helpless in No Man's Land. The Germans had no compunction about shooting ambulance men, and Crowell had distinguished himself several times, even shooting at a diving plane with a borrowed rifle and hitting it before it could fire on his vehicle.

  And so she began her letter with "Dearest Papa…"

  She went on to tell him that her husband was being persecuted by the police inspector in Elthorpe, and unfairly so since he had had nothing to do with the dead man in the Fountains Abbey ruins.

  But she wisely omitted any reference to the book found at the man's feet.

  Ending the letter with a plea for her father's help, she added, "What disturbs me is that the intense scrutiny he's given Albert may have its roots in Inspector Madsen's previous relationship with me, and I daren't remind him of that for fear it will only make matters worse." She sealed the letter, posted it, and told no one. Her father, colonel of an East Anglian regiment, went directly to London and presented the letter to a friend at the War Office. He didn't know the Chief Constable of Yorkshire well enough to approach him, but he rather thought that Martin Deloran might.

  The matter might have languished in limbo but for the fact that Colonel Ingle and the man he met with had both been at Sandhurst. He had come prepared to argue. It wasn't necessary.

  For one sentence in the letter seemed to leap off the page, startling Deloran.

  … the poor man was wearing a respirator, which causes the police to think his death might have something to do with the war, but if Albert couldn't shoot the Hun, how could he kill a man he swears he has never seen before?

  The man behind the desk fingered the sheet of paper for a moment, and then, choosing his words with care, said, "Interesting story. Yes, well. Consider it done. But I'd rather you didn't tell your daughter that you've brought the letter to me. Better to let her believe help arrived before you could act in the matter. Sensibilities of the local police, and all that. This needs to be sorted quietly-if she's to continue living in Yorkshire, that is. And I know just the man to look into matters."

  Colonel Ingle was no fool.

  "Thanks very much, Martin." He waited to see if more information might be forthcoming. "I'll be on my way then."

  "Anything for an old friend," Deloran assured him. But Colonel Ingle knew that friendship had nothing to do with Martin Deloran taking on this matter with such speed. He was jumping in for reasons of his own.

  Deloran got to his feet. "What do you say to a spot of lunch, while you're in London?"

  Sometime later, Rutledge was summoned to Bowles's office, and he found his superintendent in a dark mood.

  "Bloody army, they think we have nothing better to do than run their errands for them. You're wanted in Yorkshire now. I asked if it was the same business, and they declined to tell me. Bloody Cook's Tour, if you want my view of the matter. Give me what's on your desk, and I'll see that it's dealt with."

  "What is it in Yorkshire that I'm supposed to be investigating?"

  "There's a dead man found in Fountains Abbey, of all places. The police are harassing a local schoolmaster over it. You're to deal with it. The Chief Constable has requested you by name. But he let it be known the request came from higher-ups."

  "Little enough to go on-a dead man in an abbey."

  Bowles considered him. "Getting a reputation for yourself, are you?"

  Rutledge laughed without humor. "My sergeant used to tell me that once the army gets you in its clutches, you're never free again."

  "That's as may be," Bowles answered. "But see that you do better with this matter than you did in Berkshire. It was tricky, telling the War Office you'd failed to find their precious lost sheep."

  Walking out of the building, Rutledge found himself already tying the two cases together. He wasn't sure why, except that each request had come from the army, and if Gaylord Partridge was still missing, someone was scouring the countryside for bodies.

  6

  It was a long drive to Yorkshire, and Rutledge broke the journey in Lincoln, staying in the shadow of the great cathedral there. After a late dinner at the hotel, he walked through the gate into the precincts to view the magnificent west front. It was quiet, shadows giving the carvings depth and reality, and he stayed for some time, letting the peace wash over him.

  It was rare that he had time to dwell on something other than murder. Just as in the war, death pursued him as a policeman as well. It was his chosen profession, but he found himself thinking that the men who had built such splendor had left a greater legacy than most. Names long since forgotten, they lived on in what their hands had wrought. Not guns or tanks or deadly gas, but in stone, defining the human spirit's capacity to create rather than destroy.

  Hamish, good Covenanter that he was, preferred unadorned simplicity.

  Rutledge said to him, his voice echoing against the towering west front, "Ah, but is man better off without something to stir him and lift him and carry him through the darkness?"

  Hamish responded, the deep Scots voice trapped in the narrow space between Rutledge and the massive gate, "It didna' serve you well in the trenches, no more than plainness served me. Where was your God or mine then?"

  It was unanswerable. Rutledge turned and walked back to his hotel, the moment broken.

  The next morning, he drove on to Elthorpe, his mind already busy with what he could expect to find.

  No one had given him either a description or a photograph of Gay- lord Partridge, and he wasn't certain what it was he was supposed to achieve when he arrived. But accustomed to the mysterious workings of the army, he wasn't surprised.

  He came into Elthorpe after lunch when the streets were relatively quiet and the April sun had vanished behind clouds.

  Yorkshire's landscape was varied-the rolling dales of the North Riding, a long shoreline to the east, and very fertile land along the rivers that flowed through the West Riding. It was small wonder that medieval monks established so many houses here, building abbeys by the handful. Their ruins, dramatic and quite beautiful, were reminders of a distant past. For someone who loved architecture, it was a feast for the mind and the eye.

  Fountains stood on the plateau west of the city of York, and it was still sheep country, though on a smaller scale, feeding the looms and the mills nearer the coal deposits.

  Elthorpe, small and tidy, stood upright in the sun, as if absorbing as much of its warmth into stone walls as the waning afternoon permitted. A wind had come up, promising a cool night, but the few people on the streets still wore only sweaters or coats against the chill.

  Rutledge found a hotel close by the church, though its name, The Castle Arms, was far too elegant for what was on offer-a comfortable lobby, a lounge beyond an arch, a
nd a desk manned by a very attractive woman about his own age.

  She smiled at him in a way that offered no familiarity, merely an acknowledgment that he was custom newly arrived.

  "I'm looking for a room for several nights," he said, and she nodded, her eyes flicking to the book in front of her.

  "There's number ten, which should suit you. Would you care to see it, Mr…"

  She paused, waiting for him to give her his name.

  "Rutledge," he replied pleasantly. "From London. Thank you, number ten will be fine."

  She nodded, and wrote his name in the hotel register, then handed him an ornate key on a knob that wouldn't fit comfortably into a pocket. Embossed on the end of the knob was a brass inlay of the Great Tower at Richmond Castle. Behind her on a board were similar keys, and a quick glance showed him that there were three other guests at present.

  "Shall I help you carry your luggage up the stairs?" she asked, but it was perfunctory, and she made no move to come round the desk.

  "I should manage very well, thank you."

  He went back to his motorcar, smiling to himself. The people of Yorkshire were not unfriendly but their reserve was legendary. A man, he thought, might live here forty years before he was accepted in the inner circle. And perhaps not then, if there was any suspicion that he might not be deserving of it.

  Two men some twenty yards from him were talking together, and Rutledge found himself listening to the local dialect. The English had such a variety of voices, and his, in this place, stood out as foreign. A stranger.

  He wondered how he would be received by Inspector Madsen.

  Oddly enough, it was with relief.

  Madsen rose from behind his desk to shake hands, his face tired and his eyes troubled.

  He launched into a brief report on the murder as if he had rehearsed it a dozen times that morning.

  "We've got nowhere in this business. The schoolmaster is involved but we don't know how-or why. It's his book there at the dead man's feet," he said. "The book was dew damp, but hadn't been there any longer than the body, judging by its condition." He reached behind him for a book lying on a shelf and passed it to Rutledge.