by Charles Todd
"Because Shoreham scarred his wife for life. You know this, it's the reason Shoreham is unemployed and living on the charity of his family."
Williams shook his head, shock still washing over him. "I know about the accident. That's what it was, an accident. Henry swore it. What do you want me to do, help you prove that this is Henry? I haven't seen him in years. Did you show this sketch to Peter? What did he say?"
"He avoided answering me. He cared as little for your cousin as you appear to do."
"No, that's not fair, it isn't a matter of caring. God knows-" He broke off, swallowing hard.
"If you pass off a dead man as your cousin, and Albert Crowell is hanged for it, what then? Henry Shoreham has done enough harm to the man and his wife, and this will compound it."
Williams began to cry, his face worn with grief. "Go away and leave me alone. I won't hear any more of this. It's all a trick, and I won't be taken in by it."
"Then I shall have you summoned for the trial. You can sit there and watch what happens, and then if your conscience pricks you, you can tell the court what became of your cousin." It was harshly said, and intended to be.
"I can't afford to come to Yorkshire. I have no money, it will break me."
"Better to break you than to hang an innocent man."
Rutledge had drawn his conclusions by this time. He knew what was coming and he braced for it.
"You can't do this to me, I've been punished enough. Leave me alone."
"Then you're a coward, Shoreham, and I'll have you in that courtroom if it's the last thing I do."
He turned and walked through the door, the dog, hackles rising, coming to nip at his heels. The man did nothing to call him off. But Rutledge had just turned the motorcar to go back the way he'd come when Shoreham was in the doorway, calling to him.
"Stop-"
Rutledge paid no heed.
"For the love of God, wait!"
Rutledge braked but didn't turn. He could hear Williams splashing through the puddles to the side of the motorcar, his face ravaged.
"All right. I'm Henry Shoreham. Peter wrote me about the dead man, nobody knew who he was, even Inspector Madsen didn't. We thought-we thought if he was nameless, it wouldn't matter to anyone if we let the police think it was Henry. Me."
"How long have you lived here?" Rutledge asked again.
"For two years. Since my cousin Llewellyn died and left the house to me. I thought-I thought I could take his place, use his name, find work again, and live like a man and not someone else's dependent. Peter had done his best, but they couldn't keep me." He wiped the rain from his face. "Then two years ago a man from Whitby and his wife came to live in Addleford with her mother. They'd done their banking where I worked. They knew me. I couldn't stay on. I came here and looked after Llewellyn until he died, and I took his place. Peter pretended I was still there, in Yorkshire, and everyone believed him. They never saw me, I was known to be a recluse. How would they know if I'd gone away or not?"
"Your cousin couldn't go on lying forever. You hadn't expected him to do that."
"We played a little game. He'd tell the rector I'd seen him pass by the house. Or the butcher that I'd appreciated the bit of beef for Sunday dinner. But Peter's children were getting to an age where someone might ask them how I fared. We were casting about for a way to explain I'd gone to London to search for work when the constable came looking for Henry Shoreham. They told Peter no one knew the dead man, and he was quick to see how it might help me to be dead and buried. We didn't know the Crowells were back in Yorkshire."
"You were interfering with a murder inquiry. It was a stupid thing to do."
"I never meant harm to anyone, I swear it. You don't know what it has been like. The Crowells are everywhere I turn, and I can't escape them. He forgave me, did you know that? In public. I fell on my knees and cried afterward, but he never knew that. Others blamed me, though, and word that I wasn't to be tried ran round like wildfire. I couldn't go on. If Peter hadn't asked me to come and stay, I'd have killed myself somehow. I didn't mean to harm Alice Crowell, but she's repaid me in kind. I've suffered as much for my sins as she has for my carelessness. What am I to do to find any peace?"
"Come to Yorkshire with me. The case will be closed and you can come back here and get on with your life. I don't think Inspector Madsen is going to make a great noise about any of this. It can be done quietly."
Shoreham looked up at him. "I have no money. If I go to Yorkshire, I'll have no way to get back to Wales. I can't ask Peter, he's strapped as well."
"I'll see you safely back," Rutledge said.
"Inspector Madsen will be furious. He'll know we lied to him."
"It might do him some good," Rutledge said. "He needs a lesson as much as you do."
"I'll pack my things and find someone to see to the dog. If you'll come back later, I'll be ready."
"And find a dead man here in your place?"
"I won't end it, I swear it."
"The temptation may be stronger than you think." He began to turn the motorcar again, and Shoreham walked beside it to the house.
Rutledge waited until the battered valise was closed, then took up the dog in the motorcar with them, to leave with a neighbor while Shoreham was away.
Then they turned toward England.
It was a silent drive. Only once did Shoreham break the silence. And that was to say, "Who's the dead man, then?"
Rutledge answered, "A man who also lost his way, I expect."
Rutledge drove straight through to Elthorpe, fighting drowsiness and an ache across his shoulders as he took the most direct route back-Shrewsbury to Manchester, Leeds, and then Harrogate. Rutted roads, slow-moving drays, overladen lorries, and the occasional wandering livestock made the journey feel longer than it was. Outside Shrewsbury he waited impatiently for cows to make their way along the road for morning milking, and in Cheshire, the Royal Mail had come to grief in a ditch, where heavy rains had made a bend tricky. A farm cart and a half-dozen burly men were doing their best to pull it out again.
Hamish said, "They willna' manage without help."
Rutledge caught himselfjust before he answered aloud, then called to the driver to offer his services. He gratefully accepted, and in short order the Royal Mail was on the road again.
They stopped for food and petrol and sometimes to stretch their legs.
Shoreham was quiet, resigned now, though Rutledge kept an eye on him throughout to gauge his mood.
One act of drunken unruliness, unintended yet preventable, had altered the direction of Henry Shoreham's life. And Crowell's forgiveness, well meant, had only driven the guilt deeper, without hope of expiation. It had become, in a way, retribution.
It was possible he'd change his mind at some stage of the journey to Yorkshire, preferring to take his chances alone and nearly penniless rather than revisit his nightmare.
And in truth, if he did change his mind, there was no legal way to stop him. The need to identify a stranger had brought him back to his own personal hell, and indeed, the closer they got to Elthorpe, the more noticeably anxious Shoreham got.
Still, he said nothing, and the silence was a strain on both men. Hamish filled it instead, his voice alternately hostile and questioning.
At one point Rutledge asked, just to silence it, "Shoreham. Do you know a Gerald Parkinson? Or Gaylord Partridge?"
"No. Should I? Is this another test?"
"Not at all."
And the silence reigned once more.
When the motorcar pulled at last into Elthorpe in the late afternoon, a cold rain was falling and the streets were empty. In the teashop they passed, the tables were filled and steam clouded the windows. The pub was dark, but there was a motorcar in front of the hotel, two men descending and walking briskly through the door.
Shoreham said, "Peter Littleton lied as well. But for my sake. Don't punish him for my sins."
Rutledge didn't answer.
Inspector Madsen had gone
home for his tea. Elthorpe was tranquil once more and no murderers wandered in the ruins of an abbey, or anywhere else. He could afford to take his time.
Rutledge sent the constable on duty for the inspector, and it was with studied reluctance that the man did as he was asked.
In short order, Inspector Madsen came striding in, confident and in good spirits. His gaze swept over the stranger and moved on to Rut- ledge.
"Well, then, what brings you north again? Track down Littleton, did you? Fool's errand, I could have told you as much, but there you are."
"Not quite," Rutledge replied. "Don't you recognize this man?"
Madsen turned his attention to Shoreham's face, and he frowned. "The Welshman, is it? What possessed you to bring him back with you?" Some of the confidence in his face faltered.
"His real name is Henry Shoreham, not Llewellyn Williams."
Madsen laughed. "I daresay you could find a dozen Henry Shore- hams across the breadth of England, if you set your mind to it." But the laugh rang hollow.
"You found Littleton, I grant you, and Shoreham had stayed with him for some time. But it was two years ago, not two weeks, when Shoreham left to take up a cousin's farm in Wales. Littleton was clever, he saw a chance to bury his cousin, and the two of them were convincing."
"You're mad!"
"Hardly that. Bring out Crowell, if you will, and see what he has to say."
"Of course he'll identify your man as Shoreham. He's no fool."
Shoreham said, his voice not quite steady, "They will know me in Whitby. You've only to take me there, to the police. I don't want to see Crowell. Or his wife."
Madsen was staring at him with a hard expression on his face now, convinced against his will, and yet unwilling to admit to it, he was wishing Shoreham at the very devil.
Rutledge said into the silence, "He's right."
"Then who is the dead man from the abbey? Answer me that, if you're so damned clever."
"It is my belief he's one Gerald Parkinson, of Wiltshire."
"Wiltshire, is it? And what was he doing in Yorkshire?"
"I'm not sure. But there was this business of Shoreham to settle once and for all. You'll have to let Crowell go, you know."
"Maybe he mistook this Parkinson for Shoreham," Madsen snapped.
"Do they look that much alike to you?" Rutledge countered. "Generally, of course, in coloring and height. The same could be said of your constable, there by the door. But there's no question about the features. They aren't the same."
Madsen said, "Bring me Parkinson's murderer and I'll let Crowell go. Not before."
But it was bravado. They had only to look at Shoreham, standing there with his eyes downcast and his face pale, the strain evident, to know that Rutledge had found his man.
"All the same, I'll take him to Whitby," Madsen went on.
"At your expense. And after that, he's free to return to Wales. Agreed? I'll leave you the money to pay for his journey."
"Agreed." It was reluctantly promised, but Madsen knew he had lost his gambit. He'd been wrong about Crowell. If in fact he had ever truly believed that the schoolmaster was a killer. And now it was time to save face and back out with as much grace as he could muster.
Rutledge took Shoreham to the hotel across from the police station and found rooms for them. He said to Shoreham as they turned toward the stairs, "You couldn't have hidden forever. You couldn't have lived with the lie."
Shoreham stared at him for a moment, then said, "Yes, I could have done that, if you hadn't come to my door. I could have ignored the truth and told myself the man was dead, and there was no harm in giving him a name-my name. He didn't have one of his own, did he? But when you stopped in my yard, it was different, somehow. I couldn't pretend after that. I'd lost the chance." He held out his hand for his key and added, "You told me you'd pay for my way back to Wales."
"The money will be waiting at Inspector Madsen's office, when he's finished with you."
Shoreham grimaced. "I wasn't going to run." And then he was gone, the door shut behind him.
After four hours' sleep, Rutledge left Elthorpe and turned south.
He took with him the words that Madsen had said to him when he brought the money for Shoreham's journey home.
"It must be nice to sleep at night, knowing you're always right."
"I wasn't blinded by wishful thinking, Madsen. There's the difference."
"Still and all," the inspector told him bluntly, "I wish you'd never come here. We'd have managed very well without you."
"Let go, man, before you destroy your career."
"It'ud been worth it. I'll say that to you and no one else. I don't know which of them I wanted to hurt more. Him or her. It wouldn't have changed anything, but it might have taken away a little of the pain on my side."
It was something Rutledge was to remember in the days ahead.
14
Rutledge put in a call to Bowles when he stopped for the night in Lincoln.
Chief Superintendent Bowles wasn't there, he was told. But Sergeant Gibson had a message for Inspector Rutledge.
There was a delay while the sergeant was located and brought to the telephone.
He was gruff. "You're to come directly to London, sir."
"What's happened?"
"I'm not to say, sir. It's a family matter. Your sister will be waiting for you at your flat."
If she was waiting there, she must be all right. But she wouldn't have had the Yard pass on a message if it were only another snag in her relationship with Simon Barrington. He could feel his mind searching for a solution, and finding none.
"Very well. Thank you, Gibson. I'll be at the Yard in the afternoon."
"Yes, sir." He sounded doubtful, but then Gibson was not known for his cheerfulness.
Rutledge put up the receiver and turned around, on his way out of the small room where the hotel telephone had been installed. As he opened the door, he was surprised to see Simon Barrington walking into the hotel dining room, a woman on his arm. Rutledge could see only the back of her head, dark hair and a slim figure.
He decided on the spot to find somewhere else to dine. He had no wish to come face-to-face with the pair.
But what was Barrington doing here in Lincoln?
Hamish said, "Ye're too weary to go on to London. It would be foolish."
He had read Rutledge's mind.
The policeman, however, walked briskly to Reception and turned the book toward him to see who had registered with Barrington.
There were two names. Separate rooms. S. Barrington and J. Fel- lowes. Barrington had given his address as London, but Fellowes had listed Boston.
The clerk saw what Rutledge was doing and came out of the office. "Here-"
"Police business," Rutledge said curtly, and went out to find his dinner.
H
e reached London in the late afternoon, stopping twice on the road for a brief respite.
Hamish had rumbled through the night, as he'd often done in the trenches, and the soft Scots voice had brought tension with it.
Rutledge went straight to his flat, and he found Frances waiting as promised, her face filled with concern. He knew at once that someone was dead.
"Who is it?" he asked, bracing himself. "Not Melinda-"
Melinda Trent, the intriguing elderly woman who'd lived through the Great Indian Mutiny of 1857, had been a friend of his family for as long as he could remember, and cared for him as well. He returned that love in full measure, leavened by a strong suspicion that she saw through him more often than not. If she'd found Hamish in his shadows, she had spoken of that only obliquely. Her home was in Kent, and he promised himself he would find a way to go on there tonight, taking Frances with him.
"No." She crossed the room to greet him, hands on his shoulders, and said, "Oh, my dear, I don't know how to tell you."
"Quickly would be best," he replied tightly.
"It's Jean," she told him then. "She's dead."
; "Jean-"
The woman he should-would-have married, if there had been no war.
He had got over her, he had told himself that often enough through a long dark year. Now it struck him that he had never said good-bye. That day in the clinic when he'd broken off their engagement so that she wouldn't have to ask him to set her free, letting her go because it was what she desperately wanted and didn't know how to tell him, she had walked out of his room promising to come again as soon as she could. But she never had. He had known she wouldn't be able to brace herself for another visit.
Dead-
He could feel Frances's hands on his shoulders, hear her voice, and knew that she was there.
"Who told you?" he asked hoarsely. "How did you find out?"
"Melinda telephoned to me. A friend of hers had sent her a cable from Canada. It was in the papers in Toronto."
That too was a blow. That Jean had died and he had felt nothing.
"How did it happen?"
"Complications of pregnancy. She lost her child-a miscarriage- and infection set in afterward. They did all that was possible to save her."
Women died in childbirth every day. Only he hadn't expected one of them to be Jean.
"Is she coming back to England?"
"The obituary says she'll be buried in Canada. Her husband is still serving there."
And so he would never say good-bye. Not now.
The last time he'd seen her, she was coming out of St. Margaret's Church, where she was soon to be married. A cluster of her friends surrounded her, their voices traveling to him where he stood. Her face was shining with happiness and excitement as she discussed flowers and candles and ribbons. It had broken his heart-and yet he had never hated her for leaving him. He had known what sort of husband he would have made. She was better off without him.
Still, he felt a surge of guilt for letting her go.
If she had stayed in England-
But that was pointless.
Rutledge set Frances aside and went to the window to look out on the street, not seeing it.
She went away, and came back presently with a cup of tea.
Rutledge drank it, the hot strong liquid cutting through the shock of Frances's news.