by Charles Todd
Leslie barely heard him. His mind was filled with images he couldn’t stop thinking about. The sheet-covered body on a table in that wretched little room, her face still and cold in death. A rising tide of guilt so powerful he couldn’t remember how he’d got out of there, much less out of that house.
Whisky. He remembered that. The doctor had offered them whisky afterward, and he’d wondered if Mason had suspected—guessed—he’d needed it. He’d managed some excuse. He dared not let either of them see just how badly he needed it. He was terrified that he’d already given himself away, and getting out of there was suddenly all that mattered.
Henderson was pulling up at the inn door. Leslie got down and reached for his valise before the Constable could hand it to him. To make amends, he let the man walk with him inside The Green Man and fetch his key from the innkeeper. Then blessedly, Henderson left him alone to find his room himself.
He got up the stairs somehow, stumbled through the door, and sat down heavily on the chair by the window without even removing his coat or hat. He could see nothing but the images in his head.
Her body. Those three ugly gashes while Mason was going on and on about the knife that had caused them. And later, the silk scarf that the doctor had neatly folded inside her coat. That had nearly undone him, because he remembered it so well, remembered buying it, and thinking how perfectly it would suit.
Why—why—why? But it was too late to ask himself that now. There was no way to escape what he’d done.
His fists were pounding against his knees, but he didn’t feel it.
He hadn’t told them who she was. He couldn’t tell them what she’d meant to him. He couldn’t even tell them why she’d come to England.
Welsh—they thought she might be Welsh because of her lovely black hair. He’d let them. It was bad enough that he’d had to hurt her in life. Now he was betraying her in death. But he’d had no choice, had he?
Guilt was crushing him. Oh, God, how was he to go on?
It wasn’t until much later, rousing up enough to notice how cold he was, that he had the coherent thought that he was the investigating officer. He could make absolutely certain of the inquiry’s outcome.
If he didn’t, there was the hangman. Shuddering, he couldn’t stop himself from reliving the hangings he’d had to witness. He’d have to get himself in hand, he’d have to finish this bloody inquiry somehow, without betraying himself. If he hadn’t already . . .
As he got stiffly to his feet and went to light the fire laid ready on the narrow hearth, he told himself he had to find a way to take up the burden of what he’d done. And try to make it right.
But how do you make murder right? How could one live with such a thing on his conscience?
Leslie closed his eyes and begged her to forgive him—for what he’d done and for what he was about to do. Begged her to understand.
Then, drawing a ragged breath, he knelt and put the match to the tinder beneath the coal.
By the time the fire was drawing well, he’d got himself in hand.
He wasn’t proud of it.
Rutledge didn’t know the details of the inquiry that Chief Inspector Leslie had conducted in Wiltshire. He’d heard some talk that the inquest had brought in murder by person or persons unknown, which was surprising, since Leslie, like Rutledge himself, had a reputation for tenacity, working the evidence until he found the one clue that might lead to finding the guilty party.
But as he heard more about the crime itself, he could understand the lack of a solution. A single murder, with no witnesses, no weapon, and no real evidence to break open the investigation, was the hardest to solve. And dealing with someone obsessed with Druids and stone circles and possibly believing that human sacrifice had been practiced when the stones were new was especially difficult. If he’d got what he wanted from the god or gods he’d sacrificed to, whoever he was, he might never kill again.
It was early March when Rutledge went to The Strand Restaurant for a late supper, only noticing the time because he’d come to the last of the reports he’d been reading and realized that he was hungry. And he couldn’t remember anything palatable in the pantry at the flat.
He had avoided The Strand after running into Kate Gordon and her mother there one evening. He hadn’t seen Kate since the nightmare of what had happened on his own doorstep, and he didn’t want to encounter her now and cause embarrassment for both of them.
Her mother had made it plain enough in December that a policeman was not an acceptable suitor for her daughter, who could aspire as high as she liked. After all, Kate’s father was a high-ranking officer in the Army, and his distinguished record during the war had led to his being received by the King. Rumor had it that he was on a first-name basis with half the war department. True or not, it had given Mrs. Gordon a reason to conclude that Kate could marry very well indeed. In fact, the Prince of Wales had danced twice with Kate at a ball marking the end of the Paris peace talks in June 1919, although it was known that he generally favored married women.
Rutledge had barely recovered enough from his own war that June to care who had danced with whom. He’d known Kate then only as the sensible cousin of the woman he’d been engaged to marry in the summer of ’14, and while he’d liked her then, he’d been too blinded by his love for Jean to see that Kate was worth two of her.
But he felt safe enough tonight, late as it was. The Gordons kept early hours.
As he followed the waiter to a quiet corner, Rutledge saw Leslie dining alone and stopped by his table.
“Working late, also?”
Leslie looked up and smiled. “My wife’s in Suffolk, and my own cooking is not edible. Join me. I’m tired of my own thoughts for company.”
Rutledge nodded to the waiter and took the chair opposite Leslie.
In the light of the chandeliers, Leslie looked very tired.
Noticing that, Rutledge asked as he took up his serviette, “Busy with an inquiry?”
“Not at the moment. No. Thank God. You?”
“I just got in from a village not far from Derby. I found my desk buried in files. I’ve dealt with them and taken the lot down to Gibson’s desk, to bury it next.”
Leslie laughed. “The Sergeant is a marvel. If he ever retires, the Yard will collapse. Did you get your man?”
“I expect it will.” He shook his head, indicating that he would have no wine tonight, and the sommelier moved away. “As a matter of fact I did, or rather, my woman. A nasty one at that. The Vicar had lost his wife to influenza, and she was barely in the ground when the housekeeper’s sister began accusing every woman in the parish under forty of setting her cap for him if not worse. That was bad enough. Then she poisoned one of them because she was convinced the Vicar favored her. The Constable whose lot it was to take her into custody had his hands full—she fought and kicked all the way to the police station. Browning suffered a cut on his chin and bruised shins.”
“Good God.”
Rutledge gave the waiter his order and handed him the menu. Turning back to the Chief Inspector, he said, “From what I’ve heard, you had a rather nasty inquiry yourself last month.”
Leslie’s eyes hardened. “I didn’t catch the killer, if that’s what you mean. I’ve put out word that if anyone discovers a similar case on his turf, I’m to be told of it at once.”
Something in his expression brought a quiet “’Ware” from Hamish.
Rutledge heeded the warning. He couldn’t have said why, except that he could sense something in the man opposite him. A sudden tension in his body, the unexpected glare. It wasn’t like Leslie, but then he hadn’t taken any time off for weeks. He could be found at the Yard early in the morning and late at night, whether there was a major case on or not.
Rutledge said easily, “Well, supper isn’t the place to talk about murder. I hear that Sutton is getting married next month. He knew that my sister was wed in December, and he’s been asking me about the groom’s duties.”
The stif
fness faded, and the glare as well. “Poor Sutton. His future mother-in-law will keep him in line. I don’t envy him.”
The conversation moved on to the war. Leslie finished his wine, and set the glass down. “I shouldn’t say this. It’s been two years. But I can’t seem to put France behind me.” He appeared to be thinking aloud rather than speaking to Rutledge.
“That’s not unusual.” Rutledge pushed the remains of his meal across his plate, refusing to be drawn. They all knew—he could see it in their faces sometimes when he caught them looking at him. Shell shock. But he was damned if that knowledge was going to force him to resign. That would be what was expected of a coward.
“No, I expect it isn’t,” Leslie answered thoughtfully. “I can’t talk to my wife about what happened out there. I couldn’t do that to her.” His gaze moved from the empty glass next to his plate to focus on Rutledge. “You aren’t married. That must be easier. And at the same time, more difficult.”
“I don’t think there is a solution.” He suddenly found himself remembering a friend. A suicide. He cleared his throat. He wanted to add, We live with it until we can’t any longer. But suicide, given the recent past, was not a subject he wanted to bring up. Instead he commented, “For many of us, the war didn’t end when the guns stopped firing. That’s the problem. We saw too much. Things that can’t be shared. Things we can’t forget.”
“You put it well.” Leslie was silent for a moment, then he said, striving to push the darkness aside, “Cheese or pudding?”
“I’ll finish with a second pot of tea.”
“Yes, I think that’s best.” He turned to signal the waiter.
The next day, Chief Superintendent Markham sent for Rutledge and handed him a file as he walked in the door.
“A rather nasty murder in Shropshire. See what you make of it.”
Rutledge opened the file and scanned it. There wasn’t a great deal of information. There rarely was.
A parish sexton had dug a grave in late afternoon for the next morning’s funeral service for a man in his fifties. As it was to be left overnight, the sexton had covered the opening with boards and sacking, to prevent any damage to it or to a person who might unwittingly fall in. The next day, an hour before the ten o’clock service, the tocsin already tolling the man’s years, the sexton went out to remove the boards and sacking, and set the coiled ropes to one side, ready to hand when the coffin was brought from the church. As he drew back the second of the boards, he discovered that the grave was already occupied. A woman’s body lay in the bottom, and even in his shock, he realized that she was dead and had surely been murdered. There was a great deal of dark, drying blood on her clothing and her face. Far more than a fall could have caused.
He sent the equally shocked Rector for the doctor and the Constable.
By the end of the day, the village Constable had asked for the Yard to be brought in.
“Can’t say that I blame the local man,” Markham commented as Rutledge finished reading and closed the file. “Apparently no one knows who the dead woman is. Much less who might have wanted her dead.” He smiled, but it was cold. “Just your sort of inquiry, I should think.”
Rutledge had angered Markham last month in the course of another case, and this was the Chief Superintendent’s less-than-subtle way of reminding him of that.
“I’ll do my best, sir,” Rutledge answered mildly, refusing to rise to the bait. “I finished the reports on my desk last evening. I can leave for Shropshire straightaway.”
“See that you do,” Markham replied, and picked up another file from his desk.
Dismissal.
Rutledge closed the Chief Superintendent’s door behind him, and in the passage, where no one else was about just then, he swore under his breath.
He reported to Sergeant Gibson that he was going to his flat to pack a valise for Shropshire, and left the Yard.
2
Rutledge spent the night in a small village halfway to his destination, and arrived in Tern Bridge just as dusk was falling the next evening.
He took a few minutes to explore. This was a flat part of the county, with a river that ran past the outskirts of the village. There was an ancient bridge across it, hardly as wide as his motorcar, and just beyond that was a fortified manor house, in ruins now, the empty windows black spaces in the brick walls and what had once been a garden, now wild with brambles and weeds, running down to the water.
The small village itself was a mixture of Tudor and Georgian buildings, some of the former still possessing their overhanging upper stories, diamond-paned windows, and tall chimney pots. The dying light was reflected in the old glass, and it faded as he watched.
Constable Leigh was mending a chair in the small police station when Rutledge opened the door and identified himself.
Rising from his knees, Leigh said, “Good evening, sir. Sorry about that.” He set his tools and the chair to one side. “I wasn’t expecting you this soon. You made good time. Have you found your room in The Dun Cow?” He grinned. “It’s far nicer than it sounds. Seems the original owner ran off with the money his father had been paid for a dun cow, and with it won enough at cards that he could afford to build the inn. That was in 1742, and no one’s changed the name since.”
“Sounds like the excuse a highwayman might have used to explain his sudden wealth.”
Leigh’s grin broadened. “You’re the second person I’ve heard say that. The first was my own father. For all I know, you’re both right.”
“Where is the inn?”
“Across the street and down past the whitewashed house with the green shutters. You can’t miss it.”
“Is it too late to call on the doctor?”
“I expect he’s dining just now.”
Rutledge pulled off his hat and coat, and took the only other chair across from the Constable. “Then I’ll speak to you first. Tell me what happened.”
“You have the file, sir?” Leigh asked, frowning. “I spoke to a Sergeant Gibson and gave him the details.”
“I’d rather hear your version.”
“Indeed, sir.” He cleared his throat and began his account of events.
“Sexton dug Mr. Simmons’s grave late in the afternoon before the day of the funeral. We were expecting rain in the night, and he wanted to do it proper, not in mud. When he’d finished, he put boards across the opening, and laid a bit of sacking over them. But the rain never came, passing south of us, and the next morning Sexton came to remove the boards and make the grave ready for the service. He’d got the sacking off and was hauling back the second of the boards when he happened to glance down into the grave, and there was a young woman just lying there. It looked as if she’d just been rolled over the edge and let fall where she may. He ran for the church, yelling for Rector. Rector was that shocked, he hardly knew what to do. But neither of them had any doubt that the poor woman was dead. I brought Dr. Allen with me, and we lowered him into the grave. He shook his head, and we threw him the casket ropes to wrap around her, and the three of us pulled her up. There was a terrible lot of blood, most of it caked and dry, and when Doctor opened her coat, it was plain she’d been stabbed. Rigor was already setting in, and Doctor thought she’d been dead since last evening. He called it murder, and that was confirmed when he got her back to his surgery for a better look. Three wounds, he said. And bruising where a hand was clamped over her mouth to keep her from screaming as the knife went in. Neither Rector nor Sexton nor Doctor recognized her, and I went ’round the village to see if anyone there knew her. No one did. She was a pretty woman, young, fair hair, blue eyes. And dressed nicely, as if on her way to church or to dine out with friends.”
“What have you done about identifying her?”
“I asked at The Dun Cow, but she hadn’t taken a room there. There’s an omnibus that comes through in the afternoon, near to four o’clock, sometimes as late as five, and I asked the driver on duty if he’d brought her here the day before. He said he’d had no pas
sengers for the village. And there are others who remembered the omnibus passing through but not stopping. Meanwhile, I went door-to-door, up and down the streets, but no one had seen her. And everyone I spoke with claimed not to know who she was.” He stopped, then added, “At least no one has admitted to knowing her.”
“Do you think someone is lying?”
“That’s the problem, sir. They all seemed to be telling the truth. I know these people, I can usually tell if they’re hiding something.”
“Much traffic through the village?”
“We’re not the main road to anywhere. But we get the occasional lorry, some motorcars each day, and more than a few carts and goods vans. As you’ll see, the churchyard is on the far side of the church, and there are a good many trees about. One ancient yew by the gate in the churchyard wall. How could a passerby know there was an open grave sitting there ready to hand for hiding a body? Of course everyone knew Mr. Simmons was to be buried there next day. Even those who weren’t expecting to attend the funeral. But I’ve spoken to all of them. Everyone over the age of twelve. And made myself available here if anyone wanted to tell me something in private.”
“Perhaps her killer didn’t know the grave was there. Perhaps it was fortuitous, when he’d been planning to leave her body by, say, the apse, where she wouldn’t be discovered straightaway.”
Dubious, Constable Leigh shook his head. “That’s rather cold-blooded of him, after killing her. And he was taking a chance, carrying her across the churchyard in the dark. Best way to trip over a stone.”
“He may know the churchyard. Or possibly have scouted it.”