by Charles Todd
“And she wasn’t interfered with?”
“No. No attempt at rape. And no sign that she’d been bound, brought here against her will. Interestingly enough, I did discover she’d had a child some time ago. Years, that is, not months. I put her age at about twenty-eight.”
That was surely what had appealed to Markham—three stab wounds, the body in the ditch, the closeness in age. The fact that neither woman could be identified.
“Any sign of venereal disease?”
“No, no, not at all.” Mason sighed. “So why was she brought here, and who came with her, with murder on his mind? Yet she must have trusted him enough to travel this far in the dark with him. We have owls, and any sound she made might have sounded like one. No scream. Taken by surprise, very likely. My thought is a husband who wanted to be rid of her. But she was attractive, not plain.”
Rutledge said, “And the child?”
“There you have me. Dead, perhaps? That might have been the problem, she was still mourning for it, and her husband tired of her tears and her unwillingness to sleep with him. And so he found comfort elsewhere.”
“It’s an interesting possibility. But surely if she lived in a village somewhere close by, she’d have been missed. He’d have to come up with a reason for her absence. She’d gone home to her parents. She’d run off with another man. Something believable that wouldn’t arouse suspicion.”
“Leslie considered that too, and he went to speak to the Constables in the nearer villages. But no one was missing, no one had left mysteriously without telling her friends or the Rector or the daily that she was planning to go away.” Mason frowned. “Oddly enough, I didn’t feel she was English.”
Rutledge regarded him. “How so?”
“Her hair. It was silky, and very black. The old phrase raven’s wing comes to mind. And her skin was slightly olive. Welsh? Mediterranean? There was a Greek fellow in medical school with me. Handsome man, the thickest head of hair I’d ever seen. But that’s not quite it either.” Mason shrugged. “I might be wrong. I’ve not traveled to Europe. And yet that was my view.”
“What became of the body? It couldn’t have been claimed.”
“We couldn’t identify her, however hard Constable Henderson and Leslie tried. We weren’t even certain what her faith was.” There was infinite sadness in his voice. “And so after the inquest we took up a subscription and buried her in the churchyard here. Chief Inspector Leslie contributed to it too. I think he took it badly that he couldn’t name her or find her killer. A personal failure, as if he prided himself on his record. Well. I can show you her grave, if you like.” He turned and walked back to the stone, putting his hand on it again. As if it were an old friend, and he was offering comfort. “We kept her silk scarf, in the event someone came looking for her and might recognize it. And we took her photograph, you know, when she was dressed by the undertaker. To show round the other villages and towns. All to no avail. Leslie took it with him. For the report, he said.”
There was no photograph in Leslie’s report. No mention of one.
“Where is the original negative now?”
“I thought Leslie kept that too. For that matter, no one has come to claim her so far. I expect no one ever will.” Mason turned to look back at the ditch. “She was discarded, Rutledge. Like an old pair of shoes or a broken tool no one had any use for. That’s abominable.”
“What became of her clothing?”
“The Rector’s wife cleaned and brushed them as best she could. And then the poor woman was buried in them. It was all she had.”
“Anything of interest about them?”
“Not of the best quality, but not cheap either. I wouldn’t classify her as a servant girl got into trouble by her employer. More like a young woman married to a man who was starting out in life. A clerk, perhaps. Or apprenticed to someone.”
Rutledge said, “You’ve given this woman a great deal of thought.” It was a statement, not a question. Mason had told him more than Leslie had put into the report.
Mason sighed. “She got under my skin. I’ll be honest with you. I’ve dealt with a good many dead bodies in my time, and I’m not sentimental about them as a rule. A child still touches me. They seem so much smaller in death, frailer somehow. But this woman’s fate was different from someone dying of illness or old age or the like. That’s inevitable, Rutledge. She was killed before her time, and viciously. She must have known as she was forced back against the stone and the knife came out that she would die. I don’t see how he could do it, to tell the truth. There was something about her. A fragility, if you like.” He gestured to the sarsens and the circle they formed, taking in the ditch and the surroundings. “She’s rather like this place. A mystery we can never hope to solve. An enigma. And so I can’t get her out of my mind.”
Rutledge’s gaze sharpened. “How do you know she was forced up against that stone as she was stabbed?”
“We found some threads from the coat there. Just where they ought to be. Where she might have struggled briefly or was shoved back against the rough stone.” He put his hand out to touch the place where he’d found the threads. “Her killer would have watched her face as she died. And still he finished the job. Two more wounds. You couldn’t do that to someone you loved. Could you?”
“It would depend,” Rutledge said, “on why she had to be killed.”
After a moment, Dr. Mason turned away and began walking toward the motorcar.
Rutledge went back to the ditch, finally dropping down on his heels to look more closely at the fallen tree, some five feet below him. It was hardly larger than a sapling, but having brought down the undergrowth around it, forming a sort of matting, it had managed to catch the body. In time, the warming weather would cover the scene with new vines and brush, but now it looked much the same, except where the edge of the ditch had been scarred by the efforts to remove the victim. He could picture the woman lying there, crumpled, her clothing in disarray, a sleeve caught on one of the thinner limbs, her hair coming down and half covering her face.
It was easy to see why Dr. Mason had described her as “discarded.”
Not far from where she’d lain, there was a battered pail, the bottom rusted through, and below that, he could see shards of glass from a bottle.
If the woman had had anything in her pockets, her killer had taken them, according to Leslie’s report. But had there been anything overlooked in the darkness of the night, that might have fallen deeper into the ditch?
He studied the area carefully, inch by inch. But as far as he could tell, there was nothing to find. The killer must have seen to that.
He got to his feet, looking around him at the other stones and the gaps between them where their neighbors had once stood.
How had the killer and the victim got here?
Turning to his left, he could see how the land sloped to the road that passed the surgery, and several houses facing in this direction. They were some distance away from the stones, but closer than any other habitation, if one didn’t count the doctor’s house. Mason’s roof was just visible over the trees on the far side of the ditch.
The report indicated that her boots, of soft leather, didn’t show signs of walking great distances. In fact, they were well polished.
A motorcar, then? Not a horse and carriage, the wheels would have rattled over the ruts in the road. And according to Leslie, Constable Henderson had looked and found no tracks of horse or wheels on the quadrant of grass where these stones stood. On the road coming from the entrance there had been too many tracks to point to any one set. There was mention of the driver taking kegs to the inn. He and his horses would surely have covered over any sign that might have survived.
And if a carriage or motorcar had been left at the edge of the road—where his own motorcar was standing just now—anyone waking in the night and looking out a window might have spotted it. Surely the killer hadn’t risked that? Motorcars weren’t that prevalent here in the countryside. It would
be remembered.
Giving it up for the moment, with a last glance at the ditch and then the great stone, he walked back to the motorcar, where Mason was leaning against a wing.
“It’s rather late for lunch,” the doctor said to him as he reached for the crank, “but I could do with a cup of tea. The inn over there does a fairly decent ale, if you’d rather have that.”
Rutledge bent to turn the crank. “Yes, I’d as soon get out of this wind.”
It was rising, dark clouds scudding across the already grim sky. There would be rain soon enough.
As he got into the motorcar and Mason swung his own door shut, Rutledge commented, “The question has always appeared to be, how did the woman get here. But what if she was already here? In someone’s house. Or what if she’d appeared on someone’s doorstep and had to be got rid of?”
“Leslie and Henderson and I talked about that. There’s really no one in the village here who might have had such an unexpected caller in the middle of the night. What’s more, in that event, who brought her here? She hadn’t walked.”
“Yes, I agree. If she’d hired someone to bring her here, the inquiries in the neighboring villages would have turned up her driver. If only to be sure he himself wasn’t considered as a suspect.”
“You’re beginning to see why Leslie didn’t get anywhere with the inquiry.”
They went into the inn, sat down at a table near the window, and ordered tea.
“You seem to know a great deal about what Leslie was doing as he went about looking for evidence,” Rutledge observed after they’d given their order.
Mason grinned. “I’m too old to have a paramour or even a daughter her age.” The smile faded. “Leslie was rather shocked by what he saw. I could tell that. Well, so was I for that matter when first I saw her lying in the ditch like a broken doll. We got her out and took her to my surgery, where I could have a proper look at her. I didn’t cut her open, I knew what had killed her. But I examined the body carefully for anything that might help us. No real defensive wounds, only a cut on one hand, possibly throwing it up at the last second. Or to fend off the pain. I don’t think she was prepared for what happened. Leslie said something about that at the inquest. He was also telling me that since the war, he’d found it harder to view the dead. But as I reported what my examination had shown, he seemed to collect himself and was quite professional after that.”
Rutledge had seen too many dead as well. This was an unusual inquiry, with the dead already buried. He realized he was grateful.
Mason was looking out the window at the smaller stones in the quadrant nearest the inn. “The fact is, I don’t have much to occupy my time here in the village, my neighbors are a healthy lot for the most part, and quite frankly I was curious about the poor woman. Leslie interviewed every man in the village, but got nowhere. And he was frustrated, to say the least. No one saw or heard anything—no one recognized her—no one appeared to have a reason for bringing her here, much less murdering her.” He turned back to Rutledge. “I know the people here rather well. God knows I’ve treated most of them for everything from broken bones to last breath. We don’t see many murders here. And as far as I know this site never went in for human sacrifices, willing or unwilling. There isn’t a history here that would attract the mad. No wild tales of orgies or mass murder. Still, someone might not know that, and believe such things. I was worried about that at the start, but there’s been no other sign of ritual.”
Their tea arrived.
“It’s not like Leslie to give up. I don’t think he was very happy about it,” Rutledge said.
“Why did the Yard send you here? No disrespect, but if an experienced Chief Inspector hadn’t got very far, a younger Inspector probably won’t either.”
“For my sins,” Rutledge said. “Such as they are.”
Mason nodded. “Well, then. Do you want to go over the same ground? Meanwhile I’ll try to find out about that film negative I mentioned. We can speak to Rector about it. And I can see that you talk to anyone Leslie spoke to.”
“That would be helpful. When is Henderson coming back?”
“That will depend on his brother’s situation. Frankly, I don’t hold out much hope, but that’s not for anyone’s ears other than yours. Renal failure.”
“Forgive me, but I must ask. Henderson himself is above suspicion?”
“I’d trust him with my life. A good man. He’s been Constable here for a good many years, and no breath of scandal touching him.”
Thirty minutes later, they left the inn and began to make a circuit of the buildings closest to the quadrant of the circle where the woman’s body had been found. They began with those on the far side of the road that crossed the causeway, then worked their way down the street past Mason’s house.
By seven o’clock that evening, they’d found everyone Leslie had spoken to, or as Mason put it, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. And the results were the same: no one had heard anything that night and no one had seen either a motorcar or carriage on the road coming in. Rutledge, well aware of the statements each man and woman had given at the time, listened carefully to each response. And he heard nothing that would make him doubt the speaker or sense that he or she was hiding something. People were naturally curious about the new man from London, but no one appeared to be particularly worried by his arrival. A good few wanted answers.
Dr. Mason was tiring from the walking and the introductions he’d made, a task that Constable Henderson would have carried out if he’d been available.
“We can dine at the inn. But where are you staying tonight?”
Rutledge had already given that some thought. “The inn, I expect. It’s where Leslie stayed. Meanwhile, there’s the house with the bay window. I’d like to speak to that woman again. Mrs. Parrish? She had the clearest view of the stones where the murder occurred.”
Mason sighed. “Very well. I’ll not tell you how to do your work. But Mary Parrish is nearsighted and couldn’t have seen anything out there if it had been broad daylight. My old legs aren’t eager to walk back that far. I’ll find us a table, and tell Bryant that you’d like a room. It’s not like they’re full up with summer visitors.”
Rutledge left the doctor and the motorcar at the inn and walked on to his destination.
Mrs. Parrish opened the door only a crack, peering out into the darkness to see who had knocked. When she realized it was the man from London, she smiled and opened it wider to allow him to step inside. “I didn’t expect you again this evening,” she said, gesturing to the front room, where he and the doctor had interviewed her earlier. She looked past him, as if expecting Dr. Mason to follow him.
“I’ve left the doctor at the inn. It’s been a long day for him,” Rutledge told her as he stepped inside.
“Yes, he’s feeling his age this winter,” she agreed, shutting the door and leading the way to the parlor. “There’s a fire on the hearth. We can be comfortable in here.”
The lamp was already lit, picking out the darker greens of the carpet and lighter shades in the curtains. He could see that Mary Parrish had set aside her knitting to answer the door.
She was sixty, he thought, her hair that soft white that blondes often have when the color had faded, and worried hazel eyes behind rimless spectacles watched him take the chair she’d offered.
“I’ve some biscuits left from my tea,” she said, “if you’d care for some?”
“Thank you, no,” Rutledge said, smiling. “It won’t do to spoil my appetite. Dr. Mason is counting on dining at the inn.”
“He does like their roast chicken,” she agreed, “but mainly it’s the company, I expect.” She sighed. “I wouldn’t mind going to the inn occasionally, but I don’t care to be out after nightfall. Especially after what happened to that poor woman.”
“And are you sure you neither heard nor saw anything that night?” he asked. He’d posed the same question at three o’clock that afternoon. He couldn’t have said, really, wh
y he’d come back here. Except for the view he had seen from the window as he’d sat there. The stones had been framed by the glass, enigmatic shapes in the distance. It was, as he’d discovered, the best view in the village.
“No,” she said firmly, picking up her knitting and winding the gray yarn around the needles before setting it in the bag by her chair. Blue forget-me-nots were embroidered around the opening, and below them he could just see the initials M F E P embroidered in a matching blue thread.
“I don’t think that’s quite true,” he replied gently, rapidly considering how best to approach her. “I think you did.”
“Young man, I don’t lie,” she retorted, her gaze holding his, a slight flush on her face.
“I’m not sure that you lied. But I have a feeling you are afraid to admit that you did see something. You aren’t sure who killed that woman, and you don’t want him coming after you next.”
She started to deny it vehemently, then stopped. “Guilty as charged,” she went on tartly.
“Did you tell Chief Inspector Leslie the truth?”
“No. And it wouldn’t have made any difference to his investigation.”
“He should have been the one who decided that. Not you.”
“No. I am the one at risk. It was my decision to make.”
“Then tell me.”
Mrs. Parrish glanced past him at the pretty green curtains, drawn now across the window. Leaning forward, she lowered her voice, as if fearful that someone might be listening.
“I daren’t.”
“If you don’t, he will always be out there. Watching.”
She glared at him. “That’s a cruel thing to say to a woman living alone.”
“I don’t think he’s within a hundred miles of Avebury now. He got away with murder, Mrs. Parrish. He’s not coming back. It would be the height of foolishness to take such a risk, when he’s completely clear. Unless you can put a name to him, he had nothing to fear from you.”