by Charles Todd
“Yes,” Haldane said slowly. “I know which one. Of all the standing stones I’ve ever seen, it is the most—puzzling. One doesn’t easily forget it.” After a moment, he added almost to himself, “I wonder if that’s why she was killed there.”
“I don’t follow?” Rutledge replied.
“As I said, one doesn’t easily forget that stone. Don’t you see? If you were looking to kill someone, casting about for a way to do it without being caught, the best plan would be to confuse the issue, so that the police are chasing shadows, not the truth. No offense, but there you are.”
Dr. Allen had done just that. He’d put his victim into a grave dug for someone else, confusing the issue of who she was and where she’d come from, shock and mystery surrounding her death. He’d counted on that, to allow him to take charge of the body, and manipulate any evidence he didn’t wish to come out. But who in Avebury fit the role of Dr. Allen?
Or was not there now to be questioned?
Constable Henderson?
“Is there any way to identify this woman? Or discover who it is she might have come to England to find?”
Haldane considered him. “If one’s papers appear to be in order, he or she is admitted to the country. Even if by a stroke of extraordinary luck you find her papers, the name on them may or may not be hers. Something you must take into account is that there are millions dead. No one bothered to keep records of all of them. Their identity shrouded in secrecy. She could claim to be one of them. Who in this country would know if a woman purporting to be Italian was actually speaking Italian or some other language? The average Englishman seldom knows any other tongue but his own.” His voice was bleak. “It’s the proverbial needle in a haystack, only in searching through the hay, one knows one is looking for a needle.”
“I didn’t think it was possible. I’d hoped it might be.”
Returning the photograph to the envelope, Haldane said, “What is it that’s written above the gates to Hell? Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.” He passed it back to Rutledge. “I would count it a kindness, if you would tell me what you discover, once the inquiry is finished.”
“I don’t know,” Rutledge told him, “if it will ever be finished.”
“I’m afraid I shall have to agree with you.”
Rutledge went on to Avebury and ran down Dr. Mason enjoying a late breakfast at the inn.
“Hallo,” Mason said as Rutledge came through the door, spotted the doctor, and turned toward his table. “Surprised—but quite pleased—to see you again. Sit down. A farm accident. Nothing serious as long as infection doesn’t set in. But it pulled me from my bed before the sun rose. You look as tired as I feel.”
“A good deal of driving,” Rutledge admitted.
“Found the answers you were seeking?”
“I’m not sure.” He went to the bar and asked for toast and tea, then came back to the doctor’s table. They were alone at this hour, save for the man behind the bar, who had stepped into the kitchen to give Rutledge’s order to the cook.
Sitting down again, he said quietly, “You were there when Chief Inspector Leslie saw the body for the first time.”
Frowning, the doctor said slowly, “I was. Where is this going?”
Rutledge avoided a direct answer. “Do you think he recognized the woman?”
Dr. Mason opened his mouth to reply, then snapped it shut. Glancing around to be sure he couldn’t be overheard, he said, “He responded to seeing her. Just as I did. I never considered that it might be recognition. On the contrary. He didn’t give us a name, that much you know. But looking back at that moment from a quite different perspective . . .” His voice trailed off. “He must be quite good at concealing his emotions, if it was recognition.”
Rutledge recalled Leslie’s reaction to the lapis necklace. He’d admitted quite freely that it must be his wife’s. And he had a plausible reason for it having been lost in Avebury. Nor had he made excuses.
The guilty usually looked for excuses.
The clasp had been broken. Mrs. Johnson had tied the ends together for Peggy to wear the beads.
“Sorry,” Rutledge said, smiling as his toast arrived with a pot of jam. “I’m clutching at straws.”
But Mason was still considering the suggestion. “It’s odd, isn’t it? How you think others are seeing what you’re seeing? I’ve looked into many dead faces in the course of my medical life, but hers wasn’t—there was that little smile, almost imperceptible. I doubt she died smiling. Those stab wounds were vicious. She must have felt horror, shock, and of course pain in her last moments. It was almost as if she welcomed the peace of death, once it came.” He shook his head. “I’m growing maudlin in my old age. She was young, she had a long life ahead of her. I’m sure it’s the waste I was feeling.”
But it was there in the photograph. Not just in Dr. Mason’s imagination. Rutledge had seen it, Haldane had seen it.
What had Leslie felt as he saw her body the first time? And if he knew her—why had he said nothing?
In ordinary circumstances, Rutledge would have gone to him and asked him. But now there were the beads, causing an unexpected chasm to open up between them.
But beads aside, there had to be a motive for murder. Why would a strange woman have sought out Leslie in the first place?
“What is it?” Dr. Mason leaned forward. “What are you thinking about?”
“About how difficult to interpret some evidence can be.”
Mason leaned back, a fleeting expression of disappointment crossing his face.
As Rutledge’s pot of tea arrived, the doctor replied, “Rather like medicine, I expect. People want answers I can’t give them. I find it sad that she had to be buried under ‘Unknown but to God.’ I asked to have that last added. It seemed right, somehow. And as I’d helped pay for the burial, no one could argue.” He smiled briefly at the memory. “I’m a sentimental old fool. She could have been my granddaughter.”
Rutledge pushed his toast away. “She was someone’s daughter. Someone’s mother. Possibly someone’s wife. What brought her here to die?”
9
He should have returned the photograph to the Rector, as he’d promised. But Rutledge wasn’t ready to relinquish it. As well, he had a feeling that no one would ever come knocking at the Rectory asking about her. Haldane had been right about that. And so keeping that promise to the Rector and his wife could wait.
Before leaving the doctor at his door, Rutledge asked where Mrs. Johnson lived.
The Johnsons had a cottage farther down the road that ran past the inn and the doctor’s house. Her husband had been the village farrier before the war and now made his living as a carpenter.
She was not happy to see Rutledge standing on her doorstep.
“It was wrong of you to send that tea service to Peggy. I don’t have the money to repay you for it. Alastair said, send it straight back. But she’d seen it. I didn’t have the heart. All the same, it goes against my principles.”
“Why? I took Peggy’s beads, and I couldn’t find any to replace them that might please her. The tea service was a poor substitute.” He smiled deprecatingly. “I’m not married. I don’t know much about children. I had to ask a friend for help.”
It worked.
Mollified, she said, “Still, you shouldn’t have.”
“It’s about the beads that I’ve come. You told me that Peggy’s brother had found them by the causeway. I’d like to ask him about that.”
“Here, he didn’t steal them.”
Rutledge took a deep breath. “I never thought he had. It’s just that it’s an odd place for someone to lose a necklace. While it’s not likely to be related to the woman found dead by the stone, I’d be derelict in my duty if I didn’t make certain of that.”
“You’re in luck,” she said sourly. “Tommy has measles. He’s come out all over in spots.”
Rutledge stopped himself in time, but the words were running through his mind.
Tommy wo
uldn’t have considered the measles a bit of luck.
“Perhaps if I just stood in the doorway?”
“Oh very well.”
She let him in and led him to the stairs. Tommy was in the larger of the two small bedrooms at the top of the flight.
“Tommy, this is the policeman from London. He’s curious about that string of beads you gave your sister for her birthday.”
The room was dim, curtains drawn over the windows to keep out the light. The boy lay on his cot, looking wretched, but perked up when his mother stepped aside and he saw the man from London. His gaze went directly to Rutledge’s hands, as if expecting a gift of his own. The disappointment in his eyes was evident.
Rutledge cursed himself for not thinking of that.
“Hallo, Tommy. How are you feeling?”
“I was sick this morning. All over my sheets.”
“Bad luck, that. I’m sorry. I’ve come to say that it was generous of you, to give those beads to your sister for her birthday.”
Tommy ducked his head, partly shyness, partly regret. “They was in the dust. As if stepped on.”
“Were they indeed?” Rutledge asked. “Hard to see, then?”
“It was the brightness of the clasp I saw, not the beads. I thought it was a shilling.”
“Were you disappointed when you retrieved it, to see beads attached to the bright bit?”
“What’s a body to do with beads?” he asked. But Rutledge had a feeling that he had been rather proud of his discovery, useful to a boy or not.
When Rutledge didn’t immediately respond, Tommy went on. “They’re always finding bits and bobs here. Antlers. Broken pots you’d think was more important than a whole one. I’d never found anything. Not even that body left beside the stone.”
“You weren’t one of the boys who discovered her?”
“No, worse luck.” He caught his mother’s look of disapproval, and said stoutly, “Nothing ever happens to me here. ’Cept the measles.”
“I’m confused. You discovered the beads after the body was found? Not before?”
“After. The day after the Chief Inspector left. Nobody was allowed to play there once the body was found. Or even drive along the road over the causeway, until he’d finished searching it.”
Hamish said, his voice quiet in Rutledge’s ear, “It’s possible he was telling the truth. Yon Chief Inspector.”
“Did you see the body in place, before it was moved to Dr. Mason’s surgery?”
“Half the village did,” Tommy claimed. “They came crowding round before Constable could push them back.”
“Here, you didn’t tell me that,” his mother said, angry.
“I didn’t want to worry you,” her son replied, looking from her to Rutledge and back again.
“Did you think the beads were as old as the circle?” Rutledge asked.
“Had to be, didn’t they? Only Mum says not, that you needed them for the inquiry.”
“If it’s any consolation, Tommy, they are much younger than the circle. And I found the proper owner. It was lost property.”
He looked at Rutledge, saying in some disgust, “Just my luck.”
“But there was a reward for finding them, you know.” He reached into his pocket and took out a pound, setting it on the tall chest by the door. “I’ll leave it here until you’re well enough to take care of it.”
The boy’s face brightened. “I never got a reward before.”
When Rutledge looked in on Constable Henderson, he found the man was still absent.
A neighbor informed him that Henderson’s brother had died, and he was staying with the brother’s family, helping with the services.
“That’s kind of him,” Rutledge commented.
“Not so much kindness as necessity. My cousin lives down the road from the widow, and she says Mrs. Henderson is prostrate. But she always was one to settle her burdens on the shoulders of others.”
He had read Henderson’s report. He’d told himself that under the circumstances he needn’t interview the man. And yet the brother’s illness had been timely, giving Henderson a convenient explanation for his absence just as a new man was assigned to the case. Rutledge asked Henderson’s neighbor for directions to the brother’s house.
He found it was a small tenant farm on the outskirts of Winterbourne and identified it easily from the black crepe on the door.
When he knocked, a block of a man answered.
“I’m here for Constable Henderson.”
“You’ve found him,” he said, stepping outside and walking halfway down the path from the farm lane to the door. “Trouble in Avebury, is it?” He wasn’t as tall as Rutledge, but he was twice as wide, with reddish-brown hair and hazel eyes.
“No trouble. But I’ve come from there. Inspector Rutledge, Scotland Yard. I was sent to review Chief Inspector Leslie’s findings.”
Henderson nodded. “So I’d heard. Neither the Chief Inspector nor I could trace the woman or her killer. To be fair, there was precious little to go on. The body, the blood by the stone, the clothes she was wearing. Not even a murder weapon. As I told the Chief Inspector, it looked as if we were dealing with someone who knew what he was about. Most criminals now, they give themselves away fairly soon. But there she was, and nothing to tell us who she might be or who had killed her. He meant to kill her too. Why else did he bring a knife with him? And she didn’t expect that. She never had a chance to defend herself.”
As if by this cowardly act, the murderer had put himself beyond the pale. At least in Henderson’s mind. But the words had been clipped, feeling tamped down.
“Did you find any tracks?”
“We searched, but there wasn’t anything. By the time I called to the man delivering the kegs, half the village was hurrying after me to gawk. I didn’t know there was a body, not at first. Not till I looked in the ditch. I was still thinking sheep. It’s a mystery how she got there. Of course, Winterbourne Monkton is barely a mile away, not all that far to walk, but it’s north of the circle. Kennet is just to the south. I’d put my money on the killer coming from that direction. Fewer windows to pass by, late as it must have been. But when I went to Kennet to ask around, nobody knew anything about her.”
“What did you see when you found her?”
“I saw the bloody ground by the stone first. Too much for a hawk killing a bird. Bruised grass, bent over, as if trodden a bit. I came up by way of the shops, wanting to have a look at what it was the lad had been talking about. Then I looked around to see what had been bleeding that much. When I didn’t find anything, I went to look in the ditch. I reckoned the body had been dragged there, after it was done. When I got to the edge, I could see it. That was when I heard the heavy wagon coming. It wasn’t easy getting her up out of the ditch. But after she was taken away to Dr. Mason’s surgery, I searched the length of the ditch. No sign of any of her belongings. She struck me as the sort of woman who’d carry a purse, and I even took my torch and shone it in and around the brambles.” He shook his head. “A nasty business. Have you made any inroads into finding out who she is?”
“Not yet. Nor have I discovered who was with her or who she might have come to see in Avebury.” It annoyed Rutledge to have to admit to it.
“I went with Chief Inspector Leslie to conduct most interviews. But I could have told him before he began that it wasn’t likely that anyone on my patch could have done anything like that.” He glanced back at the house. “I’m not boasting, mind you, but sometimes you just know.”
“How did she get to the stones in the first place, do you think?”
“The Chief Inspector and I talked about that. A motorcar, but it very likely stopped just short of the causeway. Too many ruts to be sure, but closer and someone might have seen it. We considered horses, but she wasn’t dressed for riding, and besides Dr. Mason didn’t find any hairs on her dress that looked like horse. There was a little mud along her hem in one place, but that could have been from walking.”
/> No one had mentioned mud. It would fit with riding a bicycle, her skirts drooping down toward the chain. It was a hazard for women riding. And it was the first small corroboration of a tandem.
“You went down to bring her up?”
“I did. Took three men to anchor my weight on the rope, but I could lift her.”
“Anything about the way she was lying, anything that might have fallen deeper into the trench?”
“Not that I could see. And the sun was shining. That helped.”
So far his answers matched the statement he’d given to Leslie. Except for the mud.
“The formal report aside. What were your impressions about her?”
Henderson glanced back toward the house and moved on down the path, nearer the lane, where Rutledge’s motorcar was waiting.
“A pity, that was my first thought. And then, why on my patch? I know Avebury, there’s not that sort of meanness, if you know what I’m saying.” He hesitated, then he said, not looking directly at Rutledge but across the fields on the far side of the lane, “Odd thing was, her hair. It must have come down when she was dragged, and it fell across my hands as I began to lift her. Black as night, but soft, silky. Fine. And I smelled a little of her perfume, over the blood. Like some roses, the dark ones. As if she was going out of an evening, to meet someone.” He appeared to be more than a little embarrassed. None of this was in his statement. He’d kept to the facts. “I’m sorry, sir. You did ask.”
“It helps, Constable. Were you present when Chief Inspector Leslie viewed the body in the doctor’s surgery?”
“I was. I watched Dr. Mason settle the sheet. I expect he felt much the same as I did. Wondering what she’d done to be tossed into a ditch like an old coat or worn-out shoe. He did say that he found it harder to view the dead, since the war. France, was he?”
“Yes.”
“One of my cousins won’t look at the dead now. Not even my brother’s body. He says he still sees them, all around him. I was there, I know what he means. But he was often the stretcher party. Makes a difference, I expect. I’d like to think you might find this bastard. If he was one of my people, I’d bring him in if I had to knock him down first.” His voice was harsh as he said it.