by Charles Todd
Rutledge, watching Henderson’s face, saw the same protectiveness Dr. Mason had mentioned. He’d felt it himself.
Remembering the photograph, he said, “Was there anything in her face when you brought Leslie to see her?”
“I didn’t notice. I was too busy looking at the way her hair spilled across the table and caught the light.” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”
Rutledge left soon afterward, thanking Henderson for his help and offering sympathy for the death of his brother.
“We weren’t prepared,” the Constable said quietly. “But then you never are, are you?”
He wasn’t sure whether Henderson was referring to his brother’s death or what he’d felt about the murder on his patch.
Soon afterward, on a whim—needing to do more than search ground he’d covered, Leslie had covered, and hear the same answers from those who had been interviewed twice over—Rutledge set out for Dover. The Rector’s wife had said the scarf the dead woman was wearing might be French silk, and Haldane had mentioned refugees. It would do no harm to try.
Southampton was nearer, but it was Dover or even Folkestone where travelers most often arrived from France and the rest of Europe. He wasn’t certain what he could find this long after the fact, but he had the photograph. If Henderson and Mason and even Leslie had been moved by the dead woman, then someone in the port towns might remember her as well. Surely there was a man or even a woman who had seen her alive and given her more than a passing glance.
The sun was just coming up, burnishing the water, and turning what he could see of the chalk cliffs a delicate apricot. He found a room at one of the hotels overlooking the water, where he shaved and changed, ate a hasty breakfast, and walked down to the port to catch the night officials before they went off duty.
They stared at the photograph, asked a few questions, then shook their heads.
One of the younger officials said, “I’d remember her. Pity she’s dead.”
It gave him hope.
He spent the better part of the day speaking to anyone who handled the ferries coming in from France, then as soon as there was a lull in the traffic coming and going to Calais, he sought out the officials who dealt with passengers and their papers.
In late evening, he found one man on duty who looked at the photograph and said, “Familiar. Is she dead, then? I’m sorry. Who is she?”
He was tall, thin, possibly mid-thirties. Young enough to remember a pretty face. Rutledge refused to let himself hope.
“That’s the problem. No one seems to know who she is.”
“That’s a shame. If you had a name, now, I might be able to check our records.” He looked again at the photograph, then handed it back to Rutledge. “A pity.”
“She came through recently. Say, after the first of the year? Mid-January? Later? Surely there aren’t that many travelers making the crossing in winter.”
“It’s never quiet. But women alone, that’s not as usual. Was she alone?”
“I expect she was. I can’t be certain.”
“Perhaps that’s why I remember her, then.” He smiled guiltily. “It does no harm, chatting them up. After the stiff-faced officers, Swiss bankers, and those without any English, it’s pleasant to talk to a pretty face. Sets them at ease, as well.”
“What language did she speak?”
The official had picked up his glasses to scan the roads outside Dover harbor, watching the craft coming in. “Good enough English,” he said absently. “She must have done. She asked for the train to Lon—” He broke off, lowering the glasses to stare at Rutledge. “Now why should I remember that?” He shook his head. “Do you have any idea how many people pass through here, now the war’s over? I’m lucky to remember my own name by the end of the day.”
“What about the London train?”
“I didn’t—it just came to me out of nowhere.” He looked down at the glasses in his hand, thinking. “It must have been the late ferry she’d taken across. She seemed—I don’t know—lost.”
“What do you mean? Lost? Tired?”
“I don’t—not in the sense—uncertain?” He lifted a shoulder, looking for the word. “Uncertain of her welcome, perhaps? Didn’t appear that there was anyone meeting her, no one to show her where to find the train.”
It was an interesting insight.
The man was saying apologetically, “I can’t be sure, now, it might not have been the same woman.” He gestured to the photograph in Rutledge’s hand. “I’m sorry. It’s the best I can do.”
Rutledge thanked him and said, “I’ll be at The Cliffs. If you remember anything else.”
“What’s she done?” the man asked. “To bring in the Yard?”
“Nothing. It was what was done to her,” Rutledge answered somberly.
The man retorted grimly, “I wish I’d known. I’d have seen her to the train.”
Rutledge didn’t tell him she had died in Wiltshire, not Dover.
“There was nothing you could do.” With a nod, he walked away.
“No’ much help,” Hamish said. He’d been there, silently watching, hour after hour. A presence that Rutledge could feel. It had been wearying after a while, that presence. Sometimes dividing his attention.
“It could have been Folkestone. Southampton.” Rutledge walked back to his motorcar. “I’ll try Folkestone tomorrow.”
It was too late to drive far, and he’d already told the port official that he was staying at The Cliffs. Without waiting to dine, he went up to his room and dropped down across the bed. And slept deeply for six hours.
He woke to someone pounding on his door, and it took several seconds to remember where he was. The windows were still dark—he had no idea what the time was. Throwing off the last dregs of sleep, he went to the door and found one of the hotel clerks standing there.
“Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Rutledge. But there’s a man at the desk asking to see you. He’s from the port, he says.”
“I’ll be down in five minutes.”
“I’ll ask him to wait in the lounge, shall I?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Rutledge washed his face, combed his dark hair, and straightened his shirt and tie. Putting on his suit coat, he went quickly down the stairs.
The dining room was closed, the lounge almost empty. He recognized the man who rose and came forward as Rutledge stepped into the room.
“Rutledge? James Westin. From the port? I was curious enough to do some digging.”
Rutledge chose a table far enough away from the only other inhabitant so that they could speak privately. “What have you found?”
“Not much, I’m afraid. But I kept thinking about the photograph, and her face stayed with me. I wasn’t sure in the beginning that I did remember her, to tell truth. It wasn’t until I was about to go off duty that something else came back to me. Her eyes. That’s what attracted me to her, that’s why I looked for an excuse to talk to her. To watch a smile light them.”
In the photograph her eyes were closed in death.
“I think she had French papers. They were in order, I didn’t pay much attention to them. I had a feeling that France might not be her country, but there was nothing unusual about that. I made her laugh once, just a quiet laugh, but it was nice. She had a valise—I reached out to help her, asking if she needed a porter. It wasn’t very heavy, as if she hadn’t brought much with her, and she said she could manage it. Most can barely lift theirs, bulging out the sides. I looked to see, after she’d asked, and she was walking toward the London train. Still by herself.”
Rutledge had listened patiently, waiting for the most important information—the woman’s name. He said now, “It’s a beginning, yes. I’m grateful.”
Westin said, “I did ask where she’d come from, and I believe she said Paris. Or was it Rouen? France, anyway.” He glanced behind him toward the man sleeping in the chair by the window, his newspaper slipped to the floor in a heap. Lowering his vo
ice, he went on, “A good many refugees find their way to Paris. Russians, Armenians, all sorts. Still, I don’t believe she was Russian. I wish I could recall her name. I tried all the way to the hotel, but I can’t bring it back. Or the ship—anything that would help me search the records.”
Making the best of it, Rutledge hid his disappointment, and asked instead, “Her given name. Was it a common French name? Marie. Françoise. Hélène.” He suddenly recalled another French woman, one he’d met in the course of an inquiry. Aurore. She too had been someone to remember. “Lily? Violette? Catherine?”
“By God, I believe it was Catherine, but with a K. No, that’s not quite it. But close enough. That’s what made me think of the Russians. Catherine the Great, and all that. Her lashes matched that dark, dark hair. But not Gypsy black, mind you. Her dark gray coat and hat were nice enough, but they struck me as drab on her.”
“Dark gray?” Rutledge asked, trying to keep the man’s flood of memory moving forward.
“Still, there was a nice pin in the hat. Now what was it?” He closed his eyes, concentrating. “A crescent moon, I think. I remember wondering how she would look in moonlight.” He flushed a little at the admission.
What had become of that hat?
“A last name?”
He shook his head. “Hopeless. Probably unpronounceable anyway. Most of those foreign names are.” It was a very English attitude. “Not as if I’d be in London and had any hope of looking her up.” Then he considered Rutledge. “You’re very good, you know. I can’t decide whether it’s how you listen or the questions you ask. I couldn’t have told you I knew all of this, when I sat down. In the war, were you? Intelligence?”
“Infantry.”
“Artillery, myself. It’s a wonder I have any hearing left.” He stood up. “I must get some rest. I’m on the day watch tomorrow. Today. If I remember anything else, will you be here?” He gestured around him. “This hotel?”
“I might not be. But Sergeant Gibson at the Yard will see that I get any messages that come in for me.”
They shook hands, then Westin said, almost against his will, as if he didn’t want to hear the truth, “She is dead, then? You said, but I didn’t want to believe what I was seeing in the photograph.”
“Murdered.”
Westin swore. “That’s even worse.”
With a nod, he was gone. Rutledge watched him walk through the lounge doors and disappear into the lobby.
Rutledge told himself he should be grateful. He knew more now than he had when he drove into Dover. And yet it was still so little.
If he’d learned nothing else about police work since he’d joined The Met in London, it was that answers never came smoothly, easily. If they had, the crime rate would have fallen off dramatically.
Standing there, Rutledge could smell coffee wafting from somewhere. He realized all at once that he was hungry. He went to the desk and asked that sandwiches and a pot of tea be sent to the lounge. Then he went back to sit down at the table where he’d spoken to Westin and reached for his notebook.
Hamish was asking how much credence Rutledge could put in the burst of memories.
“I have to begin somewhere. Until proved false, I’ll see where it could lead.”
A hat. A purse. A valise. What had become of them?
The sandwiches arrived with his tea, and he found himself considering that gray hat.
His sister Frances had a taste for fetching hats, and wore them astonishingly well. Like their mother.
If a port officer, looking at papers, remembered a hat, it must have been very becoming, gray or not. What had she done with it when she pedaled to Avebury with her killer? Even if she’d used her scarf to keep her hair tidy, surely she would have wanted to put the hat on again at the end of the journey.
He himself had borrowed a cap from Mr. Blake, and left his hat at the man’s house because he knew he was coming back there.
Had she expected to return as well? There was her valise—she couldn’t carry it with her on the tandem.
He went back over what he’d seen when he’d looked down into the ditch where the body had been found. Winter-dead fronds, briars and vines and the dried stalks of wildflowers, forming a thick, dark mat. A gray hat would have stood out—Henderson and Mason would have seen it. And they had both reported finding only her body in the ditch. That left the killer, carrying away with him anything that might be used to identify his victim.
A hat. A purse. A valise. The lapis beads?
But Leslie claimed they’d fallen out of his pocket.
A hat could be tossed in a dustbin miles away. An empty purse might find its way into another. A valise was harder to dispose of.
Where could you hide luggage?
With other luggage, where it would attract no attention for days, weeks . . .
He finished his sandwiches and went directly to his room, where he packed his valise except for what he would need for an early departure.
At first light, a boxed breakfast beside him, he set out for London.
His first stop when he reached the city was Victoria Station.
She would have come in there, on the train from Dover. Had she been met? It was a busy public place, he’d not have been noticed coming up to her. Or had she herself decided not to take her valise with her but to collect it afterward, when she had found lodging or met someone? It could be here, an off chance but at least a chance.
He spoke to the man behind the window where lost and unclaimed luggage could be retrieved.
The man shook his head, staring down at the photograph Rutledge was holding up.
“Never saw her before. But I’m only on duty during the day. There’s someone else at night.”
“Scotland Yard,” Rutledge said, replacing the photograph with his identification. “I’d like to have a look.”
“Help yourself,” the man said, gesturing to the door just beyond the window. “A good bit of it is left from the war.”
Rutledge stepped into a room where luggage was piled in every direction. Resigned, he took off his greatcoat and coat, rolled up his shirtsleeves, and set to work. He had no idea what he was looking for. The woman could have borrowed her valise from a friend, male or female. Bought it at Worth’s in Paris or a secondhand shop in the port of Calais.
It took him four hours to sort through each piece of luggage stacked in the room, setting aside trunks and heavy cases. Then he went through the smaller valises one at a time, opening those that were unlocked, briefly examining the contents. The locked cases he fiddled with until he could spring the latches. There was nothing remotely resembling the missing woman’s belongings, although he was surprised at how many women had their initials embroidered on their shifts. He found he could ignore garments that were clearly too large, out of fashion, for older women, or English made.
As he searched he wondered about the women who had left their luggage here. Had they died in the influenza epidemic? Been killed in the early Zeppelin raids? He’d counted forty-seven valises.
The stationmaster, stepping in to watch him, was not happy about his opening cases, but Rutledge told him curtly that it was a matter of murder, and the man went away. Just after that, he found, back in a corner, the kits of three soldiers from a Yorkshire regiment. He was wondering what had become of them when the stationmaster looked in again to ask if Rutledge wanted a cup of tea from the canteen.
“Their last leave before going overseas. Killed in a Zeppelin raid, they were,” he said. “Wall of a house collapsed on them when they were trying to dig people out of the rubble. Still, I call them heroes. No one claimed their kit. I thought their families might come and ask one day. I expect it’s not likely to happen now.”
An hour later, Rutledge had finished and restored some order to the room before he went to thank the stationmaster. Photograph in hand, he went on to Paddington, from which the dead woman might have taken a train to Wiltshire. There people gave the photograph a cursory glance, shook their he
ads, and told him too much time had passed.
One of the porters asked, “Are you certain she took a train?”
The truth was, he couldn’t be certain. It had been a possibility, nothing more. For that matter, he couldn’t even be certain that the woman who looked for the London train in Dover was the one who had died in Avebury. Despite what he’d learned at the port. And yet, his instincts told him she must be the same. That James Westin wasn’t wrong. The problem was, had she come to London for a matter of a few hours? A few days? Longer? Or had she never reached London at all?
Giving it up, he went on to his flat.
What he needed was men to do his searching for him. But this wasn’t a full-scale inquiry where time was short and the Yard put every available man at the disposal of the officer in charge.
There were the hotels, for one thing. If the victim had actually arrived in London, where had she stayed the first night? A stranger who knew no one in the city might choose a small but respectable hotel that catered to women who had no choice but to travel alone. Governesses, widows, spinsters. The stationmaster—a cabbie—someone could give her a direction. And if she had traveled on to Wiltshire or somewhere close by, she might have left her valise in one of them, most particularly if she expected to be away only for one night. A small satchel would have done. Or the missing purse.
Gibson wasn’t likely to agree to putting men on that.
What’s more, Rutledge wasn’t eager to have the gossips at the Yard hear that he was succeeding where Leslie had failed. He’d learned long ago to keep his own counsel. If what he’d learned led nowhere, there would be no one any the wiser.
He made a list of four hotels that were well-enough known that one of them might have been recommended to a stranger. But the photograph and a brief conversation with the clerks behind the desk in each of the establishments proved hopeless. If she had stayed at one of them, which was doubtful, she hadn’t left any luggage behind. That was frowned on in two of the hotels and discouraged in the others.