by Charles Todd
Rutledge told him what he was after, and together they carried a tall ladder from the shed at the back of the Rectory and propped it against the manor house garden walls.
Rutledge climbed while the sexton, a short, wiry man by the name of White, steadied the ladder.
When he could see over the wall into the winter-dead garden, he realized how attractive it must be in summer. He wished he’d thought to bring his field glasses from the boot, but from his position on the ladder, he began to scan every foot of it, every shadow and wind drift of leaves.
White called to him, “All right, is it?”
“So far.” And then, finished scanning, still unsatisfied, he went over it again.
A valise would be easy to pick out, its shape too regular. A woman’s handbag another matter. But where better, after the deed was done, to toss both over the wall and out of sight?
Yet there was nothing in the garden’s paths and borders and squares that remotely resembled what he was hoping to find.
“All right, coming down,” he said, and descended the ladder. White grinned.
“Thought you might be taking root up there.”
Rutledge shook his head. “Did Chief Inspector Leslie ask for a ladder to search the gardens?” He took up his end of the ladder and followed the sexton across the road.
“To my knowledge he didn’t.”
“Wiser man than I,” Rutledge responded.
“There’s some who’d argue that. He spoke to people, asked questions, but to my mind he knew from the start that it was hopeless. I ask you—what progress have you made?”
He couldn’t use the standard reply—early days. Instead he was honest and answered, “Some. Not enough.”
White nodded. “Aye. Poor lass. I keep the grass away from her headstone, if someone should show up looking. In the spring, I’ll plant a few pansies there.”
Pansies. For remembrance.
He thanked the sexton as they hung the ladder on its hooks in the shed, then walked on, pausing to look at the front of the manor house. There was a scattering of smaller stones across the well-kept lawns spread out before him. Still restless, he continued, completing the circle, finally back at the inn. Not stopping, he followed on down the road.
If there was any other hiding place for purse or valise, he hadn’t found it.
They were most likely in a tip along a road well away from Avebury. He was wasting his time, looking.
Rutledge knocked at the door of the surgery.
Dr. Mason answered it. “Well, well,” he said dryly, “coming back for more of my excellent sherry?”
“Later, perhaps. I do have some questions for you.”
“How could I not have guessed? Not about my late wife’s jewelry, I hope. Come in. The kitchen is warmer, and I’ve got the kettle on.”
He led the way back to the kitchen. “I’ve been cleaning some of my instruments. No one is in need of my services today, it seems. Except for Scotland Yard. I ought to charge a consultation fee.”
Rutledge didn’t answer, well aware that the doctor was still smarting from their conversation of the night before.
He sat down in one of the kitchen chairs as Mason busied himself with teacups and the bowl of sugar, then went to the pantry to fetch the milk jug.
Ready to talk finally, Mason said, “Questions? Am I still a suspect, then?”
“Actually they’re about Chief Inspector Leslie. I had the feeling, reading his report on the inquiry, that he’d been to Avebury before.” It wasn’t true, but it was a safer opening.
“I believe his parents were acquainted with Mr. Marshall’s predecessor. Mr. Townsend had the living then. I got the impression they’d visited a time or two.”
“Did you know Townsend?”
“He’d moved on to another living by the time I retired here. I’ve heard from some of my older patients that Townsend and his wife often had houseguests, and I recall Leslie mentioning that he’d played among the stones as a child.” The kettle boiled, and Mason turned to deal with it.
“But not as an adult? I believe he knew the Nelsons, from Stokesbury.”
“Did he? I don’t think he ever mentioned them.”
As Mason set his teacup in front of him, Rutledge said, “I encountered Mrs. Marshall earlier this morning. She was telling me about the scarf the victim was wearing. She said it was quite attractive.”
“Yes, it was, although it was stained with blood when I first saw it. She managed to clean it, good woman that she is.”
“Any idea where it might have come from? A London shop, perhaps?”
“She thought it was French. Silk, she said. My wife could have told you, of course. To me it was simply a pretty scarf.”
Changing the subject once again, Rutledge asked, “Have you ever treated anyone from Stokesbury?”
“None of my patients come from as far away as that. They’d have gone into Marlborough, if there wasn’t a closer doctor.” He frowned. “Although, come to think of it, a woman by the name of Nelson was hanged at Devizes. For murder. Last century.”
Rutledge stopped, his cup poised in midair. “Was she indeed?”
“I don’t know the story. There was a song the older children sang in the schoolyard when I was a lad. Something about Mary Nelson broke her neck, falling on the hangman’s knot. I don’t recall the rest of it, but I asked my mother about the woman, because I couldn’t quite understand falling on the hangman’s knot. Seems Mary didn’t wait for the drop, she tried to leap off the scaffold.”
“Good God.”
“The children thought it was quite diverting, leaping up in the air and falling down.”
“Must have been appalling to watch.”
“I’m sure it was, for the adults who knew who Mary was.” He pushed a plate with slices of cake toward Rutledge.
But he shook his head, his appetite gone. Finishing his tea, he added, “I’ve a murderer to catch.”
“I don’t think there’s a chance in hell that you’ll do any such thing.”
“I wonder . . .” He took out his handkerchief, unfolded it, and held it out to Mason.
“What’s this?”
“I thought, having been a married man, you might tell me.”
Mason leaned closer, poked the fragment with his finger, and said, “This has been burned. There’s ash on it.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not sure—” He studied the fragment for a while, then said, “You know, in the practice of medicine, you must often guess about what you’re seeing. If it’s a rash, you consider all the rashes you know. If it’s a fever, or vomiting, you do the same. And you treat what seems to be the most likely possibility. If I didn’t know better—” He broke off again and rose. “I’ll be back.”
With some satisfaction, Rutledge listened as Mason hurried down the passage and then took the steps to the first floor.
Once he’d have asked his sister Frances about hats.
Mason was gone for several minutes, and then he came down the stairs again and strode back into the kitchen with a woman’s hat in his hand. It was dark blue wool, of a style that had gone out of fashion in King Edward’s day. There was a tiny veil attached at the front.
The doctor turned the hat over. “See this stiffening around the bottom? No idea what a milliner calls it. Helps the hat keep its shape, I expect. Or stay on the head. And then the fabric is sewn onto that. Now if you take that bit you have, and hold it—here, take the hat, and hold it just so—yes, and I’ll put your bit beside it.”
Rutledge held the hat open so that the back of it was clearly visible. And Mason took the fragment from the handkerchief and placed it carefully against the blue wool.
“What do you see?” Mason asked.
“It’s a match. Well, enough of a match that it explains what I have here.”
Mason grinned. “You don’t have a wife. Else you’d know these things.” He set the blue hat carefully to one side, and then returned the fragment to the handk
erchief.
Rutledge suddenly remembered something. As a child, he’d put one of his sister’s bonnets on the family dog, reducing her to tears when she saw Rover in the back garden wearing it.
“How did you come by that?” Mason asked, washing the ash from his fingers.
“In an unexpected place. Look at the gray, that little edging of gray. Do you think it might have matched the dead woman’s coat? You told me it was a dark gray wool.”
Mason peered at the scrap again. “I couldn’t swear to it. But yes, I would say that to my eyes, it would. Rather a nice dark gray, you know.”
James Westin had called it drab. “What became of the coat?”
“We buried it with her. Well, we didn’t quite know what else to do with it.”
Rutledge wrapped the fragment in his handkerchief again, and put it in his coat pocket. “A pity.”
“In hindsight, yes.”
Rutledge rose. “That’s been the trouble with this inquiry. It’s like a puzzle where many of the pieces are missing. It’s difficult to be certain just what is important and what isn’t.”
Mason said slowly, “What else have you found?” When Rutledge didn’t answer, he went on, “I’ve heard about those lapis beads. I am treating the boy with the measles, you know. His little sister is the proud owner of a new child’s tea service. Your doing, the mother says. And you’d asked me about the family as well. Did the beads belong to the dead woman, do you think?”
“I found the owner. He told me he’d misplaced them.”
Surprised, Mason said, “Here in Avebury?”
“That’s a mystery I’ve yet to solve. Thank you for the tea. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t speak of that scrap from the fire. Or the lapis beads.” Collecting his hat and heavy coat, he walked down the passage, with Mason just behind him.
“Have a care, Rutledge,” the doctor said at the door. “I’ve got a feeling that there’s something going on here that might be ugly.”
12
It was an odd warning from Dr. Mason.
Hamish said, “Ye ken, whoever killed yon woman has covered his tracks verra’ well.”
And most murderers were not that clever. They were driven, and they made mistakes.
“Aye. But consider, if yon killer is sae clever, he could be just as clever putting the blame elsewhere.”
“The vagrant.”
“Or the Chief Inspector.”
Rutledge had arrived at the inn. Taking the stairs to his room two at a time, he shut the door and gave that possibility some thought.
At the Yard, it was easy to make enemies. Advancement was slow in coming, but Leslie had risen quickly in his career, in spite of four years in France during the war. Who resented that? Who might be behind what was happening?
He could think of several names. Inspector Martin seemed to have Markham’s ear, but he hadn’t been promoted. Rutledge himself had had a few problems with the man. And there was Chief Inspector Stanley. Leslie seemed to rub him the wrong way.
But were they killers?
Rutledge couldn’t believe that they were. In his opinion, they weren’t clever enough. But Leslie was. Why did so many small bits of fact seem to have the Leslie name on them?
He took out his notebook and scanned what he’d written there, and he found nothing he had overlooked, nothing he had misread, nothing he had not done.
If the killer was Leslie, he’d be a formidable opponent.
He was still wrestling with that problem when he left Avebury, heading for London.
Passing empty stretches, Rutledge wondered again why the killer hadn’t simply left her body in a ditch at the side of the road. How was that different from leaving her in the ditch at Avebury?
There was some message here that he couldn’t seem to decipher. There had been anger in the method of killing. Was there contempt in leaving her body in the ditch?
Or had that been necessary to give the killer time to get far away?
He went directly to Haldane’s house. There was no one else to ask without endangering Leslie’s career and his own.
The man was in his study when Rutledge was announced. He looked up and said, “Found the woman, have you?”
“Only that she might have arrived in England through Dover.”
Haldane’s eyebrows rose at that. “Well, well.” He gestured to the chair across the desk from him.
Rutledge said, “The question is, why did she come to England? To visit a friend, to begin a new life, to look for someone she’d known in France or wherever she’d come from before that?”
“Which brings us back to the war.”
“I expect it does.”
Haldane considered Rutledge, his expression hard to read. “A great many Englishmen went to France during the war. Not all of them came home. It’s possible she came to find someone who didn’t survive—who didn’t send for her when he came home, as he’d promised to do.”
“If she hadn’t found him—if he was dead—she wouldn’t have been killed.”
“I think you have a particular soldier in mind. An officer? Or a man in the ranks?”
“An officer. I can’t really link him to this woman.” But Leslie, who had a reputation for thoroughness, had failed to bring in her killer. “This is more an effort to eliminate than to confirm.”
“To put your mind at ease? Or to spare him the embarrassment of bringing him in for questioning?”
“He was an officer in the war. He’s presently an officer at the Yard.”
Haldane sighed. “A complication indeed. May I ask why you wish to eliminate him from consideration?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve known him for some time. That’s the problem.”
“Then you are concerned about the repercussions if in the end, you must bring him in.”
It was blunt. And astute.
“I have not wished to go that far.” Rutledge was silent for a moment. Then he said, “He was assigned to the inquiry, and he failed to find the guilty party. I can see why, I’ve had the devil of a time as well. But there’s something else that troubles me. Who better to shape the outcome of the inquiry than the man responsible for finding himself?”
“Then you want to know more about his war. If there is an enemy of this man. Or something that the Army never discovered. If he knew this woman.”
With some reluctance he gave Haldane Leslie’s name, regiment, and rank. But he knew there was no other way of learning what he needed to know.
Haldane said, “Thank you. It may take some time, you understand. But I will be in touch.”
It was a dismissal, but Rutledge said, “I want to be wrong. I’ve always liked and respected the man.”
“Perhaps you are wrong. But we shall soon know.”
Too restless to go back to his flat, Rutledge drove through the busy streets of London until he reached the Tower, and found a place to leave his motorcar on a side street just above it. Getting out, he walked down to the entrance and stood there for a time, staring down into the moat. Clouds had moved in while he was speaking to Haldane, and now a spitting rain was beginning to fall. He ignored it.
His godfather, David Trevor, had told him once that he often went to the Tower to clear his mind when he encountered a problem with plans he was drawing up. An architect, he would stare at the White Tower, put up by the Normans to show a defeated country who had the power now. As a political statement, it had been very successful, but as a building, it had survived the men who had erected it through nine centuries of changing monarchies, intrigue, and even warfare. For Trevor, the Tower’s very existence was satisfying, visible proof of what an architect’s skill could achieve.
When it began to rain in earnest, Rutledge turned away, his thoughts no more settled than they had been when he arrived.
He walked back up the slight rise to where he’d left his motorcar. He was about to turn the crank when he noticed the pub just beyond where he was standing. He still wasn’t in the mood to return to his fl
at, and on impulse, he walked on, opening the door and stepping into the dimly lit interior.
There was a young woman behind the bar, her blonde hair piled on top of her head like a coronet. She smiled, showing dimples, and said, “What will you have, love?”
“Tea,” he said, realizing it was too early for anything stronger. She smiled, and disappeared into the kitchen, then came back with a towel, offering it to him. He wiped his wet face, grateful that the towel was clean and didn’t smell of stale beer.
Chief Superintendent Markham would be demanding a report soon enough, and the question that had been on his mind standing by the Tower was how to forestall that demand until Haldane had had time to find the information he wanted.
And still inspiration failed him.
The tea came, and Rutledge handed the young woman the towel in exchange before adding milk and a little sugar, stirring absently. The cup was warm in his hand when he put down the spoon and drank a little.
Over the rim of the cup, he realized the young woman was watching him.
“You aren’t a regular,” she said. “Touring the Tower, were you, and caught in the rain?”
“No.” He looked around and saw that he had the pub to himself. “You aren’t very busy today.”
“Wait another half hour. Then I’m run off my feet. Where are you from, if you don’t mind my asking.”
“London.” He smiled.
Taking in his clothes and his manners, she said, “Barrister, then, are you?”
He wasn’t in the mood to tell her the truth. And so he nodded.
“Is it a trial that’s worrying you?”
Surprised, he said, “How did you know?”