A Fearsome Doubt (24 page)

Rutledge drew a harsh breath. “I don’t know what happened after that. I suppose someone thought at first I was a released prisoner. Later—back in England—someone came to visit me in hospital. Out of curiosity, I expect. Or the doctors may have sent for him. But I couldn’t make sense of what he was saying. And the nursing sister came and took him away.” He cleared his throat.

He couldn’t tell this man, dressed in ordinary civilian clothes and a long way from the Front, how badly shell-shocked he’d been. How confused those months in hospital had been.

“Head wounds,” Hauser was saying. “They do strange things.” He made as if to shrug it off, as if it were too far in the past to matter anyway. “The question now is, what are you to do with me?” He swallowed the rest of his whisky at a gulp, set down the jam jar, and waited, his eyes fixed on Rutledge’s face.

23

R
UTLEDGE GOT TO HIS FEET, ONE OF HIS LEG MUSCLES CRAMPING
, and lifted the dressing on Hauser’s chest. The blood had stopped running and was beginning to make dark clots along the edge of the wound. He thought,
It must be painful for the man to breathe. . . .

Hamish said, reversing fields, “If ye take him to the police, they’ll clap him in irons and close the case.”

Silently arguing, Rutledge said, “He’s probably guilty.”

“Aye. But first ye find the one that did the wounding . . . and why.”

Aloud Rutledge answered the question Hauser had asked. “I could take you in, let them charge you, and come to the hanging. Or I could leave you here until I’ve looked into your story. I don’t think you’re up to walking far.”

Hauser gave a grunting laugh. “Not tonight. I won’t promise tomorrow.”

Rutledge turned and examined the cupboards. The German had brought in tins, bread, a sausage, and a bowl of apples. There was cheese wrapped in a cloth, and the pitcher for water.

Watching him, Hauser said, “I couldn’t risk a fire. Smoke rising from the chimney would have attracted attention. I’ve bathed and shaved in cold water. No different from life in the trenches, when you think about it. Although we were a damned sight more comfortable in ours than you were in yours.”

Which was true.

“I’ll leave the decanters here. For the pain, not to give you Dutch courage for an escape. Does Mrs. Mayhew know where you are living? Is she likely to come here searching for you?”

Outraged, Hauser swore. “
Mein Gott, nein!
No!” He struggled to get to his feet and failed. “She and I have met, yes, but she knows nothing about me. I have Dutch papers. She came into the church in Marling, where I was trying to stay warm, out of the wind. She thought I was praying. We talked about the greenery she was bringing for the service that Wednesday evening. I’d seen something much like it in the gardens around this house, so I thought she might have come here. I was worried. But she had found them on her own property. Then we talked about the flatness of Holland, and the tulips. I met her again on the train to London, quite by accident. We talked about the war, and books, whatever we could think of. We have only talked.”

But for a lonely woman, Rutledge thought, companionship was precious, and a meeting of minds was but a stepping-stone to wishful thinking. . . .

He left then, still unsure how far he could trust the German, and drove back through the gates, toward Marling. Tired to the bone, he ignored Hamish and concentrated on the road. Dairy cows were making their way to pasture, streaming across just ahead of him, forcing him to stop and wait. There was no one with them, but the cow at their head knew her way as well as any farmer. Plodding with empty udders, they ignored him, except for one young heifer who stared with dark and friendly eyes, as if the motorcar was a curiosity.

Had he made the right decision about Hauser?

Dawn had broken as Rutledge drove into Marling. He felt grubby, his beard rasping against the sweater under his chin. Leaving the motorcar in its accustomed place behind the hotel, he went in through the yard door and up to his room.

The bed was inviting, the room cool enough for sleep. But he shaved and bathed, then dressed for the day, noting that there was blood on the cuffs of the shirt he’d taken off. He washed it out himself, and left it to dry by the window.

Breakfast was a hurried affair, a mere restoking of the fires of energy, and a second cup of tea gave him a second wind.

When Rutledge walked into the police station afterward, Sergeant Burke said affably, “Mrs. Mayhew was here, asking for you.”

Alert, Rutledge said, “And what did she want with me?”

“Something about urgently needing to find you. She looked as if she hadn’t slept. Anything wrong?”

Burke was too sharp to be put off with excuses. Rutledge said, “She had an alarm in the night. Tell me, who might be walking down the Marling road late? Besides a killer?”

Scratching his jaw thoughtfully, Burke answered, “Well, now, there’s not so much traffic as once there was. People being wary, eager to be home as fast as they can. The gentry in motorcars and carriages don’t mind as much.” When Rutledge didn’t respond, he added, “It’s hard to say, sir, without an hour to judge by.”

“After midnight.”

“Lord love you, sir, there’s not much likelihood of anybody being on the road then. Not with three dead already!”

Hamish said,
“Aye, it may be the killing has stopped for that reason.”

Rutledge responded silently, “Or someone has discovered that Jimsy Ridger is dead.”

To Burke he said, “If you hear any news of trouble, get in touch with me as soon as you can.”

“That I will, sir, but there’s no report so far,” Burke answered doubtfully.

Hamish agreed.
“Aye, who’ll tell the police he stabbed a man, even out of fear for his own life?”

E
LIZABETH
M
AYHEW WAS
in her sitting room, her eyes red with lack of sleep and tears.

“Where is he?” She got up from the comfortable chair by the fire, looking forlorn and far younger than her years.

“Safe for the moment.” Rutledge had sat in this room with Richard and Elizabeth many times. The bookshelves, the hearth, the table where they’d taken their tea when there were no guests—it was all sadly familiar. The carpet was worn in one corner where, long before the war, one of the young dogs had chewed at it. There was a photograph on the east wall that he himself had taken of the house, and Elizabeth had framed. Familiar . . .

“I thought you might have turned—” She stopped. “Is he at Dr. Pugh’s surgery? I couldn’t think of an excuse to call there.”

“He’s not at the surgery, nor is he in a cell at the police station. You shouldn’t concern yourself with this man—”

She flushed with anger. “I haven’t
concerned
myself with this man—”

But before she could rashly commit herself to something she would regret, Rutledge interrupted brusquely. “He’s safe, Elizabeth. For the time being. I haven’t decided what to do about him. But you should understand that he’s a suspect—”

“Nonsense! He’s staying in a hotel in Rochester. They’ll vouch for him there, and tell you he’s a respected Dutch citizen here on personal business.”

“Is that what he’s told you?”

She began to pace the floor. Rutledge silently remained on his feet as well. Elizabeth turned on him. “You’re trying to make me believe that such a man could be guilty of murder! I won’t listen. If you turn him in to Inspector Dowling, I shall swear that he was with me when the murders occurred—”

It was like an obsession, her blindness. She believed in this man she thought was Dutch, and she would place her own reputation in jeopardy to protect him.

“You can’t. I was here the night the last man was killed.” Rutledge stood there, watching her, thinking that he didn’t have the kind of experience to cope with this. He considered Lydia Hamilton, and rejected that idea. Lydia was a friend of the Mayhews, yes, but she would come to see Elizabeth in a vastly different light if she knew what was happening—and it would stand as a barrier between the two women after Elizabeth had come to her senses.

His sister Frances, then?

But she, too, was a friend. And Elizabeth would find it even harder to face her, because Frances had been very fond of Richard. . . .

Melinda Crawford? He couldn’t bring himself to worry her.

Hamish warned, “It isna’ wise to interfere—”

“I’d like to see him,” Elizabeth said, flushed. “And this safe place you’ve found for him. I’d like to go there. Now.”

Putting his own friendship with Richard’s wife on the line—and realizing with a bitter sense of loss what he risked in doing this—Rutledge said firmly, “No. Not now. Not later. I’ve told you, he’s a suspect in these local murders, and until he’s cleared—until I can clear him of suspicion, you cannot openly befriend him. It would ruin you—”

“I don’t care about ruin. I do care about this man—”

It had been put into words. Her infatuation.

They stared at each other, and fear crept unbidden into her eyes. “Ian—”

He shook his head. “I’ve had no sleep,” he said, more curtly than he intended. “And you’ve had very little yourself. I’m leaving before one of us says something we can’t take back.”

Walking out the sitting-room door without waiting for an answer, he saw her face before he could take his eyes away from hers. And read in them her determination to search on her own for Gunter Hauser.

R
UTLEDGE WENT BACK
to the vicinity of the burned-out oast house to look for signs, but even in the pale sunlight he could see nothing that either supported or refuted the German’s story. Looking around, he saw that it was an ideal spot for an ambush. Another of those empty stretches of open land. He himself had passed here on the night porter’s bicycle a good hour before the attack.

Hamish said, “He could be lying.”

But if there wasn’t an attack here—who had slashed the German’s chest with a knife? And where?

Fatigue was catching up with him as he drove back into Marling. The road seemed to dance in the watery sunlight, and the trees flickered like a fan. As he swerved to miss what he thought was someone in the high grass along the verge, only to realize it was the shadow of his own motorcar passing with him, he knew rest was essential.

He stopped for petrol, then carried on to the hotel and allowed himself two hours of restless sleep. And he was on the road again, turning between the stone pillars and down the overgrown drive to pull up outside the kitchen door.

The house in the midday light was a richly shaded brick, with stone forming the portico and steps and facing the front windows. A family home, made for light and laughter and children, not for pretensions and grand aspirations. A quiet residence set in the countryside and surrounded by its fields and pastures and woodland, shielded from the road by old trees and great banks of rhododendron that were now sadly in need of trimming.

Crows flew up from the chimney as Rutledge got out of the motorcar and stood looking around him. This was the England he had fought for. And it was already dying. The crows might as well be vultures.

Shaking off his somber mood, he walked briskly toward the kitchen door, knocking once before opening it.

Hamish called, “’Ware!”

But there was nothing to be wary of. Gunter Hauser, far from a threat, was lying on the makeshift bed, deeply asleep and snoring like a drunk.

Before Rutledge could step forward and shake him awake, the man came out of his sleep with the abruptness of a soldier, instantly cognizant of where he was and that danger was approaching. And definitely not drunk.

Opening those blue eyes, he fixed Rutledge with a feverish stare and said, “You, is it?”

Rutledge came in and took off his outer coat. “You look like the very devil.”

“Yes, well, I feel like it. I couldn’t sleep for hours. When I finally did, it was like the sleep of the dead.” Forcing himself to sit up, he regarded Rutledge quizzically. “Am I to be taken into custody?”

“Not yet. I’m taking you to the doctor in Marling first.”

“Over my dead body. Sit down, it hurts my shoulder to look up at you.”

Rutledge pulled out a chair from the table and sat. After a moment he chose his opening gambit. “You’re the best suspect I have. I’d earn a commendation for solving these murders so quickly, you must see that. You’re here in England under false pretenses, and that’s only the first strike against you. What’s more, there’s business in London that needs my attention.” He kept his voice level and his eyes hard.

“It would not be to your glory to find out in a courtroom that you were very wrong. As a matter of interest, have you ever hanged an innocent man?”

It was too close to the mark. Rutledge looked away before he could stop himself.

“So.” There was a pause, and then Gunter Hauser asked, “It was a shocking experience for Mrs. Mayhew, finding me bleeding all over her steps. Has she recovered?”

“I expect she’s out searching for you. With a first stop at the hotel in Rochester, where she’s certain you are staying.”

It was Hauser’s turn to look away. “So. She will quickly be disillusioned.”

“Lies have a way of coming home to roost.”

“Like the crows on the roof, which should have awakened me, and didn’t. Is there any more of that whisky? I’d prefer schnapps, but beggars aren’t choosers.”

“It won’t settle well on an empty stomach.” Rutledge got up, taking out the bread and the sausage, cutting off a chunk, adding a slice of cheese to make a sandwich for Hauser. Then he went out to the motorcar and brought in the Thermos of hot tea he’d asked the hotel to put up for him.

Hauser eyed it with interest, but laughed when Rutledge poured it and he saw it was tea. “How the English can drink tea is beyond a European’s imagination. But it is hot, and just now, I am grateful.”

Rutledge laced the tea with a little whisky and passed it to Hauser. “Tea-drinking Englishmen defeated your armies, if you remember.”