A Fearsome Doubt (31 page)

There was a sincerity in her voice that made him ashamed of how little a grateful country—a war-bankrupted country—could do for its soldiers and their families. But with hundreds of thousands dead, and so many wounded to care for, proper compensation was out of the question. Even a pittance was better than nothing. . . .

“It’s part of my duty to ask unpleasant questions,” he told Mrs. Webber. “Inspector Dowling would have done it better—”

“No,” she said tiredly, “he wouldn’t have asked at all. But then he knows me and Peggy Bartlett and Alice Taylor.”

“Or thinks he does?”

She smiled faintly. “Yes, there’s that, too. I understand, Inspector. But I didn’t kill my husband. What’s between us is between us. Or was. Better or worse, the vows read. And I didn’t make it easy for Kenny to kill himself, either. Whoever did that never thought about those Kenny was leaving behind, did he? I expect the one you want doesn’t have children to bring up. Or he’d have thought of
us
before handing the wine to our men.”

“At one time, I was fairly certain that Jimsy Ridger had a hand in it.”

“That one? Jimsy always lands on his feet. His kind generally does. I can’t see him coming back to Marling. We’re none of us good enough for him now. Jimsy did well in the war, I expect. Kenny told me once that Jimsy found a teakettle full of gold buried in among the onions in some Frenchie’s garden. I expect it’s true, though Kenny swore he never saw it. Luck follows the Jimsy Ridgers of this world.”

“Not always,” Rutledge told her. “I’ve learned that he drowned in the Thames and is buried in Maidstone.”

“Did he now!” she said, with some surprise. Something in her face changed. “What I wouldn’t have given to be there, at his funeral!”

R
UTLEDGE HAD NO
better luck with Peggy Bartlett or Alice Taylor. Though Mrs. Taylor was more unsettled by his questions.

“I don’t understand why you’d want to believe any such thing!”

“It isn’t what I believe,” he answered. “It’s what I must do, ask unpleasant questions and suggest unpleasant possibilities.”

“Yes, well, you must be desperate to think one of
us
turned murderer.”

“I
am
desperate,” he admitted. “I need to find the truth before there’s another death.”

“I heard there’s someone taken in charge. If that’s true, why are you wasting time over the likes of me?”

“Because the evidence against him is not satisfactory.”

“Whose fault is that?” she demanded. “Not mine!”

R
UTLEDGE DROVE FROM
his last call, the Bartlett house, toward Melinda Crawford’s home on the Sussex border.

She was in a chair by the windows watching the play of light across the lawns and the distant Downs.

“It’s very beautiful,” she said, turning as Shanta ushered him into the sitting room. “I don’t know why. I’ve seen far more exotic landscapes in my time. How is Elizabeth?”

“I don’t know.” He sat down in the chair she indicated and closed his eyes. “Will you answer a question honestly?”

“Of course. You know that.”

He opened his eyes. She saw the wretchedness in them, and caught her breath for an instant.

“Was there ever anything—anything between Richard Mayhew and my sister?”

She regarded him for a moment. “Who told you there was? Elizabeth?”

“I’d—rather not answer that. Not yet.”

Melinda Crawford said, “I can tell you truthfully that I never saw any relationship between them that exceeded the bounds of friendship. I think they cared greatly for each other. But that was all.”

He couldn’t be sure whether it was a denial—or an affirmation that she herself had not witnessed any untoward relationship in spite of her own doubts.

It troubled him.

“It’s not precisely the answer I wanted to hear,” he said after a moment.

“Are you asking me if they were lovers?”

“Yes,” he replied baldly.

“I don’t know, Ian. But I can tell you that they never gave
me
any cause to suspect them of misbehavior.” She smiled. “My dear, do you think either Frances or Richard would be so stupid as to arouse suspicion, if they were intent on adultery?”

“I’d always wondered why Frances hadn’t married. It never occurred to me that she couldn’t marry the man she loved.”

“Ian, who told you this? You must always consider the source when there’s malicious gossip.”

“That’s just it. I have. And I don’t believe it, I don’t want to believe it. But it’s there, a worm niggling in the back of my head, and I can’t walk away from it.”

“Someone has set out to hurt you. I ask you again, was it Elizabeth?”

“No. If she’d even suspected, I think I’d have guessed. She’s not a very good liar.”

“Well, that makes me feel a great deal more cheerful!” She glanced out the window again and then said, “And the murderer. Have you found him yet?”

“Not yet.” There was a wariness in his voice. He couldn’t prevent it.

“And our German friend?”

“I haven’t got any name to put forward in place of his. The Chief Constable is eager to close the investigation, and he will. After that, it’s all in the hands of the courts.”

“Who is taking the brief?”

“Elizabeth has asked Hamilton.”

Mrs. Crawford nodded. “Yes, a good choice. I do rather wish she’d asked Raleigh Masters.”

Surprised, Rutledge said, “I thought his health had forced him to give up his practice.”

“So it did. But he needs such a challenge right now. It might be the salvation of him.”

“At the German’s expense,” Rutledge answered ruefully.

“Why are you so ambivalent about this man?”

“Am I?” he asked, startled.

“I think you are. I’ve never known you to be indecisive. What did you do to Hauser in the war?”

“I nearly got him killed,” he answered, getting up to pace the room.

“But he didn’t die, did he?”

“No.”

“Then you don’t owe him a life, do you?”

“I expect I don’t.”
Except perhaps my own, for what that’s worth . . .

“Have you a stronger suspect than Hauser?”

“No. Yes.”

She smiled. “You’ll do the right thing, Ian. You always do.”

But how could he, he thought, when the choice could very well lie between this woman he cared so much for and a man he didn’t want to see hanged?

30

I
T WAS LATE AFTERNOON WHEN
R
UTLEDGE REACHED
M
ARLING,
and he found three messages waiting for him at the hotel—frantic requests from Inspector Dowling for his immediate presence.

Without preamble Dowling said as Rutledge walked into his office, “Thank God you’re here! There’s been another murder. We’ll take your motorcar, if you don’t mind.”

“Where? Who is the victim?” He was already following Dowling through the office door, down the passage to the street.

“Mr. Brereton, I’m afraid. Out the Marling road. The house where he lives has been turned upside down, and there’s blood everywhere.
Where have you been!
”

“When did you learn about this?”

“Not a quarter of an hour ago. A man called Adams, delivering firewood for the winter, reported it. I’ve been trying to reach Inspector Grimes in Seelyham, to ask him to block the road north. Sergeant Burke has already put men at the crossroads, and I’m damned shorthanded! And this morning we had to let that Dutchman go—Mr. Hamilton is that clever, he even spoke to the Chief Constable, and in the end, we had no choice but to agree to release him.”

“Where is the man now?” They had reached the hotel and were walking swiftly around to the yard.

“God knows. Sergeant Burke saw Mr. Hamilton at The Plough, but he was alone. That was at noon.”

“Did this man Adams see the body? So far all the murders have been at night, on the road. It’s a different pattern.”

“It’s different, yes. But I’d lay odds it’s the same killer. Who else could it be? Marling is not so cosmopolitan that we can boast of two murderers running amok in the same month!” He cranked the motorcar for Rutledge and climbed in. “Adams didn’t search the house, and rightly so. He came straight here, crying murder. Sergeant Burke is at the crossroads, and I’ve sent Weaver to fetch Dr. Pugh. It will be crowded in the back, but we can take them up with us.”

Rutledge, driving out into the square, said,
“No—!”

Dowling said, “Be sensible, man, we need them. Adams carried Burke to the crossroads, and he’ll be staying there, with another man.”

But where would Hamish sit—!

Rutledge fought down sheer panic, reminding himself that it was an illogical reaction. Hamish lived in his head, however often the voice seemed to come from just behind his shoulder. And yet he was so accustomed to the reality of Hamish in the seat behind him that he couldn’t breathe at the thought of men crowding him out, sending the dead Scot to jostle with Dowling for space in front. Rutledge had lived in dread for three years that he would turn one day and come face to face with the voice whose owner he never saw, that no one heard, that was the Nemesis in his mind—

It took a formidable act of will to accept Dowling’s proposition.

They found the young constable, Weaver, his face shiny with nervous sweat, standing at the gate to the doctor’s surgery, and even as they drew up and the constable stepped into the motorcar, Pugh came running out his door, bag in hand, to join him in the rear seat.

Dr. Pugh was a slim man in his fifties, with a high forehead and an air of competence. “I’ve had to put off the rest of my patients,” he said. “I hope this isn’t a mad scramble for nothing. Weaver says Adams didn’t see the body.”

They drove quickly out of Marling, and at the crossroads—where Harry Bartlett had been killed the night Rutledge was driving Elizabeth Mayhew home from the Hamiltons’ party—he could recall clearly the German’s face in his headlamps, eyes wide and alarmed.
Where was Hauser now?

Burke nodded to the two men manning the block across the road, and climbed into the motorcar beside the doctor. Rutledge could feel the springs dip under Burke’s weight, and he felt, too, the claustrophobic sense of humanity crowding in around him, cutting off escape and air, thrusting Hamish into the forefront of his brain.

Burke was saying, “—It’s not likely we’ll find our man at the cottage, sir; by now he’s more than likely well on his way to wherever it is he goes to earth.”

“That’s as may be,” Dowling answered sharply. “But this is the closest we’ve been to him. We’ll make the best of it.”

Silence fell, and the sound of the motor was clear in the fading light, a reminder of speed. But not fast enough to satisfy Rutledge, as Hamish grumbled incessantly from the direction of Sergeant Burke’s lap. Rutledge drove grimly, increasing his speed in spite of the wet and rutted road.

He had passed fields, several farms, and was coming up on the small stand of trees that led to Brereton’s cottage when Dowling said, “We ought to pull up here. No need to spoil whatever prints may be there.”

Rutledge stopped the car, and waited as they all alighted. As the cool air blew through the open vehicle, he could feel relief sweeping over him as if a veil were being lifted. The chiding voice in his head subsided, and he shook himself like a dog, half a shiver, half a shudder.

Getting out to follow the others, he kept his eyes on the road. Among the wagon tracks, droppings, imprints of tires, and the footprints of a man in heavy boots, there was nothing of interest. Their killer would have been too clever to leave his mark in the mud when he could walk on the grassy verge—he’d already shown himself to be careful and elusive . . . adept at escaping detection.

Rutledge caught the other men up as they turned in the gate. The bicycle was gone, and he pointed this out to Inspector Dowling.

“Then he’s well ahead of us, I’m afraid,” Dowling answered with a sigh.

The door was ajar, apparently the way Adams had left it in his haste to report to the police. A neat stack of firewood covered with a tarpaulin stood to the east of the house, and Adams must have looked in to ask for his money after delivering it.

As they began to push the door wider, Lucinda came to greet them, her tail high as she made a sound of welcome. Sergeant Burke scooped her up and held her against his chest as he stepped into the cottage.

The room was not wrecked, as Rutledge had expected, but there were unarguable signs of a struggle—books scattered, a lamp and chairs overturned, a table on end, and what appeared to be blood drying in front of the hearth; Lucinda had stepped in it at some point: her prints led across the patch and back onto the bare floorboards.

There was also a smear of blood on one wall and streaks on an overturned chair, drops scattered here and there as dark spots on polished surfaces and the floor.

Of Brereton, alive or dead, there was no sign.

But most telling was a bottle of wine spilled on the table and running down to puddle on the edge of a bit of carpeting. Two glasses sat next to the bottle, one of them still a quarter full.

As Sergeant Burke, putting down the cat, moved heavily toward the other rooms calling Brereton’s name, Dr. Pugh saw the wine and went over to lift it, sniffing the contents.

“Laudanum?” Rutledge asked.

“I shouldn’t be surprised, but I’ll have to test it to be sure.” The doctor put out a finger as if considering tasting the wine in the glass, then prudently changed his mind.

Dowling was squatting by the pool of blood on the hearth. Weaver, following Burke, looked rather green.

Rutledge said, “Judging by the blood we’ve seen so far, how seriously wounded was Brereton?”

“It would depend on where the wound was located. Not an artery, of course, there’s no pattern to show that. Still—” Pugh turned to walk on into the kitchen and stopped short. “Look. It would appear someone dragged himself across the floor here!”

Burke was already examining the drying streaks. “But they stop just outside the kitchen door there,” he pointed out. “And Mr. Brereton’s body isn’t in the house.”

Rutledge stepped around the doctor and looked at the smears. Were they drag marks, where something heavy had been pulled toward the door? Or had someone crawled, half dragging himself, toward the only means of escape?

“The question is,” he said, “where’s Brereton? Trying to hide in the woods—or already half buried in the leaves somewhere out there? Would the killer have taken the time to hide a corpse? Or was he interrupted by Adams arriving on the scene, and Brereton got away?”

Inspector Dowling, scanning the trees beyond the garden, said, “We’ll need a score of men to search out there.”

Sergeant Burke reminded his inspector, “We can’t wait for a search party. He might be bleeding to death right now.”

Dr. Pugh said, “I’ll make a cursory search.” With the constable at his heels, he stepped beyond the smears and out the door, moving along the grassy path that bordered the small kitchen garden and the herb bed. Stopping at a garden shed, Pugh peered inside, pulling the door open only as far as needed. He looked up again at the men in the kitchen, shaking his head. Taking care to observe where he put his feet, he moved rapidly toward the boundary of the cottage and the beginning of the wood. “Nothing so far,” he called to the watching men. “I can’t see anything to indicate there’s been a body dragged along here. Still—even if Brereton had passed out, he might have come to his senses and managed to walk away under his own power.”

Burke stepped back into the house. “The odd thing is,” he said, “that
this
attack happened well before dark today. Not like the others. Sir, should someone be sent along to Mr. Masters’s house, to be sure there’s been no trouble there? It’s little more than a mile by the road.”

“With servants in the house, Sergeant, they shouldn’t be in immediate danger. Our priority right now is Brereton. Unless there’s a path that Brereton might have taken through the woods, trying to reach help?”

Burke shouted the question to Weaver, still searching, and got the reply “No, sir, no path that I can see.” Unsatisfied, Burke said, “I’ll just have a look on my own, sir, as it’s getting on toward dark.”

Rutledge crossed to the sink in the kitchen and saw that there were no dishes waiting to be washed up, possibly indicating that Brereton cleared away after his luncheon. And the stove was banked. But then Brereton often dined with the Masterses rather than make his own evening meal. The buffer between Raleigh’s temper and his wife’s anxiety . . . A high price for a good dinner.

He tried to picture the scene as it might have occurred. Had Brereton answered the door, expecting to find Adams arriving with the wood? And instead was greeted by someone else standing there, smiling and expecting to be invited in?

Hamish said, “You canna’ tell. The fire’s no’ lit, he may have been in the garden, clearing out a place for the wood.”

Rutledge called to Dowling, who was inspecting the rest of the house. “How trustworthy is this man Adams?”

“Completely, I’d say. Church sexton, thirty years a farmer. His sister is the housekeeper to the rector. I’d as soon believe Sergeant Burke was a murderer.”

Lucinda came to rub against Rutledge’s legs, recognizing a familiar scent.

“She’s verra’ calm,” Hamish said.

“Yes, I’d observed that as well,” Rutledge answered him thoughtfully. “But then whatever happened here is over. There’s nothing to frighten her now—no loud noises, no angry, raised voices.”

Burke, coming back through the kitchen door, reported, “If there’s a path, I can’t find it.”

Dr. Pugh, following him, added, “There’s no sign of Brereton—and I called out, identifying myself. Weaver is still searching, but the light has gone, and it’s dark under the trees.”

Cleaning his feet on the scraper by the kitchen door, he walked back into the sitting room and shook his head as he studied the signs of struggle. “I’ve met Tom Brereton. He’s come to me on Mrs. Masters’s behalf a number of times, and I know of course about losing his eyesight. All the same, he was a soldier, and I’d say he was well able to defend himself. Unlike the other victims, who had to deal with crutches. Hurt, of course—there’s the blood in the sitting room. Still, even assuming he drank any of that drugged wine, he must have inflicted some damage of his own. But where is he now?”

Rutledge said, thinking aloud, “We don’t know how badly his attacker was hurt, do we? Brereton might well have turned the tables and gone after
him.
”

Sergeant Burke was making notes, a rough diagram of the house, then the sitting room sketched in and an X marking the location of each visible bloodstain. He said, “Mr. Brereton’s a clever man. He would have come directly to Inspector Dowling and reported the identity of his assailant. My guess is, he was dragged into the kitchen while Adams was stacking the wood, and then was carried off to hide the body.” As Weaver walked back into the house, Burke added, “We’ll have to have that stack of wood taken down. Weaver? Get on it, man!”

Dowling, coming back into the sitting room, nodded. “I agree.”

But Hamish, who had spent the last ten minutes arguing in Rutledge’s head, did not. “He talked to you about the wine,” he reminded Rutledge. “He would ha’ been suspicious as soon as he saw it.”

Rutledge, standing to one side, was reviewing his last conversation with Brereton in light of Hamish’s adamant stand.

He had wondered then if Brereton in his roundabout fashion was making a confession. If the man was already contemplating disappearing, would he have staged his own death?