Proof of Guilt (5 page)

“If a dead man had that watch,” she said huskily, “then something has happened to my brother. He would not part with it willingly. Don’t leave me in suspense. Did this man kill my brother? Is that what you are trying to tell me? Please—”

Rutledge hadn’t considered theft of the watch from French himself. It had seemed to him that the watch had been overlooked when the dead man’s pockets had been emptied.

Still, there was the faint likeness to the portrait he’d seen in the firm’s office.

Hamish, suddenly there again in Rutledge’s mind, said, “There’s more here than ye knew.”

“We feared,” Rutledge said carefully, “that the dead man was the victim, not the attacker.”

“My brother wouldn’t kill anyone. Why should he? He has everything he has ever needed.” Was there bitterness behind those words?

This time she did reach for the bellpull and in her agitation jerked it hard. “How did you come here, Inspector? By train, I should imagine.”

“I have my own motorcar with me.”

“So much the better. You will drive me to London, if you please, and we’ll get to the bottom of this business.”

“Miss French. There’s the possibility that your brother was the man we found in the street,” he said, trying to prepare her.

But she ignored him. “Nonsense. He didn’t have an enemy in the world. Well, at least not in London.”

And what did she mean by that? The interview was not going in the direction he’d anticipated.

“You are telling me that there is someone in Dedham who wishes him ill?”

“Not in Dedham,” she retorted impatiently. “In the village here. Did you not come through it on your way to the house? There was a Dominican abbey here, and when it was torn down by Henry the Eighth, a hamlet sprang up in the ruins. Servants from the abbey, dispossessed brothers— Ah, Nan, there you are. Would you please pack a small valise for me? I’m needed in London at once.”

When Nan had gone, Miss French turned to Rutledge again. “Where was I? Oh, the village. My brother was engaged to a young woman who lived close by the church, and then he jilted her for someone else. She didn’t take that very well. If he’d been attacked here, I’d have pointed the finger at her. But in London? I don’t believe it.”

“She could have followed him there,” Rutledge pointed out.

“Yes, yes, I know, but how likely is it? She doesn’t have a motorcar and she doesn’t know the city.”

She looked at the mantel clock. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll ask the kitchen staff to put up sandwiches and a Thermos of tea.”

And she was gone.

Shock took people in many different ways, Rutledge thought. And Miss French needed to be busy now, demonstrating that she was in control of the situation. He had a feeling she would fall apart if she was called on to identify the dead man and realized that it was indeed her brother.

Or had he jumped to conclusions based on a likeness that was not very strong?

On the whole, he didn’t believe he’d missed his identification. The man’s clothing had been that of a gentleman, and in the dark, the watch might easily have been overlooked by a killer in a hurry to rid himself of a corpse.

“Or was too well known to be of any value,” Hamish put in.

And that was true as well. But first things first. If Miss French was determined to travel to London, then so be it. He’d drive her. The body had to be identified.

Twenty minutes later, dressed in traveling clothes and followed by Nan hurrying after her with a valise in one hand and a picnic basket in the other, Miss French opened the sitting room door and said, “Thank you, Nan, I’ll telephone you from London. I’m ready, Inspector.”

S
he had very little to say on the long journey, and he was tired, in no mood to make light conversation. In the reflected light of the headlamps he could see only her profile, and it was set, as if her thoughts were already in London, facing whatever dreadful thing she might find there.

He could understand, but she had been determined not to listen, and he had had no choice but to let her have her way. And it was far better to put off the final shock until they reached the city. She would have long enough to mourn afterward.

It was very late when they drove into London. They had only stopped for petrol and to eat the sandwiches, drink the tea. Miss French said, rousing herself, “I didn’t call the house to tell them I’m coming. They’d have had it ready for my brother anyway. If you will take me there, I’ll be waiting at whatever time you suggest in the morning. I don’t feel up to doing more tonight.”

“Yes, that makes good sense,” he told her. “Will nine be too early?”

“Thank you. I doubt I’ll sleep, but at least I—at least I shan’t spend what’s left of the night having nightmares.”

He carried the valise and the picnic basket to the door as she pulled the bell.

The house was in a handsome square, although as in Essex it was not pretentious. Rutledge was beginning to understand Howard French. The founder of the present firm had inherited a business that was centuries old, even if he’d given it a new and very prosperous direction. But he appeared to have preferred to be thought of as old money and refrained from showing off his newfound wealth. Even the pocket watches passed down to the present generation had been elegant and expensive, but in perfect taste. Rutledge found himself wondering if the man had had hopes of a title from the Queen or at the very least from Edward VII. George V, the present king, hadn’t consorted with wealthy men in quite the same way his father had.

The door opened finally, and a young man stood there, his clothes hastily thrown on and his face reflecting his shock at seeing Miss French on the doorstep, much less, Rutledge thought, at this late hour of the night and with a valise, no maid, and a stranger in tow.

“M-Miss French,” he stammered, then got himself under control. “Is everything— I mean, please, come in.”

They stepped into the entrance hall, and Rutledge handed over the valise and basket.

“I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour, Robert, but I need to speak to my brother. Is he here?”

“No, Miss—er—he’s in Essex, I was told, and not expected back in London until this Friday.”

She turned to glance at Rutledge, willing him not to speak. Then she said to Robert, “Well, then, I’ve come ahead. I’ll be spending the night, what’s left of it, and possibly tomorrow night as well. If you’ll tell Mrs. Rule. I don’t require much in the way of food, but as she will remember, I do like it on time.”

“Yes, Miss, I’ll tell her. Is there anything else you need? Shall I wake up Nell and ask her to attend you?”

“No. I’m not used to a lady’s maid at home, and I don’t need one in London,” she said briskly, then thanked him for thinking about Nell. Turning to Rutledge, she held out her hand. “Nine o’clock then, Mr. Rutledge.”

It was dismissal, and he was glad to go now that he’d heard for himself that French wasn’t staying at the London address.

He turned and left. Robert had followed him to the door and locked it behind him.

Back in the motorcar, Rutledge let in the clutch and drove off, making his way to his own flat.

He wondered how much longer Miss French could sustain the pretense that all was well. Too many factors pointed to her brother’s disappearance, if not to his death. He wasn’t in London or in Essex; the watch was in the possession of the Yard; and even Gooding could give them no information regarding French’s whereabouts. Or did the clerk know something that Rutledge did not?

It was an interesting possibility. Whatever French had decided to do with himself, it was unlikely that he would cut off ties with his firm.

With that thought in his mind, Rutledge walked through the door of the flat and went directly to his bedroom.

For a mercy he fell asleep almost at once and did not dream for what was left of his night. It was a measure of how long his day had been.

He did not think, when he handed Miss French into the motorcar the next morning at nine o’clock on the dot, that she had slept at all.

There were puffy rings under her eyes, making her appear even plainer, and the effort to keep herself calm showed in the tension in her jaw.

“Please. Let’s get this over with as quickly as possible. I’ll agree to anything, just let it be done,” she said to him.

He drove to the hospital, where earlier he had made arrangements for the body to be viewed, and led her into the bowels of the building to the unmarked door halfway down the long poorly lit corridor.

He opened the door for Miss French, but she pulled back, her hands shaking. “I— Let me have a moment.”

Rutledge let the door swing to and waited. He thought she might faint, she was so pale. But she managed to collect herself finally, her breathing still a little rapid, her eyes already filling with nervous tears. With a nod, she indicated she was ready, and he took her inside the large, chilly room that smelled of formaldehyde.

Ignoring his hand at her elbow, she marched across to the lone table, where a sheet-shrouded body lay under a stark lamp. It was easy to see the human outline—the peaked tent of the feet, the amorphous shape of a skull. She swallowed hard, her head jerking with the effort.

A middle-aged man appeared from another room and came to remove the sheet from the dead man’s face.

Miss French reached the table just as he gently placed the last fold across the throat, showing only the face. The dust and stones that had been caught in the flesh and the hair had been washed away. Save for the abrasions, like little freckles down the ridges of the forehead, cheekbone, and chin, the skin was clear.

She was clutching her handbag now as if it were a lifeline. Glancing down at her, Rutledge realized that her eyes were closed, probably had been as they had walked across the room. After a moment she opened them, and then she swayed, and he touched her arm to steady her.

“Oh, dear God,” she said in a voice that was barely audible. “Oh, my God.”

“Is this your brother, Miss French?”

She leaned against him for an instant, and then recovered, moving away as if embarrassed by such brief weakness.

“You must tell me, Miss French. So that the attendant and I can hear your statement clearly,” Rutledge prompted.

“No. No, it is not my brother Lewis.” Her voice echoed around them, high pitched, as if she couldn’t control it.

And then she did faint.

Chapter Six

R
utledge carried Miss French into a small waiting room that the attendant pointed out to him, and it was not long before she came to.

Her statement had taken him completely by surprise. But he didn’t press her for more information until her color had returned and she seemed to be aware of her surroundings again. She wheeled around, as if expecting to see the table with the covered body somewhere just behind her.

“It’s all right,” he said quietly. “This is a private room. We can stay here as long as you like.”

She relaxed and closed her eyes again. After a moment she said, “Michael was buried in France. My elder brother. I didn’t— We never saw him.”

“But you saw Lewis just now?” He wasn’t convinced she knew what she was saying.

She opened her eyes, a little of her spirit evident again. “I have told you. That was not Lewis. Although at first—the scratches on his face—I saw those first. But it wasn’t my brother.”

“You are absolutely certain then.”

“Absolutely.” She saw the glass of water he was holding, took it, then gave it back to him, her hand shaking too much to try to sip it. “Could we leave, please? I seem to smell that odor still. It’s making me quite ill.”

Other witnesses had said much the same thing. Rutledge himself had become inured to it. But he had never become inured to the dead, even after four years in France, where bodies had been almost as common as the rats underfoot.

He gave her his arm, and they walked together down the long passage back to the motorcar. Once there she seemed to revive completely, pulling on her gloves and fiddling a little with the buttons at the wrists as if to distract her thoughts.

When they had left the hospital behind, she said, “I can’t understand why you thought that man might be Lewis.”

“The watch, of course, which sent me to French, French and Traynor. The clerk there identified it, and he told me Lewis French was in Essex. I went there to find out. And he’s not at the London house. Where, then, is he?”

“I have no idea. My brother has been his own man since he left for University.”

“Was he in the war?”

“No. He’s subject to seizures. The Army wanted no part of him. He might as well have had the plague. It bothered him more than he was willing to admit.”

Which meant there were no war wounds to use for identification purposes. Rutledge was still not satisfied that the dead man was not French.

There was also the likeness to the portrait of Howard French.

As if she sensed his reaction, Miss French said, “My father had a mistress, I think. I was never told, of course, but I remember my mother crying sometimes when he seemed to be too busy to come home. It wasn’t until much later that I understood why his absences upset her. And when he died—he outlived my mother—there was a woman’s photograph in his desk. It had one of those hidden compartments, and I found it quite by accident. Perhaps my mother had found it as well. I can’t say. I did wonder— I’d look sometimes at the village children, searching for a likeness. But of course if he’d been involved with someone locally, it would have been the height of foolishness. Gossip would have ferreted out the truth, wouldn’t it? Perhaps she lived in London. I don’t know.”

“You are telling me that the man in the mortuary could be your illegitimate half brother?”

She took a deep breath. “Women do have children out of wedlock.” And then without warning, she began to cry. “It could have been Lewis lying there. I haven’t got over Michael’s death. What if I’d lost Lewis as well?” She fumbled in her bag for a handkerchief and buried her face in it.

They had almost reached the London house when she said, her voice thick with tears, “I’m so sorry. It’s the shock of everything. And I parted with Lewis on bad terms. Over
airing bedrooms
. I was so angry— I know I haven’t married, I know I haven’t got a house of my own, but I’m not a servant, and I couldn’t bear to be treated as one.”

He was glad to hand her over Robert. Between them they got her into the house, and as the door swung shut behind the footman and the woman on the verge of collapse, Rutledge could hear the harried young man’s voice saying, “I’ll call Mrs. Rule, shall I? She’ll know what to do.”

H
e was to dine with Frances that night, and he was twenty minutes late.

As soon as he’d left Miss French in the hands of her brother’s household, Rutledge had returned to the wine merchant’s offices in the City. Frederick Gooding came to collect him after he’d been greeted by another young clerk, this one named Simmons. Gooding conducted him past the portraits and into an office where bills of lading, orders, and ships’ manifests nearly covered the top of a large partners desk.

“I’ve been going over the books,” he said in apology. “That’s one of my duties. The late Mr. French, Mr. Lewis’s father, believed that a quarterly review of accounts discouraged embezzlement and gave him a clear picture of where the firm stood. Where the wine was going, who had purchased it, what bottoms we were shipping it in, and what the output of the vineyards was, as well as the status of wine being aged in the main office, in Funchal.”

“And how does the firm’s business stand?”

“Quite well, as a matter of fact. Since the end of the war we’ve been very fortunate in rebuilding our clientele and finding ships that can carry our wares. Shipping took a terrible blow, what with submarines and raiders attacking convoys. But I daresay the newer vessels have a faster turnaround rate than the old ones. There’s always a silver lining.” Shifting the subject, he said, “And have you been to Essex? Have you spoken to Mr. French?”

“He was not in Essex,” Rutledge said. “Nor is he in the house in London. His sister is in residence there now. She has no suggestions for finding him. I was hoping that you might help me.”

Gooding frowned. “This is most unusual. When he’s away, Mr. French is always careful to tell me precisely where he will be at any given time—within reason, of course—so that I can reach him if there is an emergency. If he says he’s in Essex, then he is in Essex.”

“Unless of course he’d dead.”

Gooding’s face paled. “Don’t even say that. There is no one to take over the English half of the firm if something happens to Mr. French.”

“There’s his sister.”

“Sadly, I don’t believe she knows enough about the business to make sound judgments.” He studied Rutledge’s face for a moment. “You aren’t— You had Mr. French’s watch. He is never without it. Is there something you haven’t told me?”

Rutledge said, “Before I go into that, there’s something else I need to discuss with you. I’m told that Mr. French’s father had a second family, one that his wife and children were not aware of. Is this true?”

If he’d suggested that the late Mr. Laurence French had possessed two heads and was born a Hottentot, Gooding couldn’t have looked more astonished.

“If the Mr. French I served was engaged in such an affair,” he said after a moment, “he would not have confided in me. If you are after such details about his private life, I suggest you speak to his solicitors. The firm of Hayes and Hayes.”

But the Mr. French the clerk had served was an older man—and a junior clerk would have been the last person he’d have confided in. Still, this meant that there was no gossip in the firm about the man. He had been very discreet. Not surprising if he was expecting his son and his nephew to come into the business at some future date.

“I had reason to believe that Mr. French was killed last week in a motorcar accident,” Rutledge said. “Miss French went this morning to identify the body. She didn’t know the man.”

“Then it wasn’t her brother. I should think she knows him better than anyone.”

“Will you go with me to look at the body?”

“No,” Gooding said firmly. “If I disagreed with her for any reason at all, whose word would you take?”

“I should be forced to take hers. But I should continue to search for Lewis French.”

“Then my word would be superfluous.”

And Gooding wouldn’t budge from that position.

In the end, Rutledge went to the Inns of Court and found the street where Hayes and Hayes had their chambers. The elder Mr. Hayes agreed to see him. Rutledge said nothing about the dead man. Instead he began with the late Mr. French’s will.

“I should like to know if he made any provisions for a second family, one that his wife and children knew nothing about.”

Hayes regarded him with what Rutledge could only describe as hooded eyes, although the impression came from the second fold of skin that age had deposited on the lids. His eyes were a cold gray, deep set. Bristling gray brows like an overgrown thicket jutted out above them. Rutledge found himself thinking that such a fierce scowl would be a very effective weapon in a courtroom.

“I could of course show you a copy of the will,” Hayes said finally. “But I can assure you that there was no mention made in it of a mistress or children born out of wedlock.” Rutledge was about to speak, but Hayes held up a blue-veined hand. “Nor was there a codicil setting out such an arrangement. Why should you believe that such a provision existed?”

“Miss French went with me this morning to look at a dead man I believed to be her brother. It was very difficult for her. I was already fairly certain that it was Lewis French. She assured me it was not. And she told me later that her mother had been very concerned about the elder Mr. French’s fidelity. It would account for a resemblance I’d noticed between the dead man and a portrait at the wine merchant’s, if the victim had been her father’s child by a mistress.”

“Then she is greatly mistaken. Her father as far as I know was faithful to his wife. It was
his
father, Mr. Howard French, who had an affair before he was married with a young woman who died in childbirth. The child was adopted by one of
his
father’s servants. We have no other information about that child. Presumably he was never told of his true parentage.”

Which would explain, Rutledge thought, why a nervous and rather insecure wife might imagine her own husband had strayed.

He said, pursuing that thought, “Was Lewis French’s mother wealthy?”

“She was very wealthy. Her father had made a fortune in shipping, and with the marriage came a very satisfactory arrangement for the French and Traynor wines to be carried around the world in that firm’s bottoms.”

Small wonder the woman was insecure, more especially if she had been as plain as her daughter.

“Then the man in the mortuary could well have been a descendant of Howard French’s—er—indiscretion.”

“It is entirely possible. Although highly unlikely.”

But how did he come by that watch? And where was Lewis French?

“Do you know the name of the family that was given the child to foster?”

“There is no record to my knowledge. Mr. Howard French provided for them at the time, and no bequests were made at his death or that of his son. Lewis French’s father.”

It was the ideal way to handle such a youthful indiscretion. The servants would be given a tidy sum to move elsewhere and take the child with them. A gamekeeper, a groom, a coachman, a head gardener. No one would think anything about a family suddenly coming into a small inheritance from a distant relative and deciding to move to the cottage in Wales or Kent or Cumberland that had been left to them. And it would be surprising to find anyone who remembered such an obscure event so long afterward.

“The baptismal record? Was there one?”

“The child would have been baptized in whatever village the family chose. Or not, as the case may be.”

If the servants were Chapel, then it would be almost impossible to find any record at all.

A dead end. And Rutledge disliked dead ends.

“If the man in the mortuary is not Lewis French, then where is he? And why is he not in Essex or in his London home?”

“I can’t answer that,” Mr. Hayes replied. “Not from any reluctance on my part. Simply the fact that we don’t know the answer. But if there was something he wished to do without his sister’s knowledge, then it’s his business and not that of Scotland Yard.”

Rutledge left soon after. His experience of dealing with solicitors had long been one of accepting that they would answer the questions put to them precisely and generally quite truthfully, with very little additional information volunteered, unless giving that was also to their advantage. For all he knew, Mr. Hayes held in the firm’s boxes the solution to his inquiry—but to unlock that bit of information would require a prodigious leap of imagination on Rutledge’s part to come up with the right question. He smiled to himself at the thought. Still, Hayes was not concealing information concerning the whereabouts of Lewis French. Of that Rutledge was nearly sure.

He carried this knotty problem with him to dinner, although he tried to hide his distraction from his sister. Frances was all too perceptive when it came to her brother, and she soon had him in a better frame of mind.

But as he drove home at the end of the evening, he had come to accept Miss French’s statement as the final word on the identity of the man who had been left on Huntingdon Street in Chelsea. Whether he was satisfied or not, there was no alternative.

The next morning Rutledge gave an oral report to the Acting Chief Superintendent.

Markham listened, nodding from time to time, until Rutledge had finished. Then he leaned forward in his chair, his brows drawn together in a frown.

“You’ve told me who our inconvenient corpse is not. You can’t tell me who killed him or why he possessed a watch he had no right to. What’s more, you’ve lost its lawful owner, Lewis French.”

Rutledge took a deep breath. “French has a fiancée in Essex. I’d like to speak to her before Miss French returns from London. There was no reason to call on her during my first visit. French may have confided his intentions to her rather than to his sister.”

“They weren’t on good terms, the brother and sister?”

“I have a feeling that French imposed on his sister. She maintains the family home, and she was in the midst of preparing for a cousin’s arrival. She was rather angry with French for leaving when she could have used his help.”