The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction (58 page)

“You must ask Mrs Gravely that question. The housekeeper. She’s been with him for a good many years. I went through the house, a cursory look after examining the body, to be certain there was no one hiding in another room. I saw nothing to indicate robbery.”

“Any idea when he was killed?”

“We can pinpoint the time fairly well from other evidence. When Mrs Gravely left to go into Mumford, he was alive and well, because she went to the study to ask if there were any letters she could take to the post for him. She was gone by her own account no more than three quarters of an hour, and found him lying as you see him when she returned. At a guess, I’d say he died between two and two-thirty.”

Rutledge nodded. “Thank you, Doctor. I’ll speak to her in a moment.”

It was dismissal, and the doctor clearly wished to remain. But Rutledge stood where he was, waiting, and finally the man turned on his heel and left the room. He didn’t precisely slam the door in his wake, but it closed with a decidedly loud snap.

Rutledge went to the window and looked out. It was then he saw the dog lying against the wall, only its feet and tail visible from that angle. Opening the window and bringing in the cold, damp winter air, he leaned out. There was no doubt the animal was dead.

He left the study and went out to kneel by the dog, which did not appear to have been harmed in the attack on Sir John. Death seemed to be due to natural causes and old age, judging from the greying muzzle.

Hamish said, “There’s been no one to bury him.”

An interesting point. He touched the body, but it was cold, already stiffening.

Back inside, he asked the constable where he could find Mrs Gravely, and he was told she was in her room at the top of the house.

He knocked, and a husky voice called “Come in.”

It was a small room, but backed up to the kitchen chimney and was warm enough. Cast-offs from the main part of the house furnished it: a brass bed, an oak bedside table, two comfortable wing chairs on either side of a square of blue carpet, and a maple table under the half-moon window in the eaves. A narrow bookcase held several novels and at least four cookbooks.

The woman seated in the far wing-chair rose as he crossed the threshold. She had been crying, but she seemed to be over the worst of her shock. He noted the teacup and saucer on the table and thought the constable must have brought it to her, not the doctor.

“I’m Inspector Rutledge from Scotland Yard. The Chief Constable has asked me to take over the inquiry into Sir John’s death. Do you feel up to speaking to me?”

“Yes, sir. But I wasn’t here, you see. If I had been—”

“If you had been,” he said, cutting across her guilt-ridden anguish, “you might have died with him.”

She stared at him. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

He began by asking her about Sir John.

By her account, Sir John Middleton was a retired military man, having served in the Great War. Rutledge could, of his own knowledge, add that Sir John had served with distinction in an HQ not noted for its brilliance. He at least had been a voice of sanity there and was much admired for it, even though it had not aided his Army career. Had he made enemies, then?

Hamish said, “Aye, it’s possible. He didna’ fear his killer. Or put up a struggle.”

And that was a good point.

“Was he alive when you reached him?”

“Yes, I could see that he was still breathing, ragged though it was. He cried out, just the one word, when I bent to touch him, as if he knew I was there. As if, looking back on it now, he’d held on waiting for me. Because he seemed to let go then, but I could tell he wasn’t dead. I was that torn – leaving him to go for the doctor or staying with him.”

“What did he say? Could you understand him?”

“Oh, yes, sir.
Trafalgar
, he said. Clear as could be. I ran out then, shouting for help, and I met Sam on the road. He was willing to take a message to Dr Taylor, and so I came back to sit beside Sir John, but I doubt he knew I was there. Still, it wasn’t until Dr Taylor was bending over him that I heard the death rattle. I think he tried to speak again, just before.”

The doctor had said nothing about that.

“Are you certain Sir John spoke to Dr Taylor?”

But Mrs Gravely was not to be dissuaded. “I was in the doorway, facing Sir John’s desk. He had his back to me, the doctor did, but I could just see Sir John’s mouth, and his lips moved. I’d swear to that.”

“Did he know that it was the doctor who was with him? Was he aware, do you think, of where he was?”

“I can’t speak to that, sir. I only know he spoke. And the doctor answered him.”

“Could you hear what was said?”

“No, sir. But I thought he was trying to say the old dog’s name. Simba. It means lion, I was told. I can’t say whether he was trying to call to him or was asking where he’d got to.”

“How did Dr Taylor respond?”

“I don’t know, sir. I could see the doctor rock back on his heels, and then came the death rattle. I knew he was gone. Sir John. There was nothing to be done, was there? The doctor said so, afterwards.”

Rutledge could hear the echo of the doctor’s voice in her words, “I couldn’t do anything for him.”

“And then?”

“Dr Taylor turned and saw me in the doorway. He told me to find my coat and go outside to wait for the ambulance. But it wasn’t five minutes before he was at the door calling to me and telling me there was no need for the ambulance now. It might as well be the hearse. Well, I could have told him as much, but then he’s the one to give evidence at the inquest, isn’t he? He had to be certain sure.”

Rutledge went back to something Mrs Gravely had said earlier. “Trafalgar. What does that mean to you?”

The housekeeper frowned. “I don’t know, sir. As I remember from school, it was a battle. At sea. When Lord Nelson was killed.”

“That’s true,” Rutledge told her. “It was fought off the coast of Spain in 1805. But Sir John was an army man. And his father and grandfather before him.” He had seen the photographs in the study. At least two generations of officers, staring without expression into the lens of the camera. And a watercolour sketch of another officer, wearing a Guards uniform from before the Crimean War.

“Will you come down with me to the study? There are some photographs I’d like to ask you to identify.”

“Please, sir,” she answered anxiously. “Not if he’s still there. I couldn’t bear it. But I’ll know the pictures, I’ve dusted them since they were put up there.”

“Fair enough. The woman, then, with the braid of her hair encircling the frame.”

“That’s Lady Middleton, sir, his second wife. Elizabeth, she was. She died in childbirth, and the boy with her. I don’t think he ever got over her death.”

“Second wife?”

“He was married before that. To Althea Barnes. She died as well, out in India. He’d tried to persuade her that it was no place for a woman, but she insisted on going with him. Two years later she was dead of the cholera.”

“The young man in the uniform of the Buffs?”

“His brother Martin. He died in the first gas attack at Ypres.”

“And the old dog, outside the study window. That, I take it, is Simba? When did he die?”

“It was the strangest thing!” Mrs Gravely told him. “He was lying by the fire, as he always did, when I left for the village. And I come home to find him outside there in the cold. He was still warm, he couldn’t have been there very long. I can’t think what happened. I come into the study to tell Sir John that, and there
he
was, dying. I couldn’t quite take it all in.”

He thanked her for her help, and left her there mourning the man she’d served so long and no doubt wondering now what was to become of her.

Sam Hubbard, the farm-worker who had gone for Dr Taylor, had had the foresight to summon the rector as well. Rutledge found Sam standing in the kitchen talking to Constable Forrest and warming his hands at the cooker, mud on his boots and his face red from the cold.

He turned and gave Rutledge his name, adding, “I’ve buried the old dog under the apple tree, as Sir John would have wished. They planted that tree together. A pity Sir John can’t be buried there as well.”

“Did you find anything wrong with the dog? Any signs that he’d been harmed?”

Sam shook his head. “It was old age, and the cold as well, I expect. He was having trouble with his breathing, Simba was.”

“Did you work for Sir John?”

“He sent for me when there was heavy work to be done. Mr Laurence, who lives just down the road, doesn’t have enough to keep me busy these days. And, in my free time, I did what I could for Sir John. He was a good man. There weren’t many like him at HQ. More’s the pity.”

“In the war, were you?”

“I was. And I have a splinter of shrapnel in my shoulder to prove it.”

Rutledge considered him. He’d been coming up the road when Mrs Gravely had hailed him, but he could just as easily have been going the other way, turning when he heard her and pretending to know nothing about what had happened here in the house. And he’d taken it upon himself to bury the old dog.

“Where were you this afternoon? Before Mrs Gravely asked your help?”

Sam Hubbard’s eyebrows flew up. “Do you think I could have killed Sir John? I’d have died for him, for speaking up during the war and trying to keep as many of us poor bastards alive as he could. They were bloody butchers, save for him. Caring nothing for the men who had to die each time there was a push or a plan. If it was one of the likes of
them
lying dead in the study, you’d have to wonder if I had had a hand in it. But not Sir John.”

The passionate denial rang true – but Hubbard had had time to consider the questions the police would be asking. Tell one’s self something often enough, and it soon became easier to believe it. Like the rehearsals of an actor learning his part.

Mr Harris, the rector, was in the parlour. He had seen the body before the constable had got there, and he seemed shaken, standing by the parlour windows with a drink in his hand.

“Dutch courage,” he said ruefully, lifting the glass as Rutledge opened the door. “I don’t see many murder victims in my patch. And I thank God for that. How is Mrs Gravely faring?”

“She’s a little better, I think. What can you tell me about Sir John? Have you known him very long?”

“I’d describe him as a lonely man,” Harris told Rutledge pensively. “I encouraged him to take an interest in village affairs, to see the need for someone of his calibre to serve on the vestry. But he was loathe to involve himself here. It’s not his home, you know. He was from Hereford, I believe, but sold up and moved here after the war. He said the house was not the same without his wife, and he couldn’t bear the
emptiness –
his word. Elizabeth was much younger, you see. Sir John was married twice. Once early on in his career, and then again some months before the fighting began in 1914.”

“Did he bring Mrs Gravely with him from Hereford?” He’d noted her accent was not local.

“Yes, she was taken on by Elizabeth Middleton just before their marriage, and she agreed to stay with him after her mistress died.”

“I understand his first wife died in India. Of cholera. Is there any proof of that, do you think? Or do we just have Sir John’s word for what happened to her?”

“That’s rather suspicious of you!”

“In a murder case, there are few certainties.”

“Well, I can only tell you that it’s written down in the Middleton family Bible. It’s on the bookshelf behind the desk. I’ve seen the entry.”

 But what was inscribed in the family Bible was not necessarily witnessed by God, whatever the rector wished to believe.

“Did they get on well?”

“I have no idea. Except that he described Althea Middleton once as headstrong. Apparently, she’d insisted on having her way in all things, including going to India.”

“Did she also live in Herefordshire?”

“I believe she came from somewhere along the coast. Near Torquay. I went there once on holiday, and knew the area a little. Sir John mentioned her home in connection with my travels. The second Lady Middleton – he called her Eliza – was a love match, certainly on his part. He wore a black armband throughout the war and told me, if it hadn’t been for his duty, he’d not have been able to go on without her.”

“No children of either marriage?”

“None that I ever heard of. Which reminds me, speaking of family. You might include poor Simba in that category. I saw his body there under the window.” Harris shook his head. “The dog was devoted to Sir John. I’d see the two of them walking across the fields of an afternoon, when I was on my rounds. I wonder who put him out. It isn’t – wasn’t – like Sir John. Odd, that, I must say.”

“Odd?”

“Yes, he would never have shown Simba the door, not at the dog’s advanced age. The dog had belonged to Elizabeth, you see. Sir John had been worried about him since before Christmas, when his breathing seemed to worsen. It got better, but it was a warning, you might say, that his end was near. Sir John would have gone outside with him, and brought him in again as soon as he’d done his business.”

“But they walked the fields together?”

“Yes. I meant over the years, you know. Not recently, of course.”

Which, Hamish was pointing out, could explain why the killer came to the house rather than accost Sir John on an outing.

But the dog had been with him today,
Rutledge replied.
And the dog was put outside. Had the visitor arrived at the door just as his victim was preparing to walk the dog?

Hamish said, “He was killed in the study, no’ in the entry.”

“Does Trafalgar mean anything to you?” Rutledge asked Harris.

“It was a great sea battle. And of course it’s a cape along the southern Spanish coast. The battle was named from it, I believe.”

“That’s no’ likely to figure largely in a military man’s death in Cambridgeshire,” Hamish commented.

Rutledge thanked the rector, and Harris went in search of Mrs Gravely, to offer what comfort he could.

There was a tap at the door, and Rutledge went to open it himself.