Hunting Shadows: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery (29 page)

“How do you know?”

“The letter was returned with
DECEASED
printed across the address. I wanted to kill Hutchinson. Our paths never crossed. He spent more time at HQ than in the trenches, or so I was told. I looked for him in London when I came back. He was still in France, something to do with the treaty. And then he came to Burwell, and I could have killed him with my bare hands. But it was Major Clayton’s funeral. I couldn’t do it.”

“Then Ely was your next chance.”

“I thought it was. Instead someone else killed him before I could.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“I don’t care if you do or you don’t. I didn’t kill the man.”

“What I don’t understand is why you killed Swift.”

“I didn’t. Why should I? He had nothing to do with Mary’s death.”

“To confound the police? Unfortunately, instead it brought in Scotland Yard.”

“I can’t think of anyone else who hated Hutchinson as much as I did. As much as I still do. But someone must have had a reason. Whoever he is, he’s cheated me of the satisfaction. And you must ask
him
why Swift died.”

“Nevertheless.”

“I’m not a solicitor, but I’m sure you can’t charge me with one death when there’s no evidence of my involvement in the other one. And if I protest my innocence of Hutchinson’s killing, then I must protest my innocence in Swift’s. I shall hire the best attorney in Ely or even Cambridge if it comes to that. And when it’s finished, you’ll look a fool.” He was still very angry.

“I very much doubt that. The Chief Constable is pressing Inspector Warren in Ely for a swift closure of this case. He’ll be very pleased that we’ve finally done just that.”

The two men considered each other.

“I expect we’ve reached an impasse,” Thornton said after a moment.

“Hardly an impasse,” Rutledge said. “I have the authority to take you into custody and let the courts sort out the question of guilt.”

“Yes, that’s true.” Thornton was standing by the globe. He twirled it with his fingertips, watching it spin, and then turned to Rutledge. “Are you a betting man?”

“I’m not. I haven’t been lucky.”

“In life? In love? Very well, don’t answer that. But I’ll make you a sporting proposition. One that I think will appeal to you.”

Rutledge smiled. “Indeed? What do you have to barter with?”

“For starters, my life,” Thornton said, quite serious. “And my own need for answers. Someone killed Hutchinson for me, but I don’t find that acceptable. And so I don’t owe his killer anything. I didn’t have the pleasure of watching the man die at my hands.”

“Only through the sights of a rifle.”

“You were in France. Did killing men with your rifle or your revolver give you any satisfaction?”

“No. They had to die or my men would.”

“Precisely.”

“We can search this house and the outbuildings. Is the rifle here?”

Thornton took a deep breath. “You
are
a determined man. Let me finish. I will help you with this search for Hutchinson’s murderer—and Swift’s. In return you’ll leave me free to do just that. Rest assured, I won’t kill the bastard when I find him. The hangman can do it for me.”

“I don’t consider that much of a bargain, when I can stop this nonsense now and be on my way to London tomorrow.”

“Is it nonsense? I know these Fens. Far more intimately than you ever will. Did you find your valise intact after my rather cursory search?”

It was Rutledge’s turn to stare. He hadn’t expected Thornton to confess to that.

“Yes, I was there in the mist. Searching. When I stumbled on you, I did wonder if you were the person I was after. I could have let you wander about until you’d broken your neck falling into a ditch or off the bridge. Instead, I made sure you weren’t stalking a new victim and then I got you to safety. I’ve walked these villages, ridden my bicycle through them, driven along every mile of road. He’s out there, I tell you. Elusive, a shadow. But together we just might find him.”

It was a persuasive argument. Yet Hamish was urging Rutledge to decline the bargain.

But Rutledge was an experienced policeman. And he wanted proof. Not promises.

“I could claim the same thing. That you were walking into Wriston to search out a fresh target. Which of course you did. Burrows.”

“Burrows was surely a decoy. I can’t think of any reason for wanting him dead, short of madness. And this killer isn’t mad. He knows what he wants, and I have a very strong feeling he’s finished his work here. We can still lose him, you know. Both of us.”

“An interesting theory. But you can’t prove it. It won’t be proven until we have our man. At the moment, you’re the one I want. You’re too clever by half. And I have no reason to trust you.”

“Then I’ll give you what I know. He uses a bicycle to get around the Fens. He moves at night.”

“But you were on a bicycle. Last night.”

“Where?” he asked sharply.

“On the High Street in Wriston. Pedaling in the direction of the windmill.”

“But I wasn’t in Wriston. I was in Wicken. Don’t you see, that was
him
.”

“Prove it.”

“Actually I can. Tom Hendricks’s little dog got out and was barking at me. Tom came out to see what the fuss was all about, and he called off his dog when he recognized me. I told him I’d been visiting friends and was on my way home. He thought at first it must be the murderer. Everyone is worried he might be a neighbor or the ironmonger or the man who keeps bees.”

“When was this?”

“Close on ten, I should think.”

If it was true, then Thornton couldn’t have been in Wriston.

“I’ll find this Hendricks and ask him.”

“Even better, I’ll accompany you, shall I? It will save time.” Thornton walked to the door. “After you, Inspector.”

When they had arrived in Wicken, Rutledge said, “It will do no good if you are standing there, coaching the man to give the right answers. I’ll interview him alone.” Thornton was about to argue, but Rutledge said, “If you prefer, I can take you to Ely and leave it to Inspector Warren to speak to Hendricks.”

“Yes, all right,” Thornton retorted impatiently.

He pointed out the Wicken village store, which Hendricks owned, and Rutledge left the motorcar down the lane just beyond where it stood on the main street. He walked around the corner to the door just as Hendricks himself stepped out to watch workmen repairing a roof across the way. Rutledge quickly discovered that it wasn’t going to be as simple to question him as Thornton had promised.

Scratching his ear, the man said, “Yes, Mr. Thornton was in Wicken. My dog took out after him something fierce. Teddy doesn’t care for bicycles.”

“Can you tell me what time it was when you saw him?” Rutledge asked.

“As to that, now, I’m not sure. I didn’t take any notice. Late, I’d say.”

“Closer to nine o’clock? Or after eleven,” Rutledge asked.

“I’d fallen asleep in my chair, you see. Teddy’s barking woke me up. Given all that trouble in Wriston and Ely, I got up to find out what the matter was. But I never looked at the time. I went back inside and went to bed.”

“It’s rather important, Mr. Hendricks.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve no idea. My guess is closer to ten, but it could have been as early as nine. Why does it matter?”

“We’re trying to sort out a problem. Thank you, Mr. Hendricks. I’m staying in Wriston just now. If you remember anything that would be helpful, you can send word to the constable there.”

“That will be McBride, would it?” He moved aside so that two women, their market baskets over their arms, could enter the shop. “I must go. They’ll be wanting help,” he said, and turned away, stepping back inside.

He’d verified that Thornton had indeed been in the village. But it was the time that was critical, and that the shopkeeper had failed to supply.

Rutledge walked back to the motorcar, debating with himself whether this had been a wild-goose chase or if Hendricks would conveniently remember the time when the local constable took down his statement.

The motorcar was where he’d left it, just past the corner.

And it was empty.

Swearing, Rutledge looked up and down the lane in both directions, but there was no sign of Thornton.

Chapter 18

I
should have kept my eye on him,
he thought.
Damn the man!

He got into the motorcar and quartered the village, following first one lane to its end and then the next. He was just coming up the last one when he saw Thornton leaving a house.

He hailed Rutledge and said, “The Petersons live here. Next door to Hendricks. But he swears he never heard the little dog.”

Rutledge didn’t answer. He was too angry with Thornton.

After a moment’s hesitation, the man got into the motorcar and said, “For its size the blasted little dog made enough racket to wake the dead. But neither Peterson nor the man on the other side of the Hendricks admit to hearing anything.”

“So much for proof.”

“Look, I was
here
.”

Rutledge said nothing. He drove out of Wicken and toward Wriston, intending to continue on to Ely while Thornton was in the motorcar.

They were not far from Wriston when Thornton said, “Have you considered? I’m talking about the way Hutchinson treated Mary. Was there another woman? I could never understand why he treated her so shabbily.”

“It was very likely her money he was after. His sister is still living in the house in London that had belonged to Mary.”

“Then why hadn’t he remarried? There must be other wealthy women he could charm.”

Rutledge remembered what he’d been told about Hutchinson’s attentions to Major Clayton’s sister. And then he’d gone back to London with the Colonel because she was staying on in Burwell for a few days. Because he discovered she was already engaged?

“There’s a missing servant girl,” he suggested, testing the waters.

Thornton shook his head. “He wouldn’t be such a fool. She’d be poor as a church mouse. And Hutchinson falling in love boggles the mind. What did you learn in Ely? There must have been something useful—there must have been what? Half a hundred people there, if not more.”

“They saw nothing.”

“Ah. That explains why you moved on to Wriston. I’d wondered.”

“I thought Swift’s murder would be easier to solve. As it has turned out, I was right from the beginning. Hutchinson’s death was the one that mattered.”

“You won’t know that until you’ve found out who killed Swift.” Thornton put a hand to his forehead, massaging it as if it ached. “Did Swift and Hutchinson ever cross paths?”

“If they did, we haven’t found the link.”

“It’s there. Have you talked to the police in Glasgow or wherever it was Swift spent his war?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, then, how can you tell me that you’ve concluded I’m the killer? I’ve never been to Scotland. The question is, had Hutchinson?”

“There’s Susan,” Rutledge said, remembering. “She used to keep house for Swift before his wife died.”

“Did she go to Scotland with him?”

“She didn’t. In fact she became the Rector’s housekeeper after Swift left. Still, he wrote to her once or twice after he was settled in Glasgow.” She had read them over and over again, until she committed them to memory. Or to be precise, those sections that meant the most to her, those referring to her relationship with her employer. He’d had no reason until now to wonder what else had been in the letters that hadn’t been important enough to her to remember.

It was unlikely that Swift would have mentioned a casual acquaintance with a young officer or anything that had come of that meeting. Not to his late wife’s former lady’s maid. But it had to be looked into.

Rutledge was relieved to find that the Rector wasn’t in when he knocked at the Rectory door and Susan herself answered.

He’d brought Thornton with him. Susan seemed to be taken aback to find the man from Scotland Yard with a stranger in tow, asking to speak to her.

“I’ve the Rector’s tea to make. He’ll be home again in a few minutes.”

“It won’t take long. If it does, I’ll explain to the Rector myself.”

Still uncertain she asked them in, took them to the sitting room, and stood there before them, awaiting their questions.

Rutledge said, “When I spoke to you earlier, you told me about letters from Swift while he was in Scotland. Do you still have them?”

“Yes, sir. I saw no harm in keeping them.”

“And there is none. I’d like to read them, if I could. There might be something in them that seemed unimportant to you, but in hindsight might lead us to Mr. Swift’s killer.”

“I’m sure there isn’t anything, sir. It was just a kindness to let me know all was well with the poor man.”

With an apology, she left them to go up to her room. A few minutes later she had returned and handed the letters to Rutledge.

They were worn almost to the point of illegibility, folded and refolded countless times. He gently removed the first letter from its envelope and spread the pages across his knee.

They seemed immediately familiar, and he realized that she had memorized the opening, thanking her once more for her care of his late wife and asking if she was comfortable in her new position.

Rutledge read on.

I have begun to settle in. It’s so unlike the Fens that I’m at a loss to know what to think. A large river, a different pattern of farming, terrain that rolls, so that when I look to the horizon, there are trees and rising land in the way. The weather is cooler, but then it’s moving toward late fall. And the accents of the people I meet are almost impenetrable sometimes. It will be some weeks before I am comfortable with it. The people here are different as well. There are tenements in Glasgow as well as handsome streets of handsome houses. The Cathedral is large but not so fine as Ely. I try to tell myself that I am here to look forward and not backward, but my heart is in the churchyard in Wriston. Still. I have made some changes. I have moved from the hotel where I stayed after my arrival. It was very dear, as rooms are difficult to find, given the influx of people. The house is tall, three stories, but quite narrow. The furnishings are not the best, but comfortable enough. I tell myself that I know ancient Rome better than I know my own country. I could find my way to the Forum with the ease of someone born there. Finding my way through the twisting streets here is a lesson in humility. But I am satisfied, and much of that satisfaction is due to the maid I have hired to keep me in order.

There was no mention of friends or acquaintances. Or those Swift must have met during his day. It appeared that he was more homesick than he chose to admit.

Turning to the second letter, he found only two references to Swift’s work for the Navy.

It’s time-consuming and that shortens my day, no leisure in which to look back.

And again,
I like those I work with well enough. They come from all over the country, uprooted as I have been, missing families and friends as I have done. But we have high hopes that the war will end soon. While I am in agreement with them, when it does end, I shall have to find another exile.

It was on the last page that Rutledge stopped skimming.

A name seemed to leap off the page.

Catriona has kept my house in order, as you once did. She came well recommended, although she is hardly more than a child and had not been in service before this. She tells me she too is an exile, a long way from her home in the Highlands. She wants a very different life from that of her friends growing up in the small glen where she was born. Her grandfather didn’t approve, but she is a determined young woman and won his permission to spend six months in Glasgow. But I expect she will have something to say about returning to a narrower life. Her grandfather had lived in England, and it’s possible that she had heard his tales of his time there. She was very disappointed to learn that I’d never been to London. She seems to think that we must all have been there often, drawn by its wonders. That and the fact that Ely isn’t a large and bustling city has diminished me in her eyes. But she’s a good worker, cheerful and pleasant, and I am growing fond of her lighthearted presence in the house.

Was this the elusive connection he’d searched for and not found? Was this the same Catriona who had worked in the London house that belonged to Mary Hutchinson?

If it was, how had she gone from Glasgow and Swift’s house, to London and the home of Captain Hutchinson? Catriona was not an uncommon name.

There was nothing more about her until Rutledge reached the last of the letters, this one written after the war, a month before Swift was scheduled to return to England.

I am no longer the man I was when first I came here. I have had to learn to put the past away, and it was a hard lesson. Returning to the house in Wriston where we lived so happily, my wife and I, will be difficult at best. But I must try for my own sake as well as for hers. If there was another choice open to me, I think I would leap at the chance to take it. But there is not. Perhaps God wishes me to find that courage, before He shows me His grace again as He did when I was offered this post in Glasgow.

Hamish said, “Ye ken, it’s why he stood for yon seat in Parliament. London was a long way fra’ here.”

And it was the explanation—perhaps not what he told the men who approached him about serving, but what led to his personal decision to stand.

The final lines returned to Catriona.

She’s grown into a young woman, our Catriona. If I had had a daughter, I couldn’t have been more proud of her. She reminds me of someone I once knew, that same thirst for life. I cannot bring her with me to Wriston—she will not come. And so you will not meet her. She has been searching for a position in London, and there is one that she likes very much. Her cousins, who have the care of her, are not best pleased, nor is her grandfather. They blame me for opening her eyes to this other world, but she’s too intelligent and too well read to go back to the glen. It would be a tragic waste. And they must see that. Still, I am writing to the woman in London to find out for myself if this is a suitable household.

Tomorrow I begin to pack up this new life and say good-bye. . . .

Thornton was standing by the window, restless and still angry.

Rutledge ignored him.

Instead he returned the letters to Susan, saying, “I’m glad you kept these. They do more to explain Swift to me than all the statements Constable McBride collected. Thank you for allowing me to see them.”

Susan flushed a little with pride. “I do treasure them, sir. Rector has been good to me, but I miss my mistress as much as
he
did. Mr. Swift. It was a comfort, his writing to me. And I understood why he couldn’t have me back when he came home again. It would have been hard for both of us without Mrs. Swift there.”

Rutledge thought that Swift had been more than a little selfish in his grief. But he said, “Thornton, we must go. I don’t think we need to wait for the Rector.”

Thornton followed him out to the motorcar, saying, “What was that all about? Those letters from Swift? What did they tell you?”

“I must go to London. The question is, what am I to do with you?”

“You
were
taking me to Ely,” Thornton said dryly. “If you’ve forgot why, I’ll be happy to find my own way home.”

But Rutledge stood there, his hand on the crank, thinking.

If he took Thornton to Ely, Inspector Warren would hold him until the man’s solicitor and a local barrister came to post bail. That could happen long before Rutledge got back from London.

He said, “Fancy a drive south? It won’t be comfortable, but it’s the best I can offer.”

“Why?” Thornton demanded suspiciously. “Are you taking me to the Yard rather than to Ely?”

“Not precisely. I believe I’ve found a connection between Swift and Hutchinson. The question is, does that connection in any way change the likelihood that you killed both men? I think not. Still, it’s a distraction. And I don’t care for distractions.”

“Are you accustomed to traveling around the countryside with an alleged murderer in your motorcar?”

“Not as a rule,” Rutledge answered, turning the crank and ushering Thornton into the nearside door. “The thing is, if you escape, it will only serve to prove your guilt. And that will please the Chief Constable here in Cambridgeshire, as well as the Acting Chief Superintendent at the Yard. They are looking for a scapegoat, you see. And you’ll do as well as the next man. The courts will sort it out, and I won’t have to face my superior with the news that I haven’t a clue who killed Hutchinson and Swift.”

Thornton stared at him. “Are you quite serious?”

“That’s for you to decide. Shall I take you to Ely, or would you prefer a few more days of freedom? Such, of course, as it is?”

“Put that way, how can I refuse?”

Rutledge reversed and turned the bonnet toward the London road. As he passed the police station on the far side of the pond, he saw McBride staring at him. But he was not ready to talk to the constable about Thornton. At the turn, Miss Trowbridge was just walking up to her door with her hands full of freshly cut flowers, Clarissa winding sinuously around her ankles, looking for an invitation to go in.

She turned as she heard the motorcar coming toward her, and she too saw Thornton in the seat next to Rutledge.

Frowning, she watched them out of sight.

Thornton said pensively, “She’s a very attractive woman. I would give much for a proper introduction. We’ve met only a few times in very public circumstances. Not the sort of thing one can pursue.”

“I thought your heart belonged to Mary Hutchinson.”

“It does. I was hoping that by killing Hutchinson I could lay her soul to rest finally. It has been a long road. But I wasn’t the one to send him to hell, where he belonged.”

Rutledge was reminded of the letter Swift had written. The contrast of his devotion to his wife and Hutchinson’s callous treatment of his.

“Are you sure that’s what Mary would have wanted?”

Thornton turned to stare at him. “I—never considered that.”

“She thought she loved him enough to marry him. Perhaps she forgave him even as she died.”

“Dear God.
No, don’t even suggest that
.”

He turned away, and Rutledge let a silence fall between them. It was not until they stopped for petrol and a late dinner that Thornton said, “Did you mean what you said as we were leaving Wriston? Or were you hoping to make me angry enough to force a confession?”