Legacy of the Dead (30 page)
He remembered the torch in his hand, staring down at it, then turning it off.
Why did he have to kill her—why couldn’t
Madelyn Holden have lived—
I wanted to save her. Most of all I wanted to save Fiona—
His breathing was harsh now, and his chest felt like fire.
I’m bleeding,
he told himself.
And there’s nowhere to go for
help.
He didn’t want to think about Fiona. She belonged to Hamish. She always would. . . .
He found a chair and half fell, half slumped in it.
Hamish had been yelling at him, roaring in his ear. Or was it the sound of his own blood?
He couldn’t tell.
From somewhere he could hear the sounds of the pipes. They were faint, and then stronger. Coming toward him.
Rutledge knew what they were playing. He’d heard it too many times not to recognize it at once.
It was “The Flowers of the Forest.” The lament for the dead. He had heard it played for every dead Scot under his command. He’d heard the pipes skirling into battle, he’d heard them grieve. This was a dirge for the dying.
He
was dying.
Hamish was like a trumpet in his head. “You will no’ die. Do you hear me?
You willna’ die!
”
“You’re already dead, Corporal. You can’t stop me.” Rutledge was finding it hard to concentrate.
“You willna’ die! I willna’ let you die!”
The sound of the pipes had begun to fade. Rutledge thought,
The funeral is over—they’ve buried Hamish.
Hamish is dead, and I’m to blame—I’ve killed him.
But where had this chair come from? They didn’t have chairs at the Front—
The fire in his chest was smothering him.
He could feel Hamish taking hold of him.
It was what Rutledge had feared for such a long time that now he was grateful for the dark so that he didn’t have to look up and see the dreaded face bending over him. He said to Hamish, “It’s too late. I’m dead. You can’t touch me now. I’m free of you—”
“YOU SHALL NOT DIE!”
30
IN THE LAMPLIT DRUMMOND PARLOR, THE TICKING OF
the mantel clock competed with the soft patter of rain beyond the lacy curtains and glass panes that shut out the night. The soothing quiet was broken only by the dry rustle of the Edinburgh paper Drummond was reading and the regular
click
of his sister’s ivory knitting needles. It was late, the child already asleep, the clock’s hands nearly touching half past the hour of eleven.
A sound, heavily muffled but unmistakable, brought Drummond to his feet, the newspaper flying in all directions.
A shot—
He waited, but only for an instant. The image in his mind sent him headlong out into the small hallway. Brushing past the mirrored hat stand, he flung open the outer door and plunged into the rain, running hard.
His sister, calling his name, reached the door he’d left standing wide and leaned out, demanding to know what he thought he was doing.
Over his shoulder he shouted, “Go back inside, woman!”
But at the door of The Reivers, Drummond stopped, putting out his hand cautiously to touch the latch.
He’d seen her only that morning, she’d surely do nothing so
rash—it wouldn’t save Fiona—
The latch lifted, and his heart began to thud.
She had the other key—
Kicking off his shoes, he swung the door open, tensed for whatever stood behind it.
What if there were the two of them
here—what if she had shot him? They’d hang her too!
Nothing happened. There was nothing in the darkness.
He listened intently, begging the silence to talk to him, to tell him if one person—or two—had come here. . . .
No sound except for his own breathing, and the blowing of the rain against his back. The wind was picking up a little; he could feel it across his shoulders.
Making his way into the entry, he moved forward one step at a time, soft-footed in his stocking feet. The hair on the back of his neck standing on end, his eyes wide against the pitch-blackness, concentrating on the stairs just ahead of him.
But it wasn’t dark enough here—
Another step. On his wet skin he could feel the air from the open door that led from the family’s quarters into the side of the bar.
It had been closed before—he’d closed it when he fed the white cat.
Stretching out his hand, he could feel the frame of the door. Moving cautiously, he leaned forward to stare into the bar.
For an instant he thought he heard a word spoken softly.
A white smudge on the floor at the far end of the bar— The cat, then.
He took another step, unsure where the voice had come from, and in the same instant, his toe nudged something blocking the threshold, immovable, nearly tripping him up.
Startled, Drummond dropped swiftly to his knees, praying hard now.
“Don’t let it be her—please, God—”
His fingers found the rough fabric of a man’s overcoat.
A sudden gust of wind and rain blew into the open doorway behind him, shaking him, crouched and defenseless there. He flinched away.
Even as he realized that it was only the rain, his heart seemed to choke him, rising in his throat like a stone.
He reached for the coat again, found an arm—the warm blood soaking a shoulder—a face. Trying hard to find a pulse, he thought,
She
has
shot him—not herself.
But his fingers touched the blade and then the handle of a knife instead. Protruding grotesquely from the throat.
Someone spoke.
Drummond jerked to his feet, and then saw in the pale square of light from a window that someone sat in a chair twenty feet away.
“Madelyn?” Drummond called softly, unconsciously using her given name as he’d done when she was a child. “What’s been done, then? Are you hurt?”
His voice seemed to roar through the stillness of the room.
The slumped figure in the chair didn’t answer.
Reading the awkward angle of the one shoulder he could see, Drummond hurried forward, right hand outstretched as if to ward off a blow.
The figure didn’t move. Drummond leaned down to touch the shoulder, and the head fell back. In the pale light, Drummond made out Rutledge’s profile.
His eyes were open—dark patches in a bone-white face—
Drummond, startled, fumbled for Rutledge’s throat, fingers slipping beneath the collar.
A pulse, faint, erratic. His hands moved down the front of Rutledge’s coat, where the white shirt was black with wet blood.
Shot, then, and barely alive. They’d all but killed each other—
Relief flooded through him, so sudden and wild, he felt light-headed with it. But not her. She was safe.
He bent to snatch up the crumpled white cloth he could just make out beyond Rutledge’s feet, and too late realized that it was gripped in hands that were soft, long-fingered. A woman’s—
Drummond began to pray again, raggedly and disjointedly, pleas tumbling over each other in his head. His hands ran over the body, the shoulder, the face, the silken hair.
He sprang to his feet, made his way to the lamp that was always kept on the bar, found it, and managed to light it on the second try.
Its gold-and-blue flame leapt up so brightly, he was blinded.
And then his gaze moved beyond the glass chimney and he saw the carnage all too clearly.
Holden, in the doorway. A pistol still clutched in his right hand, a
skean dhu
piercing his throat, projecting at an odd angle from front and back, cutting the great artery as cleanly as butter. Drummond whistled softly.
Rutledge, in the chair. Shot and barely alive, head forward now, his eyes closed.
And Madelyn Holden, lying almost at the Londoner’s feet, what appeared to be a child’s lacy christening gown still strained to her breast.
The men were soaked in their own blood.
There was none on her—
Drummond went to her, kneeling beside her, lifting her into his arms, crooning to her as a mother would croon to an ill child.
But the weight of her body, without buoyancy and life, the open eyes that didn’t focus on his face, told him the truth.
A surge of primeval pain ripped through Drummond, and he cried her name again, pulling her against his chest, bending his head over her, rocking her body with his, shaking with tremors that broke into deep, harsh sobs.
And he nearly missed the words.
He’d forgotten the man in the chair. Looking up, he realized that Rutledge must have spoken. But not to him.
Hardly words, more a murmur. “The pipes have stopped—”
Here was the only one left alive to tell him what had been done in this dark room—
Tears wet on his face, Drummond gently lowered Madelyn Holden’s body to the floor again, stumbled to his feet, and went to Rutledge.
The pulse in his throat was no more than a thread now, the breath so shallow, it seemed not to exist.
“You shall not die!” Drummond thundered in unconscious echo of Hamish’s voice. “Not here! Not till I’ve finished with you—!”
He curled his arms under Rutledge’s shoulders and then his knees, grunting as he lifted the unresisting weight.
Muscles straining, Drummond made his way to the door, stepping uncaring over Holden.
Tommy Braddock stood just outside, a large black umbrella over his head. The rain had subsided, but a cold wind blew, whipping the skirts of the coat he’d thrown on over his nightclothes.
“What the hell—” he exclaimed as Drummond stepped out into the drizzle, a man’s body gripped in his arms.
“Keep the rain off him!” Drummond ordered. “My house. Then the doctor. Bring him back as soon’s you can!”
Braddock slammed the inn door shut behind them and tilted the umbrella over the burden Drummond carried, recognizing the man from London and swearing in surprise under his breath. But one look at Drummond’s face and he said nothing, keeping pace as best he could.
Drummond paid no heed, concentrating on walking back the way he’d come barely ten minutes before. “You’ll live. Do you hear me?” he said once to Rutledge.
Ahead they could see the house door wide open and Drummond’s sister leaning out into the wet night, a lamp in her hand. The flame danced and shifted, then burned stark and straight.
He saw it, a beacon, his grief so heavy that the flame seemed to flicker through his tears.
If Holden had killed Madelyn, Drummond promised himself that he would come back to The Reivers this same night and cut out the bastard’s heart.
“You shall not die!” Drummond silently repeated the words in cadence with each step, a malediction—and a benison.
He moved strongly, steadily, toward the light.
If you enjoyed this Inspector
Ian Rutledge mystery from Charles Todd,
Legacy of the Dead,
you won’t want to miss
any of the tantalizing, atmospheric mysteries
in this bestselling series. Look for them at
your favorite bookseller.
And an exciting preview
of Charles Todd’s first stand-alone
suspense novel . . .
THE MURDER STONE
Available now in hardcover
from Bantam books.
1
Devon, 1916
IT ALWAYS STOOD IN THE BACK GARDEN—WHAT my cousins called The Murder Stone.
They teased me about it often enough.
“Put you head here, and you brains will be bashed out.”
“Lie down here, and the headsman will come and
chop your neck!”
Nasty little beasts, I thought them then. But they’re all dead now. Lost at Mons and Ypres, Paschendael and the Somme. Their laughter stilled, their teasing no more than a childhood memory. Their voices a distant recollection that comes sometimes in my dreams.
“Do be quiet, Cesca! We’re hiding from the Boers—
you’ll give us away!
But The Murder Stone is still there, at the bottom of my Grandfather’s garden, where it has always been.
And the house above the garden is mine. I’ve inherited it by default, because all the fair haired boys are dead, gone to be real soldiers at last and mown down with their dreams of glory.
2
IT SEEMED QUITE STRANGE TO BE SITTING HERE— alone—in the solicitor’s office, without her grandfather beside her.
Francis Hatton had always had a powerful presence. An impressive man physicially as well: tall, strongly built, with broad shoulders and an air of good breeding. Someone to be reckoned with. Women had found him attractive. Even in age.
He had carried his years well, in fact, his face lean and handsome, his voice deep and resonant, his hair a distinguished silver gray.
Until 1915.
1915 was when the first of the cousins begain to die in France. It was then that he slowly became someone else. Someone Francesca wasn’t quite sure she knew— or wanted to know.
She stirred in her chair. Mr Branscombe, pressing fifty, had always toadied to Francis Hatton. He was fussing with the papers before him now, as if hoping to delay matters until his client arrived. Reluctant somehow to begin this last duty.
And had she failed in her own duty to her grandfather?
She had hated the change in him, that slow withdrawal into himself, leaving her behind. For the first time in her life she had felt shut out of his love. Instead of mourning together, they had grown apart. By the time Harry died, in the late summer of 1916, a bare month ago, she had watched the fall of a Colossus.
There had been days she had prayed silently for his death, and at night, walking the passages in restless repudiation of death coming nearer, she had wished she could hasten it, and be done with it at last.
A surge of guilt pressed in on her.
Mr. Branscombe cleared his throat, an announcement that he was ready to begin the Reading of the Will. Ceremony duly noted . . .
The servants—the older ones, the younger ones having gone off one by one either to fight or to work in the factories—were in an anteroom, waiting to be invited into the inner sanctum at the proper moment.
“I, Charles Francis Stewart Hatton, being of Sound Mind and Body, do hereby set my Hand to this my Last Will and Testament . . .”
The Devon voice was sonorously launched on its charge.
Francesca found it difficult to concentrate.
My grandfather is only just dead,
she wanted to cry. This smacks of sacrilege, to be dividing up his goods and chattels before he’s quite cold . . . I haven’t earned the right to sit here. Oh God.
But who else was there to sit in this room and mark a great man’s passing? She was the last of the Hattons. A long line come down to one girl.
Mr. Brascombe paused, glancing over the rims of his spectacles at her, as if sensing her dsitraction.
“Are you with me thus far, Miss Hatton—?”
“Yes,” she answered untruthfully.
He seemed far from satisfied, regarding her intently before returning to the document.
Francesca sat on the hard, uncomfortable chair provided for the solicitor’s clients—she was certain he’d chosen it to prevent them from overstaying their welcome—and wished she had the courage to stop him altogether. But listening was her duty, even if she didn’t care about provisions for her future, and she had absolutely no idea what she ought to do about the house at River’s End. Close it? Live there? Sell it?
Ask me next month—next year! I’m too tired—
It was haunted, River’s End. Not by ghosts who clanked and howled, but by the lsot souls who were never coming back to it. She could almost feel them, standing at the bottom of the stairs each night as she climbed to her room. Shadows that grieved for flesh and blood, so that they too could home again.
It was a stupid obsession on her part, and she hadn’t told anyone. But the old dog seemed to sense their presence, and ran up the stairs ahead of her, as if afraid to be left behind.
Just that morning the rector had said, worried about her, “This is such a large, lonely house for a woman alone. Won’t you come to us at the Vicarage and stay a few days? It will do you good, and my housekeeper will take pleasure in your company . . .”
But Francesca had not cared to leave and told him as politely as she could that the house was all that was left of home and family. An anchor in grief, where she could still feel loved. She knew the long dark passages so well, and the rooms with their drapes pulled in mourning, the black wreath over the door knocker. It was peaceful, after the tumult of her grandfather’s dying. And the ghosts were, after all, of her blood.
Mrs. Lane came in to cook and to clean. It was enough. There was the old dog Tyler for company, and the library when she was tired of her own thoughts. Her grandfather’s taste had run to war and politics, history and philosophy. Hardly the reading for a woman suffering from insomnia. Although twice Plato had put her soundly to sleep—
She became aware of the silence in the room. Mr. Brancombe had finished and was waiting for her to acknowledge that fact.
“Quite straightforward, is it not?” she said, dragging her attention back to the present.
“In essence,” he agreed, “it is indeed. Everything comes to you. Save for the usual bequests to the remaining servants and to the church, and of course to several charitable societies which have benefited from your grandfather’s generosity in the past.
“Indeed,” she responded, trying to infuse appreciation into her voice.
“It’s an enormous responsibility,” Mr. Branscombe reminded her.
“I understand that.” What might once have been shared equally with the cousins would be hers. She would rather have had the cousins—
It was clear that Mr. Branscombe was uncomfortable with a woman dealing with such a heavy obligation. He fiddled with the edges of the blotter, and when no questions were forthcoming, he said, “Do you wish to keep the properties in Somerset and Essex? I must warn you that this is not a propitious time to sell—in the middle of a war—”
He had her full attention now, as she stifled her surprise.
“Properties—?”
What was he referring to?
His thin lips drew together in a tight line, as if he’d finally caught her out.
Trying to recoup his good opinion of her and conceal her ignorance, she asked, thinking it through, “Were these estates destined for my cousins? You see, my grandfather told me very little about them.”
He had told me nothing—
“They’ve been in his possession for many years. Quite sizable estates, in fact. Whether he intended to settle either of them on your cousins in due course, I don’t know. He didn’t confide in me,” It was grudgingly admitted. “I can tell you that the property that belonged to your uncle, Tristan Hatton, was sold at the time of his death. It would have been prudent for your grandfather to provide in some other fashion for his eldest grandson. Sadly, Mr. Simon Hatton is also deceased.
The first of the cousins to go to war . . . the first to die.
Francesca was still trying to absorb the fact that her grandfather had owned other estates. But if it was true, why had he always chosen to live in the isolated Exe Valley? It was the only home she had ever known. And as far as she was aware, that was true of her cousins as well. Even Simon had had only the haziest memory of his parents.
Why had he never taken us to visit houses in
Somerset or Essex, if they were his? There hadn’t been
so much as a casual, “Shall we spend Christmas in
Somerset this year?” or “Since the weather is so fine, we
might travel to Essex for a week. I ought to have a look at
the tenant roofs . . .” If he had gone there at all, it had
been a secret.
Secret . . .
The thought was disturbing. Why should secrecy have been necessary? Hadn’t he trusted her? Or had he never got around to telling her, when Simon was killed? Or after Harry’s death? He had lost interest in everything then, including the will to live . . .
“Before I summon the servants to hear their bequests, there is one other matter that your grandfather wished you to deal with. A recent Codicil, in fact.”
“Indeed?” she said again, still wrestling with the puzzle of the properties.
“It involves the Murder Stone, whatever that may be.”
Caught completely unawares, Francesca stared at him. “But—that’s nothing more than a jest—a largish white stone in the back garden that my cousins were always making a part of their games!”
“Nevertheless, your grandfather has included in his Will a provision for its removal from Devon to Scotland.”
“Scotland?
My grandfather has never been to Scotland in his life!”
“That may well be true. But I shall read you the provision: ‘I place upon my heir the grave duty of taking the object known to her as the Murder Stone from its present loction and carrying it by whatever means necessary to Scotland, to be buried in the furthermost corner of that country as far away from Devon as can be reached safely.’ This was drawn up only last month.”
Mystified, Francesca said, “The death of my cousins must have turned his mind—”
“Perhaps this stone reminded him too forcibly of their lost youth,” Branscombe said gravely. “When men are old and ill, small things tend to loom large.”
Francesca shook her head. “It’s such an insignificant matter.”
“Perhaps to you, my dear, But I assure you that to your grandfather it was very important. I was under the impression that Mr. Hatton was rather—superstitious—about this matter.”
“He was never superstitious!And he allowed my cousins to use the stone as they pleased. It was always a part of their games—we were never warned away.”
“I can’t answer that question. But I can assure you that the responsibility is yours and must be regarded as a solemn charge.”
“But surely not right away—not while the war is going on and getting anywhere is so difficult?” She couldn’t imagine how she would manage to dig up the stone, much less arrange for it to travel to Scotland. Not when petrol and tires were so dear. The elderly gardener and the coachman between them couldn’t budge it—it must weight more than both men. Meant to remain forever where it lay—
“At your earliest convenience, of course.” Branscombe’s tone of voice indicated disapproval of excuses.
Francesca was still rattled, but the solicitor sat there waiting for a more appropriate response than argument. She nodded and was relieved when he seemed to be satisfied.
He set aside the thick sheets of the will. “I have already taken it upon myself to send a Death Notice to the
Times
. And I’ve ordered the grave to be opened, and instructed the rector that the services are to be held on Friday of this week. If that’s agreeable . . .”
Whether it was or not, she couldn’t do much about it. Men arranged such matters, as a rule. And all the cousins were dead . . .
There were other papers in the box marked
HATTON
in a fine, antique copperplate. Most likely Branscombe the elder’s hand. Curious now, she asked, “What else is there? Besides the will? More suprises? Other secrets?
“Our family has always handled the legal affairs of your family,” Branscombe reminded her with satisfaction, glancing at the contents. He plucked out several folded documents. “Here we have your great-grandfather Thomas’s Will, and
this
is Francis Hatton’s grandfather George. He fought at Waterloo with the great Duke of Wellington.
His
grandfather Frederick was with Cumberland at Culloden. Amazing history, is it not?” A reminder that she would be expected to leave her own affairs with the same firm.
She could see the faded handwriting on the papers. A family’s continuity preserved in old ink . . . It was a heritage she had been taught to revere. The Hattons had always served their country well. She, the only girl in the family of five cousins, had been expected to do the same.
“All very regular and in order.” He returned the documents to the box almost with affection, as if he counted them as old friends. “Ah. There’s also a letter here that your grandfather deposited with the firm—”
“May I see it?”
“I know of no reason why you mayn’t. As heir . . .” He lifted it out of the box and passed it across the desk to her.
Curious, she examined it. It was wrapped in a piece of parchment on which was inscribed over the seal in a very beautiful hand,
“To be held and not acted upon.”
Before Branscombe could stop her, she broke the brittle wax under the writing and drew out a letter. There was no envelope, only the single page.
As she opened the fragile sheet she stared in dismay.
It read,
“May you and yours rot in hell then. It is no
more than you deserve!”
There was no signature.
What, she thought, had my grandfather done to be cursed like this?
And—if the letter wasn’t important, why had he sent it to his solicitor for safe-keeping?