A Hanging at Dawn: A Bess Crawford Short Story

by Charles Todd

  The Constable behind the desk looked up as the door opened and a wet stranger stepped in.

  “Good afternoon, sir. Constable Holcomb. How may I be of service?” He rose to meet the newcomer.

  “Inspector Rutledge, Scotland Yard,” he replied as he took off his hat and glanced down ruefully at the circle of rainwater expanding on the mat under his feet.

  Holcomb smiled. “You made good time, sir. Never mind the rain. It’s gone on for three days, but we are hoping for a bit of sun by tomorrow.” There was a soft Welsh lilt to his voice, but he was a fair man, broad-shouldered and stocky in build.

  “That’s good news.”

  Gesturing to the chair across from him, Holcomb sat down again. “Sorry to say, there’s no good news about the body the boy found. We haven’t identified him yet. Dr. Evans says he’d been in the river a few days, which hasn’t helped. And from the look of him, we think he must have fallen from the Aqueduct. There was a lot of damage internally, consistent with such a fall. It’s a long way.”

  He’d seen the Aqueduct. A towering array of arches with the top only a faint outline in the low clouds. “That puts his death around Thursday of last week.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ve made inquiries,” the Constable went on. “But no one is missing from up there. No narrowboat owner or passenger, no visitor to the site. No stranger wandering about. You can walk across the Aqueduct, along the horse path. Easy to lose one’s balance, looking down. If he fell at night, there might not have been anyone to see him start out—or go over.”

  “And no one missing down here?”

  “Nor here,” Holcomb agreed.

  “Then we’ve not got much to be going on with.”

  The Constable sighed. “Sadly so, I’m afraid.” Frowning, he added, “There was another case very like this one, three years ago. A body found on Mount Snowdon, spotted in a hollow by a sharp-eyed young woman on the cog railway to the summit. The little train hadn’t run for several days—weather coming down—or likely he’d have been found earlier. A hiker, judging from his clothing, presumably caught in the storm. Took two months to prove it was a suicide. The Chief Constable has a long memory, sir. He’d like to see this inquiry concluded sooner rather than later.”

  Rutledge smiled grimly, thinking that the Chief Constable and Chief Superintendent Markham had much in common. He asked, “Any reason to believe our body was a suicide?”

  “Not yet, sir. For one thing, he wasn’t dressed for hiking. Nor did he appear to be down on his luck, as far as we can tell. But then you never know, do you, sir?” Holcomb rose. “A cuppa tea wouldn’t go amiss just now, sir, given the day?”

  “Thank you, Constable.” Although the room was warm enough as it was, almost too warm.

  Holcomb moved the kettle on a shelf above the small stove to its top, then poured in water from a jug sitting on the floor. As he busied himself with the cups and saucers, he added, “Roddy MacNabb is a good lad. The one who found the man in the river. Gave him a nasty shock, that did. He’d taken out a fishing pole, hoping to give it a try, and found a corpse instead. His gran sent for Dr. Evans, who had to give the lad something to calm him down a bit before they’d even got round to what he’d seen. Roddy was convinced the body was coming up out of the water after him. Which of course it never did. Dr. Evans discovered later that the hook from the pole had caught in the man’s clothes, and as the lad pulled at what he thought was a fish, the body moved.”

  “How is the boy now?”

  “Well enough. His gran wouldn’t let him go to school. The other lads would have swarmed him, asking questions, which would bring it all back again.” The kettle whistled and he set about making the tea. Bringing Rutledge a cup and then taking his own back to the desk, he sat down again. “There is one other thing. Roddy’s stepmother. She’s not from around here. MacNabb met her in Liverpool or some such before the war, brought her home, and married her. Against all advice. Still, he was a good man. Killed in the war. I wasn’t all that surprised when Mrs. MacNabb wondered if the dead man might have something to do with her daughter-in-law.”

  Surprised, Rutledge said, “And does he, do you think?”

  Holcomb frowned. “Begging your pardon, sir, but I don’t believe the dead man is her sort. There have been a few rumors over the years about Rosie MacNabb, none proved. She has a taste for trouble, you might say. Usually the sort that comes in trousers. But she’s been careful never to push her mother-in-law far enough to send her packing. The feeling is that there was nothing much in Liverpool to draw her back. She’d as soon stay.”

  “Then why is this man not her sort?”

  “He was short, sir. Just a bit over five feet.” He considered the man across from him. “Rosie prefers them tall.”

  By the time they had finished their tea, the rain had stopped, but the clouds overhead were still heavy with moisture. Holcomb took Rutledge to the doctor’s surgery, several houses down the road from the police station. Water stood everywhere, mirroring the gloomy sky. The house itself was not very large, but it was connected to a smaller cottage next door by an enclosed passage. The Constable led the way up the walk to the cottage. Knocking at the door, he waited. A woman came to answer the summons.

  She was matronly, with a pretty face, dark hair, and a competent air about her.

  “Afternoon, Mrs. Evans,” Holcomb was saying. “I’ve brought the Inspector from London to speak to the doctor.”

  “Of course.” She smiled at Rutledge, then led them through a waiting room to the office beyond. Opening the door after a brief tap, she thrust her head in and said, “It’s the Constable, my dear, with the man up from London.”

  “Send them in.” The voice was gruff.

  She opened the door wider, and the two men went inside. Dr. Evans was standing beside the mantelpiece, knocking the dottle from his pipe into the fire. He straightened, stuck the empty pipe into his pocket, and nodded to them.

  He was older than his wife, graying, fifty perhaps, with spectacles that didn’t hide the sharpness of eyes so dark they seemed to be black.

  “Inspector Rutledge, Dr. Evans,” Rutledge said, holding out his hand, and Evans shook it before settling them in front of his desk. Mrs. Evans had shut the door and gone away.

  “Not much to tell you,” he said, in the same gruff manner. “Dead, clearly fell from a high place. Given where he was found, that would most certainly be the Aqueduct. No water in his lungs to speak of, he didn’t drown. But my guess is that he was in the Dee for two or three days.”

  “Was he alive when he fell? Or had he been killed and then dropped over the edge of the Aqueduct?”

  “That’s harder to judge. The river didn’t do him any favors. Between that and his fall, any bruising or other signs of a struggle would be masked by the massive injuries he sustained almost immediately afterward. If he was alive, I suspect he saw his death coming. It’s a long drop. Not a very pleasant thought.” He shook his head. “Nasty business.”

  “Was there enough left of his face for a description?”

  “I can only tell you that he had light brown hair, brown eyes, was barely five feet tall, and that three ribs had previously been cracked and healed with time. Age in his early thirties, I should think. You can see him, if you like. I doubt it will do you any good.”

  “Yes, I’d like to have a look. You are certain about where he fell from?”

  “Given finding him in the water with those injuries, there was no other conclusion to draw. The only other possibility is having fallen from an aircraft. And Holcomb here can tell you there were none of those flying about in the week before he was discovered.”

  Rutledge glanced toward the Constable, saw the shake of his head, and turned back to Evans. “Anything about his clothing that might be helpful in finding out who he was?”

  “Dark suit, not of the best quality but presentable enough. English made, I expect. There’s a label in the shirt, but not, I think, from a known tailor. Holcomb here asked around,
but no one seems to recognize the maker. The body was wearing no watch or ring, no watch chain. Of course, he might have had those, and they are either at the bottom of the Dee or in the pocket of whoever killed him—if, of course, this was murder. Not even a purse or loose coins in his pockets. One handkerchief, coarse linen, no initials. His boots were of good leather, reasonable wear and tear on the sole, and there was a hole in the right stocking, at the toe.”

  It was an oddly human finding.

  “No overcoat, this time of year? Or hat?”

  “No. He might well have left them somewhere. Or perhaps his killer took them.”

  Holcomb interjected, “We’ve searched for any belongings. All along the river where he might have come down. And a swath on either side of the banks. I’ve had local men out there looking. They know the Dee, they would have found a hat or coat. Or anything else.”

  “I must be sure. You’re confident they were thorough?” Rutledge asked.

  “We even went farther downstream in case some belongings drifted on, after the body lodged in the shallows.”

  Rutledge turned back to the doctor. “Murder? Or accident?”

  “Impossible to say, medically. If he fell by accident, he’d have had some form of identification with him, surely. Still, if he didn’t want to be identified, a suicide, he took care to see that he wasn’t. If it was murder, his killer stripped him of anything useful to us. And that’s what I reported to the Chief Constable. This death was probably not an accident.” Dr. Evans rose. “Again I warn you, it isn’t pleasant, what you’re about to see. And he’s been dead a week.” He went to a cabinet, took out a small bottle of disinfectant, soaked three squares of gauze in it, and held out two of them. “You will be glad of this.”

  The back room, where the body was lying on a table, reeked of decayed flesh. Rutledge’s mouth tightened as he recognized it and was for a moment back in the trenches, where the smell of rotting bodies had been omnipresent to the point of being commonplace. Unavoidable, and therefore best ignored. He held up the small square of gauze, as Holcomb and the doctor were doing. It wasn’t a great deal of help.

  The body was as Evans had said, badly damaged and in the river too long. It wouldn’t have bloated, given the fall, sinking to the bottom of the river and moving with the current until it lodged in roots or against rocks.

  Evans was right, also, that there was too little left of the face, reminding Rutledge of a leper he’d seen in France. He found himself thinking that the dead man’s family wouldn’t have recognized what was left. But the heavy bone at the nose, the squared line of the skeletal chin were indications of a strong face. On the other hand, brown hair and eyes were common enough in Wales and on the Welsh borders.

  The man’s clothing had been folded neatly on a smaller table against the wall, but it too smelled, as Rutledge touched the fabric of the man’s suit and looked at the black boots. The handmade label stitched into the neckband of the shirt was faded, not new, but he could read the ornate script: Banner. Just beneath it was what appeared to be the tailor’s mark, a needle with a loop of thread through the eye. He took out his notebook and made a rough sketch of the design.

  The dead man had been dressed, he thought, to conduct business somewhere, not to take up work. Not a laborer, then. Turning away, he said, “Anything else that we can use?”

  Evans gestured to the left arm. “There is one thing, but I doubt it will be helpful. On the forearm, just there. I can’t make out what it might be.”

  Rutledge leaned closer for a better look. The skin was broken, bits missing. But there was something. Holcomb came up to peer at it over his shoulder.

  “It’s not the same color as the skin around it. A tattoo, do you think?” Rutledge looked up at the doctor. “In the war, were you?”

  Evans shook his head.

  “It was a popular thing among the ranks. A sweetheart’s name, one’s regiment, a battle.” Straightening up, Rutledge added, “I can’t be sure, of course. But I think that’s what we’re seeing here. Do you have a magnifying glass?”

  Evans nodded, opening a drawer against the wall. “Will this do?”

  It was small, but Rutledge took it and held it over the dark patch. It magnified the rotting skin as much as it did the faded pattern. He handed the glass to Holcomb as he went on. “My guess is that our unknown body was in the war. And given how short he is, I’d say that could very well be the insignia of the Bantam Battalions.”

  Pressing the square of gauze hard against his nose, Holcomb peered at the discoloration. “I can’t say I can make out a bantam rooster. Looks more like a”—he searched for the right comparison—“like a tree, don’t you think? An oak, perhaps?”

  Oaks were a popular tattoo, given their association with the Stuart King Charles II hiding in an oak tree during his escape from England and the clutches of Cromwell. Any number of pubs and inns had been named for that tree. There was even, Rutledge remembered, a Revenge-class battleship brought into service in November 1914 named Royal Oak.

  Had the dead man served on her? It might prove to be the link between the body and the narrowboats. Had he once worked on them, before the war?

  Ignoring the smell, Rutledge looked more closely at the faint pattern. Oak—or rooster?

  The tree was generally shown in full leaf, and with a massive spread of roots below, the same width and depth as the tree was wide and tall.

  The Bantam tattoo, as he remembered it, showed the rooster above with larger entwined Bs below it.

  But so much of the skin was missing, it was hard to determine any size here. He looked away, then returned to his inspection. There—at the bottom left. Was that the straight line of a B? There were no straight lines in roots . . .

  Rutledge looked away once more, staring at the wall for an instant, then turned back to the arm before him. Leaves went up. A rooster’s tail went down. He thought he could just pick out the faint blue line of half a feather.

  The smell was getting to him, the trenches, the dead—

  He moved back, trying to evade the odor of decaying death, but it seemed to be everywhere, distinctive, cloying, strong.

  Taking a grip on the sudden flood of memories, he forced himself to think clearly.

  There was nothing in what little was left of the design to indicate a tree. But there were a straight line and then a downward line with three short lines perpendicular to it. A possible B—a possible feather.

  “I think not,” Rutledge said, answering Holcomb. “But given the number of shorter men finally allowed to enlist in the Army by Kitchener, it doesn’t narrow our search all that much. And short men were allowed to join the Navy, in due course.”

  “Well,” said Holcomb, stepping back and handing the glass to Evans, “I’m fair flummoxed. It could be a tattoo right enough. I’ll give you that. But I’m damned if I know what it might be showing.”

  Dr. Evans said, “The only thing in the Inspector’s favor is the fact that the top appears to be larger on the right than on the left. A rooster has a small head to the left, large body in the center, and larger tail to the right. Still, that could be a problem with the torn skin and not the design.”

  “There’s little else to be going forward with. I’ll look into the Bantams to see if the body can be identified through the regiments.”

  Holcomb shot him a look of relief as Rutledge started for the door. Evans followed, with Holcomb at his heels, coughing sharply.

  The air in the passage seemed fresh and sweet by comparison as the doctor shut the door firmly behind them. Back in the office, Evans didn’t sit down.

  “I’ve given you all I can. I don’t recognize this man, and nor does Holcomb, and we know most of the men in the village and on the surrounding farms. Besides that, so far we have no missing person query. I don’t think our body is actually ours. You’d be better off inquiring among the narrowboats that cross on the Aqueduct.”

  Beyond the door to the waiting room, Rutledge could hear voices, and
so could the doctor. Patients waiting.

  Hamish spoke suddenly, jarring Rutledge.

  “He’s no’ a man wi’ imagination, yon doctor.”

  Holcomb glanced at Rutledge, who said briskly, covering his reaction, “Thank you, Dr. Evans. If I have more questions, I’ll be in touch.”

  “Can’t think what they might be, but you’ll be welcome to come again.”

  And then they were passing through the curious stares in the crowded waiting room and out onto the street.

  Holcomb looked back at the closed door of the surgery, then said, “Well, he’s right, I expect. It’s our body because the poor sod landed here. But not our inquiry, do you think? Sir?”

  A man no one wanted. The thought passed through Rutledge’s mind. Inconveniently dead on their patch.

  Or was he?

  Time would tell.

  “At the moment, he’s still ours.” They started in the direction of the station. “Who should I speak to at the Aqueduct?”

  “I’ve not spent much time up there. Once after a thief who’d strayed our way. He’d been robbing the boats over that winter. Went with my brother another time when he was looking for work.” He shrugged. “We don’t have that much in common with the narrowboat folks.”

  “Where is your brother now? Did he find work there?”

  “No, no experience handling the craft. But it was worth a try, he kept telling me he wasn’t cut out for farming. Until of course he met a lass who was a farmer’s daughter.” He cleared his throat. “Lost him in the war, died of gangrene during the Somme Offensive.”

  It had been hot that July, the dying and the dead everywhere, and no time to save half of them. It would have been easy to die as gangrene set in, taking the leg and then the man.

  Shutting out the past with an effort, Rutledge nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  Holcomb shrugged. “Nice memorial brass in the chapel so he’ll be remembered. But I’d rather have had him home, leg or no leg.”