Search the Dark

by Charles Todd

  Rutledge also tracked down Constable Truit, who had—according to Joanna Daulton—tried to court the dead woman.

  He shook his head when Rutledge began his questions. “Inspector Hildebrand asked me to have a look at the body when it was first brought in. I couldn’t see any likeness to Betty. Miss Cooper. Sleek as a cat, she was, sunning itself in the window. Not like this one, thin, cheap clothes and shoes. Not Betty’s style.” His confidence was solid, convincing.

  Rutledge wondered if Truit saw what he wanted to see or if this was a considered opinion. All the same, the answer contradicted Mrs. Daulton’s tentative identification.

  A dead end. And yet … if the dead woman was Betty Cooper, she’d come back to Dorset. Someone had killed her, when she did, to silence her.

  Just as someone had killed Margaret Tarlton, when she came back to Charlbury for the first time since 1914.

  “That’s wild supposition,” Hamish said.

  But was it?

  What did these two women have in common? Or—to put it another way, what threat had these two women posed, that cost them their lives?

  The common thread, if there was one, seemed to be Simon Wyatt. And a savage beating that was the cause of death in both cases. But it was as tenuous as gossamer, that thread. One tug, to see where it might lead, would snap it.…

  If Elizabeth Napier had killed her secretary because Margaret had borne an illegitimate child to Thomas Napier, it made no sense for her to have killed a serving girl months before.

  If Daniel Shaw had killed Margaret out of jealousy, he had no motive to kill anyone else.

  If the connection was Simon Wyatt, then he, Rutledge, was back to Aurore.

  “Or Simon himsel’,” Hamish pointed out. “For yon bonny house and the money it will bring in.”

  Thanking Truit, he found himself thinking with cold clarity that there was one way that Simon Wyatt might win on two fronts: retrieve the money he needed so badly from Margaret’s Chelsea house and rid himself of his French wife. Leave her to hang for murder.…

  Coming out of Truit’s house, he was waylaid by Mrs. Prescott.

  “I don’t see why you haven’t moved into the Arms,” she told him. “You’re in Charlbury more often than the doctor or the priest.”

  “By accident,” he said, smiling.

  She looked up at him. “Pshaw! It’s a pretty face bringing you back.”

  He could feel a flush rising. “Margaret Tarlton’s face wasn’t pretty when her killer had finished. That’s what brings me back here. Did you have something to tell me?”

  Mrs. Prescott nodded. “My brother, now, he’s a good listener. Says his voice dried up the day after his wedding and hasn’t been heard since. But he’s a great one for the gossip over a pint at the Arms. You’d think he knew more about wood than any man alive.”

  “Wood?” His mind was only partly on what she was saying.

  “He’s a carpenter. Like the Lord, only not liable to wind up on some of his own handiwork! Makes chests and bed frames over to Stoke Newton. And he’s the one told me about the body they’d found by Leigh Minster.”

  “And you’re here to tell me the identity of it?”

  “No, it’s not anyone I know. Not that Miss Tarlton, if this one’s already rotting. Nor yet anyone around Charlbury, that I can think of. But it makes you wonder, don’t it, if a woman’s safe these days, out on the roads. When I was a girl, you could walk to Lyme Regis, if you’d cared to, and not a thing to fear any part of the way. I ask you again, do you believe that man Mowbray’s to blame?”

  “What do you think?”

  She tilted her head to look up at him against the sun. “I don’t see this part of Dorset is a likely place for murderers to congregate by the half dozen, waiting their chances! They’d be more like to die of boredom!”

  He said, keeping his face grave, “Are you saying the killer is a local man—or woman?”

  “I have a thought or two I’m working on,” she told him, an undercurrent of seriousness changing her voice. “Mind, I’m not saying it’s the most likely way things happened! Only that I suppose it could have.”

  Surprised, he thought she was telling the truth, rather than trying to tweak his interest.

  “I’d be careful who I told,” he warned her. “If it’s not Mowbray, safely locked away, your thought or two might well make a killer very uncomfortable.”

  Mrs. Prescott gave him a straight look. “I’m no fool,” she told him bluntly. “You’re Scotland Yard, and safe enough. Constable Truit,” she added, glancing over her shoulder at his house, “w a fool. I hear the talk around this part of Dorset. Only it doesn’t go in one ear and out the other. Like that quilt I was telling you about—bits and pieces, bits and pieces—they add up.”

  “Have you got enough to baste together a whole story? If you do, I’d like to hear it.”

  She shook her head. “Not yet. No, early days yet! I just wanted you to know that I was working at it.” She smiled crookedly. “I’ve a fond spot for Simon Wyatt. And I detest that Hazel Dixon. I’d just as soon see her nose put out of joint! She’s one to cause trouble out of spite. Pure spite!”

  He said again, “I’d refrain from meddling, if I were you.”

  “I won’t meddle,” she told him. “I’ll just listen, that’s all.”

  23

  Rutledge realized that his unguided steps had led him to the small surgery of Dr. Fairfield. The doctor was in and prepared to give him five minutes. The coolness was still there, but Fairfield knew his duty and did it precisely.

  “There’s only one question, it won’t take more than five minutes. It’s about the body found here in Singleton Magna—Mrs. Mowbray or Miss Tarlton. I’d like to know if that woman had borne children?”

  “That was one of the first questions Hildebrand asked me. And yes, she had. At the time, my answer provided additional evidence that she must be the Mowbray woman. Whether it applies as well to Margaret Tarlton, I can’t say.”

  “It may be that Miss Tarlton also had a child. Out of wedlock.”

  Fairfield said, “I’m afraid medical science can’t tell us whether the mother was wearing a wedding band or none at the time of birth.”

  “And the body at Leigh Minster?”

  “I’d say she hadn’t. It is harder to be sure, given her time in the ground. That’s two questions.” He pulled out his watch and glanced at it.

  Rutledge took the hint as it was intended, and left.

  * * *

  He found himself wishing he could interview Thomas Napier, to test the theory of his involvement with Margaret. But Rutledge knew what Bowles would have to say to that request. And Napier himself might well refuse—he had made a point of staying in the background, except for what might be judged as reasonable concern for a young woman in his employ and still under his protection. Even his visits to Bowles’s office could be construed as a man acting in the place of a father. Bowles would most certainly interpret it that way. It made his own life simpler and easier.

  The next best choice was Thomas Napier’s daughter.

  It was time to ask Elizabeth Napier a few blunt questions.

  She was in the museum, a pinafore over a pretty summer dress in blues and greens, busily dusting the new shelves that had replaced the fallen ones.

  Rutledge greeted her and asked her to come for a walk with him, out of the house and away from other ears. Somewhere he could hear the maid Edith beating a carpet and Aurore’s voice speaking to Simon.

  Surprised, Elizabeth removed her pinafore and said, “I don’t see the need for such secrecy, I’ve nothing to hide. But if you insist—very well.”

  They walked down toward the common and the pond. A dog slept peacefully by the water’s edge and ducks swam smoothly in small flotillas, conducting loud conversations as they went. Rooks called in the trees, and he could hear the blacksmith’s hammer. There was a bustle in Charlbury’s streets, the shops doing a brisk business, but here it was quiet enough except
for Hamish, muttering in the back of his mind.

  “You promised Bowles you’d no’ tread on toes!” he was reminding Rutledge with vigor. “Do you want to end your career on a political blunder?”

  Someone had set a bench under a tree some ten feet from the pond, and Rutledge led Elizabeth to it. She inspected it, then sat down, leaving space for him to join her. A light wind lifted the curls at the sides of her face, giving her a vulnerable, almost childlike quality as she turned expectantly toward him.

  “I want to ask you about Margaret Tarlton. I find it helps if I understand the background of the victim. Not just where she came from, but how she must have felt about those around her, how she lived her life, how she arrived at a time and place where someone believed she had to die. It often brings me closer to finding the murderer.”

  “I thought the police in Singleton Magna were satisfied that Mowbray had killed her. Inspector Hildebrand is not a man who changes his mind lightly.”

  “Mowbray is a strong possibility. We can’t overlook him. The problem is, so many pieces of this puzzle don’t fit together properly. And that tells me that I’ve yet to fill the empty spaces between them. It seemed to me that you’d rather not have the Wyatt household hear what I’m about to ask you.” He was choosing his words carefully, aware that she might leave when he finally got to the point.

  “I’ve nothing to hide from Simon!”

  “No, but your father might. I’ve heard—from a number of sources—that your father was more than fond of Margaret. He was very likely in love with her.”

  She turned to face him, her eyes bright, her face shocked. “Who on earth has told you such lies?”

  “Are they lies?” he asked gently, apparently watching the ducks.

  “My father is very fond of Margaret. You’ve known that from the start! As for love, I don’t believe he’s paid more than polite attention to any woman since my mother’s death.”

  “Sometimes a daughter is the last to know a father’s feelings.”

  “No, you don’t quite see what I’m telling you. My mother was very important to him, and I’ve done what I could to fill her place. But superficially. I sit at the head of his table, I entertain his guests, I attend public functions with him, and I spend hours with very dull women who must be handled with the greatest care because either their husbands’ opinions or their money carries weight. My father is a man who keeps his emotions tightly locked inside. He hasn’t spoken my mother’s name since the day he buried her. I’m well aware that men have physical needs, but for all I know my father buried those with my mother too.”

  “For all you know,” he repeated, no inflecton in his voice.

  “Since her death I’ve never seen him show affection, even to me, in public. He doesn’t touch people if he can avoid it, he doesn’t care to be touched. Whatever natural human contacts there are, he accepts but doesn’t encourage. To Margaret he was kind, considerate, and protective, as he was of me. He told me once that she had no family to speak of, and he felt responsible for her as long as she resided under our roof. He saw to it when she was required to spend time on his affairs that she was properly escorted home afterward. I daresay any man of breeding would have done the same!”

  She stopped. In the silence that followed he thought about what she had said. If she was lying, she was practiced at it. He considered mentioning the child and decided against it. It was a tenuous charge and, right or wrong, could hurt a goodly number of innocent people. But if Sergeant Gibson’s information was correct, Thomas Napier now had a son to put in his daughter’s place.

  “Very well. You believe that your father has no more than a natural fondness for Margaret. Let’s turn the coin over. Was she fond of him?”

  “Of course she was. He’s a man who engenders loyalty. And that’s not a daughter’s blind assessment, you can ask anyone who knows him well.”

  “Miss Napier, Margaret lived with you for five or six years—”

  “No! If Margaret was in love with my father, she successfully kept it from me. And very likely from him as well. She was ambitious, I grant you, but she also understood that scandal of any kind was political fodder. Margaret was very like my father, you know, not a woman who wore her heart on her sleeve. The pair of them would make very dull lovers!”

  And yet Shaw had said he saw passion, hot and raw, in Napier’s eyes.

  “Why had Miss Tarlton chosen to leave your employ? I’ve been given several reasons for her decision, but I’d very much like to hear the truth.”

  Elizabeth shrugged. “She wanted a change. The museum reminded her of India, possibly. Or she was tired of London.”

  “She carefully concealed her Indian background, Miss Napier. I don’t believe she would elect to come here to Charlbury and open that door again. Nor was Dorset likely to foster an ambitious young woman’s prospects. I think you persuaded her to come, to give yourself an excuse to call on Simon Wyatt from time to time. I’m sure that’s why you felt some sense of guilt when you were told Margaret was dead—”

  “I wouldn’t—”

  “But you would. You’ve come now yourself and you’re staying. A foot in the door. Still, your motives aren’t important. What matters is why Margaret agreed to your scheme. Was she happy for an excuse to break her ties with you, to leave London and to put some distance between herself and your father? Or, if she wanted to marry him, she must have realized that he wouldn’t ask her as long as she was a nobody, your secretary, vulnerable to cruelties from women who took pleasure in reminding her of her place. Even moving to another house hadn’t changed that. She was, as she put it herself, still a servant.” He smiled, to take some of the sting from his words. “She wouldn’t be the first woman to feel that leaving him might make up a man’s mind for him. He was already jealous, he knew that Captain Shaw was living here. He must have told her he was afraid she’d rekindle that old romance, that Shaw might persuade her that a ring on her finger was better than the shadowy life of a mistress—”

  “Nonsense!” Elizabeth’s face was flushed with anger. “You’ve twisted the truth to fit your own muddled evidence! She was never my father’s mistress!”

  Rutledge turned to her. “I don’t intend to embarrass you or your father, Miss Napier. I simply want the truth so that I can sort out the rest of this tangle and find Miss Tarlton’s killer. And I think I have found the truth, finally.”

  Elizabeth got up, her skirts brushing against him as she turned to go. “I’d like very much to know who gave you this information. You said ‘a number’ of sources. Was that true? Or simply a euphemism?”

  “Yes. It was true. I’ve heard it from enough sources that I have no choice but to believe it.”

  She frowned, mentally running down a list of possible names. He could see her mind at work. Then she smiled. “Well. It doesn’t matter. My father is safe, isn’t he? Either way. If Margaret is dead. And it wasn’t I, was it, who drove Margaret to the station that last morning. Good day, Inspector!”

  He watched her walk on toward the inn, her stride graceful, her bearing giving her that aura of royal dignity that made up for inches. But he thought, his eyes on her straight back, that she was upset, as if he’d touched a rawness in her that bled inside.

  Rutledge considered the possibility that whatever the stationmaster might have said, Margaret Tarlton reached Singleton Magna, and Elizabeth Napier met her there, offering to drive her on to Sherborne. And killed her along the road, to put an end to any connection between Margaret and Thomas Napier.

  But that brought him around again to the question of who drove Margaret to Singleton Magna.

  He was beginning to believe he knew … if it hadn’t been Aurore in the Wyatt motorcar, it might have been Simon. In spite of Mrs. Dixon’s certainty that Aurore was driving, it was the vehicle and not the occupants she’d seen. He was persuaded of that by his own instincts and the woman’s vehemence.

  But why would Simon kill Margaret Tarlton or anyone else? Why would Aur
ore be terrified that he might have?

  It was on the way back to his car that he halted by the smithy and stood thinking intently for several minutes as he watched the activity around him. People going about their own business moved past him with curiosity in their eyes, nodding but not pausing to speak to him. He was the bringer of misfortune, in a sense. They wouldn’t ignore him completely, but there was no warmth in their faces as they went on. The sooner he left, the sooner life in Charlbury could return to normal.

  As, in a way, it already had. In spite of police activity in the neighborhood, in spite of the discovery of another body some distance away, no one had been murdered in Charlbury itself, and no one had been arrested in the village. The initial shock had begun to wear off and, with it, some of the tension. That explained the activity on the street. He found that very interesting.

  If Aurore was guilty, then the village had not lost one of its own. . . . The stranger could be taken away, grief would disrupt Simon Wyatt’s life for a time, but the familiar face of Elizabeth Napier was assurance perhaps that he wouldn’t grieve for long. All would be as it had been.

  Hamish, wary, noticed her first.

  Rutledge became aware that someone was speaking his name and turned to see a woman standing beside him, casting a look over her shoulder as if afraid that she might be seen with him. She was a plump woman, attractive in a way, but with the small mouth and narrow eyes of a spiteful nature. Her dark hair was pinned up with an effort at style, and she was wearing a very becoming summer dress. He thought, if she smiled, she might even be pretty.

  “Yes, what can I do for you?” he asked, giving her his full attention.

  “My name is Marian Forsby. I only wanted to tell you that I haven’t seen anything that might help you with your inquiries, but I thought perhaps—” She paused, casting another look around her.