Hunting Shadows: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery

by Charles Todd

  The high stone wall, which began next to the Cathedral’s own walls, stretched down the road toward an arch that led into the school grounds. The same wall where a ladder had been placed. Neither Inspector Warren nor his constables had discovered who had put the ladder there. But again the angle was wrong. A bullet from there would have had to traverse the chest, exiting below the left arm after striking the heart. The head would have been a more certain target.

  Hamish spoke into the silence. His voice seemed to echo ominously through the darkness. “Yon battlement.”

  Looking up at the dark mass of the great west tower, Rutledge was inclined to agree with him. But a constable had climbed up there and found nothing. And it was very exposed, more so than the gate on the far side by the Lady Chapel. Any of the arriving guests might have looked up at the wrong time, attracted by movement—even a pigeon flying up—and spotted the killer. He would have been well and truly trapped, no way out but through that single tower door inside the Cathedral itself. He couldn’t have hidden, unless he was dressed as a guest and could mingle easily. But that meant abandoning the rifle until it was safe to go back for it. Where in hell’s name could he have hidden it? The killer must surely have known that someone would climb up there to have a look. But he couldn’t have come through the tower door with it, hoping to secret it somewhere else. Even broken down, it would have been difficult to conceal. Inspector Warren had even searched the organ pipes.

  And yet, if he’d been the killer, Rutledge knew he would have taken his chances there because it was the most certain platform from which to make his shot.

  While the gate on the north side was exposed as well, at least there were choices of direction for the man’s escape. And that’s where the cartridge casing had been found.

  But a cartridge casing could be dropped anywhere, far from where it had been ejected. The killer could have come down from the tower, left the Cathedral by a different door, and then as he came around the apse and the Lady Chapel to that gate, lost the casing without knowing it.

  Misdirection? Both the ladder against the wall and the dropped casing?

  “Ye ken,” Hamish said after a moment, “it isna’ sae important to know how it was done. He’s sae verra’ clever, he’s killed twice withoot being seen, save for the auld woman who swore she saw a monster.”

  “Not much to go on, that monster,” Rutledge answered aloud with a wry smile.

  “Aye, it’s verra’ similar to the problem here.”

  “Yes,” Rutledge answered slowly. “Misdirection again. But tomorrow I’ll climb to that tower.”

  And shortly after breakfast, when the sun was bright and a mist clung to the lower-lying villages, hiding them from sight, Rutledge came back to Ely Cathedral, and without much notice being taken of him, he wandered about for a time. Much to the horror of Hamish’s Covenanter soul, who had a distaste for ornamentation and splendor that smacked of Popery.

  He’d walked down to the choir and thence to the Lady Chapel, exploring as a policeman rather than a worshipper, made his way back to the Galilee Porch, and from there went unchallenged to the tower door. It was a climb. Two hundred eighty-eight steps, unless he’d missed his count. But in the end he came out onto the battlemented top of the tower.

  It was a dizzying height. Two hundred feet or more, with splendid views over Ely and across the surrounding Fens.

  The constable had been right, the slope of the roof made it difficult to walk around, offering little or no space for footing.

  Instead of walking, he got down on all fours and crept around to the position he was looking for. When he came to a spot where he could look down, he saw that he had a perfect view of his field of fire.

  He could see where Hutchinson had fallen so clearly that he himself could have taken that shot.

  He knelt there, thinking it through, ignoring Hamish in the back of his mind.

  There was still the problem of getting the rifle safely away. But the man couldn’t have made the shot with any other weapon. It was too far for a revolver, and by the time Captain Hutchinson had come that close, the man would have had to stand to aim.

  There was no proof he was right, of course. But it had been a daring plan, if this had been the place the killer had chosen.

  And that was a measure of what the man had felt toward Hutchinson. A savage hate, to take such a risk. Or a cold one?

  Which meant, Rutledge realized, that of the two victims, it was Hutchinson who had been the more important one. Herbert Swift could have waited. Days. Weeks. Hutchinson would only be within reach for a stated length of time. And as Inspector Warren had pointed out, the wedding ceremony was the only public appearance the Captain had made. The private parties and dinners hadn’t been announced, there was no way to plan for any one of them. But here—here at the Cathedral, Hutchinson would be certain to appear, and that fact had been known for some time.

  Rutledge couldn’t blame Inspector Warren for not working it out the way he himself had. Warren had been the man on the scene, he’d had to deal with the bride’s irate father, the Bishop and the Colonel and all the other important men connected to the family. He’d had to depend on his constables to do much of the legwork. Those endless statements had taken time, and the pressure to find the killer had built with each passing day. But Warren had only had a handful of days. Swift was killed then, and a second inquiry had been set in motion, stretching his resources to the limit.

  Damned on every side, he’d at least had the courage to ask the Yard to send someone. And he had cooperated fully when Rutledge arrived, knowing he was acknowledging his own failure.

  Rutledge could respect that.

  He made to rise and move away from the space between two blocks of stone where he’d been crouching, when he realized what it was Hamish was saying to him.

  Caught on a bit of rough stone was a single gray strand of cloth, so nearly the same color that it was all but invisible.

  He gently tugged at it and brought it free. Worn cloth, he thought, and easily snagged. But how had it got here? More important, when? That was the question. And unfortunately there were any number of answers. All the same, if he’d been a betting man, Rutledge would have wagered that it had been the cloth with which the killer had wrapped himself and his rifle, shielding both from view. It made sense. The color alone was not likely to have come from a casual visitor’s clothing. It matched too perfectly.

  Taking out a clean handkerchief, Rutledge laid the tiny strand of cotton there and folded it again.

  Satisfied, he left the tower and climbed down the multitude of steps once more, carefully opening the door and finding it a simple matter to slip out of it unnoticed. But then there was no wedding today. He had just reached the west door when a man in clerical dress came out of the sanctuary. Rutledge turned.

  “Beautiful building, isn’t it?” the man said, his accent strong Scots.

  “It is indeed,” Rutledge answered.

  The man nodded and went on his way.

  Rutledge watched him as he strode out of sight, his mind elsewhere.

  After a moment he said, “I’m going back to Wriston. There are too many people involved in what happened in Ely. If I find anything there, I can backtrack to this place.”

  Hamish said, “Aye, but will you tell yon Inspector what you found?”

  Rutledge shook his head. “Not yet. Not until I can be sure.”

  Inspector Warren was not best pleased to hear that Rutledge was already leaving Ely.

  “Giving up, are you?”

  Rutledge said, “Early days for that. No, I’ve spoken to those witnesses, and I’ve looked at the ground. I don’t know that we can learn any more here at this stage. What I hope to discover in Wriston is whether or not someone else saw Mrs. Percy’s monster. Surely someone did, and hasn’t had the courage yet to come forward. Would you willingly admit you’d seen
something that you couldn’t explain?”

  “I probably would, if asked by a policeman,” Warren answered stiffly.

  “Yes, perhaps you’d speak to him. But not to your local constable, who would be sniffing your breath or wondering if you’d fallen down and hit your head. You would know full well the constable would file away your vision along with Mrs. Percy’s and remind you of it later, when next he saw you staggering down the High at closing.”

  Warren grudgingly agreed, striving to keep amusement out of his gaze.

  “Our quarry was faultless here. He’d planned meticulously for this kill. He couldn’t have got away with it if he hadn’t. And then he tried again. He might have been careless.” Rutledge paused. “And if he wasn’t, he could well be searching for a new target, because he knows we can’t touch him. Yet.”

  “I hope to God you’re wrong.” Warren took a deep breath. “The Chief Constable is already demanding answers, and he’ll be in your face if there’s another murder. The wedding was bad enough, given who was attending, and then Swift on top of that.”

  But there was very likely to be a third, Rutledge thought. He could almost feel it.

  He was halfway to the street when he remembered the barrow. Turning, he went back to Warren’s office, poked his head around the door, and said, “The deaf fellow. Mathews. He saw a man with a barrow walking away from the scene. After any number of people had rushed past him toward the Cathedral, he left the barrow and went to see for himself what the excitement was about. He’s not likely to be our man, but if we don’t follow up on him, we’ll never know for certain.”

  “Any idea what was in that barrow?”

  “According to Mathews it was covered by a cloth.” He thought about the strand of gray cotton in his handkerchief. Had it come from that barrow? It would be luck indeed if it had. But where was the barrow’s owner now? Much less that cloth—long since tossed into a tip?

  Inspector Warren was nodding. “Very well, I’ll see to it. Do you think Mathews can identify him? There must be twenty or more men with barrows in Ely.”

  “We’ll have to trust that he can.” Rutledge thanked him, went back to The Deacon, thought about it, and walked on to Teddy Mathews’s house.

  He was in and alone. Rutledge apologized for coming in unannounced, when the man’s sister was away.

  Mathews shrugged. Rutledge said, speaking clearly, “The barrow the man abandoned to run back toward the Cathedral. You said there was a cloth thrown over the contents.”

  He handed his notebook to Mathews, who took up the pen and wrote on the first empty page he came to, I expect I ought to have said sacking. It was so filthy you could hardly tell that once it had been yellow.

  Yellow, then. Not gray.

  He’d probably sent Warren’s men on a wild-goose chase. Still, he was reluctant to rescind the request. And who knew what lay under the sacking? Whatever color it had been.

  He thanked Mathews, who scribbled something more on the page, then passed the notebook back to Rutledge.

  I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help.

  “You’re a good witness,” Rutledge assured him, then took his leave.

  At The Deacon Inn, Rutledge asked Reception to hold his room but took his valise with him and set out for Wriston, stopping briefly for petrol.

  It was a village, not a town. Fewer people were involved. Ely was the proverbial haystack, and for all anyone knew, the needle was already back home in Soham or Burwell, even London. Wherever he’d come from.

  Hamish said as Rutledge threaded his way through Ely to the Cambridge Road, “For a’ anyone knew, he was walking the mist in Wriston.”

  Chapter 7

  Now that he was in the village in his official capacity, Rutledge’s first duty was to call on the constable.

  He’d arrived at Wriston by a roundabout way, crisscrossing the Fens to explore several nearby villages, and there was not much to choose between them save for size. Isleham was smaller, Soham a little larger, and Burwell, the largest, a bustling town with a fine church. And the fields that ran for acre after acre in their long narrow beds for the most part held the same variety of market crops—oats, peas, and barley.

  It was late in the afternoon when he walked into the police station, across from the duck pond. Constable McBride was at his desk, reading an Ely newspaper.

  He was a burly man with thinning brown hair, and he looked up at Rutledge with some surprise, recognizing him at once as the stranger he’d chivvied along only yesterday for excessive curiosity about the site of Swift’s murder.

  “Back again, are you, sir? Anything I can help you with, then?”

  But there was a guardedness in the offer.

  Rutledge handed him his identification, and McBride studied it for longer than necessary, and then, getting to his feet, he said in a slightly aggrieved voice, “I’m sorry, sir, but you didn’t tell me who you were.”

  “I hadn’t yet reported to Inspector Warren in Ely. I’d been caught out in that mist the previous night, got thoroughly lost, and when I realized that I was in Wriston, I wanted to take a preliminary look at that cross.”

  “Yes, I see.” But it was clear he didn’t. “Is there anything new, sir? From Ely?” He held up the newspaper still in his hand, then set it aside. “There’s nothing in here. And the last report I’d had from Inspector Warren was three days ago. Even that was not what you might call informative.”

  “What does the Ely paper have to say about the murders?”

  “Precious little. A nine days’ wonder, as it were. It’s no longer on the first page.” Gesturing to the chair on the other side of the desk, he sat down. “How can I help you, sir?”

  “Tell me what happened here in Wriston.”

  “Surely Inspector Warren has already done that.”

  “I’d like your point of view. You live here.”

  McBride gave him a concise report. It differed very little from what Rutledge already knew. “We searched and we found nothing. Not even a cartridge casing. The shot must have been a difficult one. Night, flickering torchlight. I’d not have tried it, I can tell you that. I mean to say, what if he’d missed?”

  But whoever it was had had no problem making his shot count.

  “The question is, what ties these two deaths together? There has to be a very good reason. For one thing, they were killed within days of each other, and only a matter of miles apart. For another, they were fairly prominent men. This wasn’t a grudge killing between neighbors, because they weren’t in any sense neighbors.”

  McBride shook his head. “I’ve spent hours thinking about that, sir. I can’t see how they could have known each other. Perhaps someone only believed they did.”

  Which, Rutledge thought, was a very perceptive comment.

  “The war. Is there a connection there?”

  “I can’t think how that could be. The Swifts have been farmers here for generations. Our Mr. Swift spent most of his war in Glasgow, serving with the Navy as a civilian. Still, he liked Scotland, it seems. He wrote the Rector to say that when he could, he’d take long walks. He thought it cleared his head. He was still mourning his wife.”

  “Did Swift have enemies?”

  “We haven’t found any. If you want my opinion, whoever did this isn’t a Wriston man, and that means the quarrel, if there was one, didn’t have its roots here. Mr. Swift wasn’t one to visit Ely or Soham or Burwell often, but he went there if it was a matter of business. I’d say look at his clients or their enemies. A quiet man, and well liked. He’d have won, you know. Hands down. I daresay his killing could even have been political, although that’s a stretch, in my view.”

  “What about his opponent?”

  “I doubt he could be bothered. What he liked best, if truth be told, were the free beers his supporters bought for him down at The Wake.”

  “Wha
t was Mr. Swift talking about the night he was killed?”

  “He was hardly into what he’d planned to say. It had to do with the war ending, but the legacy of the war was still with us. I doubt anyone would argue with that.”

  “His private life, then.”

  McBride smiled. “As to that, his wife ruled the roost until she died in childbirth. It nearly killed him as well. I don’t believe he’d have gone on, if the war hadn’t changed things. Scotland was good for him, taking him away from here.”

  “Someone wanted him dead.”

  “It’s true, but try as I will, I can find nothing in his life to explain that. Unless . . .” McBride’s gaze stared into the past, somewhere behind Rutledge’s left shoulder.

  Rutledge felt an instant burst of panic, then caught himself. No one could see Hamish where he kept watch at Rutledge’s back, as he had done so often in the trenches.

  “There was something before the war. Mr. Swift was serving as a witness in a trial in Ely. There was a man sent to prison for putting another man in hospital with a skull fracture and broken ribs. It was claimed the victim was thrown down a flight of stairs. The man swore it wasn’t true, that the victim, after an argument, turned to have the last word, lost his balance, and fell. But the jury thought otherwise.” McBride lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “That man might’ve held a grudge against Swift, because he gave evidence against him, but I can’t see how Captain Hutchinson fits into it.”

  “Do you remember the man’s name?”

  “That I don’t. The only reason I remember the trial at all is that my wife’s brother was bailiff at the time.”

  “Then I’ll ask him if he recalls the trial.”

  “Dead on Passchendaele Ridge,” McBride answered somberly. “More’s the pity. A good man.”

  “Turn it another way. Who has such a rifle?”

  “There’s the catch,” McBride agreed. “They aren’t lying beneath every bush, are they? The question is, did he keep it back when he left France, or was it one used to train troops?”