Hunting Shadows: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery

by Charles Todd

  “He left no traces of himself in Ely,” Rutledge reminded him. “I wouldn’t have expected him to betray himself here.” He said nothing about the gray thread still folded into his handkerchief.

  “Yes, but don’t you see? He was outside in Ely. Everyone says so. He was in my house. My wife hasn’t been able to sleep, knowing he was here. And when people come into the shop, they look around uneasily, as if he’s hiding amongst the hammers or under the table where the nails are set out. Someone dropped a spanner the other morning, and I saw two people start, as if they thought it was a gunshot.”

  “The man who came into your house cared nothing for you, Mr. Ross. He chose your window because it was convenient. He won’t be returning.”

  “Still, I have the strongest feeling my neighbors blame me.” He led the way down a passage that opened into a small room. The rear door stood open, and beyond it was an empty space where there must have been outbuildings at one time.

  Noticing his glance, Ross said, “We had a shed and a small barn—for the horse, of course. They blew down in a windstorm the third year of the war, and I never replaced them. Well, the Army took our horse, of course, and never brought him back.”

  There were only two houses on the lane that ran behind the shop, and beyond them was the embankment that bordered the fields. Just as he’d seen it at Mrs. Percy’s cottage. He leaned out for a better look. It went as far, he thought, as the raised bridge where he’d stopped his motorcar the night of the fog.

  That was how the killer had come, then. Unseen, because everyone was drawn to the torch-lit parade down the street.

  He turned and followed Ross up two flights of stairs to the second-floor room where the dormer let in light and warmth. What had once been a small bedroom for servants or a nursery was now given over to a collection of boxes and barrels, a few outworn chairs, a woman’s dress model, and other oddments accumulated over the years.

  He threaded his way through to the window. The sash was raised, a warm breeze drifting in.

  “Do you leave this window open?”

  “Yes, in the heat of the day. Someone generally comes to close it each evening. It allows a little circulation of the air, you see. It was warm that night, there was no expectation of rain, and I was in a hurry to shut up the shop before the crowd moved down the street. I didn’t think it mattered. I could easily have come up the stairs and shut it. But it seemed unimportant. Still, he could have opened it, couldn’t he? It wouldn’t have mattered if the window had been shut.”

  So that, Rutledge thought, was the source of the man’s anxiety, that he’d made it easy for a killer to do his work. One small oversight . . .

  And yet—if the killer had had to open the window, he might have been seen by someone as he rose to raise the sash. Mrs. Percy might have seen more than a monstrous face.

  “You didn’t look this way when you heard the shot?”

  “I don’t know that I’ve ever heard a rifle being fired before this. The report seemed to come from everywhere at once. I don’t think I even registered the fact that it was a shot, I was too shocked by what I was seeing. And then people were pushing back, away from where the body had fallen, and there was general panic. Only afterward, when Constable McBride was looking for a source of the shot, did we consider my window. It was the butcher who was first to Mr. Swift’s body. I closed my eyes, feeling a little sick, trying not to think about what had happened.”

  Rutledge looked down, saw the market cross clearly. “Swift was standing on the base of the cross?” He made a point of leaning out the window.

  “Yes, it raised him above the crowd just enough that we could see and hear him. I’d have said the ideal place for a speech. That’s why we all saw him die.”

  And panic had taken over, giving the killer a chance to escape.

  Rutledge noted the sill, but Warren’s reports had already confirmed that there was no mark where the rifle had rested, and not enough dust for a footprint to be found.

  “Thank you, Mr. Ross, you’ve been very helpful. I wish I could say that there was something here to help us catch our man, but he’s been very clever.”

  Ross was nodding, drinking in every word. “Yes, yes, that’s true. I’ll tell everyone who comes in. Thank you.”

  They went down the stairs again, and as they turned at the first-floor landing, Ross said, “I wonder if you know. There was an ex-soldier passing through here not three weeks ago, looking for work. He’d been a cobbler, he wanted to set up by the market cross, but Constable McBride wasn’t having it. He said that we’d soon have every mendicant in Cambridgeshire wanting to do the same. But Rector took pity on him and let him set up by the church. I don’t know how many shoes he mended, but he was gone the next morning. I was told the butcher’s lorry gave him a lift to Ely.”

  It was clear to Rutledge that Ross had been racking his brain for any memory that might divert attention from his shortcomings and the now-notorious dormer window. Still, it would have to be pursued.

  Thanking him, Rutledge went directly to the police station to speak to Constable McBride.

  “For one thing,” McBride told him, “this ex-soldier came through nearly six weeks ago. Not three, as Mr. Ross led you to believe.” He sorted through a handful of papers from the side drawer of his desk and passed a sheet to Rutledge. “For another I spoke to him myself. His name is Peter Jenkins, he comes from Warwick, and he was a corporal in the Buffs. He’d been a cobbler in Warwick before the war and until the shop closed last spring—the owner had died and the widow couldn’t carry on. Nor did Jenkins have the money to buy the shop from her. He had no choice but to take to the roads. But we can’t have every Tom, Dick, and Harry setting up at the market cross on days when there’s no market. And so I told him. When he’d moved on, I sent a query to Warwick, and his story was confirmed by a Constable Godwin.”

  “Well done,” Rutledge told him, glancing through the information on the sheet.

  “I can’t think he’d give me his right name if he was here bent on mischief. But we’ve had no trouble in this village, and the next peddler might be a Traveler, out for what he can find. Still, when the Rector took pity on him, I let it go.”

  “There’s no one else who came through?”

  “No, it’s been a quiet summer. And we’re a little out of the way, you see, not on a direct road anywhere. Did you have a look out that window while you were calling on the ironmonger?”

  “I did. You couldn’t ask for a better position for a shot.”

  “No,” the constable said morosely. “It’s too bad Swift didn’t find another site for his speech. He might still be with us.”

  “I wonder,” Rutledge said, “if the killer came late at night, when the village was asleep. He could have stayed in the shadows, learned whatever it was he wanted to know, and then gone away again without arousing suspicion.”

  “How did he know what Swift was planning?”

  “That shouldn’t have been too difficult. Surely it was no secret, that rally.”

  “True enough,” McBride said.

  “I’d like a list of every man in the village who served in France during the war. And if you will, send a request to your opposite numbers in the surrounding villages asking them to draw up one as well and send it to me here in Wriston.”

  “Here, you’re saying that one of ours is this killer.”

  “No. But once we know the names of men who can handle a rifle, then we can find out if any of them knew Hutchinson.”

  Rutledge was just about to take his leave when someone came galloping down the High Street on a lathered horse. He was a tall man, lean and weathered.

  “There’s been another shooting,” he called as soon as Constable McBride and Rutledge appeared in the police station doorway.

  “Where?” the two men replied almost in unison.

  “Over by the Bur
rows farm. It’s all right, Mr. Burrows wasn’t badly hurt. But he like to had a heart attack afterward. It was that close run a thing.”

  Rutledge was already sprinting for his motorcar, McBride at his heels.

  “Where is the farm?” he asked the constable.

  “It’s over toward Burwell. You’ll see a line of trees going into the farm. Not a large place, there’s not enough land for more than a house and a few outbuildings. He keeps some of his larger pieces of equipment in Burwell.”

  Rutledge reversed the motorcar and headed for the Wriston windmill, letting McBride show him the way from there.

  They came to a long straight road—not the one Rutledge had taken on his way to Burwell, but half a mile distant. As they turned into it, he could see the line of trees that McBride had described. When they reached the track, he realized that the farm must have been there for a very long time. The track was rutted and uneven, and the house was low, rambling, as if it had been designed to fit into the flat profile of the land around it, then added to as necessity or money dictated.

  But the steps to the door were swept, there was a fresh coat of paint on the outbuildings, and a small bed of marigolds where the path widened added a dash of color.

  Someone had heard the motorcar arrive, and a tall, thin woman held the door open for them.

  “Do come in,” she said in a voice thick with unshed tears. “My father is in the front room.”

  They followed her through to where an older man was sitting in a chair, hands on the arms, his face flushed. There was a red streak across one cheek, and someone had tried to wash away the worst of the blood. It still stained his shirt and coat.

  Looking up, he nodded to McBride and said to Rutledge, “And who might you be?”

  “My name is Rutledge. I’ve been sent by Scotland Yard to look into these shootings.”

  “Well, it wasn’t soon enough,” Burrows said, glaring up at him. “It’s a wonder I’m alive. I can’t think how he came to miss.” He added, “Do sit down, it hurts to twist around like this.”

  “I think you should start at the beginning, Papa,” the woman said as Rutledge took the chair offered and McBride went to stand by the window.

  “I was on my way home, on horseback. I’d gone into Burwell after a part for the pump in my kitchen. The road was empty. I’d swear to that. Nothing to be seen anywhere, midday and quiet. And then a face appeared over the edge of the bridge across the ditch. He’d been hiding there like—like some sort of water creature. I’d hardly taken it in when something stung my face and the report of the rifle frightened the hell out of my horse. It took off at a great pace, and by the time I’d got it under control again, I wasn’t about to go back the way I’d come. And so I took a roundabout way home, my face bleeding all over my coat. I couldn’t stop it.”

  He put up a hand, touched the crease gingerly. “It’s still wet,” he finished.

  “Leave it alone, Papa, you’ll only make it worse,” Miss Burrows told him.

  “Don’t fuss, Meg,” he warned her sharply.

  “Describe what you saw,” Rutledge asked after a moment.

  “I told you, it was like something out of a tale, this wormlike thing with a face you didn’t want to look into twice. Cold and hard. Eyes that had nothing human about them. He must have kept the weapon under him until he was ready to fire. I tell you, I should be out there on the road, dead, a bullet through my skull. All I can think of is that he couldn’t bring the rifle up properly, lying on it like that. There’s no sense to it, else.”

  “But why should he wish to kill you?” Constable McBride demanded. “Did you know Mr. Swift, or that Captain in Ely?”

  “Of course I knew Swift. Everybody did,” Burrows answered testily. “As for that Captain, I doubt I’ve ever clapped eyes on him. I was too old for the war. And I’ve never been any farther south than Cambridge. Rumor has it he was a London man.”

  “He was,” Rutledge replied. “But he was in Burwell recently. For the funeral of a Major Clayton.”

  Burrows started to shake his head and stopped abruptly. “I knew a Clayton years ago. He bred horses. He died in ’05 or ’06, I think it was.”

  “Inspector Warren never told me that Hutchinson was in Burwell,” McBride cut in to ask. “When exactly was this?”

  “Earlier in the summer,” Rutledge answered. He’d been watching Burrows’s face, and he thought it likely that the man was telling the truth. He didn’t know Major Clayton or Hutchinson. “Tell me, Mr. Burrows, do you own any weapons?”

  “I’ve a shotgun. I expect everyone in the Fens must have one. But this wasn’t a shotgun, I tell you, else he’d have taken my head off, not cut my face.”

  “Yes, I understand. But Constable McBride here has been making a list of men who’d served in France. It’s possible that someone who worked for you was a soldier and brought back a souvenir.”

  “Two of my men died in France. The other came home without his arm. The only souvenir he brought back was one of those helmets the Hun wore. With the spike on top. Bloody silly thing to wear in the trenches, if you ask me.”

  But these were parade helmets. In the trenches they were covered, the spike removed.

  Rutledge was suddenly reminded of what Ruskin had told him, that he’d seen a German helmet.

  “Where is this helmet now?”

  “His wife made him get rid of it.”

  “Could that be what the man was wearing?”

  Burrows glared at him. “I know the difference between a helmet like that and the face I saw.”

  “It would be best if you went to a doctor. I’ll drive you there, if you like,” Rutledge suggested, watching a thin beading of blood reappear along the line of the cut every time Burrows impatiently dabbed at it.

  “Meg is better than a doctor when it comes to taking care of me. What I want to know is when are you going to bring in this fool? Before someone else is killed. And the next question is, will he come looking for me and mine, now he’s missed his chance? I don’t relish walking around with eyes in the back of my head or looking over my shoulder. And there’s Meg here. What if in the dark she’s mistaken for me?”

  “To tell you the truth, I don’t know if you’re still in danger—or if he’s satisfied that he marked you. But I’d stay close to the house for a day or two.”

  “I can’t stay close to the house. I’ve a farm to run, and I’m short two men as it is. Three if I had my way. Who is going to see to things if I don’t?”

  “A few days, Papa,” Miss Burrows interjected. “It’s not time for the harvest. Surely you could spare a few days?”

  “I won’t be kept prisoner in my own home. By God, I won’t.”

  But it was half bluster, Rutledge thought. Burrows had been thoroughly frightened, and there was no mistaking the stiffness in his body as he sat in the chair. Or his uncertainty about the future. Having looked Death in the eye, so to speak, he was not likely to do something foolish.

  And then Burrows said, “I’ll keep the shotgun to hand, and if he comes nosing around this house, I’ll shoot first and ask later.”

  “Just be sure,” Rutledge warned, “that you’re firing at the right man. You don’t want to make any mistakes. Or you’ll be up for murder yourself.” He rose. “I need to report what happened to Inspector Warren in Ely. Will you describe that man again?”

  “I never really saw him. Just that wormlike body and a face as cold as death. As if he could look down at my corpse without feeling anything except—satisfaction.”

  Miss Burrows turned away, biting her lip to hold back tears.

  “Which of your enemies will feel satisfaction at your death?” Rutledge asked.

  “Good God, I don’t know any who would shoot me down in the road. There’s competition in this business. A better yield, finding a stronger seed. That sort of thing, but not murder. I
’d done nothing a man might want to kill me for.”

  When they had left and Rutledge was driving with care through the ruts and holes of the road leading up to the farmhouse, McBride said, “What do you make of Burrows, then?”

  “He couldn’t have shot himself. And I don’t think the daughter could have shot him. Besides, she was frightened for him.”

  “He knew Swift.”

  “Yes,” Rutledge said slowly, trying to ignore Hamish in the back of his mind. “But so did everyone in Wriston. Still, it’s worth keeping in mind. Show me where this ambush happened.”

  McBride gave him directions, so that they came up on the bridge just as Burrows had done. Rutledge stopped the motorcar well short of the spot and got out. He could see droppings on the road some fifty yards back. Testing the light wind, he realized that it was blowing toward the bridge, which meant that the horse probably hadn’t caught the scent of the man who was waiting. Farther along, the turf on the right side of the road was torn, where the horse was startled, and started dancing, fighting the bit, before taking off in fright.

  Rutledge stood there, looking down toward the bridge.

  It was a clear shot, the man’s head well above his mount’s, and the distance was good, the wind hardly a factor, the pace steady as the horse trotted home.

  He asked McBride to stand in his place while he walked down and over the hump of the bridge.

  The late season grass was matted where someone had been lying there waiting. In some places it was already beginning to spring back. He couldn’t judge the height or the shape of whoever had lain there. But there was enough evidence to verify what Burrows had claimed.

  Rutledge scanned the area, looking for anything the killer had left behind—a cigarette stub, a cartridge casing, anything that would be useful. But the man had left no trace other than the bent blades in a patch of grass.

  He stretched out full length, to see what the killer had seen.

  From this position, it would have been easy to watch Burrows coming from at least a mile away, even if the sound of hooves hadn’t alerted the killer to his approach. And yet the height of the old bridge concealed the waiting man until he had lifted himself long enough to aim and fire.