Hunting Shadows: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery

by Charles Todd

  “He’d found her, then.”

  “No, I don’t think he had. He’d just come to his senses. Or realized that he couldn’t marry such a one. I don’t know who it was spoke to him. Someone must have done.”

  Or he’d found her—and had it out with her.

  What had become of the girl?

  Hamish said, “He could ha’ throttled her for leaving him.”

  The voice seemed to echo around the small room. Rutledge said quickly, “What do you feel became of her? She was here nearly a year. You got to know her well enough to judge her character.”

  “I was always afraid she’d done herself a harm. She was owed her wages, you see, and she never collected them. A girl like that? She wouldn’t lose nearly a month’s wages, if she could help it. And what about a reference?”

  It was typical of the housekeeper to see the girl’s death in such a light. She wouldn’t want to consider that her late employer had driven a second woman to suicide.

  Chapter 14

  As Rutledge was opening the tradesmen’s door, he glimpsed a motorcar just pulling up in front of the house.

  He stopped where he was, waiting.

  A man stepped out of the motorcar, walked to the door, and lifted the knocker. Rutledge could hear it clearly from where he was standing, the brass plate sounding sharply.

  After a moment, the maid who had let him in greeted the caller and invited him inside, and the door closed behind him.

  Rutledge stayed where he was, for the motor was still running.

  Nearly five minutes passed, then the door above him opened again and Miss Hutchinson swept out, followed by the visitor. The chauffeur was standing by the rear door now, holding it open as the man helped Miss Hutchinson inside, then followed her.

  The chauffeur shut the door smartly and went back to take his place behind the wheel.

  And then they were gone.

  Rutledge breathed a sigh of relief. It had been a near run thing. He didn’t want Miss Hutchinson to see him again, not coming out of the downstairs servants’ quarters. It was better for Mrs. Cookson if she didn’t have to answer questions about his visit.

  Leaving the area stairs, he walked back to where he’d left his own motorcar.

  Hamish said, “It’s a’ verra’ well to learn about the past, but it doesna’ have a bearing on the murders.”

  It didn’t. Rutledge had to admit it. But he’d discovered that there were at least two secrets in Captain Hutchinson’s life. What were the others?

  It was time to call on Mrs. Harris’s cousin Alice Worth.

  He found the card given him by Mrs. Harris, and discovered that Alice Worth lived in a tall, handsome house in one of the most fashionable squares in London. A dinner party was in progress when he knocked at the door—he could hear voices and laughter. What’s more, the maid who answered his summons was uncertain what to do with the policeman on the doorstep.

  She left him there, went to find her mistress, and in a few minutes he was whisked down a passage to a small morning room done up in pale peach and cream. Mrs. Worth swept in shortly afterward. A slender woman with fair hair and china blue eyes, she was wearing a very becoming evening gown of lilac and silver.

  “I have guests, as you can see,” she said abruptly. “I’m sure this could have waited until the morning.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Rutledge replied pleasantly. “I’m inquiring into the death of Captain Hutchinson. Mrs. Harris, in Burwell, told me you could provide information about his late wife, Mary.”

  Her manner changed at once. Quietly shutting the door behind her, she said, “She was driven to her death. I’m convinced of it. If her husband wasn’t guilty of killing her, he most certainly was morally responsible. I’m glad he’s dead. I see no reason why I should help you find his killer. The man is to be congratulated on his good sense.”

  “Do you know who killed Hutchinson?” he asked, keeping his tone matter-of-fact.

  “I am not required to answer your questions,” she told him. “I’m not a suspect, and I have no proof. Therefore I will make no accusations.”

  “You do realize that whoever he is, he’s killed another man, and a third is at this moment fighting for his life.” It was only a slight exaggeration. But he could read her eyes, and she was unaware of what had happened to Swift and Burrows.

  “Then I was mistaken,” she said. “The person I suspected would not have done such a thing.”

  “Not even if he had been driven mad by Mary Hutchinson’s death?”

  “If he had been driven mad, as you put it, he would have found Captain Hutchinson and killed him a very long time ago. No, you’re looking in the wrong direction.”

  “Revenge is best savored cold,” Rutledge reminded her.

  “Revenge or justice, I wouldn’t know. I didn’t kill him. Good evening, Mr. Rutledge.”

  With that she was gone, and the maid who had admitted him escorted him to the door and shut it firmly behind him.

  Hamish said, “Ye canna’ make her tell.”

  “She told me more than she realized. That whoever was in love with Mary Hutchinson is still alive and still has feelings for another man’s wife. The question is, how well did she know this man? It’s one thing to see Mary Hutchinson and whoever he is as star-crossed lovers, but Mrs. Hutchinson made her choice.”

  Still, it was frustrating to have come this far and be met with a stone wall. The letter sent to Mrs. Harris had given him the impression that Mrs. Worth was eager to see justice for her late friend. Instead she’d turned a policeman away.

  Now the question was, should he make an appearance at Scotland Yard—or avoid it?

  Looking at his watch, he realized that Acting Chief Superintendent Markham had long since left for the day. He found somewhere to have dinner, and then looked at his watch again.

  The night staff would have taken over. Sergeant Gibson had most likely gone for the day as well.

  But there were questions he needed to ask, and answers he needed to hear.

  He drove on to the Yard, left his car some distance away, and walked in. His office was as he’d left it, several files still waiting for his attention. Nothing there from Gibson.

  Dealing with the files quickly and efficiently, he carried them to Sergeant Gibson’s desk and set them in the box for completed files. Then he swiftly searched the sergeant’s desk.

  He found what he was after and flipped through the pages, scanning the information they contained.

  Gibson had found nothing new to report. And if Gibson couldn’t, then very likely there was nothing more to be found.

  Fallowfield, Lowell, Burrows, Swift, and his half brother Anson—they were all there along with Brenner and Montgomery, several with a mark by their names indicating the search for information had been conducted and the information conveyed to the Inspector who had requested it. In this case, himself.

  Rutledge put the file back where he’d found it.

  He was disappointed that nothing of interest had been discovered about Ben Montgomery, who had joined the Army and never returned to visit his family in Cambridgeshire, or about Jeremiah Brenner, he of the cold eyes and the need to drink to forget. They had been promising leads.

  And then he left the Yard as quietly as he’d arrived.

  Rutledge slept in his own bed that night and started for Cambridgeshire early the next morning. He stopped by the house that had belonged to his parents, where his sister Frances lived presently, and found her just having her first cup of tea in the small room overlooking the garden.

  “Darling Ian, what a surprise. Sit down and I’ll have Molly bring you some breakfast.”

  “I haven’t time,” he said. “Is there fresh tea in that pot?”

  “Yes, help yourself. You know where to find the cups.”

  He did, and joined her at the ta
ble. “You’ve been away,” he said.

  “And so have you. I came round to call on Monday. Where have you been?”

  “Cambridgeshire. The Fen country. And you?”

  “I went to see Melinda in Kent. I wanted to tell her my news.”

  Rutledge smiled. She was engaged to be married now. Melinda Crawford was an old friend of the family, his parents’ friend and now theirs. She would be one of the first people Frances would wish to tell.

  That made it official. Real. He wanted nothing but happiness for his only sister. But when she had told him she was thinking of marriage, it had seemed that the bottom had unexpectedly fallen out of his world. It had taken all the will he possessed to smile and tell her he thought she’d made a good choice.

  He had begun to come to terms with her engagement, but it had not been easy.

  He drank his tea, listening to Frances’s account of the visit to Melinda Crawford in Kent.

  “She keeps asking me when you’ll come to see her.”

  But he couldn’t. Melinda had come from a military family, married into another, knew war and soldiers. He would betray himself, and she would know what haunted him. He cared too much for her good opinion to risk it.

  Rutledge forced a smile. “The Yard takes most of my time.”

  “You could take leave, surely. You work too many hours as it is. A few days away from the Yard would be good for you.”

  “I’ll try,” he promised, and changed the subject.

  Ten minutes later he was heading out of London, already considering where to look next.

  Newmarket. Mary Hutchinson had fallen in love there. Who was the man? And how had he dealt with the breaking off of their engagement, after Mary had met Lieutenant Hutchinson?

  Where was that man now? A loose end, and one that could matter. It was possible he’d not been free to pursue his revenge until now. If he’d returned to live in Newmarket, he could have killed Hutchinson in Ely and easily gone home without attracting attention.

  Hamish was reminding him that a man who had loved Mary Hutchinson would have no reason to kill two other men, even if he’d shot her widower. Had Swift died only to distract the police from the real purpose of the crime?

  That brought him back to why Captain Hutchinson had to be the first to die. The real target . . .

  If that was true, then why shoot Mr. Burrows? An unnecessary risk, surely. And another dead end.

  He spent the night in Cambridge again and arrived in Newmarket early in the morning. Horses were just coming in from their morning gallop, walking single file, their riders hunched in their saddles, thinking about breakfast.

  The better part of the day, Rutledge and the local constable, an affable man called Henry, went searching for any evidence of Mary Hutchinson’s presence here with her uncle before the war, any news of Herbert Swift, or proof that Captain Hutchinson had visited the town.

  Swift, they learned, occasionally followed the horses, but he was generally the guest of an Ely solicitor, a man named Baron.

  Captain Hutchinson had come once or twice in 1919, but always with a group of other young Army officers. No one could recall meeting him in 1914.

  If the two men had crossed paths, there was no record of it.

  As for Mary Hutchinson’s uncle, Thaddeus Whiting, a few of the older trainers and jockeys remembered him and spoke warmly of him. Several recalled meeting his niece, but if she’d formed an attachment for anyone she’d met in Newmarket, they were unaware of it.

  “Does anyone from Burwell or Wriston or Isleham frequent Newmarket?” Rutledge asked Michael Flannery, one of the trainers.

  He smiled. “Of course they do. When they can. But they’re not big punters, they come for the day, enjoy themselves walking around looking at the horses, and then go home. It’s London and the shires that keep us afloat.”

  Rutledge thanked Constable Henry for his time and prepared to drive on to Burwell to look in on Burrows.

  Constable Henry said, “I’ll keep an ear to the ground, if you like, sir. You’ve given me the names. Where can I find you?”

  “Wriston. Or Ely.”

  “That’s fine, then, sir. Safe journey.”

  A safer one than his first visit to the Fen country, he thought as he drove into Burwell late on a windy afternoon.

  Dr. Harris was pleased with the progress Burrows was making. “But it was a near-run thing. Infections like that can be very stubborn. Are you going his way? I’ll release him if you are. He’s to keep that face clean and dry. If he does, he’ll be fine.”

  Rutledge waited while the bandages were changed and Burrows was given instructions about the care of the wound. And then the man came out. He looked better, his face less swollen and his eyes clear. He greeted Rutledge with a nod, turned to thank the doctor, and walked out to the motorcar. His daughter had already returned to Wriston to oversee the farm.

  Waiting until Burrows was out of earshot, Rutledge said to Harris, “If you will, thank your wife for me, and tell her I did as she asked. But I’d like to know the name of the man Mary Hutchinson was engaged to before her marriage. If she can discover that, I’d be grateful. I’ll be in Wriston until this inquiry is finished. Or in Ely.”

  “I’ll pass the word. Thank you for listening to her worries. I don’t know that it was helpful to you, but it will make my own life more comfortable.”

  Rutledge smiled. “I daresay.”

  Burrows was taciturn until they were well out of the village and on the road toward his farm. Even then his conversation turned to what he must do to make up for lost time and how well his daughter had managed in his place.

  There were two questions Rutledge wanted to ask the man, and the first was the most innocuous.

  “I see these fields,” Rutledge said, gesturing to either side of the road. “You can’t manage them with a handful of men.”

  “In the planting and the harvesting, I take on day labor. They know when to come. Some have been stringing the hops in Kent, or harvesting them. Others need work to put food on the table for winter. A few are Travelers—gypsies—who do whatever’s to hand. I keep my eye on them. They’re not to be trusted. But there’s not much to steal. This year we’ve been lucky with the barley. The weather has held, save for the storm the other night. But it’s time to bring it in.” He touched his face. “Bloody man! He’s cost me.” It had been his own intransigence over keeping his wound clean that had sent him to Dr. Harris, but Burrows was having none of that.

  “I assume you know many of the people who come to work. They’re here year after year. Anyone among them who might have something against Herbert Swift?”

  “I can’t see why. They’re in the fields all day, these workers. They don’t go to the pubs, although sometimes they bring in beer without my knowledge. There’s no time to waste in the villages. One or two of the young rascals, yes, but where would they come by a rifle, even if they’d wanted to shoot someone?”

  “From their fathers in the war.”

  “Pshaw. That’s as likely as my daughter shooting him. Except,” he added hastily, “I don’t have a rifle. But you have my shotgun.”

  “It’s in the house now. You’ll see it there. I’d put it away if I were you.”

  “All well and good.” Burrows sat back. “I’ll be getting myself one of these motorcars. One day. I’ve been saving for it. A good harvest this year will see me clear.”

  “Do you often go to Newmarket?”

  He sighed. “Not as often as I’d like. There’s the fields and the cows and never-ending work to repair the banks and keep up the buildings.”

  “Who else from the Fens goes there?”

  “I’ve heard it said that Swift has been there a time or two since the war, with a friend from Ely. He’s—he was no gambler. At a guess, he liked the excitement.”

  “Anyone else?”r />
  Burrows named a dozen or so men, some of them ex-soldiers Rutledge had already interviewed. Among them was the man Thornton. “He’s like so many of the others. The war changed him. He doesn’t go to Newmarket or anywhere else there’s a large gathering. I’ve noticed that.”

  “Know him well, do you?” Rutledge asked casually.

  “Not very well, no. He’s got more money than the rest of us put together. I hear he’s thinking of buying steam tractors for his fields. I’d do it myself, but it’s costly and so far I can find the workers when I need them.”

  “Ever see Captain Hutchinson in Newmarket?”

  “If I did, I don’t recall. He’d have been with a party of friends. We’d have nothing to say to each other except for hello and who do you favor in the next race, while waiting for a drink.”

  Burrows meant that as a generalization, unaware that he’d described Hutchinson well, a man who didn’t waste his time with someone who couldn’t advance his career or introduce him to someone even more important.

  “What about Thaddeus Whiting from Warwick?” Rutledge asked as he pulled into the farm lane.

  Burrows turned to him. “I haven’t heard that name in—what is it?—five years or more. He’s dead now. Why should Scotland Yard be interested in him?”

  Because, Rutledge wanted to say, I spent five or six hours in Newmarket searching for information about the man and learned nothing.

  “His name came up. Hutchinson’s wife was his niece,” he told Burrows.

  “Well, I’ll be damned. My daughter met her once. She wasn’t married then, was she? It was the year before the war, 1913. Shy girl, but very pleasant.”

  “I’m told she was later engaged to someone she’d met at Newmarket before she was introduced to Hutchinson,” Rutledge continued.

  “Was she now? I can’t think who that would be. My daughter might know.”

  But Miss Burrows, delighted and wary over her father’s return, gave Mary Whiting Hutchinson scarcely a moment’s thought.

  “We didn’t keep in touch,” she said as her father carried on into the house, her gaze following him. “I liked her. But she wasn’t engaged to anyone then. She’d have told me. There was someone she was seeing, I think, but I couldn’t tell you whether he was at Newmarket or not that year.” Miss Burrows smiled. “We spent an afternoon together. If he’d been there, she might not have had the afternoon free.”