by Charles Todd
Rutledge pressed, but that was all that Swift could remember. And then only because of his brother’s reaction.
As he was leaving, he asked Swift if he was still worried about being a victim himself.
Shrugging, he said, “There’s the farm. I don’t have time to worry. But I keep a sharp eye out, all the same.”
Driving on to Burwell, he sought out Mrs. Harris, telling her a little of what he’d learned in London.
“I can’t think why Alice couldn’t have helped the police. But she was Mary’s only friend, and I expect she still feels strongly about what happened to her.”
“And she said nothing to you about the man Mary had met, who he was, where he came from?”
“I don’t think it mattered to her,” Mrs. Harris said slowly. “He didn’t come to Mary’s rescue. No white horse, no shining armor. He left her to her fate.”
“Perhaps he didn’t know. Or perhaps she sent him away and asked him not to spoil her happiness.”
“If he didn’t know then, in the end I think he did. Alice wrote to him, I’m sure of it. She told me she was going to. I tried to talk her out of it, and she didn’t mention it again. But I know her, you see. She wrote that letter and she sent it. She felt that strongly about what happened.” She lifted her hand in a rueful gesture. “I always wondered what he made of her letter, if he was in France somewhere, fighting the Germans. Helpless to do anything. If he wanted to kill that man Hutchinson, why didn’t he do it then? Men were dying every day.”
“It’s possible their paths never crossed.”
“Well, there’s that, I suppose.”
“If you could persuade her to change her mind, I’d be grateful.”
“That would be the same as sending him to the hangman. I’ll have to think about that. I don’t feel as fiercely about this matter as Alice does, but I’d hate to think my actions condemned anyone.”
“It’s possible he’s killed two people.”
“Yes, that’s true. But why should he have shot Herbert Swift?”
And that was unanswerable. An opportunity to cast doubt on why Captain Hutchinson had to die? It always came back to that question.
Hamish said, “There could be two men. One who wanted Swift dead and the ither who wanted yon Captain dead.”
That was possible. An unassailable alibi for one murder would tend to make the police think that that person was in the clear. But it was highly unlikely. How had the two men met and decided on murder? Why would they trust each other? And why should the owner of the Lee-Enfield need a partner when he could make his own kill so cleverly? It was the second victim that brought Scotland Yard into the picture—an unnecessary risk for Hutchinson’s murderer, who had gone scot-free.
There had to be more than a love affair gone wrong to make someone kill twice and then wound a third victim. Unless the point was to confound the police. A cold-blooded decision.
He thanked Mrs. Harris and drove back to Wriston as quickly as possible, walking into the police station to ask Constable McBride for the key to Herbert Swift’s house.
McBride said, “Everything was in order there. Inspector Warren was with me when I searched.”
“I’m sure that’s true. All the same, I’d like to look at some of his cases.”
Reluctantly Constable McBride got to his feet, taking a key from the drawer of his desk. “It’s beyond the second green. The Swift house.”
They walked there in silence. McBride unlocked the door and stood aside.
The house smelled damp and musty, the faintest odor of cigarette smoke lingering in the air as well.
Swift had taken over a smaller house next to his, opened up a passage between them, and used that as his chambers. As they went down the passage, it creaked a little. And then they were in the cottage. The front room had become a waiting room, what would have been a bedroom had become an office, and the room in back was where his clerk must have worked.
“He had a clerk,” Rutledge said. “What’s become of him?”
“He went home to Norfolk,” McBride said simply. “When we locked up here. These files will have to be turned over to someone to sort out.”
Rutledge spent an hour going through past cases that Swift had handled. For the most part they were conveyances, wills, property settlements, and so on. Swift had been involved in three criminal cases. One was trespass, where two cousins had argued over an inheritance and the elder of the two had come looking for the younger, intending to teach him a lesson. Another was a drunken brawl ending in bodily harm, and the third was housebreaking, by what appeared to be a Traveler. They had been tried in Ely, and two of them had ended in guilty pleas. Only the two cousins had insisted on trial before they were satisfied. But there was nothing in any file to make Swift a target for revenge.
After a thorough search of the office, they went back to the main house.
If Swift had been guarding any secrets, they hadn’t found them.
The sun was setting when they locked the door and walked down the green toward the police station. Once again the sky was radiant, ablaze with color from the softest lavender to a flaming red.
“I’ve never quite got used to the sunsets,” McBride said into the silence. “I’ve only to step out of an evening, and there it is, surely different each time I look up. I was talking to a man who loved the mountains, and I asked him if he ever felt cut off, like. With no horizon, just more mountains shutting out the view. But it didn’t appear to bother him.”
Rutledge left him at the police station and walked on toward The Dutchman Inn.
A boy rolling a hoop came running down the street and nearly collided with Rutledge. Laughing, he ran on, the hoop bouncing and wobbling over the ruts in the road.
Hamish was asking, “Did ye no’ think of leaving the farmer out of it?”
“Because he was wounded, when the man with the rifle could very easily have killed him?”
“Aye, it doesna’ make sense.”
“Unless his conscience troubled him.”
“Aye, but would it? It’s possible, ye ken, that he was intended to mislead.”
“But the killer came back.”
“Aye, someone did.”
The presence of the dog had been a deterrent, because it meant that no one could steal up close enough to the house to see the man inside. And so there was nothing to show what the intentions of the intruder were. Still—he knew he’d missed . . .
Thornton had shown no signs of having been wounded by Burrows’s shot. He didn’t limp. There were no obvious bandages. Surely if he’d bled enough to leave traces on the ground, he’d have still been showing the effects of his injury.
“There’s still Swift,” Hamish was saying. “He claims he wasna’ fashed with his brother o’er the inheriting of the farm. Ye have only his word.”
“He was nervous when first I arrived at his door.”
“Aye, he said he was afraid he might be next. But it’s possible he was afraid of Scotland Yard.”
“Why shoot Hutchinson first? If he’d been found out, Swift would still be alive.”
“Aye.”
He’d reached the inn, and for a moment considered walking on as far as the mill. There would be an even better view of the sunset from the little bridge.
On impulse, he did just that. He was watching the sun dip into the horizon when he was distracted by Hamish.
Frowning, he tried to see what was there in the middle distance. A man? Standing there for the same reason Rutledge had come to the bridge?
But the figure was in the middle of nowhere. What was he doing there? Where had he come from—where was he going?
Remembering the lights in the fields and the man he himself had encountered in the mist, Rutledge gauged the distance. Too far to run, but with his motorcar . . .
He turned quickly a
nd ran in the opposite direction, toward the inn.
Turning the crank at speed, he nearly got caught by the backlash. Swearing under his breath, he got in and drove out of the village as far as the bridge.
The sun had gone down but the afterglow was dulling toward dark. He peered into the distance. The figure he’d seen was still there.
Turning in that direction, he headed straight for the figure.
And then it was gone. Rutledge blinked, peering out the windscreen. Whoever it was couldn’t disappear into thin air.
Had the man seen the motorcar coming and chose to get off the road? But where to?
Down one of the embankments? Rutledge flicked on his headlamps.
If he was wearing dark clothing, he’d be the devil to find against the black soil.
Arriving where he thought the figure might have been standing, he pulled over and stopped. Reaching for his torch, he began to search the fields on either side of him.
Where the devil was he?
Rutledge walked some twenty paces forward, casting the torch beam to either side. Then he walked back to the motorcar and kept going for another twenty paces or more.
Nothing.
How had he vanished? Where had he gone?
He moved the motorcar forward twenty yards, and tried again.
His torch skimmed the black, peaty soil, the browning stalks of what must be barley, and then he crossed to the far side of the road.
Frustrated, Rutledge spent half an hour hunting for whoever it was. He came up empty-handed.
Finally returning to the motorcar and carefully reversing on the narrow road, he went back the way he’d come. And as he drove toward Wriston, he had the oddest feeling that somewhere in the darkness out there to either side of his headlamps, the man he’d seen was watching him go, and laughing.
Over dinner he asked Priscilla Bartram who might be out late, walking on the road.
“Hard to say. One of the farm tenants coming back from the fields? He’d know his way. Or a Traveler, up to no good. Even a tradesman, caught out after making a delivery.”
But what tradesman walked? What goods could he carry, without so much as a barrow or bicycle?
He must have appeared to be skeptical, for Miss Bartram glanced at her kitchen windows, where the curtains had been drawn against the night.
“You don’t think it could be the killer, do you?” She crossed to the door into the kitchen garden and tested the latch. “One can’t be too careful. I’ve been thinking of getting a little dog. For company. I hear Mr. Taylor’s bitch has had a litter.”
And for protection?
How long had she lived alone in this house, without feeling the need for a dog?
A moth, drawn by the light, in spite of the curtains, threw itself at the glass, and she nearly dropped the spoon in her hand, turning toward the window. Then, feeling a little embarrassed, she said, “I shan’t forgive whoever it is who did these murders. He’s taken away my peace of mind.”
“I don’t think you have anything to fear.”
“He walked into the ironmonger’s house, didn’t he? How did he know they weren’t at home? What if Mrs. Ross had been lying down with a headache, and her husband had left her there while he went out to the rally? What then?”
It wasn’t the first time Rutledge had wondered about such a possibility.
But he said, “He could have knocked at the door out to the kitchen garden. And when no one came, he walked in.”
“I still say, what if Mrs. Ross was resting, a cool cloth over her forehead, and didn’t hear the knock.”
He had no answer for that.
The next morning brought news that Ruskin, the cooper in Soham, had gone on a rampage in the night, wielding a side ax. It was a blade that was razor sharp on one side and dull on the other, with the typical short handle that coopers used in the close-quarter work of their trade.
It could do serious damage, wielded as a weapon.
Because he’d been on the ex-soldier list, Rutledge went to Soham to interview him, and found him in the local police station with a heavy head.
Ruskin looked up as the cell door opened, and Rutledge stood there in front of him.
“What happened?” Rutledge asked. He’d asked the constable to stay in the tiny office and give him time alone with the man.
Ruskin buried his face in his hands. “I’d been to the pub, and I didn’t want to go home. There’s a cot in the loft of the shed, and I thought to sleep off most of what I’d drunk before my wife saw me. That’s all I remember. Then I was back in Wriston, and the man in the window was shooting at me.” He sighed, looking up at Rutledge. “Constable says I was running down the lane shouting and waving the side ax. I was looking for someone, and I was going to kill him. I’m told it was the hurdle maker I was chasing. I must have frightened him out of his wits. Then some men wrestled me down, took away the side ax, and held me until the constable came. One of them flung a pail of water over my head. By that time I was nearly sober. They clapped me up here for the night, all the same.”
“Why were you searching for the hurdle maker?”
“God knows. I doubt I’ve exchanged a dozen words with him. Besides, it had more to do with the night Swift was killed. The nightmares came back after that. A time or two I’ve tried to drink myself into forgetting.”
That didn’t work. Rutledge had tried it, found it made the nightmares harder to escape, and gave it up. But Ruskin would have to learn it for himself.
“Nothing happened at your shop after you got there last night? No one came to see you?”
“How do I know? I don’t remember, I tell you. It’s a blank, until I started dreaming.”
“Then it was what you saw in Wriston.”
“It must have been.” He shivered. “I didn’t want to kill anyone. I didn’t want to be killed.”
But what had triggered this particular nightmare?
Looking at Ruskin, he thought it was likely that the man himself would never know. It was locked in his mind with the war he wanted to forget.
Still, Rutledge tried. He kept his voice level, quiet.
“Was it a sniper, Ruskin? One of our sharpshooters?”
“No. No.” Ruskin shook his head. “Don’t ask me, don’t make me remember.”
“Then it was German. Am I right?”
Finally, Ruskin looked up, his eyes dark with pain. “It was outside Ypres. I saw him. Staring straight at me. I knew he was going to fire. And I threw myself to one side. But the man behind me didn’t see him. Not in time. And he took the bullet meant for me. It was my fault.”
Rutledge put a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “You needn’t think about it again,” he said firmly. “You’ve done your duty.”
Ruskin didn’t answer, enveloped in a misery that nothing could stop. After a moment, unable to watch, Rutledge left.
He went to speak to the constable.
“Now he’s sober, sir, we’ll let him go with a warning. If it happens again, I’ll have to charge him. That side ax could cleave a man’s skull.”
“He can’t help responding the way he has.”
“That may be, sir, but we can’t let him endanger himself or others.”
The constable was too young to have been in the war. He’d been sent to fill the shoes of an older man on the point of retiring, and he took his duties seriously.
“Lost your father in the war, did you?”
“Sir, yes. Early on.”
Rutledge thanked him and took his leave.
Driving out of Soham, he said aloud, “I find it hard to believe Ruskin saw a German.”
“Aye, that’s true.”
“Perhaps he saw what he feared to see.”
“Aye, it’s why ye never look into a mirror.”
Trying to ignore that remark, Rut
ledge knew the answer must be there, in the depths of memory. He couldn’t quite reach it . . .
Something he’d been told? Something he’d seen? A passing comment, a remark overheard. What was it?
Instead of driving on to Wriston, he decided to go to Isleham instead.
Rutledge found Thornton at home.
The man was surprised to see him. “I can’t think why you’ve found it necessary to call on me again. But I’ll help in any way I can,” he said as Rutledge was ushered into the room with the globe and the maps and the books.
“I’ve been to see the cooper in Soham. The man called Ruskin. Do you know him?”
“I can’t say that I’ve ever met him. Still, I’m sure we must own some of his wares. You can ask my housekeeper, if you like.”
“He had a difficult war. Last night he ran amok, thinking he was being hunted by the man who’d killed Swift. He saw him, by the way. Just as Mrs. Percy had.”
“Did he indeed,” Thornton said, his eyes narrowing. “How did he describe this person?”
“He said he was a German sharpshooter.”
Thornton stared at him. “Good God. He can’t be serious.”
“The hurdle maker didn’t find it amusing.”
“Are you saying Ruskin killed him?”
“Only that he was on a rampage and the hurdle maker got in the way. He wasn’t hurt, as far as I am aware.”
“But why did he think Swift’s killer was German?”
“I’m not sure he did. But whatever he saw, it triggered that memory.”
“They were devilishly clever at making themselves invisible. It was usually something in the landscape, something we’d never think twice about. That was early on, of course, before we knew what they were up to,” Thornton said. “One of the worst we faced was in the stump of a dead tree. They’d reinforced it. We couldn’t touch him. He was out of grenade range as well. Hardly the sort of thing you’d see in a dormer window.”
