No Shred of Evidence

by Charles Todd

  “Even the most desperate criminal wouldn’t have attacked Vicar,” the constable was saying. “He’d have given them whatever they wanted.”

  Then who had?

  Rutledge turned to Pendennis. “Show me where he was found.”

  They set out on foot, and soon began to pick out across the scrub­land and the fields small groups of men searching.

  “They won’t find anybody,” Pendennis said, echoing his own thought.

  “Probably not. But a search had to be made. Did Toup have any enemies?”

  “ ’Course not. He was Vicar.”

  “Then who would attack him?”

  “How do I know? A prisoner, escaped from Bodmin Moor?”

  “It would only serve to give him away. No.”

  “If Vicar knew him, and could tell me where he was?”

  It was possible. And just now, there was nothing else to go on.

  The stone where the vicar had been found looked to be the stump of an ancient cross, or even part of an ancient circle. It was some twenty feet off the narrow path where cattle followed the same route day in and day out to their pasture. Out of the way, no house to overlook the spot.

  There was blood at the base of the rough plinth. Toup had bled quite a bit before he was discovered. To one side lay his gold pince-­nez, one of the lenses missing. Casting about, Rutledge found the lens some four or five feet away. Collecting both pieces, he put them into his pocket.

  The constable swore under his breath. “Bastard,” he said, more loudly.

  Rutledge continued to search for anything that might have been used for a weapon, but in the high grass, already trampled nearer the stone where men had come to bring in the unconscious man, there was nothing large enough except for more stones. And such a beating would have required something more easily grasped than a stone.

  He widened his circle, and about five yards away he found a ragged scrap of dusty cloth caught in a thornbush about shoulder high. It was black, and he thought at first it had been torn from the vicar’s coat or trousers, but when he looked at it more closely, he saw that it was a thin, very cheap cotton. How long had it been there, hooked by the thorn? The black dye was slightly faded, beginning to brown. But that was not a good indication of anything but the age of the fabric.

  He gently pulled it free and put it in his pocket. Another bit of cloth, he thought wryly, and just as useless.

  He widened his search again. And at last, nearer the path some twenty feet farther on, he found what he was seeking.

  It was a cudgel, about five feet long and nearly two inches thick, rough wood smoothed by time. The sort of thing a countryman or a walker might use to make the going easier. It had been broken, but not in two, some splinters still holding the halves together. And there was blood all over one end of it.

  He hadn’t used his hands. Whoever he was.

  And he’d had no choice but to rid himself of this, flinging it as far away as he could in his haste to be gone.

  Rutledge crouched beside it, studying it. He could see where it must have struck the stone where the vicar had been discovered. Toup must have stumbled toward it in the first seconds of the attack, desperate to escape the sudden, brutal blows. He couldn’t have gone far with that broken leg, Rutledge thought. That must surely have been the last blow.

  “Over here,” he called to the constable.

  Pendennis came at a trot, then looked down at the cudgel. “Almighty God,” he said under his breath. “Who could do such a thing to an unarmed man? A man of the cloth?”

  The questions weren’t asked of Rutledge. Pendennis turned, made it as far as a small clump of grass five feet away, and bent over, vomiting.

  Rutledge gave him time to recover, then picked up the cudgel.

  There was absolutely no way to identify it.

  “Where does this track lead? The one the boy was on?”

  “To Half Acre Farm. There’s no one there could do this. I’ve known the family all my life. They wouldn’t have touched Mr. Toup.”

  “Why was he on the way there? Are they his parishioners?”

  Pendennis said, “They are.”

  Rutledge set out for the farm, still holding the cudgel, keeping it free of the ground. After a moment the constable came after him, and they walked in single file to the house.

  It was a typical Cornish farmhouse, tall, foursquare, two storeys, no adornment. A rough door set in the stone was the entrance. And it stood open.

  Rutledge knocked at the frame and called out, “Is anyone at home?”

  A middle-­aged woman came from a back room, saw the stranger at her door, and paled. And then the constable stepped up behind Rutledge, and she smiled nervously.

  “Constable? How is Vicar? And who is this?”

  “Mrs. Terlew,” he greeted her. “Vicar is with the doctor now. Dr. Carrick. And this is Inspector Rutledge, from London. He’s been looking into the death of young Mr. Saunders. He’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  She didn’t appear to be too pleased, but she nodded to Rutledge.

  “Mr. Toup had told me earlier that he was on his way to call on someone. Was he coming here, do you think?”

  “My mother-­in-­law,” she said, gesturing to the room she’d just left. “She’s been poorly for several days and won’t hear of having in the doctor. Mr. Toup promised he’d stop by when he could. But he never set a time. We hadn’t seen him this week, until my lad found him on the road.”

  Had someone followed Toup from the vicarage to that lonely place in the road where an attack was possible? Where no one could hear the vicar’s cries, and his attacker could disappear as easily as he’d come?

  “Here, you aren’t thinking my boy did this?” she asked sharply when he didn’t immediately respond.

  “I don’t think he physically could.” Rutledge held up the cudgel, and she stared at it.

  “Was that what was used?” She shook her head in dismay. “I have never seen a man so badly beaten. I didn’t know if he was alive, when I ran toward where he lay. I wasn’t sure he would live to be taken back to the village. Who could have been so vicious, and toward a man of the cloth? ” Another thought struck her. She said anxiously, “He couldn’t have mistaken Mr. Toup for my husband? He wasn’t waiting for him, was he?”

  “Where is Mr. Terlew?”

  “He’s gone to a fair over to Camelford. They have a few ewes for sale. He left in the afternoon, yesterday, and I’m not expecting him back until tomorrow.”

  Near the hearth in this room was a small spinning wheel, and he could just see the edge of a loom in the room where her mother-­in-­law was coughing with the deep, chesty sound of old age. He wondered which of the women was a weaver. Certainly the shawl across Mrs. Terlew’s shoulders was a fine piece of workmanship in shades of gray and green.

  “Does your husband look anything like the vicar?”

  “He’s as broad as Vicar is thin,” Pendennis answered for her. “I can’t think he would be mistook for Vicar.”

  “And you’ve seen no strangers passing the house?”

  “The only person to come by here was the St. Ives lad. That was early on. He walks at night and sometimes goes too far before dawn catches him out.”

  “I didn’t know he could walk,” Rutledge said, surprised.

  “It’s painful, must be, but he manages somehow. I never see him in the village, only out in the fields where no one can watch him. He doesn’t care for pity. I turn my back when he’s passing. He seems to prefer it that way.”

  “Does he carry a cane, when he walks? To help him?”

  “He used two sticks in the beginning, but only one of late. But here, you can’t think he could have done this?”

  “He may have seen someone on the road,” he replied, not wanting to feed the rumors that would be flying until who
ever had done this was caught. But he found himself wondering if St. Ives had resorted to the cudgel to make it easier to bring the vicar down. If swinging it was easier than a cane . . .

  There was nothing more to be gained by keeping her from her mother-­in-­law. She’d already cast a glance or two over her shoulder when the coughing was particularly thick. He thanked her and they left, but not before she made the constable promise to let her know how Vicar was faring.

  When they were out of earshot, Rutledge said to Pendennis, “Could Toup’s attacker have been St. Ives?”

  “Why would he harm Vicar?”

  “What precisely is the matter with St. Ives?” He had been told about the burns, but only in general terms.

  “I’m not all that certain. As Mrs. Terlew says, he stays close to home. But sometimes he takes it in his head to wander farther afield late at night. Better him than me. We stay close at night; there are things in the dark you’d not want to encounter,” Pendennis said darkly. “But then he’d been sent away to school as a boy. He might not remember what’s out there.”

  But Trevose wasn’t afraid to walk to the village after dark . . .

  “Difficult terrain for a man with a walking stick.” It was rough ground even here on the path they were following, let alone in the fields.

  “Still. As Mrs. Terlew said. ­People do see him from time to time. He does no harm.”

  If it wasn’t St. Ives, who else had traveled this path, so early this morning?

  Meanwhile, the cudgel would go into the boot of his car for safekeeping.

  13

  The vicar was still in the cell, although his housekeeper or someone had brought down pillows and bedding, in an attempt to make him more comfortable. Dr. Carrick was worried about moving him again—­being transported from Half Acre Farm had been difficult enough for someone in his condition. And that had not changed for the better.

  The first of the searchers came in several hours later, reporting to Pendennis that they had found no one who was likely to have attacked the vicar. More to the point, they had seen no strangers, nor had those they’d questioned.

  “But it’s fairly open ground, where they were looking. A stranger would have stood out for some distance,” Pendennis explained to Rutledge after he had thanked the men and sent them to the pub for something to eat.

  Still, there was the occasional wind-­twisted tree that broke the horizon in some places, and if a walker could gain that before he was spotted, he might not be seen.

  He waited until three more search parties returned with no news before walking down to the inn and his motorcar.

  Driving on to Chough Hall, he discovered that Mr. St. Ives himself was at home, and in a far from friendly mood.

  “Rutledge,” he said, when he strode into the sitting room where Rutledge had been taken by the maid who answered the door. “I hope you have better news than on your last visit to Grenville’s house.”

  “I’m afraid not. I wonder if I might speak to your son.”

  “To George?” St. Ives repeated blankly. “What the devil for?”

  “I understand from your daughter that the four women rowed as far as the back garden of this house, and called to your son, who happened to be on the terrace at that moment.”

  “And what if they did?”

  “I’d like to verify that by speaking to him,” Rutledge replied blandly.

  “My daughter doesn’t lie,” he said harshly. “And George is resting just now. He had a bad night.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it. But I must speak with him. I will gladly go to his room, if that would be more comfortable for him.”

  “I tell you he’s not receiving visitors today. Including the police.”

  “What precisely happened to your son in France, St. Ives?”

  His face twisted in a grimace. “He was badly wounded,” he said evasively after a moment. “And before he could be sent back to an aid station, he was taken prisoner by the Germans. He didn’t receive the medical treatment he should have done. Not their fault, possibly. He tells me they did their best. Still, there you are.”

  “Can he walk?”

  Affronted, St. Ives snapped, “Of course he can walk.” But the bitterness in his eyes belied that.

  “How far can he walk, if he leaves this house?”

  “I thought you had come about the man on the terrace.”

  “And so I did. But you refused to allow me to speak to him. And I must know why.”

  “I have told you, he’s resting.”

  “And I have a witness who saw him walking near Half Acre Farm quite early this morning.”

  St. Ives gawked at him. It was the only word to describe his expression. Recovering, he said, “You’re a liar.”

  “I have no reason to lie. If you like, I’ll take you to speak to the person who saw him.”

  “Wait here.”

  St. Ives left the room and shut the door behind him. Rutledge could almost follow him in his mind. Down the passage, up the stairs, down another passage to the room where George St. Ives was resting. To ask him if the man from London had lied.

  He was gone for some time. Rutledge waited patiently. Whatever was going to happen in that room upstairs, he wanted to know the outcome.

  The door opened unexpectedly. St. Ives walked in, his eyes on Rutledge.

  “I owe you an apology, sir. You were telling the truth. George has been walking after dark, when he couldn’t sleep. To strengthen his legs. He didn’t want me to know because he wanted to surprise me.” He looked away. “George is my heir. I had despaired of him taking over after I’m dead.” There was a change in his voice. Rutledge recognized what it was he heard: hope.

  “I’m sorry to have ruined his surprise. I still need to speak to him.”

  “That’s quite impossible.”

  “Perhaps you haven’t heard what happened today. Mr. Toup was savagely beaten this morning on his way to call on a parishioner. We’ve been searching for his attacker. As your son was in the vicinity of the attack, he may have seen someone. It could help us find out who did this.”

  “Toup?” St. Ives frowned. “I thought you had come to verify that my son was on the terrace when the Grenville girl rowed that boat upriver.”

  “That too.” He walked to the window and then turned. “I may have two crimes on my hands, St. Ives. The Chief Constable hasn’t requested the Yard’s assistance in regard to Toup, but it’s likely that he will as soon as a report reaches him. And then there’s the matter of your daughter and the others. That, of course, is my priority. But as I was on the scene at the time of the attack, I must do what I can. Men are searching the fields and farms right now.”

  “Your task is to keep my daughter and the others safe,” St. Ives told him bluntly. “I can’t think who would want to harm Mr. Toup. And I’m sure it’s of great concern to everyone—­”

  “You haven’t seen the vicar, St. Ives. How he survived is a question that Dr. Carrick has been asking all morning. Anything your son can do to help us find this person would be appreciated.”

  But it was clear that St. Ives had no intention of allowing Rutledge to speak to his son.

  As he left the house and turned the motorcar back toward the village, Rutledge wondered why.

  And that led him to stop at Padstow Place and ask to speak to Grenville. He had gone out, Rutledge was told, to a tenant farm. Rutledge took a sheet from his notebook and left a message for him, informing him of the attack on the vicar. That done, he asked the maid to summon Elaine St. Ives.

  When she came into the drawing room, he could see that she had been crying.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, offering her his handkerchief.

  She unfolded it with the intentness of someone opening a gift, but then her control broke, and she buried her face in it.

  He le
t her cry. There wasn’t much else he could do. When she was at the stage of hiccupping sobs, he turned from the window where he’d gone to stand, and asked gently, “What’s upset you?”

  “I miss my home—­my father and my brother. My dog. I like it here well enough, but it isn’t home, is it? And I must stay in my room now. I can’t even walk out in the garden, and they’re bringing our meals up to us. It makes me feel as if I’ve done something wrong, and I haven’t! I didn’t hurt Harry Saunders, I didn’t want him to die, but he has, and now there’s nothing to be done but wait.”

  “Tell me about your brother,” he said, leading her to a chair with a hand at her elbow, and then taking the one opposite her.

  “George has changed since the war. I expect it was what happened to many men. But he’s my brother, and I’ve had to learn to look at him now without flinching.”

  “Because of his legs?”

  “Yes, they’re twisted somehow. I’m not supposed to tell anyone. And I can’t explain it. He walks rather like a crab, and he was such a good horseman. And an excellent cricket player. But the worst of it is his face. It’s terribly scarred. I hardly knew him when he finally came home from hospital. I hadn’t seen him there, you see. He didn’t want us to come. And the marks on his face were still raw-­looking, red and puffy and still draining in some places. Victoria hasn’t seen him. He won’t talk about her or see her. It’s rather dreadful. But the worst of it is his temper. He rails against his wounds sometimes, and throws things. Or uses his canes to thrash about his room. I hear him sometimes at night, and I want to cry. Papa tries to pretend everything is as it was, but it isn’t. It won’t ever be again.”

  He thought she was going to weep once more, but she pulled herself together with a sniff, and said, “I shouldn’t be telling you this. I promised Papa that I would never speak of George’s injuries to anyone. Most especially not to Victoria. If pressed, I was only to say he’d been burned.”

  They were back to Victoria Grenville. Everything seemed to come round to her. Even what had happened to the vicar? “Does she ask about him?”