No Shred of Evidence

by Charles Todd

  He thanked Pendennis, went back for his motorcar, and drove up to the vicarage. But aside from mutterings in his sleep, most of them unintelligible, Toup had hardly spoken the few times he had awakened.

  “He asked for water, and a little after that, I gave him some broth I’d made up in case. He drank a little of that at two o’clock, then again a few minutes ago.”

  Rutledge went to the sickroom and looked in. Toup lay staring up at the ceiling. But he turned his head when Rutledge knocked. “Is that rain I hear?”

  “It is.”

  “It keeps me awake. Picking at the window as if someone is there. I must attend to my duties. There are ­people who need my care. And who is to take the Sunday ser­vice?” His voice had turned fretful. “I don’t know why I must lie here. But Mrs. Daniels tells me I mustn’t try to get up. And why is my leg pinned down?”

  “It’s broken, and Dr. Carrick has put a splint on it to keep it still as it heals.”

  “They must be giving me something.” His fingers worked at the coverlet. “I have such violent dreams. Will you ask Mrs. Daniels to stop?”

  There were no medicines, not even for pain.

  Rutledge said, “What sort of dreams?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t remember them. But they frighten me. I want them to stop.”

  He said lightly, “It’s the blow on the head, I expect. Don’t let them worry you. If you remember any of them, I’d like to know. I might be able to help you to understand them. Will you tell Mrs. Daniels to summon me, if you do?”

  “I don’t trust her,” he said, that fretful note still in his voice. “She must be drugging me. It’s the only thing I can think of.”

  “I’ll have Dr. Carrick look in on you. If there’s anything wrong, he’ll deal with it.”

  The vicar looked at Rutledge. “Thank you. It’s most kind of you.”

  Rutledge rose from Mrs. Daniels’s chair. “You will tell me, if you remember who attacked you? Even if it’s someone you know?”

  Toup said, looking away again, “I don’t remember.”

  But Rutledge wondered if that were true. Something in the man’s eyes was different today. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was, but he found it worrying nonetheless.

  From the vicarage, Rutledge drove on to Padstow Place and was admitted to the drawing room, where Mr. and Mrs. Grenville were gathering before dinner.

  Mrs. Grenville put her hand to her mouth to stifle a gasp as she saw Rutledge’s face. Grenville looked sharply at him. “What’s happened?”

  “There was someone outside the vicarage last night. I tried to stop him. It wasn’t very successful.”

  “Was there, by God. Did you get a look at him?” Grenville asked.

  “No, it was too dark. But there is other news of a sort. The vicar is awake. He appears to have no memory of what happened to him. He keeps asking questions about it. Do you know of anyone who could have done this? Someone who used to live in the village or in Padstow and had had words with Toup? Or confessed something to him that perhaps he later regretted?”

  “I would have said,” Grenville responded slowly, “that if any man in the county was less likely to have enemies, it was Toup. There’s never even been a problem over the years. I can’t understand it.”

  “Does he have friends who ought to be told what’s happened? Perhaps someone in London? Relatives?” He’d already asked Pendennis but Grenville was likely to know more.

  “His aunt lives in Ipswich. She’s in her nineties by now, I should think. As for London, I can’t remember his ever mentioning any friends there. I’m in town often, and he’s never asked me to look in on anyone or carry a message for him.”

  Rutledge said, “On a different matter entirely. Who took your rowboat across the river this morning?”

  “The rowboat?” Grenville’s brows rose in surprise. “No one from this house.”

  “Not even one of your tenants, intending to visit a friend across the river?”

  “To my knowledge, none of our staff has relatives in Rock.” He turned to his wife. “My dear?”

  She shook her head. “They come from Padstow or Wadebridge. There isn’t that much exchange between Rock and this side of the river. Why do you think someone took it across there?”

  “I saw it beached on the strand below Rock. And when I came out to look, it had been in the water. Very recently.”

  “I don’t like the sound of this,” Grenville snapped. “It’s private property there, and that includes the rowboat.” He was angry now.

  “Perhaps one of the neighbors borrowed it without asking, knowing you wouldn’t mind? St. Ives, perhaps?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. He would most certainly ask. And in light of the role the rowboat played in the accusations against my daughter and her friends, I can’t imagine anyone would think I’d give my permission to use it. For any reason.”

  “Any news regarding my daughter?” Mrs. Grenville asked. “Surely you’ve found something that would help us? This waiting for word has taken a toll on all of us. You must see that.”

  “There has been a singular lack of evidence to work with,” he told her. “But someone had interfered with Saunders’s dinghy. That’s why it sank under him. The surprise is that he had got as far as he had before it took on enough water to go down.”

  Victoria Grenville’s parents stared at him.

  Grenville said, “This is the first I’ve heard of anyone meddling with the dinghy. Why wasn’t I informed?”

  “It was a police matter. There were holes in the fabric of the hull.” He explained what he had found, and added, “This casts a different light on the circumstances surrounding why Harry Saunders was in the water to start with. The problem is, it doesn’t explain away the injury to his head. And that is what killed him.”

  “On the other hand,” Grenville said, his voice hard, “there is no proof that the injury didn’t occur when he foundered.”

  “Will you trust a jury to make that choice?”

  Grenville looked down at the drink in his hand. After a moment he looked up at Rutledge. “Then find that proof, Inspector. It’s what you are here for.”

  He could have challenged that, but it would change very little.

  “Have you found the missing statements?” Mrs. Grenville asked, quickly trying to shift the subject.

  “I’m afraid not. But they become less and less urgent as we learn more. Do either of you know the name of the young woman whom Toup claimed to be his cousin, visiting in Rock?”

  “We were never introduced,” Mrs. Grenville said. “I found that rather odd, but she seemed to be such a shy little thing. I expect she was more comfortable at St. Marina’s where no one pressed her with questions or invitations. And I remember too, speaking to Mr. Toup about her, that he said she had recently been ill, although she appeared to me to have fully recovered. Except for the shadows around her eyes. But you didn’t notice them particularly at a distance.”

  Rutledge hadn’t been told she had been ill. Was that another lie? Or the truth?

  “Are you acquainted with anyone living in Mayfair?” he asked, and gave the name and street address.

  Frowning, Mrs. Grenville said, “I don’t recognize the name or the address. My dear?”

  Grenville was shaking his head. “No one I know. The name isn’t familiar.”

  So much for that. Then why had Toup kept that slip of paper in his pocket?

  He thanked them and then asked to see Kate Gordon.

  “It’s the dinner hour,” Mrs. Grenville said.

  “I shan’t keep her long,” he replied.

  Grenville sent for her, and allowed Rutledge to use the study for the interview.

  When Kate walked in, she stared in horror at his face.

  “Ian—­what happened to you?”

 
“It isn’t as bad as it looks,” he said, smiling, though it hurt to do it.

  She came up to him and examined the cut and the bruise more closely. He had forgot she met the trains with the wounded, and might know more about wounds than he’d expected. “That isn’t true. Someone hit you, and very hard.” She put out her hand as if to touch his face, then flushed a little and stepped back, letting it drop to her side.

  “That’s not why I came. Kate, you and Victoria Grenville have known each other for some time. Do you remember attending parties with her in Mayfair, at this address?”

  He gave it to her. And he could tell, before she answered him, that it was not one she was acquainted with.

  “Should I know it? I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “No matter. Is it possible for any of you to leave Padstow Place, without attracting attention?”

  She gave him a wry smile. “I haven’t tried. I shouldn’t care to face Mr. Grenville’s wrath.”

  “Even Victoria?”

  “I heard her complaining to him only yesterday that he was too strict, that she was heartily sick of her room. But he didn’t relent. She wanted to come downstairs for tea, and to play the piano.”

  “Perhaps her mother is kinder.”

  “I don’t quite understand why, but Mrs. Grenville appears to be even more worried than her husband, if that’s possible. She is just as strict with the maids—­they aren’t allowed to linger in our rooms, or gossip.”

  He remembered that there was someone in this house whose gossip had reached the ears of the Saunders staff.

  “Why do you ask?” she inquired, when he said nothing.

  “It’s my duty to be sure that the Grenvilles take theirs seriously.”

  He had one more question for her. “Have you ever heard Victoria speak of George St. Ives?”

  “Only in passing. Remembering when her brother was still alive, mostly. I’ve never met him, but she has said he was badly wounded in the war and that we mustn’t stare if we encounter him. I think she pities him.”

  And pity was something a man like St. Ives would deplore, if he knew. “Has Elaine ever commented on her brother’s feelings for Victoria?”

  Kate frowned as she searched her memory. “Several times she’s mentioned how happy she would have been to be mistress of this house, and how she wished Victoria could marry her brother as well and live at Chough Hall. And then they could go on as before, the four of them, their children growing up together. Now, of course, Victoria will be mistress here instead.”

  Rutledge walked to the window and back. “In your heart of hearts, Kate, do you believe that Victoria wanted to kill Harry Saunders? She refused to go to his aid as the dinghy was sinking, and there’s the business with the oar. I must find the answer to this question; it’s the sticking point in the charge against the four of you. Trevose claims it was a clear case of murder, and no other witness has come forward to speak up for any of you.”

  “Victoria is moody at times. We’ve all been touched by the war, Ian. Even those of us who never saw France. Victoria told me once that every wounded man she saw might be her brother, their suffering his suffering. Even though his commanding officer wrote that he’d died instantly, facing the enemy with the courage he was known for, she had witnessed what happens to soldiers in the trenches, and she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just a comforting lie, that he hadn’t lain in the mud of No Man’s Land, waiting for a medic who never came. I hesitate to say this, because it could well see all of us in the direst straits. But I’ve had a good deal of time to think, Ian, and I can’t help but wonder. Was what made Victoria quite so rude toward Harry Saunders the fact that he spent the war safely in America, while Stephen and George and so many of our friends bore the brunt of the fighting, and were killed or maimed?”

  Rutledge wanted to shut out her words, to will them away. But he had asked, and Kate had given him her answer. Victoria’s motive.

  And it was damning.

  He had never been quite convinced that Victoria Grenville was the sort of woman who would want to kill someone whose affections had strayed, most particularly someone she didn’t love and would probably not be likely to marry. It was even possible that knowing this, Harry Saunders had teased her by flirting with her, salvaging a little of his pride along the way. Attractive as she was, Victoria must have been accustomed to men throwing themselves at her feet and then turning to someone else after she had made it politely known that she wasn’t interested. And a jury might be persuaded to believe she wouldn’t have stooped to killing a rejected suitor.

  Kate, watching his face, said sharply, “Ian?”

  He managed a smile, striving to make it appear genuine. He had always known how to listen. And ­people had confided in him. He wished it were anyone but Kate speaking to him now.

  “I was weighing what you’ve told me. It’s possible, of course. Something to keep in mind. Thank you, Kate, for being truthful.”

  Relieved, she returned his smile. But he was afraid, once she was back in her room, that she too would realize what she had given him.

  “I mustn’t keep you from your dinner,” he added. “Mrs. Grenville was very particular about that. And as always, you’ll keep this between us?”

  “Yes, of course I will.” She walked to the door, and then said, facing it, her back to him, “Do you still love her desperately? Jean?”

  He remembered in time.

  “She was a part of my life before the war,” he answered Kate with great care. “I think of her fondly sometimes, but I wanted her to be happy there in Toronto. She deserved that.” It was the best he could do.

  There was a silence between them. Then Kate opened the door, saying, “Good night, Ian.” And it closed behind her.

  He stood where he was for several minutes before leaving the study and then the house without speaking to anyone else.

  Rutledge spent the night at the vicarage. But it was uneventful. Mrs. Daniels insisted on putting compresses on his face, saying, “Do you wish to go about looking as though a cow kicked you in the head?”

  He remembered the expression on Kate’s face. “No. All right then. Go ahead.”

  Afterward he wondered if Mrs. Daniels had slipped a little something else into the tea laced with a splash of the vicar’s whisky. For he slept well enough. As did the vicar.

  And if there was anyone prowling around the house, he made no effort to get inside.

  As Mrs. Daniels said, when she brought Rutledge breakfast in the morning, “It rained in the night as if the heavens had split wide open. He’s no fool, this man. He stayed snug by his hearth, like the rest of us. Or maybe he’s decided Vicar isn’t going to turn him in to the police after all.”

  “Why should he decide that?”

  “You’d be knocking on his door, wouldn’t you? By now?”

  16

  Before leaving, he went to sit once more with the vicar. Toup was lying on the bed, his eyes closed, but Rutledge could see by his breathing that he wasn’t asleep.

  Shutting the sitting room door, so that he couldn’t be overheard, Rutledge drew Mrs. Daniels’s chair closer to the bed, and began to talk.

  “If I were in London,” he said casually, as if carrying on a conversation with Pendennis or Sergeant Gibson, “it just might be possible for these three events to be coincidental. There’s Harry Saunders’s death. According to Trevose, four women of good family conspired to drown him. They are to be charged with murder, now that he’s died of his injuries. But someone hadn’t foreseen that turn of events. And so he—­or she—­dug holes in the bottom of Harry’s dinghy, with the expectation that he’d drown somewhere between the row of cottages where it was kept and Padstow Harbor. Either whoever it was had miscalculated or the holes weren’t large enough. He was well east of Padstow when it finally happened. Nobody has asked just where he was heading that afternoon. Pos
sibly to call on George St. Ives. But then Harry died before anyone could ask. Is it possible that Victoria damaged his boat? A case could be made for that—­she was against going to his rescue, claiming that he wasn’t drowning.”

  The man on the bed hadn’t moved.

  “Or it could have been George St. Ives who tampered with the dinghy. That sounds rather preposterous, until one takes into account the fact that he is in love with Victoria and too badly wounded to consider asking for her hand. If he thought Harry was annoying her—­or a rival not worthy of her—­or even if he thought Harry had broken her heart, he might have been angry enough to do something about it. He walks at night, you know. St. Ives. And not just in the back garden of Chough Hall. In point of fact, he was seen not far from where you were attacked. Another coincidence? Which brings us to what happened to you. Someone wanted to kill you. But it wasn’t a cold-­blooded beating, was it? There was passion behind those blows. Anger? Jealousy? Fear? Whatever it was, it was a driving emotion that brought him back to the vicarage on two separate nights, with an eye to making sure you couldn’t identify him. That put Mr. and Mrs. Daniels in jeopardy, because he would have had to kill them after he killed you.”

  It was not precisely accurate, this conversation, but it was purposely designed to capture the vicar’s attention. And Rutledge thought he could see a movement of Toup’s fair lashes. But he said nothing about it. “And there’s another small mystery. One you have refused to solve for me. Harry Saunders might have told me what I needed to know, but of course he died before I could ask. Who was the young woman who took a cottage on the far side of Padstow, but chose to attend church here in Heyl, in order not to attract attention? And you have no memory of who attacked you. We can’t go to his door and arrest him, because we have no idea who it might be.”

  He got to his feet, walking to the window to look out at the churchyard.

  “Saunders is dead. Sara Langley, Victoria Grenville, Kate Gordon, and Elaine St. Ives are going to be taken to Bodmin soon. I’ve dragged my feet as long as I can. It’s no place for a gently bred young woman.” He had a sudden memory of another young woman who could have answered to that. “God knows what it will do to them—­and that’s not even taking into account their reputations. What worries me is that they will be convicted and hanged. Trevose will be very happy about that. Mrs. Grenville will understand why.” He took a deep breath. “There it is. I don’t know if you’ll ever remember anything about your assailant. But he’s a killer. When I saw what he’d done to you, I knew that he could kill and very likely would kill again. It’s even possible, God knows why, that he meddled with the Saunders dinghy. If there’s anything else you know, even if you don’t or won’t believe that it’s relevant, it could save a life. Yours? Someone else’s? Mine, even. If you opened your eyes and looked at my face and your own, you’d believe me.”