No Shred of Evidence

by Charles Todd

  Mrs. Grenville had stopped where she was, staring in the direction the shot had come from.

  And then she turned and walked awkwardly back toward the motorcar as Rutledge freed Kate’s hands.

  She was laughing and crying in the same breath now, clinging to Rutledge, her face pressed against his chest as he held her.

  “I didn’t think I could make it,” she said shakily, her voice muffled. “But I did, didn’t I?”

  Glancing at Mrs. Grenville, he smiled. “You were marvelous,” he said to her. Then he turned to the woman in his arms. “He didn’t hurt you, did he? Tell me, Kate.”

  He could feel her shaking her head. “No. He kept his word. Twenty-­four hours.” And then Mrs. Grenville was taking Kate from him and folding her into her arms.

  Rutledge turned away, walking back to where Worth lay. Out of the darkness a figure materialized, and he froze, hand on his revolver, until he saw that it was Grenville.

  He was holding up a rifle. “My grandfather’s elephant gun. From his game hunting in Africa. He used it until he was eighty, God save him.”

  They stared down at the remains of a man whom Rutledge had never met, whose face was one he didn’t recognize at all. Whose name he was not certain even now that he knew.

  He had never seen him before. Their only contact had been at a distance, or secondhand as he looked down on what this man had done to someone else.

  “Now you will please tell me the whole story?” Grenville demanded harshly.

  “What he did to Kate was unconscionable. He’s better off dead,” Rutledge said coldly. “But I will tell you that he has killed, several times over. He would have been hanged, if he’d lived. It was this man who savaged the vicar, among others.”

  Grenville said contemptuously, “Leave him. I will send someone from Boscastle or Tintagel to bring him in.”

  “We can’t. It isn’t finished.” He bent down and took the revolver from Worth’s hand, passing it to Grenville. “Evidence,” he said.

  “You’re surely not going to hold an inquest,” Grenville said sharply. “He’s dead, man, let it be.”

  “It has to be finished.” He rubbed his face, feeling the day’s growth of beard rough against his hand. “Boscastle isn’t that far. Find the constable there, and send him back for Worth. Tell him—­” He stopped, forcing his tired mind to think, trying to ignore Hamish, trying to find a way to reason with Grenville.

  “Tell the constable in Boscastle that you have found the man who nearly killed those two women last night. Tell him you believe this is the same man who put holes in the Saunders’s boat, and who attacked the vicar of St. Marina’s. That he may well be the same man who murdered Frank Dunbar in an alley in Padstow. We have no proof, but it’s likely. We tracked him here and tried to take him alive, but he was armed, and we had no choice but to shoot. He was too dangerous to lose in the darkness.”

  “What’s his name? And what made him kill?”

  “God knows. We don’t.” Rutledge frowned. “The war. Blame it on the war if you must. As for his name, let the constable search his pockets and find that out.”

  “Why were we following him?”

  “I spotted a stranger near your house, and I wanted to question him. Someone had been moving around the village at night, and I was suspicious. I asked your help because you’re familiar with the countryside. And Mr. and Mrs. Daniels can tell the police that he was prowling about the rectory several nights ago, trying to get at the vicar again.”

  “Is that true?” In the darkness, Rutledge nodded. “Who is Dunbar?”

  “Inspector Carstairs’s case,” he told Grenville. “We’ve unwittingly solved it for him.”

  “It might just work.”

  “Some cottages were burned down. On the outskirts of Padstow. Dunbar owned them. Perhaps our man had been hiding out there. There’s no one left who can contradict that.” He turned to look back toward the motorcar, where the two women were waiting. “It has to work. Miss Gordon has suffered enough. It will not serve justice to have her give evidence at an inquest. It will not serve to have Mrs. Worth describe what her husband has done to her. But much of our evidence is circumstantial, of course. And I shall have to give the Chief Constable an explanation for much of what has happened, one he will accept.”

  “Very well,” Grenville said after a moment. “I’ll find the dead man’s motor and drive on to Boscastle. St. Ives has already taken the horses and the elephant gun back to the Place.” He grinned at Rutledge’s surprise. “Cross-­country. It was the only way to get here before you did. And I can trust St. Ives. You will see the women safely home.”

  “No, I should go to Boscastle. It’s best. Someone will remember me. I was there only a day or so ago.”

  Grenville shook his head vehemently. “All the more reason for me to go alone. You’ve reported these crimes to me. I’m dealing with it. If you go, you’ll be expected to answer more questions than may be comfortable.”

  It was true.

  “Then be careful. It matters too much.”

  “I will.”

  They walked together toward the motorcar, and Rutledge passed the borrowed revolver to Grenville, who pocketed it with a nod.

  As they came abreast of the women, Mrs. Grenville stepped away from Kate to face her husband.

  “It was the right thing to do,” she said.

  “I must go to Boscastle, my dear. Someone has to collect the body. The man’s motorcar is just beyond the mouth of the quarry. Rutledge will see you both safely home.”

  It was nearly dawn when Grenville returned to the Place, reporting to Rutledge privately that he had had no difficulties with the constable in Boscastle.

  “He was relieved, I think. The village had been on edge since the attack on the two women who lived there. He will hold the inquest there, he says, since that’s where the body will be taken. Just as well. He did ask what had become of a Mrs. Hargrove. I had no answer for him, and so I told him she was helping the police with their inquiries.”

  “Quite right.”

  “He’s contacting Pendennis here. And Carstairs in Padstow. You might want to speak to Pendennis this morning.”

  “Yes. I’ll tell him what we know. But not about Mrs. Worth.”

  “Agreed.”

  Half an hour later, over an early breakfast, Rutledge sat down in the almost empty dining room and told Grenville, his wife, and Kate Gordon about the woman at the vicarage, and the man who had hunted her.

  Kate, drooping with fatigue, had said very little. He had not wanted her to hear the full story, but Grenville had insisted that she had earned the right.

  Rutledge showed them the scraps of cloth in his possession. “We can tie Worth to the dinghy and to the attack in Boscastle. As well as to one some time ago in Derby. It is enough, I think, to prove our case. That leaves the vicar and Dunbar, but Mrs. Daniels and her husband can confirm some part of the story there. As for Dunbar, with the cottages burned and the dinghy interfered with while it was at the landing below the cottages, I think Carstairs will be satisfied as well.”

  “Leave him to me,” Grenville said.

  “This absolves my daughter from any charge of holing the dinghy,” Mrs. Grenville said. “But she still faces a charge of murder.”

  “There’s always tomorrow,” Rutledge said with a confidence he was far from feeling.

  “I must meet this woman, Mrs. Worth,” Grenville said. “As magistrate.”

  “Yes. I’ll bring her to you.”

  Mrs. Grenville rose. “Kate, you should be in your bed. And I should be as well. I hope you can sleep without dreams.”

  Kate smiled. “I’ll try.”

  They said good night and left the two men together.

  Grenville said, “Worth isn’t the inquiry that brought you to Cornwall.”

  He was fi
nishing the glass of whisky that had been served with his breakfast. “No. But I think that too may be in hand. There is still time.”

  “By any chance, do you know the story of John Tregeagle? His grave is in the churchyard at St. Breock. Near Wadebridge.”

  “A Cornishman who was shockingly evil but who did one good deed—­for which he was spared and ordered to do endless, impossible tasks he couldn’t hope to finish, in order to keep him out of the devil’s clutches?”

  “That’s right. We will let the man who lies dead out there beside the quarry become a new legend. That’s to say he’s there if he hasn’t already been carried to Boscastle. There will be stories told of him, I expect. Cornwall has an affinity for things that walk abroad in the night, and kill.”

  “There’s something we must still address. How Worth got his information. He prowled the night, listening where he could. We do know that. But I expect you will find he bribed some ­people. The telegraph office in Padstow, perhaps the one in Bodmin. Someone in The Pilot. They won’t come forward on their own. Others gossiped freely. One of the maids in your own house, for instance.”

  “Does it matter now? Worth is dead. It will only draw more attention to what he has done.”

  “There’s the elephant gun,” Rutledge pointed out. “Will that cause trouble for you?”

  “Yes, well, I had meant to take my shotgun, and in my haste, I took that instead. Just as well, too, or I’d have not been able to stop him from reaching my wife.” He tried to conceal a surge of anger, then said in a different tone of voice, “A shame, really, you had wanted him alive, but he was beyond the range of your revolver at that stage of events.”

  Rutledge wasn’t sure if Grenville was telling the truth or not. He took a deep breath. “I promised Dr. Learner I would give him the end of the story.”

  “We will notify him that the two women in his surgery are safe, that we have caught the madman who attacked them. It will be sufficient, I think.”

  “I don’t believe Worth was mad.” He paused, then asked, “Why did you shoot to kill?”

  “I didn’t. He was a moving target, and I had only seconds before he shot my wife, still believing she was his own. It was my only chance, and I took it. It was you who put her in danger.”

  Rutledge said nothing. He knew very well why Mrs. Grenville had tried to protect Kate. She had failed to save Paul Trevose.

  The church clock was striking ten as Rutledge called at the vicarage to collect Mrs. Worth. Without any sleep, he had gone first to speak to Constable Pendennis, and then briefly, on a pretext, to see Inspector Carstairs.

  “No answers on Dunbar’s death, so far,” Carstairs reported morosely. “And two of the damned cottages burned down to the ground. I expect whoever it was wasn’t satisfied with ten pounds.”

  “I understand someone in Boscastle has contacted Grenville. About the vicar and Dunbar,” Rutledge responded. “There may be a link.”

  “Boscastle?” Carstairs asked, instantly alert.

  “It appears he’s struck there as well. Whoever he is.” He had planted the seed. That was enough.

  Neither Pendennis nor Carstairs had seen or spoken to Trevose.

  Satisfied, Rutledge went to see the farmer.

  He had not gone to the fields the day before, nor had he gone out today, according to Bronwyn, complaining vociferously about her employer being underfoot when she was planning to scrub the floors.

  Rutledge walked into the low-­ceilinged front room where Trevose was sitting, staring into space.

  He looked up as Rutledge came down the half step into the room. “What do you want?”

  “Either you confirm the charges against the four accused, or you withdraw them.”

  “How can I?”

  Rutledge wasn’t certain whether he was asking how to accuse or how to renege.

  He said, “You must find a way.”

  That roused the man. “I’ll be a laughingstock!”

  “Not if you tell the truth. That you were unable to judge well in the frantic moments after you brought Saunders into the boat. That time has given you a clearer memory of what you saw.”

  “No.”

  “You will have to testify. There’s no choice about that. In a courtroom full of ­people who know you well. And many more who don’t. Unless you stop it now.”

  “The magistrate. I’ll go to him. Not the police.”

  “Have it your way.”

  He drove the reluctant man to Padstow Place, and left him with Grenville.

  When the two men emerged from the library half an hour later, Trevose looked like someone who had been pulled from the water just before he drowned. Pale, shaken, and angry with Rutledge, he got into the motorcar and held his tongue all the way back to the farm.

  “You have what you wanted,” he all but growled as he got out his door and then slammed it with some force. “Now get off my land.”

  “Tell me. Did you truly believe those women tried to kill Saunders? If you did, you should have told Grenville so. In spite of what I said to you.”

  “It’s finished. Be damned to you.”

  Rutledge said nothing as he reversed the motorcar.

  And then Trevose shouted, “Was it so wrong to want my own back? Look at what they’ve got. Look at what I have. And no one to help me. My brother’s dead. I owe the bank more than I can repay, and the land is going sour, as bankrupt as I am. What’s an honest man to do?”

  Rutledge slowed beside him. “I don’t know. I wish I did.”

  “Curse you all.” Trevose turned on his heel and strode back to the house, slamming the door hard behind him.

  Looking after him, Rutledge listened to Hamish in his head.

  There was nothing he could do.

  And he would have to tell the Chief Constable that he had found the inquiry had no merit.

  But where in all this was justice for Harry Saunders?

  Although, Rutledge thought, Victoria Grenville would carry the guilt of Harry Saunders’s death for the rest of her life, like her mother’s burden of Paul Trevose’s death, wondering if something she could have done might have changed the outcome. For her, for her friends, for Harry and his parents.

  But was it enough?

  Mrs. Grenville had given him a veiled hat for Mrs. Worth to wear, and a coat against the chill.

  He went up the back stairs and found her sitting at the tiny desk, a sheet of paper before her, a pen beside it. He could see that the paper was blank.

  She looked up. “I’m trying to write to Ronnie. How do you tell someone that you don’t know how to repay them for their sacrifice? They could have died, Inspector. I’d told them I was safe in Boscastle. That he would never find me there. And they kept that secret.”

  “If they hadn’t understood, they couldn’t have held out against him. I’ve come to take you to call on someone. Grenville is the local magistrate.”

  She tensed. “What is it? Has someone else been hurt?”

  “He intends to help you.” He indicated the coat and hat he was carrying. “You’ll need this. Just as well for the village not to see you.”

  She looked around the room. Sanctuary, and she was leaving it reluctantly. And then, with a sigh, she allowed him to help her into the coat. Standing at the mirror afterward, she settled the hat on her hair. “Mrs. Daniels, bless her, found a brush and comb for me, and a few other things. I’m grateful.”

  They went down the back stairs and out to the motorcar. It was late afternoon, and the sun had vanished behind a heavy bank of clouds. There was rain in the air, and Mrs. Worth pulled her borrowed coat closer, then drew her cold hands into the sleeves.

  Grenville met her alone, and she talked to him for over an hour.

  Rutledge waited in the drawing room, pacing the floor for a while, and then sitting in one of the elegant chair
s.

  The door opened, and he rose, thinking it was Mrs. Worth. But it was Victoria in the doorway. She came in tentatively, and he saw that her eyes were red from crying. He stayed where he was, waiting for her to speak.

  “I didn’t kill Harry. I didn’t even hurt him. When I picked up the oar, I thought it was the only way to save him, to let him cling to it while we pulled for shallow water. Otherwise we were all going into the river. Elaine might make it to shore, but I didn’t think I could. Sara and Kate were already exhausted. It was our only hope. But as I lifted it to help him, I saw his face. Something was wrong. There was blood, and his eyes weren’t focusing properly. I tried to swing the oar back into the boat, but it was too heavy. It came down on Kate and Sara instead, and they nearly lost their grip on Harry. I was appalled. I thought, if he drowns, it will be my fault. I let the oar go and sat down, trying to stay out of their way, praying for all of us. I knew if I went back to help them we’d tip right over. And all the while Harry was swallowing water. Then someone else was in the boat with us, and he had Harry in, almost on top of us. I thought, he came out of nowhere. It’s a miracle. But it wasn’t, was it? Harry wasn’t going to live. And I felt guilty because I thought him a coward for going to America, when all the other men we knew were dying in France. I blamed him for living when my brother hadn’t. But I didn’t want this to happen to him. I swear I didn’t.”

  After a moment, he said, “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “They were accusing us of murder. There on the landing. The farmer, Trevose, told everyone we were holding Harry’s head under, and when that didn’t work, I’d tried to kill him with the oar. I was frightened, I wanted to deny I’d ever touched it. That other man from London, the kind one, Inspector Barrington, understood. I told him what I hadn’t put down in that first statement. And he said it would be all right. But then he died too. And we had it all to do over again, and I lost my nerve because my father warned me you were a hard man and we must be careful what we told you. I just wanted to deny everything. My mother wanted me to tell the truth, believing I’d be safe. But I wasn’t. I was going to be tried for murder. And even if the others managed to go free, I’d be hanged. Because of the oar.”