Search the Dark ir-3

by Charles Todd

  Then she spoke, with a heaviness that made him ashamed of the necessity of bringing her into this murder. There were tears standing in her eyes, and her fragility touched him deeply. “If it’s true-if that poor woman is Margaret-then it’s all my fault. I sent her there-I thought I was being quite clever. I thought it was incredibly simple and that no one would ever suspect- how very stupid of me! ” She fiercely blotted her eyes with her serviette, then looked down at it in surprise, as if she’d forgotten her dinner-as if it belonged to a far distant and far different past.

  Bracing her shoulders, she said, “It won’t do to cry. I’m always the first to say that! ‘Don’t cry!’ I’ve told those pathetic women in the slums. ‘It doesn’t solve anything!’ But it relieves the pain somehow, doesn’t it?”

  Carefully folding the flyer, she handed it back to Rutledge along with the photograph in its silver frame. “You’ll need that, I think. And you’d better come in,” she said. “Have you dined? No? That’s good, I have need of company just now. We’ll eat what we can of dinner. Then I’ll change and go with you to Singleton Magna. I want to see this woman-or has she been buried?”

  “No, she hasn’t been buried. But she isn’t-her face was badly beaten. I don’t know that you could, er, hope to recognize her.”

  Her own face went white, and he thought for a moment she might faint. But she said resolutely, “Don’t tell me before I’ve eaten something! Come with me!”

  Rutledge followed her back into the hall and down the passage to a room with an arched ceiling and a table down the middle that would comfortably seat twenty or more. At the far end, in isolated splendor, a place had been set for one. She walked to it, picked up the small silver bell by her plate, and rang it sharply. When the maid came to answer her summons, she said, “Another place for the inspector, please. Tell Cook I’ll have a fresh bowl of soup as well.” She waited until the maid had taken the first course back through the heavy door to the kitchens and then indicated the chair on her right. Rutledge accepted it.

  Elizabeth Napier took a deep shuddering breath, closed her eyes for an instant, shutting out what she had, soon, to face, then sipped her wine as if it offered the strength she didn’t possess.

  “Are you quite sure this-this woman-whoever she may turn out to be-was killed by this man, Mowbray? Is that proved beyond a doubt?”

  “No. Not beyond any doubt. But he publicly threatened his wife. And then we found the… her. There’s no one else we have any reason to suspect. At any rate, he’s presently under arrest.”

  “Then,” she said, “that relieves my mind-and my conscience.”

  “In what way?” he asked, looking directly at her. But she was unfolding her serviette and laying it neatly across her lap. He couldn’t see-or read-her eyes.

  She shook her head.

  He said, “If there’s information you might have-if the woman in Singleton Magna is Margaret Tarlton, not Mary Mowbray-”

  “No,” she replied vehemently. “I won’t make accusations and turn your policemen loose on an innocent person. That would be morally wrong!”

  “Then why did the thought even cross your mind?”

  The maid returned with a tray and two plates of a palegreen soup on it, the smell of lamb and white beans wafting to Rutledge, awakening his stomach if not his mind to enthusiasm. The sandwiches had been finished some time ago. She served her mistress and then the guest before filling his glass with wine. With a rustle of those starched skirts, she disappeared again into the kitchen.

  “I-Margaret wasn’t the kind of woman to have enemies. She worked for her living and knew the importance of being pleasant to everyone. If I had to stand before God in the next five minutes and answer to Him, I’d be hard-pressed to think of anyone who would deliberately want to harm her!” She picked up her spoon and made a pretense of using it.

  But Rutledge was good at the same game. “Perhaps not. But what if someone saw a way of getting to you-through Margaret? I offer this, you understand, as an hypothesis.”

  She lifted her eyes, startled and wary, to his. There was something moving in the blue depths, and he suddenly knew what it was: jealousy.

  “This was your suggestion, Inspector, not mine.”

  And it was the last he could get out of her on the subject.

  But he knew whom it was she accused. The name hung between them through the rest of the meal, like a miasma in the air, heavy and fraught with a mixture of strong emotions: Aurore Wyatt.

  For the first time since she’d come to greet him in the hall on his arrival, Rutledge couldn’t have sworn, with any certainty, whether this woman was telling the truth-or lying.

  9

  They drove in silence through the night toward Singleton Magna, with Rutledge at the wheel and Elizabeth Napier by his side, wrapped in a light woolen cloak against the chill that had come with darkness. Her small leather case lay in the boot. A wind blew out of the west, and his headlamps picked up scatterings of leaves and dust as they swirled across the road. Shadows loomed black and indeterminate along the way, like watchers in mourning.

  From time to time Hamish kept up a steady commentary on the issues in the case and the probability of Rutledge’s skills coping with them. But he ignored the voice in his ear and kept his attention on the wheel and the two shafts of brightness that marked his way.

  Once a fox’s eyes gleamed in the light, and another time they passed a man shuffling drunkenly along the verge, who stopped to stare openmouthed at the motorcar, as if it had arrived from the moon. Villages came and went, the windows of their houses casting golden squares of brightness across the road.

  Elizabeth Napier was neither good company nor bad. He could feel the intensity of her concentration, her mind moving from thought to thought as if her own problems outweighed any sense of courtesy or any need for human companionship before she faced the horror that lay ahead of her. He himself hadn’t seen the victim. In place her body might have told him a great deal. The coroner had already done what he could, found whatever there was to find. The children had been Rutledge’s priority, not the dead woman. Until now.

  Then, as the first houses of Singleton Magna came into view, Elizabeth Napier stirred and said, “What was she wearing? This woman?”

  He thought for a minute. “Pink. A floral print dress.”

  She turned to look at him. “Pink? Are you sure? It isn’t a color Margaret wears-wore-very often. She likes shades of blue or green.”

  “Will you mind waiting at the police station while I send for Inspector Hildebrand? It’s best if he makes the necessary arrangements.” He smiled at her. “The sooner this is finished, the easier it will be for you.”

  She turned to him in surprise. “I thought you were in charge of this murder investigation?”

  “I’m here to keep the peace between jurisdictions,” he said without irony, and added, “My priority has been the search for the children. So far I’ve had other questions on my mind.”

  “Didn’t you care about them?” she asked, curious.

  “Yes, of course,” he said testily, “but the problem has been where to look. Hildebrand has done everything humanly possible, with no results. I’ve tried to go in different directions. I’ve tried to ask myself, if they aren’t dead, why haven’t we found them? Did someone else see them at the railway station, or are they only part of Mowbray’s wretched delusions?”

  “Surely not? If he was so very angry, something set him off!”

  “Precisely. That’s an avenue I’ll pursue next.”

  “And has it been successful?” She was interested, listening. “This rather different approach to police work?”

  “I’ll know when you tell me who the victim is-or isn’t.”

  ***

  It took a constable half an hour to locate Hildebrand and ask him to come down to the police station. Once there he stared at Elizabeth Napier as if she had no business in his office at this hour of the night, and he said as much to Rutledge, his eyes wary
and cold.

  “Couldn’t this wait until the morning? It’s been a long day, and I’m tired.”

  “Miss Napier is Thomas Napier’s daughter,” Rutledge responded dryly. “I brought her here from Sherborne. It’s late, yes, but I felt you should speak with her as soon as possible. Miss Napier, this is Inspector Hildebrand.”

  Hildebrand looked sharply at her. “Speak to her about what? Get to the point, man! Are you telling me she knows something about those children?”

  Rutledge said, “It seems she may be able to identify our victim.” He explained, and watched Hildebrand’s face change as the man listened.

  He didn’t answer Rutledge directly but was consideration itself as he turned to Elizabeth Napier. Even in the dark cloak that hung to her knees, she seemed very small and utterly feminine. Lost in this masculine world of violence and dark emotions, where the dusty file cabinets and stacks of papers concealed the secrets and deeds of humanity’s least fortunate. Outside the long windows, the shrubs dipped and swayed in the wind, like beggars imploring mercy.

  “I’m truly sorry you’ve been brought into this sordid affair, Miss Napier. And for no reason. Inspector Rutledge hadn’t seen fit to confide his intentions to me-or I might have informed him of a decision taken this same afternoon. Mrs. Mowbray was laid to rest shortly before six o’clock. There’s no body to show you. The matter is closed.”

  His eyes slid to Rutledge’s face, triumph in them. “In our minds, there was no question of identity-I discussed that issue thoroughly with my superiors and the rector at St. Paul’s Church. And Mrs. Mowbray had no family other than her children. There was no reason to postpone the-er-decent interment.”

  There was a wild fury rising in Rutledge’s throat, choking him. He wanted to take Hildebrand by the neck and throttle him.

  It had been a deliberate and cold-blooded decision on Hildebrand’s part, to make sure that his investigation wouldn’t be undermined by what he’d clearly seen as Rutledge’s interference.

  Satisfied to see the sudden stiffness in Rutledge’s face and the anger that surged, barely contained, just behind it, Hildebrand smiled tightly. “I took the liberty as well of consulting your superior in London. He was in full agreement.”

  Bowles. Of course the bloody man would agree!

  And the one person who might have verified the identity of the dead woman was standing here, puzzled by an interaction she couldn’t quite follow.

  Elizabeth looked from one to the other. “She’s been buried? But why? I must see her, I’ve come all this way!” She turned to Rutledge. “You’ve got to do something, Inspector!”

  Hildebrand said, “Miss Napier-”

  “No!” she told him firmly. “No, I won’t be put off! Will you please tell me where to find a telephone? I must speak to my father, he’ll know what I ought to do about this problem-” Her eyes filled with tears, and Hildebrand, who suffered agonies of uncertainty whenever a woman cried, never knowing what to do or say to stem the flood, and inevitably making things worse whatever he did, looked frantically at Rutledge.

  This is your doing! his eyes accused.

  Rutledge, still fighting against the anger burning inside him, said in a voice he himself hardly recognized, “How did you bury her? In the dress she was wearing when she was killed?”

  Hildebrand stared at him as if he had lost his wits. “ Dress? Good God, no! The rector’s wife, Mrs. Drewes, offered to send the undertaker something, and-and the necessary undergarments. What’s that to say to anything-”

  “Then I’ll see her dress,” Elizabeth said, looking suddenly very tired and very distressed. “If you please?” The tears sparkled on her lashes, unshed but still threatening to fall, given any excuse. “I must have an end to this!”

  Rutledge, angry as he was, heard Hamish admiring such a masterly performance. “Yon lassie’s as useful as a regiment,” he said, “though you’d no’ think it to see the size of her!”

  Hildebrand was replying doubtfully, “Miss Napier-are you quite sure that’s what you want to do? At this late hour? It’s not-there’s blood over the front of it.”

  She nodded her head wordlessly. He took her arm as if afraid she might faint on the spot, already promising to ask the doctor to support her through the ordeal. Over her shoulder Hildebrand’s eyes warned Rutledge to stay out of it. “You’ll be at hotel, then?” he said.

  For an instant Rutledge thought that Miss Napier was on the point of objecting, but she caught some nuance of tension in the air between the two men and said only, “Thank you, Inspector Hildebrand.”

  Rutledge grimly left him to it, still far too angry to trust himself. Instead he crossed to the Swan to wait in the lobby, Hamish already earnestly pointing out the unwisdom of tackling anyone about what had been done behind Rutledge’s back.

  “The man’s no’ one to see beyond what’s clear in his mind. You must na’ threaten his tidy view of yon murder. And he won’t thank you or anyone for making him look a fool. If yon lassie from Sherborne tells him she has seen the dead woman’s dress before, he will na’ pay any heed.”

  “What is it you want?” Rutledge demanded silently. “Dead children-hidden in a place we may never find? Or their broken bodies brought in, to tighten the noose around Mowbray’s neck? I came to find those children, and by God, after my own fashion, I think I have! And it’s a conclusion to this investigation that I for one will find one hell of a lot easier to live with!”

  “Aye, but Hildebrand’s an ambitious man, and if you take away from him the one case that might ha’ brought him a promotion, he’ll no’ forgive you for it. However many children you’ve spared! He’ll no’ care, except to see what’s been done to him, and your hand heavy in it!”

  Which was true. Even in his anger Rutledge recognized it. He made himself stop pacing the floor and silently responded, “It will be worse for him when the Napiers and the Wyatts begin to ask where Margaret Tarlton may have gone. And the search leads in the end to that new grave.”

  “Aye, but that’s to come-and who’s to say that it will? Who’s to say that Margaret Tarlton is na’ in London or any other place that takes her fancy? Who’s to say she did na’ want this position and went off to think about it? Hildebrand’s not likely to blame himsel’ if trouble does come home to roost. He’ll find a scapegoat. Mark my words!”

  “If I back down, and Hildebrand has his way,” Rutledge said, “there are still the children’s bodies to find. And the black mark will be against me, for that failure. Even though I don’t think they’re out there.”

  “It’s your reputation in the balance, aye. Your choice of roads. But once you walk down it, there’s nae turning back.”

  Rutledge said nothing, his anger drained away, emptiness left behind. The self-doubt, still so close to the surface-of his skills, his emotions, his wits-seemed to gnaw raggedly at his patience. “It’s your reputation…”

  Very soon afterward a distinctly wobbly Elizabeth Napier reappeared, with a solicitous Hildebrand on one side and a man who turned out to be the local doctor on the other. He was small and thin, with little to say, dragooned into service at Hildebrand’s insistence. As soon as he had turned his patient over to Rutledge with a curt nod, he was gone without excuse or farewell.

  Hildebrand led them into a small private parlor and then went out to find some brandy. One lamp was lit, and it offered only a funereal lifting of the gloom. Which seemed to match the mood of the room’s inhabitants. Rutledge made no effort to turn on another and waited quietly for Elizabeth to speak. She seemed to be having trouble organizing her breathing.

  “I lost my dinner,” she said after a moment, touching her mouth again with a damp handkerchief. “Made a thorough fool of myself. I thought-I was sure all my long years of service in the slums had inured me to any horror. But all that blood!” An involuntary shiver ran through her. “What made it worse was realizing it might have belonged to someone I knew, I found myself imagining what her face must have looked like-that
was the worst part!” She stopped, taking another deep breath, as if she were still fighting nausea. “I don’t see how you can harden yourself to this sort of work!” she added after a moment, lifting wry eyes to meet his. “It must be wearing on the spirit.”

  He said, “Nothing makes it any easier. It helps, sometimes, to remind myself that finding the murderer is my pledge to the victim.”

  She said, “I don’t expect I’ll ever read or hear about a murder having been committed without picturing that dress in my mind!”

  He gave her another moment or two and then said, “Can you tell me anything-” He found he didn’t want to ask Hildebrand that question.

  She said shakily, “Dr. Fairfield took out the box with her clothing in it, and as soon as I saw it, I was sick. But I made myself go back, I asked them to unfold the dress for me.” She swallowed hard. “You told me the color was pink!” she went on accusingly. “It’s more a lavender rose, and of course I recognized it. Straightaway. The shoes as well. I’d seen Margaret wearing them just last month, when we went to the museum-” Realizing that in her distress she had probably said more than she meant to, she broke off.

  He wondered if the purpose of a museum visit had been to refresh Margaret Tarlton’s knowledge of the East, before she traveled down to Dorset.

  When he said nothing, she went on, “Your Inspector Hildebrand thinks I’m out of my mind, but he’s too worried about vexing my father to say it to my face.”

  “You’re quite sure-about the dress and the shoes?”

  Her eyes held his. “I can’t lie to you. I may be wrong. But I’d be willing to swear, until you show me evidence to the contrary, that the woman wearing that dress must be-must have been Margaret.”

  “And as far as you know, Miss Tarlton had no connection with the Mowbray family?”

  “If she did, I can’t imagine where or how she came to meet them.”