Search the Dark ir-3

by Charles Todd

  The room had an intimate feel to it, as if she’d just left. The candlestick on the bedside table was burned down to half. He wondered if sometimes she’d spent the night here. The bedsheets were soft with age but freshly washed.

  The other rooms bore the signs of neglect, a fine sheen of dust on the furniture, a cobweb hanging down above a bedpost, but clean enough for all that. No one had been in these rooms, he thought, for months.

  The attic was filled with bits and pieces of old furniture, leather luggage green with age, chairs without seats, broken lamps, a child’s crib and a nursing rocker. He looked into corners, behind the headboards of beds, beyond the empty trunks, into the empty cases, and there was nothing to be seen.

  In the end he gave up and went to the barn, quartering it while a cat followed him about, rubbing against his trouser legs when he stopped to look at a box of gear or a stack of tiles or old boots crammed into a bin.

  But the barn yielded nothing, and he stood there in the loft, looking at the thick piles of hay, wondering if it was worth his while to dig through the lot. Hamish, tired and irritable, said, “You’ll no’ solve the riddle here…”

  And it was true, but he made the effort to look into the outbuildings and into overturned carts, startling a hen with a clutch of eggs under one. She squawked sharply at him, dashing off with wings flapping.

  When he came back to where Jimson was finishing his work on the barrow, the old man said, “Well, you wanted to do it, didn’t you? And for what? You haven’t found what you was looking for.”

  “No.” He turned to look at the sky. The sun was sinking toward the west, casting long shadows and golden stripes across the lawn and the fields behind the barn. It would be dark quite soon. Seven or eight heavily uddered cows were staring at him from the gate near the milking shed, and he could hear the lowing of others making their slow way home. Jimson wheeled the barrow toward the barn. Rutledge called his thanks but remembered that the man couldn’t hear his voice. Couldn’t hear a car or footsteps in the house at night.

  He found himself wondering if Aurore might have entertained lovers there.

  Feeling depressed, he got back into the car and drove to Charlbury.

  “At least,” Hamish offered, “you did na’ find anything.”

  “I was one man. Hildebrand will bring half a dozen. More.”

  Henry Daulton was standing by the churchyard, his eyes on the rooks wheeling above the truncated tower, settling uneasily for the night. He waved as Rutledge passed. Then Mrs. Prescott was hailing him, and he stopped the car.

  “I hear that there’s to be an arrest tomorrow. That Inspector Hildebrand is coming to do it himself. I thought you were in charge! The man from London.”

  “No. It’s his investigation. I came to coordinate the search for the children. That’s finished.” He felt tired, his eyes gritty from the dusty barn and the staleness of the farm’s attics.

  “But what about Mr. Simon? What’s to happen to him?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing. He isn’t the person Hildebrand is after.”

  “Why would anyone want to kill Betty Cooper,” she demanded, “much less a friend of the Wyatts! It makes no sense. That’s what you ought to be saying to the police in Singleton Magna, why would the Wyatts want to harm her? If you want to save Mrs. Wyatt from the gallows and her husband from a death of grief, that’s the question you ought to be asking!”

  Rutledge shook his head. “I’ve asked that question and found no answer. If you have any, I’m willing to hear them. Besides, no one can be sure that the other body is Betty Cooper’s. The timing isn’t there, Mrs. Prescott, whatever you want to believe. Betty left six months ago, not three.”

  She was vehement, her face ablaze with purpose. “I told you once, if you want to hide the recent dead, do it in a fresh grave. Betty Cooper wanted to work in a gentleman’s house. Mr. Simon couldn’t hire her, he already had Edith. I can’t see that he’d have sent her away empty-handed! Not Mr. Simon. He’d have done what he could for the girl, for Mrs. Daulton’s sake. Have you even asked him? What they talked about, those two?”

  Rutledge stared at her, and she grinned self-consciously. “No,” he said slowly. “I don’t think anyone has.”

  “Well, I’d not let it linger on the tongue too long, or that Inspector Hildebrand will be back tomorrow with his warrants!”

  He saluted her and backed up the car until he was in front of the Wyatt gate. He met Elizabeth at the front door, her face anguished. She caught his arm and dragged him into the parlor, shutting the door. “For God’s sake, what’s happening? No one will tell me. Aurore is in her room, I think she’s crying. Simon has shut himself up in the museum and won’t let me in. And my father was here in Charlbury, I saw him speaking to you, but he wouldn’t come to the house, he just sent Benson with a note telling me to leave straightaway. That madman Hildebrand’s to blame, isn’t he, it all went wrong when he came! For God’s sake, what’s it all about?”

  “I don’t know. Hildebrand has finally convinced himself that Mowbray didn’t kill Margaret Tarlton-we were all fairly certain of that, it isn’t news. But if Mowbray didn’t kill her, then it has to be someone from Charlbury, you see. And it was Aurore Wyatt who was set to take Margaret Tarlton to meet the train.”

  “Aurore.” She said the name unconsciously, as if tasting it on her tongue. “You’re saying that it was Aurore? But why?”

  “I don’t know. There are several theories making the rounds. It seems she’s become the popular candidate, now that Mowbray’s out of the running.”

  “But Simon will feel responsible! It was Simon who wanted Margaret to come here as his assistant!”

  “No,” Rutledge answered bluntly. “It was your scheming that brought her here to interview for the position of assistant.”

  “But what about that man Shaw?” she demanded frantically. “He was wild with Margaret for not seeing him. He taunts me every time I go into the Wyatt Arms. I can’t imagine Aurore battering anyone to death, but Shaw could do it! He’s been a soldier, he knows how to kill!”

  “Knowing how to kill doesn’t make you a murderer,” he told her. But he had killed his share of men, in the war. Was that so very different? He could feel Hamish asking that same question in the depths of his mind. “Simon was also a serving officer. If Daniel Shaw is suspect because of his war record, we mustn’t forget Simon Wyatt.”

  “Stop it, do you hear me? Simon hasn’t killed anyone! I’d believe Aurore did it before I’d believe Simon could have! I’ve never understood her, I can’t think why he ever married her! Can’t you do anything? Can’t you find out what it is Hildebrand wants?”

  There was a pounding at the door that cut short his response. Elizabeth said something under her breath and went to answer it.

  From where he was standing, he could see the heavy door swing open at the same instant a slurred, angry voice cried, “I want to know, damn you! I want to know who killed her!”

  It was Shaw standing there, his face white, his body tense with pain.

  “You’re drunk, disgusting! Go away!” Elizabeth said curtly, preparing to close the door in his face. Behind him the night was black, clouds having moved in with the sunset and now obscuring the stars. Somewhere in the garden a toad sang its mating call, and a moth swept through the bright square of light cast across the lawns. Shaw struck the door with his arm, forcing it open again, and stepped inside. Rutledge, moving swiftly from the parlor, was there to meet him, at Elizabeth’s back.

  He said, “Go home, Shaw. I told you I’d give you a name, once it was certain. But it isn’t certain. Hildebrand has jumped the gun.”

  “Truit’s in the Arms, bragging. They’re prepared to make an arrest, damn you!” He stared over Elizabeth’s head at Rutledge’s face, pain in his eyes that wasn’t all from the pain in his body. “I’m not drunk. I want the truth!”

  “Wait by my car, and I’ll tell you what I know,” Rutledge said. “If you don’t go, I’ll have you a
rrested for disorderly conduct.”

  Shaw bit his lip against the pain and said, “I’ll wait here on the step. I don’t think I could walk that far!” He stepped backward, nearly lost his balance, and sat heavily on the step, crouched protectively over his wound.

  Elizabeth said, “You are drunk!”

  Rutledge caught her arm and pulled her from the door as he shut it.

  She turned on him, saying, “the wolves are gathering!”

  “Listen to me! This can matter more than your wolves. Does the name Betty Cooper mean anything to you?”

  Something stirred in her eyes. Curiosity? Calculation? He couldn’t be sure in the dim light that reached the hall from the parlor.

  “She was a serving girl, if that’s the one you mean. Simon suggested we might consider finding her a place in London. We’d lost two of the younger maids to other positions, he must have known.”

  “And so he sent her to you from here?”

  “Well, we expected her to come to us on a trial basis, but she never arrived. I don’t see what this has to do with anything! There isn’t time!”

  “When was that?”

  “Nearly six months ago. Just after Simon came back from France and opened the house here in Charlbury. That’s not important, I tell you-”

  “Yes, it is,” he answered her. “If Betty Cooper didn’t arrive at your door, where did she go?” And why hadn’t she taken up Simon’s proposal that she work for the Napiers? It was a position beyond the dreams of a country girl who wanted to make her way in London. Nor did it explain why the body was only three months dead. Mrs. Prescott was wrong; his questions led him nowhere.

  “How should I know? Girls go to London every day, I can’t be responsible for the fate of any of them!”

  But what if Betty had gone to London after all, avoided the Napiers for whatever reasons, spent three months there in the city, found it not to her liking, and come back to Dorset?

  That was possible-but was it likely that in coming back, she’d meet her death here before anyone had seen her?

  Unless her return threatened someone? But that wouldn’t take into account the fate of Margaret Tarlton… The two women had nothing in common.

  There was a connection somewhere. There had to be. Or else they were all wrong, Mowbray had killed Margaret and Betty Cooper was a separate crime altogether. There was only the doctor’s suggestion that the murders were similar.

  He was aware of Elizabeth expostulating, telling him she wanted him to help Simon, to do something before Hildebrand made a grave mistake.

  He put his hands on her shoulders to silence her and said, “Look, I’ve got to go. But I’ll be back before Hildebrand comes tomorrow. Is that fair enough?”

  “Fair-” she began, but he was already out the door, speaking to Shaw, giving him the same promise.

  Shaw, getting stiffly to his feet, stared balefully at Elizabeth and turned to move awkwardly down the walk to the gate. Over his shoulder he said to Rutledge, “I can’t fight you now, but if you don’t come to the inn by midnight, I’m taking matters into my own hands. Do you hear me?”

  “I hear you,” Rutledge said, and then: “Can you make it on your own?”

  “Damn you, I don’t want your pity! I want answers!”

  Rutledge watched him go and waited until Elizabeth, unsatisfied, finally closed the front door. Upstairs at one of the windows overlooking the walk, he could sense Aurore’s eyes on him.

  He walked to the museum wing and knocked on the door. When no one answered, in the end Rutledge opened it and walked inside.

  He looked carefully through all the rooms. But it was to no purpose.

  Simon Wyatt was in none of them, though the door from that wing into the main house was locked.

  25

  Rutledge stood in the middle of the front room of the museum, mocked by the shadowed masks on the wall and the dancing shades of small gods with their strange faces and contorted bodies.

  Hamish too was mocking him, reminding him that Hildebrand was ahead of him, that he’d been dragging his feet, that the arrest made tomorrow was one he could-should-have made before this. Only he hadn’t been able to bring himself to it. “You’re faltering, you’re no’ the man you think you are!”

  He couldn’t think, he couldn’t bring all the pieces together. Like the gods on the shelves, he was twisting and turning-going nowhere.

  But what was the connection-damn it, where was it? What had he missed?

  He walked out of the museum and closed the door behind him.

  And where was Simon Wyatt?

  He went out of the gate and stood looking around him, making sure that Shaw wasn’t loitering in the shadows, waiting for another chance to confront the Wyatts. Which was why he saw the movement among the trees by the church.

  He walked that way, taking his time, certain that it was Simon, blacked out again by whatever stress it was that drove him to wander in the night.

  His wife’s guilt? Was that what had taken Simon back to the war, where death was imminent and wiped out pain, memory, thought He reached the trees, where the shadows were deeper, where only the pale reflection of clothing showed that someone waited. Rutledge hesitated, unwilling to startle Simon, unwilling to give away his own presence if it was someone else.

  He walked on, softly, battle trained, but the voice that came to him out of the darkness was not Simon’s, nor was it Shaw’s.

  Aurore said, “I hoped you would come. I couldn’t say this in the house, not with Elizabeth there. I couldn’t do that to Simon. I won’t shame him again!”

  He could see her now, the light-colored sweater she’d thrown over her dark dress was a luminous mantle about her shoulders. Her face was even paler, a white oval with dark hollows for eyes. As he came nearer, he could sketch in the details of eyebrows, lips, the curve of her hair, the line of her cheekbone. He could smell her scent, faint and warm, like her breathing.

  “Where is your husband? Do you know?”

  “He’s in the museum. He has locked me out. He’s taking it very hard, the things Hildebrand has said to him. He thinks he will see me arrested tomorrow.”

  “Yes. I know. But Hildebrand hasn’t told anyone else.”

  “The story is everywhere, Constable Truit has seen to that. I sent Edith to stay with Mrs. Darley. I didn’t want her to be dragged into our scandal.”

  He was on the point of telling her that Simon was missing again, but before he could speak, she had moved closer to him, her hands outstretched, and for an instant he thought she was going to touch him, take his hands in hers or rest her fingers on his forearms. Instead something hard, uneven, brushed against the cloth of his coat. Instinctively he reached out to take it, and his fingers closed over smooth, woven straw. Confused, he ran his left hand over it and realized with cold shock what it was.

  A hat. A woman’s straw hat. He could see it more clearly now, the shape and texture, the upswept brim. Ribbons from the crown tangled around his fingers as he turned the hat first this way and then that.

  “This is proof that I killed Margaret. It is the hat she was wearing when she left Charlbury. I have kept it, in case of need. The rest of her belongings I burned at the farm, with feathers from a plucked hen we’d eaten fow our dinner. Edith will tell you that it is the same hat that Margaret was wearing when she left, and no doubt Margaret’s maid will confirm that it is hers.” She was silent for a time, and he found himself unable to trust his voice to question her.

  “You may arrest me, as you promised, and take me at once to London. I don’t want to see my husband shamed by Hildebrand walking in with all the people in Charlbury goggling, then taking me away with fanfare.”

  “I don’t know that this is Margaret’s hat-” he began, and reached into his pocket for the small lighter that he’d carried in the war. With one smooth action he slipped the cap and the flint. The small flame seemed to flare like a blaze of orange light between them. He could see her eyes, large with surprise, the pu
pils dilated and then sharpening.

  He tore his glance from her face and examined the hat. It was just as Edith had described it. If it wasn’t Margaret Tarlton’s hat, it was too damned near it for comfort. He could feel the ache in his throat as he examined it.

  “I have a small case there, under the trees. I am ready to leave,” she said, her voice steady. But her eyes were wells of uncertainty.

  He capped the lighter again and slipped it into his pocket, Hamish clamoring in his ears. Over the deafening sound he said, “Aurore-”

  “No! Don’t say anything more. We must go before Elizabeth or Simon comes out to find me. Please! It was our bargain, you can’t tell me you don’t remember! You, of all people!”

  “Aurore. Why did you kill Margaret Tarlton?”

  “I shall tell you on our way to London. Pleaser!”

  “I can’t do this. I don’t believe you. Whatever you are confessing to, it isn’t murder.” He turned the hat again in his hands, striving to ignore Hamish, striving to sound patient, untroubled, the policeman doing his duty.

  But not to protect the innocent, only to find the guilty -

  “You promised!” she said again, her voice husky with hurt.

  He said, “Listen to me! I want to know where you found this hat and why you think it was Simon who killed Margaret.”

  She gasped, and this time her fingers did grip his arm in the darkness. “It was I who killed Margaret. I hit her and hit her and hit her, until my shoulder was tired and I couldn’t lift the rock any more. I drove back to the farm and bathed the blood away, and I left my things in the room there, along with her things-I knew Jimson would never open my door! It was safe, no one comes there!”

  Her words and her grip were tight, convincing, and he could feel her desperation, the need to make him believe.

  Rutledge said, closing his mind to Hamish and to her pain, “All right. I believe you. But tell me, why did you have to kill Betty Cooper? What had that poor girl done to make you batter her into unconsciousness and then death?”