by Charles Todd
Rutledge said easily, “Any sign of other injuries? A fall-running into something in the dark?”
Blevins laughed. “You don’t give up, do you? London told me that, when I asked for you. All right, just for the hell of it, why should there be?”
“The searchers seemed to have had a rough night of it,” Rutledge answered, taking the other chair and sitting down. He hadn’t had breakfast, he remembered. Only the sandwiches that Mrs. Barnett had put up for him when he’d gone to find Priscilla Connaught. “Does Walsh have any family? Have you notified anyone that he’s dead?”
“There’s the scissor sharpener. I doubt he’d walk to the corner to help Walsh, now that he’s dead. What’s in it for him? With no real proof that he was the lookout while Walsh riffled the study, he’s home free.”
“There’s Iris Kenneth. She might know if Walsh had any family.”
“Yes. Well, do you want the task of going to London to fetch her? She’s not likely to come north on her own!”
“I suppose you’re right. Still-”
“If you’re on your way there,” Blevins said, watching Rutledge’s face, “you might do me the courtesy of calling on her yourself.”
After a moment, Rutledge made a last effort to break through the emotional barriers that Inspector Blevins had set up.
“Put aside your personal feelings about Walsh-and about the death of Father James. If you’d walked into the study of a stranger that morning, how would you have described the body lying by the window?”
“The same way. An intruder had struck hard and fast, out of fear of being recognized. Matthew Walsh won’t be giving us the answer to why he did it-but I don’t suppose, in the scheme of things, it makes much difference. He ran. That’s guilt.”
Rutledge said quietly, thinking it through, “The killer- Walsh, if you like-didn’t strike once, looking to buy time for an escape. He meant to kill.”
“Yes. It was deliberate. Makes me sick to think about it!”
“On the other hand, if there hadn’t been any money in the tin box in the desk-if it had been spent or given away by that time-how would you have decided on the motive for murder?”
Blevins said impatiently, “The same way.”
“No, you couldn’t have looked at it the same way! There was no money in the desk, nothing to draw a thief to the study. Nothing for Walsh or anyone like him to slip into the rectory to steal.”
“You’re setting up a scene that didn’t exist! Walsh couldn’t know that, could he? See it my way for once! Walsh was desperate-this was his last hope of finding the sum he needed to finish paying for that bloody cart. He may have killed in a fury when he discovered the box was empty!”
“If this had happened before the bazaar-” Rutledge began.
“All right! Let’s take your position and examine it. A dead man and no tin box would tell me there was another reason, a personal reason, to kill that priest. But I knew Father James too well-and in all your questioning, you still haven’t answered that one, either!”
Blevins, tired as he was, couldn’t make the leap of imagination. Hamish said, “You canna’ expect it from him. He was too close to the victim.”
Rutledge took a deep breath, thinking, Hamish is right.
“If Father James knew something that worried him- possibly involving a police matter-would he come to you with it?”
“Of course he would! I’d be the first person he’d turn to,” Blevins answered with a lift of pride.
But he hadn’t-and for the same reason: Father James, too, had known the Inspector’s limitations as a man and as a policeman.
Rutledge said, “I hear there’s a chance that Monsignor Holston will replace Father James until a suitable choice can be made. I’m driving to Norwich later. Shall I tell him that Walsh has died?”
“Suit yourself. I expect half the county has heard that by now. What’s taking you to Norwich?”
Rutledge smiled. “A personal matter. By the way- who’ll be given the reward that Lord Sedgwick put up?”
“Not the police,” Blevins said wryly. “And Lord Sedgwick ought to make that decision himself.”
“I expect he will.” Rutledge rose from his chair. “Have you by any chance seen Miss Trent? I’d like to speak to her before I leave for Norwich.”
“She went out last night, found herself badly frightened in the woods north of the church, and spent what was left of it at the vicarage. I stopped there to tell the Vicar that Walsh had been found. He thought she was still asleep.”
“What frightened her?”
“God knows. An owl probably, or a badger. Women have no business out in the middle of the night on their own.”
“You’ve heard, I’m sure, that Priscilla Connaught was out looking for Walsh? Ran her car into a ditch and was lucky to survive with only a concussion.”
“Yes, well, rather proves my point, doesn’t it?”
Rutledge reached across the desk to shake Blevins’s hand. “If you’d like a last piece of advice, I’d wire Iris Kenneth if I were you. Save the ratepayers from burying Walsh in a pauper’s grave!”
“I might, at that.” He thought about it. “Yes, I will!”
Rutledge left, glad to step out into the sunshine. It had a grayness to it now that forecast rain later, as the doctor had suggested. After the early morning, it had never been a clear day. But even in this light the marshes seemed rich with color, and the wind moved through the grasses like a wraith.
The walk from the police station to the vicarage seemed to stretch before Rutledge like the Great Wall of China, miles upon miles to travel on foot. His body rebelled at the thought. Hamish ridiculed him for his weakness.
Ignoring his tormentor, he went back to the hotel and started the car.
CHAPTER 24
MR. SIMS OPENED THE VICARAGE DOOR warily, peering out at Rutledge shrouded in the heavy shadows cast by the trees along the drive.
“What brings you here? Half the town is sound asleep after the long night. I understand Walsh has been found, and is dead.”
“Yes, that’s true. On both counts.” Rutledge said it pleasantly. “I came to ask if Miss Trent is awake.”
Sims said, “I expect she’s still asleep. But if you care to leave her a message?”
“Would you mind looking in on her? It’s rather urgent.” His voice was still quite pleasant, but the edge of command had crept into its timbre.
Sims was on the point of arguing when a door opened at the top of the stairs. May Trent stood there above them in a dressing gown far too large for her, her hair unbound and hanging in a dark stream down her back. She didn’t look as if she’d been asleep. The smudges under her eyes were as deep as Rutledge’s own.
“I’m awake, Vicar,” she said. And then to Rutledge, “But hardly dressed to receive callers.”
“A policeman isn’t ranked as a caller, Miss Trent. I understand you were frightened last night. What did you see or think you heard in the woods that brought you here in some haste? We’re trying to track Walsh’s movements.”
“How did you know-” she began, and then realized that he’d tricked her. “Yes, all right,” she said after a moment. “If you’ll give me a little time to dress?”
He agreed, and the Vicar led him into the kitchen at the back of the house. The curtains were still drawn. A dresser taller than he was stood against one wall. Dishes were piled in a pan of soapy water on a small table by the windows, and the remnants of breakfast were still on the stove-toast and sausages with fried eggs. A jar of marmalade and a dish of butter sat on the main table, next to three used teacups.
“I was making fresh tea,” Sims told Rutledge, nodding to the kettle on the stove. “My guess is that you could use a cup! I’ve drunk my share this night.”
Remembering what Hamish had said earlier that morning as he’d finished Mrs. Barnett’s provisions, Rutledge asked, “With a little whiskey, if you’ve got it.”
“Yes, indeed,” Sims answered, opening a cupb
oard and taking out a fresh cup. “I’ll just go and fetch it.”
“First, I’d like to hear how Miss Trent arrived last night.”
“Nothing much to tell.” Sims peered into the sugar bowl. “I heard a knocking at the door, and I called down from a window to see who it was. Miss Trent said she’d got separated from her search party, and was uncomfortable about walking back to the hotel on her own. I let her in, telling her I’d just dress and then see to it that she got back to the hotel. But she asked for tea to warm her, and by the time I’d made it, she was sound asleep in her chair. I left her there with a blanket over her, and sent her upstairs around six, when she woke up disoriented and still half asleep.”
It was told smoothly, with enough detail to give it the air of truth.
But even Hamish growled his disapproval.
“Yes, that’s a fine tale for the gossips of Osterley!” Rutledge replied, taking the cup that Sims poured him.
“It’s the truth-!” There was outrage in the Vicar’s voice.
“Yes, I’m sure it is. But May Trent doesn’t strike me as the sort of woman easily frightened by noises in the woods, if she was out with a search party, and she came down that dark drive of yours when it would have been far wiser to hurry down the hill to the comparative safety of Water Street.” He paused. “After all, Walsh had been here just hours before. As far as she knew, he might still be hidden in the grounds, waiting until the hue and cry faded. No one thought to search the church tower, did they? Or all the rooms of the vicarage?”
Hamish said, “It’s no’ an impossibility…”
“You’d have got her out of here, fast as you could, if you’d had any sense,” Rutledge said. “But what she came to tell you made you both decide to stay here.”
Sims murmured, “I’ll just find the whiskey.”
But before he could move, the kitchen door opened and May Trent came in. “You said it was urgent?” She wore her clothes, wrinkled from sleeping in the chair, like a badge of honor. Her eyes strayed to the teapot. Sims was already searching for another clean cup.
She sat, accepted the tea he poured for her, added sugar, and sipped it as if it was warming her, her fingers around the bowl of the cup.
They were, Rutledge thought sourly, as companionable as a long-married pair, while he had only a matter of hours to finish what he’d set out to do.
“Get your coats, if you will. We’re driving to Norwich in five minutes.”
May Trent regarded him suspiciously. “I’m exhausted. I’m not going to Norwich or anywhere else-only to bed. And quite frankly, so should you, Inspector. You don’t look as if you’re rested enough to undertake-”
“You’d have done it for Father James.”
“What has this drive to Norwich to do with Father James?” she demanded.
“I think he began by trying to solve a problem, and found himself pitched headlong into something far more horrifying than he was trained to deal with. He did what he could. The man who may have killed him is dead now-there won’t be a trial, no clear judgment of his guilt, or for that matter, his innocence. Blevins is satisfied that the case is closed. But I’m left with an uneasy feeling that it isn’t. It’s convenient to blame Matthew Walsh. And shut our eyes. But I should think someone owes it to Father James to get to the bottom of what troubled him. I’m willing to try, but I can’t do it alone.”
Both Sims and May Trent were silent, absorbing what he’d said. She was the first to recover. “Then let that someone drive to Norwich with you.”
But something made her look away from him.
“Walsh is dead,” Sims put in. “I can’t believe that Walsh would have tried to escape, if he was innocent! If the facts, once they’re collected, would exonerate him, why not wait to be cleared?”
“Because he was a poor man and terrified that justice wouldn’t care if he went to the hangman. Which reminds me-if you’re convinced of his guilt, tell me why the two of you spent the night in this empty barn of a house, and wouldn’t leave it or go for help?”
May Trent stared down at her cup. “I’m a silly woman. The Vicar asked me again and again if I’d walk with him as far as the hotel. But I couldn’t go back outside and feel safe. You said yourself-a murderer was on the loose.”
“I think he was,” Rutledge replied slowly. “But perhaps it wasn’t Walsh.”
She spilled tea into the saucer and clicked her tongue in annoyance. “I wish you would tell us what’s wrong! What it is you want from us.”
Sims took the saucer from her, poured out the spilled tea, and wiped it with a serviette. He said, “I have work to do here. I can’t abandon my parish on a whim. Miss Trent is justified in asking what it is you want.”
Rutledge said quietly, “I’m a policeman. Have you forgotten? I don’t have to ask. I can require you to accompany me. Now, if you’ve finished your tea, we’ll be on our way.”
Listening to Hamish battering at the back of his mind, Rutledge made one detour on his way to the road south.
He pulled once more into the rutted drive by Randal’s farm.
But the gelding and the farmer had not come home.
Rutledge was beginning to feel uneasy.
The motorcar was silent as they drove south. Rutledge, uncomfortable because the Vicar was sitting in Hamish’s usual place, was not the best of companions, and May Trent kept her face turned away from him, looking out the window.
Hamish, on the other hand, was conducting a long and skeptical conversation with Rutledge.
“It isna’ the best way! Go to London, and speak to yon Chief Superintendent, tell him what it is you suspect! Let him reopen the inquiry.”
“Bowles won’t be any more receptive than Blevins was. And the case will be closed. I have at best twenty-four hours to solve he mystery that surrounded Father James’s last days. But it was there. ” Rutledge paused. “And there’s a secret binding these people together. Each seems to know only a part of it. What I don’t understand-yet-is whether the mystery and the secret are one and the same. I’m willing to bet my career that they are!”
“Aye, it could be so. But the days of the rack are over- you canna’ force them to tell you. Or be certain in the end you’ve got the truth.”
Rutledge concentrated on the road for a time and then picked up the thread of his silent conversation with Hamish. If nothing else, it kept him awake. But it failed to satisfy either one of the participants.
Hamish’s last salvo was telling.
“They willna’ like it in London.”
“No. But we’re a long way from London.” Rutledge shut out the voice in his aching head and tried to concentrate on the busy road south.
It was close to teatime when Rutledge pulled the motorcar into a small space between a cart full of cabbages and the deep hole that still reeked like a cesspool.
He got out, stretched aching shoulders, and went around the boot to open the door for May Trent. But the Vicar was already there before him, saying, “Why didn’t you tell us that it was Monsignor Holston you were coming to see!” His voice was cross. “There was no need to be so damned mysterious!”
He and May Trent stood waiting by the road while Rutledge went to knock on the door of the rectory.
Bryony opened it, beamed at Rutledge, and asked after greeting him, “Will you be staying for tea? I’ve got such a lovely bit of French cake for Himself, and-” She broke off as she saw the two people behind him, looking up at her from the street. “Ah, this’ll be business, then!”
“I still wouldn’t say no to tea,” Rutledge assured her, smiling. On their way south, by mutual agreement, the three travelers had agreed not to stop for lunch.
May Trent closed her eyes, as if shutting out the watery sun that had been threatening rain for two hours or more. Bryony saw it, and called to her, “Come inside, madam, and let me take you upstairs for a bit. You look like you could do with a rest.”
She only smiled and shook her head. “No. But thank you!”
“I didn’t remember visitors were expected!” he said to Bryony, setting the cat, Bruce, on the floor.
“The Inspector has come again, Monsignor, and brought guests with him.” She quietly closed the door as he greeted Rutledge warmly. Then he smiled at the Vicar and shook his hand, before the introduction to Miss Trent was made. Their host seated her with courtesy and said, “Father James spoke to me a number of times about the manuscript you’re completing. It’s quite an undertaking. If I may be of any assistance, you need only ask. Norfolk has a good deal of material to draw from.”
“As I’ve discovered!” She thanked him, managing to smile. “Memorials, even so, are often an excuse to go on mourning. He tried to tell me that as well.”
“I expect time will take care of that, too.”
Rutledge said, “We’re here about Father James, as it happens. Walsh is dead. He-died-last night, trying to escape.”
“Killed?” Holston asked. “By the police?”
“He was kicked by a horse. At least that’s what the evidence suggests. There’ll be an official inquiry, as a matter of course.”
“God rest his soul!”
Sims said, “Altogether, it was a harrowing night for everyone.”
“Walsh appeared to have the best motive,” Rutledge said. “There was a certain amount of evidence against him, but not all of it was conclusive-or satisfactory. On the other hand, I’ve been exploring Father James’s movements during the fortnight between the bazaar and his death.” His eyes turned toward Holston. “And I need to learn from you, Monsignor, what Father James told you about the Confession of Herbert Baker.”
Completely unprepared for the question, Holston said, “I couldn’t, even if I-”
