by Charles Todd
“I-don’t know. It would depend on the scandal, to a large extent.” Sims looked out at the rain and the wet trees overhanging the drive. “The Sedgwicks came from trade- they aren’t able to weather the scandals that established families can. They’ve climbed the social ladder as high as possible in three generations. But they aren’t at the top. They’ve given money generously where it would do the most good. Full acceptance, marrying into the best families, eludes them. Arthur might have, if he hadn’t foolishly fallen in love with a cousin. He might still, as a widower. I’m not sure he wouldn’t prefer to learn that she’s dead.”
“Father James pursued her disappearance with unexpected fervor.”
“No, not if you’d known him. He had a great capacity for caring. He told me once that every time he looked out at his congregation, he knew that he was not the man they believed him to be. It drove him to strive for a level of service that few of us can ever hope to emulate.”
As Rutledge thanked Sims again and walked out into the rain, Hamish said, “Aye, Priscilla Connaught’s shadow fell across the priest’s pulpit every time he stepped into it.”
“A pity he never told her,” Rutledge answered silently.
CHAPTER 27
HAMISH SAID, AS RUTLEDGE CLIMBED BEHIND the wheel, “If it wasna’ Walsh who killed the priest, you’re up against a canny murderer. He kens how to cover his tracks.”
“No loose ends to stumble over,” Rutledge agreed. “When Blevins allowed himself to be blinded by anger, he tied his own hands. He went looking for a monster.” Rutledge turned out of the vicarage gates. “And he found himself one.”
Hamish answered, “It willna’ be to your credit if you fail.”
“I won’t fail,” Rutledge answered grimly. “Sedgwick should have destroyed that Egyptian bas-relief instead of moving it out to the gardens. It gave me the key to Father James’s actions-a Watcher. After that, it was only a matter of time before the rest made sense.”
A milk wagon lumbered by on the main road. In the rain the backs of the horses were burnished copper.
Rutledge braked. “In this weather-”
He reversed the motorcar, backing as far as the gate to Holy Trinity. The grass under his feet as he crossed the churchyard to the north porch door was heavy with rain, and his shoulders were soaked by the time he reached the shelter of the church door. Opening it, he brushed the water from his face before he stepped inside.
“Henderson? Inspector Rutledge. I’d like to speak with you, if you’re here.”
His voice echoed in the silence, almost an obscenity in the peace of the nave and the soft patter of rain against the stained glass. This morning, dark as it was, the colors were deeper and richer, but without life.
Rutledge waited.
Then he heard someone near the choir. “I’m here. Give me a minute.”
Peter Henderson, rising from a pew, tried to straighten his coat and brushed a hand over his hair before walking toward Rutledge. “What do you want?”
“Verification. That’s all. The Vicar tells me that you saw Walsh the night he came in here to hammer off his chains.”
“Yes.”
“Was he alone?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you follow him, when he left?”
“I knew who he was. I’d seen him at the fair at St. Anne’s. I thought it best.”
“Where did he go?”
“Up the lane, into that copse of trees. Past the houses. He was bearing west, and south. It’s the direction I’d have taken, in his shoes. It’s mostly pasturage, beyond the houses, and easy walking.”
“He never turned east, while you were following him?”
“No. Why should he? It would be going into a box.”
Rutledge nodded. He looked down at Peter Henderson’s shoes. They were old. Worn…
He said, “Walsh stole a mare from a farmer just east of Osterley. Why would he turn back on himself to do that?”
Henderson shrugged. “I’ve told you what I saw. I can’t tell you what he did after I broke off and walked back to Osterley.” He had an odd dignity, standing there in his creased and worn clothes. A man shunned by others because he happened to be very good at killing from ambush. It wasn’t deserved, the judgment local people had inflicted upon him. And yet this was his home, and villagers were often tied, emotionally if not financially, to their roots. The money in the tin box at the rectory would have been a treasure trove to him. He could have gone anywhere with ten or fifteen pounds in his pocket. Had it been tempting?
Hamish said, “I canna’ believe it. Nor do you. It was a rifle he used in the War. Distant killing, that.”
“Fair enough, then. Henderson-” Rutledge paused. “Were you at the rectory, the day Father James was killed? Waiting to see him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I’d heard of work in Wells. I wanted to ask him to write a letter for me.”
“Had he written letters before?”
“Once. The Vicar has written them, too.”
“Where did you wait?”
“Mrs. Wainer was just leaving. It was growing dark by then. I stood by those overgrown bushes, so as not to frighten her. Someone else came looking for Father James. I left then, not wanting to push myself forward.”
He’d stood in the lilacs-“those overgrown bushes.” It wasn’t one of Walsh’s cronies acting as lookout, after all; it was a man wanting help to find a job. Rutledge said, “Who came?”
“Mrs. Barnett, from the hotel, but she only tapped at the door. When Mrs. Wainer didn’t answer, she stepped into the kitchen and called, then closed the door and left.”
“Mrs. Barnett never went beyond the kitchen?”
“Not as far as I could tell. She wasn’t there much above a minute.”
“Was there anyone else?”
Henderson said reluctantly, “Yes. Lord Sedgwick came to the front door and knocked.”
“You saw his car?”
“No, I never did.” His voice was level, a soldier reporting to his commanding officer. “But I saw him walk up the drive. Then he came round to the back. Along the far side of the house, not close to where I was standing. He was looking up at the windows of the conservatory next door. They were dark. Then he went in through the kitchen, calling to Father James. He must have gone on to the parlor, to wait. Or leave a note. That’s when I left.”
“And you never saw Father James that night?”
“Well, yes, I did. He was on his bicycle, riding back to the rectory. He waved, and I walked on.”
“You didn’t tell him he had a visitor?”
“It wasn’t my place.”
Hamish said, “Blevins wouldna’ believe it was a local man there in the shrubs. He wished it to be Bolton, the scissor sharpener. Or Iris Kenneth.”
Rutledge said, “I’m driving to The Pelican. Would you like a lift?”
Henderson’s face brightened. “Give me five minutes. To clear up.”
“I’ll wait in the car.”
Rutledge turned and walked back to the motorcar, hardly noticing the rain.
Once he’d dropped off Henderson, Rutledge drove back to the hotel, retrieved his umbrella from his room, and walking briskly, went directly to the police station.
He found that he was not the only visitor.
A youngish woman in a black coat over a green traveling dress was sitting in front of the Sergeant’s desk, her face buried in an overlarge handkerchief, supplied by a red-faced Blevins across the desk from her.
The Inspector looked up as Rutledge came through the door. “Whatever it is, it can wait.” He gestured toward his visitor. “This is Iris Kenneth. She traveled up from London to-er-see Walsh. I’ve just given her the news.”
Iris Kenneth raised her face from the handkerchief, her eyes watery and red-rimmed, turning to stare at the newcomer.
Blevins said, “This is Inspector Rutledge, from Scotland Yard.”
She nodded a faint ackno
wledgment and said to Blevins, as if she had been interrupted in the middle of her grief, “I was so angry with him! Matthew. For sacking me. But I decided that if I stood by him now, he might take me on again, after. He wasn’t a bad man to work for. He enjoyed posing in his costume and being admired. I was jealous.”
“He wasn’t likely to be taking on a helper ever again,” Blevins said. He cast a wary glance at Rutledge. “He was more likely to find himself waiting for the hangman.”
Fierce in Walsh’s defense, Iris Kenneth cried, “But I told you, Matthew wasn’t a murderer! He wasn’t a bully, he didn’t have a temper!”
“Yes, I know, Miss Kenneth. Several times.”
She began to cry again. Rutledge, standing by the door, could read the embarrassment in Blevins’s face. Over the woman’s head, the Inspector shot him a pleading glance for help. “I don’t know what you want me to do, Miss Kenneth,” he said plaintively. “I can’t tell you what the arrangements are for a funeral. Not just at the moment. But if you’d like to take a room-”
She glared at him through her tears. “I don’t have the money to stay-or to bury Matthew. I spent nearly every penny coming here-I’ve barely enough to see me back to London!”
Hamish said, “He’s no’ a man for the ladies. He doesna’ ken that it’s no’ so much Walsh’s dying as it is the disappointment of her expectations. She canna’ face what to do now.”
Rutledge stepped toward her chair. “Miss Kenneth, it’s been a very difficult morning for you. A cup of tea and an hour’s rest at the hotel will help. I’m sure Inspector Blevins will meet with you in the afternoon.”
Blevins glowered at him, and she caught it.
Iris Kenneth’s shoulders slumped. “I could use a cup of tea,” she said. “This has been a terrible shock-!”
“I’m sure it has. Mrs. Barnett, at the hotel, is very kind. She’ll see that you’re taken care of.”
She looked more closely at the tall man by the door. He could read her eyes as they swept over his face and across his shoulders, and back again.
With the resourcefulness of her class, she recognized that she would make no headway with the stolid man behind the desk. And she was desperate, willing to try any port in the unsettled climate of her life just now. She got to her feet with some grace and said, “You’re very kind. If the Inspector here-” She groped for a name.
“Blevins,” he said, relief already spreading across his features. “Inspector Rutledge is right, Miss Kenneth. Take your time and you’ll soon see your way clear again.” The false heartiness in his voice was almost insulting.
“-Blevins,” she acknowledged, “will give me a little more of his time later?”
“Oh, yes, to be sure,” he said hurriedly, rising from his chair to escort her to the door.
Rutledge glanced at Iris Kenneth and then said cryptically to Blevins, “I’d come to ask. The doctor was satisfied that it was the mare’s shoe that was the cause of death?”
“Oh, yes. There’s no doubt. I’m completely satisfied.”
Rutledge nodded.
Holding the umbrella over his companion’s hat, Rutledge took her arm to guide her toward the hotel. “I’m sorry that you’ve come so far,” he told her, “to hear such tragic news.”
“He wouldn’t have killed anyone. Much less this priest! Matthew was always on his best behavior at church bazaars, superstitious, if you like. And he never cared for being penned up-I’m not surprised he escaped! A big man like him? In such a small space? It would have been torture!”
Rutledge though, God! I’d have tried to escape, too. Shut in away from the air and the light-smothered by the walls Hamish said, “Ye ken, murderers are always locked away. If they’re half mad, like you, it’s the cell, it’s no’ the rope.”
Iris Kenneth kept up her earnest defense of Matthew Walsh all the way to the hotel, one hand holding her skirts out of the rainwater washing down the street toward the quay. When they reached the door, she looked out at the marshes, and Rutledge could feel her shudder through the arm inside his. “What a dreary place,” she remarked. “Enough to turn anybody into a murderer, living here long enough!”
Mrs. Barnett stepped out of her tiny office and said, “Good morning, Inspector, you’re about early on such a nasty day. I believe Miss Trent and Monsignor Holston have been waiting for you in the lounge. Shall I bring tea to warm you up?”
“Meanwhile, I’ve brought you another guest-”
She reluctantly took charge of Miss Kenneth, eyeing her with some dismay. In the calm, gracious lobby of the hotel, Iris Kenneth’s style was decidedly out of place, garish, her voice a little loud, her clothes a little shabby, her face rather too heavily made up for a country town. Her rouge and the line of kohl beneath her eyes had run from her tears, giving her a clownish expression of surprise.
Iris Kenneth seemed equally reluctant to give up Rutledge’s company. She said, “You will take me back to see Inspector Blevins later?”
“Yes. And see you safely on your way back to London,” he promised, undone by the fear in her eyes. It was real, not feigned.
This woman had lived a life with little security, on the edge of poverty as often as not, and never climbing to the dizzying heights of the great names of the legitimate stage. It had already taken its toll in her skin and in the hard lines around her mouth. He remembered all too well the woman dragged from the Thames. Had she chosen the water rather than falling into prostitution? If Iris was despairing enough of her future prospects to swallow her pride and anger, and come to offer Matthew Walsh her support, she was desperate indeed.
Hamish said, clicking his puritanical tongue, “You’re a fool, and will be taken for one!”
“Hardly,” Rutledge answered curtly.
He left Miss Kenneth in Mrs. Barnett’s care and walked into the lounge, where May Trent was writing a letter at the small white desk and Monsignor Holston was reading a book. They looked up, their faces mirroring an expression of impatience.
“Where have you been?” Miss Trent asked. “We expected to see you at dinner last night or breakfast this morning!” There was neither censure or anger in her voice, but he detected an undercurrent of strain.
“I’ve been busy, I’m afraid,” Rutledge replied. “I’ve spoken with the Vicar, for one, and Peter Henderson after that. Peter tells me that Walsh walked away from Holy Trinity through the trees just south of the vicarage, and past the houses there, taking a southwesterly course, where he could make good time in the pastures beyond.”
May Trent said, “But you said Walsh hadn’t done any such thing! You said he’d taken that poor farmer’s horse! That’s why we said nothing-”
Monsignor Holston interjected, “If Walsh had come across a search party, he might have doubled back, found himself some faster means of getting out.”
“In his shoes, doubling back could mean certain capture. There were farms ahead-”
Mrs. Barnett came in with tea. “I’ve settled Miss Kenneth for now,” she said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she sleeps for an hour or so. She tells me she came all the way from London. It must have been a very difficult journey for her!”
Rutledge said, “Thank you. Er-I understand you went to see Father James, the same day that he died.”
“No, that’s not true-” She paused. “Oh. You mean to the rectory! I stopped to ask Ruth Wainer if I might borrow a roasting pan for the weekend, when there would be a christening party here. I didn’t expect to find Father James in-at that hour, he’s usually in the church.”
“Did you go to the kitchen door? Or to the front of the rectory?”
“To the kitchen door, of course. I was hoping Ruth hadn’t left.”
“Did you see anyone near the house when you went there?”
She smoothed the collar of her gray dress. “I don’t recall seeing anyone else. Should I have?”
“Peter Henderson was there, near the lilacs, waiting to speak to Father James.”
“No. But of cou
rse I wasn’t looking for him, was I? Why didn’t he speak?”
“Did you meet a member of Lord Sedgwick’s family, by any chance?”
She considered the question. “Not Lord Sedgwick, no. I did pass his motorcar near Gull Street. I didn’t see who was in it, the lamps were right in my face, and it was traveling fast. It went on toward Wells, as far as I could tell. Occasionally that chauffeur of his takes it to The Pelican, if Lord Sedgwick is out of town. It could have been Edwin. He’s a fast driver, like his brother.”
“Do you know the Randal farm?”
“Oh, yes. Everyone does. I used to buy cut flowers from his wife, for the dining-room tables. She was a wonderful gardener.”
“Whose property is adjacent to Randal’s, to the south?”
“My guess is it belongs to the Sedgwick family. Lord Sedgwick has made a practice of buying up acreage when he can. I shouldn’t be surprised to hear he’s bought the Randal property, when Tom’s too old to run it himself. There’s no close family, you see.”
What she’d told him agreed with the map he’d seen in Blevins’s office. “Thank you, Mrs. Barnett. You’ve been very helpful!”
“Will you be staying in for lunch?” Her glance ran around the room.
“Yes, if that’s convenient,” Rutledge answered for them.
“You know something we don’t,” Holston said, as the door closed behind Mrs. Barnett.
“Little things. Henderson saw Lord Sedgwick arrive at the rectory just after Mrs. Barnett left. When there was no answer to his knock, Sedgwick went inside. Furthermore, if Sedgwick’s property adjoins the Randal farm, it’s very likely he’d also know about the horses-and that the old man is hard of hearing.”
Monsignor Holston said, “I don’t follow you-are you telling me that Sedgwick arranged for a horse to be available to Matthew Walsh, once he escaped?”
“No,” May Trent said slowly, watching Rutledge’s face. “No. He thinks someone else rode that mare.”
She was quick…
