by Charles Todd
Mallory was the first to speak. “If I’ve caused you worry, I’m sorry. It was all I could think of, to keep myself safe. She’s your wife, and I have respected that. She will tell you as much.”
Hamilton said, “Thank you.” He found a chair and sat in it. “I’d like to see her now, if I may.”
Putnam said, “I’ll bring her to you.”
But they had finished their tea before Felicity Hamilton came down to the sitting room. She had dressed herself carefully, her hair shining in the light and her dark blue skirt nearly the same shade as Miranda Cole’s sweater.
“Matthew?” she said tentatively. “Are you all right?”
“As well as can be expected. I’ve given you a fright, I’m sorry.”
“We thought you were dead,” she wailed and started toward him. Then she stopped, not knowing quite what to do.
There was an awkward moment, before Putnam said, “You’ll want some tea, my dear. Come and sit here, by the fire.”
She hesitated, and then crossed the room to take the chair he offered her. He brought her a cup, like a good host, and went to stand by the windows, a watcher and a witness.
Mallory, his back to the wall, said, “Keep this short, Rutledge. We’re none of us at our best.”
Rutledge said, without preamble, “Someone has been mischiefmaking. At a guess it began when whoever it was watched Mr. Hamilton here walk down to the Mole for his morning stroll. Inspector Bennett believed it was Mallory, because there appeared to be a very good reason for him to wish Hamilton out of the way. We needn’t go into that. But I’ve come gradually to the conclusion that Bennett is wrong. And that’s why he’s not here this morning. I’ve got the three principals sitting in this room. A witness in Mr. Putnam. I expect what is said here to stay here. Do you understand me? Hamilton, I’m offering you a list of names. Tell me which one had a reason to kill you.”
Matthew Hamilton, surprise in his voice, said, “I’ve told you. Stratton threatened me. But I never believed he’d carry it out. If he’d been on the strand that morning, I’d have turned away and left him there. I’m not a fool. But I wasn’t afraid of him attacking me.”
“Who is Stratton?” both Mrs. Hamilton and Mallory asked in almost the same breath.
“A colleague,” Hamilton answered. “Go on, Rutledge.”
“George Reston.”
Mr. Putnam moved to say something, then thought better of it.
“He’s an angry man, filled with bitterness long before I knew him. He dislikes me, and I’ve never quite understood why. I dealt with his business partner. I still do. I rather believe that Thurston Caldwell would like to see me dead. But he daren’t touch me. Too many people would point a finger in his direction. That’s why I’ve stayed with him.”
“But they haven’t pointed at him, at least not here in Hampton Regis.”
“Then I was wrong, wasn’t I?”
“Mallory, here.”
“No, I don’t see that any more than you do.”
“Miss Esterley.”
“In God’s name, why her? She’s been a friend.”
“Then we must look at your wife. Felicity Hamilton.”
She smothered a little cry of disbelief.
“That’s enough, man, I won’t listen to any more of this!” Hamilton was angry, his face flushing with it. “If you can’t be sensible about this, then it’s over.”
Mallory had started to his feet, then sank back into his chair, remembering that, with her husband in the room, he had no right to be Felicity’s champion.
Putnam anxiously watched Rutledge.
He waited until the protest had subsided, and then said, “We haven’t found the weapon that was used to strike you down, Hamilton. But I want you to look at what I’m about to bring in.”
He went to the motorcar, lifted the rug from the rear seat, and carried it into the house with him.
When he held one end and let the rug unfurl, something hard and long went clattering across the floor to the hearth, nearly touching the toes of Felicity Hamilton’s shoes before it was stopped by the wood basket. She cried out, and the three men, already on their feet, crowded forward to see it better, though it was nearly five feet long and made of teak with worn brass tips.
Hamilton swayed on his feet, and Putnam put out an arm to steady him. Mallory was as pale as his shirt.
A boat hook, old, battered, very likely passed down for generations through a fisherman’s family, lay there in the fire’s red glow.
Not quite an African execution club, as Dr. Hester had suggested, but near enough to kill a man with one blow.
Rutledge said, “You told me last night, Mr. Hamilton, that you’d heard someone over by the boats. It’s in your statement. This is what he was looking for. He found it, and before you could hear him come up behind you, he brought you down with one swing. After that he was free to use it any way he liked. Or she. A woman could wield this hook as well. Now tell me, if you will, who else among your acquaintance is a cold-blooded murderer?”
Felicity asked, drawing her feet under her, away from the long, heavy length of wood, “Is—was this the one that was used?”
“I doubt we could prove it.”
“Whose boat did this one come from?” Putnam asked.
“It was drawn up on the shingle, much as it always seems to be. We can trace the boat, of course. But the boat hook was borrowed, dipped in seawater, to wash away any blood, and simply put back again. Ten minutes, at most, I should think. The owner never missed it.”
“I don’t see why I wasn’t killed,” Hamilton said in wonder. “I must have a harder head than he thought.”
“If you were dead, your lungs wouldn’t fill with seawater as you drowned. The battering from the rocks would have masked these injuries well enough, there wouldn’t be any question about what happened.”
Mallory interjected, “And if there was a question, I was the scapegoat.”
“I’m afraid so.” Rutledge bent down, retrieved the boat hook, and rolled it in the motorcar’s rug again, setting it outside the door. “Someone will be wanting this back.”
Hamilton said wistfully, “I wish you could explain away Mrs. Granville’s death as easily.”
“Not yet. But you didn’t kill her, you know. She wasn’t strangled.”
“Then why—? Damn it, I confessed to it!”
“Yes, I owe you an apology for that. It’s what I told you. But your willingness to take the blame was honorable.”
“What are you going to do now?” Mallory asked. “There’s still Bennett to deal with.”
“I want the four of you where I can keep an eye on you. Mr. Putnam, you’re needed here, if you’ll agree to stay. Mallory, you and Mrs. Hamilton will go on as before, if you please. And, in a change of plans, Mr. Hamilton no doubt would like his bed. I propose that he take to it at once and stay there while I report to the world at large that he’s been found, he’s still not fully coherent, and we expect a specialist to arrive shortly from London to tell us more about the head injury.”
He thought they were going to refuse. But Hamilton said, “I for one will do as I’m asked. I’ve not got the strength to argue. Am I to groan when Bennett comes? I can tell you now that the pain in my ribs and that leg will make it authentic enough even for Dr. Granville to believe.”
“Yes, I’m about to address that, Mr. Hamilton. We’ll do something for your pain, I promise.”
Felicity said, “But, Matthew, where have you been?”
Rutledge stopped him from answering. “On the Exeter road, Mrs. Hamilton, where a lorry driver took pity on him. Are we agreed, then?”
While Putnam struggled with breakfast, Mallory helped Rutledge put Matthew Hamilton to bed, with pillows and bedding placed to ease his discomfort. Felicity hovered over him, still uncertain how to behave toward him.
Her fright had gone deep. And she was finding that her relationship with both the men she had loved was on shaky ground.
She was
relieved when Rutledge sent her to eat her meal in the sitting room.
She was afraid, in one corner of her mind, that Matthew Hamilton was relieved as well.
28
Rutledge took the teak hook back to the boat it had come from. The mist had lifted inland, but along the water it still swathed the Mole in a heavy gray blanket that left a residue of moisture on his hat and shoulders. He wasn’t sure who might have seen him with the boat hook, but any uproar from the owner over the loss of it would have attracted more gossip. Or so he tried to convince himself. Either way it was a gamble. Someone in Hampton Regis would know very well why he had been interested in boat gear.
Afterward, he went to the rectory to find Dr. Granville, telling him that Hamilton had been found, and that he was in pain.
“I’ve got just the thing for him. Do you want me to examine him? Where in God’s name did you find him?”
“A lorry driver discovered him along the road west. God knows how he made it as far as he did.”
“And what about my wife? What has he told you about her death?”
“I have a confession,” Rutledge said. “For what it’s worth. He’s still rather unclear about details.”
“Is he at the police station?”
“He’s not well enough for that. He’s in the house, and we’ve got a specialist coming down from London to have a look at him. Something we ought to have done in the first twenty-four hours.”
“Yes, hindsight is a glorious thing. I’ve got something in my case that you can give him. It won’t do any harm, but it should keep him quiet until your man arrives. Anyone I know in the field? Baldwin for one. Or Hutchinson?”
“We’ll know soon enough, when he’s here.”
Granville left Rutledge standing in the entry and went up to his room. When he came back he was holding a packet of powders very like the ones Dr. Hester had left for Felicity Hamilton two days ago.
Rutledge thanked him and went in search of Bennett.
“Well done,” Bennett told him, when Rutledge made a brief report. “I’ll be there in a quarter of an hour. I’d like to let the Chief Constable know he’s under lock and key. What’s become of the lorry driver?”
“With any luck he’s on his way back from St. Ives.”
“Good man. We’ll need a statement from him.”
“Understand, Bennett, early days yet to know where we are with Hamilton.”
“He’s said nothing of importance, then?”
“I was able to learn two facts I can be reasonably sure of. He didn’t see anyone by the water when he was walking, but he heard footsteps some distance away, closer to the boats. Whether this was a potential witness or the killer himself, we still have to determine.”
“We’ll send people around to talk to the men who keep their boats there.”
“It’s as well to ask if anything in the boats was missing or misplaced. Fact number two—Hamilton overheard a garbled version of events while he was in Granville’s surgery. Whether it was from one of us speaking too freely in his presence, or whether it was a voice outside his door talking to Mrs. Granville, I can’t tell you. He’s not very clear about it. But he felt for his own safety, he had to leave.”
“When was this?”
“When the sedation was wearing off and he was more awake than we knew.”
“Yes, well, head injuries can be quite severe. Small wonder he couldn’t make sense of anything. But then he could have recognized the voice as the person who’d half killed him, and that put the wind up.”
“I want to speak to Dr. Hester as soon as possible. We still have no murder weapon for Mrs. Granville.”
“Here—did Hamilton have his keys with him, when you found him in Exeter?”
“He did. I’ve got them now.”
With that Rutledge was already walking out the door. From the station he went to call on Miss Trining. Afterward he went to Miss Esterley’s house.
“You didn’t see fit to sit up with Felicity Hamilton last night,” he said as soon as he was shown into her sitting room.
She said, “I couldn’t face it. I’m no match for anyone breaking into the house. Worse than useless, come to that. Mr. Putnam was a better choice.”
“I think, perhaps, a woman’s company would have been more comforting. But it doesn’t matter, now. We’ve brought in Matthew Hamilton.”
“My God, where was he?”
“A lorry driver found him along the road to the west of here.” He gave her the same account he’d given Miss Trining and Dr. Granville.
She listened with increasing anxiety. “You’re telling me that he’ll live? That in time he’ll be whole again?”
“There’s some hope of that, yes.”
“But what about Mrs. Granville? Are you saying she was still alive when Matthew walked out of the surgery?”
“He’s not clear about that. Not yet. In time, with good medical care, we’ll know a little more. On the other hand, he may not remember anything, in spite of all we can do.”
She smiled wryly. “Having refused to help Felicity last night, I shan’t be very welcome coming to call on Matthew now. But I’d like very much to see for myself that he’s all right.”
“There won’t be any visitors for a while. He may even have to be taken to London for care.”
“At least he’s being given it. I was so annoyed with Dr. Granville, you know. Miss Trining had suggested a specialist, and I agreed with her. But he told her that as long as there was swelling in the brain, rest was what Matthew most needed.”
“I’m sure it was true. Now that he’s awake, time will be on his side.” He rose to leave.
Miss Esterley said, “Truly, I wasn’t a coward, last night. You have to understand. I wasn’t supposed to walk again. Ever. The doctors told me how lucky I was that the damage to my knee could be repaired, but even so they held out little hope I could use it properly. It required all the faith I possessed to go through the long, grueling weeks of treatment and exercises and manipulation. They’d learned, you see, from wounded soldiers. But they weren’t entirely sure it would work for me. In the end, it did. I keep my cane as a reminder of how close I’d come to being dependent on the care of others for the rest of my life. I didn’t want to take the risk, you see.”
Hamish said, “She doesna’ blame him.”
“No,” Rutledge answered silently. “Not openly. But it’s there, underneath. If he’d been less kind, perhaps her true feelings would have risen to the surface.”
Aloud, he said, “I should have thought the debt you owed Hamilton would have been well repaid by helping his wife—or as we thought then, his widow. Whatever the cost.”
She blushed, the warm color rising in her face. “That’s cruel. And that wasn’t the choice, was it?”
“I think you were afraid of what Matthew Hamilton might have become.”
“No, Mr. Rutledge. I saw that two innocent women had already been murdered,” she told him firmly. “And I was afraid I might be the third. Mr. Putnam didn’t face that risk. What comfort would it have been to me this morning, lying somewhere dead, to have you admit you’d been wrong to ask me?”
At his next stop, Rutledge found Mrs. Reston on her way out the door to a luncheon. She was wearing a hat that framed her face and added a softness to it.
“My husband isn’t here,” she told him. “If it’s George you’ve come to see.”
“We’ve found Matthew Hamilton. He’s alive, but his memory is still unreliable.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Whatever you may think of me, I had no reason to wish him ill. Do you know now who it was who killed Mrs. Granville? Or Nan Weekes?”
“We can’t be sure until Hamilton is well enough to tell us who it was who carried him out of the surgery and left him on a roadside to die.”
“Will he recover his memory, do you think? In his shoes, I shouldn’t like to live the rest of my life knowing that I couldn’t bring a murderer to justice; no matter how hard I tried. It�
��s sad. What will you do now?”
“We are reasonably sure about certain points. But we need his evidence to bring the case to trial.”
“I see. And am I to tell this to George, in the hope that he’ll rush out to wherever Matthew Hamilton is resting and finish what he started?”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t put it to the test. A good barrister might see fit to ask you to testify to your role in driving him to murder.”
“I remind you that I’m a very good liar. And he’s the father of my children. What sort of life will they have, do you think, if he’s taken up and hanged?”
“You should have thought of that before you tested him.”
“He should have thought of that before he married me.” She put on her gloves. “I’m late, Mr. Rutledge. You must forgive me.”
She walked to the door and waited for him to hold it open for her. “I won’t play your game for you, Inspector. You must do it yourself.”
Rutledge ran George Reston to earth at his bank.
“I couldn’t care less whether Hamilton regains his memory or lives the rest of his life as a vegetable, dribbling down his chin in a wheeled chair,” the banker informed him. “He went out of his way to collect those heathen gods of his. Let him pray to them and wait for them to answer.”
“That’s a rather callous attitude, don’t you think?”
“Is it? I think not. You must remember that we sow what we reap.”
“There are two murders that haven’t been solved, Reston. Mrs. Granville and Nan Weekes deserve to be offered the full panoply of justice.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised if he killed them both in his demented state. Mrs. Granville in his clumsy effort to reach his wife, and the maid in mistake for Mallory.”
“Then how did he manage to drag himself out on the Exeter Road, where the lorry driver found him?”
“You must ask him that. I daresay he had no idea where he was going or why. I have a conference in five minutes. Is there anything else you wish to say to me?”
As Rutledge drove back to the Duke of Monmouth, Hamish said, “Ye ken, it wouldna’ sit well wi’ Hamilton to hear what ye’ve heard.”
