A False Mirror

by Charles Todd

  “I was as in the dark as everyone else,” Rutledge confessed.

  “Will you at least tell me what I am to expect?”

  “There’s not much God can do, now, Mr. Putnam. It’s a matter for the law.”

  Rutledge found Mallory, morose and alone, in the sitting room. He raised his head when Rutledge came through the doorway.

  “It’s you,” he said, as if he’d been expecting Felicity Hamilton to find him and offer him anything but the silence in which she’d been wrapped since early morning.

  “Where will you go when this business is over?”

  “Back to Dr. Beatie for a time, to work my way through everything that happened here. After that, abroad, possibly. It’s my turn for exile.”

  “You could still marry happily and put this far behind.”

  “What became of the girl whose photograph you carried with you in France?”

  Rutledge hesitated. “She’s living in Canada now. It didn’t work out for me any more than it did for you and hundreds like us.”

  “I watched Felicity change in just the few days we were shut in here together. I’ve got much to answer for. I understand now how she could have changed so much in three years. We didn’t think about that, in France. We believed England was there, that it would always be just the same as it was when we left. More fools we.”

  “We were too busy staying alive.”

  Mallory took a deep breath. “Do you know yet who’s behind this?”

  “I’ve a very good idea.”

  “I’d like to kill him with my bare hands and save the hangman his trouble.”

  “Do you still have Hamilton’s revolver?”

  “I put it back in the drawer, where I’d found it.”

  “I’d keep it with you tonight. I want you to prepare yourself a pallet on the floor, the far side of Hamilton’s bed. If anyone comes through that door, and you have any reason to worry, shoot first and ask questions later.”

  “Felicity is likely to come in there. I can’t risk shooting her.”

  “Lock her in her room.”

  “She’ll be furious with me!”

  “Better furious than dead. Will you do as I say?”

  “I don’t have any choice. But you’d better tell Hamilton why I’m armed. He’s likely to have something to say about that.”

  Shortly afterward, Rutledge left the Hamilton house and walked down the hill into Hampton Regis. From a vantage point well out of sight, he waited outside the rectory for an hour and a half.

  At last he saw Dr. Granville leave, carrying his medical bag and walking briskly in the direction of the Mole.

  Rutledge had made sure that Putnam was safely ensconced at Casa Miranda, and now, with Granville gone, the rectory was empty.

  He walked up the drive, cast a glance over his shoulder, and tried the door. It was unlocked.

  Inside, the rectory echoed its Victorian roots, a small house that had grown into a three-story collection of passages and rooms and dead ends to house a growing family. The rector used only a small part of the first floor, meeting his needs with a room in which to sleep and another for what appeared to be an overflow of books from his study. Furnishings in the rest of the bedchambers were sheathed in dust covers.

  Granville had been given the guest room, newly aired. Rutledge, putting his head around the door, saw the doctor’s valise standing under the window and a pair of shoes set neatly by the wardrobe. Granville’s possessions held no interest for him, and he withdrew, continuing his search.

  But Putnam’s belongings did. He scoured the rector’s bedroom and the adjoining dressing room, which had been converted into a bath. Then he went down the steps and repeated his search on the ground floor. He ended in the plant room.

  Rutledge had just put his hands on what he’d been searching for when he heard the hall door of the rectory open and then footsteps in the hall. He put the hammer back into the wooden box with the rest of the rectory tools, exactly as he’d found it, and got to his feet.

  Hamish, warning him with a sharp word, added, “He’s away up the stairs.”

  The door to the gardens was not five feet from his elbow.

  Avoiding the clutter of rakes and shovels, baskets, cutting shears, and aging Wellingtons gathering dust on either side of him, Rutledge reached for the knob, praying that the door wasn’t locked. It was not. He went through it quietly and walked close to the side of the house until he reached the shrubbery. It led to the low churchyard wall. He followed the grassy path there and spent some time wandering among the gravestones, in plain sight. He hoped that he would leave the impression of a man with something on his mind, seeking solace among the dead.

  As the clock over his head in the church tower struck the quarter hour, he went back to the Duke of Monmouth, stretched himself out on his bed, and slept.

  Rutledge spoke to the kitchen staff and arranged for an evening meal to be prepared for Casa Miranda. When someone came to tell him the packages and covered dishes were ready, he put them in the motorcar and took them up himself after one brief stop along the way. While at the station, he gave Bennett instructions that included calling off his own watchers this night.

  Darkness was just falling. To the west a long line of silvery clouds stretched out across the horizon, and under them the fading pink of sunset left a bright afterglow. Fair skies at night, he thought. Sailor’s delight.

  The occupants of the house, fretful after a day of their own company, fell on the food with the pleasure of people grateful for distraction.

  Matthew Hamilton came down, sat in the armchair at the head of the table, and toyed with his plate.

  “You aren’t hungry?” Felicity asked, surprised.

  He smiled at her. “I’ve always liked roasted ham, you know that. I was just thinking….”

  “About Nan.”

  “Yes. What do you say, my dear, to a few days in London, when I’m stronger? We might search for a new house on our way there.” It was an oblique acknowledgment that Casa Miranda was haunted by ghosts, one living and one dead.

  She smiled at him in turn. “I’d like that.” There was no emphasis in the words, merely acceptance.

  “Done, then.” He turned back to his plate and ate with apparent gusto, but Rutledge could see that he was pretending. He wondered if Felicity could.

  They had finished their pudding when Mr. Putnam looked at his watch and exclaimed, “I’m late. If you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment at the rectory. It shouldn’t last long. But I must keep it.”

  Avoiding Rutledge’s eye, he rose from the table, thanked everyone for the meal, and went to find his coat.

  Rutledge listened to the opening and closing of the outer door, then tried to concentrate on something Mallory was saying to him. Soon afterward, he went around the house and looked carefully at each of the windows and doors.

  The fortress was secure. But for how long?

  Between them, Rutledge and Hamilton managed to persuade Felicity to retire early, though she was certain she wouldn’t sleep for hours.

  “I’ll feel better, knowing you’re just there, through the door,” Hamilton told her. “It won’t be long before I’m stronger and can manage on my own.”

  “I wish you would remember everything,” she said suddenly. “It must be very uncomfortable, not knowing. I shan’t be able to walk down a street in Hampton Regis without wondering about everyone I pass, thinking this one or that one might have tried to kill you. How much worse will it be for you?”

  “It’s worrying,” he told her. “What if I never remember all of it?”

  “Don’t think about that,” she replied, and there was a thread of fear in her voice that both men heard clearly. She closed her door and Hamilton listened for the turn of the key in its lock, and then nodded to Rutledge, waiting at the head of the stairs.

  Around nine o’clock that evening, someone came to the house and left a message with the constable on duty outside.

  It was from Pu
tnam.

  Mr. Joyner is ill again. I’m going with Dr. Granville to see him.

  When Rutledge questioned the constable, he identified the messenger as the Allen boy.

  Rutledge closed the door and prepared to wait for Putnam to return.

  It was almost eleven o’clock when the church bells began to ring wildly. Mallory, rushing to a window, said, “What’s that in aid of? Rutledge, I don’t like it.”

  “Nor do I. Go upstairs, Mallory, and take up your post. Tell Mrs. Hamilton there’s a fire in the town and not to worry.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “In the drive. To see what’s happening.”

  He watched Mallory take the stairs two at a time, then let himself out the door. The night was quiet, but he thought he smelled smoke.

  When he reached the constable on duty, the man said, “Must be a fire. I heard the pumps go out.”

  People were in the streets now, shouting and running. Rutledge walked on, far enough down the road to a point where he could see the church steeple, and to this side of it, the line of the rectory roof. Nothing. He scanned other rooftops, nerves taut now.

  Hamish said, “It doesna’ have anything to do wi’ us, then.”

  In that same instant Rutledge caught the first dart of flame licking up the edge of a chimney. He realized that it was Miss Trining’s house, and in the back of it, the pumps were set up and starting to work.

  He called to the constable behind him not to relax his guard, then raced down to the center of Hampton Regis.

  The firemen were busy, Bennett’s constables helping, and the men on the pumps, their faces red in the glare of the flames, were grimly concentrating on keeping the water flowing.

  He glimpsed Putnam in the crowd, then lost him in the shifting light. Dr. Granville was there as well, and even George Reston, though he was standing to one side, watching.

  Rutledge made his way to Granville. “How is Joyner?”

  “He died over an hour ago. Have you seen Miss Trining? Is she out of there?”

  “No, I haven’t seen her,” Rutledge said, his gaze sweeping the milling throng working to put out the flames.

  “Damn! They tell me the fire began in the wood stacked by the kitchen door. There’s been a great deal of smoke. I hope to God—” He broke off.

  The bells had stopped.

  Rutledge could hear people coughing and gasping all around them, but they kept working. “Where’s Putnam, do you know?”

  “He was looking for her as well.” Dr. Granville dashed off, disappearing in the direction of the pumps.

  Rutledge threaded his way across the crowded back garden, helping where he could, still searching for the rector. He finally found Miss Trining, clutching the portrait of her ancestor, watching as others brought out pieces of furniture and carpets.

  He reached her, saying only, “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s the kitchen that’s burning now. The wall where the fire wood was stacked to dry. God knows what started it. A spark from the chimney?”

  She was stoic, her face set in a determined calm, though he could see that her knuckles were white where they held the portrait.

  The shingles by the chimney were smoking heavily now, the flames doused.

  “Have you seen Mr. Putnam?” he asked her.

  “He’s making certain all the servants are safe. I told him they were.”

  Rutledge made one last circuit of the property and then turned back toward Casa Miranda, walking fast.

  Hamish, all the while scolding him for leaving his post, said, “It was verra’ clever.”

  “Yes.” He saved his breath for the last sprint up the hill, startling the constable, whose attention was riveted on the pall of smoke rising up in the night sky.

  “Have you seen Mr. Putnam?” he called to the man.

  The constable turned guiltily to face him. “Sir? I believe he went up to the house not five minutes ago.” He saw Rutledge’s expression in the reflection of the lights around Miss Trining’s house. “You did say to let him pass at will, sir.”

  Damn!

  Rutledge went on to the door, fishing Hamilton’s keys out of his pocket. Letting himself in as quietly as he could, he stopped with his back to the door and listened.

  The house was silent.

  Where the bloody hell was Putnam?

  Overhead Hamilton and Mallory were lying tensely in the dark, waiting. And Mrs. Hamilton, God willing, was in her own room, oblivious.

  He dared not call out.

  The rector couldn’t have let himself in through this door—it was the one with the newest lock. But he had two keys that fit doors to the kitchen and to the servants’ hall.

  Still Rutledge waited where he was, his body tense with listening.

  Hamish said, “Ye ken, yon fire was set.”

  “He couldn’t have known what I’d found.”

  “He could ha’ made a verra’ good guess. Were ye seen, passing through yon shrubbery into the churchyard?”

  “Possibly. Too late to worry about that now. It’s done.” A dialogue with Hamish was so familiar in the dark that he wasn’t even aware of it. “Clever of him not to set the fire in the rectory.”

  The house seemed to creak and then settle around them as the chill of the night began to work through the brick and into the timbers behind.

  Rutledge bent to unlace his shoes and set them to one side, out of the way. Then, moving on stocking feet, he walked softly through the door into the kitchen passage.

  He listened, his eyes blind, his senses alert.

  And far away down the passage, a door creaked on old hinges, then opened with only a whisper of sound.

  Five minutes more and he’d have been too late.

  A breath of air stirred, bringing a hint of smoke with it. Footsteps, moving quietly and without haste.

  Rutledge stood there, nestling into the shadows of the wall. He could follow on the plan of the house he carried in his mind just where the trespasser must be. Through the servants’ outer door. Now down the passage that led to the hall. Slowing, apparently searching in the dark for the back stairs to the floors above.

  But who was it?

  He thought for an instant that he’d caught the flash of a torch, as if the intruder needed the reassurance of seeing a door was open before blundering into it.

  After a few minutes, a chance footfall informed him that someone had made a decision not to go up the back stairs. Rutledge took a silent breath of relief. Better a confrontation here than near Hamilton or his wife. It was what he’d hoped for.

  In another twenty feet, whoever it was would be close to the room where Nan Weekes had been murdered.

  He counted steps he couldn’t hear.

  Half a dozen more, and it would be time to show himself.

  Whoever was there paused by the door to Nan’s prison.

  At that instant, the darkness erupted with light, brilliant, shocking, and blinding.

  Rutledge swore with passion and swiftly moved forward.

  Through the glass in the room where Nan Weekes had died, he saw Mr. Putnam, armed in righteousness and sincerity, standing in the full glow of a pair of lamps.

  And outside, pinned like a startled insect in the brightness, was Dr. Granville.

  What the bloody hell was the rector up to?

  He didn’t think either man could pick him out beyond the circle of light. He stopped short, keeping absolutely still, standing there like the wolf in Russian fairy tales, waiting to see what the carnage would be.

  And Hamish was roaring in his mind like all the imps of hell.

  Mr. Putnam said, “Doctor.”

  “Miss Trining told me you’d gone back to comfort Joyner’s daughter, once you’d learned you weren’t needed at her house.” Granville tried to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

  “Yes, I should have done. What did you give him, that let him die?”

  “I didn’t. It was coming, just sooner than he or I expected.”
>
  “But you killed your wife. In my workbox there’s a ball-peen hammer I don’t recognize. I expect Mr. Rutledge has already found it. Mine was my father’s, with a worn blue handle. It’s there as well.”

  Rutledge felt his anger rising. Putnam had been ordered to let Rutledge confront Granville, while he stood by as a witness concealed in shadows. Instead he was putting Rutledge’s questions himself. Had the man run mad? Or had he been afraid that Rutledge wouldn’t arrive in time to ask them?

  “Matthew Hamilton killed her,” Granville was saying. “Rutledge has a confession.”

  “Hamilton confessed to choking her. I told you earlier, he was muddled last night. But that’s clearing up with rest and food. As you knew it must, once he was no longer sedated so heavily. Why don’t we go and find the inspector?”

  “The last I saw of him, he was still at the fire.”

  “There’s the hammer.” Putnam was firm. “I can swear to seeing it. The name of the hospital where you trained is on the handle.”

  “The hammer doesn’t exist. Not anymore. It’s burned up in the fire with the wood stacked outside Miss Trining’s kitchen door.”

  “Do you feel Nan’s spirit here with us? She worked for your wife. Conscientiously, as she did for everyone. She even sent you a message about the sheets left at her house.”

  “She’d heard us quarreling. It wouldn’t have done if she’d remembered and told the world what those arguments were about.”

  “Money? You’d already set your sights higher. I expect when the Granville family cut you off, Margaret must have appeared to be a lifeline. She told me not six months ago that you were still repaying them what you owed them for your training. Sadly her inheritance is nearly used up. A foolish pride when there’s little money to support it.”

  “You have no way of proving that,” Granville retorted sharply.

  “Mr. Rutledge put in a call to your foster father, who spoke to your bankers. On the other hand, Miss Esterley is rather well-to-do. And much prettier than Margaret. The only trouble was, she was fonder of Matthew Hamilton than she ever was of you. I’m not surprised that you were sorely tempted to put an end to him.”