by Charles Todd
“Whose graves were they? Men, women, children?” Rutledge was intrigued.
“Men, every one of them. The vicar couldn’t think of any connection among them. Which is not to say there isn’t one. Various occupations, various ages. Farmers, shopkeepers, a doctor. Davies combed through their lives and came up with nothing of note.”
“How long has the vicar been in that parish?”
“A good point. Ten years. But Davies asked living relatives, and they couldn’t provide an answer either.”
“Did he find the culprit?”
“Davies did his best, but no, he came up empty-handed. The vicar is quite upset. He seemed to think the villain’s next target might be the church itself. It’s old, there could be serious damage done there.”
“Did the victims die at the same time? A calamity of some sort?”
“Davies and the vicar looked for a pattern, but there was none. Had they died in the same month—odd years—consecutive years—murdered? Any variation he could think of failed to hold up. And there were no witnesses, if you don’t count the churchyard owl. A constable made his rounds at ten, then again at midnight, and went away home.” He shrugged. “Whoever it was had a clear field for some hours. Well, needless to say, Davies isn’t in the best of moods either.” Cummins tossed his hat to the top of a file cabinet and said, “I thought you’d be interested. So was I. If you think of anything Davies hasn’t tried, tell me.”
Rutledge stood in the doorway. “Why was the Yard involved in the first place? It appears from what you’ve said to have been a petty crime.”
Cummins nodded. “Apparently the vicar has a few connections of his own. He complained to his bishop, and someone at the Home Office listened. It was a shocking scene, of course, and it unsettled the entire village.”
Rutledge smiled. “Too bad Davies failed to uphold the honor of the Yard.”
“I’ll wager it was nothing more than a prank or a dare by local youths. They may still come forward, if their consciences are guilty enough. Or if their fathers find out. What connects these graves may simply be high spirits.”
“I expect Davies would rather have discovered some diabolical plot.”
Cummins laughed.
Rutledge walked on to his own room, where he found Sergeant Gibson with a file in his hand.
“More grave stones?” he asked.
Gibson glared at him. “Hardly, sir. It’s a murder. In Moresby. Yorkshire.”
His spirits plummeted. He hadn’t seen Jean since the weekend in Kent. What’s more, Frances was away visiting friends. Her note gave no indication that she expected to return before Friday evening’s party.
Somehow Melinda had discovered that he was in Dorchester and replied almost immediately to his news, asking him if he was sure of his heart. By return post, he’d told her that he’d never been as sure of anything before, not even his decision to join the Metropolitan Police. That he’d lost sleep over that because he’d known it would disappoint those he loved.
A second letter assured him that she was happy for him, and that she looked forward to seeing Jean again. And she had suggested a year’s engagement, to give them both a chance to know each other better.
A spring wedding is always so lovely, she’d written. Your parents were wed in May, and so was I. Of course it is Jean’s choice, but you might suggest the possibility to her.
He had found a way to bring the date up when next he wrote Jean, but he already knew what her answer would be. She had her heart set on Christmas, because of her own parents.
David’s letter, waiting for him at the London house, had been more wholeheartedly happy for him. He’d never met Jean, David had written, but he was looking forward to it.
Frances’s note had troubled him.
I’m not certain when you’ll arrive at home. I’m visiting the Haldanes for a few days. I’m happy for you, of course. It’s just that I’m not sure I’m ready to share you, Ian. That’s terribly selfish, I know, but I’ve only just begun to recover from the loss of our parents, and while I’ve leaned on you more than I should, perhaps, there has been no one else but Melinda I could talk to about Mama and Papa. I hope Jean will understand. But as you say, I have until Christmas to grow accustomed to the idea, and I’ll not let you down. I promise.
He’d already decided that it might be best to continue to live in the house on the square, if Frances had no objections. Nothing, he knew, would ever change the fact that he was her brother. And perhaps that decision would reassure her. In time, he hoped she would find someone of her own, and be as happy as he was. Even as he thought it, he realized that he’d have to learn to accept her choice, if she’d accepted his. That brought a wry smile.
As for Moresby, it was a long way from London, up on the northeast coast of Yorkshire. He’d hardly arrive there before he would have to leave, if he intended to be in London on Friday evening. And that he had no intention of missing. For a moment he was almost willing to wager that Bowles had remembered the date and deliberately scuttled his leave.
He sat at his desk, reading through the file, then he sent a message round to Jean to tell her that he was on his way to Yorkshire, but she mustn’t worry, he hadn’t forgot the party. She would be worried all the same, and he damned Bowles for being callous about the lives of the men under him. After all, he’d gone to Dorset with no complaint. It would behoove him, he thought sardonically, to bring the Yorkshire inquiry to a swift conclusion.
3
With that intention firm in his mind, Rutledge took the afternoon train to Yorkshire instead of driving. It was a day more suitable to lawn parties than murder, he thought, settling himself in his carriage. Jean would be on her way to town from the country, to do last-minute shopping while her mother attended to all the arrangements for Friday evening, the caterers and florists, the small orchestra and the wines. He tried to concentrate on that, but he found that the case in Dorset was still troubling him, and he turned instead to the newspapers he’d bought before boarding.
They offered little cheer.
Europe was aflame with charges and countercharges after that business in Sarajevo. Austria was in the mood to blame all of Serbia and punish its people accordingly. As the investigation into the appalling events dragged on, Russia was taking a hand in the matter, declaring that she spoke for all Slavs and would stand by the Slavic Serbs, in the event that Austria decided on military action. There had been other assassinations, long before the bombing of the motorcade in the Archduke’s procession, but killing the heir to the throne was not simply murder, it was an act of treason, and Vienna’s position was that the troublesome Serbs deserved to be taught a sharp lesson. The fact that they were Slavs had nothing to do with it, and Austria told Russia to mind her own business.
Rutledge shook his head. He didn’t envy the policemen, Austrian or Serbian, who had to get to the bottom of this business and keep a lid on the powder keg of emotions that threatened the peace of the Balkans. Franz Josef, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, was well into his sixties. His wife, the Empress Elisabeth, had been assassinated years before by an anarchist, his only son had died in a murder-suicide pact, and now the Archduke, his heir, was dead. The fate of Europe might well depend on what a bitter old man decided.
The clergyman across from him, seeing him set aside the newspapers, asked if he might read them. Rutledge passed them to him. Sometime later, he too set them aside.
“Nasty business,” the clergyman said, gesturing to the headlines. “I hope we don’t find ourselves drawn into it. Although I don’t quite see how. Still. You never know.”
“Hotheads,” the third man in the compartment agreed. “For one thing the Emperor may be past controlling his own people. For another, Tsar Nicholas is too foolish to see where this claim to be the savior of the Slavs could lead him. There’s the German treaty with Austria. If she goes to war with Russia, Germany easily could find itself involved.”
“Well,” the clergyman said, “my wife’
s sister lives in Vienna. Married a banker there. For her sake, I hope this comes to nothing.”
It was late when the train pulled into Moresby. There had been some trouble on the line after York, and they had waited an hour or more for it to be resolved.
The town was dark and quiet, the stillness broken only by the soft whisper of the sea from the harbor. No one was waiting to meet him, and so Rutledge went directly to the Abbey Hotel, recommended to the Yard by the local Inspector. There he ordered a light dinner sent up to his room and then went to bed.
At first light he rose and looked out his window. The town curved around a pretty harbor, where pleasure craft bobbed on the incoming tide. The fishing fleet was just visible on the horizon, sails turned red by a distant sunrise. On either side of the harbor mouth, the land rose sharply to headlands that jutted into the sea, protective arms securing the anchorage. On the higher eastern headland stood the magnificent ruins of Moresby Abbey. Only a shell, the roofless walls soared into the sky, and where the great stained glass windows had once hung, only the frames were left, a tracery against the blue above. The western headland, on the other hand, was wild country given over to nesting seabirds.
In winter storms, a dark and angry sea would pound those cliffs and roll unhindered into the center of the town, lapping at storefronts, and sometimes tearing vessels from their moorings and leaving them stranded on shore as the waters receded.
But on this day as the sun climbed higher, bright and warm, the sea a deep and blinding blue as far as the eye could see, only a light breeze touched his face as Rutledge walked out of the hotel and went to find the local police station.
Inspector Farraday was in, sitting at his desk in a back room, poring over the statements his constables had collected, when Rutledge walked in.
“And who are you?” Farraday demanded, looking him up and down.
“Scotland Yard,” Rutledge replied, and gave his name.
“Are you indeed?” Farraday frowned. “We’ve had a dozen or more strangers in Moresby these past few days. I’ve tracked most of them down. I was hoping you were another of them, and I could tick you off my list.”
“A stranger, nevertheless,” Rutledge said pleasantly and took the chair in front of the desk. “Tell me what’s happened here. Could it have been suicide?”
“He couldn’t have managed it himself. Not just there. Didn’t the Yard show you the report sent in by the Chief Constable?”
“It did. But I usually find that what the local people tell me is more helpful.”
Farraday grunted. “We don’t have much in the way of trouble. The occasional drunken seaman from one of the ships that put in. The occasional drunken landsman, celebrating something or drowning his sorrows. Fisticuffs on market day, petty theft, the random wife-beating, and sometimes housebreaking. Occasionally visitors come to see the abbey ruins are set upon and robbed. The last murder was four years ago. A wife killed her husband for philandering, then she marched into my office and turned herself in.”
“How likely is that in the present case?” Rutledge asked, striving for patience.
“Damned unlikely, sad to say. Ben Clayton was an unremarkable man. Fifty-six years old. A widower. Minded his own business. No enemies that anyone knew about. As a rule, ordinary people seldom have them. Not the sort that resort to killing them, at any rate. He’s owned a prosperous shop on Abbey Street for many years. Survived by two sons and a daughter. They can account for their whereabouts, all three of them, and there are witnesses as well who verify their stories. But someone came into the house late in the evening and hanged Clayton from the turning at the top of the stairs.”
“What manner of shop? How successful is it? Did he owe anyone money?”
“Furniture making. The older son, Peter, says not. The firm is on a sound footing. Has been for years. We spoke to the staff. They are all respectable, respected men, employed there for a long time. What’s more, they can prove they were at home when the murder took place. If they held any grudge against their employer, they were careful never to let it show, but the consensus is that he was a fair and generous man to work for. I myself never heard any complaint against him.”
“Wives do lie for their husbands, sometimes. Clayton was a widower, you say? Any other women in his life?”
“Not that the daughter knows of. Annie. She was her father’s housekeeper, and says he kept regular hours. That’s not to say that a few women in the town didn’t wish it otherwise. Miss Sanderson and Mrs. Albertson among them.”
“Where was the daughter when the murder occurred?”
“She spent the night at Peter’s house. His wife is expecting and wasn’t feeling well. She served her father’s dinner, turned down his bed, put the cat out, and left him sitting in the parlor reading a Dickens novel. He was fond of Dickens. As a young man, his father had heard the writer speak. Made quite an impression apparently. There was a glass of warm milk at his elbow, Annie Clayton says, and it was still sitting on the table, half full. His spectacles were beside it, and the book, closed, lay on the floor by the chair. No sign of a struggle. Nothing stolen, the house wasn’t searched. Apparently Clayton hadn’t gone up to bed. It hadn’t been slept in.”
“Did the neighbors hear anything useful?”
“Nothing at all.”
“What sort of man was Clayton?” Rutledge asked.
“Not tall. He’d put on a stone or two in the last few years. I don’t think his daughter could have strung him up like that. I can’t see why Peter would. Besides, he was at home with his wife and sister. They played a board game or two, then went to bed.”
“And the younger son? Where was he?”
“Michael and three friends had traveled down to York to visit a fourth friend who’d just become engaged. I’ve spoken to the York police, they were there, in a pub, celebrating the occasion. Nor could any of them come up to Moresby, do the deed, and return to York without being missed.”
“Michael’s friends wouldn’t cover for him if he asked them to lie?”
Inspector Farraday took a deep breath. “It’s possible, of course, but I doubt it. The groom’s parents put them up. Responsible people, they’d have kept an eye on their son and his friends.”
“Mistaken identity, then? Did someone kill the wrong man?”
“As to that, I can’t say. See for yourself.”
Farraday handed over the statements he’d been reviewing. Rutledge scanned them. The Moresby police had been thorough, speaking to each of the suspects several times, and the interviews had been carefully documented.
“Who were the other strangers that you mentioned?” Rutledge asked, still reading through the statements. Someone had taken the time to type them out neatly, but the original handwritten copies were there as well.
“One came here to write an article about the abbey ruins for a London magazine doing a series on monastic sites. So he says. I’ve telegraphed the magazine, but there’s been no reply. Two came in with the Lillian, a sailing yacht up from Sandwich in Kent. Cousins on holiday. They took rooms at The Anchor Inn. The landlord vouched for them. Four others have come up from London on a holiday. To go fishing. They hired Danny Craven’s boat to take them out each morning. The other four were women, on their way to York, stopping off to visit a sister who lives just outside Moresby. The one we haven’t tracked down is an artist, I’m told. He does paintings of local beauty spots. Apparently they sell well in Harrogate, to those who come to take the waters. I’ve spoken to the Swan Hotel, where he sometimes displays his work. They call him harmless. But I haven’t clapped eyes on him yet. He’s staying at your hotel.”
Turning to another interview, Rutledge looked up. “Four women, working together, could hang a man.”
Inspector Farraday stared. “Could, possibly. Yes. But did they? I think not. I’ve seen them.”
Rutledge studied Farraday to see if he were serious. And it appeared that he was. “I’ll begin with the neighbor.” He shuffled through the st
atements again. “Mrs. Calder.”
“Good luck to you,” Farraday said, leaning back in his chair.
Rutledge made a note of the address and set out on foot. The house was back in the direction he’d come into Moresby, on a side street that ran a little way up the western headland before ending in a cul-de-sac. A turn-of-the-century bungalow with a door painted a dark green. He studied the Calder residence for a moment, then looked at number 17, where the murder must have occurred. That door was painted black. He realized that along this street the range of colors included a dark blue, an egg yolk yellow, and even a brick red. There might have been difficulty deciding which color was which in the dark . . .
The houses weren’t cheek by jowl, but they were close enough for a struggle in one to be heard in another. The house on the far side of number 17 had a TO LET sign in the window. As far as he could tell, it was empty. Rutledge turned back to the Calder house and walked up the short path to the dark green door and knocked. The front garden was trim, well kept, like that of number 17. If Mr. Clayton did the gardening himself, then there must have been an occasional chat between neighbors, if only about the plantings.
There was no answer. Although he tried a second time, the house felt empty, as if no one were at home.
He walked back down the path just as a woman stepped out of number 12 with a market basket over her arm.
Rutledge caught her up, and, removing his hat, politely asked if she knew where he could find Mrs. Calder.
She examined him with a mixture of curiosity and wariness, as if uncertain whether to reply.
“I’m from London,” he said in explanation. “Here on a matter of business.”
