by Charles Todd
Rutledge drove farther than he’d intended, reaching Lincoln before stopping for the night. He made an effort to close his eyes and rest, but his mind was busy with speculation. In the small hotel not far from the cathedral where he usually stayed, he’d had difficulty finding a room because so many men had come into the city to enlist. Several of them had come down very early to breakfast, as soon as the dining room had opened at six-thirty, unable to sleep for the excitement of what they were about to do.
He put their ages at nineteen, and from their conversation, he gathered they worked on neighboring farms and appeared to know each other well. They had decided that joining the Army was far more exciting, and they had walked this far only to find the recruiting office closed for the evening.
One of them asked Rutledge where he was from, and when he told them London, they bombarded him with questions he couldn’t answer. What was the war news? Were they still in time? Did the fact that the recruiting office was closed indicate that the Army already had as many men as it needed?
He wanted to tell them to go back home and await events. But their excitement was high and reason didn’t interest them. They had told everyone they were leaving to fight the Kaiser, and if the Army would have them, it was what they meant to do.
“They’ll be sending seasoned troops to France first,” he told them as he finished his meal. “Not raw recruits. Even if you manage to take the King’s shilling today, you’ll need to be trained before you fire a shot, and by that time, the Germans could well have decided to back off.”
But they wouldn’t hear of it, demanding to know if he intended to enlist as soon as he reached London.
Rutledge ignored the question, asking instead who would work the farms they’d left behind while they were away.
“There are enough men to bring in the harvest,” one of them said. “And if we’re home by Christmas, there will be plenty of time to think about next spring’s planting.”
He wished them well and went on his way. But he thought about them as he drove south. Three of how many hotheads on their way to join an Army they wouldn’t have considered a month ago? Drawn by visions of glory and the chance to kill Germans. And how many young Germans and Frenchmen and Austrians and even Russians had rushed out to do the same? What had happened to this quiet, peaceful summer? What had brought on such madness? Not just the assassination of an Austrian Archduke. It was as if a plague of blood lust had spread on the wind, infecting everyone it touched.
He was young enough to feel the pull of adventure. To feel the blood run hot with excitement. He wasn’t immune to the plague. But he’d seen his share of bodies in the course of his time as a policeman, and there was nothing glorious about death. Parades and bands and banners were all very well, but after these had passed by, the dead didn’t rise up and go on with their lives. They were collected and buried, the hero together with the coward. And medals handed out by a grateful country did nothing to comfort the bereaved the dead left behind.
War was best left to the Major Gordons of the world, who were prepared and trained to deal with it.
Trying to shake off his mood, he picked up speed and made an effort to think about London, and why he had been summoned.
The first person he encountered when he walked into the Yard the morning of the second day was Sergeant Gibson.
“You’re back,” he said. “Sir. There’s a file on your desk. Chief Inspector Cummins asked that you look at it first thing.”
“Is the Chief Inspector here?”
“He’s at a meeting in Bloomsbury. There’s been trouble over German waiters at a restaurant there. Spy fever. He’s trying to make people see sense.”
“I don’t envy him. All right, thank you, Sergeant.”
He found the folder placed conspicuously on his desk so that he couldn’t miss it.
Setting his hat on the top of the file cabinets, he sat down and stared at the plain cover. Clipped to it was a small square of paper where Cummins had written, URGENT.
Rutledge opened it and stared at the name of the victim. It seemed to leap out at him.
F. M. Gilbert.
He must be dead, Rutledge thought, and not of natural causes. Not if his name was in a file at the Yard.
He forced himself to go through the file logically, familiarizing himself with the details.
One Fillmore M. Gilbert of Swan Walk, Kent, had been found in his study by his housekeeper, unresponsive and to her eyes dying, his breathing so shallow she couldn’t be sure she could see it.
She had sent for help, and Gilbert’s physician had come posthaste. He had done what he could, then sent Gilbert to Tonbridge and hospital.
“The man’s got the constitution of an ox,” the doctor had said in his preliminary statement. “He should have died.”
He had taken an overdose of laudanum. But because Gilbert took small amounts quite regularly, he hadn’t died.
Rutledge stopped there, and went to ask one of the sergeants on duty if Cummins had returned. He hadn’t.
And there had been nothing in the file to indicate whether Cummins believed this to be Dobson’s work or had left the file for him, knowing Gilbert’s connection with the Rutledge family. What’s more, the local police hadn’t requested the Yard’s assistance.
But family connections wouldn’t account for that urgent telegram. Rutledge went back to stand by his window looking down at the canopy of leaves below.
“Gilbert claimed he hadn’t prosecuted that particular case,” he said aloud. “He couldn’t remember anything about it.”
Catching himself, he turned back to the file.
Rutledge came to a decision. Cummins wasn’t available. The file was on his desk. He could swear he believed it was a request for assistance, not a routine notification in the event the Yard had an interest in the man or the situation.
He flipped the folder closed and took his hat down from the top of the cabinet, walking out of the office and down the passage. It was no more than thirty miles to Tonbridge. He could be back before the end of the day, if he hurried.
Traffic was heavy as he left London but thinned as he turned south. He passed a carriage of young men, waving their hats and cheering, clearly on their way to enlist, and flushed with a precelebratory drink, no doubt. And on the road were other men walking purposefully toward the nearest town.
What would the Army do with them all?
When he arrived at the hospital, he was told that Gilbert had regained consciousness and insisted he be taken back to Swan Walk. The doctor’s carriage had left not half an hour before.
Rutledge stopped for sandwiches and a cup of tea, then drove after the carriage. It had already arrived by the time he reached the house, the horse standing there quietly, swishing his tail at the flies and waiting patiently.
He knocked, was admitted, and told that Mr. Gilbert was not accepting visitors today.
“Please tell Dr. Greening that this isn’t a social call. I’ve come from Scotland Yard.”
Dr. Greening himself came down then. He was younger than Gilbert but not by much. “Whatever business you have can wait,” he said testily from the stairs. “My patient needs rest.”
“I’m afraid my business is official and urgent.” He gestured in the direction of the room where he’d talked to Gilbert on the night of the storm. “But I have no objection to beginning with you, sir. Shall we?”
He led the way without waiting to see if the doctor was following. And then he heard the footsteps coming the rest of the way down the steps and after the briefest of hesitations, turning toward the passage.
The maid who had admitted him was still in the hall. He heard her close the outer door and cross the floor in the direction of the servants’ stairs. That door opened and shut as he waited for the doctor to catch him up.
“There is no need for this,” Dr. Greening said stiffly as he walked into the study and faced Rutledge.
“A file was waiting for me today. I must presume it was pl
aced on my desk because it has been reported that Mr. Gilbert had attempted suicide.”
“As a matter of fact, one of the staff had mentioned that you had called on Mr. Gilbert fairly recently. Inspector Williams in Tonbridge felt that Mr. Gilbert’s decision to kill himself might have been a result of your visit.”
It was not what he expected to hear. After a moment he said, “Sit down, this may take some time.”
“My patient—”
“Is he stable?”
“Well, yes, but his age is a matter for some concern.”
“Then you can spare me ten minutes. Why should my visit have led Gilbert to a decision to kill himself?”
“His mind is rapidly failing. He skates the issue rather well, but it has been causing increasing distress. That’s why as a rule he doesn’t go out or receive visitors. Did you press him? Make him feel the loss more particularly?”
“We talked about an old case. He told me he sometimes confused the older trials, but he most certainly still understood the law. That last was clear enough. And he gave me a list of other barristers practicing at the period of time in question. It’s possible one of them will remember the information I need. In the scheme of things, the trial I’m after was rather commonplace. Certainly nothing that would disturb Mr. Gilbert or drive him to suicide.”
“Yes. Well, he’s quite good at concealing his ailment. There are days when his memory functions remarkably well. And others when he is sadly muddled.”
“Tell me what happened here, what sent him to hospital.”
“He often sits up at night. He doesn’t sleep very much, and he finds it easier not to make the effort to go up to his bed. I think he breathes a little better as well. Where was he when you saw him?”
“Where you are sitting now. Only the chair had been turned to face the open window.”
“When the housekeeper came in to bring him his morning tea four days ago, he was slumped over, his breathing slow and labored. She couldn’t rouse him. She was afraid he’d had a stroke, and she sent for me at once. By the time I arrived, he was unresponsive. I knew it wasn’t a stroke, it was more like an overdose. I had him taken straightaway to hospital, where they emptied his stomach and took other measures to bring him back. In the end, he survived, much to our surprise. For one thing, despite his age and his appearance, he’s a strong man. For another, he’d been taking laudanum for a painful toe. To help him sleep at night when it throbbed like the very devil. His body was used to a certain level of it, you see. And what might have killed an ordinary man failed to do more than render him deeply unconscious. It’s one of the problems with the drug, I’m afraid. The body becomes accustomed to it, and requires more and more to be efficacious. In effect, the same problem found by those who take such drugs to obliterate rational thought. They require larger and larger doses until it kills them.”
“In Gilbert’s case, how was it administered?”
“In a glass of milk.”
“Milk? I think if Gilbert had been given a choice in the matter, he’d have taken it with French brandy.”
“And just as well he didn’t.”
“Then who brought him the milk? And who put the drug into it? Gilbert couldn’t make it down to the kitchen on his own. Not the man I saw a few days ago.”
“On the contrary, I believe he could, if it was the only way.” Dr. Greening pointed to a small box on Gilbert’s desk. “As to the drug, he has laudanum available down here as well as in his room. He administers it himself as needed, because he says the staff can’t get the hang of the drops. I think he believed he was more in control of his life if he could make his own decisions on how much or little he needed. And I must say, he’s never had a problem with an overdose before.”
“If his memory is failing, how can he be trusted with drops?”
“There is a sheet of paper in the box, with days of the week and times of day. He simply fills it in and replaces the sheet in the box. The housekeeper looks at it every morning. On the night in question, he failed to fill it out at all. I myself looked at the vial, but the level didn’t indicate such excessive use. I came to the conclusion he’d been hoarding it, lying about taking it, in order to build up a sufficient amount. Perhaps for this very purpose.”
“Then where is that second container? He couldn’t be sure the housekeeper wouldn’t grow suspicious when the amount in the vial stayed at the same level day after day.”
“The point was to spare the family pain,” Dr. Greening said coldly. “If I had come across the container, I should have had to acknowledge the possibility of suicide rather than an accidental overdose while confused by pain. Look, he most likely tossed the container out that window. I didn’t go and search.”
Rutledge stood and went out through the lace curtains that had been pulled across the open windows to keep out the sun. He spent several minutes carefully examining the terrace and the plantings surrounding it. There was nothing that might have been used to hold the laudanum.
He did however find a boot print in the soft earth of a bed of tall delphiniums near the side balustrade of the terrace. He reached down to touch the edge of the print. There had been no rain to wash it away, but it was fast losing its shape in the dry soil. He stood inches from it and looked up. He could see the doctor sitting there in Gilbert’s chair, fingers tapping impatiently on its arm.
Rutledge went back inside. Sitting down again, he said, “There’s nothing out there. I should like to suggest something else to you. That someone tried to murder your patient. And failed.”
“That’s a ridiculous assertion. Fillmore Gilbert? Who would wish to harm him?”
“Someone from his past? One of the reasons I’ve come to Swan Walk today was to question him. If he’s awake and alert, he can give us an answer to that.”
“I tell you he’s too weak, he will need several days to regain his strength.”
“And in several days, this person, whoever he or she may be, will have killed again.”
Dr. Greening stared at him. “You know more than you’re telling me.”
“I think—I believe that I do. There have been other deaths, far too similar for coincidence. Not just in Kent but across the country. And each one seems to point to a trial in the past. In fact, the one I’d come here earlier to ask Gilbert about. He told me he didn’t remember it, and he sent me to someone else. Unfortunately that man wasn’t able to help me either. Now, given what has happened to Gilbert, I’m beginning to think the killer found him first.”
Greening shook his head. “Are you suggesting that someone he sent to prison is now free and bent on revenge?”
“It’s possible. But if I’m right, it’s the son of a man Gilbert sent to the gallows. His mother died recently, and that, I think, set him free to commit these murders.”
“Because his father was not guilty?”
“I don’t know what this man Dobson believes.”
“All right. I’ll give you five minutes with Gilbert. And I’ll see that a nurse is brought in to stay with him at all times. Good God, the man who did this could very well try again!”
Greening rose and led the way up the stairs, limping a little as he neared the top of the steps. Down the passage to the right, he opened the door to a handsome room with wall hangings and furnishings that harked back to Tudor times, although there were comfortable chairs set before the hearth.
Gilbert’s skin was gray and dry, as if what he’d gone through had cost him dearly. His gaze had lost its sharpness, and he seemed to have shrunken even more, almost lost in the great canopied bed.
Rutledge took his hand and spoke to him, but Gilbert didn’t seem to know him.
He tried again, saying, “It’s Ian, sir. I’ve come to see how you are.”
Gilbert searched his face. “Where’s Claudia?” he asked in a whisper.
“She’s at home, sir. The doctor is about to send for her—”
The dry hand on the coverlet curled around Rutledge’s with an iron grip
. “No. I don’t want her here. No, I tell you.” He turned to the doctor. “Bring me the milk,” he said in a stronger voice. “I didn’t finish it. I couldn’t have.”
And then as if the effort was more than he could handle, his hand fell back to the coverlet and he closed his eyes.
“. . . couldn’t have,” he said again after a moment. Then clearly, “Dear God, what have you done?”
Rutledge stood by the bed for several minutes more. But Gilbert seemed to have slipped away from him, unable to struggle back to consciousness again.
Greening finally motioned to Rutledge, and they walked as far as the door.
“You see?” Greening said, “he knew what he was about. Your fears about a killer notwithstanding, Fillmore Gilbert tried to end his own life. He did empty that glass of milk, you know. On purpose.”
“I spoke to him quite recently. He wasn’t suicidal then. It makes no sense that he could change so drastically in such a short space of time. Just now I found a footprint in the flower bed outside the window where he generally sits. Was that made while you were trying to save his life? Or has someone been watching him from the shadows?”
“It makes sense if you consider what he just admitted he wanted to do. As for the footprint, it could have been made by one of the staff, worried about him and not allowed in the room.”
“What else has he said about what happened? Has he spoken before?”
Dr. Greening looked away. “As to that, he muttered from time to time, but it’s been unintelligible. Not even the ward sisters attending him could judge whether he was lucid or not.” He turned again to Rutledge. “Now that he’s back in his own bed, his own house, he may be able to push aside the shadows and remember why he felt he needed to take his own life. He’s old, Rutledge, in pain, and no longer the brisk, decisive man he once was. Can you blame him for tiring of his present state?” He glanced toward his patient. “Meanwhile I’ve removed all the laudanum from the house, and I’m putting a watch on him for fear he may intend to try again as soon as he’s able. I’m also sending for his daughter.”
