by Charles Todd
“You haven’t said. Why was there no struggle, no attempt to call for help? Was Dobson armed?”
In his mind’s eye, Rutledge could see again the glint of the revolver beneath the shawls that wrapped Gilbert’s thin shoulders and body.
“We weren’t there. I expect we’ll never know the pressure Dobson brought to bear.”
Cummins stared at him. “It’s the difference,” he said after a moment, “in whether it was suicide or murder. Legally.”
“We weren’t there,” Rutledge said again. “We can’t judge.”
And he was gone before Cummins could frame his next question.
Frances was writing notes to contributors at the last fund-raiser, to thank them for their support.
He waited until she had finished, sealed the envelopes, and affixed stamps to them.
Turning to her brother, she said lightly, “If you had stood for Parliament instead of becoming a policeman, you could frank these for me. I’m spending a young fortune on stamps.”
“Do MPs still have the right to sign a letter in lieu of stamping it?”
“How do I know? But it seems like such a good idea, don’t you think?” She set the letters in a basket, ready to be posted, then said, “You’ve been sitting there very patiently. Am I to hear the lecture again on bringing in someone to live here and protect my good name? It won’t do, Ian, you’re wasting your breath.”
“No. It’s a case I’ve been working on. Somehow the man I believe to be a killer has found out where I live. I must leave for the south coast, and I would rather you went away for a few days. Just as a precaution. Would you mind terribly?”
Frances regarded him. “Are you quite serious? Are you really in danger?”
“I doubt it. Still. My hands are tied. I can’t be in two places at once. I’d be happier knowing you weren’t here. Melinda is always asking you to spend a little time with her. Why not go there? The Yard is looking for this man. We’ll have him in custody soon enough.”
It took a little persuasion. But in the end, she agreed. He thought she might even have been glad of an excuse to be away from the talk of war, at least for a bit.
“If he’s found this house, whoever he is, there’s Jean to think of. You’re there nearly as often as you are at home.”
“Yes, I know,” he replied, trying to keep the worry out of his voice. “I’ll deal with that later. Go and pack what you need. Do you think Toby MacBride would run you down to Kent?”
He was one of her numerous escorts, and at last word, he hadn’t rushed off to enlist.
And so it was arranged. An hour later, Toby was at the door, and it was time to carry Frances’s luggage out to the motorcar.
Rutledge left instructions with the household, then went up to pack. He wanted to call on Jean. He’d missed her, he wanted very much to see her. It felt as if their entire engagement had been at the mercy of the Yard and most especially Dobson. But he knew it would possibly mean putting her at risk.
And then he was on the road to Torquay.
With him he carried the letter Dobson had written using Terrence Chasten’s name. He made the best time he could, driving through the night.
As it was, he was already too late.
21
Although it was barely seven in the morning, Rutledge went first to the house where Chasten lived. The housekeeper who opened the door told him that he was most likely at the shop at this hour. He drove on into the center of the town. The bay was a sparkling silver under the early sun, but he had no time to notice it.
A crowd had gathered in front of the baker’s shop and he saw a number of blue uniforms moving slowly down the service alley, engaged in an arm’s-length search. Another constable was posted at the door of the bakery.
It could mean only one thing. Dobson had got here first.
Rutledge had to show his identification twice to get through the throng of people. The constables who passed him through were tight-lipped.
The rear door was standing wide, and as he crossed the threshold, he could hear voices from above. He took the steps two at a time and came out in the passage where Chasten had his office.
The door to Chasten’s office stood wide, and in the lamplight spilling out from it, he could see an overturned glass of milk, the contents spreading across the desk and pooling beneath an upended chair. A trail of trampled and torn papers led to another door that stood open. Here stairs went up to the attic storeroom above. He started up them, dreading what he would find there, and was just in time to see two constables lowering a rope that had been flung over the rafters.
A police Inspector wheeled about as he heard Rutledge on the stairs. He wasn’t the man Rutledge had worked with earlier.
“Who are you, and who the hell let you through?” he snapped.
“Scotland Yard. I have an interest in this matter. Who found the victim?”
“His brother. He’s downstairs.” He turned his back on Rutledge and watched as the constables finished with the rope, leaving it snaked across the attic floor. Nodding to one of the men, he said, “All right, thank you. Go on down to the bakery and help with the statements.”
He turned to Rutledge, saying only, “Sefton.”
“Rutledge.”
Sefton gestured to the remaining constable, and he switched on a torch.
In the dim light it had been hard to tell, but now Sefton pointed to one of the square oak girders that supported the rafters and the roof. “The rope was tied off over there.”
Someone else was coming up the stairs behind Rutledge. As the constable switched off the torch, he turned to see a slender man carrying a doctor’s bag. He nodded to Rutledge as he came into the attic and stared at the rope on the floor.
“Where is he, then?”
“Downstairs.”
“The constable said he was badly knocked about.”
“Yes. You’ll see for yourself.”
The doctor turned away, and Sefton, with a last look at the rope, its twisted, thick knot an obscene lump on the floor, made to follow him.
“You’ll want a look at Chasten as well,” he said over his shoulder to Rutledge. “You have an interest here, you say. What can you tell us about the man we’re looking for?”
“His name is Dobson. Henry Dobson.”
Sefton’s eyebrows went up. “You seem damned sure of that. Is he likely to kill again? On my patch?”
“It’s not likely. He was after Chasten.”
Sefton nodded, and went on down the attic stairs. He turned to his right in the passage, where the doctor was already heading for a second flight farther along that must, Rutledge thought, lead to the bakery itself. “What’s more, I’d like to hear how you arrived here in such a timely manner. Crystal ball gazing at the Yard now, are you? A pity you weren’t in time to warn Chasten.”
Rutledge smiled dutifully. He could smell burning bread, heavy on the air. He said, “I wish we had a crystal ball. I’d spoken earlier to one of your colleagues. A man named Reed. He put a watch on Chasten’s house for a week. Unfortunately our quarry was recovering from an injury and we lost track of him. So, apparently, did Chasten. And the Yard sent a telegram to him yesterday, warning him that Dobson was likely to be here in Torquay. One also went to your station.”
“John Reed has enlisted. So far I’ve only got through his current cases, not the backlog. As for any telegrams, only military traffic is getting through just now. There seems to be a twenty-four-to-thirty-six-hour delay on anything else. You’re telling me this killer lives in Torquay?”
“Somerset, before he began killing people.”
He had Sefton’s full attention now. “So you’d come from London to find out why Chasten wasn’t already a victim?” He had stopped at the foot of the stairs, twisting his head to look up at Rutledge, behind him. “How many more victims were there?”
“Four. Another survived. Barely.”
“I’ll want to know more,” Sefton said, his eyes unfriendly. “But it will
have to wait until I’ve dealt with Chasten.”
He pushed open the door at the bottom of the stairs, and Rutledge found himself stepping into chaos, overlaid by heat, an even stronger smell of burning bread and heavy smoke from the ovens that irritated the eyes.
The room was a shambles. Ingredients strewn everywhere, pots and pans scattered around the floor, and the long table that held the great bowls of rising dough lying on its side. Like the office, the kitchen had seen a vicious struggle.
A man was sitting in a chair in the far corner of the room, his head in his hands. At the sound of the door opening, he lifted a battered, tear-streaked face as the policemen picked their way across the cluttered floor toward him.
As his gaze shifted from Sefton to Rutledge, there was instant recognition in his eyes.
Rutledge himself stopped short. “But this is Terrence Chasten.”
“It is,” Sefton replied over his shoulder. “The other one is in there. With the doctor.” He gestured to a room just beyond where Chasten was sitting, then shouted to the constables in the front room of the bakery. “Someone get that damned bread out of the ovens.”
“Gentle God,” Rutledge said under his breath. He was still staring. It appeared that Chasten’s nose was broken, and one eye was fast swelling closed. His hands, dangling on his knees now, were bloody, skinned, the knuckles swelling. One ear was torn and bleeding onto his coat. The man didn’t seem to notice.
He knelt by the man’s chair and said, “Tell me what happened?”
Sefton said brusquely, “There’s no time for that. In here.”
Rutledge rose, put a hand on Chasten’s shoulder, and followed the Torquay Inspector into the next room, which had been an office and now was where employees kept their aprons and gear to clean the ovens and kitchen.
The doctor was working over another man lying on the floor, a tablecloth spread across his body.
“Severe concussion, but he’ll live,” he said, without stopping.
Rutledge moved around him to take a better look.
The unconscious man was so like Chasten that it was a shock. The same red hair and freckles, although the last stood out like flecks of blood against his pale face.
“Fred Chasten. Terrence’s brother. Enough alike him to be his twin, but two years younger. Your man nearly hanged him.”
“All right,” Rutledge said, keeping his voice low. “It’s my turn to ask the questions now. What happened? Do you have Dobson in custody?”
“I wish. The man who comes in at four was unwell, and Fred Chasten took his place this morning, to start the ovens, ready the first loaves of bread—the usual. He went upstairs for something, and there was your killer. I don’t have all the story yet, but Fred fought him, lost, and was being dragged to the attic. Terrence Chasten came in to find his office a wreck, and he went looking for his brother. He prevented the hanging, but their attacker got away down the kitchen stairs, and Terrence went after him. You saw the state of the kitchen. But this man—your Dobson?—ran for it when a passing constable heard the fight and stopped to investigate. He got out through the rear door and disappeared before the constable had a clear look at him. We’ve no idea what state he’s in. But Chasten saved his brother’s life.”
“It was Chasten who put his brother at risk,” Rutledge said shortly. “I warned him, and he felt he could defend himself. Dobson didn’t realize they were so alike. Neither did I. In the dark, he must have seen Fred leaving the house and went after him, taking him for Terrence.”
The doctor stood up. “I think he’s stable enough that he can be moved to the surgery now. I’ll send someone for a stretcher. He’ll need watching and a great deal of care. His brother got off lightly by comparison.”
He went away to see to the stretcher. Standing there by the injured man, Rutledge gave Sefton a brief account of Dobson’s past and his victims.
“There’s more, but it can wait.” He left the Inspector to watch over the bakery owner and went out to Terrence Chasten again. The scorched pans and charred loafs were out of the ovens, and the overturned table had been righted. Someone had opened the door to the street to clear away the smoke. Standing by the chair this time, Rutledge said, “You didn’t believe me. Your brother paid for it.”
“I thought he was looking for me. I thought I could deal with him.”
“It never occurred to you that Dobson might mistake Fred for you?”
“No. God, no.”
“Do you make a habit of holding your brother in such low esteem? You’ve come here, nearly taken over his business, and then you leave him to the mercy of a killer. Did you even tell him about the danger you were in?”
Chasten tried to shake his head, and stopped when it hurt. “He was after me, not Fred. I didn’t think it was necessary.”
Arrogance. Sheer, bloody arrogance.
“You’re a fool, Chasten. You owe your brother more than you can repay.”
“But I saved his life.”
“It was probably the other way around. Because he’d already fought Dobson to a standstill, you found it easier to save your brother,” Rutledge said, not hiding the contempt in his voice. “I saw what Dobson did with a heavy hammer, smashing a large marble monument to dust. If Dobson had found you in that office alone, you’d have been no match for him. And an hour ago, Sefton would have been cutting you down from that rope.”
“Dear God.” Chasten looked away then. After a moment, he said in a much more subdued voice, “Still, I must tell you. It was your warning that saved both of us. It gave me the advantage. I knew who that man must be. I knew why he was here. Before he could recover from the shock of seeing two of us, wondering which one he was about to hang, I hit him. That’s when he dropped the rope and came after me.”
“Count yourself lucky, then.”
Rutledge turned away as the doctor returned with the stretcher and two constables. Chasten got to his feet and stumbled after them into the small room where his brother lay. Sefton came out, leaving the others to it.
“I must telephone the Yard directly. Where will I find a telephone I can use at this hour?”
Sefton gave him directions, adding, “I’ll see you at the police station when I’ve finished here.”
By late afternoon Rutledge was free to find a room in one of the hotels and threw himself down across the bed in exhaustion. He didn’t sleep without dreams. Dobson was there, always just out of sight around a corner or walking out of a room filled with people while he dodged this way and that, trying to follow.
On Rutledge’s orders, Tonbridge in Kent sent men to the farm where Dobson recovered from his gunshot wound, but he failed to return there.
Half of England was on alert. Day after day, reports poured into the Yard. Mostly false alarms.
The manhunt went on. A guard was placed on Gilbert’s house once more, and Chasten’s. But there was still no sign of the man. He appeared to have vanished once more.
And Frances Rutledge stayed in Kent longer than she’d expected.
Meanwhile, the war news grew uglier with every passing day. The BEF had fallen back to Ypres, but they were still blocking the coast road.
There was a ridge above the town. Passchendaele. No one quite knew how to pronounce it or to spell it until men began dying there.
Rutledge was preparing to leave for Moresby when a Captain Devereaux from a Wiltshire regiment came in one afternoon. Bowles ordered everyone to listen to what the officer had to say.
He was eloquent as he described the need for men who had experience in the police to train as officers. Bowles looked around at his men and asked, “Right, then, who’s for it?” His gaze rested on Rutledge for an instant longer than necessary and then moved on.
Afterward, when the men had been dismissed, Devereaux followed Rutledge into his office and sat down without waiting for an invitation.
“A hard business, convincing men to serve when the news from France is so bleak. The hotheads have already come forward. Finding o
fficers is another matter.” He paused. “A Major Gordon suggested you. Ideal officer material, he said. A natural leader. Any interest in soldiering, Inspector?”
“There’s a case coming to trial in Moresby. I have to be there to give evidence.”
“It’s wartime. Surely a statement would do?”
“Not in this instance. This man isn’t guilty. I know it. I’ve had the devil of a time proving it. And if I’m not there, he could very well hang for a murder he didn’t commit.”
“He’s one man. Hundreds are dying in France.”
“If he were your brother, would you feel that same way?”
Devereaux countered, “Is he your brother?”
“He’s my responsibility.”
Devereaux got to his feet. “Shall I tell Major Gordon that you’ll think our offer over?”
“I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”
The Captain nodded. “I understand. Good luck in Moresby. I can honestly say that I hope your man doesn’t hang.”
He walked out, shutting the door behind him.
Rutledge stared after him for a long time, then turned his attention to his preparations for Moresby.
They had never really made peace with each other over Dobson, he and Bowles. Sefton and the Torquay police had done everything in their power to find the man, even walking into darkened cinemas and crowded concerts. They kept a watch on the boats in Tor Bay. They took a dozen men into custody, only to be told by Chasten, rushed to the station each time to look at them, that they’d picked up the wrong person.
Bowles had quietly closed the still open inquiries—the blackened graves, the murders of Stoddard, Tattersall, and Hadley. He’d closed as well the attempted murder of Fillmore Gilbert. But he’d stubbornly drawn the line at Kingston.
When he reached the seaside town with its magnificent ruins high above on the cliff, Rutledge saw that the pleasure boats had vanished, and the fishing fleet was tied up in the harbor. War had come here too.
The trial was to be held in the tiny courthouse. The afternoon before it was to open, Rutledge walked up to the headland and spent an hour in the abbey ruins. He hadn’t seen Inspector Farraday. He hadn’t expected that he would.
