Racing the Devil

by Todd,Charles

  Since that night, the voice in his head had always been there, his own mind refusing to leave Hamish in his grave in France, bringing him home in the only way he could. Unable to face what he’d been forced to do in the name of military necessity. Haunted by the guilt felt by those who had lived while so many had died.

  They were in the village now, people on the street turning to stare after them. Rutledge took a deep breath to keep the strain out of his voice and said, “This Captain Standish. What do you know about him?”

  “Four Winds is quite a fine place, I’m told, but I got no farther than the kitchens. The rest of the staff was off, since the Captain had gone to Brighton, and so the cook offered me a cup of tea, because I’d come so far and it was quite late. Before long she was telling me about coming to work for his mother, the late Mrs. Standish, what a fine lady she’d been, and what Standish was like as a boy. But she didn’t have much to say about his time in France or his coming home. Except that he never spoke of the trenches. Come to that, I don’t know many who did talk about them. Not if they’d been there.”

  “How well did he know Wright?”

  “The cook didn’t think there was more than a nodding acquaintance between them. The Captain attended services at St. Simon’s—as a duty, she thought, more than a question of faith—but he’d never had Rector to the house to dine. His mother, now, she had invited him every other Sunday to have dinner there.”

  It was the duty of the local squire—in this case very likely the Standish family—to invite the Rector to dine. After all, the Rector, the doctor, and the squire were the leaders of the parish.

  “Did the cook have anything to tell you about the motorcar? I doubt she’d have known what had transpired between Wright and the Captain.”

  “That was the odd thing, sir. She was certain it was in the old stable over behind the house, where the Captain always kept it. When I’d finished my tea, I took out my torch, and she and I walked out there to have a look.” He glanced across at Rutledge. “The door was closed. But the motorcar wasn’t inside.”

  After a moment Rutledge asked, “Is there other staff at the house?”

  “Two maids and a housekeeper. But the cook—her name is Mrs. Donaldson—hadn’t chosen to take that weekend off because she wanted to attend a christening in Eastbourne on the next Sunday but one. Her nephew’s boy. And Captain Standish agreed to the change.”

  “Then we must ask Standish about any arrangement he had with Wright. There must have been one. Wright knew where the motorcar was kept, and he would have no reason to alert Mrs. Donaldson that he’d come as expected. When did Standish return to the house?”

  “That Sunday night, sir. I expect the staff have already told him what’s happened.”

  “Then very likely he’s already been to East Dedham to speak to Brewster.”

  Neville was pointing out an old smithy set well back from the road. Half flint, half wood, the wood weathered to a silver-gray.

  “That’s Trotter’s garage, sir. Where the Captain’s motorcar was taken. You’ll turn left at the fork coming up.”

  “Is there any chance that Wright was drunk that night? Or was he tired? Worried enough about something that he couldn’t keep his mind on his driving?”

  “I never heard it said he liked his drink,” Neville answered. “But he might in private. As to what he could have been anxious about, sir, your guess is as good as mine.”

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  4

  Half a mile farther on they took a lane that veered left. Following that, they came to a stand of trees on both sides of the road. They’d been planted as a windbreak many years before, for they were mature, but like most of the trees so close to the cliffs, they were shaped by the wind. A low flint wall on the far side of the road, enclosing part of the wood, led to a pair of gateposts topped by stone pineapples, the symbol of hospitality. A bronze plaque on one of the posts gave the name of the house—FOUR WINDS. Passing through them, they were led up a drive to a house set on the slope of the Down, which was not as steep here as it was at Burling Gap, and the house seemed to fit into the land comfortably. Surprisingly, it had not been built of the omnipresent flint but of brick, which had no doubt been brought here at great expense. Late 1700s, Rutledge guessed. It was tall, three stories in the square central block, with lower wings to each side. The steps leading to the door were white marble, like the columns that held up the small portico. The door was black with polished brass fittings.

  As manor houses go, it was not very large compared to many Rutledge had seen. But it made up in style for what it lacked in size. And it boasted very fine windows with stone surrounds.

  There was smoke coming out of the clusters of chimneys, and from somewhere in the back came the rhythmic sound of an ax chopping wood.

  The two men walked to the door, and Rutledge lifted the heavy brass knocker.

  It was several minutes before the door opened and a gray-haired woman in severe black greeted them.

  “Captain Standish,” Rutledge said. “Inspector Rutledge and Constable Neville.”

  But she had already recognized the constable, and her mouth was a grim line as she stood aside to allow them to step in.

  “The Captain is in his study. This way.”

  She led them down the passage on their left to a room at the far end and announced them. Instead of the dark paneling and rows of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves found in most studies, this one was full of light. The walls were covered in a light green watered silk, with small, exotic birds flitting through stylized branches of what appeared to be willows. The several bookcases, in a rich walnut, were only breast-high. On the polished tops was a fine collection of small jade figures.

  Rutledge, seeing it, wondered which of the Captain’s ancestors had been a collector. Possibly the one who had built the house?

  Captain Standish rose from behind the desk where he’d been working on what appeared to be accounts and said, “Inspector. Constable. This is about my motorcar? Yes, I thought so. I can tell you straight off that I didn’t lend it to anyone. I’ve no idea why Wright should come and take it. Unless it was urgent business?” He was slim and fair, with good features and dark blue eyes.

  Rutledge could also see that Standish’s left hand was missing. He said, taking the chair that his host had indicated, “We haven’t discovered just what his business was. We’d hoped you could tell us.”

  “He left no message as far as I could discover. Not with my cook nor in the stable, which I’ve converted to house the motorcar.” He resumed his seat. “Not that I object to his borrowing it, you understand, if he was desperate—if it was urgent, a matter of life or death.”

  “Perhaps he intended to tell you when he returned it.”

  “Yes, I’d like to think so.” He hesitated, then asked, “I understand he was alone in the vehicle when it crashed?”

  “As far as we can determine.”

  “As far as . . . ?” Standish prompted.

  “There wasn’t a second body in the motorcar. And no indication that there had been anyone with him.”

  “A blessing then that no one else was killed,” Standish replied.

  “I must ask. Is there anyone who could vouch for your time in Brighton.”

  “I’d hardly wreck my own motorcar,” he answered shortly. “But if you must know, I was calling on the mother of an officer, a friend I’d served with. I wrote to her when he was killed, and now she’s dying. Her daughter came to collect me. It was a distressful weekend, but it was a duty that I felt strongly about.”

  Standish looked across to Neville. “Is there any date set for getting the motorcar back to me? There will be legal issues, I expect. I haven’t seen it myself. It was quite late when I got in from Brighton that Sunday evening, and at the moment I have no transportation to this garage. I don’t keep horses any longer, and I can’t manage a
bicycle. I’ve never used Trotter. Does he know his business or should I have the vehicle taken on to my man in Eastbourne?”

  Constable Neville hadn’t taken the seat that Standish had offered. Instead he stood just behind Rutledge, his notebook in his hand.

  “Trotter is one of the best I’ve seen,” Neville said now. “But if you would prefer to have your own people take over, I’m sure it could be arranged.”

  Standish frowned, showing the first signs of irritation. “Thank you, Constable, but if traveling to Trotter’s garage is a problem, Eastbourne would be impossible.”

  “I’m sure Trotter would be happy to come for you, sir, and show you what’s needing doing.”

  “Thank you, Constable.” He turned his attention back to Rutledge. “This is all very unusual. That’s to say, we’re speaking of the Rector at St. Simon’s. I find it difficult to believe any of this. Are you certain he was driving my motorcar—that he wasn’t walking on the road and was struck by it?”

  Rutledge could sense movement behind him, but he forestalled Neville’s answer by saying, “We’ve only just begun to look into his movements that day. I have no idea what our inquiry might turn up in regard to Wright. I was hoping you could shed some light on the matter.”

  Standish shook his head. “It’s as much of a mystery to me as it is to you.”

  “How well did you know Mr. Wright?” Rutledge asked. “Well enough that he might feel he could borrow your motor and explain at a later date why he needed it?”

  “I attend services from time to time at St. Simon’s. As a matter of duty. That’s the extent of my acquaintance with the Rector. My mother was more religious than my father or I.” As if that closed the matter, he went on in a different vein. “I’ve not asked how severe the damage is. After all, there’s been a death as well. But I’d like to know.”

  “Fairly extensive, sir,” Neville said. “I’d not lie about that.”

  Standish took a deep breath. “You’re saying I shall be buying a new motorcar.”

  “When it went off the road, it rolled, sir. But you’d best speak to Trotter, sir.”

  “God.”

  Rutledge stood up, preparing to take his leave. “If—when—we have more information, I’ll call on you again. For now, I’m afraid you know as much as we do about what happened. But if you think of anything we ought to be told, you can send someone with a message to Constable Neville, here. He’ll see that it reaches me.”

  Standish glanced from Rutledge to Neville, then said, “No reflection on your abilities, Constable, but I should have thought this was a matter for Constable Brewster. The Rector lived in East Dedham.”

  “Since the accident occurred in my patch, sir,” Neville said with deference, “it was decided that I should deal with it. If you have no objections, sir.”

  But Rutledge, acutely aware that Neville was standing where Hamish generally stood, could feel the other man stiffen as Standish hesitated.

  “Yes, good thinking, Constable. I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful. It was rather a shock coming home to this news.”

  Standish walked with them to the door. There he said, as if he had put it off as long as he could, “If you’ll send this man Trotter to me, Constable?”

  “I will that, sir.”

  Neville went to deal with the crank and then climbed in beside Rutledge.

  Instead of driving back the way they’d come, Rutledge sat for a moment, listening to the motor ticking over. “It appears that Wright took the motorcar without leave. For all we know, he was driving as fast as he could to reach the stable and return the vehicle before anyone was the wiser. But the question remains, how did he know that Standish was away?”

  “Overhearing gossip at the church? Mrs. Donaldson could have spoken to someone about the christening, and the Captain allowing her to shift her days off.”

  “It’s possible,” Rutledge answered. “Does Standish have any family?”

  “I knew his elder brother, a little. He was nearer to my age. Both lads were sent off to school when they were seven, nor did I see much of them during the holidays. Mrs. Standish often took them to visit her parents in Yorkshire, and there was never any chance of local mischief making, if you follow me. And no sooner had the Captain come down from Cambridge than he enlisted in the Army. August that was, of ’14. I never had any reason to call on Mrs. Standish.”

  “Where is the elder brother now?”

  “He drowned, sir. The summer he was twelve. The family had gone to Wastwater on a walking holiday. What I heard was, young Nigel went swimming and had a cramp. By the time they got to him and pulled him out, it was too late.”

  “Why do you think Standish would have preferred to have Brewster to you?” He let in the clutch and turned down the drive.

  Neville rubbed his chin. After a moment, he replied, “In a word, sir, East Dedham is more to his liking than the Gap. We’re the poor stepchild.”

  Rutledge smiled grimly. “And Brewster is more—amenable, shall we say?”

  Neville hadn’t expected the question. “I—he’s more inclined to see the obvious.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind. Did you think Standish was telling us the truth? Or making certain that he can’t be connected to Wright’s death?”

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t put my finger on it, sir, but I had the feeling he was wishing it had never happened. And not just because of the damage to his motorcar.”

  “Who manages his land for him?”

  “He has tenants, sir. They ran the farm while he was in France, although they were hard-pressed to do it with all the able-bodied men off to war.”

  “Do any of his tenants live near enough to have seen Wright come for the motorcar?”

  Neville shook his head. “The farms are some distance from the main house.”

  “Wright would have known that, wouldn’t he? The more I learn, the more I feel he thought he could return it before anyone was aware of what he’d done. And he almost made it. Who saw to it that he didn’t?”

  Rutledge stopped at the forge on his way back to East Dedham.

  The great anvil still stood in the lean-to that formed a porch where horses could be shod, and an ancient bellows hung above the cold fire pit.

  Inside, there had been a reincarnation. Benches lined two of the walls, tools laid out on them in orderly fashion. A few of them were left over from the era of the smithy, but most, Rutledge noted, had to do with motorcars. Half a dozen oil lamps hanging from hooks in the ceiling did very little to penetrate to the far corners of the large shed. And there was still straw on the floor, to absorb oil and other fluids, although a distinct smell of horses lingered.

  Rutledge and Neville had walked almost to the center of the shed before a short, dark man loomed out of the shadows behind what had once been a motorcar.

  “Who are you?” he asked belligerently.

  “Rutledge, Scotland Yard.”

  “Ah.” The man relaxed and came forward. His coveralls were grimy, and his hands gave the impression of never having been clean, for grease and oil seemed to be ingrained in his skin. There was a black stubble of beard on his cheeks, hardly distinguishable from the grime there, and he gave the illusion of living like a troglodyte in the shadows of the garage when not working on motorcars.

  But his voice when he went on was educated.

  “You’ve come to see the ruin. What happens to a perfectly fine motorcar that has been driven off the road with careless abandon. Or so it would appear. Step over here and look for yourself.”

  Rutledge joined him by Standish’s vehicle.

  It had been a lovely touring car very like Rutledge’s own. But the chassis was twisted, the top torn, the wings bruised and crushed, the bonnet dented like dimples. The steering wheel was cracked.

  There was still blood on the leather of the upholstery, black now. It appeared as if someone had tried to clean up the worst of it, and failed.

  “Small wonder no one survived. You see the vehic
le—imagine the man.”

  Rutledge could.

  “Why did it go off the road?”

  Trotter shook his head. “God knows. I’ve found nothing mechanically wrong that could explain it. But look at this.” He walked around to the rear. “Look here, just below the boot. Now, they brought the motorcar here directly from the site of the crash. And I can tell you there’s nothing between there and my door that is the same green you see on that paint.”

  In the dark red of the body, the green was not clearly visible, but Trotter reached behind him on a bench, brought up a torch, and shone it on the area.

  At some point in time, the wing of a dark green motorcar had scraped the boot and rear of the Standish vehicle.

  “Would the other vehicle have suffered damage?” Rutledge asked.

  “It would show, yes.”

  “How fresh is this paint?”

  “Fairly. You can see, there’s no rust where it struck Captain Standish’s motor. And I would willingly wager that the other motorcar struck it several times. Look there.”

  “Do you think that that’s what drove this motorcar off the road and caused it to roll?”

  Trotter sighed. “Depends. Whoever he was, he’d have had to come up from behind fast, to keep the element of surprise. It would have been risky. He might have lost control as well. Remember, there was a storm that night. The roads were wet. Slick as well. And there was a wind, blowing hard from the southwest, coming up over the cliffs. But it could have been done, if he’d kept his nerve. The other driver. And if Mr. Wright wasn’t as familiar with the motorcar as Captain Standish might have been.”

  Rutledge tried to picture the second car coming up behind, catching Wright off guard, and in the end, causing him to lose control. It was possible, he decided.

  “There’s no specific damage to this motorcar to indicate it was interfered with?”

  Trotter shook his head. “Not that I can see. Not in the usual places. But then it’s a wreck, isn’t it? And that means that someone clever enough to have planned to cut a hose or do something to the linkages, even weaken a tire, would have had to know that these would be looked at closely. The wonder is, that corner is intact enough that we can see the paint. What I can’t tell you is when it got there.”