by Todd,Charles
“Nor which motorcar it came from.” He was willing to accept Trotter’s word that no one had tampered with the vehicle. Still, taking the torch, he walked around it, bending down to look more closely at various vulnerable areas. All the damage he could see appeared to have been related to the accident. Satisfied, next he examined the vehicle’s tires.
Unless it was where they rested on the shed floor, he couldn’t see that odd corner that Neville had sketched in his notebook. Which meant there were indeed two motorcars on the Downs that Saturday night.
“No. Not a chance,” Trotter was responding. “Green is too popular. That’s not to say we might not be lucky enough to find one with dark red paint on a wing.”
“An interesting thought. If I brought you a prospect, could you tell if it was the motorcar we’re after?”
“I could do, depending on whether or not he’s seen the paint and scraped it off and how well he did it. Whoever it was might have thought of that. He’s clever.”
“What rate of speed was Wright going when he lost control?”
“Fairly high, at a guess. He was fighting to regain the road, and that’s when he pulled too hard, sending him over. There was nothing more he could do after that but pray.”
“Are there any dark green motorcars in East Dedham?”
“Captain Standish has the only motorcar. There’s a lorry at the sheep farm, but it’s not green.”
“How good a driver was he? Wright, I mean.”
“Difficult to say. Mind you, I’ve never seen him drive a motorcar, but he must have done somewhere. France, perhaps. At any rate, he got to wherever it was he was going, didn’t he, and nearly managed to get back. Still, that bit of road can be tricky in the rain. He might not have been expecting it to be quite so bad.”
“How well do you know Wright or Standish?” Rutledge had finished examining the tires, and he looked up just in time to see a change in expression on Trotter’s face.
“I know who they are.” He glanced at Neville. “I’m a Chapel man myself, not one of Rector’s flock. As for the Captain, he’s never brought his vehicle to me. If that’s what you’re asking.”
Rutledge said, “It’s a lonely stretch of road. I doubt it was heavily traveled that night, not if the storm was as fierce as I’m told. Blinding sheets of rain, wind gusting. A driver would be concentrating on staying on the road. How likely is it that the other motorcar didn’t see Wright until he was on top of him?”
Neville asked, “Then why didn’t he stop? Why didn’t he find out if Wright was alive or dead?”
“For all we know, he might have done. And decided there was nothing he could do. He was well out of it, if he drove on.” Rutledge reached out to touch the green smudges. He gestured to the empty space around him. “If there are no motorcars in East Dedham, where does your business come from?”
Trotter shrugged. “Newhaven. Eastbourne. I have my own lorry out back. I usually go to wherever the motorcar lives. It’s a start, and I’ve built a reputation for good work. This . . .” He looked around at the hanging lamps, the benches filled with tools. “It’s what I could afford when I left the Army. I looked all along the south coast, mind you. Rents were too high. The business will grow. And then they’ll come to me. Meanwhile, if you’re asking me to tell you if I see a motorcar with dark red paint smudges, I will.”
Rutledge thanked him, and they went out the broad door—wide and tall enough to bring in a good-sized horse.
Neville saw to the crank again, and Rutledge was about to pull out into the road when he glanced up. Trotter was standing in the doorway they’d just passed through, watching them. After the briefest pause, he nodded and went back inside.
As Rutledge drove away, he wondered what was on Trotter’s mind when he came to the door. Making certain they were leaving? Remembering what Neville had said, that the man had serviced aircraft in the war, he didn’t discount the possibility that Trotter could conceal damage as easily as he could detect it.
“If he’s as good as he says he is, why did Trotter start out in East Dedham? Regardless of what he just told us, Hastings or Eastbourne or even Brighton would have been a better choice. A small shed to start—something grander as he built up his clientele.”
Neville said, “I can’t give you an answer to that. But I’ve heard nothing against the man. You might ask Constable Brewster if he’s heard any talk.”
Slowing as he drove down the busy street, Rutledge saw several women with baskets over their arms, going about their marketing. With them were a clutch of small children in leading strings and in prams. Babies born after their fathers came home. Even so, there were far too few of them—and more women still wearing the black of mourning. The men they’d hoped to marry hadn’t come home, or had come home too severely wounded. By the town hall he counted three men on crutches with legs or feet missing, others with empty sleeves. Hamish had left behind the girl he’d wanted to marry. Fiona. He’d called to her as he lay dying and Rutledge had leaned down to deliver the coup de grace.
He hadn’t heard what Neville was saying. Something about Trotter? About his smithy-cum-garage?
Rutledge managed to say, “What is Trotter hiding from?”
Neville glanced at him. “What makes you think he’s hiding from something?”
“He hasn’t married. He’s chosen to do business where there is none. He travels to other villages or towns, where he’s known for his skill and not necessarily for who he is. And somehow he’s been able to make a living.”
Hamish, who blessedly had been silent all morning, said clearly, “Aye, verra’ like you.”
Startled, Rutledge swerved, then caught himself.
Neville stirred uneasily. “I never thought about it either way.” After a moment he said, without turning toward Rutledge, “Are you all right, sir?”
“A cramp in my leg,” Rutledge managed to say. “It will pass.”
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollinsPublishers
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5
Their next call was at Dr. Hanby’s surgery.
He was a small, wiry man with glasses and a steady air.
He welcomed the two policemen with a nod, saying, “I’d heard someone was being sent down from London.” He waited until they were settled across from him, then picked up a sheet of paper lying on his desk. “There were a number of injuries. The fatal one should have been a severe concussion that must have occurred when he was thrown from the motorcar. But the blow itself broke his neck. He was probably dead before he hit the ground. I’m told the motorcar rolled a number of times. That would account for what I found in the way of scrapes and bruising. Otherwise he was healthy enough to have lived to a good age. I found three war wounds, cleanly healed. Nothing life-threatening, but nasty enough. He’d never spoken of them to me, and I’d had no reason to examine him closely until now.”
“Do you know what sort of war he had?”
“Suicide? Is that what you’re suggesting?” Hanby shook his head. “Why should he take his own life in a borrowed motorcar? He need only to walk to the cliffs and let the wind pull him over. A revolver or a razor would have done the deed with more certainty in the outcome. If he’d survived the crash, he might have lived on as a paralyzed invalid. Surely not the best of outcomes.”
“Perhaps he didn’t want his housekeeper to find his body. Or as a clergyman, might not have wished to be seen a suicide.”
“Yes, I understand.” Hanby toyed with the letter opener lying on the blotter before him. He smiled wryly. “If we’re playing at conjecture, I might suggest that while the concussion from colliding with the motorcar’s door knocked him unconscious, the blow might not have accounted for the fact that his neck was broken. The gash on his head was neither deep enough nor in the right place to have caused the neck to snap. But then I didn’t see how he landed on the turf. That might well explain everything.”
Neville spoke for the firs
t time. “He was lying facedown when we found him.”
“That may or may not be relevant.” Hanby put down the letter opener. “Unfortunately there are many ways to end a life. A boating mishap at sea? Climbing the fells in Cumberland? Simply walking out into a London street without looking? Hard to prove or disprove whether it was an accident or intent. A doctor might wonder sometimes, but he says nothing because he can’t prove anything and therefore silence is the better choice.”
“And how many murders have you suspected and couldn’t prove?”
The doctor’s gaze sharpened. “My share, I expect. At least three over the course of my practice. But there was nothing I could point to and ask the police to investigate. Simply an uneasiness that one can’t explain away, but still nags at one, leaving an unpleasant feeling in the back of the mind. Like the newlywed couple who stood on the edge of the cliffs out there, watching the sun set. The grass and chalk crumbled under his feet, and he plunged to his death on the beach below. He was twice the bride’s age, and wealthy. She was distraught, made herself sick with weeping. And yet I couldn’t be sure it was sincere.”
“I don’t remember that,” Neville said, surprised.
Hanby smiled grimly. “It was before your time, or I wouldn’t have spoken of it even now.” He turned to Rutledge. “You’re asking me about this because you feel that Wright’s death was murder.”
It was a statement, not a question.
Rutledge answered him with equal honesty. “Uneasiness is a very good way of expressing it. If Wright hadn’t borrowed Standish’s motorcar, if he’d been driving his own, for instance, I would feel more comfortable about his death. There’s an oddity here that makes no sense, and I feel an obligation to get to the bottom of it.”
Hanby nodded. “I understand,” he said again. “But I can think of no explanation that would satisfy either of us.”
“Precisely.”
Neville opened his mouth and then shut it smartly.
Rutledge thanked Dr. Hanby, and they left.
Neville said, as they got into the motorcar, “What do you make of that?”
“You were right to summon the Yard.” It was evading the question, but Rutledge wasn’t ready to discuss the possibilities with Neville.
One issue that had been at the back of his mind since their call on Standish was the distance between the rectory and Four Winds. Hamish had questioned it when Neville had described his interview with Mrs. Saunders, but Rutledge had had no time to consider it until now.
The housekeeper had told the constable that Wright had left the rectory on his bicycle. It wouldn’t have taken all afternoon to reach the Standish house. Or had he prudently arrived early enough to observe the house, making certain that it was empty save for Mrs. Donaldson, that the Captain was indeed away and the staff had taken their day off?
But where was that bicycle? Not in the converted stable where the motorcar was kept, or Neville would have seen it and reported it. Not in the wreckage.
Still, it behooved him to have a look at that stable for himself.
And he preferred to do it alone.
He interjected, before Neville could say more, “There’s no inn in Burling Gap. Where would you suggest I stay?”
“There are a few cottages that offer rooms to summer visitors. Mostly people walking the South Downs path. I’m sure they would be happy to oblige.”
But Rutledge didn’t want to share a house with anyone. Not when he couldn’t be sure when the nightmares would come—when the war returned and he woke shouting to his men or to Hamish. “Perhaps a more public place would be better. I often come and go in the small hours, and it would disturb the family.”
Neville regarded him doubtfully. “The only other possibility is here, in East Dedham,” he said slowly, as if he couldn’t bring himself to lie but would have preferred not to tell the truth.
“Then I’ll take you back to the police station, and find a room there. Where is it?”
They hadn’t passed it in their travels.
“Down that lane,” Neville said, pointing. “It’s a pub. But there are rooms upstairs. The Sailor’s Friend, it’s called.”
He’d stayed in pubs before.
Neville began to open his door. “I can walk from here, if you like.”
“It’s no trouble,” Rutledge said, and let in the clutch. He had no wish to find Neville loitering in the vicinity.
The winter day was closing in by the time Rutledge got to the Captain’s house. It was darker under the trees than it had been in the open. He’d have preferred to be there a little earlier, but on the Downs there were few places to conceal his presence if he lingered in the dusk for another hour. What’s more, he wasn’t familiar enough with the comings and goings in East Dedham to be certain he wouldn’t be discovered. The last thing he needed was to be reported to Constable Brewster, drawing attention to what he was planning to do.
After taking his torch from the boot, he left his motorcar in the shadows of trees some distance from the gates and walked back to the drive.
Hamish said, “’Ware. There might be dogs.”
Rutledge answered him: “I saw none when I was there.”
“Still.”
As he went up the drive, he could see that lamps had already been lit in the house. He approached warily, for the drapes had not been drawn in a small, elegant room. The walls were a pale blue, the trim was white, and there was a fire on the hearth. Keeping to the shelter of the rhododendrons in the plantings by the house, he moved closer.
Pausing just outside, he could see the Captain pacing the floor. Someone came to the door of the room, and he stopped in midstride, spoke to whoever it was, and waited until the door had closed. Then, instead of pacing again, the Captain strode over to the hearth and stood with his hand on the mantelpiece, looking down into the flames. Rutledge could see the ruddy glow of the fire on the man’s face.
Curious, he was tempted to stay and watch a little longer, but it would not do to be caught there, peering in windows.
He moved away again, and rounding the house at a little distance, he soon found the small horse stable at the back of the kitchen garden, separated from it by a tall hedge and a half-dozen apple trees. Almost at once he realized that there would be a problem opening the large double doors without making enough noise to alert the household that someone was poking about. And yet this was the best way to test the theory that Wright had come here in the dark and no one had seen him or heard him.
Working slowly and carefully, he got the door open wide enough to step inside, and shielding the torch with his hand, he cast the light around the empty interior. There was a bicycle at the far end, leaning against a bale of rotting straw, but on closer examination, he realized that it was rusted and probably hadn’t been used in years. Too small for a man, it had probably belonged to one of the Standish sons when they were young.
He looked around the stable but found nothing else of interest. If Wright had come here and taken the motorcar, he’d done it with the same stealth as Rutledge, except for finding a way to open the outer doors wide enough to drive through. But if that storm was coming up, with any luck it would have covered any strange sounds from the back garden. Especially if Mrs. Donaldson was a sound sleeper.
He flicked off the torch and stepped outside again. The wind had picked up. He stood for a moment looking up at the house as he pulled up the collar of his coat. He could see that the windows of the servants’ floor looked out on the stable, but the trees and the hedge, designed to shield the house from the sight—and smell—of the stable, had grown tall enough to hide any intruder, even winter bare as they were. But how had Wright known that the Captain didn’t keep a dog? Most people living in the countryside did. Had he come here before that night to reconnoiter?
Rutledge discovered as he started back in the direction of the house that a rough track had been put in, circling the hedge and the trees. He’d come the opposite way round the house and had missed it. Fo
llowing it, he saw that it connected with another track that debouched onto the road some thirty yards from the gates. That would explain why the cook hadn’t heard the motorcar leaving.
He still didn’t know how Wright had reached the house.
Making his way back to the gates, he tried to shut out Hamish in his head.
“Ye know the how. But no’ the why.”
The moon had risen, shining down the road now. Rutledge had almost reached his motorcar when he realized that something was wrong. The dark shape was more settled on one side than the other, and even leaving it close in by the trees didn’t explain the difference.
He didn’t need Hamish to tell him what had happened.
While the motorcar had been standing in the road unattended as he walked into the grounds of the house, someone had come along and punctured one of the tires. He shone the torch on it, and saw that the puncture was well above the tread, deliberate, with no intent to conceal the damage by choosing to cut on the side half hidden by the trees.
He swore.
Hamish said, “Be grateful he didna’ slash all four.”
It was no consolation.
Rutledge was adept at changing his tires. Driving the rutted, uneven roads of England had seen to that. It was the responsibility of each parish to keep roads in passable condition, but the war years had put paid to proper upkeep—there was no money and no workmen to see to it.
He moved the motorcar to a flatter stretch of ground, on what he judged to be a fairly sound patch of earth. Still, he watched the jack wobble dangerously in the omnipresent ruts. He waited for it to decide to grip or sink, and it finally appeared to plumb into harder soil beneath it.
He finished replacing his tire, and then more closely examined the damage on the one he’d removed. Deep and very efficient. And man-made. He folded up the cloth that had kept him reasonably clean as he worked, wiped off the tools he’d used, and stood back.
