by Todd,Charles
“It would be more comfortable to think so,” he said after a moment, considering Standish. This was possibly the second time the man had been attacked by proxy—when Wright was killed in his motorcar, and in the fire tonight. There hadn’t been enough light for Rutledge to get a good look at the attacker. He’d been careful to keep his back to the blazing stable. But that could also mean he hadn’t really seen Rutledge clearly.
On the other hand, Rutledge’s tire had been slashed on a previous visit. And he himself might have been the target tonight. The timing of the fire suggested that.
Turning to look up at the house they’d managed to save, Rutledge said, “But you’d be a fool to ignore what’s happening. Wright was driving your motorcar, and I was running to help save your stable.”
He thought the Captain was going to ignore the warning.
But after a moment, he took a last look at the carnage that was the kitchen garden, then stared at the roof, scanning it one last time. “You’d better come in, then.”
They didn’t go to the drawing room but to the study, where Standish poured two stiff whiskies and handed one to Rutledge. It was awkwardly done, with one hand missing, but Standish had learned how to cope.
“Sit down.” Standish walked to the windows and pulled the drapes across them, as if he wanted to shut out the night—and anyone who might be standing out there, watching him. Then he went to the hearth to stir up the fire, for the room was noticeably cold.
It was as if he was postponing the inevitable, putting off what he knew he had to say.
Rutledge was patient.
“You should do something about your face,” the Captain told him instead. “I’ll show you to one of the guest rooms.”
“I’d rather get on with this before the headache grows any worse.”
“Yes, well.” He took a deep breath and went to sit behind the handsome desk, toying with the pens and then the inkwell. “It was during the war,” he began. “The eve of the Somme. Were you there?”
“I was.” It was curt, inviting no questions.
“There were seven of us. Our orders had come, our leaves cut short. Everyone knew the French were in trouble, but they’d held the Germans on the River Maine; we thought they could hold them again at Verdun. Then the shelling from our own guns began, a fearsome barrage. Always the prelude to an attack.” He drank his whisky down and went to pour himself another. When he came back to the desk, he went on: “There was a barn just behind the lines. God knows how it had withstood the bombardment for two years. The house was rubble. But a very enterprising sergeant had seen a chance to make money. Whenever he was in rotation, he’d open the bar and serve any officers who were passing through. I didn’t know the others sitting there; I’d never served with them. We were heading back to our sectors and we had a damned good idea that this was a big show. And given what was happening to the French at Verdun—I mean, they’d been fighting the Germans since February, and it didn’t look very good by June—we reckoned we knew what was coming. God knows, it didn’t scrape the surface of what lay ahead. And so we were drinking the sergeant’s wine, getting more than a little drunk, and talking about everything from racing to what we’d do after the war ended. I was never sure how it came about, but we pledged each other that if we survived this attack—survived the war—we’d meet in Paris one year after the victory celebrations and race each other to Nice in our motorcars. All of us expected to have one. We were mad for one. And it sounded like a very good idea. Anything to take our minds off the next morning. We agreed. And five of us survived, much to our own surprise—it certainly didn’t appear to be very likely for the rest of 1916 and into 1917.”
He fell silent, toying with his glass.
“And so, having survived, you took your motorcar to Paris.”
Standish roused himself. “Not this one—not the one Wright borrowed. Another one. I liked it a great deal. I thought it handled well. I felt there was even a very good chance that I might get to Nice first. Ever been there, in the south of France along the sea? There’s a plateau before you reach the Mediterranean. And coming down from that plateau to sea level, you drive the devil’s own roads. They twist and turn and they hug the edges of the cliffs, with no guards, no markings, and they are treacherous enough in daylight. By the time we got there, it was almost dark, and then a bloody mist came crawling up the precipices, blinding us. I considered pulling off somewhere and stopping until morning. There were villages perched on the edges of the cliffs. Or I could have stopped where the roads were broader, but I kept telling myself the others wouldn’t stop, and if I wanted to make even a respectable showing, I wouldn’t either. I talked myself into going on. Well, I expect the others must have done the same thing. Not competing so much as—” He searched for the right word. “We’d survived the unsurvivable, and I expect we wanted to prove to ourselves that it wasn’t mere luck.” He put his hand over his face, pressing it against his cheekbones. “Does it make any sense?”
Rutledge said, “Risking your lives again?”
Standish dropped his hand. “No. Not risking them so much as proving something to ourselves. A matter of courage. We’d made that promise when none of us expected to see the next sunset. My God, Rutledge, nearly twenty thousand men died that first day of battle. It could have been any one of us—all of us. Two were killed later, but we all survived the Somme. It was a triumph of the spirit, don’t you see? And making that drive, we raced the devil and won. We didn’t race each other.”
He rose and went to the decanter, thought better of it, and put the whisky down. “Only it wasn’t quite what we expected it to be, that final run. Someone ran me off the road. I went over the edge, and should have died in the fall down the face of the cliff. When rescue came, I was unconscious, my hand badly mangled, and yet miraculously, I lived.”
“Who were the other men in that race?”
Standish shook his head. “No. I won’t give you their names. I can’t believe any one of them would be capable of trying to kill any of the others. Besides, I didn’t know them well enough to have made an enemy of them. Certainly not well enough for one of them to want to kill me. I’ve told you, we didn’t even serve in the same sector.”
“Were you the only driver to be attacked like that?”
“I don’t know,” he answered slowly. “They came to the hospital to say good-bye, on their way back to England. But it was rather odd. The others seemed to want nothing so much as to go home. They weren’t even eager to set up another meeting in, say, five years’ time. If all had gone well, if we’d had a successful run, I think we’d have looked forward to that. As it was, God knew I wanted no part of such a reunion.”
“What you’re telling me is that none of you trusted the other four.”
“No. I don’t think it was that.” He went to the window and drew the drapes aside to look out into the darkness, then pulled them to again. Turning back to Rutledge, he said, choosing his words, “I think when someone first broached the idea, we were nearly certain we were going to die. If not in the first assaults, then certainly before the week was out. We saw ourselves as doomed. We didn’t want to think of home, of family; it was too painful. Here was something we could tell ourselves made living worthwhile. And when we lived through the nightmare of the Somme, we told ourselves that we could do it again. And again. Until the end.”
“What about the two men who didn’t survive?”
“One of them wrote to us to say he’d be with us in spirit. That he wanted badly enough to do this that he was going to make the journey with us.” He gave Rutledge a wry smile. “You’ll laugh. But there were times on that long drive south when I thought of him and felt him there in the motorcar with me.”
Rutledge said only “There’s no reason to laugh.”
“No.”
Standish looked away. “I wish to God we’d never made that promise to meet in Paris. But at the time, it felt as if we were defying death.”
“And you’ve ne
ver seen these men since that day in the hospital?”
“Nor have they contacted me.”
“Wright was followed out of Eastbourne or wherever it was he’d gone. And whoever was driving the other motorcar probably caused his death.”
“Good God.” Standish stared blankly at him. “But it’s not possible. I can’t think any one of the other four would—I mean to say, if they followed him, they would have known it wasn’t me.”
“Not in the dark, in the rain.”
“But this wasn’t the motorcar I drove last year, when we met.” It almost sounded as if Standish was pleading with him, begging him not to connect the crash with the other four men who had survived to meet in Paris. “No, I refuse to believe it.”
When Rutledge didn’t answer, the Captain said, “Look, Wright took my motorcar without permission. Why? What was so pressing that he couldn’t wait until I came back? That’s what you need to find out. That’s where you need to direct your search for answers.” This time when he went to the decanter, he refilled his glass.
“The stable belonged to you.”
“Coincidence.”
“What about your tenants? Do any of them hold a grudge against you?”
“No, of course not. I’ve been more than generous with them. They struggled to manage during the war with the shortage of able-bodied men, and it’s not much better now. I’d be a fool to blame them. And I’m not the only landowner who has faced this problem.”
Rutledge’s head was thundering. He set his half-empty glass on the desk and rose. “We’re not going to find any answers tonight. Get some sleep, if you can. I’ll come back in the morning. We can tell more in daylight.”
“I’m going out once more to make certain the fire is no longer a threat to the house. Are you in any shape to drive back into the village? There’s room here to put you up.”
Rutledge thanked him but refused the offer. This time his host walked with him to the door and saw him out.
Turning the crank, he got into the motorcar and then sat there for a time, looking at the closed door to the house. But his head wasn’t clear enough to work out just what had happened and why. In the end, he set out and drove with extreme care all the way back to The Sailor’s Friend. This was not the time to find himself in a ditch.
Rutledge climbed the stairs to his room, closed the door behind him, and crossed to the washstand mirror to look at his face.
It was enough to frighten children, he thought wearily, and poured water into the basin to wash away the blood. But it had dried and it took him several minutes to rid himself of the worst of it. The cut ran from above his eyebrow to his hairline by his ear, across the bone of his cheek. It was already showing bruising, and he had a feeling his eye might be black by morning.
He couldn’t tell what his assailant had used to hit him, but it had broken the skin, and only luck—and Hamish’s warning—had saved him from worse.
There had been anger and intent behind that blow, and when it hadn’t killed him, whoever had attacked him had tried to pull him into the fire. Anger? Vindictiveness?
Vengeance?
Whoever it was had been only a black silhouette against the brightness of the fire. Try as he would, Rutledge couldn’t recall any detail that would help him identify his adversary.
He turned to the sandwiches and tea Josie had brought earlier. The tea was tepid now, but he drank it anyway, his throat still raw from the smoke.
There was nothing more he could do tonight. He undressed, got ready for bed, and turned off the light.
He slept too deeply to hear Hamish or anything else in the night.
Rutledge drove out to the Standish house as soon as the sun was high enough to inspect the still-smoking ruins.
He spent a good hour examining the ground close by the stable, looking for any sign that would indicate how the fire was set. But there was nothing to find. A match, a candle, a bit of smoldering grass or tinder would have been consumed by the blaze long before any alarm had brought people running.
Halfway through his search, Captain Standish came out to speak to him. He had drunk too much last night. His eyes were bloodshot and his hand shook.
He smiled ruefully at Rutledge. “I’m not accustomed to five whiskies before I go to bed. Any luck?”
“None. Not that I expected to find anything useful.” Rutledge scraped at graying ash with the toe of his boot. “It was an intense fire, fed by the age of the wood. One wouldn’t need to do more than give it a start. A match here, another there. The wind took it as well, once it started. Just be grateful he, whoever he may be, didn’t decide to burn down your house instead.”
Standish swore. “It might have caught, whether he’d intended it or not. Do you think he’ll come back and try just that?”
“I don’t know. I think he’s letting you know that he knows you’re still alive.”
“You’re harking back to our conversation last night. Maybe whoever it was is punishing me for letting Wright borrow my motorcar. I’m sure he didn’t know the Rector hadn’t asked.”
Rutledge smiled. “That’s not as unlikely as you think. Early days.”
“Yes, well, for God’s sake, find this bastard before he does any more damage. Or kills someone else.”
“He might have done that already. I’ve told you about the rag-and-bone man we found dead at Belle Tout light. Grant.”
Standish turned to consider him. “The one who may’ve argued with Wright? But what does he have to do with me? Why would their killer want to burn my stable?”
“I intend to find out.” He gestured to the blackened ashes, the stark stubs of pieces of wood that hadn’t been consumed. Suddenly it reminded him of No Man’s Land, and the torn trees that littered the muddy, blackened landscape. “This confused the issue. But that could be exactly what someone had in mind. I have to take that into account as well.”
“Then hurry.” Standish put a hand protectively over his empty cuff, a measure of his concern. “I don’t like what’s happening here.”
“It’s why I came here this morning,” Rutledge said, and walked away.
He lingered, however, by the lane where he had seen Jem and her mother, hoping to catch sight of the girl.
Last night, as she was hurrying from one task to another, doing her bit to save the house, there had been no real opportunity to speak to her—and he’d had the distinct feeling that she was carefully avoiding him, for she never came near enough to him to make speech possible.
But the lane was empty. He told himself she would have chores at this hour of the morning, and after a while he drove on.
Where had she been last night?
And more importantly, what had she seen?
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12
As he came into East Dedham, Rutledge saw Constable Brewster in conversation with one of the shop owners. Brewster turned toward the motorcar, and Rutledge slowed.
“There was a fire at Four Winds last night, sir,” he said. “I just heard. The—” He broke off as he got a really good look at Rutledge’s face. “What’s happened, sir?”
“I was there talking to Standish when the fire was discovered. But there was no damage to the house. Only to the old stable where he kept his motorcar.”
“Good thing the motorcar wasn’t inside,” Brewster replied. “Not even Trotter could have repaired that. But I’d have Dr. Hanby take a look at that cut, sir. It’s nasty.”
“Yes, later. Have a look at this list. Know anything about any of these people? Have they ever been to East Dedham?” A village constable knew his turf, knew who came and went.
Brewster scanned the names. “No, sir, I don’t recognize any of them. Who are they, sir?”
“Friends of the Captain’s. People he knew before the war.” But not the four men whose names he’d asked for.
“Yes, sir. I will say the Capta
in was never one for large house parties at Four Winds. But he did spend time in London. Perhaps he visited them there.”
“Does Standish have a house in London?”
“Not to my knowledge, sir. I’ve heard he most often stayed at his club.” He passed the list back to Rutledge and stepped away from the motorcar as Rutledge thanked him and made to move on.
He went next to find Constable Neville, and asked him the same question, but after studying the list, Neville said, “Did you speak to Constable Brewster about these names?”
“Yes. He didn’t recognize them.”
Neville nodded. “I don’t recall any of them. On the other hand, if the Captain brought them down to East Dedham, I doubt they’d have wandered about. There’s not all that much to see here. Except the sea.” He hesitated. “What’s happened to your face, sir?”
He told Neville about the fire.
Rutledge went back to East Dedham, to the rectory, and spoke to Mrs. Saunders as well. She had flour on her hands, despite having wiped them on her apron when she answered his knock.
Her expression changed as she looked up at him. “Oh, dear, and what’s happened? Have you come to blows with Mr. Barnes? I do hope not, the Bishop will be very unhappy. Does it hurt terribly? Is there anything I can do?”
He wished his attacker at the devil for not striking in a less conspicuous place, then assured her it didn’t hurt at all, and would be gone in a day or so.
Bringing out the list, he passed it to her, asking if she knew any of the names on it. She read it through, then shook her head. “I don’t know any of these men. At least they’ve never come to the rectory. And Rector never spoke of them in my hearing. Are they important?”
“I don’t believe they are,” he said, keeping his tone light, not wanting the list to become a subject for gossip. “These are friends of Captain Standish’s, and I needed to know if the Rector had been acquainted with any of them as well.”
“Yes, sir, I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.” She glanced over her shoulder, then said in a lower voice, “Himself, now, he’s written a letter to his Bishop, he says. I only hope he’s not taken a sudden liking to the village.”
