Racing the Devil

by Todd,Charles

  Standish, tired of waiting, was almost at the station door, intending to come in.

  Rutledge said, “We’re to drive to the doctor’s. By the bookstore.”

  “I saw a surgery coming in, I think.” They hurried back to the motorcar and began their search. Fifteen minutes later they found it. It wasn’t next to the bookstore, but a good distance down from there.

  The doctor answered the door himself, asking, “What is it you need?” as he peered out at them over his glasses. He was an older man, with gray hair but startlingly black eyebrows and mustache.

  The rain was still coming down in sheets, and he opened the door wider so that they could step inside. Standish busied himself with the umbrellas as Rutledge responded. “I’m from Scotland Yard. Inspector Rutledge. Inspector Judd has sent Captain Standish along to identify the crash victim. He knew the deceased during the war and saw him last in Paris not long ago.”

  It was longer than that, but Standish didn’t correct him.

  Dr. Lodge took out his watch. “It’s late. And I just had an urgent appendix.”

  “It won’t take long. I’ve brought Captain Standish from East Dedham in Sussex. It would be a kindness to allow him to finish this business tonight. Otherwise Mrs. Holt must be brought to Sevenoaks to identify her husband.” His manner was quietly persuasive.

  After a moment the doctor said, “This way, then.”

  He led them down the passage to a door that opened into his surgery rather than his living quarters above. In a back room, windowless and plainly used for storage, a body lay on a deal table, under a sheet.

  “Cause of death is severe neck injuries. He struck the tree—it was a large oak—with some force. His head was snapped forward and then back again. I doubt he knew anything more. Death would have been swift.”

  Dr. Lodge moved forward, and Rutledge followed him. Standish stayed by the door for a moment longer, then came closer as the sheet was lifted.

  There was a great deal of head trauma, but the dead man’s face, aside from one bloody scrape, was still recognizable.

  Standish stared down at the body for a long moment. He started to speak, cleared his throat, and then said clearly, “That’s Major Holt. God rest his soul.”

  Turning, he strode out of the room and down the passage.

  Rutledge, standing beside the table, asked, “Are you certain the neck injuries are consistent with the crash?”

  “Oh, yes. There’s no doubt at all. He was still pinned behind the wheel when he was found.”

  “No one could have come to the motorcar’s door, found him unconscious, and killed him?”

  Lodge gave him a sharp glance, then said, “The door was jammed. We had to pry it open to remove the body.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Lodge. I’ll report the Captain’s identification to Inspector Judd.”

  Lodge accompanied him to the door, where Standish was waiting. They picked up their umbrellas, walked out into the rain, and got into the motorcar.

  Rutledge stopped long enough to report to Judd that Standish had recognized the dead man and that it was indeed Holt.

  “Good. It will spare his widow. She’s staying with neighbors. She was in a sad state. Barely two years wed, a happy life to look forward to.” He shook his head. “Sad.”

  Judd walked Rutledge to the police station’s door, as if to make certain he didn’t linger.

  Standish said as Rutledge returned to the motorcar, “I don’t think that man cares for you.”

  “It isn’t personal. He doesn’t want the Yard poking around, upsetting his own deductions with new questions.”

  “Much the same way we felt when a senior officer came on a tour of inspection. We were glad to see the back of him. Where are you going? That’s not the road to Sussex.”

  “I’m looking for the motorcar. It’s still out here on the road.”

  “Good God. Holt wouldn’t care for that. I could tell he was particular about it.”

  They drove through the town, coming up on the large houses near the church, and then the turning for Knole. Past the enormous park surrounding the great house, there was a bend in the road, and Rutledge’s headlamps quickly picked out a good-sized tree with a motorcar jammed against the trunk.

  They were silent as Rutledge slowed and pulled in behind the wreckage.

  Just here the rain had tapered to a drizzle. While Standish reached for the umbrellas, Rutledge retrieved his torch from the boot.

  They approached the damaged vehicle with care, the wet grass and mud from the road caking their boots as they walked forward.

  The color of the Rolls’s paint was indeterminate in the light of Rutledge’s torch, but on closer inspection, he could see that it was dark green. The bonnet was crumpled, the engine block shoved back almost into the passenger compartment. The lovely Spirit of Ecstasy ornament had broken off and was caught in one of the accordion-like sections. The shining chrome of the radiator was twisted and crushed.

  Inside, the driver’s seat was shoved sideways, and the steering wheel must have pressed against Holt’s chest. Dried blood, mixed with rain dripping through a crack in the roof, was black in the light from Rutledge’s torch.

  The rear of the vehicle was hardly touched. Rutledge found himself thinking that Hamish would have survived, and pushed the thought aside.

  “Dear God,” Standish whispered, and stumbled away. Rutledge could hear him retching.

  Continuing his inspection, Rutledge moved on.

  When he came to the left rear wheel and the boot, he moved closer. In the dark, in the rain, in the light of his torch, he found it difficult to be sure. But he could almost swear that there were scrapes in the dark green paint. And when he moved to the near side, he found the same marks. The tail lamp was twisted to one side, but he couldn’t be certain when that had happened. Besides, the scrapes told their own story.

  There seemed to be a good deal more glass about than the damage to Holt’s vehicle justified. Rutledge squatted for a better look, then picked up one of the larger pieces to examine it.

  Had the other motorcar suffered a broken headlamp? This wasn’t ordinary glass. It was thicker and slightly ridged on one side.

  I might have been wrong about Wright’s crash, he told himself, but not two. Holt must have put up one hell of a fight to stay on the road. And this time the other vehicle must show substantial damage as well.

  Standish came back, wiping his mouth with his handkerchief and saying apologetically, “I never saw the wreckage of my own motorcar. I was in hospital, and the police informed me that it was unsalvageable. It was removed by a firm there in Nice, and that was that. Turned into scrap, for all I know. It would have been worse than this, but where I was sitting . . .”

  He couldn’t finish the thought.

  Rutledge said, “Look here,” and pointed out the damage done.

  Standish bent closer, peering at the rear lamp and at the shards in Rutledge’s palm. When he stood up, he was shaking his head. “There.” He pointed to one of the areas of scraping. “That’s precisely where my own vehicle was struck from behind. I didn’t see it afterward, but I damned well felt it at the time.”

  “And where the motorcar that Wright was driving had been struck.”

  “It really is murder, then, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. And it began in Nice. Do you know of any reason why you and Holt have been targeted? I want the truth this time, not evasions.”

  “No,” Standish replied simply. “I can think of no reason.” He took a deep breath. “If it had been one of us—Holt, say—who had brought his personal troubles to Nice with him, I’d have been surprised, but such things do happen. But I brought none. I can swear to that.”

  “Did Holt ever mention having problems on that high road?”

  “No, but then neither did I. I never spoke of it to anyone but the doctors. Not until I told you.”

  Rutledge considered the matter. If Holt hadn’t told Standish—in hospital and gravely injured�
�it was unlikely that he would have told his wife. He wouldn’t have wanted to worry her, and there was no likelihood that whatever had happened in France would follow him home.

  “What about Russell? Or Brothers? Or Taylor?”

  Standish stepped away, frowning at Rutledge. “How the devil did you find out their names? I thought perhaps the Yard had somehow learned of this crash and sent you word. That that was how you discovered Holt’s name.”

  Rutledge didn’t smile. “I’ve told you. I have my sources,” he replied. “Now let’s get out of this rain.” He strode back to the motorcar, kicked the worst of the mud from his boots, and got in.

  Standish stood there by the wrecked motorcar, as if unable to tear himself away. And then he turned and hurried to join Rutledge.

  “I don’t know how I survived,” he said almost to himself as they drove away.

  It was a long journey back to East Sussex. Rutledge was tempted to spend the night at Melinda’s house, late as it was, but Standish was with him and he didn’t care to introduce them.

  Around one in the morning, Standish spelled him for a few hours, but Rutledge’s mind was racing too fast for him to sleep.

  Did he want Standish with him when he interviewed the remaining three men?

  He decided he didn’t.

  They pulled into East Dedham just as the sun was coming up, and Rutledge drove Standish home.

  As the Captain got out of the motorcar, he said, “What are you going to do now? How is what happened in France going to clear up what’s happening here?”

  “Early days,” Rutledge said evasively, and Standish paused, debating with himself.

  “Brothers is the nearest. But I don’t know what he can tell you that I can’t. I don’t even know if anything happened to him there in the hills above Nice.”

  “We’ll see,” Rutledge answered. “Right now I’m going to sleep for a few hours. Then I’ll know what to do.”

  Standish didn’t move toward the house. “I don’t know if I wish to go with you or not.”

  “I think it’s better if you don’t. Brothers might feel freer to tell me what it is he might know.”

  “I should have told them. I should have spoken up. It might have made a difference.” He shook his head. “In hospital, in pain, I thought it was best not to say anything. I thought, if it didn’t happen to them, what was the point? I’d only make their own race less—” He struggled to find the word he wanted. “It might diminish what they had done, as it had diminished my own race. After all, I never finished it.”

  And then he turned and walked swiftly toward the house door. He went inside without looking back, and shut it firmly behind him.

  Rutledge came out of a deep sleep to pounding on his door. He struggled to place the noise, then came wide awake.

  “Who is it?”

  “Constable Brewster. A message from Constable Neville. He says you’d better come.”

  Rutledge didn’t waste time asking what Neville wanted. He dressed in haste after taking two minutes to wash his face and comb his hair. There was no time to shave. His boots were still damp from constant wettings over the past four-and-twenty hours. He pulled them on over dry stockings.

  He went downstairs, where Brewster was waiting for him, and the two men walked out to the motorcar.

  The sun was shining, but not with any serious strength, and heavy clouds still lingered on the horizon, promising more rain. The wind had picked up halfway to East Dedham last night, and it still blew fiercely from the sea.

  “What did Neville want?” he asked as Brewster turned the crank.

  “I don’t know, sir. He didn’t say.”

  It was typical of the tense relationship between the two constables. Rutledge swore to himself and concentrated on avoiding the pools of water that marked the worst of the ruts.

  He’d expected to go directly to the police station, but as he came into the Gap he saw the cluster of men along the cliff and instead went on, driving as close as he safely could.

  Neville, hearing him come up, turned and hurried to greet him, nodding to Brewster.

  “There’s something you ought to see,” Neville told Rutledge.

  “Isn’t that where the last fall occurred?” Rutledge asked, pointing in the direction Neville had come from. As he got out of the motorcar, he felt the full force of the wind. It would be pushing the waves against the chalk face, tearing at it.

  “Yes, it is. One of the worst falls this autumn. But there’s something else.” He led the way back to the cluster of men, and they parted as Rutledge came forward.

  “Beware the edge,” Neville said. “It’s waterlogged, it could go any minute. And the wind could pull you right over.” He pointed out a sounder bit of turf and said, “One of the lads saw it this morning.”

  Rutledge joined him and looked down. At first he wasn’t sure what had attracted so much attention. There was the rubble cast up by the stormy sea and the debris from the recent fall, now gradually being sucked out by the tide. And then as a wave came crashing up on the chalk face to his left, he saw it, bobbing awkwardly in the surf. A brown object that seemed to open and close with the buffeting of the waves.

  “What is it?” he asked, just as he understood what he was seeing. “It’s a valise. The question is, where did it come from?” But he had a feeling he knew.

  “I can’t be sure,” Neville said, “whether it’s brought in by the tide or if it’s Mrs. Grant’s. I sent Archie—the lad over there—running to ask Mrs. Mitchell if she remembered what Mrs. Grant’s valise looked like. She said it was brown.” He glanced at Rutledge. “That thing is brown. But then so are most valises.”

  Brown leather or calf, even brown cardboard. Neville was right.

  “We won’t know until we can bring it up. The way the surf is pounding it, we could lose it altogether.”

  “It’s not safe to send a man down.”

  “No.” He’d had experience with landslips. They were dangerous at best, deadly at their worst. “Frustrating, standing here and watching it tossed up on the shingle.”

  “Do you think it’s Mrs. Grant’s? But why would it be in the sea?”

  “The question is, where is she?”

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  17

  For a quarter of an hour they watched the valise come apart, one side of it pulled back into the water and the other lying, as if taunting them, briefly at the foot of the cliff, five hundred feet below.

  Rutledge, growing more and more impatient, asked, “Do you have enough rope to lower me down there? If we wait any longer, we’re going to lose it.”

  “It’s not safe,” Neville argued. “For one thing, the edge of the cliff there is too fragile, and for another, we could lose men trying to lower you down and pull you up again.” He gestured to either side of him. “With all this rain, the chalk softens. As it is, we’re mad to be standing this close.”

  He was right, but Rutledge chafed at the tantalizing sight of half of the valise lying well within reach. And then it was reclaimed by the waves, rolling about like its other half, tossed from wave to wave like some child’s lost toy, disappearing and then bobbing up again.

  “I’ve seen nothing that might be considered the contents of the valise,” the man standing next to Neville said. “No shoes or clothing or the like. It could have come from anywhere, tossed away because of a broken hasp.”

  Rutledge walked back to the motorcar to fetch his field glasses. But even with them he couldn’t see anything that would tell him who might have owned the valise or how it had come to be there this morning.

  The rough surf, climbing the sloping heap of chalk from the slip, was slowly eroding it. Neville, staring at it, said, “You don’t think Mrs. Grant is buried under that fall? It happened the same night she disappeared. If that’s her valise, washed out early, will she be next? She’ll have to stay in the sea; ther
e’s no hope of reaching her to find out what happened to her.”

  “I don’t know,” Rutledge responded. “I’ve been wondering about that myself. I think it might be best to post a watcher along here, in case. Her body might not fare as well as the valise. It could be pulled out to sea in the night, and no one the wiser.” He scanned the fall with his glasses, but there was nothing to see. “If she is dead, her killer was damned lucky when he threw her over the cliff. Otherwise she’d have been found straightaway.”

  “He seems to have all the luck,” Neville said with suppressed anger.

  Another quarter of an hour, and the sea had successfully reclaimed both halves of the broken valise. They disappeared from sight, and the watchers turned away.

  “Well,” said Neville with a sigh, “we’ll never know. Unless she turns up too. I’ll set that watch.”

  Rutledge thanked him for summoning him, and with a nod to the other villagers went back to his motorcar. The wind had cut through him there at the edge of the cliff, and he could see the other watchers rubbing their hands together as they made their way back to the cottages. He could taste salt on his lips as he drove on to The Sailor’s Friend, setting Brewster down at the police station on his way.

  He had just pulled into the yard when he saw Mrs. Saunders coming down the hill toward him, a knitted scarf over her head. She hailed him, and he waited for her to come nearer.

  “I have found something,” she said, waving a folded sheet of paper. “I can’t tell if it’s important or not, but you’ll know.”

  “Where is Barnes?” Rutledge asked, looking up the hill.

  “Reporting to the Bishop. I don’t think he cares as much for the likes of us, now that he’s been here for a bit. Any excuse and he’s away telling the Bishop how backward we are. I, for one, will rejoice to see the back of him. After Rector, God rest his soul, I don’t think I could ever grow to like that one. He hovers.”

  Suppressing a smile, Rutledge said, “Where did you find this? I searched the study thoroughly.”