Racing the Devil

by Todd,Charles

  “Rector’s Bible. His personal one. He always kept it by his bed. I was dusting his room and Mr. Barnes came in asking me to make him a pot of tea. He startled me so, lurking about the way he does, that I knocked the brass candlestick and the Bible off the table. That’s when I saw it, stuck between the Old Testament and the New. I don’t think Mr. Barnes noticed. I picked it up and put it in my pocket with my back to him.”

  “Thank you. I’ll read it and let you know what it is.”

  She gave him a sheepish look. “Well, I did read it. In case it was something personal that he might not wish anybody else to know. It’s a letter from someone he helped when he was chaplain. You’ll see. But you’ve asked me more than once if Rector had any enemies. I thought it might matter.”

  With a nod she turned and walked back the way she’d come, and Rutledge found himself wondering if Wright had been aware of how much she cared for him, and her intense loyalty to the man and the position he held.

  In his room he took the time to shave, and then he sat down by the window to read the letter.

  Chaplain,

  I am coming to see you. I have been in hospital again here in Portsmouth, and I fear it has done me little good. You are the only one who ever helped me, and I am hoping you can do so again. The doctors tell me that the injury to my brain is irreversible, that the headaches and the anger will persist possibly for the rest of my life. I can’t bear the thought of that, I’d rather kill myself and be done with it.

  I beg you to find it in your heart to forgive me for what I’ve done. And find a way to save me.

  Pray for me, please. I was a good man once. I want to be that man again.

  Truly your servant, sir.

  And the signature was there. Ralph Mercer.

  He rose, intending to walk up to the rectory and ask Mrs. Saunders if she recognized the name. But she had read the letter—she would have said something if she knew who this man Mercer was.

  He folded the letter and tried to insert it into the envelope postmarked from Portsmouth. It fit perfectly. What’s more, when he matched the ink on the envelope to that in the letter, he’d have been willing to wager they were from the same pen. It was true as well of the handwriting—the same tightly formed letters, the vowels crammed into the consonants, and the consonants stubby and upright.

  It would take a handwriting expert to be absolutely certain, but to the naked eye, there was no doubt.

  Was Mercer the man who had appeared at the rectory shortly after the letter had arrived, the man whom Wright had walked to the church? And afterward, the Rector had told his housekeeper that the stranger had come about the church organ. But had he?

  Who was Ralph Mercer?

  Rutledge drove to Eastbourne, returning to the telephone he’d used once before.

  He began with Sergeant Gibson in London.

  “I need information about hospitals or clinics in Portsmouth for returning soldiers and officers with unresolved issues.”

  He waited while Gibson went to find an answer. As wounded men recovered and returned to their former lives—those with broken bones or injuries that healed—most of the wartime clinics had closed, the houses taken over by the Army medical officers returned to their owners. But those with burns, with destroyed faces, with wounds that refused to heal or required repeated surgeries, with severe amputations, with shell-shock cases that hadn’t been as fortunate as Rutledge had were still being treated. And he had a feeling from the tone of the letter that Mercer must be among them.

  Hamish was pointing out that Mercer had written his letter, had traveled to Sussex and walked to the rectory door, had spoken to the Rector. “He canna’ be verra’ badly wounded.”

  “But he could be one of Wright’s failures.” Rutledge had spoken aloud in the tiny, stuffy room where the telephone was housed.

  Gibson said, “Sorry, sir, I missed that.”

  “I wasn’t speaking to you, Sergeant.”

  “The hospital is on the telephone, as you thought. But I’m not sure it’s what you want.”

  “No?”

  “It’s for mentally disturbed patients, sir.”

  “I’ll take it all the same.”

  Sergeant Gibson read it to Rutledge, and then said, “About the names you gave me, sir. There’s nothing I could discover that’s likely to be of use in your inquiry. All law-abiding men, respected in their parishes.”

  These were the men whose names Standish had given him, men who had owned dark green motorcars—but who had not gone to France a year ago.

  “Thank you, Sergeant. That’s very helpful.”

  He could cross them off his own list. But the critical names now were Russell, Taylor, and Brothers, and for a moment he considered asking Gibson to find out what he could about them. But there wasn’t time. He needed to speak to each of them himself, as soon as possible, to warn them, as he hadn’t been able to warn Holt.

  There was a pause at the other end of the connection, then lowering his voice, Gibson added, “Himself is likely to be confirmed as Chief Superintendent. No longer Acting CS. There has been traffic between here and the Home Office.”

  It might have been no more than passing on the latest Yard reports. But something in Gibson’s voice had suggested a warning. And a dislike.

  Rutledge replied, “Keep me informed.”

  “I’ll do that, sir.” Another pause. “He barks, sir. It doesn’t go over well with the lads. Nor the Inspectors either.”

  A hardheaded Yorkshireman, ACS Markham was not one to ask so much as to order.

  “Perhaps he’ll mellow, once the position is actually his,” Rutledge suggested.

  “When the moon sets in the east, sir.”

  Rutledge thanked him and rang off. He and Gibson had shared nothing, not even friendship. Except for a mutual distaste for overbearing Chief Superintendents. A bond of sorts. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

  Rutledge put through the call to the clinic outside Portsmouth, and eventually spoke to Matron, after being passed through a number of underlings.

  He gave her his name and his rank, and informed her that Wright had been murdered. That it was necessary to know what business he’d had with Ralph Mercer two months earlier.

  There was silence on the other end of the line, then Matron said, choosing her words with care, “Ralph Mercer was an unusual case. There was a bit of shrapnel lodged in his skull, but it was not a significant injury. That’s to say, it had not impaired his mental capacity in any way. Nor is it why he has been a patient here from time to time, although he often complained of headaches. Mercer was not his real name. It was the name he has chosen to use, and it was felt that to attempt to correct him, to force him to use his own name, might not be wise.”

  “I don’t follow you,” Rutledge said, his throat almost closing on the words.

  “No, I’m sure you don’t. Ralph Mercer doesn’t suffer from shell shock, if that’s what you are thinking. During the war, I’m told, his sector was too close to a German tunnel, and when it was blown almost in his face, his men were killed by the force of the explosion. There wasn’t a mark on them, they simply died instantly wherever they were sitting or standing. He was the company sergeant, and he was sitting in the cubby hollowed out for use by the officer in charge, partially protected from the blast, although it damaged his eardrums and possibly his brain. Do you know what I am describing?”

  “I was in France,” Rutledge said. “I understand.” The British had refused to make their trenches more habitable, as the Germans had done. Officers had taken to scraping out a space in the back wall of the trench, hanging a length of canvas across the opening to keep a candle from being seen by enemy snipers, and there they dealt with the business of command, from reading orders to writing letters of condolence to the families of the dead.

  “He had no way of knowing,” Matron said after a moment, “that the tunnel was so close to his sector. His Lieutenant was nearest the blast, speaking to one of the men, and was k
illed as well. Mercer felt he was somehow to blame, that he should have been more vigilant, that somehow he should have noticed some sign of what was to come and warned his commanding officer and the rest of the men. He didn’t want to be that lone survivor, you see. He felt that Sergeant Miller ought to have died as well. It haunted him. On the other hand, as ‘Ralph Mercer,’ he had nothing to do with the war, and he could cope to some extent. When that didn’t serve, he came to us, and we would keep him until he was himself again. There was a chaplain who helped him a great deal. Last August, when he had an especially bad turn, we kept him for six weeks. And then he felt he wasn’t getting the care he needed, and he asked to be released to seek out the Rector of St. Simon’s Church in East Dedham. The doctor in charge of his care felt it was wise to allow him to go. I don’t know what passed between the chaplain and Mercer, but he returned a calmer man. We were all quite pleased with his improved state of mind. And then, on Remembrance Day, without any warning, he tried to hang himself in his room.”

  Rutledge could hear the grief in her voice. It was fresh, painful. Losing a patient was difficult enough at any time, but losing one to suicide must be particularly trying to accept. Even attempted suicide. It reeked of failure.

  “I’m sorry, Matron.”

  “I am as well. I had hoped that he might recover, given time. Instead he’s signed himself out of hospital. I fear he might wish to try again, expecting to be more successful out from under our eye. What else is it you wished to know about him?”

  “I found his letter to the Rector, you see. I think Wright was distressed by it. I didn’t know why. Do you have a forwarding address—any way that I can reach him?”

  “I’m afraid he didn’t leave any. Mercer isn’t your murderer, Inspector. But I hope you find whoever it is. The Rector was a good man.”

  And she rang off before he could respond.

  Rutledge put up the receiver and stood there, lost in thought, for several minutes.

  And then he went to find Captain Brothers.

  The telegram from Bess Crawford had given an address in Maidstone, in Kent, for Captain Brothers.

  Rutledge found him on a tree-lined street of middle-class bungalows. The one he sought had black Tudor-style trim, a handsome front garden, and a bow window on either side of the doorway.

  When he knocked, a woman dressed in the dark clothing of a housekeeper opened the door to him.

  He asked for Brothers, and she in turn asked his name.

  Rutledge told her, adding that he had come from Scotland Yard on an urgent matter.

  He was taken down the passage to a sitting room, and after several minutes a fair man of medium height, a scar across one cheek, came through the door.

  Wary, he said, “You’re from Scotland Yard? I’d like to see some identification.”

  Rutledge handed it to him, and Brothers looked it over carefully. Lifting his head, he handed it back and then said, “What is this urgent business that brought you here?”

  “Major Holt is dead. And Captain Standish is in danger. I’ve come to ask you to tell me what happened in Nice a year ago.”

  “Nothing happened,” Brothers replied curtly.

  “Standish was nearly killed when his motorcar was forced off the road. His injuries, in fact, were severe, including the loss of a hand. That’s hardly to be considered ‘nothing.’”

  “You’d better sit down,” Brothers said after a pause in which he seemed to battle his own reticence. Rutledge watched it reflected in the Captain’s eyes and saw the decision form. “It’s a long story and not a very pleasant one.”

  “You were one of the five men who met in Paris and then drove to Nice?”

  “I was. I’d had to borrow my brother-in-law’s motorcar. At the time I didn’t have my own. But that was all right. None of the others seemed to think it mattered.” He crossed to a sideboard where a drinks tray held pride of place. “Whisky?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  He poured two generous glasses, and handed one to Rutledge.

  “It was an uneventful drive. Russell, I think it was, had chosen the route, and he provided maps for all of us. In Paris we studied them carefully, asking questions, jotting down notes. I enjoyed the planning. Oddly enough, it was rather like planning an assault, although without the consequences. We didn’t meet along the way; we were on our own, and I rather liked that too. I hadn’t come for the camaraderie so much as to keep my promise. You’ve heard about that part? The night before the Somme offensive? Yes, well, it seemed such a gallant thing to do. Flouting death, making an adventure out of our survival. I don’t think any of us came home from the war with any dreams left. It had been a damned hard four years, and I was tired to the bone. I walked into the house, tossed my bag into a corner, undressed, and slept the clock around. Worried Mrs. Dawson, she thought something was wrong. Were you in the war?”

  “Yes.”

  “The Somme?”

  “Yes.”

  “Madness, that. It was when we all lost hope. I was surprised to find myself still alive in the autumn, when it was finished. Four months of hell. And after the Armistice, we came back to a bleak world. I didn’t get in until well into January. It was winter-dark, everyone appeared to be as exhausted as I was, and nothing seemed to be the same. Besides, most of my friends had been killed or badly wounded. Lonely. Depressing. A shortage of everything. The drive to Nice had been a talisman while we were fighting. ‘I survived—I’ll drive to Nice with the rest.’ But it wasn’t something that was actually going to happen. After nearly a year at home, the race seemed to offer a respite from the present. At any rate, when the time came, when I took William’s motorcar and set out for Paris, I had come to the point of doubting myself, doubting the Armistice, doubting the England I’d come back to. I had lost the man I was during those four years of war. I thought I could find him again.”

  He got up and refilled his glass. Rutledge had hardly touched his own.

  “It will sound odd to you, but in a way that drive was a reaffirmation of my own courage. Looking back on the war, I seemed to have scraped through. So many men had serious wounds—or they died of horrendous ones. I’d been wounded, of course, but I was back in the field in a matter of days. I hadn’t earned the right to compare myself to them. Do you understand what I’m saying? Yes? Well, this was another test, in a way, alone in my motorcar and reliving four years of hell, trying to come to terms with the killing and the night attacks, and the snipers and the shelling, and torn bodies everywhere, telling myself I had deserved to survive. I’d earned it. Don’t laugh. But that’s what was going through my mind.”

  “I have no intention of laughing,” Rutledge said somberly.

  “At any rate, all went well, or so I thought. I’d begun to take an interest in the journey for its own sake, the scenery, villages where I’d stopped for meals, the people I’d met. And then—then I was driving one of the most hellish roads I’d ever seen: twisting, narrow, poorly banked, nothing but a deep drop on one side, and in many places, no room to pass. Imagine driving that as a heavy mist came up the side of the mountain, and all you could see was a drifting white veil obscuring everything, swallowing your headlamps, dampening all sound, leaving you as blind as if you’d lost your sight.”

  He got up and walked to the window. With his back to Rutledge, he gave an account of what happened next.

  At the end, he turned around, his face strained. “I was sure I was going to die. It was a bloody miracle that I didn’t. I don’t think I’ve got over it yet. I still don’t know whether my skill saved me—or his was not quite good enough to kill me.”

  Rutledge drank a little of his whisky, then said, “And the others?”

  “That’s the odd thing. No one mentioned a similar experience. And I was sure as hell not going to tell them what happened to me.”

  “All of you must have put on a good front. Standish didn’t drive off the road in that fog. He was pushed off by another motorcar. He thought he was the onl
y one to have been targeted, and he said nothing. Just as the rest of you said nothing. He felt he’d already spoiled the trip for you without adding feverish claims of attempted murder.”

  “Gentle God,” Brothers whispered. “I didn’t know. I went to see him in hospital, and he was not a pretty sight, I can tell you. All the more reason to say nothing to him about what I’d been through. I’d survived. I knew how bloody lucky I was.” He looked away. “And yes, for a while up there in the hills, I believed it was one of us trying to run me off the road. Foolishness, but at the time it seemed the only explanation.”

  “Have you seen any of the other men since Nice?”

  Brothers shook his head. “No. I think what happened to Standish sobered all of us. Or maybe it was what happened to each of us on that road. But in the name of God, who did that to me, to Standish?”

  Rutledge didn’t give a direct answer. “Have you heard? Holt has died in a motorcar crash. In the driving rain, he lost control and struck a tree. That’s how it appears. The evidence tells a different story, pointing to someone deliberately trying to run him off the road. Someone tried to kill him, and succeeded.”

  Brothers stood there, staring at him.

  “And,” Rutledge went on, “someone who borrowed Standish’s motorcar was also murdered. It isn’t clear whether the crash killed him, or he was found alive and killed. But there’s little doubt that two vehicles were involved.”

  “Oh God.”

  “Which of you could have done such a thing? Holt is dead, that puts him out of the running. Standish, you, Russell, or Taylor?”

  “I don’t know. You’ll think me mad, but while I was driving through that mist, I thought about Everett. He’d wanted to make it to Paris. Instead he died of gangrene. He wrote me a letter just before he died, telling me he’d be there in spirit with us. I had the strangest notion that he was driving that other motorcar. A ghost in a ghost motorcar. But I tell you, it was all too real. There was nothing ghostly about the force with which he—whoever he was—tried to force me off the road.”