by Todd,Charles
He reached the bend, one hand on the wall to steady himself, and walked carefully around it, uncertain what he’d find.
And there, twenty feet from him, was the arching opening that led to the sea. He had come to the end.
He saw Jem, then. A dark mound all too close to the edge. The tide must be coming in, he thought in one part of his mind, because the sound of the whispering as the water ran out again was loud.
He moved toward her as fast as he dared. The chalk here was damp, uncertain underfoot, and he couldn’t judge how steep the drop might be just beyond her. And then he had reached her, kneeling beside the still, dark figure, afraid now to touch her, an unreasoning feeling that she was dead.
She had been wrapped in what appeared to be a rug from a motorcar and left at the very edge of the opening. Beyond was the moving mass of the sea, and darkness. He couldn’t see her head or her face, only her shoes. The waves were loud in his ears as he put out a hand and felt the cold beaded moisture on the rug.
She didn’t move.
He drew her back from the edge, and setting his torch to one side, he began to fumble with the rug, turning her over with great care, shutting his mind to what he was about to find.
He was almost knocked backward as she kicked out, catching him in the chest as he was bending forward. A muffled sound came from the depths of the rug.
Relief washed over him.
She drew her knees up, preparing for another kick. He moved clear, saying, “It’s Rutledge. Stop. I’m trying to help you.”
This time he heard a distinct whimper, and he hurried to unfold the rug. And suddenly there she was, her eyes large in her pale face. The effort needed to kick him had left her struggling for breath around the gag in her mouth.
Silently swearing with such intense fury that his hands were shaking, sending the torchlight dancing around them, he reached for the edges of the handkerchief and pulled it free. She lay there gasping, still unable to move, and running the torch light down her thin body, he discovered that her hands and feet were bound.
He stood up to fish out his pocketknife, then knelt again to cut the rope around her feet before cutting those around her wrists.
“Mummy? Is she all right?”
“She’s alive and waiting for you,” he told her.
And Jem began to cry, sobs shaking her thin shoulders. He reached out and lifted the straw-colored hair from her face. It was then that he saw the cut, deep and caked with blood.
He wanted to kill Barnes with his bare hands, but that would have to wait.
Jem was on her knees now, crawling past his outstretched hand and reaching for him. He held her until the sobbing stopped, then set her on her feet and said bracingly, “All right, lad, can you walk?”
She had been bound for hours. The circulation in her legs was not the best, but with his help she took a first tentative step and then another. “Where are we? Is that the sea I hear? We’re awfully close.”
“Parson Dolby’s Hole,” he said, but she looked up at him in the light of his torch and said, “Who?”
“You need to spend more time in school, my lad, instead of wandering about the countryside, missing your lessons. Or you’d know.” He draped the rug over her shoulders. “Give me your hand.”
She did, fearfully, following him. “I don’t like this place,” she said, and he could feel her shivering.
“Do you remember being brought here?”
“I don’t think so. Why is it so dark?”
“It’s a tunnel. We must climb up it.” He went ahead, still holding her hand, and they made it up to the first level, then started toward the next.
Jem was tiring now, he could feel the pull on his hand as she forced herself to keep up. He slowed his pace, trying to conceal the driving force of his anger from her, his need to confront Barnes.
In the end he carried her the rest of the way, but when they came to the upper end of the tunnel and he set her on the ground, Jem looked around with interest. “That’s Belle Tout,” she said, pointing. “And your motorcar.”
“Can you walk that far?” he asked as he dragged the grille back over the opening to the tunnel.
She had regained something of her swagger. “Of course I can.”
But it was rough going, and she climbed into his motorcar with an effort, lying back against the seat, beyond exhaustion. “I want to go home,” she told him plaintively.
He pitied her, and what she had been through this night. But there was danger for her still. “Not just yet. You aren’t safe. I must find the man who did this to you, and I want you to be out of sight for a time. Do you think you could point him out, even in a crowd of men?”
“Yes, I can,” she told him firmly. “I thought he’d shot you. And the Captain. I thought you’d walked into a trap, and I wanted to help.”
“You were very brave.” He took the turning to the Gap, pulling up in front of the police station there.
Constable Neville was still awake. He’d been out with the first party to return, and now he was waiting for the last to appear. But they were searching between the Standish estate and the cliffs. It would take them longer to come in.
He was at the door as soon as Rutledge quietly knocked, opening it and staring in astonishment to see Jem at his side.
“Indoors,” Rutledge said to her, and as soon as she stepped across the threshold, he had the door shut. “You know Constable Neville?” When she nodded warily, he added, “You’ll stay here and mind the constable until I come back. Will you promise?”
“I want to go home,” she said again.
“Not yet.” He turned to Neville. “Keep Jem out of sight. Are all the searchers in? No? I don’t want anyone to know that she’s been found and is alive. Not for another few hours. There’s something I must do.”
“But surely I can send word to her mother.”
“I meant no one, Neville.”
“You can’t let Mrs. Meadows wait and worry. That’s unkind.”
Jem had walked to the nearest chair, climbing into it and leaning back, her exhaustion catching her up.
Rutledge lowered his voice, his back to the girl. “It’s unkinder still to have to tell her mother we lost Jem a second time. He bound and gagged a child, wrapped her in a rug that would slowly smother her, and left her to die alone, where no one would find her. She can identify him, Neville.”
“Who took the child?” Neville asked, barely above a whisper. “Do you know? Did she tell you?”
“I’d guessed it was Barnes.”
“Surely not?” Neville asked, shock clear in his face as he glanced from Jem to Rutledge. “He’s a man of the church.”
“He was with the search party that covered this part of the coast. When they reached Parson Dolby’s Hole, he volunteered to search it. And he told the others that there was no sign of her. Ask the butcher. He’ll confirm it. What’s more, I’ve found his motorcar. Green, with recent damage.” Rutledge took out the envelope he’d been carrying in his pocket and passed it to Neville. “It’s explained in here. And it goes to Scotland Yard if anything happens to me.”
Neville was about to argue, but Rutledge was already out the door.
He heard Jem calling to him. “Mr. Rutledge? Will you fetch my mother? Please?”
“Straightaway,” he promised, though he knew it wasn’t possible. Not yet.
It was after four in the morning, the sun not yet up, the sky even darker than usual with the heavy cloud cover. Rutledge walked to the cliffs, looking out at the Seven Sisters, a ghostly white sweep against the blackness of the sea and the night. When he finally had his anger under control, he turned back to his motorcar.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollinsPublishers
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20
The last of the search parties was just coming in as he passed the pub, the men tired and depressed, knowing they were going to have to report their failure. The church bell
s hadn’t rung, and so they were all too aware that Jem Meadows hadn’t been reported found.
He waved to them and went on to the rectory. He left his motorcar closer to the churchyard, out of sight, and walked the last fifty feet, keeping to the shadows, and then swinging wide to the far side.
The rectory was still dark. He made his way around it to the shed, opened the door the barest crack, and shone his light inside. It was reflected in the gleaming paint. Barnes’s motorcar was still there.
He moved back to the kitchen and tried the door. Mrs. Saunders had left it off the latch. Who would break into a rectory? Rutledge opened it carefully and stepped inside the short passage that led to the kitchen, nearly tripping over the line of boots and catching himself with a hand against one wall. He hadn’t used his torch; he wasn’t sure that Barnes had slept. He could just as well be keeping watch in his bedroom, or more likely, from the parlor window, where he could see the searchers return empty-handed.
Barnes was no common criminal, and he’d served in the Army. He wouldn’t come quietly when Rutledge ordered him to give himself up.
There was something Barnes wanted very badly. But what? Revenge?
He saw a door next to the dresser, and he opened it quietly to find what he had hoped was there, back stairs spiraling up to the bedrooms above. He climbed them and walked as quietly as he could down the passage. He listened at each door for an anxious cough, a movement to ease tension—anything that would tell him where Barnes was waiting.
He went down the line of doors, then retraced his steps, softly opening each one and shining his torch inside. Barnes was armed, and Rutledge was careful never to make himself a target.
He came up empty-handed. Finding his way again to the back stairs, he returned to the kitchen, moving quietly still, letting his hearing tell him what he needed to know. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness, but he had no feeling for where to find a chair, where there was a cabinet, a pail, a carpet sweeper. He had to rely instead on Mrs. Saunders’s reputation for tidiness and order.
Safely reaching the door that led from the kitchen into the main part of the house, he had only just opened it halfway when he caught what sounded like the soft chiming clink of crystal against crystal as someone lifted the top from a decanter.
Waiting must not have been easy for Barnes. He was pouring himself a drink from the Rector’s store, no doubt counting each hour as he listened for the church bells to tell him that the girl had been found. As long as she was still hidden, he could continue with his pose as the Bishop’s self-righteous representative.
Rutledge moved silently along the side of the staircase until he could see through the balustrades to the far side.
The parlor door was standing wide.
There was no chance of rounding the staircase and reaching the doorway without being seen—without drawing fire.
Rutledge had no weapon. And there was nothing to hand that would remotely match Barnes’s revolver. If he hadn’t reloaded, there were still three shots left. If he had, there would be six chances of finding his mark.
Much as he wanted Barnes, he wasn’t prepared to take the risk. There was still too much to be done to be sure this man went to the gallows.
He cast about for anything that would serve him, and he saw the lamp sitting on the table not two feet ahead of him. Where anyone coming through the front door would find a light at hand.
The question was, where was Barnes standing? By a window? Or by the hearth, where he could most certainly cover the door as well?
There was nothing for it but to try.
Rutledge had taken three strides toward the table and the lamp on it when the door opened on a draft of cold night air, and someone stepped in.
There was no time to think. Either the newcomer was someone from the village, and about to be shot—or it was Barnes, who had gone out earlier and was just returning, and someone else was in the parlor.
Rutledge lengthened his stride, caught the person in the doorway completely off guard, and slammed into him, knocking both of them down the short flight of steps and onto the hard, cold ground. And in the same instant, shots rang out from the parlor, the second one breaking the window glass and spitting into the earth just by Rutledge’s ear.
“What the hell—?” Brewster exclaimed.
Rutledge rolled, carrying Constable Brewster with him, to the far side of the path to the door, and for the moment out of range.
Scrambling to his feet, Brewster backed up to the flint wall of the rectory, his eyes wide in his white face and his mouth open.
Rutledge was there beside him in an instant. “Go the long way around,” he was saying rapidly, “well out of range. Get help. He’s armed, as you can see. Don’t let anyone take chances. I just want the rectory surrounded. Off you go.”
“But who is it?”
There was no time to explain. “Barnes,” Rutledge said in his ear. “Now go.”
Brewster stood his ground. “It can’t be, you must be mad.”
“For the love of God, get out of here while you can. And bring back enough people to do as I asked.”
“There’s a man at the police station. He’s off his head, wanting to know if it’s true that Wright is dead. He was told by someone, but he didn’t believe whoever it was, and he’s here to find out. I came to fetch Barnes, to see if he could do something with the man.”
“Never mind the man, he can wait. Go on, find help, quick as you can.” He put his hand on Brewster’s shoulder and pushed him toward the side of the rectory.
“But you don’t understand—he’s threatening to kill himself—”
He was cut off by a roar of sound as Barnes came round the house in his motorcar, driving full out, careering as he turned past the rectory lawn, heading fast toward the pub and the way open to the main road, just beyond. He turned to fire one last shot in the direction of the two men standing by the rectory wall, and Rutledge felt flint chips dig into his face even as he jerked away.
The motorcar was going too fast. Barnes lost control. It jumped the low wall around the churchyard and went hurtling into the stones marking graves. It smashed into a table tomb, standing waist high above the ground, and stopped, hung up on it, front wheels spinning, motor gunning.
Abandoning Brewster, Rutledge raced for the churchyard, leaping the wall, ignoring the broken stones and sunken graves.
Barnes was climbing out of his motorcar, dropping down to the ground. He was clearly dazed by the shock of the crash. He clung for an instant to the frame, then saw Rutledge barreling down on him. He whirled, reached into the motorcar, retrieved his revolver, and fired point-blank at the man from London.
The hammer clicked on an empty chamber.
Disbelieving, Barnes fired again, and then Rutledge was on him, pulling him away from the motorcar, and with all the force of his shoulder behind the blow, he hit Barnes squarely on the jaw.
Barnes went down in a heap at Rutledge’s feet, and it took all the will Rutledge had to stop himself from kicking the man. Only Hamish, hammering at him, and the thought of the hangman stopped him. Instead he picked up the revolver and set it on a gravestone behind him.
Breathing hard, Rutledge stepped back and looked down at Barnes. When he was certain the man could hear him, he spoke the formal words necessary to take him into custody.
Brewster was shouting and running toward him, but he didn’t turn. He waited—hoped—that Barnes would try to stand up, giving him a reason to hit him again.
But Barnes lay there on the damp, bruised grass, looked up at Rutledge, and said, sneering, “All your possible evidence just got turned into scrap.” He inclined his head toward the wreckage of the motorcar. And then he raised his voice so that Brewster could hear every word. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this. You have no proof of murder, or anything else. It’s not my fault you’re incompetent at your job.”
Brewster came to a halt ten feet from Rutledge. He had heard Barnes, and he turned to the man
from London. “You struck him—a man of the cloth.”
“He shot at you, damn it.” Rutledge turned back to Barnes. “The girl survived. We have a witness who can identify you. It’s enough to be going on with.”
He reached down and hauled Barnes to his feet, saying as he did, “Do you have your handcuffs, Constable? Good. Use them.”
And he waited while Brewster reluctantly did as he was told, then followed them out of the churchyard and down the hill. Trotter could deal with the motorcar later.
Men were hurrying toward them, having heard the shots, and Rutledge called as they came nearer, “Jem Meadows has been found safe. She can identify this man as her abductor. And Constable Neville is holding the rest of the evidence against him. Will one of you see to the ringing of the church bell?”
They parted for the little procession, asking questions, demanding answers. But Rutledge said only, “He’s not what he appears to be, this man. Go home to bed while the constable here and I sort this out. Then you’ll be given all the information we have.” It was the voice he’d used commanding men on the battlefield, and many of these villagers had been in the war. They listened.
Still, they disbanded slowly, wide-awake, tired, confused, talking among themselves.
As the three men arrived at the police station and opened the door, Brewster remembered his other problem. Rutledge ignored him, saying to the man who leaped up from his chair, “Who are you?”
Outside, muffled by the closed door, the church bells began to ring, a wild jangle of sound that could be heard across the parish.
“The name’s Mercer. The chaplain isn’t dead. They are lying to me on purpose. It’s a conspiracy, I tell you. I just saw him barely a fortnight ago. I asked the ragpicker to give him a message. I was in trouble in Hastings, and I needed help. There was no one else to send. But he didn’t deliver it. Not until too late. They kept me in jail for days, saying I’d stolen the money, but I’d saved it. To repay the chaplain. Honest work, and no trouble, then they found me sleeping on the strand, called me a thief—I hate being shut up in small places, you don’t know, you don’t understand.”
