“No, but I wonder if it had some bearing on Miss Letteridge going to London in 1914, leaving young Emma Mason to fend for herself. And whether this man’s death in the war brought Miss Letteridge home again, shortly before Emma disappeared.”
“You’re an imaginative sort, aren’t you?”
“Then why does Emma Mason’s name crop up so often in connection with Constable Hensley?”
“Yes, well, I expect every man wants to appear brave and worldly and exciting in the eyes of impressionable young women. When Hensley first came to Dudlington, he kept his head down, as a newcomer should. After all, he was the outsider, and he had to earn our respect, constable or not. But it wasn’t long before he was bragging to anyone who would listen about his experiences in London. I can understand that Emma might be curious about the sort of life her mother lived, and so she encouraged him more than was proper. Mrs. Ellison would never have painted London in such a glowing light. She’s convinced that London is little short of Satan’s second address.”
“I’m told it went beyond mere bragging, that he used his experiences to impress a young and vulnerable girl. What if she believed his stories, and ran away to London on the basis of them? Leaving Hensley to take the blame for her disappearance.”
“To find her mother? It could have happened that way, yes. Still, I gave Emma credit for more sense.”
“The fact is, she’s missing. Surely if she went to London to find her mother, Mrs. Ellison would have been told she was there and safe. Or Mrs. Mason herself would have sent Emma home again, with orders to stay here.”
Towson stared at him briefly over the rim of his cup. “Are you trying to tell me that after only a few days here, you believe that Emma is dead, and that Constable Hensley is being blamed for her death? That that was why he was shot?”
“I’m saying that whatever became of Emma—whether she died here in Dudlington or something appalling happened to her on her way to London—on her own she might never have considered doing anything so rash as running away.”
“Yes, well, that’s one way to look at it.” Towson sighed. “I’m a trained priest, I know the shortcomings of human nature as well as most. It’s just that I don’t want to think of the child as dead. I’m sorry. I’d like to believe that her mother came back, and so one day might Emma.”
“With or without a child?”
Towson stared. “You are a very hard man, in your own fashion. That was a cruel thing to say.”
Rutledge, leaving the rectory with a borrowed umbrella in his hand, asked the Reverend Towson if there were other strangers in the village, either as visitors or on business.
Towson, shivering in the cold air after the warmth of his parlor, answered, “I’ve not heard of anyone. And as a rule, in time I hear most gossip. Are you suggesting now that it could be something in Constable Hensley’s past that caught up with him? Rather than trouble over Emma Mason?”
Rutledge fell back on the tried-and-true formula of an inquiry. “Early days, yet, to be sure of anything. I’m keeping an open mind.”
Towson said doubtfully, “Yes, I see.”
But Rutledge tilted his umbrella against the downpour and began picking his way over the flagstones that made up the path to the rectory gate, unwilling to be drawn into any explanation for his personal interest in strangers.
When he reached the constable’s house again and climbed the stairs, intent on changing out of his wet clothing, the shell casing was gone.
He left early the next morning, as soon as it was light and the rain had become a raw drizzle.
Hamish was in a worse mood than the weather warranted and kept up a running argument about what Rutledge was intending to do.
It was a long drive back to London, and he was, in fact, absent without leave from his duties.
But Hensley was safe in hospital, and his wounding could wait for twenty-four hours.
“Aye, but no’ if he’s released, and you havena’ taken anyone into custody.”
“Hensley is as safe as houses. For now. On the other hand, someone was there in Dudlington, to leave and retrieve that cartridge case. He’s playing with us. When he’s bored with that, or satisfied that he’s put the fear of God into us, he’ll decide whether we’re to live or die. It’s a matter of time. Do you want to take that risk?”
He hadn’t realized that he’d used the plural we.
Hamish said, “I willna’ die twice. Until I’m ready.”
“No. But it’s rather like crossing No Man’s Land again. You don’t know where or when death is coming. And there’s no way to stop this fool, unless we look into the shadows for him.”
Outside London there was a brief smattering of sleet before the temperature climbed again and the sun bravely tried to find a way through what was left of the clouds.
Rutledge stopped at his flat long enough to look through the post lying on his parlor carpet and then put in a call to Maryanne Browning.
She was at home and surprised to hear from him.
“Ian, how are you? Frances had said you were in the north on a case.”
“I am, or should be. Other business brought me back to London. Can you give me Mrs. Channing’s direction? I’d like to contact her.”
“What on earth for? Don’t tell me you believe she could help you with your inquiries?”
He laughed. “Hardly that, Maryanne. Where can I find her?”
“Well, she’s on the telephone,” she answered doubtfully, and gave him Mrs. Channing’s number.
“I don’t want to ring her up, I want to know where she lives.”
“Oh, why didn’t you say so?” She rummaged in some papers, their rustle coming through clearly to him, and he could picture her sitting in that tiny closet, looking for her address book. Finally she gave him what he needed, and he rang off.
Mrs. Channing lived in Chelsea, in a small house near the hospital. He’d interviewed witnesses in Chelsea any number of times, but now he felt a sense of unease as he reached her door.
It was intensified by stiff resistance from Hamish, who clearly wished to be elsewhere.
“I didna’ care for this woman then, and I do na’ care for her now.”
She answered his knock herself and said without any inflection of pleasure or surprise, “Mr. Rutledge. Or should I address you as Inspector? This isn’t a social occasion, I take it.” Her voice was as he remembered, low pitched and compelling.
“I want to talk to you, if I may. About the séance,” he told her baldly, and she stepped aside to invite him into the house.
He wasn’t sure what he had expected to find here. It would have been easier if the furnishings had been exotic, with gypsy flair or an aura of the Arabian Nights, to dismiss her as a fraud. A woman who used her parlor tricks to gain entrance to society homes. Instead he’d walked into the sort of house any relatively well-to-do widow might own, for there were no men’s coats on the rack in the entrance hall, no hats on the hooks, and no sign of a man’s taste in the small drawing room decorated in pale shades of lavender and rose. She herself was dressed in black, with a white lace collar, an ordinary woman on the surface.
But what lay below that surface?
She sat down opposite him and waited. He suddenly found it awkward to begin. Mrs. Channing’s face showed only polite interest, her hands folded in her lap, her serenity unruffled by the brief, uncomfortable silence.
“She kens why you’re here,” Hamish warned silently.
Finally she said, “It was something about the séance, Inspector?”
“I left early the evening you entertained Mrs. Browning’s guests. As you may recall. And I found something unexpected on the step outside her door.”
He reached into his pocket and took out the first of the machine-gun cartridge casings, which he’d retrieved from his desk at the flat.
She leaned forward to see it more clearly but made no effort to take it and examine it closely. “It’s a cartridge case, of course. I have no idea what ki
nd.”
“It’s from a Maxim machine gun.”
“Indeed,” she commented, sitting back in her chair. “Why have you brought this to me? Did you think it was mine?”
“Or meant for you. Anyone who knew the guest list might have assumed that a woman alone wouldn’t choose to stay as late as a couple. But I received an unexpected call from the Yard, and so I was the first of the guests to go down the front steps.”
She smiled. “My dear Inspector, I’d never have given it a thought, even if I’d seen it. And if Dr. Gavin had left before you did, I don’t believe he’d have paid it any attention either. Commander Farnum on the other hand was in the Royal Navy. He’d have recognized it, no doubt, and even wondered how it had got there, but he wouldn’t have picked it up and kept it.”
“Yes, I’ve considered that.”
Mrs. Channing studied his face for a moment. “But you were in the trenches, I’m told. This would have taken you back, I think, to the killing. And you’d have wondered why the war had intruded again on a peaceful London.”
It was so close to the mark, he was silent.
“Have there been others?”
Rutledge was on the verge of denying it, and then answered truthfully. If this woman had had anything to do with the cartridges, she already knew the answer. And if she hadn’t, telling her would do no harm.
“There’ve been three others.”
Hamish was clamoring for his attention, warning him to walk carefully.
“Yes, that’s when you realized that the first one was indeed intended for you. But why have you come here, if you knew the answer to that? Why would you think I might recognize them?”
“A policeman always makes certain his information is correct. You were the only person at Maryanne’s party I didn’t know.”
“I see.” She digested that.
“You hold séances for the amusement of your friends. What would you do, if you raised the dead during one of them?”
“I’d be stunned, Inspector. It isn’t my intention and I have no—talent in that direction, thank God! What I do have is a rather good instinct for what people find entertaining. As soon as one of Maryanne’s guests thought that the King’s spaniel was her own beloved dog, I made certain not to tread in that direction. We had a rather interesting discussion instead on whether or not Charles II had climbed that oak tree, or if it were merely a legend. After that we had a few words with Lord Nelson, to amuse Commander Farnum. You had nothing to fear, you know.”
“What makes you believe I was fearful?”
“It was there in the strain of your voice, and in your eyes. I had no intention of exposing your secrets. I’d have avoided them. But you couldn’t believe that, of course. Whether that was a policeman’s natural distrust of everyone or your own vulnerability, I couldn’t say. I should think it was the latter.”
“My secrets?” He made it a question. Hamish was loud in his ears.
“Ah, we come at last to the real reason why you’re here today. I saw you once before New Year’s Eve, if that’s what’s worrying you. But I’d never have said so, unless you spoke of it first. I was in a casualty station in France, well behind the lines, but still close enough to receive the worst cases. You’d come to ask about a young soldier, and when the doctor told you he was dying in spite of all we could do, you sat there with him until the end. I never forgot that.”
He didn’t have to ask who the man was. He remembered him vividly. Sergeant Williams, who should have died on the battlefield but somehow held on long enough to be sent back. Machine-gun fire had struck him in both legs. Rutledge had had to write a letter to his parents that night. Your son was a good and brave soldier. It was an honor to serve with him, and you can be proud of his courage under fire and the care he showed to his men…
It hadn’t begun to say what Rutledge knew about Williams—little things, like how fond he was of sweets, and how he shouted at his wounded, telling them they weren’t to die on his watch, by God, and how he hated the machine gunners—
Coming back to the present, Rutledge asked, “And was that the only time you saw me?” For it hadn’t been many months before he’d been brought in to the same station suffering from shell shock and claustrophobia, barely alive because Hamish’s body had given him a tiny pocket of air to breathe long enough to be dug out of the shell hole in time and carried half-conscious back to the doctors. They had patched him up and sent him forward again, after a few hours’ rest and a shot of whiskey.
“It was.” She didn’t add that it wasn’t the last time she’d had news of him.
“You’d make a good policeman,” he said, trying to divert the conversation.
She laughed, a throaty laugh that was warm and filled with humor. “Surely policemen aren’t the only ones who understand human nature. A good clergyman must, and a good doctor as well. Why shouldn’t a mere woman have the same gift?”
He smiled in response. “I never thought of you as a ‘mere woman.’ But you use your gifts in unexpected ways.”
“Your intuition brought you here. My intuition can take me places as well.”
“Then tell me, if you will, where these shell casings are coming from. Why I’ve found them wherever I go.” It was a challenge.
After a moment, she said, “May I see it again?” And this time she took the casing and held it for a moment without looking at it. Finally, she examined the design.
“Were the others the same? Just poppies in rows, perhaps a reminder of the dead in France?”
“No. Look just there. See that face, or skull, just visible? It grows more noticeable in each of the others. And the last one had no pattern at all.”
Turning the case, she found the skull and nodded. “Perhaps whoever is doing this only had three that were engraved.”
He had considered that possibility.
“If I were to tell you what I think, you must realize it’s nothing more than an educated guess.”
“I’ll accept that.”
“Someone would like to see you suffer as he’s suffered. You’re to feel hunted, persecuted. Afraid. The suggestion is that you belong among the war dead, not here in London, alive—”
Mrs. Channing broke off as she saw the expression on his face.
“You’ve already thought about that, haven’t you?”
“Many times,” he managed to say. But he had answered her with the unvarnished truth as well as his interpretation of the designs on the cases.
“You must ask yourself whether whoever is doing this chose you—that is to say, Ian Rutledge—or if you are, so to speak, a surrogate for others. As opposed to a purely random target.”
He was beginning to feel claustrophobic in this handsome, feminine room. Hamish, in the back of his mind, was keeping up a barrage of furious comment. And the woman before him was too aware of what he was thinking. What he was feeling.
Rutledge got to his feet. “I must go, I’ve a long drive ahead of me.”
“Yes.” She made no attempt to persuade him to stay. Instead she followed him to the door, handing him his hat and coat.
“You’ve been very helpful,” he told her, trying to make amends for his rudeness. “Thank you.”
“I’ve only confused you more, Inspector,” she answered ruefully. “I’m sorry.”
She closed the door before he was halfway down the walk.
He searched the motorcar carefully as he got in, expecting to find another casing there. If he could be followed to Hertford and Northamptonshire, he could be followed back to London.
But there was nothing on the seats or on the floor.
For some reason that was not reassuring.
It wasn’t until much later that he realized he’d left the original cartridge case behind.
Rutledge drove to within a mile of the Yard, left the motorcar behind a hotel, and stood on a street corner within sight of the main entrance of the Yard. He waited there for half an hour, watching for Sergeant Gibson to leave at the end of
the day.
Gibson was surprised to see him and said bluntly, “You’re supposed to be in the North. Sir.”
“I know. I need information.”
“About Constable Hensley?”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t know more than I told you. He was posted to the North without fanfare.”
“Something to do with the Barstow inquiry.”
“Talk in the canteen was that he’d stepped on the wrong toes and was being exiled. Out of sight, out of mind, so to speak.”
“I’ve heard that there was a fire at Barstow’s place of business, and that someone died, a clerk who had come back to the office unexpectedly.”
“He was badly burned, I remember that. And died months afterward.”
“Will you find out what you can about the man, the fire, and Constable Hensley’s role in the inquiry?”
Gibson gave him a sharp glance. “The minute I start to ask questions, word will fly to the Chief Super’s ear.”
St. Margaret’s Church was just visible from where Rutledge was standing. It was where he’d last seen Jean, going in with her bridesmaids a few days before her wedding to the diplomat. He wondered if he would feel the same sense of loss today, if she walked up to the church door. The same grief.
He wanted to be gone from here. “If all else fails, there are newspaper files. Don’t call me. Send the packet by post.”
“Do you know what you’re doing, sir?” Gibson asked, his eyes still on Rutledge’s face.
“In my view, that arrow couldn’t have been an accident. If it isn’t Dudlington that’s behind the intent to kill Hensley, then London must have caught up with him. If anyone gives you trouble over this, tell them we have to eliminate other possibilities.”
“I’ll be sure to do that, sir. In the fervent hope it’ll do some good.”
With that, Gibson pulled his collar up and walked off.
It was a long and cold drive back to Northamptonshire. The rain caught up with him again thirty miles outside London, as if it had been lying in wait.
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