A Fearsome Doubt ir-6

by Charles Todd

  When the Shaw women had been returned to their home, Rutledge went in search of his sister Frances. She was dressing for a luncheon and called to him from her bedroom, “Ian, is it urgent?”

  “In a way.” He went upstairs.

  She came out of the dressing room wearing a very stylish suit and carrying a matching hat in her hand. Sitting down to brush her hair, she said, “You look tired, darling. What’s wrong?”

  He took the chair by the pair of windows overlooking the square and the houses that stood around it. “Elizabeth Mayhew. Has she said anything to you about a new man in her life?”

  Frances’s eyes met his in the dressing-table mirror. “Interesting! No, she hasn’t. She’s still mourning Richard, as far as I know-I’ve tried to talk her into coming to London for several weeks, but she doesn’t want to leave Kent.”

  “For very different reasons, now. I think she’s involved with someone who might be somehow connected to a series of murders I’m working on.”

  Frances put down her brush and turned to face him. “Are you sure of this, Ian? It’s rather sudden, her new interest. And who is the man? Anyone we know?” The English view of acceptable social contacts: Anyone we know?

  He shook his head. “I can’t tell you his name. I do know he’s from Northumberland. I have the word of Mrs. Crawford’s seamstress on that.” A brief smile touched his eyes and then faded. “But there’s something odd here. Hackles rising on the back of the neck.” He thought about that for a moment and then added, “Or jealousy, for Richard’s sake.”

  “Your intuition is seldom wrong,” she told him.

  “It may be colored, all the same. It’s not my place to ask questions, but if you could do it-quite casually-it might be a good thing.”

  Frances considered him. “There’s something more here than Elizabeth Mayhew’s affairs of the heart.” Her eyes searching his face, she said again, “What’s wrong?”

  Rutledge smiled wryly. What he would have liked to say was, “I may have seen a ghost. If I have, it’s no matter; I can live with ghosts,” and wait for her common sense to assure him that he had done nothing of the sort. Frances had little patience with nonsense. But her intuition was often as sharp as his own. When she jumped to conclusions, they most generally were the right ones. And the war was a part of his life he wanted very much to keep shut away from her.

  Instead he answered, “There’s been a series of murders in the neighborhood of Marling. I’ve been working on the case for the Yard. No one, not even Melinda Crawford, knows who this man is that Elizabeth is attracted to. I think I’ve seen him once, from the back. Why is she keeping him a secret from her friends? Elizabeth could well be dragged into something unpleasant, if he’s using her in some fashion or isn’t quite-respectable.”

  “Aren’t you overreacting just a little?” she asked, putting her jewelry on, her face hidden from him. “Is there any reason to think that this man could be involved in your murders? Have you good cause to believe he should be found and questioned?”

  “Put like that,” he answered wryly, “I suppose I’m jumping to conclusions. It’s probably no more than coincidence…”

  Frances was settling her hat on her carefully groomed hair, adjusting it to a becoming angle that set off her face. She’s an extraordinarily attractive woman, Rutledge found himself thinking, with their mother’s perfect skin and cameo-cut profile, the slightly arched nose and the very intelligent eyes. Once, he’d wondered if she had been in love with Ross Trevor, his godfather David Trevor’s son. Or if there was some other man who had come into her life, and taken her heart away with him. She had never spoken of it.

  Just as he never spoke of Hamish, or the war, or what loneliness was.

  As if reading his mind, Frances said, her eyes not meeting his in the mirror, “You know, you could do worse than Elizabeth Mayhew. You and Richard were very close. He wouldn’t have minded you stepping into his shoes. Not that I’m matchmaking-”

  “That’s the very reason I can’t,” Rutledge answered after a moment. “He’d always be there. Between us.”

  “Like a ghost?” she asked lightly. “Well, it’s time for me to leave. Would you mind giving me a lift? We can talk on the way.”

  But they didn’t. When they reached the Mayfair restaurant, she got out, saying, “Ian. Whatever is worrying you, it isn’t Elizabeth Mayhew, is it? There’s more on your mind than her affairs. Or the murders. I think there’s a sense of guilt somewhere. I think perhaps you feel you ought to step into Richard’s shoes, for his sake. And because you won’t, you’re afraid you’re letting him down by not preventing Elizabeth from getting hurt.”

  He considered and then rejected the possibility. “I feel some sort of responsibility, for Richard’s sake. We were friends for years. But a sense of responsibility doesn’t go as far as marriage.”

  “Then it was Armistice Day. It unsettled a good many people, you know. You aren’t alone there.” She was searching for clues, her father’s daughter. He had been a very fine lawyer, and he had had a strong intuitive streak that both his children had inherited.

  Rutledge didn’t answer.

  “All the same…” She hesitated for a moment. “We all live with devils of one kind or another. I don’t know how to exorcise them. Except by surviving. Somehow, against all the odds.”

  It was far too close to the mark, and she must have read something in his face, for he heard a sharp intake of breath. As if she had finally guessed what was on his mind.

  “My mistakes may go to the gallows,” he told her, “the innocent along with the guilty. And they are buried. And sometimes they are resurrected.” It was said in a rueful voice, as if laughing at himself.

  “The truth doesn’t change,” she told him. “Father always believed that. Still, it’s easy to alter the trappings of truth.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  As his sister stepped away from the side of the car, Rutledge added, “You won’t forget about Elizabeth?”

  She blew him a kiss. “Darling, I won’t forget.”

  He drove off, Hamish saying in the back of his mind, “She’s no’ the common-garden variety of sisters.”

  “She’d have made a damned fine barrister. Better than I would have, if I’d followed in our father’s footsteps.”

  “Aye.” There was a moment of silence as Rutledge threaded his way through the thick of midday traffic. Then Hamish followed up on his earlier thought. “It is no’ very surprising she’s no’ married.”

  Rutledge, glancing at his watch, decided he had time for one more call before he left London.

  Henry Cutter worked at a shop where tools were designed and fabricated. His office, high above the floor where machines made any conversation impossible, was cluttered with invoices and paperwork, and there were ink stains on his fingers. A thin man with a long jaw and sunken eyes, he looked up as Rutledge entered the room, then frowned.

  “I know you-” He broke off, squinting in an attempt to place the man before him.

  “Rutledge. Inspector Rutledge from Scotland Yard.”

  Surprise lifted his eyebrows. “That’s right! You’ve changed-” He stopped and said, instead of completing the thought, “We all have, to be blunt about it. Is there anything wrong?”

  “I’ve come about an old matter. Ben Shaw’s conviction and hanging for murder. Mrs. Shaw worries about-er-a miscarriage of justice.”

  Cutter sighed. “She’s got a very pretty daughter, and she’s determined for the girl to marry well. She’s asked me a dozen times in the last month what I remember about the police and all the questions we were asked. It’s as if she worries a raw wound, unable to leave it alone. Life hasn’t treated Nell kindly, you know. Still, she’s a woman who draws on hidden strength and faces up to what can’t be run from. I respect that.”

  “What do you remember?” Rutledge asked, interested.

  “I remember how upset my wife was,” Cutter answered. “She’d known the women. Well, not kno
wn them, if you follow me! But she’d called on them from time to time as a church visitor. Years before, when her health was better and she was more active.”

  “Did she believe Shaw was guilty?”

  “I never asked her.” Cutter looked away. “He was a very likeable man. Janet-Mrs. Cutter-was fond of him, in a manner of speaking.”

  Rutledge found himself thinking that Cutter was not a man of grace or charm. Plainspoken and unimaginative, a plodder. He was beginning to understand why Cutter admired Nell Shaw’s strength. The question then became, was Cutter capable of murder? And why, if he had a reasonably comfortable life, should he be driven to it?

  “I understand she had a son who died before she did.”

  “Janet was married before. Peterson fell ill of diphtheria, when the boy was almost two years old. She was expecting another child, and she miscarried. The worst part of that was, she felt she’d let her husband down by being so ill herself. And she blamed herself that the boy had been left to the kindness of neighbors while his father was dying and his mother was miscarrying. As a result she was overly protective, to the point of smothering him. But in my opinion, he was weak from the start, was George. Never could settle to anything, and in the end, killed himself.” He stopped, surprised that he’d confided in this man who listened with an air of thoughtfulness that made confession easy, as if unjudged.

  Mrs. Shaw had already answered his next question but Rutledge said quietly, “How did he die?”

  He could feel Hamish stirring in the back of his mind.

  “He drowned.” After a moment, looking down at his hands, Cutter added, “Lost his footing and fell into the sea while walking by the harbor one night. That was the official finding, accidental drowning. It saved his mother from the pain of learning it was suicide. According to the police, George had been drinking heavily, and there was a suspicion that he’d been despondent. At any rate, he was fully clothed, and it was after midnight. They put as good a face on it as they could. But I always felt Janet suspected the truth. She was never the same after that.”

  “He was the first policeman on the scene of one of the Shaw murders.”

  “Yes, that’s true. He came to his mother the night after Mrs. Winslow was found dead. Cried like a baby. Janet told me afterward that he had a horror of dead bodies. He didn’t like touching them.”

  Hamish said, “It doesna’ ring true. He was a constable-”

  As if he’d been a party to the conversation, Cutter went on, “I could never understand that-George had elected to go into the police force, he must have known what it involved!” He shifted the papers on his desk. “I could never understand him, for that matter. Janet told me he took after his father. She thought that might have something to do with it. But George and I never saw eye to eye.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  Cutter said sharply, “The man’s dead. You can’t be worried about anything he could have done!”

  “I’m interested in the man who was constable when Mrs. Winslow was killed. I’ve only just discovered that he was related to neighbors of the Shaws.”

  Taking a deep breath, Cutter replied, “Well. I don’t know that it makes any difference, now. He was the kind of child who ran headlong to do something he wanted to do, and only thought better of it later. He was never in serious trouble, but he was always unsettled and unpredictable. Never really good at anything. Janet thought the sun shone out of him, and that was that. I was glad when he left home. We had a happier life then.”

  “Mrs. Shaw found a locket in a drawer belonging to Mrs. Cutter. Did she tell you that?”

  “A locket? No, she never mentioned it. What kind of locket?” His eyes were suddenly wary. “Janet’s jewelry?”

  “A piece of mourning jewelry, belonging to one of the dead women. It was missing at the time Shaw was arrested.” Husbands seldom rummaged in their wives’ lingerie, as Hamish was pointing out.

  Cutter was saying, with rising alarm, “Here, she’s not trying to say my wife had anything to do with those deaths! I won’t believe that! Not of Nell! You’re trying to stir up trouble-”

  “Nell Shaw brought the locket to me because it was missing evidence,” Rutledge replied without emphasis.

  “I’d like to see it!”

  “I’m sorry,” Rutledge answered, unwilling to tell Cutter that Mrs. Shaw had kept it. “I can’t show it to you.”

  “Look. I can’t help but feel sorry for her, she’s had a rough deal. Shaw tried, but he wasn’t like us-he wasn’t used to hard work, his body wasn’t what you’d call strong. All the same, it’s far too late to save Ben or his family.”

  The door opened and a man stepped into the office. From the look of him, and from Cutter’s sudden stiffness, Rutledge realized that he must be the owner. Holly? Was that what the Cutter maid had called him? The man stared from Rutledge to the account books Cutter had put aside, and he asked, “Something I can do for you?”

  Rutledge rose. “Thank you, no. Mr. Cutter has kindly given me the directions I need.” Cutter shot him a grateful glance and rose also.

  Rutledge left, closing the door behind him, but he could feel the owner’s eyes burrowing into his back.

  Hamish grumbled, “I canna’ see what’s been gained.”

  Rutledge answered. “It’s odd, that time can change the direction of an investigation so radically. We should have known about George Peterson! ”

  Hamish retorted, “It’s you changed, nothing else.”

  There was no response to that. He made his way through the busy shop and out into the street.

  It was raining again when he reached Marling. Rutledge left the car at the hotel, realizing that he’d missed his lunch and his tea. He found a small shop down the road from the police station and went in, asking what they could provide in the way of sandwiches, late as it was. The woman behind the counter settled him at a small table for two, and bustled away to the kitchen.

  Except for four women sitting at a table near his, the shop was empty, although a couple came in a few minutes afterward, laughing and shaking out the rain from their coats.

  For a time the four women were silent, as if wary of the strange man almost in their midst. They couldn’t know who he was, not yet. He hadn’t met many of the villagers; there was nothing for the local gossips to pick up. He could almost hear the unspoken speculation about who he was and what business he might have in Marling. The natural curiosity that strangers sparked in a small town was lively. Even his voice was out of place, an educated London accent.

  Rutledge’s tea and sandwiches arrived. He thanked the shop owner and poured a steaming cup, watching the tea swirl up to the lip.

  When they had exhausted their silent conjectures, the women quietly picked up the thread of their earlier conversation. At first Rutledge, busy with his sandwiches, ignored what they were saying, and then realized almost too late that they were in the middle of a discussion of the funeral they had just attended. Something about their cryptic references alerted him in time to hear one comment in particular.

  “… wasn’t as if none of us knew the circumstances!” This from the woman who had her back to Rutledge.

  “A crying shame,” a woman wearing a black feathered hat replied, setting down her cup of tea and reaching for another iced cake. “I don’t know what’s to become of us, with the roads unsafe and murderers on the loose!”

  Hamish said quietly, “They havena’ said whose death it was they mourned. But I’m thinking…”

  Rutledge cast a swift glance in their direction, noting who was speaking.

  The feathered hat’s neighbor on the left, smoothing her black gloves on the table beside her, nodded. “I won’t let my Harold walk as far as the pub of a night. And he’s fuming about it something fierce.”

  The fourth woman, who was wearing spectacles, agreed. “Who on earth would want to kill a soldier back from the war? I ask you. He’s suffered enough!”

  “Aye,” Hamish noted. “It’s as I thou
ght.”

  The first woman said, “It’s a Bolshevik plot, that’s what it is! Look what happened to their own royal family-slaughtered along with those pretty little girls! And the tsar a cousin of King Edward!”

  “As was the Kaiser,” the glove smoother snapped. “My father always said foreigners are never to be trusted!”

  Hamish agreed, “It was the same in Scotland. We looked with suspicion on the other clans, the next glen o’wer.”

  The woman wearing spectacles sighed. “I pity the Taylors. Alice and her children never had two pennies to rub together, but she always put a good face on it. What are they to do now?”

  Taylor was the first man killed…

  The black hat nodded, setting the feathers bobbing in concert. “I’ve some mending and sewing I’ll ask her to do for me. She’s a good needlewoman, and taking in sewing will tide her over until the oldest boy can work.”

  “It mustn’t appear to be charity!” The speaker took off her spectacles, polishing them. “We must be careful about that. And we might consider ordering our Christmas goose from Susan Webber. I’m told her poultry is very nice.”

  And then the glove smoother said hesitantly, “You know, young Peter Webber might have seen who it was that did it.”

  Webber was the name of the second victim.

  “He’s only eight!” the woman in spectacles protested.

  “He’s got eyes, hasn’t he?” was the retort. “He said something to me at the funeral. He said there’d been a man on the road the night before it happened, asking for his father. When Peter replied that he was working over to Seelyham, the man asked what regiment he’d been in, and where he’d fought. Odd sort of thing to ask.”

  “They’d all fought together!” the first woman replied. “Everyone knows that. They’d tried to stay together, the men from Marling and Helford and Seelyham. Looking out for each other.”

  Rutledge had finished his tea and the thick wedges of egg salad sandwiches. But he poured himself a second cup, his attention on the table of women. Hamish, listening as well, murmured, “Ye must find the Webber boy!”