The Black Ascot

by Charles Todd

  “Yes, I do see that, of course.” Raising her cup, she gazed at him over the rim. “Why did you come here, Mr. Rutledge? Why, really? Was the watercolor the best excuse you could devise?”

  “To satisfy a point of curiosity. You took in Mark’s body, when the world thought him a suicide. I wondered why.”

  “I’ve told you. The Rector was unhappy about the matter. He’s not very progressive, and several people in the village were against the inclusion of a suicide amongst the sacred dead. The chapel is still consecrated. I’ve told you that it seemed to be the most reasonable solution.” She set down her cup. “Look. It probably wasn’t an eagerness on my part to act the Gracious Lady and settle the dispute. You know how I felt about the man, and to think of his coffin stopped at the lych-gate while members of the church argued over the state of his soul chilled me to the bone. I wanted him safe, and out of their hands. It was bad enough to learn through one of the village gossips that he was missing, presumed dead—presumed a suicide. Put yourself in my shoes for a moment. If the woman you loved desperately, would have married and followed penniless to the ends of the earth if need be, if this woman had been accused of a mortal sin and refused decent burial, what would you have done?”

  That touched a nerve she hadn’t realized was there.

  Jean had died in Canada, married to her diplomat, bearing his child.

  But would he have gone to Canada and fought for her, even so, if she’d been left without someone to protect her?

  He didn’t know the answer to that question. For one thing he’d been in no state to do anything about the matter. For another she was long dead before he learned about it. She hadn’t needed him. Her husband had been by her side.

  Still—he understood what Miss Belmont was asking, and found a way to answer her, the only way that he could.

  “You possess him, now. In death, but still, he’s yours now.”

  Her face flushed. “That’s rather cruel of you. I think perhaps you should leave.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be cruel. It’s only a statement of fact. You haven’t fallen out of love with him, in spite of his choice of bride, and you did what you could for him out of that love, but you kept your pride intact by claiming to solve the issue.”

  “Think what you like.” She rose. “Good day, Mr. Rutledge.”

  “Not,” he replied firmly, “until I have seen the tree house.” He stood up as well. He hadn’t meant to hurt her, and he wasn’t sure how he’d done it in spite of being careful.

  “Do you have a warrant, Inspector?”

  “No. Do I need one? Is there some reason why you think I ought not to see it?”

  She considered him again. She had such a penetrating gaze, as if cutting through all that was superficial and digging into the very soul. He wondered what she had found in him there.

  And then Hamish said so clearly that his deep Scots voice seemed to echo around the elegantly shabby room, “She’s played ye fine.”

  He felt the shock of it and fought to conceal it from her.

  And then she surprised him. “Let me fetch my coat. The sooner you’re satisfied, the sooner you’ll leave me in peace.”

  “Let me offer you mine,” he said. “It will save time.” He took off his coat and held it ready for her to put on. She hesitated but had no choice unless she intended to use going for a wrap as a way of disappearing into the rest of the house. She slipped her arms into the sleeves, and with distaste, drew it around her.

  “This way.”

  There was a doorway out into the gardens from the next room, and she opened it, striding ahead of him onto the wet grass. There were puddles everywhere from the rain, but she ignored them, moving past the winter beds of flowers, past a birdbath turned over to keep ice from forming in the bowl, and through the arbor of climbing roses, the bare stalks hanging heavily and still dripping. A few beads of water lodged in her hair.

  Beyond was a tall stand of trees, many of them gnarled with age. As he followed her into the grove, he thought there had been no money for a very long time, to keep them in good trim. They were well into the grove, and he’d begun to wonder if she’d taken him to the folly by the most circuitous route, when he saw the house in the small clearing just ahead.

  It was quite impressive, and larger than he’d expected from the drawing, perched in the spreading branches of a huge oak tree. Half-timbered and thatched, with diamond-paned windows and an iron-bound door, it was reached by a short flight of stairs. She was right, it hadn’t been maintained properly, but at a distance, this wasn’t quite so obvious. Only when they came closer could he see that it needed rethatching and that the whitewash in the half-timbering was dull.

  “Who built this?”

  “The first drawings were made by a great-great-grandfather. I don’t remember how many greats. He was loyal to Charles I, and was in London when he was beheaded. After Charles II hid in the oak tree, he added an oak leaf to the family arms. Quite unofficially of course. And then a later great-great decided to go ahead and build the folly, the tree house. You can see the oak leaf in the coat of arms above the door.”

  He was close enough to see it now. “Is the house open?”

  “I don’t know. No one has been in it since I was a child.”

  But he thought she was lying. He crossed the clearing to the steps, went up them, and tried the door. It opened under his hand, and swung inward easily, as if the hinges had been seen to fairly recently.

  Inside was one angular room, painted a pleasing shade of yellow, with silk drapes at the windows, a bed, several chairs next to a drop-leaf table with an oil lamp on it, and a Turkey carpet on the floor. There was just enough space to accommodate the furnishings without a sense of crowding. Rutledge stepped inside.

  The drapes were thin, fragile with age, the seats of the chairs worn, and the carpet threadbare. But the bedding was clean and he could smell lavender on the cold damp air. And the room was immaculately clean, no dust or damp allowed.

  Someone had lived here quite recently. But there was no sign of his presence now.

  Rutledge looked around him with an interest that wasn’t purely that of a policeman. It was one of the loveliest follies he’d ever seen, and it appealed to his sense of proportion and design. Nor did the floors creak as he moved around, it was so soundly built.

  He went to one of the windows and looked out into the clearing.

  Hamish said, “You could see someone coming. In any direction.”

  It was true. But the only place anyone might hide was under the bed, with its long skirts. Unless there was a secret trapdoor beneath the carpet? The house had a priest hole. Why not a way to escape being cornered here?

  Miss Belmont had stayed outside, and he crossed to the bed, lifting the skirts.

  “There,” Hamish said.

  And Rutledge saw it. Something lay on the floorboards in the shadow of the two-step stool that allowed someone to reach the high bed without leaping for it. He thought at first it was a button, but when he knelt to retrieve it, he discovered it was a coin. He pocketed it quickly, and straightened up.

  Miss Belmont was saying, “What’s keeping you, Inspector? I haven’t all day.” There was an undercurrent of anger in her voice.

  “Just admiring a truly marvelous creation,” he said easily, and went to the door. He’d have liked to spend a few more minutes looking around, if only for the sheer pleasure of it, but he didn’t want to arouse her suspicions any more than he already had.

  “Did Thorne ever come here, after his climbing days were over?” he asked as he stood in the doorway, at the top of the short flight of steps. “From what I’ve learned about him, he would certainly have liked it.”

  “We would have tea here as children,” she said, looking up at the tree house. “My governess would chaperone, of course, but we had wonderful times here.” Her voice was wistful. “His last day in the village, before he left for university, we came here. All right, if you must know, we met here sometime
s, out of sight. My father wanted me to marry into a Catholic family, and Mark’s very Protestant family would have found it just as hard to see me in their midst. Still. I thought he might ask me then to wait for him to finish his schooling. I would have. Gladly. But he didn’t, and I had a feeling after he’d gone, that his parents had spoken to him, warning him not to entangle himself before he’d come down. His sister said something later on that confirmed that feeling. A poor Catholic girl wasn’t the best match for a Thorne—might hold back his career, even if it didn’t ruin his chances altogether.”

  She turned away, as if aware of the bitterness in her voice. Then she said, turning to him again, “You were right. I have him now. But little good it will do me.” She set off at a brisk pace, as if outrunning memories, and after a moment he shut the door and walked down the stairs, following her without answering her.

  She didn’t invite him in, but instead walked round the house to the drive, bidding him an abrupt farewell as she handed him his coat, then marched on to the house door without looking back.

  Rutledge waited until he’d left the drive, passing through the gates into the road, before reaching into his pocket for the coin he’d found under the edge of the bed.

  He’d hoped it would tell him it was recent enough to have been dropped by Alan Barrington.

  But what he saw when he held it out in the bright daylight surprised him.

  It was Danish, not English. And Mark Thorne was barely dead at the time this coin was minted.

  He deliberately hadn’t brought up Barrington’s name with her. He’d wanted to see the house, see if it could be a sanctuary before even suggesting that it had been used by Alan Barrington. And he’d thought her reaction over the watercolor had been truthful, that whoever had come to the house with that child—Barrington and his mother—she herself had no memory of it.

  Then what connection did she have with Barrington? Why would she allow him to stay there, when he was accused of Blanche’s murder? That had come well after Thorne had killed himself—or been murdered on Beachy Head.

  He turned the coin over in his fingers, taking off his driving gloves. Why on earth a Danish coin?

  “Ye ken,” Hamish said into the silence, “it couldha’ come from a friend of the father staying there. You canna’ tell that it was Barrington’s coin.”

  The police and privately hired investigators had looked into the possibility that Barrington had rushed to the safety of the Continent and might be in one of the countries there. But why Denmark? Small enough that strangers were more noticeable than, say Germany or even Italy.

  Such a frail thread to hang a mystery on.

  He wished now he had brought up Barrington’s name, to watch her response to it. But she had such self-control that he might well have been disappointed. Better to find that connection separately and then confront her, challenging her from strength.

  Rutledge briefly considered stopping at the Thorne house, but he wasn’t in the mood for Thorne’s sister’s bitterness.

  Instead he turned toward London and his own flat. Somerset House with its records of births and deaths and relationships was a more thoroughly reliable source of information, and it was also very private, with no tendency to gossip about what he was doing there and what he was interested in looking up.

  In spite of the weather, he arrived in time to go directly to Somerset House and begin his search.

  It was almost closing time when he found what he was after.

  The question was, what to do with it?

  Alan Barrington’s grandmother—his mother’s mother—had been a Catholic in good standing from a very old family, although her children had been brought up in the Church of England.

  Grandmother Margaret’s family had been linked through the years by two marriages into the Belmont family. Barrington and Miss Belmont were, in fact, distant cousins. And notwithstanding her daughter’s upbringing in the Church of England, there might have been visits to the Belmont house that she had enjoyed—and taken her son there for a visit too, to see the wonderful tree house she herself had remembered.

  This was not actual proof of any kind. But the connection was there—and there was the watercolor of the folly with her son by the window of a toy house dedicated to King Charles II—who had chosen wisely to keep his head and his crown by not showing himself to be the intransigent King Charles I, his father, who put his faith above both.

  Barrington’s mother had put herself in a similar position, but with longings that she might have expressed in her intense interest in the epic poetry and legends and tales of the past, where the choice was pagan or Catholic, not Catholic or Protestant. A time when Belief was right, if not always safe.

  Rutledge didn’t think the Belmonts would have turned away a cousin, although the visit might have been kept quiet for very sound reasons. Holding on to the tree house watercolor might not have been wise, but Barrington’s mother had not flaunted it. Where it stayed was safe enough, and she could look at it and remember.

  The only problem was, he, Rutledge, still couldn’t explain why Miss Belmont was willing to harbor Barrington. Thoroughly Protestant and an accused murderer to boot.

  Hamish offered the answer. “Ye canna’ be sure it was the lass. And no’ one of the servants. Maud for one.”

  She would have served Miss Belmont’s mother, could well have been on the staff when the Barringtons had visited. And she was most certainly Catholic herself, to have stayed with the family so long.

  But whatever air castles he might build with these conjectures, if Barrington had stayed for some time at Belmont Hall, where was he now?

  “Ye’re always within striking distance,” Hamish told him, “but he’s no’ there when you arrive.”

  But the man could have traveled to Denmark from wherever he’d been hiding since the war. From Denmark to the north of Ireland. Thence to England by way of Wales. A convoluted route, to be sure, but it was possible, and actually left only a very faint trail, if anyone was searching. Clever.

  But what name had been on his passport?

  Not Alan Barrington.

  Clive Maitland?

  Rutledge was about to use his key in his own front door when it occurred to him that he hadn’t looked for that name at Somerset House.

  How had Barrington come by it? And how had it not aroused any suspicions when he enlisted in the Army? Or got himself a British passport? Even if he’d acquired another one—Danish?—he wouldn’t have risked using that one and betraying his only hole in the ground.

  Swearing at himself, he went ahead and turned the key in the lock. Somerset House had closed. He would have to wait until morning.

  The sun had come out with the dawn, borne on a cold north wind that seemed to pierce the good wool of his coat with fingers so icy his shoulders were cold when he pulled up to his destination and got out. The inadequate heater in the touring car had only kept his feet remotely warm. He could have bought a new one, but he was attached to the lovely dark red Rolls and saw no point to changing it for a better heater. The way it handled, its dependability, satisfied him, and of course its age kept it from being quite such a display of the fact that he’d inherited money from his parents, and wasn’t solely dependent on his wages at the Yard. It had been an extravagance in 1914, when he was in love and courting, and he’d been reluctant to use it on Yard business. Coming home from France not only shell-shocked but also suffering the added burden of severe claustrophobia he’d felt ever since he and Hamish and the impromptu firing squad had been blown up by an English shell that fell far short of its mark and instead took out his sector. It had killed his men, burying himself and the still warm body of Hamish clasped in a macabre embrace. The only survivor, he’d been too damaged to report what he’d done in the final seconds before the explosion. He’d been too occupied with the coup de grâce, the dying man’s eyes holding his and his lips forming the faint word Fiona as Rutledge raised his revolver. The deaths of the other men had lain heavily on
him as well—he should have seen the incoming shell, cried a warning, but they too had been riveted by the sight of a British officer shooting one of his own men.

  June of 1919, he’d had no choice but to throw discretion to the winds and use the motorcar instead of crowded trains and omnibuses where he was jammed in with others and had no way of escape.

  He was one of the first admitted to the House this morning, and he began a long and tedious search for Clive Maitland.

  When he found the answer, he was rocked back on his heels.

  How long had Alan Barrington planned a murder and an escape?

  13

  Rutledge took out his notebook and began to copy the material he’d uncovered.

  The Maitlands had been a prominent Anglo-Norman family in the Lake country for generations, and it was obvious that Clive Maitland, wounded in the war, had been sent to the clinic in that district so as to be close to his family. The Army had tried to accommodate officers where possible, and the clinic there had the kind of care that Maitland required.

  But he was not of that family, despite the similarity in last names.

  This Clive Maitland had been born in Worcestershire, in a small village on the river with a distant view of the cathedral. His father, John, had been born there, and his grandfather Harold before that. Rutledge could trace the family’s line back through the decades to a Henry Maitland who had fought in the first Churchill’s war against the Turks and been given land for his service.

  It appeared at first glance that this Clive Maitland had died in 1903 while climbing a Scottish mountain, but the date of death had been altered to show that he survived the fall. Was that when Barrington had somehow taken over the name?

  Reviewing his notes, making certain he had every detail, Rutledge closed the notebook and went back to his flat. Packing a valise, he set out for Worcestershire. Spending the night on the road, he arrived in Worcester at ten in the morning, and drove through the town toward the south. The brightening sun picked out the east end of the cathedral in a golden light as he crossed the river.