by Charles Todd
The inspector looked at him. “Confided in you, did he?”
Rutledge didn’t answer him directly. Instead he replied, “I think Morrow found his blindness trying and his family overly solicitous.”
The Inspector’s gaze sharpened. “You’re not suggesting suicide?”
“The family hasn’t considered it.”
The Inspector gestured to the men coming and going. “Sorry, that’s all I know. I need to get on with the reports. Tell me where you’re staying, and I’ll send word if I learn anything.” He sighed. “It’s been three days. I don’t hold out much hope. You must know that. We’ve been to every hotel, every tavern, anyplace where he might have gone to wait. We’ve sent boats out into the harbor. If he’s in the water, he’s not come up yet.”
“What do you think happened? He wandered off on his own and fell in?”
“God knows. I don’t. But if he’s not here in the port, then where else could he be? He’s not likely to try walking home, is he?” He turned away from Rutledge and called to the Sergeant, who shook his head in response.
Rutledge moved away. There was nothing he could do here in the station. And he’d not seen Morrow clearly, only the back of his head as he stood at the open door of the house on Delft Street. It would be useless to search, to cover the same ground that the police here had already been over before he’d reached Dover.
Outside the rain had let up, but the wind was rising. A ferry was just coming in from Calais, and there was a bustle as passengers hurried toward the dock and porters began to push their carts toward her. He could see the incoming passengers crowding the rail, looking down at the scene. He stood there for a moment, watching them, thinking about Morrow.
And the fact that Livingston had very likely been in Dover the same night that Morrow had gone missing.
Hamish said it for him. “How much does Morrow look like Alan Barrington?”
But Rutledge had no answer to give him.
He spent the night in Dover and part of the next day. But there was still no news of Alfred Morrow, and the police were already busy with a murder in one of the taverns, where two men had got into a fight and one had drawn a knife, using it with brutal efficiency before running out the door into the night. The search was for him, now. Morrow still hadn’t turned up, alive or dead.
Just after breakfast, Rutledge had encountered the Inspector walking back to the police station, in close conversation with one of his men.
Looking up, he saw Rutledge, shook his head, and said, “We haven’t found him.” But he didn’t stop to offer more details. Rutledge let him go on.
Sitting in his motorcar, watching another ferry pulling out into the roads, Rutledge remembered the transport taking him to France and his new commission, his new command. And war. It seemed a lifetime away. He’d met Hamish on that transport. Private MacLeod, as he was then, and others who would be under his command, recruits on their way to fill the decimated ranks of first units sent to France in August.
Rousing himself, Rutledge recalled his conversation with the father of Alfred Morrow, a man frightened by the unknown, by what might have happened to his blind son. But why hadn’t the Morrows known where their son went when he needed to escape their smothering love? Why hadn’t they known about Sandwich and the Billingsleys and the house on Delft Street? They might have found it comforting then and now, that it was a place he felt safe and could be himself.
The more he thought about that, the odder it seemed. How had the Strange family come to know Morrow? Had Jonathan served with him in the war? Was he a friend of long standing or short acquaintance? And why had they more or less given him carte blanche, to come and go as he pleased?
The suspicions that Miss Belmont had aroused were strong enough to explore. That Strange and Livingston might wish to see Barrington dead. Then how did Morrow fit into this plan? The police were searching Dover, the Coast Guard was watching for wreckage or a body to come up from the sea. If Morrow was found dead, how could that help or hinder whatever it was that Barrington had come to England to see to?
Ten years . . .
Rutledge’s instinct was to go to Sergeant Gibson. To ask him to ferret out any secrets that Alfred Morrow might have. Gibson was good at that. But he was no longer an option.
What then? Or rather, who? He considered Haldane, of the Foot Police, and shook his head. Haldane would discover that Rutledge was on leave, for attempted suicide.
He could go on searching for Barrington, leaving the Morrow business to sort itself out. But he ought to be in Sandwich too, when the Dover police came to question the Strange family, and someone sent for Jonathan.
Who, then, could he ask for help?
He got out, turned the crank, and then got back behind the wheel. There was one person he could trust to do as he asked, and keep what he asked quiet.
He drove to Canterbury, found a telephone he’d used before, and put in a call to the Hotel Wellington, where Melinda Crawford often stayed in Bath while visiting friends. She cherished her independence. He hoped she was still there, and not on her way back to Kent because her staff had told her he’d left and not returned.
He was told that Mrs. Crawford was out at the moment. He left a message for her to contact him, then paced the narrow passage outside the stuffy telephone closet while he waited.
Two hours crawled by. Unable to stop himself, he put through a second telephone call, and he was given the same information.
But five minutes later, the telephone in the closet rang and he banged his knuckles on the doorframe in his haste to answer it before someone from the hotel staff heard it ringing.
The operator asked for Mr. Rutledge, and he said, “Here. Speaking.”
“There is a telephone call from a Mrs. Crawford—”
“Yes. Yes, put her through. Thank you.”
And Melinda’s voice came down the line with unexpected clarity. “Ian? I’m so sorry. I was at a séance, you see, and have only just got away.”
“A séance?” he asked, intrigued in spite of himself.
There was a sigh at the other end of the line. “Angeline is trying to contact her late husband. Madness, I know, but that ridiculous man who promised to reach the dead has been draining her of money, and it was time to put a stop to the foolishness.”
He could hear an overtone in her voice now. She was quite pleased with what she’d managed to do. He found himself wishing he’d been there.
“Are you coming to London, then?”
“Yes. I leave in the morning.”
“Could you possibly leave sooner? I need something, information. I can’t go to the Yard.”
“Just a moment.” He could hear a rustling on the other end of the line. “I have pen and paper, Ian. Tell me what you need.”
He did. “I must go back to Sandwich,” he added. “I can’t take the time to drive to London.”
“Shall I continue to Kent, when I’ve done as you asked?”
“Yes, if you would.”
“Then I’ll see that I’m there as quickly as possible. Anything more? I don’t know his regiment.”
“No.” He stopped. “Yes. Could you find out what one Alfred Morrow did in the war?”
“I shouldn’t think it would be a problem. I must send some messages, while Shanta is packing my valises. I’ll be quick as I can.”
He thanked her, but she had already put up the telephone at her end.
Relieved, he left the hotel and went back to where he’d left his motorcar. And turned the bonnet toward Sandwich.
This time he stayed at The Barbican, a popular inn on Market Street, within sight of Strange and Sons, Jewelers. There was one small room overlooking the street, and he took that, even though it was not one of the better rooms. Bringing his field glasses in from the boot, he set the only chair by the window and kept an eye on the shop.
It wasn’t, he thought, the first place that the Dover police would come. Even if they went to the Strange house, someone would
surely send them here. At least until the shop closed for the day.
The next morning it wasn’t the police who arrived shortly after the shop opened.
A motorcar that Rutledge recognized pulled up in front of the door, and Jonathan Strange got down, striding to the shop door and disappearing inside.
He’d have given much to overhear the conversation that must have followed, for Strange was in the shop for nearly half an hour. When he came out, he was frowning, and he turned the motorcar toward the River Stour.
Rutledge had already walked there the evening before, when the jeweler’s shop had closed and Strange Senior had set out for his house and his dinner. The Saucy Belle was where she had been when last he saw her. Whether she’d moved or not in the interim he couldn’t tell.
Sometime later, he saw Jonathan Strange’s motorcar return from the river, driving up Market Street a little faster than was safe. He didn’t stop at the shop.
Had the Billingsleys confided in Strange Senior? Told him that the Yard had come round to ask questions? Rutledge couldn’t be sure. But he thought it likely that the son would question them now if he hadn’t already.
Restless, he caught up his coat and hat and hurried out of the room. Down the stairs, he walked out the door and felt the wind as soon as he stepped into the street. With a hand to his hat, he made his way as fast as he could to Delft Street.
The motorcar was sitting outside the door. Rutledge strode past the house windows, but the drapes hadn’t been opened.
Turning away, he went back to The Barbican and the chilly little room.
That evening, he asked to use the inn’s telephone and put through a call to Melinda’s house. He was told she wasn’t expected until the next day.
Somehow he had to deal with his impatience until then. But that was very hard.
That night, restless and dreaming, he saw the flash of light as the revolver went off, blinding him.
He woke with a start, breathing hard, and felt for the bandages that had been there when he woke up in hospital. But they were gone, of course, the groove where the shot had creased his head nearly healed.
He lay there, staring up at the dark ceiling, then watched raindrops chase themselves down the windowpanes.
What had happened that day, that he’d tried to take his own life, after fighting so hard to survive on his own terms? Frances had been there—he was nearly certain of it. But dear God, surely he wouldn’t have shot himself while she was in the flat? She had said nothing when she saw him afterward. Or had she been told to say nothing? He fought to untangle the jumble of images, and when that failed, he told himself that it might mean something else—that his aim had been off because at the very last second, he realized how his death would hurt her. Was that why he’d felt her presence so strongly? All he could recall with any clarity was that one brilliant flash that marked the transition between life and death. Only, he hadn’t died. He’d awakened in that bare room in hospital, alone and disgraced.
He shuddered at the memory.
A lorry drove by the inn, he could feel the vibration as it bounced over the cobbled road, the reflection of its headlamps a watery smear across the ceiling. Raising his arm, he crooked it over his eyes to shut out the brightness. He needed to know what had sent him down that path of self-destruction. If only to keep it at bay the next time . . .
He waited until ten o’clock the next morning before putting in a call to Melinda Crawford’s house again.
Her voice when she came to the telephone was breathless and cheerful.
“Hallo, Ian. I’ve only just arrived. Ram drove through the night, dear man that he is. Can you come to the house? Or is it too far?”
Rutledge debated that for only a few seconds. “Too far,” he answered her.
“Yes, I thought as much. Very well. Let’s begin with Alfred Morrow’s war record, shall we? He was serving with a Wiltshire regiment. Enlisted in January of ’16, as soon as he turned eighteen, sent to Sandhurst to train as an officer, then to France. Mentioned in dispatches twice, wounded near Ypres the first time, an award for gallantry under fire in ’17, and the second wound, near Passchendaele, saw him sent home to England with wounds to the eyes. Shrapnel. The end of his war. The doctors did what they could, of course, but he’s not likely to regain his sight. Morrow took it hard. He wanted to be a solicitor. He was ill in ’19, this time with severe depression. His parents feared he might do something desperate and took him to a small private clinic. He was there for nearly three months, before hiring a solicitor to obtain his release. I have the name of this man—Jonathan Strange.”
“Was it, by God!”
“Do you know of him? He’s with a London firm. I called round, to ask some questions, but I was told he was out of town on an urgent matter.”
“He’s here in Sandwich. Or was last evening.”
“Well, well. Did you know he was coming there? Is that why you felt you couldn’t come to London? Or to me?”
“I had been hoping he might appear.”
“To continue, then, Morrow lives with his parents, although he has a small inheritance from his grandmother. It’s a village in Kent, not far from where you are at the moment.” She gave him the name, but he didn’t tell her he’d already been there.
“Thank you, Melinda. You’ve been extraordinarily helpful,” he told her, and meant it. “And his family?”
“Rather unremarkable. Money, of course. Young Alfred was sent to Westminster for his schooling and came down from Oxford to enlist, not finishing.”
Much as he’d thought, with no surprises—and no explanation, other than the fact that Strange had become his solicitor after the war, as to why the Strange family had taken an interest in Morrow.
“There’s one more thing, Ian. I don’t know that it’s important. At Somerset House I looked at his family as you’d asked. Nothing interesting there, or so I thought. His aunt, his mother’s sister, married a gentleman farmer who lives not far from Windsor. The name meant nothing to me. And then Shanta was reading something that was in one of those newspapers favoring lurid stories of murder, and she insisted I read it as well. The farmer who is uncle to Alfred Morrow is the man who was first on the scene when Mrs. Fletcher-Munro was killed. You weren’t with the Yard then, of course, but you must know of the case. And I thought it was important to tell you—”
He didn’t hear the rest.
It wasn’t coincidence. It couldn’t be. Had Strange deliberately befriended the younger man when he discovered his uncle had come upon the wreckage of the motorcar where Blanche had died and her then-husband had been so gravely wounded?
And what had become of Alfred Morrow? Why did he die? And if he hadn’t died—or been killed—where was he now?
Melinda was saying something, the urgency in her voice cutting through the milling thoughts in his head.
“Ian? Are you there, Ian? Have we been disconnected?”
“I’m here. I’m sorry, I was trying to make sense of what you’re telling me.”
“Yes, it’s rather surprising, isn’t it? I still have that newspaper. I kept it in the event you hadn’t seen it.” When he didn’t respond straightaway, she went on, her sharp intelligence already adding up the disparate pieces of information that she’d gathered.
“My dear, are you the source behind that article? Have you been searching for Alan Barrington?”
“Not the source, no. The journalist’s conclusions are all her own, and they’ve made rather a muddle of things. To put it mildly.”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “I can see that. Throwing out that last bit, telling the world at large that the hunt is on: if Barrington is still alive—if he was by any chance in England—he’s gone now. No one in his right mind would risk staying after that.”
And with Barrington’s departure had gone his best and only chance to clear his own name.
Hamish said, “A fine pair you are. A murderer and a would-be suicide.”
Rutledge had the presence
of mind to thank Melinda and reassure her that he was all right. He didn’t tell her that Morrow was missing.
For a blessing, he thought as he put up the telephone, the London papers hadn’t discovered Morrow.
But it was imperative to find him now. Alive, God willing. Or dead, if only to account for him.
There was nothing for it now. Rutledge set out for the Strange family home, and presented himself at the door.
A housekeeper answered his knock, and he asked for Mr. Jonathan Strange.
“And your name, sir?”
“Tell him if you will that Scotland Yard wishes to speak to him.”
Her brows rose a little at that. But she invited him into the spacious entry and asked him to wait.
Rutledge looked around with interest. The medieval interior had vanished. There was black and white tile on the floor, with a staircase going from the center of the entry to the first floor, while the walls were painted a very pale blue, with white niches for statuary. Copies, of course, of important Greek pieces, half life-size. All in all, it was very much like what he might have found in London in a prosperous merchant’s home, although the ceiling with its small chandelier would have been higher, the niches life-size, and the statues better imitations.
Jonathan Strange came out of a door down the passage to the left of the stairs and was striding toward him with a frown on his face.
“Rutledge? You wished to speak to me?”
The best defense in this conversation was a direct frontal attack.
“I’ve learned of the disappearance of one Alfred Morrow. I believe you know him? I’m told it was your boat, the Belle, that carried him down to Dover. But the chauffeur was delayed, and missed Morrow. The police there still haven’t found him.”
“Yes—an Inspector Windom sent one of his men to speak to my father.” He was rattled, Rutledge could see that, but trying to cover it with dismay and concern. “This is alarming. Did you know? He was blinded in the war.”
