Rules of Murder

by Julianna Deering

  “My dear,” Rushford said, and Drew thought for a moment that he was going to reach out, manacles and all, and give her hand a comforting pat, “it wasn’t all about the money. It was a grand plan, though, and I’m quite proud to know I almost made it work. Can you even imagine what it’s like to be forever thought of as nothing more than a harmless old man?” He faced the front again, his expression one of benevolent superiority. “You may drive on, Sergeant.”

  “Before you go, tell me what Clarke was searching for,” Drew said, “at the office and in Mason’s study.”

  Rushford merely winked and sat back in the seat.

  The chief inspector shook his head. “We’ll get it all out of him before long, don’t you trouble yourself about that, Mr. Farthering. Go on, Davies.”

  “I guess you finally figured it out,” Min said as they drove away. “I didn’t know how much longer I could keep him here. If he’d gotten to the ship, there would have been no catching him. His ticket was for South America, not Canada.”

  Drew narrowed his eyes. “You were the one who called about the cottage. How did you know?”

  “I almost didn’t. I was cleaning up at Rushford’s, ready to send him off to Canada, when I saw a bit of paper stuck under one side of the grate. It was just a little handwritten receipt from a Mrs. Chapman, partially burned, for rent on a cottage, and I swept it out with everything else.”

  Drew glanced at Nick, who started to laugh.

  “Then I heard you talking about the cottage to Rushford,” Min said, “and was sure Lincoln must be there, no matter what the police said. Once we’d gone a few miles, I told Rushford the car had broken down and I’d have to call a garage. Then I walked to a nearby house and telephoned you. I had no idea it was Clarke and not Lincoln.”

  “Why didn’t you just go to the police with it?”

  “I saw how much the cops listened to my father.” He brought his palms together and made a mocking bow. “Honorable officers of law never believe poor Chinee against English gentleman.”

  “That’s as may be,” Drew said, a little edge to his tone, “but you could have told me. I’d have listened.”

  Min studied him for a moment, and then his expression softened. “Yeah, I think you would have.”

  “The police mightn’t have listened anyway,” Nick put in. “They were after Lincoln and never thought to look for Clarke.”

  “That was you on the telephone earlier as well, wasn’t it?” Drew said. “You don’t have a trace of an accent. Well, besides American. Who did you call?”

  “A policeman in Canada. My father’s case was his very first assignment, and he’s kept track of me and Mom over the years. After my father was killed in the prison, my mother just stopped. Stopped eating. Stopped drinking. Stopped talking. She didn’t last long after that, no matter what we tried to do to help her. She had been so strong through everything, and I guess she just couldn’t do it anymore.”

  “And was that when you decided to look into matters yourself?” Drew asked.

  Min nodded. “That policeman was the only one who’d take the time to hear me out about my father. After Mom died, I went to see him. He let me look into the files on the case. Even he was surprised at how little evidence there was for a conviction. He couldn’t get his department to reopen the case then, but he told me to let him know if I found enough real proof to make them look at it again.”

  “So that’s why you came after Rushford.”

  “No.” A smile touched Min’s lips. “That’s why I came after Mr. Parker.”

  Madeline caught her breath. “What?”

  “I knew it had to be someone with access to the plant at the time. Someone who would never be questioned if he was there at odd hours. That was the main thing they used to convict my father, but it applied to other men, too. Powerful men. Not Bill Morrow, that’s for sure.”

  “Who?” Drew asked.

  “He was the man Lan Jing loved. The one who killed himself after she was murdered. He never kept her as his mistress. My mother told me he came to my father and respectfully asked to marry Lan Jing. My father said she was too young yet, that they would have to wait, and he agreed. But he was just an engineer. He wouldn’t have been able to get in and out of the plant without someone asking him what he was doing there that night.”

  “Then who—?”

  “As far as I could see, there were only two men who could have done it. Directors of the company. Parker and Rushford. And Rushford had stood up for my father, kept him from hanging. I had no reason to suspect him. That left Parker, though the police in Edmonton said they had nothing to hold him on and he was a respectable gentleman.”

  “So you thought you could check up on him by working for Rushford here in England?”

  “Sort of. First I tried to get a job at Farthering Place, gardening or something, but your Mr. Peterson doesn’t exactly trust foreigners.”

  “No, I don’t think he does.”

  “Then I tried at Farlinford, but they didn’t have any use for me either, even though my degree is in chemical engineering.”

  “Well, perhaps they were full up.”

  “They’d just lost a chemical engineer, if you remember.”

  “Oh. Right. Sorry.”

  Min shrugged. “It’s not your fault. Anyway, I decided Rushford was the next best thing since he’s not far from the office and I was sure to be driving him places where he’d be in contact with Mr. Parker.”

  “How did he happen to need someone just then?”

  “Rushford isn’t the only one who can make it worth someone’s while to quit his job.”

  “You have that much money?”

  “No, but the Canadian policeman was able to find out a few things about Rushford’s former valet that he didn’t want publicized.” Min smiled. “Information is sometimes as good as cash, don’t you think?”

  Drew returned the smile. One couldn’t help admiring the man. “So, he was out, and you just happened to show up on Rushford’s doorstep, willing to work at reduced wages.”

  “Exactly. Then Lincoln was murdered, and Mrs. Parker, and I thought I had my killer for sure, but it didn’t add up. Then there was that little scrap of paper.”

  “Just that, eh? Rushford almost got away with it, too. Thank you, Min,” Drew said, offering his hand, and the other man shook it.

  “My friends call me Mickey.”

  Drew nodded, smiling. “Mickey, then. I suppose your Canadian policeman will be interested to know what’s happened here.”

  “Yeah. Maybe. But like the inspector said, you can’t hang a man twice.” Min shrugged. “I guess once will have to do.”

  “I suppose it will.”

  It didn’t matter now. Rushford was caught, Clarke and Lincoln were dead. It was all over. Thank God, it was all over.

  Drew gestured toward the Rolls. “You don’t actually need a lift somewhere, do you? To a garage or something?”

  Grinning, Min got back into Rushford’s sedan and turned the key. “Thanks anyway,” he said over the purring engine, “but I’ll meet you at Birdsong’s office. I’m sure the police will have a few questions for me, too.” Then he pulled out onto the road and sped northward.

  “I want to go with you,” Madeline declared before Drew could say anything. “If you take me back to the house, I’ll just find some other way there.”

  Drew liked to think he knew when to make a wise retreat and merely opened the car door for her. “I wouldn’t dream of leaving you behind, darling. Come on, Nick, old man. I still have more questions than answers.”

  They followed Min up to Winchester and ended up waiting with him in the same drab little interview room Drew had been in earlier in the week.

  Before long, Birdsong came in. “I think we have most of it cleared up now, Mr. Farthering, thanks to you and our, uh, American friend here.”

  “Don’t worry, Inspector, I am Chinese. But I’m an American citizen, too.”

  “Right. Well, you’ve
been a great help, Mr. Min.” Birdsong raised one eyebrow. “Though you might have let us in on what you were up to early on. You might want to know too that Rushford’s confessed to more than your cousin’s murder in 1917. Seems he made away with an Emily Evelyn Murdoch in London in 1921, and a Sheila Ann Dormer in 1928 right here in Winchester. Both of them young girls, they made the mistake of thinking him harmless.”

  “And you might have checked into the man staying at Mrs. Chapman’s a little more closely, Inspector,” Drew observed. “Might have ended this all much more quickly. And more cleanly.”

  Birdsong looked disgusted. “In fact, we did check into him. When we talked to the false Mr. Barker, he told us where he worked and where he lived in Ipswich. We telephoned his supposed employer and his supposed landlady. Both confirmed that their Mr. Barker was well-known to them and had gone on a fishing holiday. Of course, Clarke was acquainted with the man, knew he was going to be on holiday, and used his identity without Barker’s knowing it. Funny thing is, the real Barker’s been just over in Otterbourne all this while.”

  “I suppose Clarke, at least most of him, is at the bottom of the pond,” Nick said.

  “Oh yes. Rushford’s being quite aboveboard about everything now. He’d arranged to meet Clarke out there late last night to plan how and where to divvy up. Once there, he bashed Clarke’s skull in, dragged him out into the water, and hacked off his head. He then wrapped the head in oilcloth and put it in his bag. That done, he stripped off his own bloodied clothes and weighted them and the body with the stolen millstone and sunk the lot to the bottom of the pond. He returned to the house in his bathrobe. He told me he had just time enough to shove the bag under a table there in the hall before you caught him coming in.”

  Drew shook his head. “And he had me apologizing for giving him a fright. Good heavens, what an actor he’d have made.”

  “I’ll say,” the chief inspector agreed. “And when you lads searched the house, bless me if it wasn’t Rushford hiding Clarke in his room. Even had him bundled into the bedclothes once, and you searching right there by him.”

  “What about the dogs?” Nick asked. “Why didn’t they lead us to Clarke?”

  “The trousers were Lincoln’s,” Birdsong explained, “so they wouldn’t have Clarke’s scent on them. And the shoes were new. Clarke had never worn them. Rushford had planted them in the library to keep everyone occupied while he and Clarke searched for the papers they’d been after all along—the formula McCutcheon had come up with.”

  Drew wrinkled his brow. “So McCutcheon wasn’t in on the blackmail?”

  “He never knew about it,” Birdsong said. “The whole thing with the law book and the photographs was just to throw us off the real reason for McCutcheon’s murder.”

  “And the pictures of Marielle? She’s not my—”

  Birdsong shook his head. “Rushford bought them at a secondhand shop, I’m afraid. She’s nothing to do with you at all.” Birdsong smiled ruefully. “I’m sorry.”

  Drew let out his breath, and Madeline squeezed his hand.

  “Then Uncle Mason must have known about the formula, too,” she said. “That’s why he took those papers from Mr. McCutcheon’s office and was trying to figure out what was in them that was so valuable.” Her voice quavered. “And that’s why they killed him. But what sort of formula was it?”

  “Here’s what he was after.” Birdsong took some papers out of a file and handed them to Drew. “And he’s taking particular satisfaction in not saying what it is.”

  Drew took a moment to look them over. “I can’t make heads or tails of this.”

  Min lifted one eyebrow. “May I?”

  “By all means.” Drew handed the papers to him and gave the chief inspector a reassuring nod. “He’s a chemical engineer, you know.”

  Birdsong didn’t look quite convinced, but he held his peace until Min began to shake his head, his expression an odd mixture of astonishment and regret.

  “It’s a formula for catalytic cracking.”

  Birdsong narrowed his eyes. “What’s that?”

  “In the simplest terms, it’s a process used to break down crude oil into usable components like gasoline. This formula would practically double the output from every barrel.”

  Drew’s eyes widened. “The patent on that would be worth millions.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure it is.” Min handed the formula back to him. “To the American company that’s just patented it.”

  “What?”

  “A French guy called Houdry just came out with this same thing with an oil company back east. They’re supposed to open a new plant that uses this formula sometime in the next year or so. I’ve been reading up on it.”

  Madeline sank into one of the unrelenting wooden chairs that populated the room. “So Rushford killed them all for nothing.”

  She pressed her trembling lips together and looked up at Drew with tear-filled eyes. He knew she was hurting still, but she would be all right in time. He’d seen that in the sweet assurance in her face at Constance’s funeral and at Mason’s, too. She would be all right.

  Rushford had nothing to look back on now but the lives he had destroyed, nothing to look forward to but the hangman’s noose and the judgment that lay beyond. All to prove his own clever superiority, and for riches that had vanished before he could lay his hands on them.

  “Vanity of vanities . . . All is vanity.”

  Drew considered the state of his own soul.

  “. . . thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.”

  Was it still just a name?

  Finally, Drew brought Madeline to her feet and extended his right hand to the chief inspector. “I suppose that’s it, then. Do you need anything more from us?”

  “Not that I know of. You’ll all be required in court, of course, but you’ll be notified when the time comes.” Birdsong gave his hand a firm shake before releasing it. “I’m not saying your methods would be sanctioned by Scotland Yard, Detective Farthering, but you’ve all been a great help. I’m sorry we couldn’t have stopped Rushford before we did, miss.”

  Madeline nodded.

  Drew also shook hands with Min. “What will you do now?”

  “I’ll go home.”

  “To China?”

  Min laughed. “To America. I love and honor my homeland, but I love and honor my home, too. America is where I belong now that I can finally lay my father and Lan Jing to rest. Inspector, you know how to reach me when you need me.” He made a brief bow and was gone.

  “We’ll be going as well, Inspector,” Drew said. “I suppose I’ve a lot of things to see to now.”

  Birdsong shook his hand once again, and then Drew and Madeline and Nick went out to the car.

  “So much for all those commandments, eh?” Drew said, dredging up a thin smile. “I told you we’d break them all or very nearly. It was pure coincidence that Min heard me mention Mrs. Chapman’s cottage, and you know what Father Knox would have said about that.”

  “Maybe not coincidence,” Madeline said.

  True enough. He had prayed, truly prayed. Why should he be surprised at an answer?

  “Want me to drive, old man?” Nick asked. “You look all in.”

  “That bad, eh?” Drew took a quick look in the rearview mirror. “I see what you mean. Very well then, take us home.”

  He got into the back seat with Madeline, and they rode in near silence back to Farthering Place.

  What was he going to do now? He was sole owner of Farlinford Processing, or whatever was left of it. Surely Rushford had stockpiled the proceeds from his thefts somewhere, and Drew supposed most of that would eventually make its way back to the company. He’d be on his own at Farthering Place, as well. It all felt a bit overwhelming to him at the moment. All alone.

  Madeline linked her fingers with his and nestled her head on his shoulder.

  Maybe he wouldn’t be quite all alone, at least as long as she decided to stay, but there was still that hollow
ness inside him.

  “. . . thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.”

  When they got near Farthering Place, Drew told Nick to drive on into the village and pull up in front of the church. Then, saying only that he wouldn’t be long, he got out of the car. He made his way up the walk alone and, removing his hat, went through the heavy wooden door and down the narrow center aisle to the altar.

  “I don’t . . .” He turned his hat in his hands. “I don’t know where we go from here.”

  He stood there for a long while, bathed in the warm colored light that poured from the stained glass, from the Christ who waited, who had always waited, open-armed, to receive him. Then he dropped to one knee and bowed his head. He didn’t know how long he stayed there, but at last he looked up again, feeling lighter somehow, smiling at the simplicity of it all.

  “I don’t suppose I actually have to know that part yet. I’ll just carry on with the glorifying and enjoying then, shall I?”

  He stood up, knowing Madeline was waiting for him outside. There were a great many things he wanted to discuss with her. Most of all, he wanted to tell her that the kittens had begun opening their eyes.

  Author’s Note

  Ronald Arbuthnott Knox (1888–1957), English priest and theologian, was the author of The Three Taps, The Footsteps at the Lock, and several other mysteries. But he’s best known for his 1929 Decalogue, a ten commandments for mystery writers.

  When I decided to delve into mystery writing myself, after years of feasting on the classic mysteries of the 1920s and ’30s, I thought it would be great fun to write a book that intentionally broke all these rules, or at least bent them a bit. Rules of Murder is the result.

  Acknowledgments

  To Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, and Dorothy L. Sayers, the Queens of Classic Mystery, for being such a delightful inspiration.

  To my wonderful dad, who loves my books even before they’re written.