by Charles Todd
“Yet you say she rather liked him and was upset when he went back to France.”
She bit her lip. Caught in her own tangle of truth. She turned and walked to one of the windows, looking out with her back to him. After a silence, she said, “I think the dark one, the one she liked, was named for a poet. How odd—I had forgotten that! Yes, I’m sure he was the one. There was some joke about it the first time he came. We asked if he’d read from his works—teasing, of course! And he said he might, after a good dinner. But he never did. A charming man with a charming accent. I hope he survived the war.”
So Mrs. Atwood had seen him more than once. . . .“There are a number of Scottish poets,” Rutledge said gently.
“Yes, I know. How absolutely maddening! I remember the teasing—I remember his smile as he answered. I remember that his father was in finance—”
It was Hamish who made the leap, quite unexpectedly. “Robert Burns.”
Startled, Rutledge repeated the name aloud.
“Yes! They called him Robbie!” she responded, turning back to him, her face brightening with a becoming flush. He couldn’t be sure whether it was relief at having the answer handed to her or chagrin that he had caught her out. “He had a small house in the Trossachs. That’s in Scotland, I’m told. Though heaven knows where it is. I remember he said he ought to have been named Walter Scott, because he lived in the wrong place for a Burns. How odd that I should recall that so clearly now!”
Rutledge felt a surge of hope. The Trossachs lay in central Scotland, almost halfway between Glasgow to the south and Glencoe to the north. There must be, Rutledge thought, a thousand men in Scotland called Robert Burns. Of every age and station and background. But a young officer with a house in the Trossachs—that could narrow the search enormously. Yes, and with a father in finance.
Finance—banking or— He tried to keep his voice level, his words without emphasis. Hamish was hammering at the back of his mind, almost drowning what he was saying. “Was his father by chance a procurator-fiscal?”
But her face was blank, as if she had never heard the title before. Shaking her head, she gestured to the chairs neither of them had taken. “Please, do sit down! May I offer you tea or a glass of something?”
Buying time, Rutledge said, “Yes, I’d like a cup of tea.”
She rang for the butler, who must have been hovering nearby, expecting shortly to show Rutledge out, and gave her instructions.
As Rutledge sat in the nearer chair, he said, “Tell me about Eleanor Gray. As you remember her.”
“She knew her worth. But she was never condescending. A dependable friend. Good company as a house guest. Independent. She told me once that she had no real hope of becoming a doctor—her mother would see to it that no one took her seriously. I think that’s why she was a suffragette. It seemed frightfully vulgar to me, but Eleanor laughed and called it an adventure. I think it made her mother furious, and that pleased Eleanor. They never saw eye to eye.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. She adored her father and would have done anything he asked. But he never told her what to do or not do. He said she should please herself. It was odd how much she loved him. I thought he cared for her, but I could never quite see it as love. Some fathers dote on their only daughters, you know. Spoil them, that sort of thing. But Evelyn Gray was— fond of her. Merely—fond. Perhaps they had little in common. . . .”
She let the thought trail away as the butler arrived with tea. Hamish warned, “It’s no’ like her to talk so much.” Rutledge agreed.
Mrs. Atwood thanked the butler and dismissed him, settling herself to pour. As she handed Rutledge his cup, he said, “Why did Eleanor Gray want to be a doctor? It’s an odd choice, given her wealth and social position.”
“Ah, that was something I never fully understood. Humphrey—my husband—rather thought it was a passing fancy, with the war and all. But I don’t see it that way. At a dinner party once, Eleanor said that doctors were woefully ignorant and uninterested in what caused diseases. She argued with the Army doctors, too, when she felt it was warranted. She cared intensely about the patients, but it wasn’t sentimental in any way. It was practical and realistic. She would have made a good doctor, in my view.”
Rutledge said, “And when she didn’t contact you for three years, you accepted the fact that she must be in America? If not Boston, then somewhere else there.”
She was silent so long, he thought she didn’t want to answer the question. Hamish, responding to the odd tension in the air, said, “You made the right decision, coming yoursel’. ”
Then Mrs. Atwood replied, “You’ve made me afraid. The police. You and Sergeant Gibson. The last time I spoke to Eleanor she was in London—it was a strange conversation. She said something—I thought she must be a little drunk that night, and I was worried that she was contemplating driving to Scotland in that condition. And she said, ‘I could die.’ And I took it to mean she was so happy, she could die. But what if that wasn’t what she meant—what if she truly wanted to die. . . .” Mrs. Atwood looked at him, pain in her eyes. “Was there some terrible accident? Is that what happened?”
“No,” Rutledge told her. “It wasn’t an accident. It’s more likely that someone murdered her.”
She turned so white, he thought she was going to faint, and was halfway out of his chair.
“No!” she said in a strangled voice. “No—I’m all right. It’s just—” She tried to breathe deeply and instead her breath caught on a sob. “I’ve never known anyone who was murdered—that’s horrible—horrible—”
“If she was driving north with a soldier to spend his leave in Scotland, she must have known him well enough to go with him.”
“Of course she must! Eleanor wasn’t the sort who—who used the war as an excuse to behave as she pleased. She wouldn’t have gone with a stranger, or a man she didn’t trust.” There was conviction in the low voice.
“Was it Burns that she went to Scotland with, Mrs. Atwood?”
“I tell you, I can’t remember! You can ask the servants— they might—”
“Would you have tried to stop her if she was about to do something—silly?”
“I—” She broke off, caught between her own emotional dilemma and his dark eyes watching her face. They seemed to see into her soul.
“You must tell me the truth, Mrs. Atwood. A lie won’t serve you or me.”
When she spoke, her voice was husky with shame. “I—I was hurt that she wasn’t coming for the weekend, I told myself she was happy, while I was wretched. There had been no letters from Humphrey for weeks, and I’d just received word that he was being listed as missing. I knew what that meant—he was dead but they hadn’t found his body yet. I hadn’t even told my mother—I could hardly bear to believe it myself! And to have Eleanor let me down when I’d been counting so on her company—to go larking off with someone, half drunk with champagne, most likely, sounding quite unlike herself—it was—I couldn’t tell her about Humphrey then, could I? I was angry—angry and upset. I didn’t care to know, I didn’t want to know what she was doing! I hoped she’d end her week just as wretched as I was—” She stopped and then went on almost against her will. “That’s why I refused to be worried when she didn’t come back or call me. I was still angry—I told myself she wasn’t a friend at all, it was better if she went her own way. She’d gone to Scotland and could stay there forever, as far as I cared. Then I got word that Humphrey was alive and safe, and I didn’t want to think about anything else—I didn’t want to remember how badly I’d behaved.”
She regarded him with hurt, frightened eyes. “If she died that night—it was my fault, in a way. For letting her down. For not worrying when she didn’t call at the end of the week, or come down, or write. I punished her for being happy when I wasn’t, and then I put it all out of my mind, deliberately.”
AS HE DROVE toward London, Rutledge tried to set out in logical detail what he had learned from Mrs. Atwood and her
servants.
Hamish said, “There’s still no name to put with the Gray woman’s companion.”
“No. But there’s a connection now between Eleanor Gray and Scotland. The wrong side of Scotland, but it’s a start.”
“Aye, but it would ha’ been better if there was no connection at all. If she’d gone to America.”
“We have to find this man Burns if we can.”
“Aye, but there’s no proof Eleanor Gray went to Scotland with him!”
“He may know the name of the man who did accompany her. He may have introduced them, he may have been a friend of both.” Rutledge thought about it. “She wasn’t traveling alone. But she went of her own free will. She was alive when she left London.”
“Ye canna’ know that!”
“But I do—she told Mrs. Atwood where she was going, and with whom. It was planned. It was something she wanted to do.”
Yet her mood had been unsettled. “I could die—” From happiness—or despair? Had this been just after Eleanor’s quarrel with Lady Maude?
Rutledge had asked Mrs. Atwood to put a date to that conversation. It was early in 1916. Spring. The timing fit. If Eleanor was pregnant, she could still conceal it. If her mother had refused to help her, she could still make other plans.
A small house in the Trossachs. A place to hide?
A place to start, most certainly.
Rutledge stopped long enough in London to pack another case. He didn’t contact the Yard.
But back on the road, heading north again, he decided it was time to report to Lady Maude Gray.
17
LADY MAUDE RECEIVED RUTLEDGE WITH COOL DISINTEREST, as if he had come to report on the state of her drains or her roofs.
She again conducted the interview in the library, but this time had seen to it that tea arrived shortly after he did.
Pouring his cup, she said, “I knew nothing would come of this ridiculous business. There is nothing in your face that tells me you have been successful.”
“On the contrary, there have been a number of small successes. Not yet a whole. But enough to be going on with.”
She smiled, lighting the remarkable violet eyes from within.
“Then tell me. I shall be the judge.”
“Your daughter did not go to America to study medicine. We have that on the authority of a professor who had been advising her.” It was only a patchwork of truth and fiction. But he saw the small flicker of surprise in her face.
Like Mrs. Atwood, Lady Maude must also have soothed her conscience with the notion that Eleanor Gray had gone abroad to study. Against her mother’s wishes—but surely safely accounted for. Lady Maude had even closed her ears to Inspector Oliver, so certain was she. And then Rutledge had somehow raised niggling doubts. This was news she had not expected to hear. Hamish, who did not care for Lady Maude, was pleased.
“Go on,” she said curtly.
“She was last heard from on her way to Scotland with a young officer by the name of Burns. He had a small house in the Trossachs and enough leave to go there.”
Her voice was cold. “You are mistaken. Eleanor would not have gone anywhere with a strange man.”
“He wasn’t a stranger. She had known him for some time apparently, and a Mrs. Atwood believes that Eleanor was—attracted—to him. They had worked together to arrange for pipe concerts at various hospitals, to cheer the wounded. I was given the impression that your daughter had spent enough time in this man’s company to grow fond of him. Whether as a friend or more than that, I’m not able to tell you at this stage.”
Like a mask, her face remained unchanged. Her hands, holding her cup and saucer, were still quiet in her lap, too well-behaved to indicate by any movement of their own that she was unsettled. But along the firm jawline there was a small nerve twitching.
“When I requested that you be assigned to this case, Inspector, I believed I had chosen a man of intelligence and integrity. I had not expected you to be a listener to gossip and innuendo. You have disappointed me.”
He smiled. “For that I shall apologize. But the fact is, I talked to the person whom your daughter telephoned just before leaving for Scotland with Burns. She had been promised to the Atwoods for a weekend, and had—quite properly—called her hosts to explain the change in plan. You had brought your daughter up well. She remembered her manners even in a time of great distress.”
He set his empty cup on the tray. Check. And mate.
Hamish, in the ensuing silence, said only, “Well done!”
It was rare praise. Rutledge had no time to savor it.
Lady Maude said, “If your information comes from Grace Talbot-Hemings—now Mrs. Atwood—I’m sure she reported the conversation exactly as it happened. She was a truthful child and has no doubt grown into a truthful young woman. This is not to say that what my daughter told her is to be believed. On the contrary, Eleanor might well have left a false trail if she had found passage to the United States and wished to be absolutely certain that no one stopped her. This would also explain her great distress, as you call it.”
Rutledge had to admit that it did.
Lady Maude was not easily broken. She had been the mistress of a king and knew her worth. She had known her daughter’s worth as well, and lived to see Eleanor turn her back on it.
Rutledge thought: Eleanor died in her mother’s heart in 1916 . And he suddenly knew why. The daughter Lady Maude had given up her own self-respect to bear to a Prince of Wales had not been worthy, in her mother’s eyes, of such sacrifice. Eleanor had neither understood nor appreciated the burden her mother carried, and if anything had, in her youthful rebellion, mocked it.
For the most fleeting instant of time, he wondered if Lady Maude might be capable of killing her only child.
Lady Maude also set her cup on the tray with firm finality. “You must realize, Inspector, that your”—she hesitated delicately—“small successes, as you call them, are proving to be a reflection on my daughter’s character that I find unacceptable. You will not pursue them.”
“Aye, she doesna’ want to learn that her daughter was pregnant,” Hamish said. “If it damns Fiona, neither do I!”
“I have no choice in the matter,” Rutledge said, “I am trying now to locate this man Burns. He should be able to lead us to the next step. Where Miss Gray went in Scotland. And why.”
Lady Maude rose. “I must thank you for your courtesy in reporting your information to me in person. I expect we shall not meet again.”
Dismissal. Permanent dismissal, Hamish pointed out.
Rutledge stood as well. “I shall respect your wishes. Would you prefer a written report to a message by telephone when I’ve completed my investigation?”
Their eyes locked. Hers a deep violet with her anger, and his a mirror of his voice, official and unyielding.
For a full twenty seconds she said nothing, waiting for him to look away first.
Then she snapped, “I can break you, Inspector.”
“No doubt,” he answered. “But it will not change the truth, nor will it give you great satisfaction. Good day, Lady Maude.”
He had reached the door before her voice stopped him.
“You will find nothing connecting my daughter to those appalling bones!”
He turned, and for a moment looked at the room enclosing them with such elegance and formality. “That’s my hope as well. It will be a great tragedy if I do. For many people.”
As the door began to close on his heels, he heard her voice, commanding and clear but not raised. “Inspector.”
He stepped back in the room. Nothing had changed in her face. She said only, “It is fortunate, is it not, that my daughter has found a champion in you. I fear that I have been hurt too often. It is difficult to summon the courage to face another disappointment. But I shall try.”
He inclined his head. It was, in its way, a salute. And an apology.
This time she didn’t stop him as he left.
Hamish, di
gesting the last exchange, said only, “I canna’ say that walking with the great is the road to happiness.”
No, Rutledge silently answered. That woman has paid a dear price.
AN HOUR AFTER leaving Menton, Rutledge found a telephone in the next town and put in a call to his godfather.
Morag answered the telephone and went to find David Trevor.
He said, taking up the receiver, “Ian? I hope this means you’re coming to dinner!”
“I won’t make it to Scotland in time. It’s late and I’ve had three days of hard driving. No, it’s information I need, sir. You told me earlier that you knew the procurator-fiscal in the MacDonald case. Well enough to tell me anything about his family?”
There was an instant of silence, then David Trevor said, “Yes, I can give you what I know. He married a young woman from the neighborhood of Stirling. If I remember, her father was a lawyer, and a brother was a judge. I think I met her once or twice at some official gathering. They had three children. Cathy, the daughter, is married to an Englishman and they live in Gloucester. George, the older son, is with a London firm. The youngest, Robert, is dead.”
“Did either son serve in the war?”
“George was in the Navy. Invalided out in late ’17. Robert was killed in France. Artillery. Early 1916, I think.”
“Was Robert married?”
“No, there was a girl in Edinburgh whom he was unofficially engaged to. It was an understood thing, but no announcement had been made. Then she died of appendicitis. I don’t know quite when—well before Robert was killed, certainly. In the winter of ’15, I think it was. Why this sudden interest in Robert?”
“I don’t know,” Rutledge said truthfully. “Could you describe him?”
“He was dark, and well set up. And I’m told he had the most wonderful wit. Ross had heard him offering the toasts at a wedding, he had the guests bent double with laughter. He said that Robert could have stood for Parliament if he’d wanted to go in that direction. But he was interested in law or banking, I forget which.” Rutledge could almost hear the smile in Trevor’s voice. “Have I earned a consulting fee for my knowledge of Scottish social circles?”
