Legacy of the Dead

by Charles Todd

  Pringle reached behind the desk for the key and handed it over.

  Rutledge found Fiona standing, as if she’d been restlessly pacing her cell. Little enough exercise for a woman accustomed to having her days filled with activity at The Reivers. Prisoners often complained about that—the sheer, wasting boredom of waiting for trial.

  He shut the door behind him and began by saying, “I saw the child the other day. He had been feeding the cat with Drummond.”

  “Did he look well? Happy?” she asked anxiously. “I wonder often if he’s sleeping properly. Or if he has nightmares—”

  “He seemed happy enough.” He took out his list of names and slowly read them to her, watching her face. But Fiona shook her head.

  “I can’t identify any of them. I’m sorry.”

  Closing his notebook, he said, “Fiona. If you didn’t kill the mother of that child—if you’re being persecuted for no reason that either of us can put a finger on—then I’m forced to ask myself what there is about that child that threatens someone’s peace enough to get at him through harming you.”

  “How could such a small boy threaten anyone!” she parried, surprised.

  “I don’t know. But the deeper I go into this mystery of yours, the more certain I am that he’s the key.”

  “He’s only a little boy who thought he belonged to me. He doesn’t know or care who his real mother was—who his father might have been. And there’s no fortune unless he’s allowed to inherit The Reivers when I’m—dead.”

  “But someone does care. For a time I considered the possibility that it had to do with the Gray fortune. Or protecting a family’s reputation. Now I’m less convinced. In my judgment, the child’s important because no one is sure exactly who he is, and either someone wants that proof—or wants to bury it with you. I’m beginning to think that the hope was, if the police investigated thoroughly enough, they’d find the answer to the question of his mother’s identity. And save someone else the trouble of doing so. Or else the court will hang you and save that someone else the trouble of getting rid of you before you speak out.”

  Something in her eyes told him that he was close to the truth—but not really there. That he still hadn’t put his finger on the crux of Fiona’s secret.

  As if talking to himself, he murmured, “A child who came to light at the wrong time could cheat someone out of an inheritance. Or embarrass a family on the point of contracting an important marriage. Or bring to light a liaison that has been hidden until now.” He added after a moment, “Or it might be that someone wants him rather badly but doesn’t want to step forward and admit that the boy is hers—or his. If Ian is in an orphanage, he can be adopted properly, without revealing any connection with you or him.”

  Fiona said carefully, “If I told you the name of Ian’s father, you’d find nothing in the knowledge to explain what’s happening. He was an ordinary man. A very kind and a very good man. But a very ordinary man.”

  “If he’s dead, then we’re left with the mother.”

  “Why should his mother—who most certainly knew who that child is—fear him in any way?”

  “Then why is she protecting him? At the cost of your life?”

  “She’s dead. She can’t protect anyone, not even herself.”

  Rutledge said, “Let’s examine another possibility. That the child is precisely what you say he is—an ordinary child with an ordinary father, threatening no one. That his mother is dead. What if—mind you, this is pure speculation, but hear me out—what if someone thinks the boy matters? And removing you from his guardianship is necessary to prevent him from ever being identified. What if someone has been searching for some time for a missing child about Ian’s age? And that someone believes, without a shadow of doubt, that he’s been found here in Duncarrick.”

  “You have a wonderful imagination,” she said, smiling in spite of herself. “Or have you convinced yourself that the mother of Eleanor Gray is trying to prevent Ian from ruining her family’s reputation?”

  “Imagination has often been the best and quickest way through a thicket of lies.” He made a swift decision and shifted direction. “Whose wedding ring do you wear on a chain around your neck?”

  Her face flamed. “Who told you such a thing?”

  “Dorothea MacIntyre. She didn’t mean to betray you. In the course of describing how well you’d cared for her when she was ill, she spoke of it. She believed it was truly yours.”

  “It was my grandmother’s ring. If I was a married woman, I ought to have a ring. But it was loose, it didn’t fit my finger. So I wore it around my neck, telling my aunt that I was afraid it might fall off and be lost. You’ll find it at the inn. Unless someone has taken that as well! I put it away when I could no longer call myself Mrs. MacLeod.” She looked away. The memory hurt her.

  Earnestly, he said, “Won’t you tell me which one of my guesses is closest to the truth? Because once I know, I can protect you, I can protect that child.”

  “But you can’t give him back to me when it’s over!” It was a cry of anguish. “You’ve already told me that no matter how this ends, I shall never have him back again.”

  He looked at her, trying to read her face. “Is that the bargain you’re making with me? If I can guarantee that you shall have your child again, you will finally tell me the truth?”

  She bit her lip, torn between duty and love and hope.

  He had finally found the key to Fiona MacDonald’s silence. Something she wanted more than life—even her own life. That child.

  Then, to his utter astonishment, she replied, “Will you kill someone for me? Because if you can’t, promises will be useless.”

  She read his answer in his face.

  “No. I didn’t think you could.” There was infinite sorrow in her voice.

  He waited, but she said nothing more. No explanation, no self-defense for even asking such a thing of him.

  Into the silence he asked, “Do you trust Constable McKinstry?”

  Surprised, she said, “Yes. I think I do. Why shouldn’t I? He wanted to marry me.”

  Hamish said, “If he wed her, he’d have custody of the child. Is that what began this business, her refusal?”

  “Why didn’t you marry him?” Rutledge asked. “Ian would have had a proper father.”

  “I didn’t want to marry. I didn’t want to wake up in the morning and find his face on the pillow next to mine. Or anyone else’s. I don’t love him. I gave my heart away once. I never want to do it again. It hurts too much!”

  He thought of Jean. Yes, it hurt far more than it should, to love.

  Fiona smoothed her hands together. “Have you ever made a house of playing cards? I used to do it for the Davison children sometimes. It always falls in upon itself. That’s my dilemma, Ian Rutledge. How to keep the cards from falling in on themselves. And try as I will, I don’t see the way to prevent it. It will be better for my son to grow up hating me or not even remembering my name and face than for the cards to fall in.”

  “Someone tried to kill me yesterday.” The admission was forced out of him. He hadn’t intended to say anything. “Someone shot at me and it wasn’t by accident. It was a clear line of fire and he missed by very little. A warning perhaps. And I can’t fight back because I don’t know how! How many lives will you put at risk for your son?”

  She winced, then recovered with an effort. “You’re a grown man. You can fight back, even against shadows. A small boy can’t.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t want you to die. Any more than I want to die. But it’s a risk that I must take. God help me!”

  RUTLEDGE WALKED BACK to the hotel, depression settling in like a black shroud. He went to the telephone closet and began the long, wearing task of tracing the house that had been a military hospital during the war. Saxhall or Saxwold.

  There was no listing for a Saxhall, but there was for Saxwold.

  In the next hour, he tried to locate any staff who had served there. Chiefly the matron or
doctor in charge. He found one sister, who gave him the name of three more, and the last one pointed him to Elizabeth Andrews.

  In another half hour he was speaking to her. She had been the nurse in charge of Saxwold’s most seriously wounded men, and was now at a hospital in Cambridge.

  Her voice came over the telephone clearly, forceful, with the slight accent of Yorkshire in it.

  Rutledge explained what he was after. “I’m looking for anyone who might have been friends with a Captain Robert Burns who was at Saxwold in 1916. He was there for nearly a month, then was released to convalesce in London.”

  “Ah, yes, I do recall Captain Burns. A very nice man. I heard much later that he’d returned to the Front and been killed. A waste.”

  “Indeed. There was a woman, Eleanor Gray, who met him either in London or at Saxwold. Do you recall her?”

  “I thought you wanted to know who among the wounded was friendly with him! I have no idea who Eleanor Gray is, Inspector. I had little time to waste on visitors. These were seriously wounded men in my care.”

  “The problem is that I don’t know with any certainty whether Eleanor Gray introduced Captain Burns to the man I’m seeking or if she met him through Burns. If she met him through Burns, it might be someone he knew at Saxwold.”

  “I understand now. Well, since I have no knowledge of this woman, I suggest we begin with the patients. There were a number of critically wounded men at Saxwold at the time, and they seldom mixed with the other patients. Certainly not often enough for a friendship to be formed. Therefore you must be interested in the men who were more or less able to move about or have visitors. If I remember correctly, there were at least twenty of those. Of them I would say that Captain Burns was friendly with three or four.”

  She gave him names and told him how badly each was wounded. Three had lost limbs. Rutledge discounted them. Mrs. Raeburn had said she couldn’t tell how the man at her door had been wounded. The fourth had been blinded.

  Trying to begin from another end of the puzzle, Rutledge asked, “Did you have patients from Palestine in Saxwold?”

  “There was indeed one man who had served in Palestine. He’d been an intelligence officer, wounded, and sent home. Captured by the Turks, apparently, for he had been severely tortured. We feared more for his mind than his body, I must tell you that. He didn’t know who he was and he was by turns raving, silent, or alarmingly alert. Touch him and he was instantly back in captivity, striking out quick as a snake. We kept him in a room upstairs, under the eaves, where he didn’t disturb the other patients. Once Captain Burns could move about, he spent a good deal of time with the very ill, writing letters and so forth. The Captain made an effort to include Major Alexander in his rounds, though the stairs were difficult for a man with a serious back injury.”

  “Alexander? Do you have a first name?”

  “I’m sorry, no. He told me repeatedly that he was called Zander Holland, but the only name on his tag when he was brought in was Alexander. Which isn’t surprising, we’ve had men with no name at all. But as he began to improve, the Major was transferred to another hospital. I was told later that he made a full recovery. I was glad to hear it. One of the specialists who came to look at the burn cases had seen him in another hospital.”

  “He’d been burned?”

  “Oh, yes, it was part of the torture, you see. Systematic burning.”

  Poor devil! Rutledge thought. “You have no record of his unit?”

  “I told you. Once he began recovering, the Army saw fit to move him.”

  “Did Alexander keep in touch with Burns? After he was transferred?”

  “I can’t answer that. But I doubt it. Captain Burns would have told me if he’d had news. Whether they met again in London, I can’t say. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Captain did make a point of finding him. It was the sort of man he was. He cheered up a good many people, ill as he was. It was his nature.”

  But that was all she could give Rutledge on the patient named Alexander.

  He left his telephone number with her. “If you think of anything else that might be useful, I’d be grateful if you got in touch.”

  “I shall, Inspector,” she said, and hung up the receiver.

  RUTLEDGE SPENT ANOTHER hour talking to people he knew in the War Office. But he had no luck there. One official told him that he rather thought he remembered the chap Rutledge was asking about and had heard that he went to France after he’d been declared fit for return to duty. “But I’m not sure his name was Holland. And the only Alexander I recall was a sergeant-major in the Fusiliers. Tracking your man down will be well nigh impossible without more information, old boy. I haven’t time to play hunches. And we have a bloody long list of wounded!”

  AT THE HOTEL desk, Rutledge said to the young woman on duty, “Could you tell me, please, if there is anyone in Duncarrick by the name of Alexander? He was an officer in the war. I’d like to look him up if he’s here.”

  “I don’t believe there’s anyone in town with that name.” She frowned prettily, her hands toying with the pen she’d been using.

  Hamish said, “He might not live in the town.”

  But Rutledge was already asking that question.

  “I’m sorry. Perhaps you could ask Constable Pringle or Inspector Oliver. They’d know. Or Mr. Elliot, perhaps.”

  He began with Constable Pringle. Rutledge found him still at his desk and put the question to him. Pringle considered. “There’s an Alexander out on the road to Jedburgh. But he wasn’t in the war, sir. He’s seventy if he’s a day.”

  “Children?”

  “Two daughters. That’s all I ever heard about. Old maids, both of them.”

  Another dead end.

  RUTLEDGE WENT OUT to walk, restless and angry.

  Hamish said, “It’s no’ your fault!”

  “Cold comfort!” he retorted, long strides eating up the distance to The Reivers. He passed it without looking and was well out the western road before turning and walking back to the town. “Fiona sits in that cell, waiting for trial, and there’s going to be a conviction. All I needed was a name. They’ve given me one. If Alexander doesn’t live in the neighborhood of Duncarrick, there’s no way to find him. Damn the man!” But it was useless to damn anyone. There were still other names to track down.

  Nearing the main square, Rutledge came across Oliver.

  He was not a happy man.

  “You’ve been meddling again! You told me that you were wanting to see the glen. Instead you went to find the Lawlor girl. And she’s gone missing!” He made it sound like Rutledge’s fault.

  “I did see the glen,” Rutledge told him. “And someone saw fit to shoot at me while I was there. Who did you tell that I was on my way to Glencoe?”

  “What do you mean, someone shot at you?” He glared at Rutledge. “I called Inspector MacDougal as you’d asked. I don’t know who might have overheard the call. MacDougal wasn’t in his office when I tried from the station. So I waited until after my lunch and called again from the hotel.”

  From that stuffy telephone closet. Where Oliver, not thinking about it, must have left the door ajar for air. And who had been in the police station on his earlier attempt to reach Glencoe? McKinstry? Pringle?

  “Where was McKinstry most of yesterday?”

  “It was his day off. You’ll have to ask him that.”

  “There’s no way,” Hamish pointed out, “to be sure it was the telephone. You could ha’ been seen in Brae—or anywhere on the road—and followed.”

  “And what’s this,” Oliver went on testily, “about the brooch not being in Betty’s hands for a year or more? That’s nonsense!”

  “I don’t think it is.” He gave it a split second’s thought, then said, “I can tell you the name of a jeweler’s shop on a side street in Glasgow. Send McKinstry with the brooch to ask if the owner recognizes it.”

  Oliver stared at him. “You’re trying to tell me that my chief bit of evidence is a hoax!�
��

  “No. I’m telling you that it isn’t what it seems.”

  “Well, I won’t have it! We’ve got witnesses to what Betty Lawlor had to say—yourself included! You’ll confirm in the courtroom what she said. Or I’ll have you up for perjury!”

  Rutledge gave him the name of the jeweler’s shop anyway. “Send McKinstry to look into this. It may not be true. If it isn’t, I shall retract any objections I have to the brooch as evidence.”

  Suspiciously: “Why McKinstry?”

  “He won’t like doing it. But he’ll be thorough. For the sake of the accused.”

  Mollified, Oliver said, “I’ll do that, then!” And he stalked off.

  Hamish said, “If the constable took the brooch to Glasgow, he’ll no’ come home and tell Oliver his own name’s put to the engraving card!”

  “No,” Rutledge agreed. “It will be interesting, won’t it, to see how he handles such a minefield. If he gives Oliver the right name, he’ll be crucified before the Inspector can draw breath. And if he doesn’t give the right name, it will make him look worse when the truth does come out.”

  He walked into the lobby of the hotel. The savory aroma of baked apples and cinnamon reminded him that he’d had no luncheon. There was a rattle of dishes and utensils coming from the dining room, which meant they might be serving still. His stomach growled at the thought.

  He was halfway down the passage to find out, when the clerk at the desk called, “Inspector Rutledge? A telephone message just came for you. You’re to return the call at your convenience.” She reached into the drawer where messages were kept and handed one to him.

  Rutledge thanked her and walked on to the dining room, opening the folded sheet as he went.

  It was from Durham. The office of a law firm.

  He knew who had called him.

  Thomas Warren.

  ABANDONING LUNCH, RUTLEDGE went to the telephone closet and closed the door behind him.

  He got through to Warren straightaway and identified himself.