by Charles Todd
A constable came in from his rounds, nodded to the sergeant, and went through a door on the far left.
“Still, if you come back in the morning, I’ll have it nailed down. I wouldn’t raise my hopes too high if I were you-but I’ll look into it.”
“Fair enough.” Rutledge took out a card and wrote the number of The Ballantyne Hotel on it. “You can find me there tomorrow night. I’d appreciate any help you can give me.”
The sergeant grinned. “Duncarrick? That’s Inspector Oliver’s turf. Good man, Oliver. I worked with him on a case in 1912. A series of murders that were never solved. Took it hard, he did.”
“In Lanark?”
“No, Duncarrick. Five women found with their throats cut. There was a scrap of paper pinned to each of the corpses. Right over their breasts. Called them whores. Harlots. They weren’t, of course, just young, pretty in a way. Lively. Working-class women. The bodies were found over a matter of months, but always on the same day of the month. Odd business. Had Duncarrick in a sweat, I can tell you! But the killer must have moved on. We never caught him.”
“What was the reaction of the public to the accusations on those pieces of paper?”
“What you’d expect-where there’s smoke, there’s bound to be fire. Unfair, but the belief was that such things didn’t happen to nice women.”
Rutledge said, “Can you recall any other details?”
“That’s the whole of it. Two were servant girls, one was a scullery maid at The Ballantyne, and the other two worked on outlying farms. Clever bastard, left no evidence behind. None we could use, at any rate. Just words on a scrap of paper. And the bodies out on the western road.”
Back on the pavement outside the station, Rutledge listened to Hamish, savagely drawing conclusions of his own.
The five dead women had no connection with Fiona MacDonald. She had been in Glencoe in 1912, a young girl living with her grandfather. All the same, their deaths had paved the way for her persecution. “Whore” was a charge that the good people of Duncarrick already associated with murder.
20
By the time Rutledge reached Duncarrick the next day, there was a message waiting from Sergeant Bowers in Lanark.
“No one by either name shown as missing in the year in question. The only Mary Cook living in the district is sixty. There is no record of a Maude Cook. Sorry.”
It had been a long shot, but he’d already taken the advice Bowers had given him. He hadn’t raised his hopes.
Fiona’s lawyer was summoned to Duncarrick and the brooch was shown to him. He was a dyspeptic man, with lines incised deeply in a dark face. Even his eyebrows, thick and wiry, seemed to be set in a permanent frown. His name was Armstrong, and he seemed more English than Scottish.
Hamish took an instant dislike to him and said so clearly. “I wouldna’ have him defend my dog!” Rutledge winced.
Oliver was inquiring after someone in Jedburgh who was an acquaintance, and Armstrong responded with unconcealed relish, “Not likely to last the month out, I’d say. The cancer is spreading too fast. You’d be advised to visit if you want to find him coherent. Now, what’s this nonsense about a brooch found on a mountainside?”
Oliver took it out of his desk drawer and passed it to Armstrong.
The lawyer examined it with care, squinting at it through spectacles he strung across his nose. “There’s an inscription, you say?”
With the nib of his pen, Oliver pointed it out. “MacDonald.” He rummaged in his desk drawer and came up with a large magnifying glass. “See for yourself.”
Armstrong studied the back of the brooch for some time. “MacDonald is a common name in the Highlands. And how do we know that the name wasn’t put there by someone other than my client?”
“Well, of course it was put there by someone else!” Oliver was losing patience. He had found exactly what he wanted, and he would brook no opposition to the conclusions he’d drawn from it. “The engraver.”
“I meant,” said Armstrong, looking up at him with a sour expression, “that the name could have been engraved on the back just before the brooch was put where it might be found, to please the police.”
Oliver held on to his temper and said, “Which is exactly why you are here. We want to show it to the accused and ask her its history.”
“Ah, yes.” Armstrong handed back the glass and took off his spectacles. But he held on to the brooch. “I don’t think I can allow that. Her answer might be self-incriminating.”
“I should hope it might be,” Oliver retorted through clenched teeth. “That’s the intention of the police, to prove her guilt.”
“It’s no’ the place of a policeman to worry his head about innocence,” Hamish said. “Nor the church either!”
“You may show it to her,” Armstrong answered after letting Oliver stew for several minutes as he looked at the brooch with concentrated attention. “But I will not allow you to badger her. Do you understand?”
Oliver got to his feet and retrieved the key from behind his desk. “You’d better come as well, Rutledge. She might have something to say about the dead woman.”
They walked back to the cell and Oliver unlocked the door. As it swung open, Fiona rose from her chair to face them. She looked at the three men, then her eyes swung back to Rutledge’s.
He could read the silent message she had sent him: What has happened?
Armstrong went up to her and took her hand with unctuous courtesy, rubbing his thumb across her knuckles. “There’s nothing to fear, my girl. The police want to ask if this object belongs to you. Please answer that question and that question only.”
He opened his palm, and the dim light in the cell caught the brightness of the gold but left the smoky stone dark.
Fiona stared at it. “It’s my mother’s brooch.”
“Not yours, then?”
“No, I-”
Armstrong cut her short. “There you are, Inspector. It does not belong to the accused.”
But Oliver could read faces too. He could see clearly that while the brooch had belonged to Fiona’s mother, at some time it had been in her possession.
“Is your mother alive?” he asked, already knowing the answer to that.
“She died when I was very young.”
“Do you remember her?”
“No. A shadowy figure. Someone with a sweet voice and soft hands. I think I remember that.”
“Then you were too young to be given the brooch?”
She glanced at Armstrong. “I was too young, yes.”
“Who took charge of it at her death?”
“My grandfather must have done. There was no one else.”
“Is your grandfather still living?”
“He died in 1915.”
“And you were the only daughter of the house?”
“I was.”
“Your mother’s brooch would by right pass to you, not to your brothers.”
Fiona nodded.
Hamish said, “The conclusion is plain! The brooch must have come into her possession in 1915. A year before the body was left up the glen. They’ve damned her now!”
But Armstrong had nothing to say in her defense.
There was a gleam of triumph in Oliver’s eye. “I’ll have that brooch now, Mr. Armstrong, if you please!”
Armstrong passed it over to him, then rubbed his palms together as if to rid them of the feel of it.
Fiona opened her mouth, was on the verge of speaking, and caught instead the swift but barely perceptible shake of Rutledge’s head. She closed her mouth and looked down at her hands clenched together now at her waist.
As if he’d heard the unvoiced question, Oliver answered it. “This is evidence now. Thank you, Miss MacDonald!”
Oliver turned on his heel and went out of the cell, followed by Armstrong. Fiona looked quickly at Rutledge, but he said nothing, turning his back with the other men and leaving her alone. But before the door closed finally, she saw him look over his shoulder and
smile reassuringly.
It was a reassurance he did not feel.
After Armstrong had taken his leave, Oliver waited until he had heard the outer door close behind the lawyer and then said to Rutledge, “Sit down.”
Rutledge went back to the chair he had vacated to shake hands with the departing Armstrong. He knew what was coming.
Oliver was saying, “Look, in my view, we have all we need to proceed to trial. This brooch is the connection we didn’t have before-it provides a link between the woman MacDougal had found up the glen last year and the accused. And it will see her hang. There’s no reason I can think of for going back to Glencoe with her. I think you’ll agree to that.”
The thought of facing the ghosts of Glencoe again, even with Fiona, turned Rutledge’s blood cold. But he said neutrally, “We can’t be sure we’ve identified the corpse. There’s no proof yet that she ever bore a child.”
“But there’s proof that the accused never bore one. If the accused didn’t conceal the body there, who did? Why was her brooch found so close to the makeshift grave? Not a stranger’s brooch, mind you, but one with her family’s name on it!”
Rutledge said with infinite care, “Still, it’s circumstantial-Armstrong could make the point that she had lived hard by the glen.”
Hamish said, “But he won’t. He doesna’ care enough.”
In the silence Oliver stood up and went to the single window. Its glass was dingy-no one had washed it in years. But he stood there with his back to Rutledge, apparently looking out on the street, and went on. “What you do to satisfy Lady Maude is your business.”
“Fiona MacDonald is the only person who can tell me if the woman she’s accused of killing is Eleanor Gray.”
“I doubt she ever will. She’s likely to go to her grave with that secret!”
It was the one point they saw eye to eye on.
“I’d like to talk to her. Now that she’s seen the brooch.”
Feeling expansively generous, Oliver said, “Go ahead. I’ll give you as long as you need.”
He turned from the window, picked the key ring up from his desk, and passed it to Rutledge. And he repeated, “As long as you need.” But there was a final ring to it now.
“Thanks.” Rutledge took the ring and walked down the hall again.
Hamish said, “Oliver willna’ find it so easy to dismiss Lady Maude. The Yard willna’ either!”
Rutledge answered, “But Lady Maude doesn’t want to hear the truth about her daughter. She never has.”
As far as he could tell, Fiona MacDonald had not moved from where she had been standing when the three men had walked out of her cell a quarter of an hour earlier.
He closed the wooden door and stood with his back to it. She said almost at once, “Why did they take my mother’s brooch?”
“You’re sure it belonged to your mother?”
“Yes, of course I’m sure! My grandfather let me wear it on her birthday. To remember her. All day I could wear it, pinned to my dress. And I was always very careful, very proud. I felt close to her.”
He could see the small child, dressed in her best clothes, gingerly moving about the house so as not to tear her skirts or soil her sleeves. And the grandfather still mourning his dead daughter in his own fashion, instilling into Fiona the feeling that her mother was near-if only for this one day each year.
It was, in its way, a very sad picture.
“Where did you keep it? After you moved to Duncarrick.”
“It’s in a small sandalwood box with the bracelet Hamish gave me and the onyx studs that belonged to my father. Or it was-why did they go through my things and take my mother’s pin?” There was anguish in her face.
“Did you have the brooch with you in Brae?”
“Yes, of course I had it in Brae! You can ask Mrs. Davison.”
“And it came to Duncarrick with you?”
“Yes, I told you, it is-was-kept in the tall chest in my room at The Reivers. In the second drawer. I didn’t wear it often. I was afraid I might lose it working in the bar.”
Rutledge said, “Can you think of anyone in Duncarrick who might have seen you wear the brooch within the past year? Constable McKinstry, for one?”
She considered his question, then took a deep breath. “I remember now the last time I wore it. On my mother’s birthday in June of this year. Yes, and again in early July, when I attended church. Will that do?” She read the answer in his face. “But it was there. I swear it was there when I was arrested!”
“But you can’t be sure?”
“I-no, I had no reason to look for it. I wouldn’t have brought it here!”
“No.” He considered how much to tell her about how and where the brooch was found, then said instead, “How could you be so certain it was your mother’s brooch?”
“It has to be-my father had it made up as his wedding gift to her. There couldn’t be another like it.”
“You didn’t need to read the inscription on the back?”
“What inscription?”
“There’s a name. ‘MacDonald.’ Just under the pin.”
She frowned. “Are you trying to trick me?”
“Why should I?”
“Because there’s no inscription on the brooch. There never was.”
“There are six people who could tell you the name is engraved there. I’m one of them.”
Frightened, Fiona said, “Will you take me to the inn? Please? Will you let me go there and see for myself? It has to be there-! ”
“Oliver won’t let you go. But I’ll look. You’re sure that it’s kept in the sandalwood box?”
Her face answered him.
“Then I’ll bring the box to you,” he told her. “Unopened.”
He turned and went out the door, locking it behind him and then pocketing the key.
Oliver looked up as Rutledge came down the passage. He said, “Finished?”
“No. I need to fetch my notes. I’d like to read Mrs. Atwood’s statement to Miss MacDonald.”
“Suit yourself.”
Rutledge went out the station door and walked briskly in the direction of the hotel. Damn -he had forgotten that his motorcar was not there.
He reached The Reivers out of breath from the brisk pace he’d set himself. Please God Drummond is at home-! He has the other key.
Rutledge knocked at the door of Drummond’s house, and to his relief saw that his quarry was there.
“Come outside. I need to speak to you.”
“What about?” Drummond demanded, not moving from the doorway.
“Come outside, I tell you! Unless you’re willing to shout to the world what this is about.” A clear reference to his sister. Reluctantly, Drummond obeyed.
“Look, I need to go to the inn and search again. I want a witness there when I do. And I don’t want that witness to be a policeman. Or someone who is unfriendly to Miss MacDonald. Will you help me? Will you unlock the door and come with me?”
“I won’t.”
“Don’t be a bloody fool! I need to get into that inn- time’s short!”
“Ask Inspector Oliver to lend you his key.” Drummond read the answer in Rutledge’s face, and it seemed to persuade him. “All right, then. If it’s a trick, I’ll kill you with my bare hands!”
“It’s not a trick.” They walked quickly to the inn, and Drummond took out his key. Unlocking the door, he blocked the way.
“Tell me where.”
“Upstairs in the wing the family used. Fiona’s room.”
Drummond grunted and led the way. Clarence came to greet them, stretching and yawning broadly. Drummond ignored the cat and stopped on the threshold of Fiona’s bedroom.
“I’m waiting.”
Rutledge said, “The tall bureau. Go to it and open the second drawer from the top. Go on, man, this is no time to be fussy about such things.”
Drummond reluctantly crossed the room to the chest and then pulled open the second drawer from the top. “I won’t to
uch her things!”
“No. You shouldn’t have to. There’s a small sandalwood box there. Do you see it? Probably the color of honey now. Perhaps a little darker. Just a small wooden box.”
Drummond grunted. “I don’t see it.”
“Look, man!”
With a rough forefinger, Drummond pushed at the contents of the drawer. “It’s here.”
“Then take it out. Take it over to the bed.”
Drummond did as he was told. The box was no more than six inches long, four wide, and perhaps not quite four deep. The color of the wood was a dark amber.
“All right. Open it. I don’t want to see the contents. But tell me, if you will, what is inside.”
He could hear the little silvery sound of things falling onto the coverlet of the bed. “Trinkets,” Drummond said.
“Name them.” Rutledge could feel his heart beating and hear the clamor from Hamish as Drummond pawed among Fiona’s jewelry.
“There’s a bracelet. Here are studs, onyx, from the look of them. A small teething hoop, silver, at a guess-it’s tarnished. A ring or two. Here’s a brooch. And that’s the lot.”
Rutledge could feel his heart stop.
“Describe it. The brooch.”
“I’m not one to describe a woman’s gewgaws-”
“Damn it, tell me what it looks like!”
“It’s gold, three strands twisted into three circles. Like loops. There’s a small stone in the center. A pearl. I’ve seen Ealasaid wear that of a Sunday.”
“And that’s all?” He was breathing again.
“That’s the lot. I told you.”
“Then put it all back into the box and close the lid.”
“What’s this in aid of?”
“I can’t tell you. If you’d found what I had hoped was there, it could have saved Fiona from the hangman. Now-” He put the box that Drummond gave him into his pocket and went to shut the drawer in the chest.
Drummond said, “I won’t have you taking her belongings!”
“I’m taking them to her. I’ll bring them back shortly. She wants to know if her mother’s brooch is still there.”
“But that’s Ealasaid’s brooch-”
“Yes,” Rutledge said as he led the way down the stairs. “And it isn’t enough!”
