A Lonely Death

by Charles Todd

  And now he was loose. But here in the churchyard or at the rectory?

  Rutledge’s hearing was acute, but Hamish’s had always been far sharper.

  “On the steps of the rectory.”

  Rutledge could just make out the soft footfall. And then it came down the steps again and was lost in the grass. After a few seconds Rutledge realized that someone was moving around to the side of the rectory, facing the church.

  Where was Mr. Ottley, the rector? At this hour, in his bed, most likely. But was he? For now Rutledge could see that although the drapes had been drawn, lamps were still lit in his study.

  Just then, the rectory door opened, throwing a shaft of light across the lawn, and Mr. Ottley was saying, “I’m glad you came, Tuttle. I think you’ve made a wise decision. If Miss Lang accepts your proposal, I’ll be happy to post the banns and marry you when the time comes.”

  Tuttle. Constable Walker’s nephew. And what the hell was he doing in Eastfield? He must, Rutledge thought, have arrived at the rectory while it was still dusk and the police were gathered inside St. Mary’s. Damn and blast the man!

  “Thank you, Rector,” Tuttle responded. “I’m that sorry to have come so late, but we lost track of time, didn’t we, Nan and I?” He laughed lightly. “One good thing about getting married, I shan’t be traveling all the way to Hastings and back of an evening.”

  Mr. Ottley laughed with him, and then they said good night.

  The door closed, and the shaft of light vanished, leaving Rutledge blind for several seconds. But he could hear Tuttle moving down the path from the rectory door, and then turning toward the gate into the churchyard. A shortcut to his house—Rutledge had spoken to his mother only that afternoon.

  A lorry rumbled down the Hastings Road, and its headlamps swept the churchyard wall as it passed the main gate.

  As if in a tableau, Rutledge could see Tuttle stop, his head turned toward the vehicle. And in the shadows by the rectory wall, he could just discern the outline of another man frozen in place not ten yards from where Tuttle was standing.

  Tuttle was the victim this time.

  And Rutledge had two choices—to call out a warning, and risk losing Summers, or to put himself between Tuttle and the killer.

  Tuttle was opening the rectory gate, whistling to himself as he stepped through it and paused to shut it behind him.

  Something—some tiny movement—caught his attention, and he turned to stare at the rectory wall, now in darkness again. “Who’s there?” he asked sharply.

  A voice said softly, so as not to disturb the rector behind his closed doors, “Do you remember me, Tuttle?”

  The low churchyard wall was between them now. Tuttle said warily, “I don’t know your voice. Who are you? What do you want?”

  “To say hello. For old time’s sake.”

  “You’ve got the wrong man, then,” Tuttle answered and began to walk swiftly toward the far gate and the better-lit Hastings Road, careful to keep on the smoother ground between rows of gravestones.

  He passed within ten feet of where Rutledge was standing, but his attention was wholly on the man behind him as he listened for the telltale squeak of the rectory gate. He began to pick up his pace now, anxious, clearly beginning to realize the danger he was in. The Hastings Road was safety—doors he could pound on, people who would hear him shout for help. Even the sanctuary of The Fishermen’s Arms, if he was quick enough.

  Behind him, Rutledge saw the killer vault the wall rather than use the gate, landing lightly, in a crouched position. Then he straightened and started forward.

  Rutledge turned his head. Tuttle by this time was some fifteen feet from the main gate, and he cast a worried glance over his shoulder, unable to see where in the shadows his hunter could be. The wind up now, he made a frantic dash for the gate and was through it, into the Hastings Road, running for the hotel.

  “ ’Ware!”

  It was Hamish who saved him.

  In an instant, Rutledge realized that Summers must have caught a glimpse of him there amongst the trees watching Tuttle walk on, and on the spot changed course, altering his intended target to the one at hand.

  There was a fleeting movement of air, a sound that had barely registered, before Rutledge dropped to his heels, out of reach of the garrote intended for his throat. It scraped across his head, and he heard the man behind him swear.

  Rutledge surged to his feet again, catching Summers off balance, and the two men fell hard against a footstone, flailing at an adversary neither of them could see in the thick shadows of the church tower.

  For an instant Rutledge had a solid grip on the man’s upper arm, spinning him as they got to their feet, but his boots slipped in the bruised grass, and Summers broke free. He ran, only to fall headlong over something underfoot. Rutledge lunged forward, missed him, and saw him race toward the church porch and the deeper shadows of the apse beyond.

  Rutledge gave chase, launched himself at the figure just ahead, and brought Summers down, knocking the wind out of both of them.

  Rutledge was the first to recover, but the other man was fast, and breathing hard, he set off again, back the way he had come, toward the west door of the church. He got it open before Rutledge could stop him, and then tried to slam it shut, catching one of Rutledge’s hands as he did.

  Setting his teeth, Rutledge pulled at the edge of the door, bracing himself, and when Summers suddenly let the door go, it opened so fast that he was flung against the carved stone arch. He nearly cracked his head against the protruding foot of a saint, but using the wall as a fulcrum, rebounded with such speed that he was inside the entrance to the church before Summers could manage the inner door into the sanctuary. Something brushed his face, and he grunted with shock at a touch so close and so human. Then he realized that it was not a hand but the frayed end of the bell rope. He caught it again somehow, and leapt high on it, coming down with all his weight on it.

  High above in the tower, the bell clanged with a deafening discord.

  Two short blasts of a whistle—it was the nearest he could come to the signal for needing help. But before he could ring the bell again, Summers was on him, knocking him to one side. Rutledge whirled as he crashed into the wall, expecting Summers to be in front of him now.

  He judged it wrong.

  The garrote this time brushed his ear and he jerked sideways, knocking against the low table where church information and items for sale were usually kept. It went over in a crash, and Summers yelled in pain as one of the legs unexpectedly clipped him, and he went down.

  They were fairly equally matched, although Rutledge had the advantage of height. He felt for the wildly swinging bell rope, caught it, and leapt high a second time. But Summers reached up as he was scrambling to his feet, and seized Rutledge’s ankle, pulling him back. Still, he managed to keep his grip on the rope, and again the bell sounded a harsh note, rocking on its cradle to ring a second and then a third time before Summers could stop him.

  Kicking out with his free foot, Rutledge caught Summers in the throat, for he choked on a cough and released his hold.

  Letting go of the bell rope, Rutledge dropped to the stone flagging, trying to pick up movement and locate Summers. But he waited a second too long, for something brushed his shoulder, then a fist slammed into the edge of his jaw. Rutledge’s head snapped back, and he saw stars.

  The other man was on him then, pinning him half against the wall, half against the door into the sanctuary. Shaking his head to clear it, Rutledge broke the hold, lashing out in his turn, and Summers stumbled backward over something that had fallen from the overturned table, sending it bouncing across the floor, and he went down. It was the break that Rutledge was looking for, and he caught at the fabric of the man’s lapel, held on hard with one hand, and with the other, went for where he guessed the man’s body would be. The blow sank into yielding flesh, and he heard the whoosh of air as Summers fought to breathe again.

  Rutledge was on the point of foll
owing up his advantage just as the outer church door scraped open and the beam of a torch swept them.

  Both combatants froze, then turned as one to stare into the brilliant light as Mr. Ottley said sternly, “This is a house of God. Get out of here now.”

  The man in Rutledge’s grasp, using all his strength, broke free, spun the rector into Rutledge’s arms, and was gone.

  The rector lost his balance and went down, taking Rutledge to one knee as the torch went skittering across the stone floor like a wild thing, the spinning light blinding both of them. Rutledge heaved Mr. Ottley away and was out the door after Summers, unaware he had not gone far.

  This time the garrote didn’t miss. It whipped over Rutledge’s head and drew across his throat so quickly he was helpless to stop it.

  And Summers pulled hard, with a force that was backed by anger and an intense will.

  Rutledge spun, jerking his revolver from his pocket and raising it in the same motion. The barrel caught Summers with such force across the temple that he went down, the garrote slipping through his hands.

  Just then the church door opened and the rector barreled out, torch in hand, shouting Rutledge’s name. The beam caught Rutledge in the eyes, and Ottley stopped short.

  “At my feet, damn it,” he snapped, and the torch swept downward.

  “Who is that?” Mr. Ottley asked, peering at the slack, unconscious face. “I’ve never seen him before!” There was astonishment and relief in his voice.

  “At a guess, one Thomas Summers.”

  The rector moved closer, frowning. “Are you sure? That doesn’t look like the Summers lad.”

  “You haven’t seen him in fifteen years. He’s changed. He’s a man now, not a boy.”

  Ottley pointed to the blood on the side of the unconscious man’s face. “Did you kill him?”

  “No. But he’ll have one hell of a headache when he comes to his senses,” Rutledge said with some satisfaction, shoving his revolver back into his pocket.

  His tone brought the flashlight upward, so that Ottley could study his face, but it stopped at Rutledge’s throat. “What in God’s name—”

  “The garrote. He tried to kill me.”

  Ottley was about to say more when they heard shouting from the direction of the Hastings Road and Norman came charging into the churchyard. “What the hell is happening?”

  As he reached the small tableau picked out by Ottley’s torch, he added, “We heard the bell, but from where Petty stood, he could see a light in the school. He was certain someone was moving around in that room. Finally I went inside myself. We found a candle lit and a piece of paper on a string, hanging over it. When the candle flickered, the paper moved. We came here—” Norman ran out of words, staring from Rutledge to the rector, and finally noticing the third man lying in the shadows at Rutledge’s feet.

  “He left the school before we got there,” Rutledge said. “He’s been following Tuttle. From Eastfield to Hastings and back to Eastfield, I should think. I got in his way.”

  Norman stepped across to take the torch from the rector’s hand and shine it down at Summers.

  “Hold it steady,” Rutledge said, and stooped to go through Summers’s pockets.

  There was no identification in any of them. Only, in a breast pocket, a single identity disc intended for his next victim’s mouth.

  Rutledge looked at it, saw the name, and said nothing. He passed it on to Norman, who brought the torch up to see it more clearly. “Well. We needn’t ask if you’re this man. Bertie Grimes, corporal, the Yorkshire Rifles.”

  As he handed it back to Rutledge he saw what was around his neck.

  “What the hell did he do to you?” Constable Walker asked, stepping forward for a closer look.

  Rutledge unwound the garrote and passed it to Inspector Norman. “The murder weapon.”

  “Yes, that’s the garrote,” Walker was saying as he took it. “But what’s that around your throat?”

  Rutledge reached up and touched the flanged band that encircled his throat. It was what he and the ironmonger’s assistant had spent most of the afternoon devising: the only thing he could think of to protect against a garrote. “A gorget. Of a sort. It’s meant to be similar to the armor a knight wore around his neck and shoulders to protect them. The ironmonger will have to cut it off. And the sooner the better. Meanwhile, we ought to take Summers to Dr. Gooding. In the event I hit him harder than I meant to.”

  But as they trooped toward Dr. Gooding’s, carrying Summers on a table the rector brought from the church, the man came round, dazed and at first hardly coherent. And then finally aware of where he was, he started to struggle, only to be forced down by the ungentle hands of the constables carrying him. Subsiding, he lay there with one arm flung over his eyes.

  Gooding, roused from sleep, pronounced Summers well enough to be taken to Hastings and charged with multiple counts of murder. Rutledge looked at the men surrounding the patient and said, “Norman, if you’ll contact Dover police, and ask that a former sergeant named Bell bring the witness he has in his keeping to Hastings at his earliest convenience, we’ll have one more piece of our case settled.”

  “Who is Bell? And what’s the name of the witness?” Norman asked. “This is Summers, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. That’s Summers. Bell will explain. Will you give me five minutes alone with the prisoner?”

  After a moment they did as they had been asked, but it was clear that Inspector Norman was not best pleased.

  When they had shut the door behind them, Rutledge said to Summers, “Is your wife still alive? It won’t save you from hanging if you tell me. But there is someone very much interested in her condition.”

  Summers was staring at him, his eyes intent. “Why should I help the police?”

  “Do you hate her as much as you hated the others?”

  “I didn’t hate her at all. I needed her money,” he said coldly.

  “You can’t inherit any of it, if you’ve killed her. If she’s still alive and you haven’t treated her too badly, she might be induced to pay for your defense.”

  “Not bloody likely,” he said harshly. “I killed her confounded little dog. As good as.”

  Which told Rutledge that Mrs. Summers was still alive. Where?

  “I’ll give you until nine o’clock in the morning to think that over and tell me where she is.”

  Summers gingerly touched the side of his head. A red welt marked where Rutledge’s revolver had struck him. “You needn’t have hit me so damned hard.”

  There was almost a whining note in his voice.

  “Your fault for trying to garrote me,” Rutledge said unfeelingly. “Why didn’t you stop the killing when you could? Why not let Hopkins take the blame? Did your revenge matter so much that it was worth hanging for?”

  “At first it was vengeance. I’d thought about it long enough. I decided it was time to show I had the backbone to do it. When they died, they were as alone as I was all my childhood. A lonely death in return for a lonely life.” Summers’s face changed, something in it that gave Rutledge pause. At length he said, as if it was unfathomable to him, “Then I found I liked planning and stalking and killing my victims. It brought the war back again. I hadn’t realized it then, but it was probably the happiest time of my life. I felt so alive.” He considered Rutledge. “You were in the war, at a guess. Do you know what I’m talking about? Did you feel it?”

  There was an eagerness in his voice, a need to hear that others had been caught up as well.

  Rutledge remembered the trenches, the stench of war, the broken bodies of the living, the torn, bloated corpses of the dead. The nightmare of trying to survive against all odds, and watching those under his command decimated day after day.

  “No,” he said. “I never did. And I thank God.”

  Turning on his heel, he left the room, telling Norman that the suspect was all his.

  “What did you talk about?” Norman demanded. “I want to know.”

&nb
sp; “About the war,” Rutledge said, and walked out of Dr. Gooding’s surgery.

  25

  They brought the little dog into Inspector Norman’s office the next morning. He had already sent for Summers, who was sitting in a chair, stubbornly silent now.

  Bell dropped the lead as Rutledge opened the door, and Muffin ran in, stopped short, cast a glance at Summers, and then rapidly swung around the room, frantically searching for the one person who wasn’t there. Summers stared at him as if he’d seen a ghost, but as the dog came full circle, he stopped in front of the man’s chair and began barking, surging forward and then back again, head down, neck outstretched and taut.

  Bell, watching, said, “My God.”

  “Get him away from me!” Summers demanded, drawing his feet under the chair, out of reach. “The bloody dog bites.”

  Rutledge spoke over the ferocious display of anger as Muffin all but attacked Summers, teeth bared, ears back.

  “Where is she? Or I’ll lock him in the cell with you.”

  “Damn it, call him off.”

  But Rutledge stood there, grimly watching as Muffin leapt closer, challenging the man in the chair.

  Desperate, Summers kicked out, and Muffin got his ankle, holding on with the tenacity of his terrier ancestors. Summers screamed, stood up and tried to shake the dog off, but it was impossible. Bell, just behind Rutledge, started to step forward, but Rutledge put out an arm to stop him.

  Summers cried, “All right, for God’s sake, I’ll tell you. Get him away from me—she’s in the Convent of the Claires. South of Paris. I swear it. Please—”

  Meredith Channing had said something about convents.

  “Why is she there?” Rutledge asked, holding up his hand to stop Bell.

  “I told them she suffered hallucinations after a head injury,” he said rapidly. “That what she remembers is confused, erratic. There was never a pet dog, we were never in Sussex—they pitied me.”