A long shadow ir-8

by Charles Todd

  Mainwaring was one of the most experienced men at the Yard. He had been trained as a doctor, but he had found the dead far more interesting than the living, and he had made a study of bones. He could tell, very quickly, whether a skeleton was that of a man or a woman, what age they'd reached at the time of their death, and oftentimes, what had killed them.

  There was silence at the other end of the line. Then Bowles said, "You're sure this could be the missing girl? I don't want Mainwaring wasting his time on those damned Saxons."

  "Three days, sir. One to take the train as far as Northampton, one in Dudlington, and another to return to London. I'll be waiting for him at The Red Lion in Northampton."

  Bowles was still reluctant. "Do you think Hensley killed the blasted girl? Is that what you want to prove?" His voice conveyed his disbelief.

  "If the girl is buried there, then his presence in the wood would have alarmed the killer. If I found her, there's no reason Hensley couldn't have done the same, given the right conditions."

  "I see. Yes, well, that makes sense. You can't be sure on your own, about the skull?"

  "We must think in terms of bringing the case to trial, sir. If I'm wrong about the body there in Frith's Wood, then I must look elsewhere for a reason behind the attack before we make fools of ourselves in court." He managed just the right cajoling tone to mask the threat in his words.

  "Frith's Wood. That's a pagan name if I ever heard it. Not surprised something nasty happened there. Very well. Mainwaring will be on the next available train."

  The connection was cut as Bowles put up the phone with a heavy hand.

  Rutledge, standing in the small telephone closet at The Red Lion Hotel, swore softly to himself. If he was wrong about Emma Mason, Bowles would never let him forget it.

  Out on a limb was the last place the superintendent wished to find himself. Even on behalf of one of his own.

  Waiting for Mainwaring to come north, Rutledge went back to the hospital in the center of town.

  Matron forbade him to speak to Hensley. "He has a high fever, and Dr. Williams has moved him into a private room."

  "Then let me speak to Dr. Williams."

  "He's left for the day. I suggest you come back tomorrow. There may be some improvement by then." Rutledge, feeling the first stages of exhaustion, had taken a room at the hotel, and he slept for five hours, hardly aware of where he was. By ten o'clock that evening, Mainwaring had arrived.

  He was nearly as tall as Rutledge, broad shouldered and fair. He was also filled with curiosity. Rutledge, walking with him back to The Red Lion, was peppered with questions about the skeleton.

  "You'll see it for yourself tomorrow," he finally told his companion. "Is it true you're leaving the Yard to work for the British Museum?"

  Mainwaring laughed. "I'm putting in for Chief Inspector. If it doesn't come through, I'll consider the Victoria and Albert. You've been in the Yard longer than I have. Why hasn't your promotion come through?"

  "I'm not happy sitting at a desk, directing others," Rutledge told him. "I'm content dealing with cases firsthand."

  "Yes, well, we all say that, don't we? Until we're given advancement. Is the dining room still open, do you think? I'm starved." They left early for Dudlington, and Mainwairing, who hadn't been to the area, found the drive interesting. As The Oaks came in view at the top of the rise, he said, "I have a wager with George Reston that there's only one pub in the village."

  "You'd win. How is George?"

  "His shoulder is much better, but the leg's taking its own sweet time. Motorcar accidents are the very devil, and getting worse."

  "I hope you brought your boots. We've a long walk ahead of us." Rutledge had reached Hensley's house and turned in. "The door is always open. You won't need a key. A bed is a different story."

  They walked into the house, and Mainwaring looked around with surprise. "These are your accommodations? I'd have thought you'd been put up at The Oaks."

  "This is Constable Hensley's house. A woman next door prepares his meals for him. He offered to let me live here while he's in hospital."

  "An arrow is a nasty piece of work. If they don't strike something vital straightaway, then you die of septicemia from the dirty point."

  "Don't say that. Hensley's got a fever now." They waited until well after dark, as Rutledge had done before, driving up the north road, then walking out through the fields.

  Mainwaring said, "Is all this secrecy necessary?"

  "Possibly. The girl's grandmother lives in Dudlington. As soon as someone sees us carrying tools toward the wood, the gossip will fly, and I don't want it to reach her before I do."

  "No, I agree."

  They walked in silence for a time, and as the wood loomed dark in its fold of land, Mainwaring whistled. "The Haunted Wood."

  "That's exactly what most of the people in this vicinity believe."

  "Has it ever been cleared out?"

  "Who knows? It may have been larger in the past, and whittled away until this was all that was left. Or it may be the same size it's always been." He shifted the pitchfork on his shoulder. "But when the village was moved here and rebuilt in the shadow of it, the houses turned their backs to it."

  "Superstition is a powerful emotion. My family live near Avebury. My grandfather swore he saw lights moving among the stones on moonless nights-" He broke off. "Speaking of lights."

  They could see what appeared to be a shaded lantern bobbing among the trees.

  "Get down," Rutledge murmured, and they dropped to their haunches, their silhouettes blending into the ground.

  For another quarter of an hour, they watched the light. Then it was doused, and whoever had walked there seemed to vanish.

  Rutledge dropped his pitchfork.

  "Stay here." He started running at an angle to the trees, keeping his profile low, intending to cut off whoever had been in the wood.

  After several minutes he saw someone walking up the slope of the Dower Fields toward the village. Whoever it was, he was wearing a long coat that flapped around his ankles as he kept up a brisk pace. A hat, pulled low, changed the shape of the head. Rutledge thought perhaps whoever he was chasing was glad to be out of the wood and trying to reach the security of the village as quickly as possible.

  The figure had reached the far side of the church when Rutledge ran hard toward the back garden of the rectory and used the shadows of its walls to hurry toward the churchyard.

  He stumbled over a low tombstone, choked off a curse, and then ran on, trying to watch where he put his feet.

  As he came around the far corner of the church, he nearly collided with the figure.

  It let out a cry of alarm, recovered, and tried to turn back the way it had come, but Rutledge was on it, catching at the nearest shoulder with an iron grip.

  A lantern fell to the ground, rolling under his feet.

  The figure ducked, twisted, and almost broke his grip, but as it struggled the hat came off, and Rutledge pulled his quarry around for a good look at its face.

  Only it wasn't a man. It was Mrs. Ellison.

  27

  Rutledge was shocked into speechlessness. Of all the people he had expected to find in Frith's Wood, Mary Ellison was the last. He released her at once. She stood there, and he could feel her eyes glaring at him, but her voice was husky as she spoke. "You aren't the only one to watch from windows," she said. "What have you found in the wood? Who was the man you brought back to Dudlington with you? Inspector Cain? Is my granddaughter there in the wood? Tell me!" "I don't know-" he began, still at a loss for words. What could he say to her? Hamish answered his thought. "Nothing. It's too soon." Rutledge said aloud, "We've been searching quietly, so as not to cause you pain. Or give people a reason to gossip." She was still breathing hard. "I saw you putting the implements into the car. I saw you leave. Where else would you be taking a rake or a pitchfork at that hour of the night but the wood? I couldn't sit there waiting." Her voice shook. "I have a right to know what you've
found, and why you brought that other man here!" "Mrs. Ellison, let me take you home." She seemed to shrink into herself. "It can't be my granddaughter. I won't believe it. In that heathen, unblessed place? No, I refuse to believe it." "What did you find, when you got to the wood?" "Nothing." She was still breathing hard. "It was dark, and the lantern cast shadows everywhere. I couldn't stay any longer, that place terrifies me. Nothing in the world could ever have taken me there but Emma." "Let me see you to your house. It's very cold, and you've had a shock." She shook her head. "I know my way. Go back there and do whatever it is you have to do." As his own breathing slowed, he watched her walk steadily down Church Street and turn into Whitby Lane, and then he went on across the fields again to find Mainwairing. He wasn't where Rutledge had left him, and it was clear that his curiosity had got the better of him. Rutledge went down to the wood. The leaf mat under his feet was silent, and he walked carefully, almost from memory. Mainwaring had his torch and the lamp, and he was on his own. "There." It was Hamish speaking. A flash of light caught his eye and he went in that direction. Mainwaring nearly jumped out of his skin when Rut- ledge spoke from behind him. "Found any bones?" "Blast you, Rutledge! Did you catch whoever it was you were chasing?" "Yes. Let's get on with it. This way." It took him a few minutes to find the bones again, and he gently pushed aside the covering he'd drawn back over them. Mainwaring squatted at his heels. "Interesting."

  "Saxon massacre victim?"

  "Lord, no, not at all. Look at the condition. This wood isn't the Irish peat bogs, you know. The conditions here are deplorable. Here, let me get closer."

  They exchanged places, and Rutledge held the lantern while Mainwaring worked.

  It took some time to clear enough of the skeleton to make a judgment. The small bones were gone, carried off long since to feed whatever animal had discovered them. But the skull was there, and the shoulders, part of the rib cage-and the pelvis.

  Mainwaring whistled under his breath while he worked, as if to keep the spirits at bay. At one point, he said to Rut- ledge, "I can see why the locals don't like this place. I don't much care for it myself. When I walked under the branches of the first trees, I felt as if I'd stepped back in time to something ugly. Do you believe in ghosts, Ian?"

  "I could be persuaded to here. What are those, the thigh bones?"

  "Yes. Best indicator of height. But the feet are gone."

  He continued to work, the lantern light shining on his face and on the bones that came to light under his careful prodding, his hands moving delicately as he cleared away rotting leaves and earth.

  "That should do it," he said, getting stiffly to his feet. "You can have the local man-Inspector Cain, was it?- bring in people to finish the work. There's no point in keeping this business secret any longer."

  "You're telling me, then, that we've found what we came here to find."

  Rutledge felt depressed. It was a sad end for the pretty, lively girl he had pictured in his mind. Now the question was, who had brought her here and hidden her body?

  And what was he going to tell Mary Ellison tomorrow morning?

  This morning.

  Mainwaring was cleaning his hands on his handkerchief. "You were right to send for me. It wouldn't have done to pursue this case under the impression it explained Hensley's unfortunate wounding. He couldn't have had anything to do with our bones."

  Rutledge said, "I'm sorry?"

  "I've just poked a hole in your favorite theory. This isn't your lost Emma Mason. This is a man's body. Probably closer to thirty-five than to forty. But he didn't bury himself. Which says he was murdered. I can't tell you how, there's nothing on the remaining bones to show us." Inspector Cain came with his team of workmen and watched them scour the area around the site of the burial, looking for more evidence.

  The people of Dudlington clustered close by the church, watching silently but unwilling to come any nearer.

  Rutledge had knocked on Mary Ellison's door as soon as he'd reached Dudlington, fairly certain she hadn't gone to bed.

  She answered the door fully dressed and stood there staring at him, waiting for the blow to fall.

  He said, "We didn't find Emma. I don't know whether that's a comfort to you or not."

  He thought for an instant she was going to fall, for she swayed and then caught the edge of the door's frame with her hand.

  "I can't tell you whether it is or not. At my age, there's not much time left to hope." The body was brought out of Frith's Wood in a blanket and carried to Letherington.

  Speculation was rife. Mrs. Melford and Mrs. Arundel had found an opportunity to speak to Rutledge, and Mrs. Channing had come down to Hensley's parlor, her face filled with sadness. "I think I'm going to return to London," she told Rut- ledge when there was a chance to speak to him privately. "I don't like this place. It seems so bleak this morning, with everyone unsettled by what's happening in the wood." "I saw the rector go into Mrs. Ellison's house, hobbling on crutches. I would have taken my oath that I'd found her granddaughter. And I think she believed I had as well, although I didn't tell her what we'd discovered." "Just as well. She's a strong woman, she'll manage. Still, it brought everything back to her, I'm sure." "Yes." "Who is the young man who was working with you?" "He's from London." Mainwaring had gone up to Hensley's bed and fallen asleep there, not stirring for several hours. Rutledge wished he could have done the same. Two nights without rest had left him groggy. And the ankle that had plagued him for several days had begun to ache again like the very devil from stumbling over the grave in the churchyard. Hamish, withdrawn and silent, seemed tired as well. Mrs. Channing, her mind elsewhere, said thoughtfully, "This exonerates Constable Hensley. The girl wasn't buried in the wood after all. Or so everyone is saying. But what happened to Emma Mason?" "I don't know. I don't suppose anyone will." "I don't think I'd be very good at police work. It's dreadful sometimes, isn't it?" "Dreadful, yes." "I took the liberty of making tea," she told him. "You'll find it on the dining room table." "Thank you. I don't seem to have much appetite this morning." He walked into the dining room and poured himself a cup, adding sugar and a little milk. She followed him there and stood in the middle of the room, as if uncertain what to do, go or stay. "Did you really want those bones to belong to the girl?"

  He reached in his pocket for a telegram that Inspector Cain had handed him that morning, while waiting for his men to do their macabre work in the wood.

  "I asked one of my best men in London to find what he could about Beatrice Ellison and her daughter, Emma Mason. He couldn't trace either of them. Mrs. Ellison believes her daughter died when the Germans marched through Belgium. It may be true. Even so, it doesn't explain what became of Emma."

  She took the telegram and scanned it. "Yes, I see. This, then, was your last hope. The body in the wood."

  "It may still be there, of course. But I have a feeling it isn't."

  "I understand."

  She went back to the office to fetch her coat. "Was there a young man involved in the girl's disappearance, do you think? If she's married and living elsewhere, she'd be hard to find."

  "There was a young man-he was set to marry someone else. Whether she got herself involved with him or not, I don't know. He died in the war. There's a memorial to him in the churchyard."

  "Then she disappeared by her own choice. Perhaps because of that someone else. It would be hard to live in a village this small with the other woman, so to speak."

  "For a time," he said, "I thought the other woman had killed her."

  Her eyebrows went up. "It could still be true."

  "I'd dig up that rose bed, if I thought it would do any good," he said, half to himself.

  It was Hamish who answered him. "Or look beneath yon wall." Grace Letteridge came to call shortly after Mrs. Channing had gone back to The Oaks.

  She stepped briskly into the office and said, "I expect I owe Constable Hensley an apology. I always believed it was he who killed her. That he went to the wood time and again to see if a
nything had been disturbed. It made sense that he couldn't stay away, that he wasn't able to put it out of his mind. Out of guilt. But she's not there, after all."

  Rutledge said, "Hensley isn't well. He may not live. Whoever shot him may be guilty of murder."

  "I didn't do it, if that's what you're accusing me of."

  "You told me once," Rutledge said, taking the chair behind the desk and leaning back in it, "that you would like to see him dead."

  She made a gesture with her hand, as if brushing away his words. "I'm not a murderer. Although I do have a temper sometimes. I won't deny that."

  "We're back where we began, then. Tell me, how old is your rose garden?"

  "If you're asking me if Emma is buried there, you're a fool."

  "We could dig it up and find out. Inspector Cain can bring his men back to do it, after they've finished in the wood."

  She turned to go. "You'll have to get a warrant, first," she told him. "I won't let you touch it without one." Rutledge was leafing through the file on Emma Mason when Mainwaring came in from conferring with the police in Letherington.

  "I've talked to the local people-Cain, and his sergeant, and their coroner. Your body has probably been out there in the wood for some time. We aren't in agreement about how long, but if you want my best guess, it would be forty years."

  "Forty-"

  "Indeed. We've examined the bones in good light and in more detail, looked at the condition, and sifted through the soil around and under them. And this is what came out of the earth under them."

  He held out a slim gold toothpick.

  Rutledge took it, turning it in his fingers. It had been engraved: Christmas 1881.

  "It doesn't prove he died then. He could have carried this for many years."

  "And this."

  It was a farthing, cleaned of its earth and corrosion. And it too bore the date 1881.