by Charles Todd
And then Rosemary Hume stepped out of the shop, and looked up to see Rutledge speaking to her houseguest. For an instant he thought she was about to turn away. Instead she gave him a cool greeting, and Rutledge asked how she was coping.
"I've had time to understand what happened to us, to Max and me," she said. "If he didn't care enough to go on living, if he couldn't face me with the truth of his feelings, then our marriage was over." She held out one hand, stripping off its glove. Her finger was bare of rings. "I intend to take him at his word, and go on with my own life as I see fit." But as she turned to pass the basket filled with her purchases to Reginald, Rutledge caught the reflection of unshed tears in her eyes. Recovering, she said, "I thought you had pressing Yard business in Sussex."
"It's what took me to Wales. I'm returning to Sussex now." He hesitated. "Rosemary-"
"Ian, no! Don't make excuses for him." She turned to Reginald, but before he could step out of the motorcar to turn the crank, Rutledge forestalled him.
"I'll see to it."
He did, and moved to one side. With a nod, she drove away.
Hamish said, "Ye canna' talk to her. No' until she's at peace."
"Yes," Rutledge answered, returning to his own vehicle. "That's true. At least Reginald has stayed with her. In the end, that may help her more than anything I could do or say." H e didn't stop in London. The three days were up at sundown. He paused in Hampshire and tried to put a telephone call through to the brewery, but there was no answer. He realized that Tyrell Pierce's office must already be closed. And there was no way now to reach Constable Walker, to tell him to keep the six men under lock and key until he could arrive in Eastfield sometime in the early hours of the morning.
He tried next to telephone Inspector Norman in Hastings, in the hope that he could get word to Eastfield. But Inspector Norman was out on another case, he was told, and Rutledge would have to wait for his return.
He attempted to explain the situation, but the man on the other end of the line said firmly, "I'm sorry, sir, you'll have to speak to the inspector."
Swearing to himself, Rutledge grimly set out again, making the best time he could.
He hoped that Walker would have the good sense to wait. But with each mile he was more and more convinced that the objections of the incarcerated men would prevail, and Walker would let them go. After all, he had to live in Eastfield, long after Rutledge had returned to London.
And there was nothing to be done about it but to pray that the waiting killer failed to find one of his targets alone and vulnerable.
10
I t was closer to five in the morning when Rutledge drove into Eastfield and drew to a halt outside the police station.
He had had to stop for an hour's rest somewhere in the New Forest, pulling to the side of the road in an effort to rest his eyes. The night sounds around him were soothing, and he had slept instead. For a wonder Hamish was quiet. He had been busy ever since Rutledge had left Chaswell, taking advantage as he so often did of the stress that was already filling Rutledge's mind.
It was becoming increasingly apparent that something more than an event in the war lay behind these murders. For one thing, there was the face that Hartle couldn't place, a face that worried him, on the day he was killed. Who was it he'd seen, and had he not only tried to find that man again, but encountered him in the dark on the headland? And why the headland? For another, the connection between those identity discs and the murders was less clear than it had first appeared.
And there was Daniel Pierce as well, whose name kept cropping up.
Were these pointers toward the truth, or was he still missing something that would bring the disparate pieces of the puzzle together?
But even Hamish was silenced by sleep, brief though it was-no more than twenty minutes, but twenty precious minutes if a man's life was hanging in the balance. The day had broken now. Whatever was going to happen had already happened.
He sat for a moment in the motorcar, fighting his fatigue and staring at the closed and silent police station.
It was one of the hazards of police work, making the wrong judgment. He had done his best to protect the six potential victims of this killer, rather than taking the chance that the murderer wouldn't strike again while he was away. But at the same time, he'd accepted a risk of a different sort-by denying the killer his opportunity, he could have changed whatever plan there was to these murders and caused it to take on different, possibly more personal overtones. He wasn't interested in finding out whether he could outwit the murderer or not. He was only intent on stopping him.
He got out of the motorcar and stretched, his muscles tight and cramped from the drive from Wales. And then he walked to the door of the police station and put out his hand to lift the latch.
The door was firmly locked.
He stood there for a moment, his tired mind trying to grasp what that meant. A police station was always open. If the constable wasn't there, he left a message on the desk telling whoever needed him where he could be found.
Foreboding gripped him. He knocked firmly, using his knuckles. And there was no answer.
He had no idea where Walker was. At home? At the scene of another death? And there was no one about at this hour, the street quiet and shuttered.
And then Rutledge remembered Mrs. Sanders, who had seen the lorry driver come through Hastings and then return again for the police after he'd spotted the first body on the road. Rutledge had read her statement.
He turned and looked across the way. Where was she? Not in the shops-or even above them. Then he saw the tall, narrow house wedged between a milliner's and an apothecary's. It looked to be one of the oldest buildings in Eastfield, brick and timber, the upper story leaning slightly to one side, as if the foundation had begun to subside when the newer apothecary's had been built.
Crossing the street, he walked up to the front of the house and looked up at the double windows of the first floor.
One window was open to the slight morning breeze, the lacy white curtain billowing into the dark room behind, and Hamish said, " 'Ware!"
Rutledge peered intently at the window and then realized that behind the panel of white curtain was a tiny, wizened face, looking to be as old as the house itself.
He called to the woman staring down at him, pitching his voice so that it carried to her but didn't rouse neighbors on either side.
"I'm looking for Constable Walker."
"Come in," Mrs. Sanders called after a moment. "I never lock my door."
He turned and lifted the latch. The door swung open easily, and he stepped into a narrow dark passage. To one side, stairs climbed to the first floor. To the other, shut doors led into two rooms, and then a third door closed off the passage at the far end.
He took the stairs two at a time, and rounded the railing toward the open door of the room that overlooked the street.
A chair stood by the window, and in it sat the woman he'd glimpsed from below, cushioned and pillowed and covered with a quilted comforter.
She turned her head to smile at him, the wrinkles in her face smoothing across her withered cheeks. But the eyes in that face were neither clouded nor dim. They were the color of pansies, almost a purple they were so dark a blue. Her well-brushed white hair, drawn back into a smooth braid that lay over one shoulder, looked like a pale halo in the shadow of the curtain.
"Come in, young man. You must be the policeman from London. I've seen you come and go from the station with Constable Walker."
"Yes, I'm Inspector Rutledge. Mrs. Sanders?"
"Indeed I am. There's a chair behind you. Do sit down."
He sat. "I'm trying to find the constable. Unaccountably, the station is locked."
"So it is. He came out shortly after midnight and walked away. I think he locked the door as a precaution."
"A precaution?"
"He was afraid those who were inside would try to leave."
Rutledge felt a surge of sheer relief. "He's kept the six men locked u
p inside?"
"Oh, yes, but it wasn't an easy task. I could hear the yelling last night. My guess is, that's why Constable Walker left. There's nothing wrong with my eyes or my ears. Only my limbs have given out."
"I believe you. Do you sit at that window every night?"
"And every day, except when I take my meals. I'm nosey, you see. And I have the world spread out before me here. I don't need much sleep. I doze when I feel like it, and the rest of the time, I watch. It can be quite entertaining. Eventually the whole town passes beneath my window or across the street from me."
"You gave Constable Walker a statement regarding the lorry driver-" He had been about to say, the driver who found the first body, but broke off.
"Don't be shy, young man. There have been four murders in this town, if you count poor Theo Hartle. I have a woman who comes and cleans for me, and another who brings my evening meal. We gossip."
He was sure they did.
"Have you seen anything else from your window? Strangers who come to Eastfield in the night but who aren't to be found during the day?"
"There was a man, before the killings began-perhaps a week before. It was dark when he came walking up the Hastings Road. I couldn't see him clearly enough to identify him. He was moving without haste, like a sightseer taking in the view. I thought it was odd, even so, but I decided he was looking for work and trying to determine whether he stood a better chance here or in Hastings. I expect he chose Hastings, because I never saw him again."
He said, taking a chance, "Did you know Daniel Pierce well enough to say with any certainty that the man wasn't Pierce?"
Her eyebrows rose. "Danny Pierce? Do you think he's come home? Or considered it?"
"I don't know. You must tell me."
She gave that some thought. "I can't see Danny slinking through Eastfield in the dark. He'd come striding in. There are those who would be happy to see him, if he did."
"Then who else could that man have been?"
"If I come up with a name, I'll tell you," she promised. "Meanwhile, there's Constable Walker standing by your motorcar, wondering where you might have got to."
Rutledge rose and glanced out the window. And he had a perfectly clear view of the constable, framed as neatly as a photograph for Mrs. Sanders's pleasure.
He thanked her and left, closing the house door behind him. As he started across the street, Constable Walker called testily, "I wondered where you went. I was about to try the hotel." He waited until Rutledge had reached him and added, "What did you learn about those discs? I hope it was worthwhile. I've had to put up with enough abuse while you were away."
"The Yorkshire corporal had never had discs. The Welsh sapper found that his were still in his trunk, where he expected them to be. There was no time to move on to Cheshire, but I'm beginning to think we need to take a closer look at those discs we have."
"You're saying there's no feud between companies?"
"The two men I questioned had never heard of our victims. But they knew Daniel Pierce by hearsay. He was a colorful man, apparently."
Walker frowned. "Mr. Pierce-his father-won't be pleased with that news."
"And you are not to tell him. This is a Yard matter. We'll leave him out of it until we need to question him again. Meanwhile, I was very glad to see you'd kept your charges."
"Actually, I let one of them go in the middle of the night. His wife had her baby, there were complications, and Dr. Gooding sent to ask if he could come home. I locked the door to the police station and took him there myself. As it turned out, mother and child are fine, but they could have lost the baby."
"Well done. Let's see how the rest of our charges are faring."
Walker unlocked the door to total silence. He glanced at Rutledge, and crossed to the cabinet behind his desk to retrieve the lantern he kept there. Then he led the way to the large holding cells where he'd incarcerated the six men. When he opened the second door into that passage, his eyes had to adjust to the gloom before he saw his five remaining prisoners. They were standing, backed up against the cell wall, faces pale and eyes squinting against the sudden glare of the lantern, trying to see who was behind it. And then they recognized their jailer, their gaze traveling on to the tall figure behind him.
There was an outburst of protest, vociferous and heated.
Rutledge had expected their anger to be directed at him, since he'd insisted on locking them up here. He wasn't disappointed. As he sorted through the words tripping over one another as the men demanded to know why Walker had abandoned them for the remainder of the night, he realized that they had come to agree with him about the danger they were in.
After a moment, Rutledge raised his own voice, accustomed to being heard on a battlefield, and stopped them in midsentence.
They glared at him but fell silent. He turned first to Walker's nephew.
"Now. One at a time. What's happened?"
"There was someone outside. Not fifteen minutes after my uncle had left with Tom. And here we were locked tight in here, like fish in a barrel," Tuttle told him.
"What do you mean, someone outside?" Walker demanded. "In front?"
"No, there, " Tuttle said, pointing to a side door.
Walker said to Rutledge, "There's an alley outside. It led down to the stables and outbuildings. They were torn down at the turn of the century, and a warehouse for Kenton Chairs built in their place, facing the street that runs behind the station." He strode down the short passage and shook the latch, but it was still secure. As he came back, someone else took up the story.
"At first it sounded as if he was trying to force the lock. And then for a time there was nothing. We were just settling down when we could hear him again. I swear it sounded as if he was sliding something under the door. Marshall thought he might be blocking it, but after a bit it smelled as if he was trying to burn his way through. The passage filled with smoke. You can still smell it!"
Walker sniffed the air, then turned to Rutledge. "Do you?"
Rutledge nodded. It was faint, but enough smoke lingered to pick it out, now that it had been brought to his attention. Walker went again to the door and this time opened it. "Inspector? Sir?" he said after a moment, and Rutledge went to see what he'd found.
Charred rags were jammed against the bottom of the door, and Rutledge bent down to touch them. They were still damp, as if they had been lit and then nearly doused, to create a maximum of smoke with a minimum of fire. Rutledge looked up the alley toward the main road, but he couldn't see Mrs. Sanders's window. Which meant she couldn't have seen whoever was at work here.
"He could have set the building on fire," Walker declared, kicking the rags away from the door, and then squatting beside them to sift through them. But they were torn cloths, something that could have been found in a dustbin or a tip, Rutledge thought, used for cleaning and then discarded.
"I doubt the station would have caught. The outside of the door is blackened but not heavily charred. I think he was intending to stampede your charges."
Walker got to his feet. "If that's what he was after, he succeeded. There must have been pandemonium. Nobody relishes the thought of being burned alive."
"He must have seen you leave with Tom. He knew he was safe."
Walker looked at Rutledge. "I don't like the sound of that. That he was watching." He took a deep breath. "I was of two minds when you wanted these men clapped up. But now they'll be released, and the two of us can't watch six of them."
"But fright may have sharpened their memories. Let's find out."
They went back inside and told the anxious men in the holding cell what they'd discovered.
Tuttle, Walker's nephew, said, "Be damned to him, then. He's a coward."
But Marshall disagreed. "My uncle was out in India for a time. He told me that old tigers got a taste for man, when they couldn't kill larger prey. And they were more dangerous because of that. Their brethren in the jungle would slip away if they got the scent of a person. But not these.
"
"He's not a tiger," one of the other men said. "He's mad, that's what he is."
"I don't think so," Rutledge answered him. "And I ask you again. Is there anything in your pasts that could have come back to haunt you? Is there anyone who has ever held a grudge? In the war, here in Eastfield, in any place for that matter."
But they shook their heads.
Hamish said, "It was something loomed large in the killer's mind. But ye ken, not in theirs."
"How well do any of you know Daniel Pierce?" Rutledge asked. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Walker's gesture intended to stop him from asking these men about the younger Pierce. But this was a murder inquiry, and Tyrell Pierce couldn't set limits on the directions it took.
"We knew him as a boy. But not as a man," Tuttle said after a glance at his companions. "He went away to school, you must know that, and even when he was home during holidays, he didn't have anything to do with us. Then after the war, he was hardly here in Eastfield before he was gone again. It was 'Mr. Daniel' then, and touching your cap to him."
"Did you resent his going away to school? Or was there something between you before then, while he was still Daniel? An old hurt, a misunderstanding, a case where no harm was meant, but he took it hard? Or perhaps you did?" His eyes swept the half circle of men, and he read nothing there that would help him.
"He gave as good as he got," Marshall answered, his glance sliding toward Walker and then away again. "We avoided him if we could manage it. He was Anthony's-Mr. Pierce's-little brother, and no one cared to have him tag along after us. What's more, he was a tattletale if we weren't careful, and on purpose he never got it right. Often as not, we were in trouble for something we hadn't done. I was that glad when he and his brother went off to that school. We'd had enough of both of them."
Rutledge considered the man, wondering what he had to hide. Because his voice and his shifting gaze betrayed him.
Hamish said, "He didna' care to be caught."
And that was very likely it-Marshall had been a ringleader in whatever mischief was afoot, and Daniel Pierce was a thorn in his side.
