by Charles Todd
With that he turned his back on Rutledge and went to sit again on his cot, his head in his hands. Rutledge stood there watching him, then walked away.
15
W hen Rutledge came back again to Inspector Norman's office, it was clear that the two men had been having words. He could almost feel the tension, and their faces were flushed.
"I didn't learn anything of interest," he said. And with a nod to Inspector Norman, he walked out to where he had left his motorcar. After a moment Chief Inspector Hubbard joined him.
"Is there somewhere we can talk privately?" he asked.
Rutledge said, "By the water."
They drove toward The Stade, pulling over where they could. The fishing boats were in, and the air smelled of salt, tar, and fish. The tall net shops were black against the sun, almost sinister, and the headland above them was a deep, rich green.
"That's where they found Mickelson. In one of those sheds, hanging from a hook," Chief Inspector Hubbard told Rutledge.
"Good God!" After a moment Rutledge said, "I assumed he'd been found in Eastfield. Small wonder Inspector Norman was unwilling to step aside. As it is, he'll keep probing. That man of his, Petty, is very good."
"The fleet goes out very early," Hubbard went on. "That means he must have been put there while it was still dark. The killer brought a length of rope from somewhere, to pass over the hook. Or he found it in one of the sheds."
Hubbard turned to face Rutledge. "If Carl Hopkins hadn't been in custody-and if Mickelson had been garroted-I might find myself wondering if you hadn't been very very clever. He very nearly got you killed. Twice over, if I remember."
Rutledge laughed grimly. "You know damned well I didn't touch him. You also know what Chief Superintendent Bowles was playing at, calling me to book for misconduct. He must have panicked when he heard about Mickelson. He must have thought he was next."
Hubbard said only, "I wouldn't joke about that, if I were you."
"He was protected by Bowles. If I'd been tempted to kill the man, I'd have done it in London and put his body into the river somewhere east of The Poole. By the time they'd fished him out, there would be no way of knowing how he died, where he died, or by whose hand. They would be lucky to know who he was. I might as well have hung a placard around his neck with my initials on it, leaving him in that net shop. I'm not that much of a fool. And I have no wish to hang."
"Then who met him outside the churchyard and lured him into a motorcar? Assuming, that is, Mrs. Farrell-Smith is remotely telling the truth."
"Who found the body?"
"Fishermen coming for their nets. Must have scared them out of ten years' growth, I should think. Why the hell are they so tall and narrow, these net shops?"
"A blow to the tax man, I'm told. When the town tried to levy new taxes on building footage here, the fishermen looked at their long drying sheds and thought, why not build them vertically? They did, the taxes were eventually revoked, but the sheds stayed. They must burn from time to time or fall over in a gale, but the fishermen thumbed their noses at the authorities."
"You haven't answered my question about the motorcar," Hubbard pointed out.
"If it's true, if Mickelson was met by someone, then the killer came looking for him." He gestured toward the dark red bonnet of his motorcar. "In the dark that could be red. Or green. Or even blue or black. She saw the shape of a touring car, not the color. Or possibly she saw the two men talking, and invented the motorcar to throw suspicion in another direction."
"Why should she do that?"
"She could have thought it was Daniel Pierce. She's been waiting here for him to return since before the war. And he did come home, to stay in Eastfield only a matter of a few weeks."
"She's in love with him?" Hubbard asked.
"I don't know," Rutledge said, "whether she wants to have him or kill him. It depends on whether or not she killed her husband for him."
"Quite," Hubbard said as Rutledge turned the motorcar and drove out of Hastings. As they climbed toward Eastfield, he added, "But Mrs. Farrell-Smith is not our business at the moment. Are you certain these killings aren't war related?"
"I'm sure of nothing. Someone knows the answer-but that someone may not realize the importance of it. Whatever happened, it appears not to have made a deep impression on the victims of these murders. That makes it all the more personal to the murderer."
"Then I should think this man Hopkins fits the bill very well indeed. From what I was told he held a grudge that no one else knew about."
They were silent for the rest of the drive, but as they were coming down the Hastings Road into Eastfield, Hubbard said, "I'm not comfortable, leaving you to cope alone."
"Then you still believe I struck Mickelson."
"Be reasonable, man. It was a misunderstanding."
But Rutledge remembered the feel of that cell and the walls closing in on him, and the miasma of fear and hopelessness embedded in the very paint. He stopped the motorcar at the hotel and said, "I'll find someone to drive you to the nearest railway station after you finish your business here." As he got out of the motorcar, he added, "I've lost the promotion. I understand that, even if Mickelson lives to clear me. You can tell Chief Superintendent Bowles-"
He left the sentence unfinished, and walked away.
Chief Inspector Hubbard had the good sense not to follow him.
Of all the people he could think of who would talk to him, Theo Hartle's sister seemed to be the best choice.
He found her just clearing away the tea things, and she said as she came to her door, "We've just finished-would you care for some tea?"
"Thank you, no. I need to talk to you, Mrs. Winslow. It's a pleasant afternoon. Will you walk a little way with me?"
She cast a glance over her shoulder. "I think my husband has nodded off in his chair. I ought to be here, if he wanted anything when he wakes up."
"He's just had his tea. I shouldn't think he'll need you straightaway."
She came reluctantly. "Where's the other man, then? If you're back again?"
"Didn't you hear?" But he could see she hadn't.
"We're not often in the village," she explained. "I only go when I really need something."
"He was nearly killed."
"Like those other men?" She stared at him, horrified.
"No. Someone fractured his skull."
"He's a policeman, " she said, as if that made it all the worse, that authority itself had been flouted and threatened with chaos. "I didn't care for him, but still and all-" She looked over her shoulder, as if there was someone following them. "We're all that afraid of going out at night. Hardly anyone stops by the pub, they say."
"That's not why I'm here. Tell me about your brother's life."
"He was a bouncing baby. That's what Mum always said. Full of vinegar from the start." She smiled, tears welling in her eyes. "But he was never in any trouble. Just mischief, that sort of thing. I didn't like it when he was teasing me about my freckles. But he meant no harm." She shook her head.
"Teasing can hurt," he said.
"It did sometimes," she admitted. "He called them my spots, and told Mum to wash my face in buttermilk. And he tried it once, but they didn't go away. 'You've got spots,' he'd say, and sometimes I'd cry. Mum said he was just being a boy. They went away when I was older, my freckles, I mean, and I was glad of it."
Boys will be boys…
Where else had he heard that? Was it Constable Walker who had said it?
Rutledge stopped, turning to face her. "Did he tease anyone else? Or were you his favorite target, because you were his sister?"
"Oh, they were always teasing one another," she said. "It could be cruel, sometimes, you know. But they didn't mean it to be. It's just that children see things that adults try to pretend don't exist. Jimmy Roper's ears stuck out when he was small, and they told him he looked like a jug. And Mary, Will's sister, stuttered. They'd mimic her something fierce, which only made it worse. This was in the
school yard, when the schoolmistress wasn't in hearing. Or on the way home, sometimes. Miss Tate helped her overcome her stutter, but it must have been hard to do. And there was another boy, I forget his name. But they tormented him too, when no one was about. We never told. We didn't dare, although I said to Theo more than once that it was unkind." She shaded her eyes to look up into Rutledge's face. "Boys don't always think, do they? That words can hurt?"
"And the other boys-Jimmy Roper, Will Jeffers, even Anthony Pierce-went along with tormenting other children?"
"Anthony didn't like it, but he was too afraid to speak up. He was a little younger, and not as big then as the other boys. Could we turn back now? I really shouldn't have walked this far."
They had reached the churchyard. Rutledge said as they reversed their direction, "You've been very helpful, Mrs. Winslow. If you think of anything else, will you leave word for me at the police station?"
"Yes. I will."
She walked back into her house and closed the door on the narrow world that encompassed her life now. He thought how pity, mistaken for love, could ruin lives. It was what he hadn't wanted from Jean.
Which reminded him of Meredith Channing, but he shut his mind to that memory and went to find the constable.
Walker was glad to see him. "Speaking no ill of a man unable to speak for himself," he said after greeting Rutledge and asking if he was taking over the inquiry, "but Inspector Mickelson was not pleasant to work with. I can't think why the Yard would replace you."
"Mrs. Farrell-Smith complained of my conduct. She also believes I tried to murder Inspector Mickelson."
Walker smiled. "How would she think that? You weren't in Eastfield that night."
Had Walker said as much to Hubbard? Rutledge wondered.
"She claims she saw someone in a motorcar meet Mickelson by the churchyard and then take him up. If she's right, then that someone owns a motorcar very much like mine."
"Now that's odd," Walker said, the smile vanished. "As I remember, that's what Daniel Pierce drives. Only it's dark green. I didn't know he'd come back to this part of the world."
"It's not an unusual motorcar," Rutledge pointed out. "But I rather think Mrs. Farrell-Smith is afraid it did belong to Pierce."
"I didn't think she knew him."
"How well do you remember Daniel as a child? Was he bullied by the older boys? Or was he spared because he was Pierce's son?"
"If they did bully him, it never came to my ears. I do remember a time or two when Daniel came home from school bloodied, and his father was angry with Anthony for not protecting him. Anthony told his father that Daniel had deliberately started the fight."
Daniel as the aggressor didn't make sense. Rutledge said, "Did Pierce come to you?"
"I was young and green. I talked to Daniel, but he was stubborn even then. I got nowhere. But I told his father I thought he'd learned his lesson."
"I want you to bring in two or three of the men we incarcerated. I'll talk to them, see what they can tell me."
"Now?"
"Before dark. I'll see that they reach home safely afterward."
He left Walker and went to the hotel, where he was given a room. He asked if Inspector Mickelson's room was on the same floor, and the young woman behind the desk said, "He's-he was-in number seventeen. Constable Petty and then a man named Hubbard were here, asking about it."
"I'd expected as much," he said, smiling. He took his key and went up the stairs two at a time. It didn't take him long to discover that his key also fit number seventeen, after a little jiggling. He opened the door and stepped inside.
The bedclothes were turned down, but the bed hadn't been slept in. Mickelson's clothes were hung tidily in the wardrobe, and his razor, toothbrush, and soap were on the washstand. The towels on the side rack appeared to be fresh, untouched.
Where had Mickelson gone between his evening meal and that appointment at the rectory gates?
Rutledge opened the desk drawer. There was stationery inside, and a few sheets had been used to jot down notes. Rutledge read through them.
For the most part they consisted of brief references to what he, Rutledge, had done while in Eastfield: R to Pierce, R to rectory, R to F-S, K to R, as Mickelson retraced his predecessor's steps.
In London, Chief Inspector Hubbard had mentioned that Mickelson's method had been to revisit Rutledge's progress-or lack thereof-and draw new conclusions.
Under the list he'd already scanned there was a question mark, and then the comment, Kenton says Hopkins is obsessed. Lives alone, no witnesses to his comings or goings. Motive strong enough? Talk to him again.
And a later notation: Gave his permission to search premises. Not surprising, no garrote. Denies making discs. But good with tools. Could have stamped them out after hours, when other employees had left.
On a separate sheet were listed the names of the murder victims, and below that, another of potential victims-all of them the men Rutledge had kept in gaol while he was trying to locate the ex-soldiers whose names had been imprinted on the identity discs shoved into their mouths after death.
Near the bottom of the page was a larger question mark, drawn in heavy strokes.
Doesn't feel right, Mickelson has scrawled just below it. What if I'm wrong and the killing begins again after we've all gone away?
The final line was ambiguous.
Why Hastings? Ask R.
Rutledge set the sheets back inside the drawer and closed it.
Did the second sheet represent uncertainty on Mickelson's part before or after he'd arrested Carl Hopskins? They weren't numbered.
Why Hastings? Ask R.
Standing there, looking down at the street below, Rutledge considered that R.
He found it hard to believe that Mickelson would have contacted him about Hastings. Who, then, was the R? The rector?
Opening the door a crack, he listened, but the passage was quiet, and he stepped out of the room, shutting the door again. Glancing at his watch, he could see that he just had time to call on the rector before dinner.
But the rector wasn't at home, and his housekeeper, an elderly woman with a plain face, informed Rutledge that he was with the elder Roper, the second victim's father.
"He's been feeling rather down, since Jimmy's death. Rector takes a book and goes to sit with him from time to time. Poor soul!"
"Can you tell me if Inspector Mickelson called here at the rectory two nights ago? It may have been rather late."
"He's the one they just found in Hastings," she said, and shook her head. "I don't know what the world's coming to. Has he died, then?"
"He's still unconscious. Was he here, do you know?"
"I leave after setting out Rector's dinner," she said. "Unless he's ill. I live with my sister, and we sew of an evening. So I wouldn't know who comes to call later than seven."
He thanked her and left, walking through the churchyard as the sun's heat dissipated. Looking up at the church tower, and the weather vane swinging slightly west in the light breeze, it occurred to him that the rectory housekeeper often knew more about events in a village than anyone else-sometimes including the rector himself.
Retracing his steps, he knocked again. When the housekeeper answered a second time, Rutledge said, "I wonder if you could help me, since Mr. Ottley isn't here. Have you lived in Eastfield most of your life?"
"All my life," she told him complacently, "save when Mr. Newcomb and I went to Cornwall on our wedding trip."
She invited him inside, leading him to the parlor and offering him a chair with the simplicity of someone accustomed to receiving the rector's visitors and making them comfortable until he returned. But when it came to sitting with him, she was clearly ill at ease, perching on the edge of her own chair.
"How well did you know the murder victims? I wonder if you could tell me what they were like as schoolboys. Were they often in trouble, or were they generally good youngsters?"
"Not troublesome, precisely," she answered, cons
idering the matter. "Lively, I'd say. Thoughtless, sometimes, as when they set fire to the old mill. The fire could have spread, you see, but it didn't. Except for Mr. Anthony, his brother Daniel, and Theo Hartle, they were farmers' sons, and eager to be outside, not shut up learning history and Latin and the like. Not that some of them weren't good students. The elder Miss Tate told me once that Jimmy Roper could have made something of himself if he hadn't been the only son and expected to inherit the farm. Theo was very good at numbers, and if he hadn't had such a gift for working with wood, I think Mr. Kenton would have made him bookkeeper."
Here finally was the information that Mrs. Farrell-Smith could-should-have found for him in the school records.
"I've heard," he said, choosing his words carefully, "that there was some problem with young Daniel Pierce."
"He got his nose bloodied a time or two," she said, nodding. "But he was a sweet boy, nevertheless. He just never wanted to be a brewer. That was Mr. Anthony's life, he was always underfoot there. The foreman's wife told me once that Mr. Anthony wanted to go hop picking, to learn more about them." She smiled at the memory. "His mother put a stop to that. 'When you're older,' she told him."
"Were the brothers on good terms with each other?"
"They got on well enough together. They were just different. Mr. Daniel was always adventuresome, and Mr. Anthony more bookish. In 1910 when there was all this talk about going out to Africa to grow coffee, I told Mr. Newcomb it was a shame Mr. Daniel wasn't old enough to give it a try, but he said if the boy didn't care for the brewery, then he wouldn't be one for growing the coffee beans."
