by Charles Todd
He was about to walk on when out of the corner of his eye he saw a shadow at a window above hers.
He kept going, showing no sign of having noticed.
The school was closed for a week. Was it Daniel Pierce waiting for Rutledge to leave, or was it Tommy Summers back in Sussex and using the empty building to hide from the police?
Out of sight of the school, Rutledge stopped and considered how best to extract Mrs. Farrell-Smith without alerting whoever it was at the window above hers. Surely she would remain in her office a few minutes longer. He had a little time.
Moving quickly, he went down a list of people he could trust. Constable Walker would arouse suspicion, coming on the heels of Rutledge's visit. Mr. Ottley, from St. Mary's? Neither seemed to be the best choice. Summers would be on alert.
Coming toward him was Mrs. Winslow. She was walking with her head down, eyes on the road, but she carried a marketing basket over one arm.
He thought there was a good chance that Mrs. Farrell-Smith would let her in. But with what excuse? She had no children in the school. No reason to call.
Just behind her was Tyrell Pierce's clerk, Starret, hurrying in the direction of the brewery with an envelope in his hand.
Rutledge touched his hat to Mrs. Winslow and after she had gone on her way, stopped Starret.
"Sir?" the man asked, looking up at him.
"I need a favor, Starret. Will you go to the Misses Tate School and hand a message to Mrs. Farrell-Smith? She's there at the moment. I'd like it to appear that Mr. Pierce has asked to speak to her."
"But he hasn't, and I have this account to return to the brewery office."
Rutledge smiled. "I'd like to invite Mrs. Farrell-Smith to dinner. But we got off on the wrong footing, and I'm afraid she won't see me. Perhaps you'd help me lure her out of the school where I could speak to her. I'll explain the subterfuge when I see her."
"I really can't oblige you, sir. Mr. Pierce was most strict in his instructions."
Rutledge said, "And I am most strict in mine." He reached for the envelope in Starret's hand, and as the clerk expostulated, he wrote on it, I must see you at once. Please come. He signed it simply Tyrell, and prayed she couldn't recognize the man's handwriting.
"Inspector-"
Rutledge lost patience. "The sooner you deliver this, the sooner you can return to the brewery," he said. "And make it look as if you really came from Pierce. If you fail me, I'll have something to say to Pierce about your conduct."
The man gave him a reproachful look, and then walked on without a word. Rutledge watched him go.
Five minutes passed, time enough, Rutledge thought, to deliver the message. But neither Starret nor Mrs. Farrell-Smith appeared.
He thought, "If it's Summers, I've given the man a second hostage."
But there had been no choice, as Hamish was pointing out.
Another five minutes passed. Rutledge paced impatiently, ignoring the stares of passersby.
It was time to take action, he thought. And prayed that he hadn't sent two people to their deaths. He was just turning away when around the corner came Starret, with Mrs. Farrell-Smith at his side.
Rutledge breathed a sign of relief.
She saw him waiting, and at once called, "Did you speak to Tyrell? I thought I could trust you!" She was very angry.
He nodded to Starret, dismissing him, and when Mrs. Farrell-Smith reached him, he took her arm and led her toward the hotel. "Don't say anything more," he commanded in a low voice. "Just come with me."
She stared at him, about to pull away from his grip on her arm, and then something in his face alerted her.
"You've found Daniel," she began, anger fading, hope taken its place.
"I'm afraid not. At least I don't think I have. When I left the school, I saw you standing in the window. There was someone else by the window on the floor above you."
She stopped stock-still, and he urged her on.
"Not here. The hotel. We've drawn enough attention already."
She relented and said nothing more. He took her into the hotel lounge and found a chair for her.
"Are you sure?" she asked, keeping her voice low. "A trick of the light, perhaps? I'd have sworn the school was empty. I'd have heard someone walking around. I know every sound!"
"I'm not mistaken. Are you certain there's no one else in the building? And the greengrocer's son isn't working today?"
"No one should be there. The only reason I was there was to return some papers to my office, and then I decided to spend half an hour working." She shivered. "What if I'd encountered him when I went to Sixth Form for the marks? My God, he knows the school inside and out, doesn't he?"
"How many doors are there in the main building?"
"Let me think. There's the main door, of course. And the side entrance you know about. The door to the kitchen gardens. The terrace, with French doors, where we hold our teas, and of course, one into the coal cellar. That's too many-he'll be out through one as soon as you enter another in force."
"We must wait until dark. It will take that long to collect enough men from Inspector Norman to cover the school."
"Will there be-damage to the school? I answer to the trustees, they'll hold me accountable." She twisted a ring on one finger. "My aunts thought I was too young to have sole responsibility. And I was. But now…"
From Reception came the sound of voices, and he looked up. It was Inspector Norman in search of him.
Rutledge excused himself and went to intercept him.
"We've just finished searching the tunnels beneath the castle ruins, but he's not there. Still, I think you ought to come and see what we've found in one of the caves."
"Yes, give me five minutes." Rutledge returned to Mrs. Farrell-Smith. "I must go. Is there someone you can stay with? Where you'll be safe? I don't think it's a very good idea to go home."
She was frightened, her face pale. "Surely you don't think he was in the school to kill me? I wasn't even there when he was taunted."
Rutledge said, "Under the circumstances, it's best if you come to Hastings with us. If you don't mind sitting in the Inspector's office, you'll be safe if not precisely comfortable."
Relief washed over her face, and she went with him to where Inspector Norman was waiting.
"I'll explain on the way. At the moment, Mrs. Farrell-Smith is in protective custody."
Norman said, "Just hurry, that's all."
They left for Hastings, and after dropping his charge at the police station, Rutledge went with Inspector Norman to the caves that ran under the cliff on which William of Normandy had built his first castle. There was a warren of the caves, spreading out from shorter tunnels, and Rutledge was reminded of what lay under Dover Castle in Kent. Nature had contrived them, but man had made use of them.
At the mouth of one such cave, a man had set up a sideshow to accommodate the curiosity of holidaymakers looking for something to do on a rainy day. A painted donkey, crudely made from wood and plaster of Paris, was harnessed to a wooden cart laden with packets of silk and tobacco, kegs of whisky, and other contraband. On the wall behind was a painted canvas drop showing smugglers off-loading an array of goods from the decks of a French fishing boat drawn up close into the shore. Goods were passed from hand to hand by men standing knee-deep in water, then shouldered to carry to similar carts waiting to take the contraband to the caves.
Norman led Rutledge quickly past the other exhibits, continued beyond a barricade blocking the way, and soon came to a small offshoot of the main cave where a constable stood guard over a lamp-lit scene.
A small camp bed, a flat-topped chest bearing a lantern, and a chair stood out against the surrounding gloom. The smell of damp mixed with the cave odors of stale air.
Norman stepped forward into the shallow area and opened the chest. It was obvious as he shone his torch at the contents that he'd seen them earlier, before summoning Rutledge. Dark workmen's clothing, a pot of what appeared to be black grease paint, r
ags, and a Thermos of water lay inside. A pair of chimney sweep brooms stood in a corner, and a workman's lunch pail hung beside it.
"He could come here, change his clothes, and go out again as a different person," Norman was saying. "A laborer on his way home, a sweep with brooms over his shoulder, whatever little vignette he chose. Not a very clever disguise."
But effective. Rutledge could feel his claustrophobia mounting, but he held up a shirt, gauging the size. "Yes, it could be the man I saw. Medium height, medium build. How does he come and go?"
"I shouldn't think it would be too difficult after dark to get through the lock the showman has put on the grille across the entrance. This exhibit isn't officially allowed, but the man does no harm, and his presence here deters others from using these tunnels for more nefarious pastimes."
Rutledge turned to leave, fighting down rising panic. "Summers could hardly walk into The White Swans in these garbs. But he'd be equally suspicious wandering about Eastfield in a gentleman's clothing. Did you find the garrote?"
"No, damn it. He'd be a fool to leave it in plain sight."
"More importantly, he probably has it with him."
"For that matter," Norman pointed out, "there are no identity discs here. Blank or otherwise."
"He must have taken those as well. I think he's preparing to kill again. At the end of the war, he was on burial detail. Did you know? He'd have seen enough of the discs then to copy them exactly. As for names, he could have collected them from any soldier he met. He didn't want the names of the dead-ghosts don't kill. And he wanted us to search half of England looking for those men. Dust thrown in our eyes. But I think I know where he is. And I'll need your help getting to him."
Norman nodded to the constable on guard, and the three of them left the shallow depression.
Back into the sunlight again, Rutledge told Norman what he suspected.
"I can bring enough men to cover the entrances. But who's going in? We don't know if he's armed. I wouldn't be surprised if he is."
"I'll go in. I think he wants to garrote me, not shoot me."
"By the way, there's a message for you from the Yard," Norman said after a moment. "Mickelson is feeling better, and he's pushing the doctor to release him. He wants to take the case back from you."
"Wanting is not having," Rutledge answered. "And with any luck at all, if I'm right, we'll catch our elusive friend tonight."
But in the back of his mind, he heard Hamish's words. "What if he's cleverer than you?"
24
R utledge escorted Mrs. Farrell-Smith back to Eastfield, and she sat beside him in the motorcar in pensive silence most of the way.
She had already agreed to take a room at The Fishermen's Arms as a precaution, but now she said, "There must be something else I can do. After all, some of this is my fault."
"Do you know where Daniel Pierce is?" he asked, not looking at her.
It was some time before she replied. "When he came to tell me that he was leaving Eastfield for good, that he was never coming back, I was so angry I picked up the first thing to hand and threw it at him. It was the paperweight from my desk, and it actually hit him in the face. I was appalled. I stood there unable to say anything. And he just turned and left my office." She coughed, to ease the constriction in her throat. "I tried to tell myself it was the war, the danger he lived with every time he went into one of those abominable tunnels, or perhaps it was blowing up so many men. I don't know. But he needn't have lied to me."
Rutledge was wary, now. Had Daniel Pierce told this woman about Peggy Winslow? Or had she guessed the truth?
"What lie did he tell you?" he asked when she didn't go on.
"It was ridiculous. Daniel, the most exciting man I'd ever met, always a scapegrace, always fun, never dull-in France even his men adored him. And he stood there in my office and told me he was converting to Catholicism and becoming a lay brother in a contemplative order. If he didn't love me, if he didn't want to marry me, I could understand that. If he needed to put the war behind him, I'd have done everything in my power to help him. What was even worse, he thought I'd believe him. It wasn't until the killing began that it all made sense. I'd found the garrote of course, and I thought, he left me because he was starting to lose his mind and didn't want me to know. And I thought, if I can find him before the police do, I can still save him." She turned to him, grief in her face, wanting to hear Rutledge make light of the lie and tell her that Daniel loved her as much as she loved him and would come back one day.
"That explains why you told the police it was my motorcar you saw by the rectory gates, when you thought it must be Daniel's."
"Yes. I'm so sorry. But I'd do it again, if I thought it would protect him."
Rutledge considered what she'd told him, and he thought Daniel Pierce must have given this woman the literal truth. That he was withdrawing from a world he couldn't face-not because of the war as she wished to believe, but because of the ill-found marriage of Peggy and Virgil Winslow, about which he could do nothing. It would explain too why the Yard had failed to find him. The police had looked in the wrong directions all along.
He said, "He may have told you the truth, you know. That he was looking for a peace that you couldn't provide. An-absolution."
He had meant the carefully chosen words to give her a little peace as well. But she was blind to what he was saying, seeing it as a reaffirmation of her own belief.
Mrs. Farrell-Smith sat back, reassured. "Then he was letting me know he'd be all right, wasn't he? And that I must try to be patient until he's healed."
Rutledge let it go. She would be happier living with forlorn hope than with bitter truth. It was obvious how fiercely she could love, and he had a feeling that she could hate just as fiercely. And Peggy Winslow was vulnerable. Time was not always a healer-as often as not, it was just a measure of how long someone had waited.
As they turned into the hotel yard, she said, "Please. Find something for me to do. I'm responsible for the school. What if he decides to burn it down? Who knows what he could do, to try to cover his escape? I'll be worried sick until it's over."
After she had been given her room key, Rutledge asked the desk clerk for paper and pen, and told Mrs. Farrell-Smith what he wanted. Then he went to find Constable Walker.
He would have given much to put a watch on the school long before this, as soon as Mrs. Farrell-Smith was safely out of it. He had learned a grudging respect for the man they were after, well aware that Summers was capable of circumventing any plans the police chose to make. But Walker agreed with Rutledge that there was a greater risk of losing their quarry altogether if he got the wind up and slipped away. Besides, in daylight, there was no way to guard the rear of the property without being seen-the pastures beyond were flat and empty of shelter.
"If he thinks you saw him, he's already gone away," Constable Walker pointed out. "What I'm counting on is that he wants his revenge so badly, he'll take a chance that you didn't notice him."
Rutledge tried to picture the street in front of the school. "There's the first floor in the greengrocer's house."
Walker was skeptical. "You can see the main door from those windows, but there's not a good view of the alley."
"Then we wait until dark, and box him in."
With an eye to that plan, there was something else Rutledge needed to attend to. He spent quite some time closeted with an assistant at the ironmonger's shop, and left there well satisfied with their knowledge of what he wanted.
Restless now, with nightfall still hours away, Rutledge patrolled the village and outlying farms on foot, staying well clear of the school but covering as much ground as he could. There was no indication that Summers had left the school building, but Rutledge spoke to every man whose name might appear on the killer's list, telling them to be alert. He found all of them save Tuttle, whose mother informed him that her son was in Hastings until the morrow. "There's a girl," she'd said. "He can't stay away from her."
A
ll the same, as a precaution, Rutledge ordered Walker to be on the lookout for his nephew, in the event he came back to Eastfield earlier. The course of true love seldom ran as smoothly as expected.
At length night fell, and Inspector Norman and his men arrived in Eastfield in the sunset's afterglow, that soft light that was always slow to fade. They went directly to St. Mary's Church, as agreed, where they were not as likely to draw attention to themselves. He had brought a sergeant, Constable Petty, and two other constables whom Rutledge hadn't encountered before this. Both were sizeable and quiet.
At Rutledge's request, Mrs. Farrell-Smith had spent her afternoon sketching maps of the school and marking the exits clearly. After each man was assigned to guard a specific door, Constable Walker explained how to reach their posts unseen, carefully describing landmarks to help them find their way in the dark. The main door was the most difficult to reach, even using the shadows for cover. It was decided to leave that to the last, once the other men were in position.
"You'll have only a few minutes to reach your destination. I want you in place by the time it's completely dark. Mark me, don't go inside the school, no matter what happens. The point is to bottle him up. I'll do the rest," Rutledge told them. "This is a dangerous man. You're not to take any chances if he comes your way. Use your truncheons to stop him if need be. Here are your signals. One long blast of your whistle if he comes your way. Two short if you need help. One short and one long if you see he's got out of the building. Understood? Good. Any questions?"
Rutledge led them outside to the apse of the church, to accustom their vision to the gathering dark, then saw them off. He turned to Inspector Norman, who was taking the main door. "I'm going in that side door I showed you on the map, because I know my way there. Your task is to back up anyone who gets in trouble. But stay outside. If anything moves in that building, I'll be assuming it's the killer. You don't want to get in the way."
"You ought to be armed."
Rutledge said grimly, "I am."
