A Fatal Lie

by Charles Todd

  “And did he find any news of Tildy?”

  “Sadly, no, but he tried. I was willing to ask his help, because I could see how much it mattered to Sam, and it’s what I do, save children who can’t save themselves. And mothers who are at their wits’ end, trying to provide for their families.”

  “Will you give me his name?” He waited for her to say it, confirmation. “And where I can find him?”

  “No, not until I speak to him myself and ask his permission.”

  “It would be best if I spoke to him instead,” he said persuasively. “In confidence. It’s important, Mrs. Radley. Or I wouldn’t ask.” But her face was set. “Then perhaps we could find a compromise. If you will let me take you to him, so that you can introduce us, would that do?”

  She was as stubborn in her own way, he realized, as Ruth Milford was.

  He didn’t want to threaten her. But he had no choice. “I’ve just brought Mrs. Milford to the Shrewsbury police and had her taken into custody for refusing to help the Yard with an inquiry. If you don’t give me the information I need, I will have you taken into custody as well. Your benefactors will think twice about their generosity, if you spend several days in a cell like a common criminal.”

  She didn’t believe him at first. But when he rose and began to charge her, she turned quite pale and said, “You can’t do this.”

  “If necessary, I’ll send for a Constable. My motorcar is still by the police station. We will have to walk there, the three of us. And your neighbors will see you in handcuffs being led away.”

  “You are a horrible man,” she said, close to tears.

  “I’m sorry. If I must do this to find a murderer and a lost child, I will do it.”

  She put up her hands to stop him. “I will give you what you want. Under protest. He’s a solicitor.”

  For an instant he thought she was going to give him Hastings’s name. Bringing him full circle. And not the name he wanted so desperately.

  But when she spoke, in a low, stricken voice, he wasn’t prepared.

  17

  “Alasdair Dale.”

  He said, “Lying to the police is not wise, Mrs. Radley.”

  “But I’m not lying. You wanted this information. I gave it to you. Now go. Please.”

  “How did you meet him?”

  “He was a friend of my husband’s. Didn’t you know? Matthew was a solicitor before the war. They were in school together.”

  She had always been Andrew Clark’s sister. Radley’s widow. There had never been a reason to look into her late husband’s past. He’d died in the war . . .

  Reading something in his face, she said almost waspishly, “That’s the trouble with the truth, isn’t it? No one is comfortable with it. But I warn you. You can’t bully Alasdair the way you’ve bullied me. He won’t stand for it.”

  “When Sam Milford asked you about contacts in Oswestry, did you mention that to Dale? Did you tell him about Brewster, at the dairy farm? And Brewster’s sister Betty?”

  “I didn’t know Brewster had a sister. But yes, I did ask Alasdair if he knew someone in Oswestry who might be in a better position to help Sam. I knew how important this was to Sam. But Alasdair didn’t. He told me he’d never dealt with a solicitor there, or even had clients in the town. And so I had to give Sam Mr. Brewster’s name after all.”

  The link was there. It was possible.

  “And did you tell him that Sam Milford had been killed? That I had been sent from London to find out what had happened to him?”

  “I was horrified, upset. And so I wrote to Alasdair. There was nothing wrong with that.”

  “What did you tell Dale about Sam’s business in Oswestry? That he was searching for his missing daughter?”

  “Well, no, not until he asked.”

  But none of this would matter, if Dale had no connection at all with Ruth Milford.

  He walked back to the police station and went directly to Mrs. Milford’s cell.

  She was still wearing her coat, sitting wretchedly on the cot with its unpleasant blanket and the chamber pot against the wall.

  He stepped inside, asked the Constable to give him ten minutes with the prisoner, and waited until he’d heard the man’s footsteps receding down the passage.

  “Have you come to gloat?” she asked, striving to keep up a brave front.

  “No. To ask you if the father of Tildy Milford is Alasdair Dale. Not Thornton.”

  If he’d struck her, she wouldn’t have been as shaken. That name, coming without warning, after all she’d been through to protect it, was too much. She didn’t have any defenses left.

  Still, she tried to lie to him, to deny the truth. Protesting strongly that she didn’t know anyone of that name, on her feet at one point, begging him to listen.

  “Dale was an officer in the Bantams,” he told her. “For all I know, he was Sam’s commanding officer. Is that how you met him? Through Sam?”

  Giving up any more pretense, she sat down again on the cot and buried her face in her hands. “No—I-I knew him long before I met Sam. It had nothing to do with Sam, ever.”

  “If that’s the truth, tell me.”

  He leaned his back against the frame of the door. Waiting.

  Her voice now was little more than a thread. “I spent a summer in Ludlow, with my aunt. My mother had been ill, and Aunt Lily took me until she’d regained her strength. I was sixteen, and I fell in love. Alasdair was staying with friends, it was during summer hols at Oxford, and it was the happiest summer of my life. He was older, but we were going to marry as soon as I was eighteen. That’s what we told each other. And then I was sent for, to come home. He’d promised to come and see me at Christmas. He wanted to speak to my father, he said. He never came, and in the new year, I learned he was to be married as soon as he came down. Only a few months away. But not to me. I thought my heart would break.”

  He said nothing. Letting her tell the story her way.

  “Life has a way of going on. I survived, my heart survived. And later, I fell in love with Sam, and married him. I was very happy. When the war came, Sam wanted to enlist, but he was told that he wasn’t wanted, that he was too short to be a soldier. It was a blow, a terrible blow.” She looked at him. “You’re tall, you’ve always been accepted wherever you go. You can’t begin to know how men like Sam felt. They were healthy, they were strong, they wanted to fight, and they were turned away. And then Kitchener agreed to the Bantams. Sam left for Shrewsbury and then Chester as soon as he heard, eager to be in that first company. He was so fearful that there might not be enough men enlisting for a full battalion, but of course there were hundreds, and then thousands. Some of them walked for miles, just to sign their names. He said it was remarkable to see. And one man who barely even made the new height regulations offered to fight any six men there, to prove his worth. Sam came home a soldier, and all I could think of was, what if I lose him?”

  She couldn’t go on, weeping now. And then she wiped her eyes angrily and said, “He came home overnight, to show us his uniform, and an officer on his way to Ludlow dropped him at the bar. They had a few drinks, everyone there, and then the officer went on his way. I never saw him. I’d had a miscarriage. I hadn’t even told Sam I was pregnant, I didn’t want that to matter. To hold him back. Later, when my father put up one of the photographs he’d taken that night, so proud of Sam, and pointed it out to me, there was the officer—standing in the background. And I knew him at once. It was a shock. But he wasn’t Sam’s company—he just happened to volunteer to drive two or three of the men south, to give them a little more time with their families. By then the trains were overcrowded, one had to wait and wait.”

  She gave him an accusing glance. “That was the photograph you took from the pub. I’d managed to put it off in a corner, I didn’t want it where I could see it every day.”

  “I didn’t take it,” he said. “I was nearly certain that it was Sam’s sister who took it.”

  “Susan?” she re
peated blankly. “Why would she want it? I don’t understand.”

  “She was there—at Little Bog—when it was taken. I thought she must have come for it. I didn’t know what it showed. Or why she should want it.”

  “No, you must be mistaken. She doesn’t even know Alasdair. Besides, when my father sent a copy of that photograph on to Sam, he sent it to his sister. Proud of joining up. But she wrote to him and said she’d torn it up.”

  He let that go. “When did you see Dale again?”

  “I’d gone to Shrewsbury. Mostly to speak to some of the firms that supplied the pub. It was December, and that evening I went to a friend’s house, to a Christmas party. I hadn’t seen her in ages, and when the invitation came, I was glad of it. My mother had recently died, I was missing Sam terribly, I hadn’t had a letter in weeks. I was wretched. And in walked Alasdair. He was convalescing in a clinic outside Shrewsbury. He told me his wife had died in 1916, while he was in France. I was surprised, shocked, to see him. He was still on crutches, they thought they might have to do another surgery on his knee. And then in the new year, he told me he was being transferred to another clinic in Wales, while the knee healed. He asked me to come and raise his spirits. He even sent me a ticket for the train to Chester, where he had a motorcar waiting to drive me the rest of the way. I nearly tore it up. Instead, I went. And—and you must know the rest of it. Thornton was the name we used, so that no one would know. It seemed exciting at the time, and later—later it seemed tawdry. The last time I saw him, he’d just got his orders. The knee wasn’t perfect, but he was eager to get back to his men. I was more than a little upset. That’s why I went into the tailor shop, and I kept him waiting for me outside. I think I wanted to make him jealous.”

  “You never told him about Tildy?”

  “Oh—no—no one knew. Not even Nan. Not even the doctor in London.” She looked up at him plaintively. “Will you let me go home now?”

  “I’ll take you myself. But I must ask. Are you certain he never learned you’d had a child?”

  “I don’t see how it’s possible.”

  But Tildy didn’t resemble either of her parents. She’d had that bright red hair and green eyes.

  “Did Susan know you’d had a child, you and Sam?”

  “I don’t know—Sam tried to find her after the war. He’d lost track of her. He was afraid she might be dead—so many died in the influenza epidemic, and even the solicitor, Hastings, had no idea what had become of her—but he did his best to find her.”

  And that was where the solicitor Hastings entered this web of intrigue, like the spider in its center, controlling the various threads.

  Hastings, who was Sam Milford’s solicitor, who had drawn up his various wills. Who knew how to find Susan Milford. Who could have told her about Sam’s pretty little daughter, and how unusual it was for parents of their coloring to have a red-haired, green-eyed child. How Sam doted on her. But the one piece of information Hastings had never had was the name of Tildy’s father. Because Sam himself had never known it.

  Hamish, who had been there in the back of his mind for a very long time now, said, “Dale is fair, wi’ blue eyes.”

  He found himself repeating the words aloud, to Ruth Milford.

  “Alasdair’s father had red hair just like that. I saw him, when I was sixteen, and I knew as soon as I saw Tildy, that she was going to look like him. I was horrified, and then I was glad I’d told Sam about the attack in Oswestry. You were right, I lied to him too. But it explained why Tildy didn’t look very much like either Sam or me. No one in my family ever had such lovely bright hair. Or even green eyes.” She bit her lip. “How could I confess to Sam that I’d had an affair? How could I hurt him like that? The lie was terrible enough.”

  He said, “I’ll have a word with Inspector Carson. Then I’ll take you home.”

  She looked him straight in the eye. “If there was any other way to reach Crowley tonight, I’d take it rather than go as far as the door with you. I’d walk, if I could.” Then she asked, “Who told you? Who else knew about Alasdair?”

  “No one else knew. Not in the sense you mean. Dale is associated with a charity here in Shrewsbury. One that Sam had also used to find if Tildy had been taken and then adopted somewhere else in Shropshire or Cheshire. I don’t know if they ever crossed paths there. I don’t know how Dale discovered that you’d had a child. Or even when. But Dale was told about your husband’s search for Tildy. He must have guessed then, even if he hadn’t known before.”

  He wasn’t sure where her loyalty lay. Whether she would warn Dale that Rutledge knew his name.

  Another thought occurred to him. “Did he give you the shoe? I need to know.”

  “All right. Yes. He did. He knew how worried I was about the pub, that last weekend in Llangollen. The German prisoners would be sent home at war’s end. The Bog would be closed then. It didn’t matter, they weren’t allowed to come to the pub. Little Bog was already dismantled. We were struggling even then. He told me he’d like to help, but I didn’t want anything from him then. I was too hurt, he was leaving and it was over. I felt—never mind how I felt. And then for no reason—all these years later—he sent that shoe. It had nothing to do with Tildy, I swear to you. And it wasn’t as if he’d sent money. He knew I wouldn’t accept money from him. But I told myself he could afford to part with the shoe now, and that meant that Tildy would be taken care of.”

  “Then Sam did know who sent the shoe?”

  “He thought it was from a distant cousin of mine, whose heir had died in the war.”

  She had told so many lies . . .

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she said, anger and pain and loss in her voice as she turned on him. “That Christmas, when I saw him again at the party in Shrewsbury, I needed to know if I still loved him. Alasdair. That’s why, when he wrote to me in January, I agreed to meet him. But I didn’t know until too late—in March, when he told me he had received his orders and was going back to France—that I wasn’t in love with him after all. How much I loved Sam. And not very long after Alasdair was back in France, I discovered I was pregnant. That my sins were coming back to haunt me.”

  She kept repeating the story of their first encounter, as if trying to justify herself, find something that would excuse what she’d done, make it less her fault.

  “Did Alasdair feel the same way about the past?”

  “He swore that Christmas that he was still in love with me. But I knew better after Llangollen. That Romeo and Juliet romance in Ludlow hadn’t lasted for either of us. We had grown into very different people without realizing it.”

  He was reminded suddenly of his engagement to Jean. Blindly in love that summer of 1914, and with nothing in common but the past when he’d come back in 1919, a broken man.

  He took a deep breath. “I’ll speak to Carson,” he said again, and left.

  He didn’t tell her that he himself knew Alasdair Dale.

  “The name,” Carson said. “You have it now, or you wouldn’t be letting her go. Who was it? And is this person important to your inquiry?”

  “He’s a solicitor in Chester. I’m taking Mrs. Milford home, and then I’ll drive up there and interview him. I’ll know more when I’ve done that.”

  “Just remember that Shrewsbury is on your way. And the police station isn’t difficult to find.” He considered Rutledge, then said dryly, “Was it the cell that made her give up that name? We like to think ours are progressive, not medieval.”

  “It was a combination of pressures, most likely. But thank you. And—while I’m here. I’d like you to go on keeping an eye on Dora Radley. She’s not directly involved, but she knows the man in question too. They are involved with the same charity, and there may be other connections I haven’t uncovered. I’d like to know she’s safe while I’m away.”

  “I’ll see to it. I don’t need one of your corpses showing up on my doorstep.”

  Ruth Milford remained stubbornly silent on the drive back to
Crowley.

  It wasn’t until they were within sight of the pub that she said, “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t stay here tonight. Or any other night. If there is anything in your room, I’ll have Will bring it down to you. Make your excuses and go.”

  “My valise.”

  “Wait in the yard, then. Don’t come in. I’ve got to face Nan and Donald and Will. It’s not going to be pleasant, I don’t know what to say to them.”

  “I kept my promise. Your secret is still safe.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment. “It was selfish, wasn’t it? I’ve regretted it every day since then. But I don’t regret Tildy. I’ve never regretted having her.”

  “Where is she, Mrs. Milford?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never known. I have truly never known.”

  She got out as soon as the wheels of the motorcar stopped turning, hurrying into the pub without looking back.

  He got down, set her valise by the door, but didn’t go in.

  Five minutes later, Will appeared, tossed Rutledge’s valise out into the yard, then slammed the door in his face.

  Five minutes after that, he was on the road, driving back the way he’d come.

  To Shrewsbury, and then to Chester.

  Alasdair Dale had sent him to a tailor who had remembered Banner, opening up the inquiry into the body found in the River Dee. Giving it a name. Had he expected the search for Banner to go nowhere? Or had he anticipated what Rutledge would do, speak to tailors until he found one who could tell him what he needed to know? Making certain he himself appeared to be helpful.

  Had he known, even then, that the dead man was Sam Milford? And that the woman Dale had had an affair with in Llangollen had just lost her husband? That the child he’d fathered even existed?

  He must have done. Dora Radley had confided in him.