Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction

Rutledge knelt there considering the prints, hearing again Mrs Gravely’s description of how Sir John’s December caller had sounded coming up the walk to the door. These prints were not recent. He would swear to that. Fresh dust had settled over them, almost obliterating them in places.

He went back through the house looking for something, anything, that might be a clue to the interloper.

All he found was a crushed packet that once held cigarettes. It had been tossed into the coal stove and forgotten. He smoothed it out as best he could and saw that it was an Australian brand.

Giving it up, he went back to the door on to the terrace and stepped out, shutting it behind him.

Jesse was still sitting in his boat, smoking a cigarette of his own.

“Where can I buy Australian cigarettes?” Rutledge asked the man.

“Portsmouth, at a guess. London. Not here. No call for them here. Why? Develop a taste for them in the war, did you?”

“No. I found an empty box in the house. Someone had been living there.”

Jesse seemed not to be too surprised. “Men out of work in this weather take what shelter they can find. I came on one asleep in my boat a year back. Wrapped in a London newspaper for warmth, he was. I bought him a breakfast, and sent him on his way.”

“Any Australians in Dartmouth?”

“Up at the Royal Navy College on the hill, there might be,” Jesse told him, manoeuvring the boat expertly into the stream again. “But they’d be officers, wouldn’t they? Not likely to be breaking into a house.” The ornate red brick college — more like a palace than a school, and completed in 1905 — had seen the present king, George V, attend as a cadet. Jesse bent his back to the oars, grinning. “What do you want with a derelict old house?”

“It’s not what I want,” Rutledge said pensively, “but what someone else could very easily wish for.” He turned slightly to look up the reaches of the River Dart, already a broad stream here as it fed into the harbour. “It wasn’t always in disrepair.”

But to kill for it? Hamish wanted to know.

That, Rutledge answered silently, would depend on what Sergeant Gibson discovered in London.

He found a telephone, after Jesse had delivered him back to the old quay in Dartmouth. Watching through the window as the ferry plied the waters between the two towns, he asked for the sergeant and, after a ten minute wait, Gibson came to the telephone.

“The old man, Barnes,” the sergeant began. “He died in a freak accident. Slipped in his tub, and cracked open his head. Foot was swollen with gout at the time. There was some talk because the staff was not in the house when it happened. They’d gone to a wedding in Kingswear. The constable come to investigate thought there was too much water splashed about the bathroom. But the servants were all accounted for; the son predeceased his father, and the daughter was in India. The inquest brought in accidental death.”

“The son was dead?”

“As far as anyone knew. He’d got himself drunk and wandered on to Dartmoor. They never found his body, but his cap was hanging on a ledge, half way down an abandoned mine shaft. A shoe was found at the edge. When the father was told, he cursed himself for disinheriting the boy. He was certain it was suicide.”

But was it?

That was years ago, and should have no bearing on a murder in Cambridge in 1920.

“Sometimes memories are long,” Hamish reminded him.

And Hamish should know, Rutledge thought grimly, for the Scots were nothing if not fanatical about revenge and blood feuds.

“Who owns the property at present?” he asked Gibson.

“It came to Sir John when his wife died.”

Just as he’d thought.

He left Dartmouth for the long drive back to Mumford. Once there he located the offices of Molton, Briggs, and Harman, who were, according to the rector, Mr Harris, solicitors to Sir John Middleton.

Mr Briggs, elderly and peering over the thick lenses of his glasses, said, “The police informed us of Sir John’s death. Very sad. Very sad.”

“Since he had no children, I need to know who stands to inherit his property?”

“Now that’s very interesting,” Briggs said, clearing his throat. “He has left the cottage in Mumford to Mrs Gravely, for long years of devoted service.” Taking off his glasses he stared at them as if expecting them to speak. “I doubt he expected to see her inherit so soon.” Putting them back on his nose, he said, “There is a bequest to the church, as you’d expect, and certain other charges.”

“And the property in Dartmouth? How is that left?”

“The one formerly known as Trafalgar? It was to go to a cousin of his first wife, but she died of her appendix. He made no decision after that. Until last December, that is, when he came in to tell me that the house was to go to the son of his late wife’s brother.”

“The brother died on Dartmoor. Years ago. After being disinherited.”

“The brother fled to Australia for charges of theft. The death on Dartmoor was staged to save the family the disgrace.”

“The brother was a convict?” Rutledge asked, surprised. Even Sergeant Gibson had failed to uncover that information.

“Yes. He gave the police a false name. His father went to Dartmoor and staged his son’s death. To spare the then Lady Middleton. So Sir John told us in December.”

“Then the son couldn’t have returned to kill the father.”

“The fall in the bathroom? He was drunk. He stayed drunk much of the time.”

“Was Sir John quite certain this was his brother-in-law’s son?”

“Yes, he had the proper credentials. It’s quite in order.”

And the son had gone to Dartmouth and slept in the house that would be his. Had he then decided to hasten that day? Or had he been given permission to begin repairs on the house?

Mr Briggs didn’t know. “I was told to make the necessary changes to Sir John’s will. I was not privy to any other arrangements between the two.”

The house would require hundreds — thousands — of pounds to make it habitable again, let alone to restore it. The young Barnes, with his wooden foot, had been there and seen what was needed.

Had he come back, when he realized that the bequest was an empty promise and that the house would fall down around his ears, long before Sir John died a natural death?

“Where can I find this young Barnes?”

“I was given an address in London. I was told that he could be reached through it.”

Briggs fiddled with the papers in front of him, found the one he wanted, and told Rutledge what he needed to know. “I expect it is a residence rather than a hotel,” he added.

But Rutledge recognized the address. It was a small hospital where the mentally disturbed from the war were committed when there was no other course open to a doctor.

Rutledge thanked Briggs, and turned the bonnet of his motorcar towards London.

The street where the hospital stood was not far from St Paul’s Cathedral. Two adjoining houses had been combined to form a single dwelling, and the main door was guarded by an orderly with great moustaches. Rutledge showed his identification, and was admitted. Reception was a narrow room with a long desk against one wall. Another orderly sat there with a book in front of him. He looked up as Rutledge entered.

“Sir?” he said, rising to stop Rutledge’s advance. “Are you looking for someone?”

“Yes. A man by the name of Barnes. He was in the war, has a wooden foot. I expect he’s a patient here.”

“Barnes?” The orderly frowned. “We don’t have a patient named Barnes. There’s a Doctor Barnes. Surgeon. He lost his foot in the Near East.”

Surprised, Rutledge said, “Is he Australian?”