Charles Todd - A matter of Justice

When someone knocked at Maitland's door shortly after midnight, Rutledge came awake with a start. He fumbled for his dressing gown and slippers, then went to answer the summons.

At first sight of the grim-faced uniformed constable standing on the doorstep, he thought, Oh, dear God, Edgar insisted on driving all the way-and there's been a crash. And then the next thought, Pray God they aren't hurt badly!

He could feel the presence of Hamish, stark and loud in his ears as he said, "Good evening, Constable. Not bad news, I hope!"

And waited to hear the worst.

But the middle-aged man standing there in the quiet night air asked, "Mr. Rutledge, sir?"

"Yes, I'm Rutledge. What is it, man?"

"There's been a telephone call from London. Chief Superintendent Bowles, sir. He says you're the nearest man to the scene and would you return his call at the Yard straightaway."

Relief washed over him.

"Let me find my shoes and a coat."

He went back up the stairs to the guest room, leaving the constable standing in the hall, waiting for him.

When Chief Superintendent Bowles wanted a man, it paid to be prompt. Throwing his coat on over his pajamas and thrusting his bare feet into the shoes he'd worn for the wedding, he wasted no time wondering about the summons. Closest to the scene generally meant that Bowles had little choice in the matter of which man to send and was putting speed before preference.

He helped the constable lash his bicycle to the boot of the motorcar rather than the rear seat, unwilling in the dark to risk finding Hamish in what always seemed to be his accustomed place, just behind Rut- ledge's shoulder. It was a silent drive down to Dunster; the air was warm and heavy, the stars vanished. The only sign of life they saw was a hare bounding off into the high grass by the road.

The constable commented as they reached the town's outskirts, "Easier coming down by motorcar than peddling up as I did on that confounded bicycle."

Dunster's streets were quiet, the police station's lights almost blinding as Rutledge stepped through the door. It was five minutes after the connection was made before Bowles's voice came booming down the line. "In Somerset, are you?"

"Yes, sir. I took several days' leave," he reminded the chief superintendent. "For a friend's wedding. I'll be back in London on Monday."

"Indeed. Well, there's a change in plan. You're to go at once to Cambury. It's just south of Glastonbury, I'm told. The local man is on the scene already, and he's handing the case over to us. You're the closest inspector I've got to Cambury. By my reckoning you can be there in three hours or less."

"Why is he asking for our help at this early stage?"

"A man's been killed. Name of Quarles. His place of business is in Leadenhall Street here in London. His country house is in Somerset, and apparently he'd come down for the weekend. Ghastly business, I can't think why anyone would wish to do such a thing, but there you are. They're expecting you, see that you don't dally!"

"No, sir-"

But Bowles had cut the connection and the line was dead.

Rutledge closed up Maitland's house, left a note for Edgar regarding the sheets the laundress wouldn't be able to collect with the door locked, then took his luggage out to his motorcar. He thought ruefully that evening dress and casual attire would hardly be what Cambury was expecting, but it was all he had with him.

A low-lying mist had crept in on the heels of the warm air, wreathing the night in a soft veil that threw the light from his headlamps back in his face and from time to time made the road seem to vanish into a white void.

He was given directions to Cambury by the police in Dunster and found that the road was fairly good most of the distance. "It's a village that's outgrown itself," the constable had said, "and much like Dun- ster in its own way. Though we have the castle, don't we, and there's none such in Cambury. Still, there are those who claim King Arthur knew it, and might be buried thereabouts. My wife's sister plumps for Glastonbury, of course. That's where she lives."

When he could relax his concentration on the road, Rutledge considered what Bowles had told him. The chief superintendent took a perverse pleasure in giving out as little information as possible to any subordinate he didn't like. But everyone at the Yard knew that it was one of the methods Bowles used to weed out men he didn't wish to see climb the ladder of promotion.

The victim, Quarles, had a place of business in Leadenhall Street and thus lived in London. Who then was taking over that part of the inquiry while Rutledge was busy in Somerset? It would be revealing to have the answer to that.

Rutledge drove on through the mist with only Hamish for company, the voice from the rear seat, just behind his ear, keeping up a running commentary. Hamish had been-for him-unusually silent during the weekend, his comments brief enough to be ignored. It was never clear why Hamish sometimes had nothing to say. Like an army that had lost contact with the main body of the enemy, Rutledge was always on his guard at such times, distrustful of the silence, prepared for an attack from any quarter when he least expected it.

Dr. Fleming, who had saved Rutledge's sanity and his life in the clinic barely twelve months ago, forcing him against his will to acknowledge what was in his head, had promised that his patient would learn to manage his heavy burden of guilt. Instead, Rutledge had become a master at hiding it.

All the same, he answered that voice aloud more often than he liked, both out of habit and because of the compelling presence he could feel and not see. He stood in constant danger of disgracing himself in front of friends or colleagues, drawing comment or questions about the thin edge of self-control that kept him whole. Shell shock was a humiliation, proof of cowardice and a lack of moral fiber, never mind the medals pinned on his breast. And so the tension within himself built sometimes to intolerable levels.

It was the only scar he could show from his four years in the trenches. Unlike Edgar Maitland. His men had commented on his luck, watched him with misgivings at first, and then with something more like fear. Many an inexperienced officer gained a reputation for reckless daring and wild courage, believing himself invulnerable. More often than not, he died with most of his men, not so much as an inch of ground gained. But the young Scots under Rutledge soon realized that their officer put the care of his men above all else, and so they had followed him into whatever hell was out there, across the barbed wire. Knowing he would spare them where he could, and bring them back when he couldn't.

And that had finally broken him. Aware of the faith put in him, trying to live up to it, and watching men die when it was impossible to save them-even while he himself lived-had taken an incalculable toll of mind and spirit. Hamish's unnecessary death had been the last straw. Finding a way back had somehow seemed to be a final betrayal of the dead.

In that last dark hour before the spring dawn, the road Rutledge had been following rounded a bend and swept down a low hill into a knot of thatched cottages. Then, like a magician's trick, the road became Cambury's High Street, leading him into the sleeping village. The mist that had kept pace with him most of the way was in tatters now, a patch here and there still lying in wait, and sometimes rising to embrace the trees on the far side of the duck pond. The Perpendicular church tower, to his left, loomed above the clouds like a beacon.

The village's modest prosperity was visible in the shop fronts and in the houses that lined the street. Typical of Somerset, there was an air of contentment here, as if the inhabitants neither needed nor expected anything from the outside world.