Charles Todd - A matter of Justice

"There's not much we can do. He didn't touch Harold Quarles. He in no way encouraged Davis Penrith to kill the man. He simply told him a lie."

Bowles said, "A lie can be as deadly as the truth. See to your desk. There's more than enough work on it to keep you busy awhile. I don't hold with this running about. Leave it to the lawyers now."

Dismissed, Rutledge went to his office and sat down in his chair, turning it to look out at the spring shower washing the London air clean, his mind far away from the papers in front of him. All he could see was a hot dry morning in the bush and a train burning while a man screamed.

Four days later, he was dispatched to Cornwall. A body had come ashore off Land's End, and in the dead woman's pocket was a waterlogged letter. They could make out Rutledge's name, and Scotland Yard. Much of the rest was indecipherable.

He left London as soon as he could and reached Penzance late in the evening. A young constable at the police station greeted him and said, "I'm to take you directly to Inspector Dunne. He lives in that small farmhouse you passed on your way in."

It was no longer a working farm, where the inspector lived. But the gray stone house, built in the distant past, its slate roof heavy on the beams, had a charm that was very obvious. The outbuildings had for the most part been cleared away, save for the barn and the large medieval dovecote. As they pulled into the yard, Rutledge could hear doves fluttering and calling, unsettled by the brightness of his headlamps.

Dunne was a middle-aged man graying at the temples. He had waited up for Rutledge, but he'd already replaced his boots with slippers, and shuffled ahead of them as he led Rutledge to the room where he worked when at home.

"You don't often find a victim of drowning with Scotland Yard's address in her pocket. We thought you might want to have a look."

"I appreciate that. No idea who she was?"

"None. That's what we're hoping you can tell us."

Rutledge had an odd feeling that it was Mariah Pendennis, who was the only person who could swear that Evering wasn't in his house on the night that Quarles was murdered. His spirits rose. There might yet be a way to catch Evering.

Even as he thought about it, he had to accept the reality of winds and tides. It would be nearly impossible if she'd drowned off St. Anne's for her to be found off Land's End.

Hamish said, "He would ha' taken her out to sea. Else she might wash up in the Isles."

Dunne was telling Rutledge the circumstances of finding the body. "Fishermen spied her on the rocks. That's where a good many drowning victims turn up. Know anyone living in this part of Cornwall? Dealt with a crime in our fair Duchy, have you?"

"Only one, and that was some time ago. Nearly a year. And farther north, above Tintagel."

"Not my patch, thank the Lord. Want to have a look at her tonight? Or wait until the morning. I'd be glad to put you up. The house is empty at the moment. My wife's gone to Exeter, a christening."

Rutledge accepted his invitation, and the next morning, Dunne took him to see the body of the drowned woman.

Her face had suffered from the waves tumbling her against the rocks, but shocked as he was, Rutledge had no difficulty identifying her. What he couldn't grasp was why Betty Richards should have drowned herself off Cornwall.

A sad end, he thought, moved by pity. He reached out, gently touching the cold, sheet-clad shoulder nearest him.

Rutledge said to Dunne, "You were right to summon me. Her name is Betty Richards. She was the sister of someone who was killed in Somerset recently. I'd like to see the letter. It may be important."

They brought him the stiff, almost illegible pages, and he tried to read them, using a glass that someone found for him. Even so, even magnified, the ink had run to such an extent that Rutledge could decipher only one word in three. Something about money, and her duty, and at the end, her gratitude for what he'd done for her.

But it hadn't been enough.

She'd tried to kill herself before, and this time she'd succeeded.

Why here?

She couldn't have known. He'd told no one but Padgett He turned to Inspector Dunne. "I must find a telephone. It's urgent."

Dunne took him across to the hotel, and there, in a cramped room, Rutledge put in a call to The Unicorn.

He recognized Hunter's quiet voice as the man answered. Rutledge identified himself and said, "Can you find Miss O'Hara, and bring her to the telephone. It's pressing business."

"It will take some time. Will you call back in a quarter of an hour?"

Rutledge agreed and hung up the receiver.

Inspector Dunne said, "Mind telling me what this is about?"

"I'm not sure." He looked at his watch. "Can someone hold the mail boat to the Scilly Isles? We should be on it, but first I've got to wait for my call to go through."

"The Scilly Isles? She wouldn't have come from there. Trust me, I know the currents in this part of the world."

"Nevertheless-"

Dunne sent a constable peddling to hold the boat. Rutledge paced Reception, mentally counting the minutes. Where was Miss O'Hara? Had anything happened to her?

He swore under his breath. The hands on the tall case clock beside the stairs moved like treacle, their tick as loud as his heartbeats, and his patience was running out.

Hamish was there, thundering in his mind, telling him what he already suspected, calling him a fool, reminding him that he had thought it was finished, and reiterating a handful of words until they seemed to engulf him.

"Is this no' what ye wanted to happen? Is it no' what would balance the scales?"

"Murder never balances the scales." He almost spoke aloud, and turned away to keep Dunne from reading the fear in his face.

Ten minutes still to go. Five And then it was time. Rutledge put in the call and waited for Hunter to answer. On the fourth ring he did, saying, "Rutledge? Are you there? I have Miss O'Hara with me-"

Thank God, she was safe…

And then Miss O'Hara's voice, strained and tired. "What is it? Where are you calling from? What's happened?"

"It's Betty Richards. She's killed herself."

"Oh, no. Oh, God, keep her." There was a brief silence. Then she said, "She left two days ago, in the night. There was a message-"

He could hear her fumbling with a sheet of paper, and then Hunter's voice in the background. "Here, let me."

And Miss O'Hara, again.

Dear Miss, You've been awful kind to me, but there's something I must do.

It's about my brother. I don't know what to do with all this money, so I might as well use it for my own self. What's left, will you see that it goes to young Marcus?

"Why didn't you call me?" he demanded when she ended her reading.

"I thought-she'd said something about her brother. I thought she might have decided after all that she wanted to see his grave. That's all that made sense to me."

Because she didn't know what Padgett had known…

"Did Betty leave the house the day before she went off?"

"I sent her to market for me. She wasn't gone very long. But she seemed upset when she came back-silent and distressed. When I asked her what had happened, she said, 'Someone just walked over my grave.' "

Rutledge swore then, with feeling.

Padgett had taken it upon himself to tell Betty Richards that the law couldn't touch the man behind her brother's death. Rutledge would have given any odds that Padgett had intentionally done so, just as he'd let the gossips have the information about the way they'd found Quarles in the tithe barn, and half a dozen other bits of troublemaking.

It was the only explanation for Betty Richards being here in Cornwall. Nobody else knew-no one "Where's Inspector Padgett now? Do you know?"

He could hear Miss O'Hara speaking to Hunter, then she was on the line again.