Charles Todd - A matter of Justice

"The Chief Constable sent for him. I don't think he's come back."

"It doesn't matter. The damage is done."

"I thought-" Her voice down the line was very disturbed. "It's my fault, I should have-she never gave me any reason to suspect that she was going somewhere to die. I knew the money overwhelmed her. It sounded as if she didn't want it after all."

"There was nothing you could do. It was out of your hands. Someone wanted to hurt her, and he succeeded. Thank you. I must go-"

"Someone? Padgett? I always thought him an unparalleled idiot. I didn't know he was also a cruel bastard."

She put up the receiver as he turned to Dunne. "We need to be on that boat to St. Anne's."

The two men ran to the harbor, where the mail boat was bobbing on the turning tide. The master had the ropes off before their feet hit the deck.

Rutledge said to him, "Did you take a visitor to St. Anne's in the last several days? An unremarkable woman wearing a black dress and a black coat?"

"Yes, I did, as it happened. She wasn't there long-she was waiting for me at the quay when I swung back round to St. Anne's, to see if she was going back then or later. She said the people she'd come to see weren't at home."

"Thank God!" Rutledge felt a wave of relief wash over him. If she had killed herself, it was because she hadn't succeeded.

But Hamish said, "Ye canna' be sure it's suicide. Yon Evering might ha' killed her, to be rid of her."

"There's the letter in her pocket…"

He watched as the distant isles grew larger almost incrementally until the smudge divided itself into many parts, and then the individual isles were visible, spread out before him on the sea.

"I've never been out here," Dunne said. "There's hardly any crime. A constable looks in from time to time, as a matter of course, but it's not really our patch. Pretty, aren't they, like the ruins of the ancient kingdom of Lyonesse. There are stories along many parts of the English coast about church bells ringing out to sea, where there's nothing to be seen. Even as far as Essex, I think."

But Rutledge was urging the boat forward, forcing himself to sit still and wait.

At last they reached the small harbor and touched the quay as the master brought the boat in close.

"Wait here," Dunne ordered him as he leaped on the quay after Rutledge.

The two men took the track leading up to the road at a forced pace, and finally Dunne said, "Here, slow down. I'm half out of breath."

Rutledge waited for him to catch him up, and then turned toward the house.

"That's the Evering place?"

"Yes. See, the road's just ahead. We cross that, and follow the shell path beyond the arbor." Rutledge could hear his own heart beating. The sound was loud in the stillness.

"Peaceful, isn't it?" Dunne said as he turned back to look at the panorama behind him. "And that view-you'd never tire of it. Beats the farm, I'm afraid. And I thought nothing could."

Rutledge was ahead of him, moving fast through the open arbor gate without seeing it, his mind already walking through Evering's front door. By the time Dunne had caught up with him, Rutledge had lifted the knocker and let it fall.

He realized he was holding his breath as he waited.

No one came to answer his summons.

"He's taken the boat out. He went after her. The housekeeper, Mariah Pendennis, must have family in the village. We'll try there." He led the way again, and as they passed the small burial ground of the Everings, he said to Dunne, "That's the stone for the son killed in the Boer War."

"Burned to death, did you say? Horrid way to die. Ah, I spy a rooftop. That must be the village."

But Rutledge's gaze had gone to the small cove. He could just see the mouth of it from here. Another fifty feet-and there was Evering's boat, swinging idly on its anchor.

"You go on to the village, and ask for the woman who works for Evering. Mariah Pendennis. I'm going back to the house."

"What if she's not there?"

"Bring back a responsible man. We'll need him."

Dunne nodded and set off without another word. Rutledge thought, He's a good man.

He turned back, past the burial ground and the chapel, down the road to the path to the house. The last hundred yards he was trotting, though he knew it must be too late.

This time as he went through the open gate he stopped to look at it.

The lovely piece that had formed the top of it was missing. The swans with curved necks.

He didn't bother to knock again. He tried the door, and it was off the latch. For an instant, he hesitated on the threshold, dreading what he knew now must be here.

He walked into the parlor, and it was empty. The dining room too echoed to his footsteps, the bare boards creaking with age as he crossed to the window and looked out.

The study was next, a handsome room with photographs of the various islands hung between the windows, the shelves across the way filled with a variety of mechanical toys. Rutledge barely glanced at them. Evering lay in front of the desk, crumpled awkwardly, the handle of a kitchen knife protruding from his chest. And in his hands, as if shoved there as an afterthought, were the swans from the gate, bloody now.

Rutledge knelt to feel the man's pulse, but there was no doubt he was dead. He had been for some time.

Hamish said, "When she came, he didna' think she was sae angry. A plain woman in a plain bonnet, ye ken. He must ha' thought she was no match for him. And the knife in the folds of her skirt."

It could have happened that way. Rutledge thought it very likely had.

He went on to search for the servants' quarters, and there he found Mariah Pendennis, dead as well, this time the knife in her back as she prepared the tea things. Sugar and tea had spilled on the work table and down her apron, and a cup was smashed on the stone floor beside her, another overturned on the table. The kettle on the hob had boiled dry, blackened now above the cold hearth.

Rutledge went through the rest of the rooms, but Mariah Penden- nis had been the unlucky one, unwittingly answering the door to a murderess. He couldn't find any other servants in the house.

Ronald Evering must have lost more money to the Cumberline fiasco than he could afford. Still, one man didn't require a houseful of servants. Mariah had been sufficient for his needs, with perhaps someone to help with meals and the heavier cleaning chores, and someone to take his wash and bring it back again. His needs were few, and he had got by.

Rutledge could hear Dunne, calling to him from the foyer. He came down the stairs and said, "There are two dead here. Evering and the woman who took care of him."

The man standing behind Dunne sharply drew in a breath.

Dunne said, "I wouldn't have thought-" He left the sentence unfinished.

"She managed it because they didn't suspect her. Evering had no way of knowing who she was or why she was here. A poor woman, harmless." He led the way to the study.

"What's that in his hands?" Dunne asked, crouching down for a closer look.

"It's from the gate outside," the man with him said. "Whatever is it doing here?"

The closest she could come to the angel in the tithe barn. Aloud, he said, "A gesture of some sort?"

"What are these?" Dunne gestured to the collection of toys behind Rutledge. "Odd things to have in a study. My grandson has one like that." He gestured to a small golden bird on an enameled box. "He's allowed to play with it of a Sunday, with his grandmother watching."

"Mr. Evering was that fond of all manner of mechanical things," the man from the village answered him. "When he got a new one, he was like a child, playing with it by the hour. Where's Mariah, then?"

Rutledge directed them to the kitchen. He stood where he was, looking down on Evering.