Charles Todd - Legacy of the Dead

Then Mrs. Atwood replied, “You’ve made me afraid. The police. You and Sergeant Gibson. The last time I spoke to Eleanor she was in London-it was a strange conversation. She said something-I thought she must be a little drunk that night, and I was worried that she was contemplating driving to Scotland in that condition. And she said, ‘I could die.’ And I took it to mean she was so happy, she could die. But what if that wasn’t what she meant-what if she truly wanted to die.. ..” Mrs. Atwood looked at him, pain in her eyes. “Was there some terrible accident? Is that what happened?”

“No,” Rutledge told her. “It wasn’t an accident. It’s more likely that someone murdered her.”

She turned so white, he thought she was going to faint, and was halfway out of his chair.

“No!” she said in a strangled voice. “No-I’m all right. It’s just-” She tried to breathe deeply and instead her breath caught on a sob. “I’ve never known anyone who was murdered-that’s horriblehorrible -”

“If she was driving north with a soldier to spend his leave in Scotland, she must have known him well enough to go with him.”

“Of course she must! Eleanor wasn’t the sort who-who used the war as an excuse to behave as she pleased. She wouldn’t have gone with a stranger, or a man she didn’t trust.” There was conviction in the low voice.

“Was it Burns that she went to Scotland with, Mrs. Atwood?”

“I tell you, I can’t remember! You can ask the servants- they might-”

“Would you have tried to stop her if she was about to do something-silly?”

“I-” She broke off, caught between her own emotional dilemma and his dark eyes watching her face. They seemed to see into her soul.

“You must tell me the truth, Mrs. Atwood. A lie won’t serve you or me.”

When she spoke, her voice was husky with shame. “I-I was hurt that she wasn’t coming for the weekend, I told myself she was happy, while I was wretched. There had been no letters from Humphrey for weeks, and I’d just received word that he was being listed as missing. I knew what that meant-he was dead but they hadn’t found his body yet. I hadn’t even told my mother-I could hardly bear to believe it myself! And to have Eleanor let me down when I’d been counting so on her company-to go larking off with someone, half drunk with champagne, most likely, sounding quite unlike herself-it was-I couldn’t tell her about Humphrey then, could I? I was angry-angry and upset. I didn’t care to know, I didn’t want to know what she was doing! I hoped she’d end her week just as wretched as I was-” She stopped and then went on almost against her will. “That’s why I refused to be worried when she didn’t come back or call me. I was still angry-I told myself she wasn’t a friend at all, it was better if she went her own way. She’d gone to Scotland and could stay there forever, as far as I cared. Then I got word that Humphrey was alive and safe, and I didn’t want to think about anything else-I didn’t want to remember how badly I’d behaved.”

She regarded him with hurt, frightened eyes. “If she died that night-it was my fault, in a way. For letting her down. For not worrying when she didn’t call at the end of the week, or come down, or write. I punished her for being happy when I wasn’t, and then I put it all out of my mind, deliberately.”

As he drove toward London, Rutledge tried to set out in logical detail what he had learned from Mrs. Atwood and her servants.

Hamish said, “There’s still no name to put with the Gray woman’s companion.”

“No. But there’s a connection now between Eleanor Gray and Scotland. The wrong side of Scotland, but it’s a start.”

“Aye, but it would ha’ been better if there was no connection at all. If she’d gone to America.”

“We have to find this man Burns if we can.”

“Aye, but there’s no proof Eleanor Gray went to Scotland with him !”

“He may know the name of the man who did accompany her. He may have introduced them, he may have been a friend of both.” Rutledge thought about it. “She wasn’t traveling alone. But she went of her own free will. She was alive when she left London.”

“Ye canna’ know that!”

“But I do-she told Mrs. Atwood where she was going, and with whom. It was planned. It was something she wanted to do.”

Yet her mood had been unsettled. “I could die -” From happiness-or despair? Had this been just after Eleanor’s quarrel with Lady Maude?

Rutledge had asked Mrs. Atwood to put a date to that conversation. It was early in 1916. Spring. The timing fit. If Eleanor was pregnant, she could still conceal it. If her mother had refused to help her, she could still make other plans.

A small house in the Trossachs. A place to hide?

A place to start, most certainly.

Rutledge stopped long enough in London to pack another case. He didn’t contact the Yard.

But back on the road, heading north again, he decided it was time to report to Lady Maude Gray.

Lady Maude received Rutledge with cool disinterest, as if he had come to report on the state of her drains or her roofs.

She again conducted the interview in the library, but this time had seen to it that tea arrived shortly after he did.

Pouring his cup, she said, “I knew nothing would come of this ridiculous business. There is nothing in your face that tells me you have been successful.”

“On the contrary, there have been a number of small successes. Not yet a whole. But enough to be going on with.”

She smiled, lighting the remarkable violet eyes from within.

“Then tell me. I shall be the judge.”

“Your daughter did not go to America to study medicine. We have that on the authority of a professor who had been advising her.” It was only a patchwork of truth and fiction. But he saw the small flicker of surprise in her face.

Like Mrs. Atwood, Lady Maude must also have soothed her conscience with the notion that Eleanor Gray had gone abroad to study. Against her mother’s wishes-but surely safely accounted for. Lady Maude had even closed her ears to Inspector Oliver, so certain was she. And then Rutledge had somehow raised niggling doubts. This was news she had not expected to hear. Hamish, who did not care for Lady Maude, was pleased.

“Go on,” she said curtly.

“She was last heard from on her way to Scotland with a young officer by the name of Burns. He had a small house in the Trossachs and enough leave to go there.”

Her voice was cold. “You are mistaken. Eleanor would not have gone anywhere with a strange man.”

“He wasn’t a stranger. She had known him for some time apparently, and a Mrs. Atwood believes that Eleanor was-attracted-to him. They had worked together to arrange for pipe concerts at various hospitals, to cheer the wounded. I was given the impression that your daughter had spent enough time in this man’s company to grow fond of him. Whether as a friend or more than that, I’m not able to tell you at this stage.”

Like a mask, her face remained unchanged. Her hands, holding her cup and saucer, were still quiet in her lap, too well-behaved to indicate by any movement of their own that she was unsettled. But along the firm jawline there was a small nerve twitching.

“When I requested that you be assigned to this case, Inspector, I believed I had chosen a man of intelligence and integrity. I had not expected you to be a listener to gossip and innuendo. You have disappointed me.”

He smiled. “For that I shall apologize. But the fact is, I talked to the person whom your daughter telephoned just before leaving for Scotland with Burns. She had been promised to the Atwoods for a weekend, and had-quite properly-called her hosts to explain the change in plan. You had brought your daughter up well. She remembered her manners even in a time of great distress.”