Charles Todd - Legacy of the Dead

Rutledge took the stairs two at a time, intent on restoring the sandalwood box to Fiona’s room.

Drummond lumbered after him, far lighter on his feet than a man his size ought to be. “I did what you asked. Now you owe me an explanation,” he said at Rutledge’s heels.

Rutledge set the box in the drawer, carefully arranging it among the gloves and the handkerchiefs. Then he turned to Drummond with his answer ready. The man was blocking the doorway. Clarence, half rising from the pillow on the bed, looked at both of them with wary eyes. A sudden move and she would be gone, out of sight.

“Something belonging to Fiona MacDonald has been found near the place where Oliver thinks the body of the child’s mother was hidden. In Glencoe. Fiona told me it was safe here at The Reivers. But she was wrong.” He let out a breath in frustration. “Oliver has all he needs now to convict.”

“Are you telling me something has been stolen from here?”

“The police at the scene think the murderer dropped it while trying to drag the woman’s body high up the slope on a mountainside. A sheepman’s daughter found it. I don’t know what to believe.”

“I have the only other key, and it was given me by Ealasaid MacCallum herself. Fiona handed hers to Oliver when they took her away. Are you calling me a thief?” Drummond’s voice was dangerously quiet.

“No, damn it. I’m saying that what was found in Glencoe is enough to hang Fiona MacDonald. However it came to be there. And if she’s right, that it was here in Duncarrick in July, then someone must have come in here secretly and taken it!”

“Fiona doesn’t lie. I’ve never known her to lie!”

“She lied about the child.”

Drummond gestured angrily, and Clarence fled over the side of the bed in a single fluid movement. “That’s not the same thing. You know it isn’t the same!”

Rutledge started toward the door. “Drummond. I have to leave Duncarrick for a time. Keep an eye on the inn. It wouldn’t do for more-evidence-to find its way to Oliver.”

Hamish warned, “It’s a thin line you’re walking! There’s no way to know where his loyalties lie!”

Rutledge responded silently, “Call it the Biblical casting of bread upon the waters. I need to find out if he’s friend- or foe. He has custody of that child!”

Drummond let him pass. As they went down the stairs, Rutledge said over his shoulder, “If I can put a name and a history to the bones in Glencoe, I will. That’s the only way to break the chains tying Fiona MacDonald to murder.”

When Rutledge arrived at the smithy, he found that the motorcar was repaired and ready to drive.

The young mechanic came out of the small shed where he worked, rubbing his black, greasy hands on a greasier square of cloth. Grinning, he beckoned to Rutledge. “Come look at something.”

“I’m not sure I want to,” Rutledge answered, following him. “What’s wrong with my engine?”

But the mechanic said nothing. When he got to a workman’s bench full of tools and parts and a jumble of odds and ends, he reached for a grimy jar that was sitting behind a coil of rope. Holding up the jar, he said to Rutledge, “Now take a look.”

The jar was full of petrol. Except at the bottom, where a layer of something else moved less sluggishly.

“Water!” Rutledge said, surprised. “There was water in my tank!”

“When all else fails,” the mechanic said happily, “expect the impossible. Yes, indeed, ordinary water. Stopped you as efficiently as an artillery shell. And with greater accuracy, I might add! I drained off the lines, let the jar’s contents settle, and there you have it. A mechanical marvel.” He put the jar back on the bench. “Been swimming in that motorcar, have you?”

Rutledge paid the inflated bill without comment.

As they drove out of the smithy’s yard, Hamish said, “This meddling with the car was no’ the same as searching your room. And if there’s anyone who will ken where to look for whoever is responsible, it’s yon constable.”

“If it was mischief,” Rutledge responded, “then the timing was remarkably opportune. I don’t like coincidence.”

McKinstry was coming out of the barbershop when Rutledge spotted him and offered him a lift as far as his house. In response to Rutledge’s question about malicious property damage, the constable shook his head. “We don’t see much of that. Too easy in a town this size to guess who the culprits are likely to be. The Maxwell brats, now, they’re a wild lot, and it’s only a matter of time before their mischief turns to something more serious. The Army might make men out of them, but their father never will-too quick with his fists.” He added with curiosity evident in his face, “Any particular reason for your interest?”

“I wondered about it, that’s all.”

“It wasn’t mischief that lay behind the notes written about Fiona. If that’s what you’re getting at!”

“Not at all.” Rutledge changed the subject.

It wasn’t until he’d dropped McKinstry at his door that Hamish said, “He didna’ speak of the brooch to you.”

“No,” Rutledge answered. “He doesn’t want to accept what it means. For that matter, neither do I. If no one took it from The Reivers-” He left the thought unfinished.

Hamish told him, “She didna’ kill!”

But the woman in the back room of the police station was not the same girl that Hamish remembered haying in the summer of 1914, the sun warm on her face and laughter in her eyes. The day war had begun in a small town in an obscure province of the Austrian empire. Hamish had carried that memory with him to the trenches. Time stood still for him. It had moved on for her. In five years, people can change…

LEAVING HIS CAR at the hotel, this time in the open rather than in the shadows of the shed, Rutledge went to the shop owned by Ann Tait.

She was folding lingerie into pale lavender paper, and a box stood ready at her elbow. Lifting the paper, she laid it gently into the box and arranged it a little to make it fit snugly. Then she put the lid on the box and set it aside before turning to Rutledge.

“Have you found your Eleanor Gray?”

“Not yet. But I shall. No, I’ve come about another matter. I was speaking with a Mrs. Cook. I can’t recall her first name. She’d stopped me on the street. A few days ago now. I must try to find her again. Can you help me?”

Ann Tait looked at him consideringly. “As far as I know, there isn’t a Mrs. Cook in Duncarrick. At any rate, she isn’t among my customers. There was a woman by that name I met in London. She was elderly and impossible. I didn’t like her.”

“Well, then,” he said helplessly, “who was I speaking with?”

“Was this a large woman? Overbearing in her manner?” He smiled as if relieved. In fact, he was. “Yes. I’m afraid so.”

“That was Mrs. Coldthwaite.”

“Yes, that’s it. Coldthwaite. I’m grateful. Or-should I be?”

Ann Tait nodded sympathetically. “Wretched woman. She comes in and tries on corsets half her size, then complains to me that my stock is ill-made. You’ll find her in the gabled house next but one to the baker’s shop. And I wish you joy of her!”

Outside on the street again, Hamish was roundly telling him that he had already broken his promise.

“No, I haven’t.”

“It’s no’ a name you can use with impunity here!”

“I have a feeling Ann Tait won’t repeat it to anyone.”

All the same, he paid a call on Mrs. Coldthwaite.

And paid the price for it. Once she had him in her parlor, her sole intent was to pry out of him whatever tidbits of potential gossip she could pass on. It was done graciously, in the name of concern for “dear Fiona.” But her eyes were cold and her mouth small, tight.