Charles Todd - Legacy of the Dead

Oliver stared at him. “You’re trying to tell me that my chief bit of evidence is a hoax!”

“No. I’m telling you that it isn’t what it seems.”

“Well, I won’t have it! We’ve got witnesses to what Betty Lawlor had to say-yourself included! You’ll confirm in the courtroom what she said. Or I’ll have you up for perjury!”

Rutledge gave him the name of the jeweler’s shop anyway. “Send McKinstry to look into this. It may not be true. If it isn’t, I shall retract any objections I have to the brooch as evidence.”

Suspiciously: “Why McKinstry?”

“He won’t like doing it. But he’ll be thorough. For the sake of the accused.”

Mollified, Oliver said, “I’ll do that, then!” And he stalked off.

Hamish said, “If the constable took the brooch to Glasgow, he’ll no’ come home and tell Oliver his own name’s put to the engraving card!”

“No,” Rutledge agreed. “It will be interesting, won’t it, to see how he handles such a minefield. If he gives Oliver the right name, he’ll be crucified before the Inspector can draw breath. And if he doesn’t give the right name, it will make him look worse when the truth does come out.”

He walked into the lobby of the hotel. The savory aroma of baked apples and cinnamon reminded him that he’d had no luncheon. There was a rattle of dishes and utensils coming from the dining room, which meant they might be serving still. His stomach growled at the thought.

He was halfway down the passage to find out, when the clerk at the desk called, “Inspector Rutledge? A telephone message just came for you. You’re to return the call at your convenience.” She reached into the drawer where messages were kept and handed one to him.

Rutledge thanked her and walked on to the dining room, opening the folded sheet as he went.

It was from Durham. The office of a law firm.

He knew who had called him.

Thomas Warren.

Abandoning lunch, Rutledge went to the telephone closet and closed the door behind him.

He got through to Warren straightaway and identified himself.

Warren asked, “Have you had any luck? Finding the man you’re after?”

“Not yet. I found a nurse who’d been matron at Saxwold. She gave me another name. Major Alexander. Does it ring any bells?”

“Alexander? ’Fraid it doesn’t. No, sorry.”

“He was in Palestine. Wounded there and was brought into Saxwold while Burns was a patient.”

“No. Perhaps you’ll have better luck with this one! I never met the man, but I have been searching for a letter I’d gotten from Rob when he was in London, convalescing. It was on the occasion of my birthday, and he said”-there was a rustle of paper, as if Warren was turning pages-“here it is: ‘I found seven people to celebrate your birthday. Eleanor, of course, and a girl James had asked me to look up, and Edwards was there with the Talbots, who were rather grim. The other brother, Howard, is listed as missing, and naturally they fear the worst. Edwards felt they needed cheering up! And I also invited Alex Holden, who lives in Duncarrick, for God’s sake, practically next door in Scotland. He was at loose ends, feeling in the mood to celebrate anything. The bone in his leg refuses to mend properly, thanks to the bloody Turks, and he’s got another round of surgery to face. We drank to you and to Victory and again to you but lost count after that, and then ate something before we were completely drunk and forgot what was due the absent guest of honor. I set a glass at your empty place-’ Well, you needn’t hear the rest. Alex Holden. You can add him to your list.”

Rutledge sat in the airless closet, his mind racing, Hamish, ahead of him at first, then falling behind as fact after fact dropped into place.

Alex Holden of Duncarrick. Sandy Holden-of Duncarrick Alex or Sandy. Short for Alexander. Zander Holland- Major Alexander. The tags on the wounded were sometimes garbled. Or lost He had met Sandy Holden, for God’s sake, when he first came to Duncarrick-out by the pele tower, with his sheep! And seen him a number of times in the town since. Rutledge said aloud, “I’ll give you any odds you like that they’re the same man-!”

All this bloody time, the man he’d been searching for had been under his nose.

The fiscal himself hadn’t seen fit to give Rutledge that name!

“There’s no proof Burns knew the two men had met,” Hamish pointed out.

“No. Probably not. But you’d think, wouldn’t you, that after he came back to Duncarrick, Holden would have spoken to the fiscal-a simple word of condolence-‘I met your son once, at a dinner in London. I was sorry to hear he didn’t make it home from France.’ ”

“Unless he had something to hide-”

“The fact that he’d spent two nights in Captain Burns’s house in Craigness? With Eleanor Gray? Who is now missing? Yes-if he had anything to do with her disappearance. Even if he’d simply provided her the money to sail to America.”

The airlessness was making his head ache. Rutledge opened the door and went up the stairs to his room, his mind still racing.

McKinstry had claimed that he couldn’t put a finger on the writer of the poisonous letters, even though he knew the townspeople like a book. As any constable would. But the local gentry would seldom cross McKinstry’s path. An inspector would deal with them. And Holden had come back from France only in the spring of 1919. McKinstry hadn’t had time or opportunity in five months to put him in the tidy mental boxes where the constable kept the pulse of Duncarrick.

“You’ve sent him on a wild-goose chase to Glasgow!” Hamish scolded Rutledge. “About the brooch. Still, it was foolish for Holden to use his name!”

“If Holden was in Palestine, the Army will have a record of it. If Holden was at Saxwold, Elizabeth Andrews will remember him. If Mrs. Raeburn can recognize him after three years, we have him in Craigness.”

“But there’s no proof Eleanor Gray died there!”

“I know,” Rutledge said. “But if Holden took Eleanor there, the chances are he also took her away. And he can tell us where she went after Craigness.”

“Mrs. Raeburn never saw her-”

“It was pouring rain that night. Eleanor could have waited in the car until the worst had passed. By that time, Mrs. Raeburn had gone back to her bed. And there are the notes in the book’s margin.”

“But no date!” Hamish reminded him.

“In a way, there is a date. It was written after Captain Burns died. She noted that he was dead.”

“Where was Holden when you drove to the glen?”

“According to Mrs. Holden, he was in Jedburgh that day.”

“Aye, but was he? She couldna’ know for certain if the man went where he claimed he was going.”

“True enough.” Rutledge ran his fingers through his hair. “All right.”

“McKinstry said that in this town he kens everyone’s business. It’s no’ impossible for Holden to do the same if he put his mind to it.”

“Yes, and I’ve seen him with Oliver. Any number of times-”

“And Oliver wouldna’ see anything wrong in answering questions Holden might ask. He’s an upstanding citizen, concerned for the truth.”

“All right, it’s possible,” Rutledge agreed. “But if the bones in the glen couldn’t be traced to him-if no one knew whose remains they were-I don’t understand why he’d stir up the past by going after Fiona. The timing is wrong too. Well before those bones were connected with either Eleanor Gray or Fiona, someone was persecuting her. Was it Holden? If so, to what end?”

Hamish didn’t see it that way. “If he left Eleanor Gray in the glen, dead, he’s been afraid for three years that someone might put a name to her. One day.”