Charles Todd - Legacy of the Dead

“No. If he’s been this clever, then he wouldn’t risk it…”

Rutledge stopped his pacing and swore. “Holden lost all his horses to the war. He’s having to start again. But if he could show that he was the father of the boy, and Eleanor Gray was the mother-true or not, it doesn’t matter!-Ian MacLeod would be the heir to the trust that should have come to Eleanor Gray. If Holden knew how that trust stood, if Eleanor had talked about it on their long drive north, through the boy he could find himself in possession of a bloody fortune -”

He began pacing again, the room seeming to shrink and close in around him. He swung a chair out of his way.

“It might not matter whose bones they are-or whose child Ian MacLeod might really be. What matters is what people are led to believe. And if Fiona MacDonald is hanged for the murder of Eleanor Gray, then the child she’d been raising has to be the child of Eleanor Gray. At least in the eyes of the law. And when there is no one left alive to name the boy’s true father, Holden has a very clear run! Very civic-minded of him to step reluctantly forward rather than let the child go to an orphanage.”

“Aye. He wouldna’ want his indiscretion to hurt his wife,” Hamish agreed sourly. “That’s the way half the town will see it.”

“There have always been two standards,” Rutledge answered. “People called Fiona a whore, but there’s no name for a man who has an illegitimate child.”

But the police required proof, not speculations, to arrest a man.

And Rutledge had discovered in his first year at the Yard that what was logical about evidence was not always the truth it was pointing to.

“The first step is to find out all I can about Sandy Holden. And Gibson will have to do that from London. Starting with the Army and the Saxwold medical records. And in the meantime, I need a very good excuse to call on the fiscal again!”

Rutledge put in his call to London, setting in motion the search for the past movements of one Alexander Holden since the end of 1915. “I particularly need to know when and for what periods of time he was in England. And see if you can find any trace of a Major Alexander, also at Saxwold at the right time. But odds are they’re one and the same.”

Old Bowels, delighted to hear that Rutledge had found a possible solution to the mystery of Eleanor Gray, said expansively, “Well done!”

“We aren’t ready to say that Holden’s guilty of anything. We can’t find any trace of Miss Gray after the spring of 1916. He may have driven her to Scotland and left her anywhere from Berwick to John o’Groats. Alive. And if she’s the mother of the child, she didn’t die in the spring!”

“Well, bring him in and ask him what he knows. There’s enough evidence for that, at least?”

Rutledge thought: If this is a man who survived capture by the Turks, he’ll tell us what he wants to tell and nothing else.

The Fiscal was just leaving his office when Rutledge reached Jedburgh. They almost collided in the doorway, the fiscal surprised to see him and stepping back with courtesy. “Inspector. What brings you here?”

“Have you a moment, sir? It’s rather important.”

“Have you made progress with the list of names I gave you?” Burns reluctantly turned and led Rutledge back to his office. Passing through the reception room, he asked his clerk to bring them tea. “For I shall be missing my own, no doubt!”

Taking the chair behind his desk, he motioned Rutledge to the one across from it. Rutledge sat down. “Now, then. What’s this about?” the fiscal demanded.

“I’ve been trying to find the man who drove Eleanor Gray to Scotland. Connecting her to Fiona MacDonald has not been as successful.”

“There’s the brooch, man. I should have thought that was sufficient!”

“The brooch connects the accused to the bones found in Glencoe. I’m afraid it has done little to shed further light on whose bones these are.”

“We already have a match of height and age, we have the proper timing of the death. We have the fact that Eleanor Gray went missing in the spring of 1916. And you tell me there’s the strong possibility that in that spring of 1916 she came to Scotland. To wait out the birth of her child, I should think, where her circumstances did not embarrass her friends and her family.”

“Yes. At present I’m hoping to carry matters a step further by tracing Eleanor Gray’s movements closer to the time she was delivered.” He paused. “If this child is Lady Maude Gray’s grandson, it will have repercussions. For her. And for the solicitors who represent her daughter’s sizable estate. Lady Maude-” He hesitated. “Lady Maude is a woman of considerable influence and distinguished connections.”

“Indeed.” The fiscal’s clerk brought in the tea with a plate of sandwiches and a packet of biscuits. Rutledge accepted the cup and the sandwich offered him. Burns went on. “I’ve actually given some thought to the fact that a guilty verdict at the trial will most certainly establish the boy’s heritage. It is one of the reasons I’ve chosen to let him remain where he is for the time being.”

“I’ve been making my way through the list. Did your son have friends here in Jedburgh? I might add one or two names through them.”

“The first two names I gave you were local men. As I told you at the time, they’re dead and not likely to be involved.”

“Did your son have friends in Duncarrick?”

“Robbie went to Harrow, and until the war the majority of his friends were either from there or in the law. He visited Duncarrick a time or two, but I don’t recall anyone in particular he might have known there. Better to describe them as my friends. Certainly I’d have told you if I’d known of any connection!”

Hamish agreed with Rutledge: Unless the fiscal was lying, that meant Holden had never mentioned any meeting with Rob Burns in London.

He finished his sandwich and accepted the offer of another. They were small but very good. The fiscal had already eaten both of his and began to open the packet of biscuits. His appetite was about to be spoiled In his mind, Rutledge could hear Fiona’s voice saying, “ The father is an ordinary man. Just-an ordinary man…”

Hamish tried to stop him, but he said aloud, “I must tell you, I think that if Eleanor Gray bore a child, there is a very slim chance that the father of her son might be your own. It strikes me that for some leniency shown by the court at her trial, Fiona MacDonald might be persuaded to name the man. I have a strong feeling that she knows who he is. That Eleanor confided in her before she died.”

The fiscal frowned ferociously at him. “If my son had been seriously attached to a woman of Eleanor Gray’s background, there would not have been a clandestine affair. Robbie would have come directly to me and to Lady Maude and made his intentions clear! He would have done the honorable thing!”

“Forgive me, sir, for being direct. You weren’t fighting in the trenches. These were young men who did things out of need and fear that they would never have thought to do in 1914. They loved where they could and when they could, knowing they were going to die. If your son could have settled his affairs before returning to France, I’ve no doubt he would have. Eleanor wanted very much to study medicine. She may have asked him to wait-”

“Preposterous nonsense!” the fiscal said, glaring at him. “I will hear no more about it! My son was still in mourning for his dead fiancee-”

“You’ve made an enemy!” Hamish was saying. “It’s no’ wise-”

“Another excellent reason to wait, I should think,” Rutledge said, ignoring Hamish, and then he backed off. “I can’t tell you that any of this is true. I do know that friends of your son believed he loved Eleanor Gray as much as she loved him. Young men who served with him, to whom he would never have lied about his feelings. Eleanor and her mother quarreled shortly before her disappearance. The timing indicates it was after your son had returned to the Front but before his death. Perhaps Eleanor told Lady Maude that she wanted to marry a country lawyer, not a title. Lady Maude, however, refuses to discuss the quarrel.”