Charles Todd - A long shadow

As he rose to leave, Rutledge said, "Do you know of anyone here who owned-or used-a bow and arrow?"

"The only person who ever showed an interest in the bow was Emma. And that was when she was twelve." Rutledge stopped briefly at Mrs. Ellison's house, but she didn't answer his knock. A little hard of hearing, he remembered, and crossed the street to Hensley's, looking up as a smattering of sunlight broke through the clouds and touched the pink brick of the buildings with a warm rose light. He nodded to a young woman carrying bread out of the bakery. She ducked her head, as if she hadn't seen his greeting.

Opening the door, he walked into the hall of his temporary home and climbed the stairs to Hensley's bedroom. He'd seen a pair of battered field glasses on a shelf between the windows and he intended to borrow them.

He found them where he'd remembered seeing them, next to the window. But as he reached for them, he discovered that this bedroom window in Hensley's house stared directly into another window just across the lane. A window in the house where Mrs. Ellison lived. He held the glasses to his eyes and was surprised at how clearly he could see into the room opposite. Was that Emma's room? And had Hensley been using the glasses to watch her at night? "Why else were they sae handy?" Hamish asked. It was an unpleasant thought. He shoved the glasses into his coat pocket and was turning to go down to the motorcar when he saw it. A cartridge casing, standing upright in the middle of his bed. This time without any carving defacing the smooth surface. Whoever was stalking him had tracked him to Dudlington.

It was not a surprise. In many ways, he'd expected it. But Rutledge stood there looking at the small casing, not touching it. What disturbed him most was the fact that once more he had been so easy to find. Surely no one could guess that he would be staying at the wounded constable's house-unless of course it had been a logical step after discovering that Rutledge didn't have a room at The Oaks. After that, the motorcar left at the side of the house would have betrayed his presence.

Had anyone seen this invisible stalker walking into the constable's house? After all, it was near the baker's shop and the greengrocer's, where people did their marketing.

Rutledge went back to the window fronting the street. Looking in one direction, he could see two women coming out of the greengrocer's, talking animatedly to each other, and in the other, young children walking hand in hand, a nanny behind them, her starched apron hidden by her heavy coat.

And then two men in muddy Wellingtons came around the corner, heading briskly up the street toward the inn. Or the fields. It was hard to tell. Three houses away, a woman brought out a broom to sweep the walk in front of her door.

It wasn't that Dudlington was empty-it was that whereas a larger village or town might have forty or fifty people on the streets at any given moment, this tiny pocket in the middle of nowhere seldom saw more than ten abroad at a time. But the doctor had said gossip was the mainstay of life here. And a stranger would have drawn faces to the window, peering from behind the curtains to see where he was going and what his business might be.

Hamish said, "It'ud tak' an army to interview all o' them."

Rutledge examined the cartridge casing. Was it intentionally plain? Or had whoever was stalking him run out of carved casings?

"It doesna' matter," Hamish pointed out. "There's other business here."

But beyond the shelter of the village streets, the land was flat and sere and rolling. No protection. A perfect field of fire.

Rutledge shivered. It was like No Man's Land, where the only trees were blackened, disfigured apparitions in a barren, bloody world.

He started to put the casing in his pocket, out of sight. And then thought better of it.

Would whoever had set it out for him to find come back later to see if it had delivered its message?

It was an interesting point and worth considering.

Finally, with care, Rutledge set the cartridge casing exactly where he'd found it, and then went down the street to take his luncheon at Mrs. Melford's. She had set out sandwiches and a pudding for Rutledge. If she was in the house, he couldn't hear her moving about.

He ate quickly, and then left. Driving up to The Oaks, where the main road ran beyond Dudlington, he found the proprietor in the bar serving several men in corduroys and heavy boots.

They looked around as Rutledge stepped through the door, then went back to their beer, ignoring him.

Rutledge nodded to the proprietor and sat down at a table near the window. When Keating came over to ask what he would have, he shook his head. "Later, perhaps."

Conversation, which had stopped short at his entrance, resumed stiffly, as if the subject had been changed in midsentence.

It was another twenty minutes before the men took their leave and went out the door. The proprietor, collecting the empty glasses, said, "You have a chilling effect on custom."

"Indeed." Rutledge watched the men walk across the road to the fields and stride over them toward the stream. "Do you know Constable Hensley well?"

"To speak to. He's not a regular, you might say. I don't know that anyone would call him a friend." Keating set about washing up.

"Has anyone asked for him in the last-say, two days?"

"Asked for him? Everyone wants to know how he's faring."

"Someone who doesn't live in Dudlington."

"We see our share of strangers in The Oaks. It's the road yonder that brings us most of our custom. You know that. What is it you're asking me in your roundabout policeman's fashion?"

Rutledge smiled. "You know very well. Have you given directions to Hensley's house to anyone stopping here? Or discussed the constable's condition with anyone passing through?"

"Someone's knocking at your door, unwelcomed?" It was so near the mark that Rutledge considered him. "It's not wise to obstruct a policeman in the course of his inquiries. What do you have against the law? Or is it Hens- ley that you dislike?" "I don't know that I care for either, to tell the truth." He set the first glass on a mat to dry. "Did you know Emma Mason?" Keating stared at him, caught off guard by the sudden change in direction the conversation had taken. "Everyone knew her," he said finally, his voice flat. "What do you think became of her? Is she dead? Or did she run away?" "I have no opinion on the subject." "Everyone else has." "I own The Oaks. I don't have much to do with the people in Dudlington. They come here if they choose, or not. If they want to sit at my bar and drink, then I bring them their pints and leave them to it." "Did Emma Mason ever come here?" "What would she be doing here, at a licensed house?" he countered, without answering the question directly. "You aren't a native. You've lived elsewhere. She might have found that attractive." "Here, now, I don't meddle with schoolgirls!" "I didn't suggest you'd meddled with her. Only that she might have wanted more than Dudlington could offer. That she might have liked the idea of seeing motorcars or carriages on their way to more exciting destinations. It might have put the thought into her head that here was an escape. Did she look her age?" "I don't know how she looked. If you want to know, ask in the village, not here." He was angry, far angrier than the question merited. "She has to be somewhere," Rutledge answered mildly. "She's either alive or dead. She's either buried in Dudling- ton or she's gone away with one of the men who stopped here for a drink or directions or a dinner. They wouldn't come to the village, there's nothing in it for them. She had only to walk up the main street and climb the hill to reach The Oaks, and even if she didn't set foot in the door, she could see the motorcars and the men-"