Charles Todd - A Fearsome Doubt

“They would have missed something-”

“Yes, but who can say when they missed that spoon just how long it had been gone? We’ve had cases where men come to the door with apparently respectable intent-selling mousetraps or books of household hints. And then finding no one at home, they break in and take what they like. Easier to do when the inhabitants are elderly, ill women asleep in their beds.”

He’d looked into that himself. Chance burglaries, an easy way to add a few pounds to a door-to-door seller’s pocket. There had been no reports of any such burglaries in this part of London for a year before the murders…

Hamish, intent and interested, said, “But if they complained, the auld women, and the thief had taken fright-”

Rutledge finished the thought in his head aloud. “If Mrs. Cutter had found herself on the verge of being caught and hanged, would Ben Shaw have volunteered to go back and speak to the old women-and when they refused to be silent, silenced them forever?”

Mrs. Bailey set her loaf in the waiting pan. “It’s a shocking suggestion, Inspector. Not one that I care to contemplate, to tell you the truth. Is there anything else you wish to know?”

Still-it made sense. It would explain how a man like Shaw had gotten himself involved with murder…

Mrs. Bailey had been more helpful than she knew.

But Rutledge realized as he drove across the Thames back to the Yard that he might also have underestimated the rector’s wife…

In a parish where there were no garden tea parties or Sunday luncheons with the gentry, the rector and his wife had learned how people lived with the small degradations of little money, poor health, hard work, and not much beauty. The Baileys would have had few illusions about their neighbors and over the years acquired a rather pragmatic view of their flock. They had ministered in the truest sense, without judgment.

At what cost to themselves? he wondered.

There was a message waiting for Rutledge when he arrived at the Yard.

Chief Superintendent Bowles wanted to see him.

Braced for an angry confrontation, Rutledge went along to Bowles’s office.

Anything but angry, Bowles greeted him with his usual cold stare and brief command to sit down, sit down.

There were papers all over his desk, and he hunched over them with frowning intensity before saying to Rutledge, “You’ve been in Kent, have you?”

“Yes. To visit friends.”

“Hmmm. What’s your opinion of these murders?”

“I have none. I don’t know anything beyond the fact that there have been more than one.”

“Looks bad, damned bad. The Chief Constable is not happy, and his people haven’t found anything to be going on with. Incapable lot, apparently.” Bowles had never held a high opinion of police work outside London. “No, that’s not kind. Mainly it’s out of their line of experience. You served in the war. You’ll have a better sense of what’s happening. I’m sending you down to have a look. Be quick about it, if you can. The Chief Constable has friends in high places. Needn’t say more on that score.”

He passed a sheaf of papers across to Rutledge, who began to scan them as he suggested, “I should think Devereaux would be the best man-”

But Bowles paid no heed. “… Some bloody foreigner to blame, most likely…”

Unexpectedly Rutledge was reminded of the face at the bonfire-in the headlamps of his motorcar. As if in warning.

Rutledge looked up into the yellow eyes of his superior. They were staring at him. Speculative. Watchful.

Deliberately taking a different tack to test the waters, Rutledge replied, “The hop-picking season is over. The extra workers have gone back to London or Maidenhead, wherever they came from. I could deal with that end of the investigation. From my desk.”

“Worth looking into,” Bowles agreed, taking the remark as a course of action. “But they want someone on the ground in Kent. Hand over whatever you’re working on to Simpson. He’ll cope.”

Inspector Simpson was, as everyone knew, Bowles’s latest protege. A weak-chinned man with a spiteful nature, he was, in the words of Sergeant Gibson, “Generally to be found toadying up to Old Bowels. Right pair, the two of them!” There was rumored to be a wager on how long it would take Simpson to make chief inspector, over the list.

Rutledge found himself wondering if it was Simpson who had gone through his desk.

And as if reading his mind, Bowles added, “I hear a Mrs. Shaw called on you a few days ago.” A bland voice, a glance out the window to indicate that this was mere curiosity on the Chief Superintendent’s part.

Fishing.

Rutledge chose to be circumspect. “Yes. Ben Shaw’s widow. His hanging still haunts her. Sad story.”

“Shall I send Simpson along to have a talk with her?” The yellow eyes were mere slits now.

“Short of bringing her husband back, I doubt there’s anything anyone can do. Even Simpson.” Rutledge paused. “She hasn’t prospered since Shaw’s death. I expect she was hoping for a handout.”

“Yes, well, Shaw ought to have considered his family before taking to murder.” Bowles stirred in his chair, preparatory to dismissing Rutledge. “See what you can do in Kent. I’ve already told the Chief Constable you’ll be there smartly!”

It was an unmistakable warning: Get out of London and don’t meddle with things best left alone.

Rutledge made a point, before leaving his desk, to remove any papers connected with the Shaws. Simpson, if mining for trouble, would find none…

But on his way into Kent, he paused in Sansom Street and again left his motorcar where it would attract less notice. He walked as far as the Shaw house, and then to the neighboring door of Henry and the late Janet Cutter.

“It’s no’ wise!” Hamish told him. “There’ll be someone to see, and in the end, a tale will be carried back to the Yard.”

“There may not be another chance.” Rutledge found himself wondering if Simpson had already questioned the constable on this street. It would be like him.

A girl-of-all-work opened the door to him, her hands red from laundry.

“Mr. Cutter’s not to home,” she confided in the tall, attractive stranger on the doorstep. “He’s just off to work after his dinner, but I wouldn’t look him up there. Mr. Holly is not one to like gossiping on company time.”

It had all the earmarks of a quote overheard from her employer. She smiled up at Rutledge with artless interest, then remembered her duty. “Is there a message you’d care to leave, sir?”

“Did you serve Mrs. Cutter, before her death?” he asked. “I don’t remember you here, before the war.” There had been an older woman, as he recalled, worn down with childbearing and worry, who did the heavy work.

“I came in ’17,” she said, “when Mum had Tommy. Mum wasn’t well, after, and Mrs. Cutter asked if I’d like to work, instead. And a good thing, too, for Tommy was trouble from the start. Colic.” A cloud passed over her face, darkening her sunny spirits. “Mum and Tommy were took by the Influenza. Within a day of each other.” She nodded wisely. “She never knew he went. Best that way!”

“Was Mrs. Cutter a good employer? Did you enjoy working for her?”

“She wasn’t a bad employer,” the girl said, groping for words to explain how she felt. “Mum said she were different before the stroke. Jollier. It was as if that took the spirit right out of her. And she seemed-sad-when I came here. As if there was a burden she couldn’t carry and it was getting heavier with every year that went by. And finally it buried her under its weight.”

“Did you have trouble pleasing her?” He encouraged her guileless chatter. The stroke had occurred after the trial. Mrs. Cutter had been well enough the last time he’d come here, to question the couple.