Charles Todd - A Fearsome Doubt

Hamish quietly agreed.

Rutledge was thinking instead of Raleigh Masters, who resented his lost foot with a bitter passion. And yet he clung to his life as if only to make those around him suffer through the blight of his own.

He wondered if there was a similarity, if these victims had also made life wretched for those around them. That might explain one murder. Not three.

Dowling was saying, “Moreover, I’ve spoken with each of the widows. They absolutely refuse to consider suicide.”

But wives and widows-witness Nell Shaw!-were often the last to accept the desertion of their husbands, even in death.

“And there’s one other small detail here. These men had been drinking wine before they died. But no one seems to know where it came from, this wine. Not from home, certainly; there was none in any of the three houses. And no one recalls seeing any of the three men in a public house the nights of their deaths.”

“What time of night did they die?”

“It was after eleven, certainly. That’s the latest time we’ve been able to establish. The bodies weren’t discovered until close on to morning, when the light was improving. I’ve sent my men round to talk to everyone who might have been on those roads after dark. They all swore there wasn’t a body lying there when they passed.”

But dusk came early in November… A dark bundle in the high grass at the side of the road might not be visible.

Hamish said, “How many would stop to ask if a drunk needed help? And the next day, how many of those would admit they’d passed by without stopping?”

It was an interesting point.

“Why were the victims out on the road at that hour? Eleven o’clock or later?” Rutledge asked Dowling. “If they hadn’t been visiting a pub, where had they been?”

“For the most part they were looking for work, picking up whatever they could find. All three often went from village to village, accepting lifts when one was offered, walking if they had to. Taylor had been mending a fence, Webber repaired furniture, and Bartlett-who’d been a glazier before the war-had gone to sit by a friend’s bedside. The man had been gassed at Ypres, and was dying. Lungs burned out. As a rule, the three victims stayed the night where they were, if there was work. Sleeping in a barn or outbuilding, whatever they could manage. Which also explains why there was no hue and cry when they didn’t come home.”

Rutledge said thoughtfully, “And all three killed at night…”

Hamish said, “What did they see, that they shouldn’t have seen?”

Which was a reasonable key to unexpected murder: These men had stumbled on something they shouldn’t have. Still, death had come on three different nights, and on three different roads. Kent was hardly a hotbed of crime, where something evil lurked at the crossroads, waiting for dark. Smuggling had once been a cottage industry along the coast, but that was long past.

Dowling tossed his papers aside. “We’ve combined our efforts, Inspector Grimes in Seelyham, and Inspector Cawly in Helford, and I. Keeping an eye out for strangers hanging about, questioning everyone who’d seen the victims the day before they were killed, making a master list of everyone who admits to being on the roads each of the three nights. And we’ve come up with what we could have told ourselves before the killings began: The victims knew each other, they were poor, they were wounded in France. But half the ex-soldiers in Kent fit that description, and if that’s what the murderer is after, he’s got an endless supply of choices. Why these three, and so close to Marling? I can tell you that Grimes and Cawly will be happy to drop this business into your lap, Inspector, but I’m a stubborn man and don’t give up easily.”

Before leaving the hotel, Rutledge had arranged for a room. His glimpse of Elizabeth Mayhew’s face as she stood in the rain on the High Street had made him uncomfortable about staying with her for a few days, although she would have been the first to urge him. Or would she?

She had asked him to help clear out Richard’s clothes. In preparation for what?

It was none of his business, he reminded himself, and yet it had left an oddly unpleasant taste in his mouth, as if he had been excluded from what had always felt like a family circle.

Hamish said, “You were nearly sure at breakfast that she was on the point of speaking her mind.”

“And she stopped herself. I’d like to know why. It would have been-easier, coming from her.”

Instead, it was as if the relationship had changed in unexpected ways.

Taking along the young constable-now silent and shy-who had been dressed down by Sergeant Burke, Rutledge set out to visit the places where each body had been found.

“Put yourself in the murderer’s shoes,” Rutledge suggested to the young man as they drove past the square and out of Marling on the way to Seelyham. “How well would you need to know this part of Kent, in order to find a quiet place for a killing?”

Constable Weaver brightened, as if no one had asked his opinion before. “I’d say ours are fairly well-traveled roads,” he answered after a moment’s thought. “Anyone coming down them in the direction of Marling would see the empty stretches. You’d only have to keep in mind where.”

Which meant, Hamish pointed out, that the possibilities were wide open.

“Were the three dead men heavy drinkers?”

“They’d not say no to a pint, sir, if someone was buying. They didn’t have the money for much else.”

“They hadn’t developed a taste for wine, in France?”

“There’s a story about that, now you mention it. Some of the Marling men took shelter during a storm in a burned-out French farmhouse. It had a wine cellar, and the men helped themselves. They were sick as dogs for two days, after drinking the lot.” Weaver chuckled. “Tommy Bilson brought home the silver cream jug he found there under a mattress. And it shined up something wonderful. I told him I ought to arrest him for stealing it.” He suddenly remembered who sat beside him in the motorcar and cast an anxious glance in Rutledge’s direction.

It was as old as warfare, this propensity to appropriate souvenirs. Rutledge had seen countless small acquisitions while boxing up possessions of the men he’d lost. There had been no way to discover where these objects had come from, much less who might have owned them once. For the most part he’d closed his eyes to them and sent them home. One of the most touching had been silver buttons, for a bride who would never wear them to the altar…

Weaver pointed just ahead, where a line of trees marched along a winding stretch of road, giving some protection from the sun or rain. Rutledge pulled the motorcar to the verge. The constable was saying, “Seelyham’s not more than three miles in that direction. Inspector Grimes was called to have a look at what a farmer had found, and he sent for us.”

They got out to stand by the trunk of an ash tree. Its thickness offered an ideal place for a man to rest if he was drunk or tired. Shadowed by tall grass and the branches overhead, it was also an ideal spot where a body might be disposed of.

There were no cottages or farms within sight just here, no windows overlooking the road, but a hundred yards or so in the direction of Marling an overgrown drive wound between leaning stone pillars to a house protected from view by trees and a thick shrubbery. Only its roof and several chimneys were visible over the treetops. Too far away to hear anything, too far to see the road. Still…

“Who lives there?” Rutledge asked, pointing out the gates.

“Nobody now. The family died, and the lawyers are trying to find the heirs. Gone to New Zealand for a fresh start, or so I’m told.”