Charles Todd - A Fearsome Doubt

Brereton came striding into the dining room, and didn’t at first recognize Rutledge. His eyes were on the kitchen door, and when the girl serving tables came through with Rutledge’s tea, he called, “Do you suppose you could manage toast and a pot of that for me as well?”

She led him to the table just beyond Rutledge’s, and it was then that Brereton peered at the man from London and paused, as if trying to place him.

Rutledge greeted him by name, and reminded him of the dinner party.

Brereton nodded. “Yes, that’s right. The policeman from Scotland Yard. What brings you back to Kent? The murders here, I suppose. Do you mind?” He gestured to the other chair at Rutledge’s table.

“No, please join me.” Brereton nodded to the girl and she went off to fetch his tea.

“I’m half asleep,” Brereton said, sitting down. “Bella was worried that Raleigh had finished his drops and finally sent one of the servants down to my cottage to ask if I’d mind coming in this morning to ask the doctor for a new supply.”

“For his pain?”

Brereton grimaced. “It’s more for his moodiness. They’ve given him a new foot, you know, and it hurts like the devil. Both physically and psychologically. If he could manage it, he’d have his ravaged one back.”

“I expect that giving up his practice would weigh heavily on a man like Masters.”

“Yes, that’s probably more true than we know. He lived for the law, and he’s at sixes and sevens now.”

His tea and a plate of toast arrived, and Brereton added as he poured hot milk into the cup, “I don’t suppose Masters has ever been easy to live with. He’s a remarkably clever man. Nothing else has ever touched him the way the law did, and he’s having trouble filling all those empty hours. Bella fusses, which doesn’t help. But then she’s worried sick about him. They end up aggravating each other to the point of scenes.” He shook his head. “It’s rather sad.”

“He’s not likely to take up growing vegetable marrows,” Rutledge agreed, smiling. “I’m surprised that he hasn’t thought of writing about his career. At the Hamiltons’ dinner party he spoke warmly of Matthew Sunderland. He must have known or worked with a number of famous men.”

“Interesting possibility! I ought to drop a hint along those lines. Sunderland was Raleigh’s mentor and his standard. You’d think the man walked on water, the way Raleigh extols his virtues. I wonder if he could be objective-Sunderland made his share of mistakes, from what I’ve heard!”

Rutledge said, “Did he!”

“There was a famous case just at the turn of the century. Hushed up, of course, but Sunderland was reportedly too-er-fond of the wife of the man he was prosecuting. There was an odor of vengeance about the proceedings, as if he’d gladly see the man punished not for the alleged crime but for marrying the woman Sunderland had fancied for himself. Naturally I’ve never asked Raleigh if there was another side of the story.”

“Where did you hear this?”

“It was during the war, I had taken a train back to hospital after leave, and I found myself seated with an elderly barrister. We talked about the law for most of the journey. And he made a comment about the famous Mr. Sunderland having feet of clay. Apparently there was a lampoon that showed the Q.C.-as he was then!-as David, sending Bathsheba’s husband not to the forefront of battle but to prison for life. In any event the jury decided otherwise, for whatever reasons, and it was one of the few cases that Sunderland ever lost.”

Hamish added dryly, “I canna’ see him taking a fancy to yon harridan.”

“I saw Sunderland in top form during the Shaw trial. He was impressive.”

“Shaw? Oh, yes, the man hanged for murdering women in their beds. It was another trial that created a good deal of publicity. Sunderland died within the year, I think.” Brereton smiled wryly. “Bella tells me Raleigh all but went into a decline.”

“There was no suggestion of illness or impairment in the courtroom.”

“According to Raleigh, it was a sudden death. Sunderland’s heart simply stopped. He was sitting at his desk dictating letters to his clerk, and between one word and the next, he was gone.” Brereton took out his watch and peered at it intently, as if having trouble reading it. “Another half hour before the doctor’s likely to be up!” He put the watch away carefully. “The truth is, the man you saw at the dinner party is a far cry from what he once was. Raleigh has lost the edge that made him a superb barrister. He probably wishes he could die as swiftly as Sunderland did. In all likelihood, he won’t live out the winter.”

“It’s sad to watch a man deteriorate,” Rutledge agreed.

“It’s Bella I worry about. She’s going to wear herself into illness if she isn’t careful. And he doesn’t seem to notice. Or to care.”

“There’s a self-centeredness in dying,” Rutledge pointed out.

Brereton looked up at him. “So there is in blindness, too. The difference is in age. And perspective. I’ve still much of my life ahead of me, and I don’t fancy spending it tapping along the pavement with a cane!” He said restively, “I must go. Bella-Mrs. Masters-will be anxious. I may be able to persuade Dr. Pugh to let me in.”

He stood and looked around for the girl who had served him, then went to the kitchen door to call to her. After settling his account, he came back to the table. “I live in the cottage just down the road from the Masterses’ house. If you find yourself in the neighborhood, stop and have a drink with me.”

Rutledge thanked him and, after Brereton had gone, finished his own tea. But it was still too early to call on Elizabeth Mayhew, and when the serving girl came back to clear the table, he ordered his usual breakfast.

By that time the other guests in the hotel began to arrive, and the room took on new life as voices filled the spaces. He sat by the window, watching the street come to life as well, as carts moved among the shops, bringing in chickens and cabbages and beets and loaves of bread fresh from the bakery. A small cart filled with baskets of apples rolled past, the farmer’s cheeks as round and red as his wares, his bald pate gleaming in the first rays of the late-rising sun. Through the glass, Rutledge could hear the clock in the church tower strike the hour faintly. Brereton, driving out of Marling, was hunched over the wheel, intent on avoiding an accident.

How had Brereton felt about the murdered ex-soldiers? Rutledge wondered. Had he understood their suffering better than most, and felt the irony of their death in a peaceful country finished with war? Or had he secretly envied them their quiet and painless end?

Hamish said, “He isna’ blind yet. Ask him in five years.”

Which was more to the point.

His breakfast finished, Rutledge set out to do what had been on his mind since dawn.

Elizabeth Mayhew was surprised to see him at this hour, but he apologized with the reminder that he was in Marling on Yard business.

“You’ve lived here since well before the war,” he said as he followed her into the small reception room off the entry hall. “Do you remember hearing of a Jimsy Ridger?”

She frowned. “The name isn’t familiar at all. Richard would have known. He knew better than most what went on. He had deep roots here. People talked to him, confided in him.” She looked around her at the comfortable room, her home since her marriage. “I’m considering selling up. There are no children to inherit. I might as well let the house go to someone who can keep it as Richard would have wished.”

Startled, he said, “But it’s been in his family for-what? Seven generations, at the least!”