Charles Todd - A Fearsome Doubt

“Indeed, sir!”

Bowles rang off, and Rutledge hung up the telephone with unusual care.

Hamish said, “He went through your desk. Or someone reported to him.”

“But he isn’t quite sure what brought Mrs. Shaw to the Yard…”

“Else, he’s waiting for your heid to be well into the noose-”

Rutledge went to call on Mrs. Bartlett and Mrs. Webber. Alone and overworked, the widows looked older than their years.

Hamish said distastefully, “I’d no’ want to be a policeman. I’d no’ want to question the grieving.”

“It’s the only way to find a killer. Sometimes.”

“Oh, aye? And ye’d be happy telling your ain secrets?”

Susan Webber, brushing her auburn hair back from her forehead with one hand, was holding on to the shy little girl burrowing into her mother’s skirts with the other. Peter’s sister…

“It was kind of you to let Peter ride in your motorcar,” she said as she led Rutledge into the parlor and turned up the lamp. It smoked, as if it needed trimming. A basket of folded laundry sat on a table in the passage, and there was evidence that cabbage was part of their dinner menu. He could smell it boiling.

“I’m sorry to trouble you,” he said, “but I’m sure you are as eager to have an answer to your husband’s death as we are.”

She said, “What good will it do, then? It won’t bring Peter’s father back, and it won’t make my life any easier. Kenny might as well have died in the war. I’d got used to him being away, after the first year. Then he was back, and he needed more care than these two.”

He looked up to see Peter standing quietly in the doorway.

“Is there anything you can tell me, Mrs. Webber, that might be useful? Did your husband have any enemies-or any friends he didn’t trust?”

“Kenny wasn’t back home long enough to make enemies! And his friends were in the war with him. Or dead. I don’t know why anyone would want to hurt him. Or us. And why would he stop along the road somewhere and drink wine? He never liked wine, it made his stomach raw.”

“He may have learned to like it in France.”

She shrugged. “Kenny learned to like a lot of things in France, didn’t he, that I didn’t know about. The French pox, for one. He was cured. He said. It was Jimsy’s doing, that’s what I was told. Jimsy got him a surprise for his birthday. It was a surprise, right enough.”

“Did you know Ridger well?”

“Him?” Her voice was contemptuous. “He was one of the hop pickers. My mother would have locked me in my room if I’d shown any interest in that direction! One summer when Jimsy was twelve, he helped Kenny’s pa to build a fence, and Kenny’s ma was kindhearted and let him stay to supper many a night. I don’t think Jimsy ever forgot that, and he was always respectful of Kenny. That’s what Kenny said when I railed at him about the whore. That Jimsy knew he was homesick and down, because they was going into the line again the next morning and Kenny had a premonition he’d be killed. But he wasn’t, was he?”

As Rutledge left, Peter followed him out into the front garden, staring longingly at the motorcar at the gate.

Rutledge showed him how the crank was turned, and let him peer into the driver’s seat at the gauges on the panel. When Peter hopped down to the road again, Rutledge got behind the wheel.

Peter said, “One night I saw my pa come home in a motorcar. He’d been working out on one of the farms. I was at the window watching for him. He said he liked riding in it and would do it again, if he got the chance.”

“When did you see this motorcar? Do you remember?”

The child smiled shyly up at him. “One night. I don’t know when.”

“Can you tell me about the driver?”

Peter shook his head. He wasn’t interested in anything but the vehicle.

“Did you see your father in this motorcar again?”

The fair head shook again. “It was the only time he came home early.”

“Did your mother see the motorcar?”

“No. She’d gone to sit with Mrs. Goode, who has a baby.”

As Rutledge pulled away, Peter said, running along beside the motorcar, “I think it was a woman. Older than my mother. Old…”

Mrs. Bartlett, sitting by her kitchen fire, looked up at Rutledge with swollen eyes. The handkerchief in her hand was crumpled, sodden. “I miss him most at night, you know. Because he’d come home, then, and I’d not be alone anymore.” The tiny kitchen, scrubbed clean, had an emptiness about it, as if Mrs. Bartlett had given up on cooking. “When Harry worked somewhere and stayed the night, I never could sleep the way I should.”

“When you heard he was dead, did you suspect anyone? Did you think of anyone who might want to harm him?”

She looked up at Rutledge with complete bewilderment. “No. It was a murderer. It wasn’t someone we knew.”

Rutledge changed his tactics. “Mrs. Bartlett. I’m trying to find something that connects the three victims. Their service in the war, for one. And the fact that they lived here in Marling. Can you think of anything else?”

She considered the question. “It doesn’t make sense that anyone would want to hurt Harry. He was a good man. They were all good men, and it was cruel when they’d already suffered so much!” And then, unwittingly, she quoted Nell Shaw. “I don’t know what I’m to do without him. I don’t know how I’m to get on!”

“Did your husband know someone called Jimsy Ridger?”

“How should I know?”

As she broke down completely, Rutledge asked if there was someone he could bring to her. She shook her head.

And so he made her a cup of fresh tea, and she drank it gratefully. He wondered if she had eaten all day. As she settled into a calmer state, he took his leave.

Where were the women of the church tonight, when she needed their comfort? At home with their own families, and unaware…

The next morning he found Hauser shaved, dressed, and waiting for him. The wound looked dry and as if it had begun to heal. Changing the dressing, Rutledge said, “It’s nearly time to make a decision about you.”

“Mrs. Mayhew. Is she all right?”

“She’s in good hands.”

Hauser nodded. “I’m happy to hear it.” But he didn’t sound happy.

He ate a good part of the food Rutledge had brought with an appetite. “A farmer’s breakfast,” he commented, finishing the last of the bread and bacon. “Very good. So. Have you found the man who knifed me? It won’t have proved an easy thing to do! He was a coward; he’ll hide himself well.”

“Not yet.” Rutledge toyed with a bit of eggshell, drawing imaginary lines on the table.

Hauser said, “Come now! You are a good policeman, are you not?” There was humor in the man’s face. But not in his cold eyes.

“I don’t know,” Rutledge said, getting up from his chair to rinse out the Thermos and set it on the drainboard by the sink. “I’ve learned that when a man wants something very badly-as you say you want this cup-he will measure the cost carefully. And if it comes down to it, he’ll willingly pay whatever price is demanded. The important thing is to understand the consequences. You were in the war. You know better than most what it’s like to face death. I think you’d go to the hangman with few regrets-except perhaps for your children.”

Startled, Hauser had the grace to flush. “It would be very easy to hate you,” he said after a moment.

“No. We were out there. In the trenches.” Rutledge heard a rough edge to his voice. “On different sides, but we were out there. That’s a soldier’s bond.”

Hauser got up and walked to the window. “I’ll have to move on, you know. People will see where your car has been. They’ll be suspicious.” He sighed. “It’s going to be damned inconvenient.”