Charles Todd - A Fearsome Doubt

“His Majesty’s Government won’t house you as well,” Rutledge agreed.

Hauser said in a different voice. “You know I never killed them. You won’t hang me for the sake of your career.”

Rutledge collected the Thermos and walked to the door. “Tomorrow. After that, it won’t be in my hands, anyway.”

He left, wondering if he were making a mistake. Hauser could walk away now. Is that what he wanted, deep in his own soul?

In Marling, he found a note waiting from Melinda Crawford. It read simply, I think you’d better come.

Reluctantly he drove to her house on the Sussex border. He wasn’t in the mood to be questioned about Hauser. Shanta opened the door to him, saying quietly, “You are to go upstairs.”

He followed the direction of her eyes, walking up the stairs and turning to the left. In the back of the house, Melinda Crawford had made for herself a comfortable sitting room that overlooked the gardens. She was waiting for him there, standing by the window.

As he opened the door, she turned.

“Ian.”

“What has happened?” he asked, relieved to see that she herself looked well enough except for the deep concern on her face.

“Elizabeth. She left this morning, without telling me. When Shanta went in to bring her her morning tea, the bed was empty. We waited for a time, thinking she might have gone for a walk. But there’s a horse gone from my stables as well, and my groom tells me that it must have been taken sometime close to dawn.”

Rutledge swore under his breath. “Did she tell you? About the German?”

“Yes. I think she’s afraid you’re going to hang him. Foolish girl! But there you are.” Mrs. Crawford examined him critically. “You look terrible. You did yesterday, but I put it down to this business with Elizabeth. It isn’t, is it?”

“I’m tired, that’s all. I’ve been bicycling over the countryside and then dealing with her German.”

She rang the small bell at her side, and Shanta came in almost at once with a tray, glasses, and decanters. Mrs. Crawford poured a whisky for him and passed it to him. “Drink that, my dear. Tea built an empire-we need something stiffer to see us through Elizabeth’s histrionics. She had the feeling you knew this man. Is it true?”

“Yes.”

“From the war.”

He nodded.

“She thought there might have been some ill feeling between you.”

“Not… ill feeling.” Rutledge fell back on the old cliche. “He was the enemy.”

Melinda Crawford considered him for a moment, and he felt like a schoolboy squirming under the gaze of a stern schoolmaster. “What happened to you in France, Ian? You were on the Somme, were you not?”

Rutledge could see his hand trembling as he lifted the glass. He set it down again and said, “Trench warfare.”

She smoothed the fabric of her skirt, as if she knew he didn’t want to meet her eyes. “When I was in India, I watched people die. Sometimes peacefully-sometimes quite horribly. Not just in the Mutiny, you know. It was a poor country, and people simply died. Along the road, in the courtyard of a mosque, in the shelter of a banyan tree. I have seen the Taj Mahal, one of the most elegantly beautiful shrines in the world. I’ve lain in a blind in the middle of a night to watch a tiger walk softly down to the river and drink. But I had nightmares for years about the butchery at Cawnpore, where the women and children were massacred in the Bibighar. I heard my elders describe how some of the murderers were blown from cannon rather than hanged. Do you think you can shock me?”

He said, boxed into a corner and trying to shift the conversation, “Did you offer to drive one of the Marling victims home one night? Did you take him up in your motorcar?”

“Yes. I saw him limping down the road and instructed my driver to stop. Hadley was horrified, but I didn’t care. Compassion takes many forms.”

“You should have told me!”

“Why? I didn’t murder him. I only saved him from a long walk home.”

Rutledge said, “All the same-” And then, he answered her question in the only way he knew how. “I can’t tell you about the war. Please don’t ask me to tell you about it.”

“Does this German know what you won’t tell me?”

“Only a very small part of it-” He reached again for the whisky, and nearly spilled it. “For God’s sake, don’t ask me!”

“Then there is nothing that this man can tell Elizabeth that would harm you? Or that she could use against you?”

“No-nothing.” It wasn’t completely true, but he could think of no one who could profit from the knowledge that Gunter Hauser possessed.

“Then you are free to do whatever is required, to take him into custody if that becomes necessary, and there will be no repercussions?”

He could feel himself beginning to breathe again, the tightness in his chest no longer bands biting into the flesh. “I can’t believe-” he began, and then realized that he didn’t know Elizabeth any longer.

“I think she must have gone to find him-and Elizabeth isn’t stupid, she can put facts together exceedingly well. She must have some idea where to look.”

He hadn’t considered that. “She thought he was living in a hotel in Rochester. It was a lie; he’d been living in the kitchen of an empty manor house on the Marling road. The Morton house-”

“And you took him back there. I find myself wondering why.”

“I took him back there because I needed information. I don’t know if that was right or wrong. Still, it was a personal decision, not a professional one.”

“Yes. I see that. Did you owe him your life, Ian?”

“Not precisely. But I nearly got him killed after the war had ended.”

“My dear, I can’t imagine that you would have taken the man anywhere but gaol if you truly believed he was a murderer.”

“I don’t know,” he said with honesty. “I can’t be sure.”

“As far as I can see-and I have known you much of your life-your judgment is no more impaired than mine. Whatever transpired in France, you must never let it conquer you. Do you understand me?”

“Understanding is one thing-living up to that standard is another,” he said wryly.

Melinda Crawford said, “I recognize courage when I see it, Ian. Now, what are we to do about Elizabeth, before she makes an utter fool of herself?” She took his glass and added to it.

He was able to lift the whisky to his lips this time. And the warmth seemed to spread through the icy grip of tension.

“I’ll have to go back to Marling-”

“And I shall go with you. If I’m there, we can probably salvage her reputation.”

They left ten minutes later.

When Rutledge reached the Mortons’ drive, he already knew what he would find in the manor house kitchen.

In the event, he was wrong.

Elizabeth Mayhew sat at the table where Rutledge had left Hauser only a matter of hours ago. She faced him with a shaky calmness.

“He’s not here,” she said. “I told him to go back to Germany, while he could. I told him that for Richard’s sake, I couldn’t marry a German. But I promised I’d find that cup for him. Somehow. My penance, if you like.”

“You shouldn’t have interfered!”

“Because you believe he’s a murderer? I don’t know the answer to that question. I don’t care. I want him out of England. Out of my life. Out of my mind.”

“For God’s sake, there are three men dead- ” Rutledge began, the stress of the morning leaving him short-tempered.

“Then find out who killed them.” She got to her feet. “I told him to take the horse as far as the Helford railway station. I’d send someone later to fetch it.”

The outer door had opened and Mrs. Crawford stepped in, distastefully regarding the signs of occupation in the kitchen-the tins of food, the bedding on the floor, the water pitcher next to jam jars, and a whisky decanter on the table.