Charles Todd - A Fearsome Doubt

“Still, there’s the connection with Mrs. Cutter. Was her son involved? Was she trying to protect him? Or did she use him to try to put the blame on Mrs. Shaw?”

“Aye, the locket. George Peterson could have pocketed that. To gie to his mother.”

“Yet she never used it against the Shaws. Why did Peterson kill himself? Because he didn’t like police work, as we’ve been told? Or was there more to the story?”

“He wouldna’ be the first policeman to die by his own hand.”

It was true. After the first long months of working with the worst of human nature, of seeing violent death and recognizing evil for what it was, a callous disregard for the lives and property of others, either a policeman developed a hard shell against the nightmare of his job or he began to drink. Sometimes when the shell cracked or the drinking failed to dull the mind, a man withdrew into himself, and built not a shell but a wall against any emotion at all. Or he put an end to all of it.

Rutledge himself, drawn to law enforcement because of a firm belief that the police had the power to give the dead a voice, to offer in a courtroom the evidence of the scene and the body, had discovered soon enough that he was losing his objectivity. And it had been a long, difficult climb to a level of professionalism that had allowed him to function without losing his humanity.

Young George Peterson might never have succeeded in reaching that level…

As the lights of London came closer and he could see the city shining in the misting rain, the smell of the river borne on the wind and the heavy odor of coal fires hanging between the clouds and the rooftops, he turned toward Sansom Street and finally pulled up in front of the Shaw house.

Every light seemed to be burning, the house startlingly lit like a beacon. In the West End, it would signify a party. In Number 14, Sansom Street, it was an omen.

Rutledge got out of the motorcar and stretched his shoulders, postponing the moment of walking up to the door and lifting the knocker.

Margaret Shaw was there as if she had been waiting just on the other side, and he walked into the narrow hall.

A passage led to the back of the house, with narrow stairs climbing to his right and doors into rooms standing open on his left.

Margaret was in tears, her face red and streaked, as if she’d been crying for hours.

“Mama is upstairs,” she said. “I’ve been that frantic. I think it’s her heart!”

“You should have called a doctor, not me,” he said, and then regretted it.

“The doctor came,” Margaret told him. “And left. He said it was something she’s eaten. He gave her a digestive powder-she won’t touch it, she says it’s poison, and she just lies there clutching her chest and asking God why he deserted her.”

“Where’s your brother?”

“Mama sent him to stay with a friend. I don’t know what excuse she made, but they agreed to keep him for a day or two.”

Rutledge followed Margaret up the stairs and into a bedroom that faced the street.

The bedclothes were rumpled and tossed, half on the floor, half covering the fully clothed woman lying in their midst. Her hair was a bird’s nest, tangled and spiked with sweat, her shirtwaist and her skirt wrinkled and twisted.

As he walked toward the bed, she turned her head to see who was there, and froze.

“Dear my God!” she cried, staring at him, and sat up with such hope blazing in her eyes that Rutledge turned away.

He said to Margaret, “Bring your mother water and towels. A brush for her hair. Then put her in that chair-” He gestured to the single chair by the door. “I’ll wait downstairs.”

“No-!”

“Mrs. Shaw, for your own sake and your daughter’s-you’re in no state-”

Nell Shaw stretched out her hand. “No, don’t leave me! You’ve got to help me. I can’t do it all myself. I can’t anymore!”

“Mrs. Shaw-”

“What does it matter to them? Janet Cutter is dead. Her son George is dead-It won’t matter to them if the slate is wiped clean for my Ben, and their names are substituted for his!”

“I can’t perjure myself-”

“Is it perjury? Look at my girl! Am I to put a dead woman ahead of my living flesh? It could have been that bitch next door! It could have been her as easy as it could have been my Ben! And they can’t hang her, can they? They won’t dig up her corpse and hang her in the prison yard! All you have to do is tell the police that you was wrong, that there’s proof now that she did the murders-”

“They’ll want to know how she did it-what opportunity she had. Why she should have killed the women-there had to be a reason- ”

“Her son, then! Good God, he’s a suicide, he must have had it on his conscience, and after my Ben was hanged, he couldn’t bear it any longer-he took his own life.” She was on her knees on the mattress, begging. “There’s the locket, you saw it! Love-in the tall chest there, the top drawer! Give it to him and let him take it to the Yard. He can tell them what the truth is, and get the verdict reversed, and clear your father’s name. Give it to him! ”

Margaret went to the drawer and opened it, her hands trembling as she searched among the handkerchiefs and gloves. Finding what she sought, she brought it to Rutledge, her face strained and on the verge of tears again.

Rutledge opened the handkerchief to look at the contents. The locket fell through his fingers and onto the floor. As he bent to retrieve it, cold metal and stone in his hand, he thought, God forgive me. I don’t know what to do!

And yet he did. Out of the shadows had come an answer. The only answer he had failed to explore. He had examined the possibility of the Cutters-of Janet Cutter’s dead son-even of Mrs. Shaw herself being the true killer. He had never looked at Ben Shaw, except as a victim.

…

As he straightened up, he said, “Mrs. Shaw. Where had your husband hidden this locket?” There was a different note in his voice.

Hamish said, “’Ware!”

Rutledge thought she was going to die then.

“We searched the house,” he said implacably. “We never found it. Where was it?”

Nell Shaw crumpled before his eyes.

Covering her face with her hands, she lay back in the bed and thrashed, moaning, from side to side. From an angry demanding harridan, she had become diminished, a woman without spirit and without hope. Margaret ran to her, throwing an accusing glance at him.

Hamish said, “It canna’ be true-!”

Rutledge answered grimly, “You weren’t there!”

He left the room, and went down the stairs. In the kitchen, the remainders of a meal lay on the table, greasy plates, scraps of sausage and bread. He took the kettle, filled it with fresh water, and set it on the stove, then opened cupboards until he found cups and saucers.

As he took them down, he could see that his hands were shaking.

Guilt He thought then about what Tom Brereton had said about guilt-about the need to work it out.

But why had Mrs. Shaw suddenly taken it into her head to remove the locket from its hiding place and put it in among Mrs. Cutter’s clothing?

Why?

To what end?

Yes, it would make a difference in her children’s lives as well as her own to clear her husband’s name, but the passion driving her had been ferocious He reviewed everything he knew or had learned about the Shaws. And Margaret’s words came back to him…

“She went next door to help Mr. Cutter as he’d asked, and when she came home she looked sick, as if she was about to lose her dinner. She was that upset, she locked herself in her room. I’ve only known her to do that twice before. The day Papa was taken away, and the day the letter came.”

“What letter?”