Charles Todd - A Fearsome Doubt

“I never saw it. But after she read it, she cried for hours. Then she came out of her room and was herself again.”

The teakettle sang a cheerful note, startling Rutledge back into the present.

Mrs. Shaw had judged him well, he thought. And with a cleverness born of desperation, she had found the one chink in his armor: his understanding of Ben Shaw’s broken spirit, his fatal willingness to doubt his own judgment.

Like a tightrope walker fighting for his balance, he had been swayed by the wind of her vehemence, uncertain, unable to ask for help or support from his superiors, a man caught in a dilemma that cast doubt on the one part of his life he needed most to believe in-his career. The perfect foil to Nell Shaw’s intentions.

But why?

Hamish said, “She learned that you had survived the war-”

Rutledge shook his head. It went beyond that.

He poured three cups of tea when the pot had brewed, and set them on a tray with sugar and milk, then took it upstairs.

Nell Shaw was sitting slumped in the chair by the door as Margaret struggled to make up the bed alone. Rutledge set the tray on top of the tall chest, carrying a cup to her.

It was hot and sweet, and she drank it thirstily.

Margaret, with the bed straightened up, sat forlornly on one end of it and sipped at her tea as if afraid it might be poisoned. She looked old, worn, an image of herself far into the future. Rutledge felt sorry for her.

He said, taking his own cup and going to stand by the window, “I think we need to get to the bottom of this matter.”

Nell Shaw, drained of emotion, said, “You’ve destroyed us. You know that.”

“No. That began when your husband murdered three helpless women.”

“He done them a favor. You don’t know the truth. You don’t know how they lay there day after day, with nobody to talk to, nobody to see to them except my Ben and the old charwoman who cleaned a little and cooked a bit. He’d come home of a night and shake his head with the pity of it. He said, once, ‘It would be a mercy if they was released from this life. I’ve prayed that it would come.’ But it never did.”

“Where was the locket hidden?”

“It was pinned to my corset, under my petticoat. In a little sack along with some other money he’d picked up as well.”

“Why in God’s name did you try to shift the blame to Mrs. Cutter?”

“I never liked her! And that son of hers, the policeman, he stole more from those houses than my Ben ever did. Some of the possessions listed as missing we never had. But there was no way to prove what we suspected. That bitch betrayed me, to save her precious George, and he went and killed himself from shame. It got her back, a little, for him to die almost the same week as my Ben. I didn’t see any reason why, with both of them dead, I couldn’t use them the way they’d used us!”

Hamish broke in. “You canna’ be sure that’s the truth, either!”

Rutledge said, “You could have told one of us-one of the officers here to find evidence-what you suspected.”

“Not without letting on that we knew which he’d stolen, and which he hadn’t. We was afraid to. George was a policeman-who would have listened to the likes of us?” She raised her head and stared at him. “You can still set this to rights. With a little help, we could still clear my Ben.”

“Why is it so important to you?”

“I told you-my children! Look at that girl of mine, and tell me I was wrong!”

“And what about the letter?”

For the second time that evening, her face turned gray with shock. Her lips tightened; she said nothing.

Hamish, already ahead of Rutledge, said, “That letter wasna’ to her- it was to her deid husband!”

“You might as well tell me,” Rutledge said. “I’ve guessed most of it. Ben’s cousin who went to Australia is coming home, and you thought he might be willing to help you, if you could prove you’d been wronged…”

She glared angrily at him. “That’s charity!”

“Then what did this man want?”

“He didn’t want anything. Neville was dying, and he wrote to Ben to tell him that he’d always admired him for staying home and making a good life for himself here, carrying on the family name with pride. He was ashamed of the way he’d spent his own youth, and he said God had punished him for that, taking his son at Gallipoli. We never even knew he’d married! But he must have, and he took the loss of his son hard. And he wanted to leave his money, all of it, a whole bloody fortune, to Ben-for old times’ sake!”

Her bleak, red-rimmed eyes stared at Rutledge, daring him to pity her.

“Ben predeceased him-” he began.

“That’s right. You can’t leave money to a dead man. But if I could prove that he’d been wrongfully hanged, if I could show he’d have been alive still if he hadn’t been taken from us, I thought I might stand a chance at the inheritance. Neville didn’t know, you see-he hadn’t kept up with Ben or us, he hadn’t ever heard of Margaret and young Ben. He was leaving it all to Ben, and Ben was dead!”

“And that’s when you decided to risk claiming you’d found the locket next door, in Mrs. Cutter’s possession.”

“I was afraid if it all went wrong, the police might think I’d taken it, and I’d be clapped in jail. But then I heard you was back at the Yard, and I thought, if I got to Mr. Rutledge, he might listen to me. With George’s suicide, it was easy to believe Janet Cutter’s son was guilty of something. And with her stroke coming when it did, it would be easy to think she knew more than she should and was guilty of letting Ben die in her son’s place.”

Hamish said, “Mrs. Shaw nearly succeeded.”

“It was wrong of you-” Rutledge began.

“Wrong be damned!” she cried, with a little of her old blazing spirit. “It was my family I cared about. Wouldn’t you fight for yours, if you had to?”

Hamish reminded him, “You fought for your men-but you didna’ fight for me!”

Rutledge retorted, “You refused to listen-you preferred to die!”

Struggling to collect his thoughts, he said aloud, “If you spoke to a lawyer-”

“And where’s the money for that to come from, I ask you! I could scarcely pay for my way to Marling, much less hire a solicitor who knows his arse from his elbow. I was desperate, and something in your face when I came into your room at the Yard made me think you’d listen. That I could make you believe in Ben.”

She had nearly done it. She had shaken him to the core, and driven him to listen to her demands, to ask questions, to revive, at least in his own mind, the trial that had left its mark on so many people.

“It was a near run thing,” Hamish was saying. “With yon Matthew Sunderland ill, and the constable guilty of theft, and Mrs. Cutter knowing what he’d done, it might ha’ turned out differently.”

“Differently, yes.” Rutledge answered silently. “But it was still Ben Shaw who put the pillows over the faces of defenseless women and smothered them!”

“Then why did ye no’ uncover the rest of the story at the time?”

“Because when George Peterson was taken on, he hadn’t told the Yard that his mother remarried. Nobody knew of his relationship to Mrs. Cutter.”

“Because he and his stepfather didna’ see eye to eye?”

It was one explanation. There might have been other reasons… Who could say what had tormented George Peterson?

As if she’d heard Rutledge’s thoughts, Nell Shaw said, “I never knew what possessed George, but something did. He was always looking for something-somewhere to belong. He was like one of them icebergs. You never saw what was below the surface, only the little bit at the top.”