Charles Todd - A Fearsome Doubt

She looked across at her daughter, forgotten in the anguish of the last hour. Margaret was quietly crying, lost in misery.

“You shouldn’t have heard any of this, poppet. I’m that sorry.”

Rutledge left half an hour later. As he came out into the street, he found Henry Cutter standing by the motorcar, staring up at the Shaw house.

“What’s happened?” he asked, his face pale and shaken. “I heard such terrible screams. What’s happened?”

“Mrs. Shaw wasn’t well. Her daughter sent for me.”

“For the police?” Cutter asked, frowning. “Not the doctor?”

“He came and went,” Rutledge said. “But this wasn’t within his province.”

“I don’t think she’s ever got over what happened to Ben.”

“No.” He was on the point of telling Cutter about the locket. Instead he asked, as if merely curious, “She told me that your stepson also was troubled beyond the ordinary.”

“I never understood him. Janet claimed I never tried, but he made it too difficult, and I gave up. I thought everything would be better after he’d killed himself. But it wasn’t. It killed my wife, too. That and Shaw’s hanging. She took that hard. She had airs and graces, my wife did. In some ways she should have married Shaw, not me. I’ve always been a plain man.” He looked up at the brightly lit windows again. “Are you sure they’re all right?”

Rutledge would have liked to tell him the truth, but again he stopped himself. “You might call in the morning, and ask if there’s anything they need.”

Cutter said doubtfully, “I don’t know…”

Rutledge moved around him to crank the motorcar and then climbed behind the wheel. “No. I don’t expect you do,” he said in resignation and, after a moment, drove away.

HE STOPPED AT the end of the quiet street, and rubbed his face with his hands. His eyes burned, his very soul felt dry and warped.

Remembering the question that Brereton asked him-about the secrets he uncovered in people’s lives, and how he dealt with them-he thought, I can’t pass judgment on what Nell Shaw wanted to do.

Hamish replied, “Her husband sowed the wind, and she reaped the whirlwind.” It was a very black-and-white interpretation of tragedy. And, in its way, true.

Rutledge dropped his hands to the wheel again. “I’ll speak to Lawrence Hamilton. He might be able to help her.”

“It’s no’ your business. The murders in Kent are.”

The murders in Kent He ought to be pleased that he hadn’t been wrong in his judgment of Ben Shaw. But that was no consolation. Nor did it offer insight into these other deaths, or a sense of purpose and renewed dedication. There was only emptiness.

Judgment had its well of sorrow.

And compassion had its pitfalls.

All the same, he was glad he hadn’t walked away from Nell Shaw, as he might have done. It would have been the coward’s way.

For a moment he considered going to his sister’s house in the city, and staying the night there. It would offer him peace and a little comfort.

But before the evening was over, he was afraid he’d blurt out Raleigh Masters’s accusation about Frances and Richard Mayhew. And that was not to be borne tonight.

Instead he turned toward Kent and his empty hotel room, where only Hamish shared his mind. That was where he ought to be.

In the event, there was no sleep to be had.

Dowling had left a message under his door.

The Chief Constable called tonight after you left, wanting to speak with you. He believes there’s sufficient evidence against this Dutchman to charge him with the murders. It’s out of our hands Rutledge read the words again and then crumpled the sheet of paper into a ball.

Damn them all! he thought.

Five minutes later, instead of trying to sleep in his bed, he was walking to the police station and asking the constable on duty for the key to the prisoner’s cell.

If Hauser had been asleep, he showed no signs of it as Rutledge unlocked the door.

“Wait, I’ll find the lamp,” the German said, and after a moment light bloomed in the dark room, shadows falling across Rutledge’s face.

“Good God, man, you look worse than I do!” Hauser exclaimed.

“I live an exciting life. As you will, shortly. The Chief Constable is preparing to charge you with the murders of three men.”

“On your evidence?”

“There’s damned little of that. No, on circumstantial evidence.”

“There’s wine in the cellars. But there’s no laudanum. I poured that out, before I left the house yesterday morning, and threw the bottle into a field on my way into Marling.”

Rutledge laughed bitterly. “I never meant for it to convict you.”

“No. I know you didn’t. I’m beginning to get the measure of you.”

“I wish I could say the same for you,” Rutledge answered.

“The problem is, you’re an honest man. And you know that I am not. I am safe in believing you. But you may find yourself in trouble if you believe me.”

“Exactly. Did you kill those men? There are no witnesses here. Not even outside the door. And any confession is your word against mine. A good barrister could claim that I had very good reasons to want to see you convicted.”

“Elizabeth? God, I hope she won’t come into this!”

“She has already. Dowling has found out that she lunched with you at the hotel one day and has been seen several times speaking to you.”

“They will say I used her, to buy respectability. Yes. All right, if you want me to swear I’m innocent, I shall. On my brother’s soul.”

His face was sober, the blue eyes intense in the lamplight.

Hamish pressed, “Do you believe him?”

Rutledge answered, “Does it matter?” Aloud, he added, “Tell me, does this cup of yours exist?”

“There are records in my family. Letters. I can probably prove it was with me during the first years of the war, if someone can track down the men serving under me. But that would lead to the truth that my brother died after the cup was taken from me. It gives me a reason for murdering ex-soldiers from Kent who were in the unit that captured me. Better to believe I was here searching my family connection with England.”

“You’ve made a tangle of your life.”

“So I have,” Hauser answered regretfully. “But then I expected to be gone in a few days. Find Ridger, demand the cup be returned, and home again. It seemed quite simple, when I borrowed my cousin’s papers.”

Rutledge turned back to the door. “Is there anything-anything at all you can tell me about these dead men?”

Hauser rubbed his jaw with the tips of his fingers, feeling the beard there. “I’ve thought of little else shut away in here. Elizabeth was right, you know. I should have taken the train to London and the next boat to Holland.”

“It would help if you’d seen something suspicious out there wandering around in the dark.”

“I couldn’t even identify the man who stabbed me! But think about this. If you offer a man a drink that is drugged, a drink he’s not accustomed to-this wine of yours-how would you go about it?”

“I’d have a drink first myself. To show the bottle was safe.”

“That’s because you’re aware that it’s drugged. No. You would offer him the wine to keep out the cold. You may have driven these roads, but you haven’t walked them long after dark, as I did. At first the exercise warms you, and then you begin to feel tired. Your shoulders ache, and then your face grows cold, and your hands. The feet last. You’d be glad of a drink by and by. I cursed myself for not bringing a flask with me.”

It was an interesting approach.

“All right. Anything else?”

Hauser yawned. “You’re the policeman. You’ll think of something.”