Charles Todd - Watchers of Time

“I’m awake, Vicar,” she said. And then to Rutledge, “But hardly dressed to receive callers.”

“A policeman isn’t ranked as a caller, Miss Trent. I understand you were frightened last night. What did you see or think you heard in the woods that brought you here in some haste? We’re trying to track Walsh’s movements.”

“How did you know-” she began, and then realized that he’d tricked her. “Yes, all right,” she said after a moment. “If you’ll give me a little time to dress?”

He agreed, and the Vicar led him into the kitchen at the back of the house. The curtains were still drawn. A dresser taller than he was stood against one wall. Dishes were piled in a pan of soapy water on a small table by the windows, and the remnants of breakfast were still on the stove-toast and sausages with fried eggs. A jar of marmalade and a dish of butter sat on the main table, next to three used teacups.

“I was making fresh tea,” Sims told Rutledge, nodding to the kettle on the stove. “My guess is that you could use a cup! I’ve drunk my share this night.”

Remembering what Hamish had said earlier that morning as he’d finished Mrs. Barnett’s provisions, Rutledge asked, “With a little whiskey, if you’ve got it.”

“Yes, indeed,” Sims answered, opening a cupboard and taking out a fresh cup. “I’ll just go and fetch it.”

“First, I’d like to hear how Miss Trent arrived last night.”

“Nothing much to tell.” Sims peered into the sugar bowl. “I heard a knocking at the door, and I called down from a window to see who it was. Miss Trent said she’d got separated from her search party, and was uncomfortable about walking back to the hotel on her own. I let her in, telling her I’d just dress and then see to it that she got back to the hotel. But she asked for tea to warm her, and by the time I’d made it, she was sound asleep in her chair. I left her there with a blanket over her, and sent her upstairs around six, when she woke up disoriented and still half asleep.”

It was told smoothly, with enough detail to give it the air of truth.

But even Hamish growled his disapproval.

“Yes, that’s a fine tale for the gossips of Osterley!” Rutledge replied, taking the cup that Sims poured him.

“It’s the truth-!” There was outrage in the Vicar’s voice.

“Yes, I’m sure it is. But May Trent doesn’t strike me as the sort of woman easily frightened by noises in the woods, if she was out with a search party, and she came down that dark drive of yours when it would have been far wiser to hurry down the hill to the comparative safety of Water Street.” He paused. “After all, Walsh had been here just hours before. As far as she knew, he might still be hidden in the grounds, waiting until the hue and cry faded. No one thought to search the church tower, did they? Or all the rooms of the vicarage?”

Hamish said, “It’s no’ an impossibility…”

“You’d have got her out of here, fast as you could, if you’d had any sense,” Rutledge said. “But what she came to tell you made you both decide to stay here.”

Sims murmured, “I’ll just find the whiskey.”

But before he could move, the kitchen door opened and May Trent came in. “You said it was urgent?” She wore her clothes, wrinkled from sleeping in the chair, like a badge of honor. Her eyes strayed to the teapot. Sims was already searching for another clean cup.

She sat, accepted the tea he poured for her, added sugar, and sipped it as if it was warming her, her fingers around the bowl of the cup.

They were, Rutledge thought sourly, as companionable as a long-married pair, while he had only a matter of hours to finish what he’d set out to do.

“Get your coats, if you will. We’re driving to Norwich in five minutes.”

May Trent regarded him suspiciously. “I’m exhausted. I’m not going to Norwich or anywhere else-only to bed. And quite frankly, so should you, Inspector. You don’t look as if you’re rested enough to undertake-”

“You’d have done it for Father James.”

“What has this drive to Norwich to do with Father James?” she demanded.

“I think he began by trying to solve a problem, and found himself pitched headlong into something far more horrifying than he was trained to deal with. He did what he could. The man who may have killed him is dead now-there won’t be a trial, no clear judgment of his guilt, or for that matter, his innocence. Blevins is satisfied that the case is closed. But I’m left with an uneasy feeling that it isn’t. It’s convenient to blame Matthew Walsh. And shut our eyes. But I should think someone owes it to Father James to get to the bottom of what troubled him. I’m willing to try, but I can’t do it alone.”

Both Sims and May Trent were silent, absorbing what he’d said. She was the first to recover. “Then let that someone drive to Norwich with you.”

But something made her look away from him.

“Walsh is dead,” Sims put in. “I can’t believe that Walsh would have tried to escape, if he was innocent! If the facts, once they’re collected, would exonerate him, why not wait to be cleared?”

“Because he was a poor man and terrified that justice wouldn’t care if he went to the hangman. Which reminds me-if you’re convinced of his guilt, tell me why the two of you spent the night in this empty barn of a house, and wouldn’t leave it or go for help?”

May Trent stared down at her cup. “I’m a silly woman. The Vicar asked me again and again if I’d walk with him as far as the hotel. But I couldn’t go back outside and feel safe. You said yourself-a murderer was on the loose.”

“I think he was,” Rutledge replied slowly. “But perhaps it wasn’t Walsh.”

She spilled tea into the saucer and clicked her tongue in annoyance. “I wish you would tell us what’s wrong! What it is you want from us.”

Sims took the saucer from her, poured out the spilled tea, and wiped it with a serviette. He said, “I have work to do here. I can’t abandon my parish on a whim. Miss Trent is justified in asking what it is you want.”

Rutledge said quietly, “I’m a policeman. Have you forgotten? I don’t have to ask. I can require you to accompany me. Now, if you’ve finished your tea, we’ll be on our way.”

Listening to Hamish battering at the back of his mind, Rutledge made one detour on his way to the road south.

He pulled once more into the rutted drive by Randal’s farm.

But the gelding and the farmer had not come home.

Rutledge was beginning to feel uneasy.

The motorcar was silent as they drove south. Rutledge, uncomfortable because the Vicar was sitting in Hamish’s usual place, was not the best of companions, and May Trent kept her face turned away from him, looking out the window.

Hamish, on the other hand, was conducting a long and skeptical conversation with Rutledge.

“It isna’ the best way! Go to London, and speak to yon Chief Superintendent, tell him what it is you suspect! Let him reopen the inquiry.”

“Bowles won’t be any more receptive than Blevins was. And the case will be closed. I have at best twenty-four hours to solve he mystery that surrounded Father James’s last days. But it was there. ” Rutledge paused. “And there’s a secret binding these people together. Each seems to know only a part of it. What I don’t understand-yet-is whether the mystery and the secret are one and the same. I’m willing to bet my career that they are!”

“Aye, it could be so. But the days of the rack are over- you canna’ force them to tell you. Or be certain in the end you’ve got the truth.”

Rutledge concentrated on the road for a time and then picked up the thread of his silent conversation with Hamish. If nothing else, it kept him awake. But it failed to satisfy either one of the participants.