Charles Todd - Watchers of Time

Rutledge nodded. He looked down at Peter Henderson’s shoes. They were old. Worn…

He said, “Walsh stole a mare from a farmer just east of Osterley. Why would he turn back on himself to do that?”

Henderson shrugged. “I’ve told you what I saw. I can’t tell you what he did after I broke off and walked back to Osterley.” He had an odd dignity, standing there in his creased and worn clothes. A man shunned by others because he happened to be very good at killing from ambush. It wasn’t deserved, the judgment local people had inflicted upon him. And yet this was his home, and villagers were often tied, emotionally if not financially, to their roots. The money in the tin box at the rectory would have been a treasure trove to him. He could have gone anywhere with ten or fifteen pounds in his pocket. Had it been tempting?

Hamish said, “I canna’ believe it. Nor do you. It was a rifle he used in the War. Distant killing, that.”

“Fair enough, then. Henderson-” Rutledge paused. “Were you at the rectory, the day Father James was killed? Waiting to see him?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I’d heard of work in Wells. I wanted to ask him to write a letter for me.”

“Had he written letters before?”

“Once. The Vicar has written them, too.”

“Where did you wait?”

“Mrs. Wainer was just leaving. It was growing dark by then. I stood by those overgrown bushes, so as not to frighten her. Someone else came looking for Father James. I left then, not wanting to push myself forward.”

He’d stood in the lilacs-“those overgrown bushes.” It wasn’t one of Walsh’s cronies acting as lookout, after all; it was a man wanting help to find a job. Rutledge said, “Who came?”

“Mrs. Barnett, from the hotel, but she only tapped at the door. When Mrs. Wainer didn’t answer, she stepped into the kitchen and called, then closed the door and left.”

“Mrs. Barnett never went beyond the kitchen?”

“Not as far as I could tell. She wasn’t there much above a minute.”

“Was there anyone else?”

Henderson said reluctantly, “Yes. Lord Sedgwick came to the front door and knocked.”

“You saw his car?”

“No, I never did.” His voice was level, a soldier reporting to his commanding officer. “But I saw him walk up the drive. Then he came round to the back. Along the far side of the house, not close to where I was standing. He was looking up at the windows of the conservatory next door. They were dark. Then he went in through the kitchen, calling to Father James. He must have gone on to the parlor, to wait. Or leave a note. That’s when I left.”

“And you never saw Father James that night?”

“Well, yes, I did. He was on his bicycle, riding back to the rectory. He waved, and I walked on.”

“You didn’t tell him he had a visitor?”

“It wasn’t my place.”

Hamish said, “Blevins wouldna’ believe it was a local man there in the shrubs. He wished it to be Bolton, the scissor sharpener. Or Iris Kenneth.”

Rutledge said, “I’m driving to The Pelican. Would you like a lift?”

Henderson’s face brightened. “Give me five minutes. To clear up.”

“I’ll wait in the car.”

Rutledge turned and walked back to the motorcar, hardly noticing the rain.

Once he’d dropped off Henderson, Rutledge drove back to the hotel, retrieved his umbrella from his room, and walking briskly, went directly to the police station.

He found that he was not the only visitor.

A youngish woman in a black coat over a green traveling dress was sitting in front of the Sergeant’s desk, her face buried in an overlarge handkerchief, supplied by a red-faced Blevins across the desk from her.

The Inspector looked up as Rutledge came through the door. “Whatever it is, it can wait.” He gestured toward his visitor. “This is Iris Kenneth. She traveled up from London to-er-see Walsh. I’ve just given her the news.”

Iris Kenneth raised her face from the handkerchief, her eyes watery and red-rimmed, turning to stare at the newcomer.

Blevins said, “This is Inspector Rutledge, from Scotland Yard.”

She nodded a faint acknowledgment and said to Blevins, as if she had been interrupted in the middle of her grief, “I was so angry with him! Matthew. For sacking me. But I decided that if I stood by him now, he might take me on again, after. He wasn’t a bad man to work for. He enjoyed posing in his costume and being admired. I was jealous.”

“He wasn’t likely to be taking on a helper ever again,” Blevins said. He cast a wary glance at Rutledge. “He was more likely to find himself waiting for the hangman.”

Fierce in Walsh’s defense, Iris Kenneth cried, “But I told you, Matthew wasn’t a murderer! He wasn’t a bully, he didn’t have a temper!”

“Yes, I know, Miss Kenneth. Several times.”

She began to cry again. Rutledge, standing by the door, could read the embarrassment in Blevins’s face. Over the woman’s head, the Inspector shot him a pleading glance for help. “I don’t know what you want me to do, Miss Kenneth,” he said plaintively. “I can’t tell you what the arrangements are for a funeral. Not just at the moment. But if you’d like to take a room-”

She glared at him through her tears. “I don’t have the money to stay-or to bury Matthew. I spent nearly every penny coming here-I’ve barely enough to see me back to London!”

Hamish said, “He’s no’ a man for the ladies. He doesna’ ken that it’s no’ so much Walsh’s dying as it is the disappointment of her expectations. She canna’ face what to do now.”

Rutledge stepped toward her chair. “Miss Kenneth, it’s been a very difficult morning for you. A cup of tea and an hour’s rest at the hotel will help. I’m sure Inspector Blevins will meet with you in the afternoon.”

Blevins glowered at him, and she caught it.

Iris Kenneth’s shoulders slumped. “I could use a cup of tea,” she said. “This has been a terrible shock-!”

“I’m sure it has. Mrs. Barnett, at the hotel, is very kind. She’ll see that you’re taken care of.”

She looked more closely at the tall man by the door. He could read her eyes as they swept over his face and across his shoulders, and back again.

With the resourcefulness of her class, she recognized that she would make no headway with the stolid man behind the desk. And she was desperate, willing to try any port in the unsettled climate of her life just now. She got to her feet with some grace and said, “You’re very kind. If the Inspector here-” She groped for a name.

“Blevins,” he said, relief already spreading across his features. “Inspector Rutledge is right, Miss Kenneth. Take your time and you’ll soon see your way clear again.” The false heartiness in his voice was almost insulting.

“-Blevins,” she acknowledged, “will give me a little more of his time later?”

“Oh, yes, to be sure,” he said hurriedly, rising from his chair to escort her to the door.

Rutledge glanced at Iris Kenneth and then said cryptically to Blevins, “I’d come to ask. The doctor was satisfied that it was the mare’s shoe that was the cause of death?”

“Oh, yes. There’s no doubt. I’m completely satisfied.”

Rutledge nodded.

Holding the umbrella over his companion’s hat, Rutledge took her arm to guide her toward the hotel. “I’m sorry that you’ve come so far,” he told her, “to hear such tragic news.”

“He wouldn’t have killed anyone. Much less this priest! Matthew was always on his best behavior at church bazaars, superstitious, if you like. And he never cared for being penned up-I’m not surprised he escaped! A big man like him? In such a small space? It would have been torture!”