Charles Todd - Watchers of Time

“Which brings us back to Lord Sedgwick. If he was at the rectory when Father James was killed,” May Trent said, “then he’d want Walsh dead.”

Monsignor Holston said, “No. What I think Rutledge is saying is that just as Peter Henderson was a witness, so was Sedgwick. Without necessarily knowing the importance of what he saw.”

May Trent’s eyes, on Rutledge and speculative, were skeptical.

Rutledge looked at his watch. “We have five minutes before the dining room opens. I should go upstairs and change out of these wet clothes.”

As he closed the lounge door behind him, he overheard Monsignor Holston commenting to May Trent, “When I asked my Bishop to send for the Yard, I thought I was doing something good. What have I unleashed? ”

Luncheon passed in relative silence, each member of the small party lost in his or her own thoughts.

Over the main course May Trent said suddenly, “I’m going with you. When you call on Lord Sedgwick.”

“It’s not a very good idea,” Rutledge answered.

“It probably isn’t,” she agreed. “All the same, I’m going.”

But they were held up. A fire in one of the houses west of Water Street jammed the road with firefighters and a tangle of buckets, people, and frightened horses. The pouring rain, dropping out of a gray and light-absorbing sky, soon accomplished what the firefighters couldn’t, and the smoking, blackened rafters filled the air with the reek of burned wood as they loomed starkly against the clouds. But much of the house survived, and a great many of its contents had been saved.

One of the men fighting the blaze was Edwin Sedgwick, sleeves rolled high, face smeared with sweat and soot. As Rutledge joined the line, passing buckets from the well, Edwin shouted orders and encouragement, taking charge as if by right, and showing unusual skill at coordinating the mob of people.

Observing when he could, Rutledge saw that Edwin’s skill lay not so much in cajolery or good-humored bandinage but in the role of the local squire, the natural leader everyone turned to in time of trouble or danger. It was a role Edwin’s father played to the hilt, and the son had learned well. He took full advantage of it now.

Hamish said, “He’s no’ sae overbearing as his father.”

As Rutledge spelled an older man needing a breather, he agreed with Hamish. Command came more naturally to Edwin, as if by this generation it was bred in the bone, not learned.

Edwin was everywhere at once, taking as many risks as the next man and not complaining about lending his weight where it was needed. A hand on a tired shoulder, a word of support, swift advice, a cry of warning.

Hamish, whose independent Scottish spirit seldom allowed him to bow his neck to any man, commented, “He’s no’ the elder brother. He willna’ be the laird in his turn.”

Rutledge cast a glance around, to find May Trent not in the motorcar watching from a safe distance but busy comforting the distraught woman lamenting the overturned lamp that had started the fire.

Picking up the thread of Hamish’s remark again, he found it interesting. While Arthur had been buried in Yorkshire’s dales with his young wife or racing across France, Edwin’s had been the face that Osterley had seen most frequently.

This presented a different aspect of the man Rutledge had encountered returning from boating in the marshes with his dog and drinking alone in the lounge bar of a tiny hotel outside Norwich. What had taken Edwin there?

Hamish answered, “Mischief.” And perhaps there had been a woman with him that night.

Their work done, the firefighters began the onerous task of cleaning up the muddy yard and trying to get the salvaged belongings under cover.

Edwin Sedgwick accepted the gratitude of the householder as if it were his due, noblesse oblige, and to satisfy the general euphoria, he shook hands with all comers. When he reached Rutledge, he smiled and added, “Thanks for your help. We needed every man.” Treating him casually, as an outsider.

Nothing in his demeanor indicated that he was aware of Rutledge’s close observation, but Rutledge had the feeling that Edwin Sedgwick, like his father, was a man used to battling the world and winning. He would be mindful of the smallest detail.

As Rutledge turned to collect May Trent, Sedgwick retrieved a motorcycle from the side of a tree, and roared away toward East Sherham. In the distance, caught by the echoes of the rolling land, the sound dulled from thunder to a quiet chuckle.

It was Hamish who called his attention to that.

Rutledge spent what was left of the afternoon asleep in the chair in his bedchamber. He was awakened by Mrs. Barnett in time to arrange for Iris Kenneth to speak to Blevins again, and it was close to six when he saw her off to King’s Lynn in a lorry that had brought boxes of hams to the butcher in Osterley and as far east as Cley. He also made certain that she had money enough to make the journey in reasonable comfort, and she thanked him profusely.

“Matthew wouldn’t have hurt anyone,” she said earnestly. “That Inspector Blevins won’t believe me, but I hope you will. I can’t say any fairer than that!”

He helped her into the lorry. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you, Miss Kenneth.”

At the last moment she leaned down, speaking for his ears alone. “I owe you. And I pay my debts. A friend of mine did a bit of work once for a man in Norfolk. I never knew what village, but he was rich, and he paid her well to impersonate a lady. But she never did live to enjoy the money. I always thought he’d killed her. Two months later, they found her in the river, like that poor girl you thought was me. Naked as the day she was born, and drowned.”

“When was this?” he asked, his curiosity aroused.

“It was before the War. About two years before the War. I’d like to see you find the bastard yourself, and put that sanctimonious policeman’s nose out of joint. Serve him right to be made to look a fool! And a bit of his own back for Matthew.”

And she was gone, the empty lorry lumbering down the road in the rain like a drunken walrus. May Trent, who had stepped out in the shelter of the hotel doorway, said, “She’ll manage, you know. Her kind always does. Somehow.”

“We more frequently find them floating in the Thames. I hope to God she’s not taken out of the water one day soon.”

Rutledge opened the umbrella and held it over her head as they walked to the yard, where the motorcar stood waiting. He was hearing Monsignor Holston’s admonition, offered quietly in the lobby of the hotel.

“Don’t start something you can’t finish,” he said. “That’s what Father James did.”

Hamish had silently answered in Rutledge’s mind. “Aye. It’s worth heeding.”

AS HE WAS ABOUT TO CRANK the motor, Rutledge said to May Trent, “I’ve just thought of something. I’ll be back shortly.”

He turned and walked with long strides to The Pelican.

Ten minutes later, he was back with Peter Henderson, who nodded at May Trent and climbed into the rear seat of the car without a word.

Hamish was a hum of wordless admonition in Rutledge’s mind, reminding him that this night’s work could become a debacle.

Dusk was falling quickly, the rain shifting for part of the way to a drizzle that seemed to coat the motorcar and its passengers in tiny drops of moisture. As they passed down the avenue of trees in East Sherham that led to the gates of the Sedgwick estate, Rutledge slowed to a walking pace. And Peter Henderson, like a wraith, was out of the car and gone in the mist before May Trent had even turned to see what was happening.

The gatekeeper, reluctant to come out in the rain, called from his doorway, “Who’s there?”