Charles Todd - Watchers of Time

“Don’t be ridiculous! How could I have got to this Randal’s farm, without my motorcar being seen as I drove through Osterley? Besides, Arthur was using it, in the search! And there’s my gout-” Sedgwick was on his feet. “If you won’t leave of your own accord, I’ll have my sons throw you out. I won’t stand for this in my own house.”

“Yes, you’ve taken every opportunity to remind me of your gout. Your son Edwin rides Arthur’s motorcycle. I wouldn’t be surprised if you do as well.” He turned to the sons.

“If you try to cover up what your father has done, if you refuse to help me, you’ll be tarred by the same brush. It will be the end of your family-”

He read cold calculation in hard eyes, an uncompromising facade of unity. They were ranged between him and the door, a solid phalanx of enmity.

Hamish warned, “It’s no’ what you think-”

Rutledge felt shock. Like cold water thrown in his face.

How could he have got it so wrong?

He said, “May. Will you wait for me in the car, please? I’ll be out in five minutes.” His voice was pleasant, but there was command in it.

She started to protest, then stood up. The atmosphere had changed subtly, and his order had frightened her.

“If you don’t come, I’ll drive back to town, shall I?”

“Yes. By all means.”

She nodded and walked into the hall, drawing her coat back around her shoulders. They could hear the outer door open-and then shut behind her.

Rutledge walked to the windows, and stood there with his back to them. He could feel the draft coming through the glass, cold and damp. It felt like hope.

“I was wrong,” he said, into the waiting silence. “I realize my mistake now.”

Sedgwick said, “You won’t be able to pursue this. And your career will be destroyed. I have that power. You know I do. If you leave now, I’ll undertake to guarantee that your silence will protect that young woman who just left. You would be wise to heed me.”

Rutledge said wearily, “Arthur killed his wife, didn’t he? And you, Lord Sedgwick, killed Father James. But it was Edwin who killed Walsh. Arthur’s back won’t allow him to ride that strenuously. And you were busy ordering your staff to search the house and grounds, the outbuildings and the sheepfolds.” He paused. He’d blended conjecture and experience and intuition in a unholy weave of truth. But he didn’t want to hear the answer to his last question. “In God’s name- why! ”

“She was a pretty ninny who charmed the men around her,” Lord Sedgwick replied, “but couldn’t hold a fiveminute conversation with anyone. Much less conduct a household properly. She had the attention span of a ten-year-old. She had no idea that she could conceive a child just as half-witted as she was.” He shook his head. “Her mother swore to Arthur after the wedding that she’d had a fever as a child. I discovered later that there had been a cousin and an aunt who were also mentally deficient. It was a trick from the start- and Arthur here thought he’d discovered Guinevere! ” Sedgwick’s voice was sour with anger. “Do you have any idea what it’s like, living every day of every year with someone as stupid as she was? The endless repetitions. The tantrums. The constant refrain of ‘But why can’t I?’ as if God had given her the keys to the bloody universe! Edwin or I kept an eye on her when Arthur was abroad. But even that was getting to be difficult. Arthur drew the short straw, as it were. He’d married her, after all. We never asked how or where it happened.”

“And,” said Edwin for the first time, “Baker didn’t know either. Only that she wouldn’t be going all the way. The day we buried that damned empty coffin, he promised my father he’d never speak of what happened. We expected him to carry whatever he thought he knew to his grave. Instead he made himself the laughingstock of Osterley when he died shriven by two clergymen! Too many people began to wonder why.”

Rutledge said, his mind working at speed, “When you were playing night games outside the vicarage windows, to keep Sims silent, did you see Walsh dragging his chains to the garden shed?”

“Why should I frighten Sims?” Edwin demanded. “I reserved that for Holston, who knew Father James too well. It was very likely Peter Henderson who hung about the vicarage, not me. But yes, I was coming back from Cley on my motorcycle when I saw Walsh hurrying toward the church.” He glanced at his watch. “Your time is up. It doesn’t matter to us what you do with the knowledge you have. The risk is yours. Your medical history might be of interest in certain quarters. And prospects for publication of Miss Trent’s manuscript may be unexpectedly limited. What else lurks in your future is, of course, unforeseeable.”

“I spent four years in the trenches,” Rutledge answered contemptuously. “I daresay I shall survive the Sedgwick family. I’d set my house in order if I were you.”

He turned to look one last time through the rain-streaked panes of the French doors and across the wet lawns of the lovely unseen gardens. Then he walked unmolested between Edwin and Arthur and over the threshold.

BUT IT WAS ON THE THRESHOLD that Rutledge stopped, facing the elegant room and its three occupants. “Let me remind you, gentlemen, that there are many ways that a man can be judged. I leave you to the tender mercies of the Watchers out there in the dark. When you begin to feel them-and you will-you’ll start to turn on each other. It will happen. It’s only a matter of time.”

A stolid wall of baneful resistance met him. Sedgwick was flushed now, a look of frustration and malevolence in his face. Arthur was resigned, his eyes on the carpet, but there was no remorse in his stance. Edwin, first looking from his father to his brother, turned on Rutledge a hungry glance. He was already bringing to bear a formidable determination.

For an instant, Rutledge thought Edwin might be the first to break ranks.

But the moment passed.

Rutledge leaned against the closed door, feeling the cool rain, breathing in the damp, heavy air.

It wasn’t finished yet.

Concerted murder. It was, as Monsignor Holston had claimed, violent and primeval. This family cared for nothing but their power, their will. It had made them implacable, cold-blooded. Virginia Sedgwick had been doomed from the day her husband discovered he’d been deceived. Her family was to blame, too-for their selfishness in pushing a bewildered child into the ranks of Consuela Vanderbilt and Jennie Randolph: a fortune traded for a title, nevermind happiness.

Hamish said, of the night, “I didna’ think they would let you go.”

Rutledge answered, “They haven’t. They just didn’t want to dirty the carpets.”

A voice out of the rain called tentatively, “Inspector Rutledge?”

He had forgotten that May Trent was waiting in the motorcar.

He found her shivering in her coat. “I’m so very glad to see you!” she exclaimed. “It’s been more than five minutes- I thought you weren’t coming at all.”

“I was safe enough.”

She laughed nervously. “It’s been frightful, out here in the dark. I’ve seen and heard all kinds of things! Mostly my overworked imagination, but that’s small comfort.”

He turned the crank, and when he took his place beside her, behind the wheel, she said, “Where’s Peter? We aren’t going to leave him, are we? It’s a long, wet walk back to Osterley.”

“Actually, he was outside the French windows. Just beyond the terrace. He knows where to meet me.”

He waited. The rain dripped from the trees as the wind stirred them. And somewhere, they could hear what sounded like a woman crying. It was a peacock, out on the grounds, but May Trent caught his arm. “I’m frightened. More frightened than I was in there!”