Charles Todd - A False Mirror

He met her smile with one of his own. “I’m interested in anyone who has a connection with him. How did the accident happen?”

“It was my fault, actually. I’d stayed late with a friend who was ill. Reading to her. The storm came up rather suddenly, and I made a dash for it. Unfortunately, I didn’t dash soon enough, and the rain caught me halfway home. It was dark as pitch, wind lashing the trees, and I should have stopped. But I thought, Only a little farther, and I’m safe. His motor came around the next bend and struck me before he even knew I was there. I’d seen his lights but thought I had time to pull across the road and into the shelter of some trees. Ridiculous to be worried about being splashed, I was already as wet as I could ever be. But you don’t always think rationally, do you, on the spur of the moment?”

She had an interesting face, square jawed with a straight nose and deep-set eyes. The kind, Hamish was saying, that could lie well, without betraying the thoughts behind the words.

“Were you badly injured?”

“My knee took the brunt of the blow. It was weeks before I could walk on it again, and then it was stiff for ages after that.”

“Who was your doctor?” he asked, intending to verify details of the accident and how she might have felt at the time it occurred.

“Dr. Granville, of course, and I must say he worked a miracle.” But it was clear she preferred to talk about Hamilton. “It was my claim to fame, you know. Meeting Matthew Hamilton on his very first visit to Hampton Regis. I have first acquaintance. It quite puts Miss Trining’s nose out of joint.”

He smothered a laugh. “When was this?”

“Last year. I was disappointed to discover that he was married. We’re short of eligible bachelors here.” He thought she was mocking him.

Miss Esterley was, in fact, striking, while Felicity Hamilton could be described as beautiful. But there were attractions other than beauty. Intelligence for one, character, spirit. A shared background. “Are you on good terms with Mrs. Hamilton?”

“I have no reason not to be. I don’t dally with married men.”

“I didn’t mean that you did-”

“What you were asking, Inspector, was whether or not his wife was jealous of me. I doubt it. Was I jealous of her? No. I enjoyed Matthew Hamilton’s visits to hospital immensely, and later at the convalescent home. He has a very pleasant manner, and it passed the time. I’ve traveled a little, and we shared an interest in that. Otherwise, he came out of kindness and a sense of duty. He felt responsible. And as I had no one else to look out for me, it was rather nice to be taken care of.” Before she could stop herself, she cast a wistful glance at a photograph on the table at his elbow. An artillery captain, he saw, smiling at the camera with a devil-may-care expression. He didn’t need to ask Miss Esterley if the captain had come home from France.

Hamish said, “Aye, but she wanted you to notice.”

Rutledge responded silently, “If she was jealous of Hamilton, it would have been his wife struck down on the strand.”

“A woman scorned,” the Scots voice retorted.

Almost as if she’d heard Hamish, she said, “I grew up in Kenya, Mr. Rutledge. Matthew Hamilton hadn’t traveled to Nairobi, but I’d been to Crete and Malta and Cyprus on holiday with my parents. We could only afford the slow steamer, not the fast packet, you see. And that was our good fortune, because we enjoyed exploring. It was what took my father out to Kenya in the first place.”

“Do you know Matthew Hamilton well enough to tell me who might have wished to see him die?”

“Whispers say it must be Stephen Mallory. But I doubt it.” She frowned. “It’s going to make it difficult for all three of them when Matthew Hamilton is recovered. Even if Stephen didn’t harm him, he’s destroyed Felicity Hamilton’s reputation here.”

“There’s the maid-”

“Yes, well, you don’t know Nan as I do. She used to work for a friend before the Hamiltons came. If it had been Felicity who was attacked, I’d have thought of Nan before anyone else. It’s a terrible thing to say about someone you know, but I see her stooping to murder if she thought it would free her employer from his wife’s spell. And spell it is. Make no mistake.”

As they were leaving the Esterley house, Hamish said, “What’s the secret of Matthew Hamilton, then?”

“Miss Trining is jealous of him in her own fashion,” Rutledge answered thoughtfully. “Miss Esterley enjoyed his company more than perhaps was-suitable, for want of a better word. If she’d been as fond of the doctor responsible for seeing to it that she walked again, I’d find that more commendable. And there’s Miss Cole. I expect the rector heard something in Hamilton’s voice that betrayed more than he’d intended to say, when he brought up her name. I wonder what Frances would make of him?”

His sister was a very good judge of people and often better than most when it came to understanding the roots of relationships.

The trouble was, the force of character and the vitality of the help less man lying on the cot in Dr. Granville’s examining room were obscured by bandaging and silence. It was hard to tell whether his charm was real or merely cultivated through years of diplomatic necessity. Even Felicity might not know the answer, even though she had married him.

Hamish could be right, that what people wanted to see in him, they did see. The eye of the beholder.

Rutledge threaded his way through the busy streets, intent on going to the police station, but he paused briefly to look out across the Mole toward the open sea. The view beckoned, the day clear enough to see for miles, the water lapping softly at the strand of shingle where Hamilton had been walking. There were boats there now, drawn up out of reach of the tide, and gulls sat on the jutting pier, calling to one another. He had always loved the water. And this afternoon it was a mirror, deep blue and peaceful. But the sea was not always so quiet.

Inspector Bennett was waiting for him, demanding to know why Mr. Reston had been questioned like a common suspect. “He’s respected in these parts,” Bennett pointed out. “A man of business.”

“Even men of business commit murder,” Rutledge said blandly. “More to the purpose, he might well have been walking to the bank that morning and passed someone hurrying away from the Mole. I’d have thought a prominent citizen would be more than happy to help the police with their inquiries. Instead he complains to you.”

“That’s as may be. I’ve already put my men to questioning the fishermen and the loungers who hang about the Mole. They’re a more likely source of information.”

“Have they had anything to tell you, so far?”

“They saw nothing, worst luck,” Bennett admitted. “There was a mist that morning. Some people like walking in mists. I don’t see it myself, quickest way to lose your bearings and find yourself in trouble.”

“Yes, well, set your men to questioning the shopkeepers along the Mole, the man who sweeps out the pub, the milliner who comes early to work-anyone who might have seen Hamilton before he reached the Mole. Or noticed someone following him on Monday morning.”

Sourly, Bennett said, “This isn’t London, with limitless resources.”

“If someone was going to come forward of his own accord to tell us what he saw, he’d have done it by now. What we’re after is what people don’t realize is important.”

“And what’s more,” Bennett went on, moving to his next grievance, “I’m told you woke Hamilton up, questioned him, and then summoned the doctor to him. What was that about?”

“It was hardly questioning him. He came to his senses on his own, spoke a few words that indicated he was only just aware of my presence, and that was the extent of it.”