Charles Todd - A False Mirror

The dining room was empty, his breakfast set out on the long table by the kitchen door. He filled his plate and sat down, Hamish seeming to hover behind him in the shadows. The woman who was now serving at meals brought him his tea and stood by his table for a moment looking out the windows at the weather.

He thought to ask about Becky and was assured that she was expected to resume her duties by early next week.

“Thank goodness this wasn’t a busier time of year,” she went on, and then nodded toward the rain, coming down harder as they watched. “My grandmother told us last night this was coming. Her knees ached something fierce. The barometer bore her out, but we didn’t know, did we, that it would be such a stormy morning.” She sighed. “Poor daffodils, they’ll have muddy faces now.”

He offered a smile, and she went back to the kitchen. It was a depressing morning, true enough, and Hamish was vigorously reminding him of the rain in the trenches, the sour smells of unwashed bodies, wet wool, mud, and despair in equal measure.

Finishing the last of his toast and tea, he rose and walked out to the lobby, opening the door to a gust of air so heavy with moisture it seemed to have come from the sea, not the sky.

He had expected to go back to Matthew Hamilton this morning, to sit there again and talk to the man, hoping to bring him back to the present once more. He had the feeling that Hamilton had understood more than Rutledge or the doctor realized, and that the words flowing around him had partly roused him out of the pain and blackness that engulfed him. But it was late, and his first duty must be to Mrs. Hamilton and her maid.

The situation there was unstable enough to change by the hour.

He fetched his hat and coat, and with a sigh dashed through the downpour to the motorcar, feeling his shoulders and his shoes taking the brunt of what was pelting down and swirling in puddles under foot.

He turned the crank and ran for the driver’s door, nearly colliding with a man half hidden behind a large black umbrella. He seemed to appear out of nowhere from the boot of the motorcar.

The umbrella flexed as it struck Rutledge and dumped a shower of water into his face as he ducked away from the points.

The man holding it swore, and then as it shifted a little so that he could peer under the dripping edge, he said, “Rutledge?”

It was Dr. Granville.

“Are you looking for me?” Rutledge asked, and then added, “For God’s sake, come inside before we’re both wet through.” Leaving the motorcar running, he urged the doctor through the yard door into the inn.

They found themselves in the narrow, flagged passage that led from the back hall, and Granville left his umbrella outside, taking out a handkerchief to wipe his face.

“What is it? Has Hamilton taken a turn for the worst?” Rutledge asked when the man seemed to hesitate.

“Or is he dead?” Rutledge went on, staring hard at the doctor.

“I don’t know.” The doctor’s voice was diffident, as if he were embarrassed to say what had brought him here.

“You didn’t put a guard on him, is that it? After I’d warned you. Well? What has happened to him now? Come on, man, speak up!”

The doctor looked up at him. “He’s gone,” he said simply. “Just-gone.”

At first Rutledge took that to mean that Hamilton had died in the night, alone and without regaining his senses. But then he realized that the doctor meant what he said quite literally. The shock in his eyes was unmistakable.

“Gone? When? Where?” Rutledge demanded.

“I don’t know. For God’s sake, I don’t know. His bed was empty when I went to check on him half an hour ago.”

“Are you quite sure he hasn’t passed out in another room as he tried to find help?”

“I’ve searched the premises. He’s gone, I tell you.”

“To the house. To find his wife.” Rutledge swore, and wheeled toward the door. “Come on, man, we’ve got to search for him.”

“He can’t have made it far, it’s not a climb he can-”

But Rutledge had the sleeve of his coat, pulling at him, and the doctor came reluctantly behind him, catching up his umbrella but with no time to open it.

They made for the motorcar and climbed in, bringing the miasma of wet wool after them, steaming up the windscreen with the heat of their bodies.

Rutledge found a cloth under his seat and scrubbed at the inside of the glass, swearing again. Then he tossed the cloth to the doctor, put the motorcar into gear, and turned in a shimmering fan of spray.

They came out of the inn drive and went toward the street that ran along the Mole. “Have you spoken to Bennett?” Rutledge asked, taking the next turn far too fast, feeling the tires slipping sideways in a spin. He brought the vehicle back under control and headed to the east.

“No. I couldn’t face him. I came straightaway for you instead. I thought perhaps-look out, you fool, there’s a bicycle ahead!-damn it, we’re no good to Hamilton or anyone else if we’re dead.”

But Rutledge paid him no heed. Every second counted now. Three minutes later, he found a very wet constable standing under a tree some distance from the drive to the house, where he’d taken what shelter he could find against the trunk.

“How long have you been on duty?” Rutledge asked, lowering the window.

“Since six, sir,” the man answered, looking as wretched as he must feel. “It’s been all quiet at the house. Not a sound out of them.”

“And no one has come in or out?”

“No, sir. No one.”

But if the earlier watcher had been standing where this man was, it would be hard in the dark to know who had come. Or gone.

Rutledge thanked him and drove up to the door.

The shrubbery by the drive was as wet as a rain forest, he thought, getting out to hammer on the house door. And the downpour had hardly lessened since it began.

Mallory came to answer his impatient summons, looking as tired as Rutledge had ever seen him. “What do you want now?” He glanced over Rutledge’s shoulder and saw the doctor in the motorcar.

“For God’s sake, why have you brought him? I’ve done them no harm.”

“Hamilton has disappeared,” Rutledge told him bluntly. “He may have come here. I want to search the house, and after that the grounds.”

“It’s a trick. He’s dead, isn’t he? Well, you aren’t bringing any of your men or Bennett’s here on a pretense to search. I’ll use the revolver if I have to. Do you hear me?”

“He’s missing,” Rutledge said grimly. “You’d better listen to me, Mallory. I’m not here to play at cat and mouse. If he’s been out in this rain for hours, he’ll be running a fever by now, or he could have bled to death from his internal injuries-God only knows. Will you let me in to search or not?”

Mallory called out to Dr. Granville. “Is this true? Is Hamilton gone?”

“In the night,” the doctor confirmed. “He must have come here, man! Where else would he go? In his condition?”

Mallory swore. “He isn’t here, I tell you!” But his gaze moved toward the dark, silent house behind him. “I’d have known.”

“Stay here if you like, and guard the door. But let me search,” Rutledge said rapidly. “I’ll do it alone, and I give you my word now that I have no other motive. I won’t leave a window or door unlocked, I won’t frighten either of the women. It’s his house, Mallory, he knows it better than you do.”

“I thought he was too badly injured to know where he was, much less walk away. You told me as much, damn it,” he retorted accusingly. “You lied to me!”

“We believed it to be true. But you know as well as I do that badly injured men are capable of heroic effort. We saw that often enough in the war, for God’s sake. If he’s determined to know why his wife hasn’t visited him, he may have tried to reach her, for fear something has happened to her as well. Or he may be out for revenge. It’s better if I find him first, before you come on him in the dark.”