Charles Todd - A False Mirror

“Bennett must be wondering where I got to. I should be there when they bring him in, rather than wasting my time here.” Granville was tense with worry.

“It wasn’t a waste of time,” Rutledge said, nodding to the constable under his tree as they turned out of the drive. “After all, this was the most likely place.”

He drove fast, but with care on the wet roads. Air passing through the car brought a chill with it that cut through the drenched clothes clinging to his body, although the morning appeared to be warming up noticeably.

They reached the Mole as the last man was getting into a cart, dragging a canvas sack over his head to keep dry.

Bennett stood up in the wagon in which he was a passenger, thought better of clambering down again, and shouted across to Rutledge, “Where have you been?”

“To the house-”

But the inspector wasn’t interested. He called, “There’s been a landslip. To the west of here. A bad one, I’m told. We’re on our way to see the extent of the damage.” He motioned for Rutledge to follow, but the doctor objected angrily.

“A landslip, is it? Then put me down here,” he said. “In an hour I’ll have a surgery full of patients, and there’s still Hamilton, if-when-you find him. You must tell Bennett what’s happened. I can’t take the time.”

Rutledge paused to set the doctor down, and the man hurried off without a word, his umbrella bent to the wind, his feet sloshing through the rivulets of water running through the street. Then Rutledge put the car into gear again and hurried to catch up the tag end of the convoy heading west along the Devon road.

Hamish was vocal, reminding Rutledge of the alarums in the night.

“What the laddie saw. A man carrying anither man o’er his shoulder?”

“And heading in the opposite direction from the Hamilton house. Yes, I was just thinking about that. Before the rain came.”

“Aye. No tracks.”

“And no tracks the last time. A wily bastard, this one.”

He followed the convoy along the road that led toward the Devon border, but it wasn’t very long before they stopped and got out in the downpour, moving across a rising green headland that seemed to end in a jagged line across the horizon of the sea.

Bennett stood there, crutch digging deep into the wet earth. “The cottage is gone,” he was saying. “And a good ten feet this side of it.” He raised his voice to call peremptorily, “Damn it, Tatum, don’t go any closer! There’s no certainty it’s finished falling, and we’d have no way of getting you out.”

One of the towns people stopped where he was, then gingerly backed away from the edge, nodding. “True,” he said. “If it weren’t for this infernal rain, we could have a better look from the water.” There were cows grazing peacefully nearer the road, but none had ventured as far as the landslip. Seagulls were wheeling overhead, calling to one another and dipping out of sight to where the land had shifted and fallen. “A feast for the likes of them,” Tatum went on.

The men were strung out in a rough line, staring at the sight. One of them turned to Rutledge and said, “It happens from time to time. In my grandda’s day, three houses and a barn went over. That was a bad one.”

“You said there was a cottage here?”

“If you could call it that. A tumbledown ruin, where no one cared to live. And you can see why, can’t you? The last resident there was a brother to Mr. Reston. The black sheep in the family, you might say.” He grinned. “He’ll be glad enough that the cottage is gone now. People will finally forget it existed.”

“Black sheep?” Rutledge asked, curious. There had been no mention of a brother. “Does he drink?”

The man shook his head. “Nothing so tame. A general reprobate. Wild for the ladies, if you could call them that. Gambled on whether a fly would land on his dinner. A petty thief and a troublemaker. When Freddy died, brother George must have fallen down on his knees in gratitude.”

“What happened to him?”

The man frowned. “Odd, now that you mention it. He drowned on the strand, not a dozen yards from where they found Mr. Hamilton’s body.”

Bennett was calling to his men. “There’s nothing we can do here after all. Might as well get out of the wet.” He limped heavily toward the vehicle that had brought him out here, then veered as if the prospect of jolting back to town in a wagon wasn’t a welcome one. “Seeing that you’re here, Rutledge, I’ll drive back with you. Save some time.”

The man who had been talking with Rutledge quietly faded away, as if their conversation had never taken place. Rutledge nodded to him, but there was no return nod.

Rutledge had left the motor running, and as he climbed in and Bennett swung his muddy crutch into the rear seat, Hamish said, “’Ware!”

Turning the motorcar was a dicey proposition, for the ground was saturated and the tires sank deep. Rutledge gave the maneuver the attention it deserved while Bennett took out a handkerchief to dry his face.

“I saw Dr. Granville with you. One of the women having hysterics? Nan Weekes, most likely. Mrs. Hamilton doesn’t appear to be the sort. But then you never know, especially if Mallory decided to make free with her.”

Rutledge responded in a neutral voice, “Matthew Hamilton is missing.”

Bennett swung around so that he could see Rutledge’s face.

“Missing? What the hell are you talking about?”

“When Dr. Granville looked in on him this morning, he wasn’t there.”

“You’re saying he came to his senses and just walked out?”

“We don’t know. He wasn’t there. I went at once to search the Hamilton house and grounds, but if he’s at Casa Miranda, I can’t find him. Unless he knows some way of concealing himself there. When I saw the gathering on the Mole, I assumed someone had sent for you, to tell you where to look. That this was a search party setting out.”

Bennett swore, long and feelingly. “Why didn’t Granville come to me, damn it? And what possessed the fool to leave? He’ll take his death in this rain. That blow on the head must have unsettled his mind.”

“Or someone was afraid he might regain his senses and remember more than was safe.”

Bennett stared at him again. “You’re saying he didn’t walk away? That someone’s got rid of him?”

“There was the Cornelius boy’s nightmare. He saw something in the night. His mother told me it was a hunchback walking through the mist.”

“Pshaw! That’s nonsense.”

“It might fit. If someone carried Matthew Hamilton over his shoulder.”

“Then where in hell’s name would he have taken him? And on foot? He’s no lightweight, is Hamilton.”

“A good question.” Rutledge slowed as he reached the Mole. He didn’t add that there were two motorcars to choose from at Casa Miranda, and a horse. Or that the constable had taken shelter under a tree, where in the heavier downpours, he could hear very little. “Do you want to get down here? I’d like to find a boat willing to take me around to the landslip. Before that I want to speak to Cornelius’s son. In light of what’s happened since last night.”

“A boat in this weather? And what’s there to see, I ask you? Don’t be a fool, you’re here to attend to Hamilton and his affairs, not to see the sights. Take me to Granville’s surgery, if you will. A child’s nightmare won’t help us forward. There may be something Dr. Granville missed in his panic.”

Rutledge stopped at the walk to Granville’s surgery door and waited while Bennett got down. Bennett stood for a moment in the rain, as if torn between duties. “You’re not coming?” he asked finally. “Are you insisting on going to the Cornelius house first?”