Charles Todd - A False Mirror

Hester said, following his gaze, “Apparently one of Granville’s cousins flew the damned things in France. And before he was killed, he made models of various types of craft for his parents. I expect no one wanted them in the house as a reminder. Either of you know what a knobkerrie is? Used in Africa for killing. Like a prehistoric club, actually, with a round knob at the end. Very efficient at caving in skulls. I’ve seen them. My grandfather spent some time in South Africa and up the western coast. He earned more as a doctor than as a prospector, and came home as poor as he left. Tells you something, doesn’t it?”

And who else had been in South Africa? Certainly not Mallory. He could see the thought flit across Bennett’s face. But Miss Esterley had grown up in Kenya.

“It doesn’t serve to guess,” Rutledge said finally. “If it’s not here, we’re wasting time. A simple hammer, brought with the killer? Who can say?” But that argued premeditation. And pointed to Mallory.

“Yes, possible.” Hester took a deep breath. “All right, if you’re finished here, help me get her to my motorcar. There’s a proper canvas carrier, Bennett, if your constable will fetch it in. I’ll have more to tell you when I know more.”

When the body of Mrs. Granville had been removed, Rutledge went to the house where the rector was keeping the doctor company. Bennett stumped after him on his single crutch, trying to keep pace. The constable was once more set to guard the surgery, his young face already older in the watery noon light.

There was a fresh pot of tea waiting for them, and a plate of biscuits that Putnam had found somewhere, set out on a pretty floral plate.

Granville was sitting at the table, staring vacantly out at the rain, his mind clearly somewhere else. Bennett refused the offer of a chair and leaned against the wall with his teacup balanced in one hand. Rutledge found himself thinking that Mrs. Granville wouldn’t have cared for people making free with her fine china, and would have worried about the cup in Bennett’s fist.

Rutledge took his tea and drank a little of it to please Putnam, but then set it down and walked through the house, looking about him but touching nothing. On the first floor he found the bedrooms, and in what appeared to be Mrs. Granville’s room the coverlet had been thrown back, as if she had expected to return to her bed.

From the window of her room she could look down on the rear of the surgery and the back door to the garden.

An interesting thought. Was that the way that Hamilton had left, either under his own power or over someone’s shoulder? The door set ajar might also have been a diversion. Or Mrs. Granville could have left it open.

Nothing else was in disarray. But there was a light film of face powder spilled across the top of the dressing table although Mrs. Granville’s hairbrush was placed next to her comb with tidy precision. Rutledge wondered if she was farsighted and failed to notice the powder there. Which would mean she could undoubtedly see as far as the surgery door.

Why had she risen from her bed and gone to the surgery?

Hamish said, “She thought she heard the doctor return. But he didna’ come into the house. After a time, she went to find him.”

“Because she feared Hamilton was worse and Granville might need her. Yes, it could be that.”

He stood there in the middle of the room. It seemed cold, as if the living part of it had died with its owner.

The wrong place at the wrong time.

He went back down the stairs to find Bennett waiting for him in the hall.

“Well? I’m not up to walking about to no purpose.”

“Nothing.”

Bennett returned to the kitchen, but Putnam waylaid Rutledge in the passage.

“I came to the surgery this morning to speak to Hamilton, or at least sit with him for a time,” he said in a low voice. “I never expected this!”

“None of us did. Least of all Granville. Damn it, I warned him to find someone to watch over Hamilton.”

“And there might have been two dead, instead of one,” Putnam replied quietly. “What’s become of him? Hamilton. Granville told me he’s nowhere to be found. That’s hard to believe.”

“God knows where he is. Where could he go under his own power? And if someone took him away, where is he now? Thrown into the sea from a headland, left to die where we haven’t thought to look, carried far from here, and the body hidden?” Rutledge’s own sense of failure was burning inside him, along with the fear that Mrs. Granville’s death lay at his door. “Either way, taken or escaped, he could well be dead by now.”

“I’d rather believe Mrs. Hamilton spirited him out of here.”

“Mrs. Hamilton would have had no need to kill that poor woman.”

“Yes, that’s true. But someone else might have come, found Hamilton gone, and taken his frustration out on Mrs. Granville.”

Rutledge looked at Putnam. “That’s a very perceptive suggestion. But I’ve been to the house, and I can’t convince myself he’s there.”

Hamish reminded him, “Ye didna’ search the woman’s room.”

It was true. But to force his way in would have brought Mallory up the stairs, and what then? His instincts told him that Mrs. Hamilton had probably considered such a solution at some point, then failed to act on it. She’d have needed a motorcar, or the dogcart, and with either one, she risked Mallory storming out to stop her.

What did Felicity Hamilton really want? Or to put it another way, which of the two men tied to her emotionally did she love?

He deliberately changed the direction of the conversation. “You suggested in the nave of your church that I might wish to speak to a Miss Cole. Where do I find her?”

“I can’t tell you that, I’m afraid. I only know of her because Matthew Hamilton spoke of her that one time. He described her as the most honorable and the most stubborn person he’d ever known. An odd compliment to pay a lady, you’d have thought. It stayed with me, what he’d said. I had the feeling it was very important to him, somehow.”

The most honorable woman…In what sense? And Felicity Hamilton hadn’t recognized the name.

“There’s one other possibility,” Rutledge continued. “There’s a cottage just west of here where Reston’s brother Freddy lived for some time.”

Putnam’s eyebrows flew up. “But that cottage was derelict. And if it went over with the landslip this morning, there will be nothing left but splintered wood.”

“No one could have foreseen that, could they? And Freddy Reston drowned not far from where Hamilton was discovered on the strand.”

Putnam clicked his tongue. “As a matter of fact, the finding was that he’d fallen asleep there drunk as a lord, and choked on his own vomit. It’s the family that prefers to tell everyone he drowned.”

“Freddy Reston’s death could have given someone the idea of leaving Hamilton there by the tideline. And later it could also have occurred to someone that the cottage where Reston had lived stood empty. I’m not overly fond of coincidences.”

“But surely you aren’t suggesting that George Reston-and what reason could he have? That ridiculous clay figure is hardly grounds for murdering a man.”

“For all any of us know,” Rutledge told him, smiling ruefully, “Hamilton’s relationship with Reston could have gone far beyond the original disagreement.” He stopped himself from saying anything about Reston’s past history of violence but did add, “George Reston is a man of temper. You’ve seen it, and so have I.”

“Yes, alas, it’s true. Still, a good man underneath.”

Was that what he truly felt? Or was it only a priest’s need to believe that no man could be wholly evil?