Charles Todd - A False Mirror

Rutledge finished his tour of the park and returned to the Yard, the dog thoroughly pleased with its outing.

He met Inspector Mickelson on the stairs, and they passed without speaking. Mickelson was dressed as a banker, furled umbrella, hat set squarely on his head, on his way to take his own part in Phipps’s play.

The dog growled deep in his throat as Mickelson went by, and Rutledge patted the massive head. Mickelson was a stickler for the rules, and one of Bowles’s favorites. He had also nearly got Rutledge killed in Westmorland. It was with some satisfaction that Rutledge accepted the dog’s judgment corroborating his own.

After half an hour, Bevins also returned, his face flushed with the cold wind.

“Any luck?” Rutledge asked, meeting him in the corridor.

“No, sir.” Then he grinned. “I’m a chimney sweep next. Got the clothes off a man we took up for housebreaking last week. Pray God there’s no lice in them.”

Rutledge had walked the dog the third time, glimpsing the sweep working on his brushes as if something about them troubled him. The nanny was now unrecognizable as a shopgirl flirting with a young army private. Another man was arguing with a friend, and Rutledge caught part of what Sergeant Gibson was saying so earnestly-his views on the Labor Party and what the government ought to do about people out of work.

We’ve got the same number of actors-Rutledge thought, bringing the dog to heel again after allowing it to explore among the trees along the edge of the grass. It doesn’t vary.

No murderer worth his salt would walk into such a carefully managed trap.

And then Phipps was there again, carrying his umbrella, a folded copy of The Times under his arm. He looked like a retired solicitor, his nose red from the cold, his attention fixed on the distant traffic, just barely heard here in the park.

It was a waste of time, Hamish was saying.

Rutledge answered, “One of the murder victims sold pipes in a shop. The other was a conductor on an omnibus. What did they have in common, that made them a target?”

“It wilna’ be how they earned their living.”

“True enough.” Rutledge let the dog walk ahead to the base of one of the great trees that had given the park its name. “This was a place where men dueled, once. A long time ago.”

“Oh, aye? But to use a garrote properly, you must come from behind. No’ face-to-face. It’s no’ an honorable encounter!”

“A woman, then?”

Hamish answered, thoughtful. “There’s no woman, else yon Chief Inspector would ha’ had her name by now fra’ someone eager to turn her in for prostitution.”

“A gaming debt?”

“A warning,” Hamish countered.

And that, thought Rutledge, was very likely the case. A warning to stay in line-or die.

But for what? From whom?

He had come to the end of the park, Buckingham Palace gleaming in soot-streaked glory in the late-afternoon sun. His father had brought him here as a child to watch the Changing of the Guard. The ceremony had impressed him, and for a week he’d wanted nothing more than to be a soldier, with a bearskin hat. He smiled at the memory. He’d fallen in love with pageantry, not war. Just as so many young men had done in August 1914. And they’d learned the difference soon enough in France.

There was a man leaning against a lamppost, his face shadowed by his hat. Rutledge saw him but kept walking. From where this man stood, he could watch the comings and goings in Green Park, the bare limbs of the trees offering none of the protection of summer’s shade.

Rutledge passed him by, ignoring him. A hundred yards farther on, he found a constable and surprised him by handing over the dog to him. And then Rutledge cut through St. James’s Park, made his way back again to The Mall, and found a bench from which he could watch the man still leaning against the lamppost.

A low profile.

The wind was cold, and he could feel his feet growing numb, but he sat still, his hat tilted over his eyes as if asleep.

When the man finally left his post and turned away, Rutledge followed at a discreet distance.

Felicity never discovered why Matthew went to walk on the shale beach below the breakwater that morning. He enjoyed strolling by the sea. It was, he’d often said, a way of clearing his mind. The fact that he’d made it a habit of late had begun to worry her.

She’d heard nothing by breakfast, and ate her meal in anxious silence, pretending that it was normal for her husband not to join her when he had business of his own in the town. By ten o’clock when there was no word, she began to grow uneasy. She went to find his diary to be certain he’d had nothing scheduled for the day. She couldn’t settle to anything, moving from task to task, humming to herself to pretend all was well. But it was a farce, and failed to comfort her.

While Nan, the maid, was dusting the stairs, Felicity slipped out to look for the motorcar, and saw it was still in its shed. The horse that drew the dogcart had been fed, the stable mucked out, chores Matthew always dealt with before breakfast. The cart was there where it always was. Nothing had changed.

He couldn’t have returned from his walk. If there’d been someone at the door, she’d have heard it.

Matthew wasn’t in the gardens. He wasn’t in the house. A mist still concealed the Mole from view but she thought it was beginning to lift.

And no one had come to tell her that something had happened to him.

He couldn’t simply disappear-could he? She remembered those frightful landslips that occurred from time to time along the coast just west of here, when an entire cliff face could vanish into the sea. She shivered at the thought of never knowing what had become of him. Then scolded herself for letting her imagination exaggerate her fear.

By eleven, she was verging on real anxiety, pacing the floor, listening for the sound of the latch lifting or a familiar footfall in the hall. Listening for the knocker to sound.

Where was Matthew?

She had just gone up to her room for her coat and hat when she heard the knocker clanging hard against the plate on the door.

Felicity stood still for a moment, her heart thudding. And then, calling to Nan that she’d see to it, she flew down the stairs, almost flinging herself at the door, pulling it open with such force it startled the constable standing there.

“Mrs. Hamilton?” he said, as if he didn’t know her at all.

“Yes, Constable Jordan, what is it? I was just on the point of going out-”

He cut across her words. “It’s your husband, Mrs. Hamilton.”

His tone of voice as much as Matthew’s name stopped her in her tracks, one hand outstretched as if to ward off the blow that was coming.

“He’s dead.” She said it so flatly that Constable Jordan stared at her.

“No, madam-”

The relief was almost more than she could bear. “No,” she repeated.

“Here!” For an instant he thought she was going to faint before his eyes, and he reached out for her arm. “Steady on! He’s badly injured, but he’s not dead.” Yet, he added to himself. “They’ve sent me to take you to him, I can drive if you like.”

“Drive. Yes, he doesn’t have the car, does he?” She was bewildered, trying to understand. “Where is he? At Dr. Granville’s surgery?”

“Yes, madam.”

“Stop calling me madam!” she told him irritably. “You know my name, I’m not a stranger! Wait, I was just getting my coat-”

“Where were you going, if I may ask?”

“To look for him, of course. He hasn’t been home since early morning.” And she was already on her way up the stairs, ignoring what Jordan was saying to her back. In a flash she was back with her coat, and it wasn’t until she stepped into the motorcar that she realized she’d forgotten her hat.