Charles Todd - A False Mirror

“Step out here for five minutes. I give you my word this is no trap. There isn’t a sniper waiting with a rifle, there isn’t a covey of policemen under cover in the garden. But Bennett is the local man, it’s his problem as well as yours, and the sooner we sort it out, the better.”

“He willna’ come,” Hamish said.

But in the end, Mallory, after a long look at Rutledge, stepped outside and behind him drew the door nearly shut. “Mrs. Hamilton is in the kitchen,” he said grimly. “Looking at the larder.” There was a wealth of information in the statement. Food was running low and his own attempts at cooking were a failure. What’s more, Nan Weekes was still uncooperative.

Rutledge wondered what the maid would have to say when she was told that Hamilton was dead.

At a nod from Rutledge, Bennett heaved himself out of the motorcar, put his crutch under his arm, and hobbled forward.

For an instant the three men seemed to stand there like flies in amber, their positions determined by the strained relationships that separated them and made them antagonists, holding them in a pattern that had no beginning and no end.

Mallory broke the stiff silence. “Get on with it.”

Rutledge said, “While I was here in the grounds earlier this morning, a house-or rather a cottage-out on the Devon road went over the cliff and into the sea in a subsidence.”

“What does this have to do with Hamilton?”

“I mistakenly thought the activity I saw along the Mole meant that Bennett here had found him. Back to the cottage. It was uninhabited, thank God, derelict in fact, and no one was hurt. But I went around by sea to have a look at what was left. It had to be done, in the event Hamilton had been inside and we could recover his body.”

Mallory had been listening impassively, his face schooled to show no expression. Now he said, braced lines about his eyes, “Cut it short, man, was he there? Is he dead?”

“There was no hope of digging through the silt without grave risk to the searchers. But I found one of the man’s bandages caught on a broken chair. Dr. Granville has confirmed that it’s very likely the one covering Hamilton’s head and face.”

Mallory seemed to catch his breath on a word. And then he said, “You can’t prove how it got there. Or why. And without a body, you can’t be sure Hamilton is dead.”

“The evidence is very strong now that he is.”

“But how the hell-unless you were lying to me about his injuries-could he have walked out of the surgery, much less down the Devon road. How far is the cottage from here?”

“A goodly distance. A mile or so.”

“Reston’s cottage, was it? That’s the only one-” He stopped, well aware that he might have said too much. Then he added, “Look, I live here, I’ve driven that road. There’s a working farm just up the way, I’ve stopped there for eggs.”

Bennett, watching him with intensity, said nothing.

Rutledge replied, “We’ll be questioning the farmer and his family. Now that we have the evidence from the cottage.”

“Well, I shouldn’t have cared to walk out on a landslip. But I’m not surprised that you did it. What I find inexplicable is the fact that you can’t put your hands on Hamilton. My God, he was my only hope.” His face suddenly changed. “The problem now is who took him away, and that, my friend, should be proof I wasn’t the one who attacked him in the first place!”

Bennett said, “By my way of thinking, if Hamilton had come to his senses in the middle of the night, he’d have dragged himself this far to find out what’s amiss with his wife. And in all likelihood, he’d have shot you where you slept.”

Mallory winced. But he retorted, “If he’s lucid enough to walk this far, he’d have been lucid enough to remember I hadn’t touched him. Why the hell wasn’t someone sitting with him at night? No, don’t answer that, I can guess what the good doctor said-that Hamilton was safe as houses where he was.” His mouth turned down with the bitterness of experience. “Why do medical men assume that God gives them special dispensation? I’ve never met one who didn’t think he could manage very well, thank you, in any crisis.” Something made his head lift and his gaze sharpen. “Did I hear something out there? By the road?”

“There’s a constable under the tree outside the wall. He’s been here from the start. An-er-precaution.”

“I don’t intend to shoot anyone,” Mallory told them irritably. “As long as no one tries to take the house by storm. Is that all you have to tell me?”

“There’s another problem involving Hamilton’s disappearance we haven’t discussed. It appears that someone in the surgery in the dark either mistook Mrs. Granville for Hamilton or was seen by her while searching for him. She came to investigate, and whoever it was killed her.”

“Gentle God!” Mallory exclaimed. “You can’t lay that at my door.”

“You have no witnesses to prove you were here all night. Not if Mrs. Hamilton was locked in her room and Nan Weekes was closed up belowstairs.”

“No.” The word was explosive. “You’re telling me that I must compromise her reputation to prove I didn’t do this murder. And besides, if you’ll think about it, while I was out trolling half of Hampton Regis last night, what was to stop her from setting that blasted maid free and running to your constable out there for protection? Tell me that! Did he see me leave? Did she try to leave? You put him there, by God, he’s your man. And I’m not up to shinnying down cliff faces into a stormy sea, much less clawing my way back.”

“In her room, she couldn’t hear you go.”

“She’s not a fool, either, Rutledge. If she’d had any inkling I was not in the house, she’d have screamed the place down. Probably for fear I’d gone back to the surgery to finish what I started. She may be my prisoner, but I’m hers as well. Did either of you stop to think about that? She’s kept me from going near her husband by seeing to it that I can’t walk out this door. And if I do, I’ve lost the only chance I have of seeing myself through this tangle to the other side.”

Bennett, opening his mouth to speak, shut it again. And then, clearly against his better judgment, he said, “We’ve got off on the wrong foot, you and I, Mr. Mallory.” He gestured with his crutch. “I’m paying for that as well as you. It would be simpler all round if we left this nasty business in Inspector Rutledge’s capable hands. It’s what he was sent here to do. Let him get to the bottom of these deaths. Before there’s another. And in the long run, it will be easier on you and on Hampton Regis, not to speak of Mrs. Hamilton. She’s suffered enough on her husband’s account. She needs to consider how she wants to go about mourning him and marking his memory.”

It was a reasonable speech, delivered in a reasonable voice. Only Bennett’s eyes belied his calm, professional assessment of events: the local policeman pushed to admit that he’d been wrong at the start and offering a clear way out of a very difficult dilemma.

A desperate man might have believed it. A tired man might want to believe it. And Mallory was both. But he was also a man who’d spent time at the Front and was used to weighing up his chances. He might well see the hangman’s noose at the end of his present road, but he’d crossed No Man’s Land in the teeth of enemy fire, and he had felt death very close to him. It had left its mark in his courage.

He turned toward Bennett. “Yes, we did get off to a bad start, and I’m sorry for what happened to your foot, I’ll tell you that frankly.” His voice was also calm and reasonable, stating what he might actually believe and making it sound sincere, just as Bennett had tried to do. “But the damage is done as far as Mrs. Hamilton is concerned. I can’t offer amends to her reputation even if I shoot myself. Hanging me would only make matters worse for her because it will all be dragged through the courtroom and the newspapers, raked up again for gossip and condemnation. And Matthew Hamilton dead is no good to my case. I needed him alive, whether you believe me or not. He could have saved me, he could have taken Felicity back, and I’d have left England. It would all have ended in the only possible way.”