Charles Todd - A False Mirror

It wouldn’t have mattered today if the roast beef was lightly burned, the potatoes dry, the beets hard, though he had to admit the Duke of Monmouth had outdone itself in the kitchen this morning. In fact, the meal was excellent, and he was grateful that the cook hadn’t been struck down by Becky’s mumps. Guests had come to overhear a brief exchange, like the one he’d had earlier with George Reston, or a comment dropped into the silence as he was being served. Those who’d misjudged their timing had had to linger over their pudding or savory longer than was customary. Conversation had flagged noticeably as he walked into the dining room and took his table at one corner of the room.

But he wasn’t the friendly local man, someone who might be hailed with “Good God, Bennett, are we all to be murdered in our beds? And was that the Chief Constable coming out your door this morning? What’s going on at the surgery? My wife was turned away and the youngest with colic, mind you. Is Mr. Hamilton dead? Was it his body Dr. Hester took away?”

Word was out that there had been a death. It couldn’t be avoided. Dr. Granville’s neighbors had seen enough to hurry to a friend’s home or a shop, passing on their eyewitness accounts. The question was, would any of them also remember anything from the previous night that would be useful to the police? He’d rousted one of Bennett’s men from bed and withdrawn the other from Casa Miranda for the day and set them going door-to-door wherever windows looked out on the surgery. It would be a matter of great good fortune if they came back with reliable reports.

He walked out, a subdued scraping of chairs behind him to follow his progress, and went directly to the telephone in its cramped closet.

There he put through the long-delayed call to Kent, prepared to wait patiently while it was answered at the other end and Melinda Crawford was summoned to the telephone.

Instead the maid informed him that Miss Crawford had gone to dine with friends and would be home at nine o’clock that evening. Was anything wrong? Miss Crawford would wish to know straightaway, rather than worry herself sick until she could reach him.

“You know how she is, Inspector,” the voice at the other end of the line chided him. “I needn’t remind you.”

“Tell her it’s a duty call, after I’d been swept by a strong sense of guilt,” he said, smothering his disappointment at missing her.

“And not a minute too soon, as you well know! Good day, Inspector.”

It had been Boxing Day when he last spoke to her. Nearly three months ago.

Hanging up the receiver, Rutledge was still standing in the shadows of the closet when he heard someone at Reception speak his name.

The desk clerk was saying, “He was in the dining room a short while ago, sir. Shall I see if he’s still in the building?”

The male voice said breezily, “Don’t bother. I’ll be staying, if you have a large room with a sea view available.”

“We have very few rooms with a sea view, sir. The Duke of Monmouth was a coaching inn in its day, and most of our guests were grateful to be spared the dampness of the Mole.”

“A large room, then.” After a moment, the man went on, “I hear you’ve had a spot of trouble here. Cleared up, is it?”

The desk clerk answered with the caution of a local resident. “As to that, sir, you’ll have to speak to Mr. Rutledge. If you’ll just sign here, sir.”

“Ah. Well, I shall require tea, if that’s possible. I’ve had a long wet drive. At least the rain has stopped here. It’s pouring farther to the east.”

“I’ll take you up, sir, and then have a word with the dining room staff.”

“Just tea will do, and perhaps…” the new guest was saying as his voice faded in the distance.

Rutledge listened as the clerk led the way up the stairs, waiting for a moment longer until they’d turned into the first-floor passage and it was safe to step out of concealment.

He hadn’t recognized the newcomer. But the name would be there in the hotel register. Walking quietly, he crossed to the desk and turned the heavy book his way.

R. G. H. Stratton was scrawled on the page.

Rutledge didn’t know anyone by that name. Either at the Yard or in London.

He left the Duke of Monmouth and went out to his motorcar. Stratton, whatever his business was, could wait. Who was he? Not sent by Bowles, surely-Bowles preferred his chosen minions. But perhaps from the Home Office, following on the heels of a report from the Chief Constable that all was not well in Hampton Regis. The first of the firestorm.

Hamish said, “It’ll no’ be your inquiry for verra’ long.”

And Mallory would not care for that.

He drove again to Miss Esterley’s house, and knocked at the door. She received him with concern writ large in her eyes. But her cane was nowhere in sight.

“I’m told that a body was removed from Dr. Granville’s surgery this morning. I’m also told that it appeared to be too slight for a man’s. I warned you earlier that Matthew was dead, if he hadn’t gone to Casa Miranda and to Felicity. Was I right, after all?”

He followed her into the room where they had spoken before, and took the seat she offered him. “There has been a death. Yes. But it wasn’t Hamilton’s body that was brought out. It was Mrs. Granville’s.”

If he had slapped her hard across the face, she wouldn’t have been more shocked. Blood rushed to her cheeks and she said, her voice not quite steady, “But-Mrs. Granville? I don’t quite-”

“She was found behind her husband’s desk this morning, dead of a blow to the head. Meanwhile, we haven’t found Hamilton, alive or dead. But the only conclusion we can draw now is that he was killed as well. If not at the surgery, then elsewhere.”

It was blunt, and he’d intended it to be, though Hamish growled at him for it. But if she had helped Hamilton to leave the surgery last night, he wanted her to know the cost. And where was her cane? He had seen it this morning.

Tears welled in her eyes, and to keep them from spilling down her cheeks, she gripped the arms of her chair until her knuckles were white. Whatever she might tell him about her relationship with Matthew Hamilton, on her side it went beyond simple friendship.

“I thought policemen,” she said huskily, “were taught to break bad news as gently as possible.”

“There is no gentle way to speak of murder.”

After a moment she replied, “That’s a frightful word. I don’t like it. I can’t believe anyone would wish to harm Mrs. Granville. What does she have to do with Matthew? She was always so eager to please. And she adored her husband. She’d have done anything he asked of her.”

As an epitaph, it summed up the doctor’s wife very well. She had lived for her husband, and perhaps died in his place.

“We don’t know the full story. But it appears she was there in the surgery when Hamilton went missing. That she either knew or saw something that she shouldn’t have. And that knowledge was costly.”

“Then Matthew couldn’t possibly have left of his own accord. He’d have done his best to defend her. Why was she there, in the middle of the night? Had he been waking up? That’s what everyone was hoping for. Was she sitting with him?”

“Dr. Granville had gone out to a patient and Mrs. Granville had retired for the night. Someone may have seen him leave, realized that Hamilton was alone, and took the chance that it would be safe to walk into the surgery. But something-a noise, a light, we don’t know-must have disturbed her and she went to investigate. She couldn’t have known there was an intruder. Either she thought her husband had returned home or she was afraid that Hamilton had come to his senses and was disoriented or in pain.”