Charles Todd - A False Mirror

“And so you released him from any duty to you. Were you surprised he took that release?”

She moved as if she’d suffered a physical blow. “It took him five years to accept my answer. By that time, love tends to fade a little, and it’s harder to bring someone’s face back with the same clarity. The sound of the voice is not the same, and you can’t quite recapture it. Five years of lying awake at night, five years of getting through the next day somehow. But in the end, he stopped writing. And I never heard from him again.”

He knew she had described her own anguish rather than Hamilton’s. But he said nothing, preparing to bring the interview to a close.

She rose, as if anticipating that, and he stood as well.

“Thank you for taking the time to help me through what has become the most difficult day of my life.”

“I’m sorry that you’ve been brought into my inquiry-”

Miss Cole brushed that aside, fumbling for her cane. She found it and moved easily toward him. “I wasn’t sure what to do. Now I see my way more clearly. Come with me, Mr. Rutledge, and I’ll take you to Matthew Hamilton.”

Rutledge found himself standing there gaping.

She smiled wryly, a great sadness behind it. “I can imagine what’s going through your mind. But he wasn’t here last night. I didn’t lie to you. He was brought to my door early this morning by a very concerned lorry driver. He’d found Matthew along the road near a farm just west of Hampton Regis. I don’t know what Matthew expected to do, but he was still on his feet through sheer willpower, and the lorry driver told me he was hardly sensible for a quarter of an hour or more. It was several miles before he could even tell the man where he wanted to go.”

“Surely the driver must have been suspicious.”

“Apparently Matthew told him that he’d been robbed and beaten, and wanted to go home. Here. To my house. The driver was all for sending at once for the police, but I persuaded him to let me find the doctor first. And instead, I telephoned you.”

“Quite right.”

She reached out her hand. “If I may have your arm?”

Hastily he offered it to her, and she led him to the staircase. As they started to climb, she said, “Promise you won’t upset him. I’m going against his express wishes to tell no one he’s here. He will blame me for what you do.”

“I understand.” But he found himself wondering if she was afraid of Hamilton now, afraid that two women had died at his hands, and she might be placing herself in jeopardy. Even as she struggled to protect him.

Hamilton was lying in bed in what appeared to be a guest room, his skin gray against the stark white of bleached and pressed sheets.

Miranda Cole had opened the door quietly so as not to disturb him, but it was obvious that nothing short of cataclysm would rouse him from his exhausted sleep.

Rutledge stood there on the threshold, studying him for a moment.

His beard had grown dark shadows across his face, and his eyes seemed to have sunk deep into their sockets. The bruises had faded, a little, but the green and yellow replacing the livid red and dark purple made him seem closer to death than he had in Dr. Granville’s surgery when they were still bloody. As if he were already a corpse and no one had thought to tell him.

Signaling Miss Cole with a touch on her arm to stay where she was, he crossed to the bed and called Hamilton’s name in a sharp, clear voice.

It penetrated the heavy slumber. An arm, flung out to ward off a blow, was followed by Hamilton rearing up in bed, his face wild, prepared to defend himself.

Rutledge said rapidly, “You’re safe, man, no one will harm you here. You’re with friends.”

Some of the wildness fled but Hamilton frowned at him. “I don’t know you,” he said, the words a rumble in his chest.

“I’m someone Miss Cole sent for. To help you, if that’s possible. She’s there in the doorway, ask her yourself.”

Hamilton peered toward the door. “Miranda? What are you doing here?”

“It’s my house,” she told him in an ordinary voice, but Rutledge could see how her hands clutched the edges of her shawl. “Matthew, this is Ian Rutledge. I can’t do this alone, I had to find someone I trusted. Please let him help us.”

Hamilton lay back on his pillows, his eyes closed. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this, Miranda. But I didn’t know where else to turn.”

Rutledge said, “Do you remember how you got here, Hamilton?”

After a moment he said, “I remember lying down by the road, cold and tired. But then a vehicle was coming, and I got to my feet, trying to walk away from the road. I think he stopped. The lorry driver. The next thing I remember was being warm enough to think, and my leg hurting as we bounced over ruts.”

“Where had you been before lying down by the road?”

Hamilton gave a short bark of laughter. “In someone’s henhouse. I ate the eggs raw, I was that hungry. There was a cow as well, and I milked her when I felt stronger. But I couldn’t stay there. They’d gone to market and were bound to find me if I fell asleep in the hay.”

Hamish said softly, “The fox in the henhouse.”

That complaint had been included in a report by one of the men talking to householders out on the west road. Rutledge thought he ought to be commended for thoroughness.

“Was this anywhere near the landslip?”

“My God.” He groaned. “I was in that house. I don’t know why I left it, something, a sixth sense, the way the rainwater was rushing past it-I don’t know. I’d seen the family across the road leave, I told myself I could make it to their shed. But I was hardly out the door when the ground moved the first time. Like an earthquake. When I stopped long enough to look back, there was nothing there.”

“Why did you go to it in the first place?”

“God knows. I can’t remember. I think I was afraid, I couldn’t understand why I was hurt and bandaged.”

“But why leave the safety of Dr. Granville’s surgery? In the middle of the night?”

“Did I do that?” Hamilton stared at him. “No, you’re wrong there, I was in a dark fearful place and something was worrying me. Have you ever been in a Turkish prison? No, I expect not. I was once, visiting a man charged with a serious crime. I was never so glad to be out into the fresh air again in my life.”

“Where was Mrs. Granville, Hamilton? Do you remember seeing her?”

“She and Granville came to dinner-”

“No, while you were lying there, being treated by her husband.”

He put both hands to his face as if he could scrub away his confusion. “I don’t even know how I got these injuries, Rutledge. Or where I’ve been. I remember being afraid I was going to die, if I didn’t do something. There were voices, and sometimes I knew what they were saying and sometimes I didn’t.”

“Who came to help you in the midst of everything that was happening?”

Rutledge glanced toward Miranda Cole. She was standing there, a mixture of fear and pity on her face as she listened.

But Matthew Hamilton said, “It was Felicity. It must have been.”

Surprised, Rutledge stared at him, trying to determine whether he was telling the truth-or the truth as he thought he knew it.

But he was lying back on his pillows now, his face grim as he fought pain and weakness.

“You must stop,” Miss Cole said quietly.

Rutledge answered her: “I can’t. I don’t have all the story. And it’s urgent that I get to the bottom of what he’s been through.”

“Then let him rest for a bit, and eat something if he will. After that we’ll see if he’s well enough to go on.”

Dedham brought food for Matthew Hamilton-eggs cooked in milk, with a little whiskey for strength, a broth rich with chicken and some rice, a custard that was flavored with sherry.