Charles Todd - A False Mirror

“I disliked Granville. He was there with Bennett, telling me about Felicity and Mallory. I could hear them, at a great distance, and they wouldn’t stop. I wanted to shout at them, but I couldn’t.”

“But you were stronger when you got out of bed, caught up with Mrs. Granville in the passage, and choked her to death.” Rutledge watched his eyes as he made the suggestion. For any indication that Hamilton knew this to be a lie, or saw a way of offering Rutledge a false scent to follow.

But the color had drained from Hamilton’s face. “Is that true? Was that how it happened?” He dropped his hands, as if to hide them. “What am I going to do? I have to get out of here, I can’t drag Miranda into this.” He turned to the wardrobe and pulled out his clothing, reaching for his shoes and carrying the lot to the fire, where he began to dress. It was difficult, and in the end he had to resort to sitting in the chair to draw on his trousers. Rutledge watched him as he laced his shoes.

“All right, I’m ready.” He moved on to the desk, drew paper and a pen out of the center drawer, and tried to write a message to Miranda Cole. He crumpled the first effort, tossing it into the fire. Thinking for a moment, he scrawled something across the page. Blotting it, he folded the sheet and set it on the table by the bed.

“I didn’t tell her. I just said we must go to Hampton Regis tonight and then I thanked her.” He tried to smile. “I always valued her good opinion. Now I’ve brought her trouble. How do we get there? Don’t tell me we’ll have to wait until her groom can drive us into Exeter?” The thought stopped him.

“My motorcar is downstairs.”

“Thank God.” Hamilton turned and surveyed the room. “I’m too tired to think. But all I’ve done since I got here is sleep. Hiding from myself, at a guess. Now I know why.”

Rutledge said, “Are you sure you’re up to this?”

“Let’s get it over and done with.” He reached for one of the pillows and then put it back. “No. I don’t need it. I don’t want to take anything that ought to be brought back.”

They made it as far as the stairs before Miranda Cole opened her door at the end of the passage and said, “Who’s there?”

“I’m going with Mr. Rutledge back to Hampton Regis, Miranda. I’m all right now, I’ve slept well enough and I feel stronger.” It was a brave lie.

Her gaze swung to Rutledge, where he stood to one side. “Don’t do this.”

“It isn’t my choice, Miss Cole. He has information that we badly need just now. I can’t ignore it.”

“Matthew?”

“It’s my decision, not his. You mustn’t worry, it’s what I have to do.”

She stood there for a moment longer, as if listening to the silence. Then she said, “I don’t believe either one of you.” She turned, went back in her room, and shut the door.

They went down the stairs and into the night. Outside, in the sharp air of a predawn darkness, Hamilton said softly, “I never expected to see her again. I never thought how it would feel if I did. But I always knew where to find her. I made certain of that for more than twenty years.”

When he reached the motorcar, moving with a care that betrayed his pain, he spoke again. “I think I understand now how Felicity felt about Stephen Mallory. There’s that question in the back of your mind. What might have been…”

He let Rutledge help him into the motorcar, then looked up at the lighted window he’d left behind. But he said nothing more until they were well on the road back to Hampton Regis.

When they reached the police station in Hampton Regis, Rutledge found the door unlocked and a message waiting on his desk.

All’s quiet. What took you so long?

It was signed Bennett.

“Are you up to this?” Rutledge said, offering the tired man beside him a chair. “It was a long journey, and it’s very late.”

“In more ways than one. All right, what is it you want, a statement?”

“Yes.” Rutledge found pen and paper, took Hamilton to his makeshift office, and asked him to describe in his own words what he recalled about his injuries and what he believed had happened when Mrs. Granville was killed.

He sat there, thinking it through, the scars on his face knitted with uncertainty. Then he wrote essentially what Rutledge had suggested to him in Miranda Cole’s guest bedroom.

At the end of it, he reread the statement, and then signed his name. Tossing the pen aside Hamilton asked, “Am I spending the night here? Or what’s left of it?” He walked to the door and looked down the passage at the dark rooms, airless and bleak, the furnishings old, the walls in need of paint. There had been no money for refurbishing such buildings during the war, and none since. “I suppose murderers can’t be fussy.”

“I think, not here. Are you sure you’re satisfied with what you’ve written?”

“Does it matter? You’ve told me I’m a murderer.”

“It could matter, yes.” Rutledge folded the statement and thrust it into his breast pocket. He led Hamilton back to the motorcar, but the man’s injured leg was so stiff now that he had difficulty stepping in. Swearing under his breath, Hamilton finally managed to get the passenger door closed. Rutledge drove to the Duke of Monmouth. It was dark, but he found that the door was unlocked, and he took Hamilton inside.

The room on the other side of his was still empty, and he looked out the window for a moment, then said, “There’s no way down short of a fall. And I have the key. I might remind you as well that Stratton is here in Hampton Regis. I don’t think you want to meet him in the dark.”

“What about Felicity?”

“She’s safe for tonight. You can go to her tomorrow.”

“Fair enough.” He hesitated. “Do we have to bring Miranda into this business? Does Felicity have to know where I was?”

“I’m afraid the police must. And so she’ll hear of it.”

Hamilton sighed. “Good night, Rutledge. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“So do I.” After a moment, he said, “I haven’t told you that Nan Weekes is dead. Someone has killed her as well.”

Hamilton was not prepared for it. He said, blankly, “Good God. Are you saying to me that I did that too?”

“I hope not. Good night, Hamilton. I’ll see you in the morning.”

When he was certain that Hamilton was asleep, Rutledge left the Duke of Monmouth and walked as far as Casa Miranda, calling quietly to the constable on duty when he was within hearing.

“Good evening, sir.” It was one of the men from outside Hampton Regis.

“Constable Gregory, isn’t it? How is it tonight?”

“Yes, sir. Quiet enough. The lady refused to come for the night, sir. Miss Esterley, that was. I believe the rector stayed in her place.”

Rutledge said only, “I’m sorry to hear it.” He stared up at the housefront, wishing he could look through walls and judge the state of mind of the occupants. But tomorrow would be soon enough.

He bade the constable good night and walked back the way he’d come. Hamish, cross with him, was giving him no peace, and he came close, more than once, to venting his own annoyance aloud.

The sound of the voice in his mind seemed to follow him through the silent streets, an uncomfortable companionship in the darkness. The church clock behind him struck the hour. He’d forgotten how late it was. But there was no sleep for him yet.

He passed the turning for the Duke of Monmouth and walked instead to the water, his steps echoing as he neared the shops and a cat, a mouse dangling from her jaws, trotted around the nearest corner and into the shadows.

There were boats drawn up on the shingle, and others bobbing in the tide at the end of their tethers. He walked among them, poking about here and there, looking at gear and breathing in the rich smells of the sea, salt, and fish and that almost-impossible-to-describe scent of block and tackle and nets that have long lived in the water and grown stiff with it.