Charles Todd - A False Mirror

At his next stop, Rutledge found Mrs. Reston on her way out the door to a luncheon. She was wearing a hat that framed her face and added a softness to it.

“My husband isn’t here,” she told him. “If it’s George you’ve come to see.”

“We’ve found Matthew Hamilton. He’s alive, but his memory is still unreliable.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Whatever you may think of me, I had no reason to wish him ill. Do you know now who it was who killed Mrs. Granville? Or Nan Weekes?”

“We can’t be sure until Hamilton is well enough to tell us who it was who carried him out of the surgery and left him on a roadside to die.”

“Will he recover his memory, do you think? In his shoes, I shouldn’t like to live the rest of my life knowing that I couldn’t bring a murderer to justice; no matter how hard I tried. It’s sad. What will you do now?”

“We are reasonably sure about certain points. But we need his evidence to bring the case to trial.”

“I see. And am I to tell this to George, in the hope that he’ll rush out to wherever Matthew Hamilton is resting and finish what he started?”

“If I were you, I wouldn’t put it to the test. A good barrister might see fit to ask you to testify to your role in driving him to murder.”

“I remind you that I’m a very good liar. And he’s the father of my children. What sort of life will they have, do you think, if he’s taken up and hanged?”

“You should have thought of that before you tested him.”

“He should have thought of that before he married me.” She put on her gloves. “I’m late, Mr. Rutledge. You must forgive me.”

She walked to the door and waited for him to hold it open for her. “I won’t play your game for you, Inspector. You must do it yourself.”

Rutledge ran George Reston to earth at his bank.

“I couldn’t care less whether Hamilton regains his memory or lives the rest of his life as a vegetable, dribbling down his chin in a wheeled chair,” the banker informed him. “He went out of his way to collect those heathen gods of his. Let him pray to them and wait for them to answer.”

“That’s a rather callous attitude, don’t you think?”

“Is it? I think not. You must remember that we sow what we reap.”

“There are two murders that haven’t been solved, Reston. Mrs. Granville and Nan Weekes deserve to be offered the full panoply of justice.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised if he killed them both in his demented state. Mrs. Granville in his clumsy effort to reach his wife, and the maid in mistake for Mallory.”

“Then how did he manage to drag himself out on the Exeter Road, where the lorry driver found him?”

“You must ask him that. I daresay he had no idea where he was going or why. I have a conference in five minutes. Is there anything else you wish to say to me?”

As Rutledge drove back to the Duke of Monmouth, Hamish said, “Ye ken, it wouldna’ sit well wi’ Hamilton to hear what ye’ve heard.”

“It hasn’t been a waste of time,” he answered.

He found Stratton enjoying a late breakfast. Rutledge nodded to the woman serving tables and asked for a cup of tea. Then he joined Stratton at the table by the dining room windows. The sea mist was gone, and sunlight was reflecting from the glass panes of houses across the road.

Stratton was not interested in what charges might or might not be brought when Hamilton regained his memory. “I don’t know these people. The living or the dead. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“That may well be.” His tea arrived and he poured himself a cup. “But you can look at it another way. If Hamilton doesn’t regain his memory, if he’s permanently damaged by the beating he sustained, then he’s not likely to take an interest in writing his memoirs.”

“Yes, it turns out rather well for me, doesn’t it? Not that I’d wish that on anyone. He has a very astute mind. That’s what made him dangerous. He could cut through a mountain of chaff and find the seed of truth. But he wasn’t the sort you got drunk with, if you know what I mean. There his brain was, still clicking away, recording, while everyone else is acting the fool.”

“I don’t know that he collected information to wield it, in the sense of blackmail.”

“Of course he didn’t. But it was there. Written down, you see. And in the back of your mind, it’s always rubbing at you. If it doesn’t matter, why put it down in black and white? Why bother with it at all?”

“Because it was his nature to remember. And he was lonely. The diaries were his companions, he talked to them and confided in them, and he kept them, as he would a friend. He told me you threatened to burn him out, once. Would you have done it?”

Stratton was caught off guard. “God, no! I was very angry with him at the time, and I wanted to make him afraid. It wasn’t as successful as I’d hoped. And I was left feeling a bigger fool than ever.”

“And if you’d tried again on Monday to persuade him to see reason, who’s to say that your anger didn’t get the better of you again? You could very well have killed Mrs. Granville, because it wouldn’t have done for you to be caught in the surgery, looking for a man who’d already taken himself off in the nick of time.”

“Yes, I can see how you might make that case. But I ask you, why should I go into Hamilton’s house and kill his maid?”

“Because she stood between you and your safe exit from the house. And Mallory was armed. You were taking a chance, trying to look for the diaries. He’d have shot you out of hand, if you’d stumbled over him-or she raised the alarm as you were slipping out again.”

Stratton’s eyes were wary. “You’ve built a very good case. Are you telling me that Hamilton believes I’ve tried twice to kill him? He’s truly off his head, if he has.”

“I’m just saying that you’ve made an error in judgment here, because you’ve shown yourself to be obsessively worried about Hamilton’s intentions. You might have been wiser to let sleeping dogs lie and see what developed.” He pushed back his chair and stood up. “Think about it, Stratton, you’ve put yourself in an untenable position. If Hamilton tells me you’re his assailant, that he left the surgery because he thought you might walk in at night to kill him, then I’ve got no choice but to take you into custody. It would do very little for your career, to be tried for murder. Even if there is a reasonable doubt and in the end you’re acquitted.”

“I trust you’re a good enough policeman that that won’t happen.”

Rutledge smiled. “If Hamilton points his finger at you, whether or not I’m a good policeman doesn’t enter into it.”

He walked away, out the dining room door.

Hamish was saying, “You’ve made a verra’ bad enemy.”

Stratton sat there watching him go, his face closed with speculation.

Dr. Hester had just returned from delivering a baby. He found Rutledge waiting for him in his office. “What brings you all the way to Middlebury?” He sat in the chair behind his orderly desk and added, “Medicine is an odd business. Bury a man one day; bring a child into the world the next. I’ve never quite got used to seeing a mother’s face as I hand her a healthy child. And this was a bouncing boy, if ever there was one. Ten pounds. She thinks he takes after her father, who was a good six inches over six feet. It makes up, a little, for losing him early to a cancer. The husband is just delighted to have a son to carry on his farm.”

“We see only the dead on my side of the coin.”

“Yes, and speaking of the quick and the dead, I’ve released Mrs. Granville for burial. And I’ll do the same for the maid tomorrow. If you have no objections.”