Charles Todd - A False Mirror

Rutledge said nothing. As he’d thought, Waddington had been eager to protect himself.

Phipps went on. “I’m to appear in court in fifteen minutes. Is there anything else?”

Rutledge thanked him and put up the receiver.

Bringing his attention back to Hampton Regis, he went over everything he knew, and still there was no single motive to explain both the attack on Hamilton and the two subsequent deaths. Murderers killed for a reason-out of fear, greed, jealousy, love, envy, or even sheer hatred. And none of these seemed to fit here. Unless he was completely wrong about Stephen Mallory.

Hamish reminded him, “Ye canna’ judge him on the way he was in France.”

“I’m not convinced he’s clever enough-”

The telephone rang at last, making him jump at the loud jangle that seemed to echo around the tiny room, deafening him. He swore.

The voice on the other end of the line, apologetic for taking so long to find the information he needed, made Rutledge sit up in the narrow-seated chair and listen with concentration.

Gibson had paid a visit to the person Rutledge had named, and that led to a bank in Leadenhall Street. What he had to report was enlightening.

It came down to money, as it so often did.

But not quite in the way he’d expected.

Rutledge walked up the hill to Casa Miranda. The sun was strong now, and he thought he heard a blackbird singing somewhere in the distance.

“Wishful thinking,” Hamish told him sourly. Yet spring came in this part of England long before it touched the Highlands, and in the air today was the scent of warm earth, mixed with the salty cast of the sea.

When he climbed the stairs to the room Hamilton was using, he found the man awake, propped with pillows. Lines of pain etched his face, but he said briskly, “On Malta the heat is already building. There’s so much white stone, you see. It holds in the warmth. Even the soil is white in the summer. Limestone.”

“Do you miss it?”

“In the way you miss anywhere you’ve put down roots, no matter how temporary they may be. It was a lovely house too. A marquis had let it to me, while he was in England. There was a porch, glass enclosed, where I took most of my meals. I could look out across the rooftops toward the Co-Cathedral and the Grandmaster’s Palace.” He sighed. “But you haven’t come, I think, to hear me praise Malta.”

“Where is Mrs. Hamilton?”

“In her bed. It’s all been rather much for her. But she’s young, she’ll recover her balance. I’m just afraid of what’s been lost. An innocence that was her greatest charm, and a sense of self that was absolutely absorbing to me. I could-almost-recapture my own youth, watching her.”

“And Mr. Putnam?”

“He excused himself for a quarter of an hour to return to the rectory for a change of clothes.”

“Has Bennett come to see you?”

“Mallory brought him up while Putnam was still here. He wanted to know about Exeter. I told him that my memory remained hazy at best, that I thought very likely I was continuing to run a fever.”

“It could be true.”

“It was. I remember how cold the wind blew as I was walking along that road. I couldn’t stop the chills that racked me. I wasn’t sure where I was going, only that somehow I had to get there.” He hesitated. “Have you told Felicity about Miranda?”

“I’ll leave that to you. When you feel you can.”

“Miranda was afraid of me, wasn’t she?”

“I think, rather, she wasn’t prepared for reminders of the past. She had shut that door. And it’s best left shut.”

“I would have married her, blind or not.”

“The blindness worried her more than it did you.”

“What will you do about Mallory? Do you really believe he wasn’t my assailant? I won’t press charges, you know. It will only make for more gossip and keep the memory of these past few days alive.”

“You’re a forgiving man.”

“No. A realistic one. Deep in my core there’s a molten ball of jealousy. But it serves no purpose. And he’s suffered as much as I have.” He shifted his leg. “I hope you’ve brought something to ease this ache. Else I’ll be drunk as a lord by teatime.”

Rutledge found one of the pills that Dr. Hester had given him. “This should help. I’ve got stronger sedatives as well.”

“This will do. I can tell you, I’m not eager to find myself in a helpless stupor while murderers climb through the windows.”

Rutledge thought the man in the bed was more afraid of the outcome than he was willing to admit. But he laughed, as Hamilton was expecting him to do, as he offered him a glass of water. Then he said soberly, “I’ve found the killer, I think. If I’m right, by morning you’ll have your house to yourself again, and it will be finished.”

“I’m glad to hear it. But we shan’t stay in Hampton Regis, you know. It’s time to turn my back on the sea. And I expect Miranda Cole will be happy to learn I’m not as near to Exeter as I was.”

“I expect she will.”

He left Hamilton then, running into Mr. Putnam in the doorway. “I’ve just brought a few things,” he said, “to tide us over. I went to Mallory’s cottage and fetched fresh clothes for him.”

“Well done. I’ll need to speak to you later. Certainly before dinner.”

“I shall have to give Dr. Granville a little of my time tonight. We’re choosing the readings for Margaret’s ser vice. And the music. She was very fond of the choir.”

“By all means, take as long as you need. I’ll be here to spell you.”

“You know now, don’t you, who is behind all this?” The rector, holding his belongings and Mallory’s in his arms, looked into Rutledge’s face and then away again. “I didn’t think you did this morning, in spite of the dramatic conclusion with that dreadful boat hook.”

“I was as in the dark as everyone else,” Rutledge confessed.

“Will you at least tell me what I am to expect?”

“There’s not much God can do, now, Mr. Putnam. It’s a matter for the law.”

Rutledge found Mallory, morose and alone, in the sitting room. He raised his head when Rutledge came through the doorway.

“It’s you,” he said, as if he’d been expecting Felicity Hamilton to find him and offer him anything but the silence in which she’d been wrapped since early morning.

“Where will you go when this business is over?”

“Back to Dr. Beatie for a time, to work my way through everything that happened here. After that, abroad, possibly. It’s my turn for exile.”

“You could still marry happily and put this far behind.”

“What became of the girl whose photograph you carried with you in France?”

Rutledge hesitated. “She’s living in Canada now. It didn’t work out for me any more than it did for you and hundreds like us.”

“I watched Felicity change in just the few days we were shut in here together. I’ve got much to answer for. I understand now how she could have changed so much in three years. We didn’t think about that, in France. We believed England was there, that it would always be just the same as it was when we left. More fools we.”

“We were too busy staying alive.”

Mallory took a deep breath. “Do you know yet who’s behind this?”

“I’ve a very good idea.”

“I’d like to kill him with my bare hands and save the hangman his trouble.”

“Do you still have Hamilton’s revolver?”

“I put it back in the drawer, where I’d found it.”

“I’d keep it with you tonight. I want you to prepare yourself a pallet on the floor, the far side of Hamilton’s bed. If anyone comes through that door, and you have any reason to worry, shoot first and ask questions later.”