Charles Todd - A False Mirror

“Felicity is likely to come in there. I can’t risk shooting her.”

“Lock her in her room.”

“She’ll be furious with me!”

“Better furious than dead. Will you do as I say?”

“I don’t have any choice. But you’d better tell Hamilton why I’m armed. He’s likely to have something to say about that.”

Shortly afterward, Rutledge left the Hamilton house and walked down the hill into Hampton Regis. From a vantage point well out of sight, he waited outside the rectory for an hour and a half.

At last he saw Dr. Granville leave, carrying his medical bag and walking briskly in the direction of the Mole.

Rutledge had made sure that Putnam was safely ensconced at Casa Miranda, and now, with Granville gone, the rectory was empty.

He walked up the drive, cast a glance over his shoulder, and tried the door. It was unlocked.

Inside, the rectory echoed its Victorian roots, a small house that had grown into a three-story collection of passages and rooms and dead ends to house a growing family. The rector used only a small part of the first floor, meeting his needs with a room in which to sleep and another for what appeared to be an overflow of books from his study. Furnishings in the rest of the bedchambers were sheathed in dust covers.

Granville had been given the guest room, newly aired. Rutledge, putting his head around the door, saw the doctor’s valise standing under the window and a pair of shoes set neatly by the wardrobe. Granville’s possessions held no interest for him, and he withdrew, continuing his search.

But Putnam’s belongings did. He scoured the rector’s bedroom and the adjoining dressing room, which had been converted into a bath. Then he went down the steps and repeated his search on the ground floor. He ended in the plant room.

Rutledge had just put his hands on what he’d been searching for when he heard the hall door of the rectory open and then footsteps in the hall. He put the hammer back into the wooden box with the rest of the rectory tools, exactly as he’d found it, and got to his feet.

Hamish, warning him with a sharp word, added, “He’s away up the stairs.”

The door to the gardens was not five feet from his elbow.

Avoiding the clutter of rakes and shovels, baskets, cutting shears, and aging Wellingtons gathering dust on either side of him, Rutledge reached for the knob, praying that the door wasn’t locked. It was not. He went through it quietly and walked close to the side of the house until he reached the shrubbery. It led to the low churchyard wall. He followed the grassy path there and spent some time wandering among the gravestones, in plain sight. He hoped that he would leave the impression of a man with something on his mind, seeking solace among the dead.

As the clock over his head in the church tower struck the quarter hour, he went back to the Duke of Monmouth, stretched himself out on his bed, and slept.

Rutledge spoke to the kitchen staff and arranged for an evening meal to be prepared for Casa Miranda. When someone came to tell him the packages and covered dishes were ready, he put them in the motorcar and took them up himself after one brief stop along the way. While at the station, he gave Bennett instructions that included calling off his own watchers this night.

Darkness was just falling. To the west a long line of silvery clouds stretched out across the horizon, and under them the fading pink of sunset left a bright afterglow. Fair skies at night, he thought. Sailor’s delight.

The occupants of the house, fretful after a day of their own company, fell on the food with the pleasure of people grateful for distraction.

Matthew Hamilton came down, sat in the armchair at the head of the table, and toyed with his plate.

“You aren’t hungry?” Felicity asked, surprised.

He smiled at her. “I’ve always liked roasted ham, you know that. I was just thinking…”

“About Nan.”

“Yes. What do you say, my dear, to a few days in London, when I’m stronger? We might search for a new house on our way there.” It was an oblique acknowledgment that Casa Miranda was haunted by ghosts, one living and one dead.

She smiled at him in turn. “I’d like that.” There was no emphasis in the words, merely acceptance.

“Done, then.” He turned back to his plate and ate with apparent gusto, but Rutledge could see that he was pretending. He wondered if Felicity could.

They had finished their pudding when Mr. Putnam looked at his watch and exclaimed, “I’m late. If you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment at the rectory. It shouldn’t last long. But I must keep it.”

Avoiding Rutledge’s eye, he rose from the table, thanked everyone for the meal, and went to find his coat.

Rutledge listened to the opening and closing of the outer door, then tried to concentrate on something Mallory was saying to him. Soon afterward, he went around the house and looked carefully at each of the windows and doors.

The fortress was secure. But for how long?

Between them, Rutledge and Hamilton managed to persuade Felicity to retire early, though she was certain she wouldn’t sleep for hours.

“I’ll feel better, knowing you’re just there, through the door,” Hamilton told her. “It won’t be long before I’m stronger and can manage on my own.”

“I wish you would remember everything,” she said suddenly. “It must be very uncomfortable, not knowing. I shan’t be able to walk down a street in Hampton Regis without wondering about everyone I pass, thinking this one or that one might have tried to kill you. How much worse will it be for you?”

“It’s worrying,” he told her. “What if I never remember all of it?”

“Don’t think about that,” she replied, and there was a thread of fear in her voice that both men heard clearly. She closed her door and Hamilton listened for the turn of the key in its lock, and then nodded to Rutledge, waiting at the head of the stairs.

Around nine o’clock that evening, someone came to the house and left a message with the constable on duty outside.

It was from Putnam.

Mr. Joyner is ill again. I’m going with Dr. Granville to see him.

When Rutledge questioned the constable, he identified the messenger as the Allen boy.

Rutledge closed the door and prepared to wait for Putnam to return.

It was almost eleven o’clock when the church bells began to ring wildly. Mallory, rushing to a window, said, “What’s that in aid of? Rutledge, I don’t like it.”

“Nor do I. Go upstairs, Mallory, and take up your post. Tell Mrs. Hamilton there’s a fire in the town and not to worry.”

“Where will you be?”

“In the drive. To see what’s happening.”

He watched Mallory take the stairs two at a time, then let himself out the door. The night was quiet, but he thought he smelled smoke.

When he reached the constable on duty, the man said, “Must be a fire. I heard the pumps go out.”

People were in the streets now, shouting and running. Rutledge walked on, far enough down the road to a point where he could see the church steeple, and to this side of it, the line of the rectory roof. Nothing. He scanned other rooftops, nerves taut now.

Hamish said, “It doesna’ have anything to do wi’ us, then.”

In that same instant Rutledge caught the first dart of flame licking up the edge of a chimney. He realized that it was Miss Trining’s house, and in the back of it, the pumps were set up and starting to work.

He called to the constable behind him not to relax his guard, then raced down to the center of Hampton Regis.

The firemen were busy, Bennett’s constables helping, and the men on the pumps, their faces red in the glare of the flames, were grimly concentrating on keeping the water flowing.