Charles Todd - A False Mirror

He glimpsed Putnam in the crowd, then lost him in the shifting light. Dr. Granville was there as well, and even George Reston, though he was standing to one side, watching.

Rutledge made his way to Granville. “How is Joyner?”

“He died over an hour ago. Have you seen Miss Trining? Is she out of there?”

“No, I haven’t seen her,” Rutledge said, his gaze sweeping the milling throng working to put out the flames.

“Damn! They tell me the fire began in the wood stacked by the kitchen door. There’s been a great deal of smoke. I hope to God-” He broke off.

The bells had stopped.

Rutledge could hear people coughing and gasping all around them, but they kept working. “Where’s Putnam, do you know?”

“He was looking for her as well.” Dr. Granville dashed off, disappearing in the direction of the pumps.

Rutledge threaded his way across the crowded back garden, helping where he could, still searching for the rector. He finally found Miss Trining, clutching the portrait of her ancestor, watching as others brought out pieces of furniture and carpets.

He reached her, saying only, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s the kitchen that’s burning now. The wall where the fire wood was stacked to dry. God knows what started it. A spark from the chimney?”

She was stoic, her face set in a determined calm, though he could see that her knuckles were white where they held the portrait.

The shingles by the chimney were smoking heavily now, the flames doused.

“Have you seen Mr. Putnam?” he asked her.

“He’s making certain all the servants are safe. I told him they were.”

Rutledge made one last circuit of the property and then turned back toward Casa Miranda, walking fast.

Hamish, all the while scolding him for leaving his post, said, “It was verra’ clever.”

“Yes.” He saved his breath for the last sprint up the hill, startling the constable, whose attention was riveted on the pall of smoke rising up in the night sky.

“Have you seen Mr. Putnam?” he called to the man.

The constable turned guiltily to face him. “Sir? I believe he went up to the house not five minutes ago.” He saw Rutledge’s expression in the reflection of the lights around Miss Trining’s house. “You did say to let him pass at will, sir.”

Damn!

Rutledge went on to the door, fishing Hamilton’s keys out of his pocket. Letting himself in as quietly as he could, he stopped with his back to the door and listened.

The house was silent.

Where the bloody hell was Putnam?

Overhead Hamilton and Mallory were lying tensely in the dark, waiting. And Mrs. Hamilton, God willing, was in her own room, oblivious.

He dared not call out.

The rector couldn’t have let himself in through this door-it was the one with the newest lock. But he had two keys that fit doors to the kitchen and to the servants’ hall.

Still Rutledge waited where he was, his body tense with listening.

Hamish said, “Ye ken, yon fire was set.”

“He couldn’t have known what I’d found.”

“He could ha’ made a verra’ good guess. Were ye seen, passing through yon shrubbery into the churchyard?”

“Possibly. Too late to worry about that now. It’s done.” A dialogue with Hamish was so familiar in the dark that he wasn’t even aware of it. “Clever of him not to set the fire in the rectory.”

The house seemed to creak and then settle around them as the chill of the night began to work through the brick and into the timbers behind.

Rutledge bent to unlace his shoes and set them to one side, out of the way. Then, moving on stocking feet, he walked softly through the door into the kitchen passage.

He listened, his eyes blind, his senses alert.

And far away down the passage, a door creaked on old hinges, then opened with only a whisper of sound.

Five minutes more and he’d have been too late.

A breath of air stirred, bringing a hint of smoke with it. Footsteps, moving quietly and without haste.

Rutledge stood there, nestling into the shadows of the wall. He could follow on the plan of the house he carried in his mind just where the trespasser must be. Through the servants’ outer door. Now down the passage that led to the hall. Slowing, apparently searching in the dark for the back stairs to the floors above.

But who was it?

He thought for an instant that he’d caught the flash of a torch, as if the intruder needed the reassurance of seeing a door was open before blundering into it.

After a few minutes, a chance footfall informed him that someone had made a decision not to go up the back stairs. Rutledge took a silent breath of relief. Better a confrontation here than near Hamilton or his wife. It was what he’d hoped for.

In another twenty feet, whoever it was would be close to the room where Nan Weekes had been murdered.

He counted steps he couldn’t hear.

Half a dozen more, and it would be time to show himself.

Whoever was there paused by the door to Nan’s prison.

At that instant, the darkness erupted with light, brilliant, shocking, and blinding.

Rutledge swore with passion and swiftly moved forward.

Through the glass in the room where Nan Weekes had died, he saw Mr. Putnam, armed in righteousness and sincerity, standing in the full glow of a pair of lamps.

And outside, pinned like a startled insect in the brightness, was Dr. Granville.

What the bloody hell was the rector up to?

He didn’t think either man could pick him out beyond the circle of light. He stopped short, keeping absolutely still, standing there like the wolf in Russian fairy tales, waiting to see what the carnage would be.

And Hamish was roaring in his mind like all the imps of hell.

Mr. Putnam said, “Doctor.”

“Miss Trining told me you’d gone back to comfort Joyner’s daughter, once you’d learned you weren’t needed at her house.” Granville tried to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

“Yes, I should have done. What did you give him, that let him die?”

“I didn’t. It was coming, just sooner than he or I expected.”

“But you killed your wife. In my workbox there’s a ball-peen hammer I don’t recognize. I expect Mr. Rutledge has already found it. Mine was my father’s, with a worn blue handle. It’s there as well.”

Rutledge felt his anger rising. Putnam had been ordered to let Rutledge confront Granville, while he stood by as a witness concealed in shadows. Instead he was putting Rutledge’s questions himself. Had the man run mad? Or had he been afraid that Rutledge wouldn’t arrive in time to ask them?

“Matthew Hamilton killed her,” Granville was saying. “Rutledge has a confession.”

“Hamilton confessed to choking her. I told you earlier, he was muddled last night. But that’s clearing up with rest and food. As you knew it must, once he was no longer sedated so heavily. Why don’t we go and find the inspector?”

“The last I saw of him, he was still at the fire.”

“There’s the hammer.” Putnam was firm. “I can swear to seeing it. The name of the hospital where you trained is on the handle.”

“The hammer doesn’t exist. Not anymore. It’s burned up in the fire with the wood stacked outside Miss Trining’s kitchen door.”

“Do you feel Nan’s spirit here with us? She worked for your wife. Conscientiously, as she did for everyone. She even sent you a message about the sheets left at her house.”

“She’d heard us quarreling. It wouldn’t have done if she’d remembered and told the world what those arguments were about.”

“Money? You’d already set your sights higher. I expect when the Granville family cut you off, Margaret must have appeared to be a lifeline. She told me not six months ago that you were still repaying them what you owed them for your training. Sadly her inheritance is nearly used up. A foolish pride when there’s little money to support it.”