Charles Todd - A Lonely Death

"What did you talk about?" Norman demanded. "I want to know."

"About the war," Rutledge said, and walked out of Dr. Gooding's surgery.

T hey brought the little dog into Inspector Norman's office the next morning. He had already sent for Summers, who was sitting in a chair, stubbornly silent now.

Bell dropped the lead as Rutledge opened the door, and Muffin ran in, stopped short, cast a glance at Summers, and then rapidly swung around the room, frantically searching for the one person who wasn't there. Summers stared at him as if he'd seen a ghost, but as the dog came full circle, he stopped in front of the man's chair and began barking, surging forward and then back again, head down, neck outstretched and taut.

Bell, watching, said, "My God."

"Get him away from me!" Summers demanded, drawing his feet under the chair, out of reach. "The bloody dog bites."

Rutledge spoke over the ferocious display of anger as Muffin all but attacked Summers, teeth bared, ears back.

"Where is she? Or I'll lock him in the cell with you."

"Damn it, call him off."

But Rutledge stood there, grimly watching as Muffin leapt closer, challenging the man in the chair.

Desperate, Summers kicked out, and Muffin got his ankle, holding on with the tenacity of his terrier ancestors. Summers screamed, stood up and tried to shake the dog off, but it was impossible. Bell, just behind Rutledge, started to step forward, but Rutledge put out an arm to stop him.

Summers cried, "All right, for God's sake, I'll tell you. Get him away from me-she's in the Convent of the Claires. South of Paris. I swear it. Please-"

Meredith Channing had said something about convents.

"Why is she there?" Rutledge asked, holding up his hand to stop Bell.

"I told them she suffered hallucinations after a head injury," he said rapidly. "That what she remembers is confused, erratic. There was never a pet dog, we were never in Sussex-they pitied me."

Bell hurried forward and caught the dog by its collar, his voice firm, pulling Muffin back. It took some doing, and Summers's ankle was bloody by the time Bell had separated them. Summers reached down and gripped it, swearing.

Bell turned reproachfully to Rutledge. "That was not right."

"It was the only way," Rutledge answered harshly. "He killed with impunity. He'd have left her there. She was no further use to him. Nor was her money, now."

He turned on his heel and walked out of the room while Bell soothed the dog and carried him down the passage to the motorcar that had brought him from Dover.

Norman left Summers slumped in his chair and followed Rutledge. "You're a cold bastard when you want to be. And you've put Mickelson's nose out of joint, bringing the suspect in. He's to be released tomorrow-Mickelson-and sent to London to finish healing. He refuses to clear you, you know. He claims he's uncertain. But we've found Summers's motorcar. It's very like yours. Mrs. Farrell-Smith was right on that score. I don't think you'll have much trouble over that business."

"It doesn't matter," Rutledge said, refusing to admit to Norman or anyone else that it did.

Norman said after a moment, "I'm curious. When did you bring your service revolver to Eastfield?"

Rutledge said, "I took it to France with me. Force of habit." With that, he walked away, leaving Norman to stare after him. A fortnight later, when Rutledge had given his testimony at the inquest and returned to London, he asked Chief Inspector Cummins to meet him for lunch at a quiet restaurant where they could talk.

Cummins came in, sat down, and greeted Rutledge cheerfully. "I'm glad to see you survived. It must have been touch and go, according to my sources."

For an instant Rutledge thought that Cummins was referring to that moment in the wasteland of the Somme, when he'd considered his future and decided against dying there. And then he understood. The reference was to Eastfield. "It was a close-run thing-whether I'd be hanged for murder or would bring in the real killer."

"Why did he target Mickelson?"

"Apparently he'd seen Inspector Mickelson standing in the churchyard by his mother's grave. He was afraid Mickelson was looking into his family's past. It wasn't true, of course, but it nearly got Mickelson killed, all the same. By the time he'd retrieved his motorcar and stopped Mickelson by the rectory gates, there was no opportunity to garrote him, and so he used a spanner."

"I hear Mickelson is being bloody-minded about clearing you of any role in his attack."

"He's had an epiphany. So I've been told. The KC trying Summers-Julian Haliburton-has informed Mickelson that the Crown takes a dim view of muddying the evidence. Inspector Mickelson's statement has officially exonerated me of all blame." Rutledge didn't add that it would be some time before his arrest on a charge of attempting to murder a fellow policeman had faded from the collective memory of the Yard. That anyone believed him capable of such an act still stung.

Cummins chuckled. "Yes, Haliburton is a stickler for accuracy." His amusement faded. "You understand that you won't be promoted to fill my shoes? Bloody stupid of Bowles, but there it is."

"I hadn't expected it," Rutledge said. And yet he knew that he would have liked to follow a man like Cummins.

"On a more interesting subject than the Chief Superintendent, I haven't thanked you for your help with the Stonehenge murder. This is more information than I'd ever hoped to find."

"There's something more," Rutledge replied. "I think I know the name of the murder victim."

Cummins was aghast. "I don't believe it. How in hell's name did you ever get to that?"

"We'd wondered why the knife was left in Hastings. It occurred to me that there must be another connection. At least a name to be going forward with. And what's the most popular name in Hastings?"

"Robinson? Turner? Johnson?"

"William the Conqueror. The first of the Norman kings of England. There's an Inspector Norman there, as well. While I was there giving evidence at the inquest, I asked one of his constables if there was anyone in the Inspector's family who had gone missing in 1905. At first Petty thought I was trying to cause trouble with the police in Hastings, but then he told me that there were several families named Norman in that part of Sussex. And one of them, a William Norman, was lost in Peru in 1906. He was a schoolmaster who was eager to find another lost city of the Incas. As it happened, an American, Hiram Bingham, actually did find a lost city. Machu Picchu. This William Norman sailed for Peru on the twenty-second of June, 1905. The family was told he'd reached Peru safely, had gone into the jungle, and was never heard from again. He was declared dead seven years later."

"To reach Peru, he'd have had to take passage on a ship going out there. Did he?"

"Yes. Apparently he did. Someone did."

"Well, then, he isn't our William Norman, is he?"

Rutledge signaled the waiter to bring their menu. "The report said that the captain of the S.S. Navigator had described Norman as the worst sailor in Christendom. He never left his cabin throughout the voyage, he was as green as anyone the captain had ever seen, and when he stepped off the ship, his legs would barely hold him upright. But he insisted that he was all right."

"A great disguise, seasickness," Cummins said dryly.

"You forget, the ship's captain had never seen Norman. He was nothing more than a name on the manifest, and the few glimpses anyone had had of him."

"Hmmm. Who then took his place? The killer?"

Rutledge said, "I expect we'll never know. But if it was the killer, then he's dead." He paused. "He was a schoolmaster in a prestigious public school in Dorset. Norman. Not so very far from Stonehenge."