Charles Todd - Proof of Guilt

“And did he, do you know?”

“I expect he must have done, as later in the week I saw the carpenter’s dray turning into the farm lane as I was coming back from visiting one of our parishioners.”

That was the thing—in a village as small as St. Hilary, there were eyes everywhere. But if he was returning to London, French would have gone in the opposite direction, through Dedham.

“The assumption is that he stopped off to visit a friend on the way to London, and since he wasn’t expected to return to French, French and Traynor straightaway, he didn’t think to tell anyone his plans. But that seems odd to me. Gooding, the senior clerk in London, hasn’t heard from him, and French had had a telephone put in at the house here expressly to allow him to stay in touch with his clerk whenever he was in Essex.”

“I don’t like the sound of this. Not at all.”

“Precisely why the Yard has sent me here. Until now I’ve been very careful not to raise any alarms. But it’s important to start a search now. He could have been set on and robbed. He could be injured or unable to report what happened.”

“Have you spoken to our constable here in St. Hilary?”

“I stopped at the station yesterday. He wasn’t in.”

“I don’t know that he’ll be much help,” Williams said skeptically. “He knows his patch, and if anything had happened to French near St. Hilary, he’d have heard something by now. He keeps his ear to the ground. But he hasn’t said anything, has he?”

“He would have no reason to be looking for French. I have to begin where he was last seen.” He let the silence between them lengthen. He didn’t think the curate had ever encountered murder, for he still appeared to be taking it all in. Then he asked, “Was French’s father—or grandfather for that matter—ever involved with other women?”

“Involved with—not to my knowledge. And I’ve heard no gossip in that direction. How does this fit into murder?”

“Sometimes people left out of a will are vindictive. I understand that that watch has some significance in the family. Perhaps it has more value in that direction than if it were sold. If a thief tried to sell it, many jewelers would be suspicious.”

“I see where you’re going here. Still, why had your London victim been stripped of his identity?”

“There’s the possibility that someone else hired him to steal the watch. And when it came to turning it over, the thief got suddenly greedy.”

Or whoever killed him had decided that he knew too much?

“Then why did the thief’s killer leave it?”

“Because it was now tainted. Most especially if anything had happened to the owner, Lewis French.”

“Oh dear. I quite see now why you’ve been reluctant to raise the alarm until now. And I also understand what took Agnes French all the way to London. If her brother wasn’t here, he had to be in London. I’ll be happy to help in any way I can. But I must ask to see your identification. You will understand why.”

Rutledge pulled to the verge. They were nearly into Dedham, and this was the widest place in the road. He took out his identification and passed it to Williams. The curate examined it with care, then handed it back to Rutledge.

“Thank you. I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered anyone from Scotland Yard before this.”

Rutledge could see that Williams wasn’t certain whether to consider this an honor or a curse.

After a moment the curate added, “To be honest with you, I can’t think of anything I might know that would be helpful to you. None of my parishioners has any deep dark secret that might lead to murder.”

Rutledge found himself thinking that if there were secrets, no one would consider confiding them to Williams. He was rather naïve for a man who had fought in the war and then turned to the church for his livelihood.

“There must be someone else who knows the family well.” Rutledge reached for the brake and let in the clutch, moving out in the sporadic traffic on its way into Dedham.

“I never knew Michael, of course. But his tutor is still alive, and he lives in a small house here. He was also Lewis’s tutor, I believe. And there’s Miss French’s governess, but her mind isn’t what it once was. Sad, really, but she’s up in years. Michael French went to call on the tutor whenever he was on leave, or so Miss French told me. But Lewis finds him too dull to visit, I’m afraid. Sorry.”

“Still, I’ll keep the tutor in mind, if this inquiry isn’t closed one way or another soon.”

“With French dead? God save us, I hope not.”

It wasn’t until Rutledge was waiting for the curate to remove his bicycle from the boot that Williams said, “There is someone. I should have thought—she was engaged to Michael, and then to Lewis. Only she broke off the engagement quite suddenly. She’s known the family for years. She might be able to help you.”

Chapter Seven

The name Williams gave him was Valerie Whitman. She lived in the village of St. Hilary, and according to the curate her house was easy to find, just across from the church.

Agnes French had mentioned another woman when first Rutledge had called at the house, telling him that if something had happened to her brother in St. Hilary, she would look first at his jilted fiancée. At that point, Rutledge had still believed French was dead in a London hospital.

Now Williams was telling him that Miss Whitman herself, not French, had ended the engagement abruptly.

He was more inclined to believe the curate than Agnes French, whose view of the broken engagement would have been colored by her brother’s feelings. Still, jealousy had been the motive for murder in more than one instance. And who had or hadn’t ended the engagement didn’t matter. What had come after that did.

Rutledge was fairly certain he’d noticed the Whitman house earlier, a pretty cottage with roses clambering up the sunny wall and overhanging the porch. Nothing to compare with the Townsend house in Dedham, but large and comfortable enough to indicate that Miss Whitman was Lewis’s equal. And he found it easily.

But the quandary was, while he had been able to approach Miss Townsend and Miss French’s maid, even the curate, using the excuse that he was trying to find French, Rutledge could hardly ask Miss Whitman if she knew where he’d got to. The general assumption would be that they had had no contact since the broken engagement. And he had no idea on what terms they had parted or how she felt about French now.

If he believed Agnes French, her feelings had been murderous.

He wasn’t happy with the plan of knocking at the door in official inquiry until he knew a little more.

And so he left the motorcar by the empty Rectory and walked in the St. Hilary churchyard while keeping an eye on the Whitman house.

His vigilance was rewarded. A young woman came out the door with cut flowers in her hand and walked down the path to the garden gate.

There was no certainty that this was Valerie Whitman. He had neglected to ask Williams if there were sisters. But it was a place to begin.

She continued down the road to a cottage near where the High Street made a slight turn to accommodate the Common and went up to knock at the door. He moved to the far side of the churchyard so that he could keep watch. She was admitted, and she stayed the proper fifteen minutes, returning without the flowers.

He was ready. Leaving his place of concealment under the heavy, drooping leaves of an old maple and timing his approach perfectly, he met her before she had reached her house.

Taking off his hat, he smiled and said, “My name is Rutledge. I’m from Scotland Yard.”

Her hair was a light brown with highlights of honey gold in the sun, and her eyes were hazel, green overlaid with flecks of brown and purest gold. She was not conventionally pretty in the way that Miss Townsend was, but he found himself staring, nevertheless. There was something about her that would still be attractive when she was old.