Charles Todd - Proof of Guilt

Rutledge encountered the constable from Dedham near the gates to the French estate and offered him a lift back to Dedham.

But the man couldn’t tell him any more than Brooks had.

They reached the inn, and Rutledge went directly to the telephone closet. When the call was put through to London, Sergeant Gibson answered almost at once.

“Rutledge here.”

“Sir, there’s been a development. The Chief Superintendent wants you back here to have a look.”

“You can’t give me more information?”

“Sir, I was told not to. Ears.”

The telephone exchange. Then it had something to do with St. Hilary.

“I’ll leave at once.”

“Thank you, sir, and I’ll tell the Acting Chief Superintendent that.”

Rutledge fetched his valise from his room, settled his account, and went on his way.

It was late when he reached the Yard, but the sergeant was waiting for him.

Without a word, Gibson handed him a folder.

Rutledge read it through, then looked up. “When was it found? Lewis French’s motorcar? Are you sure it’s his?”

“We were told not to take any steps until you were back in London. The Surrey police found it in a chalk quarry yesterday morning around dawn. Light reflected from the bonnet, and the constable went to investigate. Lads sometimes go to that quarry to drink, and there had been a fight or two recently. He found the motorcar instead.”

“Had it been tampered with?”

“Not as far as he could tell. But he thought it had been there for some time. He checks the quarry most days, but doesn’t go deep inside unless he sees signs that someone has been prowling about again.”

“How did he identify it?”

“He didn’t. His first thought was that the owner had come there to take his own life. It had happened once before. And so he searched a bit. Finally he went to find a telephone and put in a call to the Yard.”

“Did he, by God! Good man.”

“The Acting Chief Superintendent sent me along to have a look. It fit the description we had of Mr. French’s motorcar. Chassis number, and so on. And there was a dent in the near-side wing. After I’d had a look at the vehicle, we searched the quarry more thoroughly, but there was no sign of a body. To tell the truth, I’d expected to find one. It seemed to me that whoever put the vehicle there hoped the Yard would still be looking in London for the motorcar until the corpse had decomposed. Once I was satisfied, the local man put a constable on to watch the site, and I came back to London to tell you what had been discovered.” Gibson hesitated. “Only, when I tried to reach you last evening at the inn, they told me you weren’t a guest there. Sir.”

“I’d gone first to Norfolk. No answers there. Standish hasn’t come back and there’s been no word from him.”

“I don’t think the Acting Chief Superintendent will be best pleased. He seems to have his heart set on finding French somewhere in Stratford St. Hilary.”

It was a warning.

“Yes, I know. He was certain the motorcar was there as well. Most particularly, he’s pointing toward one of the women. In my view, Agnes French could hardly disappear from her home long enough to dispose of her brother, take a dead man to Chelsea, and then leave the motorcar in Surrey. What’s more, she’d have to find her way from Surrey back to Essex. Her household would know if she had gone away without warning.”

Hamish said, “It wasna’ the sister yon Acting Chief Superintendent believes is guilty.”

Rutledge nearly answered him aloud, biting off the retort at the last second and covering it with a cough.

Gibson made no comment. Norfolk had seemed a reasonable line of inquiry to him as well. Now he was having second thoughts.

On the other hand, the Acting Chief Superintendent was new and an unknown quantity, and Gibson’s first loyalty was to himself. He and Rutledge had always had an uneasy truce, both men doing the best they could under the capricious Bowles, both of them well aware that they couldn’t afford friendship. Bowles would have seen that as collusion, and it would have cost both men dearly.

With only a few hours’ sleep, Rutledge was back at the Yard before eight the next morning, to find Gibson waiting for him on the street, as arranged. The sergeant had very little to say, getting into Rutledge’s motorcar with a grunt and settling down for the drive.

The silence lengthened, lasting until they reached the Surrey chalk quarry. It was well off the main road, down a muddy lane that was overgrown. At the end of it, the great white face loomed above a bed of rubble. It appeared to have been a hill once, before this side had gradually been cut away.

“According to the local man, the quarry was abandoned because it was increasingly unstable. A workman was killed scaling the face.”

The constable guarding the site recognized Gibson and let them through. And the motorcar bounced and jolted over the rubble to where the other vehicle stood.

It was covered with a light dusting of chalk, like summer snow. Rutledge realized that the intent of whoever had brought the motorcar here was to drive it as close as possible to the high face, so that the next major collapse would cover the vehicle. But there must have been a minor fall as the driver was maneuvering the motorcar into position, for the idea had hastily been abandoned. On the whole, Rutledge couldn’t judge just how long the motorcar had been there. From the start? Only a few days?

They got out and clambered over the hummocky chalk. Much of it was darker, more the color of dingy cream, but there were newer, whiter bits as well. As they got closer, their shoes collected the white dust, and Rutledge noted ruefully that his trouser legs were not far behind.

He could see the long dent in the wing well before he reached it.

Rutledge carefully examined it, but the sergeant had been right, there was nothing linking the motorcar to the victim except for that dent.

He got down on one knee, looking up at the undercarriage, scanning the linkages.“Sergeant, my torch from the motorcar, please.”

Gibson went to fetch it and brought it to him as Rutledge, ignoring the damage to his clothing, was inching his way under the chassis. He went over every projection and rough edge he could see, touching each one with his gloved fingers. Nothing hooked or caught, nothing jammed. Just black metal.

He was about to push himself out again when he spotted it, where the housing of the motor was bolted to the frame. It was on the far side from where he’d been lying, almost invisible. But his torch beam had cast a shadow, just an outline that seemed irregular. He edged in that direction, swearing at the uneven chalk bed beneath his shoulders, and saw that a tiny square of cloth had been caught by and then wedged against the bolt.

Unless the motorcar had been put on an overhead rack, it would have been missed, and even then, dark as the cloth was, dark as the paint was just there, it would have been difficult to pick out.

It didn’t want to give up its hold on the bolt. Almost, Rutledge thought, as if it had been glued in place. A measure of the weight pulling against it as a man was dragged, jamming it there.

He slowly worked it loose, careful not to damage it further. He swore again at a lump of chalk digging into his shoulder, a little deeper with every movement he made.

Gibson, bending over to try to see what Rutledge was doing, said, “Any luck?”

Without warning, the tiny fragment of cloth fell, fluttering across his face. Rutledge almost lost it, barking his wrist against the undercarriage as he reached for it before it could drift into the uneven bed of chalk by his head.

Securing his find, he began to wriggle out from underneath the motorcar. It had been too claustrophobic by far, caught there between the heavy vehicle and the chalk, and he could feel his heart pounding now as he saw release coming.