Charles Todd - Proof of Guilt

They went out into the sunlight, crossed the drive, and set off across the lawn.

“I understand you wish to see me about a patient. Is he—or she—in trouble with the law, or is it something else?”

“As far as I know, there’s no problem with the law. The patient is Afonso Diaz. Or at least that’s the name he was using.”

“Ah. I see. A rather . . . unusual case, as I recall.”

“You treated him?”

“I tried to. I’m not sure whether I succeeded in helping him or he simply grew tired of carrying the burden of anger for so many years.”

“Why was he angry?”

“It’s a long story. We cobbled it together from what Diaz told us and from what the Portuguese police had to say. They had no interest in him—he’d served his time and they more or less washed their hands of him. Apparently he was a student in Lisbon, sent there from Madeira by his father. It seems he joined a rather radical group of student agitators, and in the end he was arrested, tried, and sentenced. He remained in prison for some ten years. When he was finally released, he learned that his father, rather than wait for him to return one day to Madeira, had sold the family estate to outsiders—in fact, to the firm of French, French and Traynor. I don’t know how the young Diaz was treated in prison. There were indications of brutality, but he could have brought that on himself in the beginning. Apparently he had suffered in silence, was set free, and blamed everyone but himself for his troubles. I expect the truth of the matter was, his father had given up hope and decided that his son would never settle down to the land. Perhaps he was right, because shortly after his release his son had sworn vengeance against the friends he thought had betrayed him to the police. He nearly got himself arrested again, this time on far more serious charges. He fled to Madeira, only to discover what his father had done in his absence. I imagine the father never found the courage to write and explain to his son why he’d sold the land. Perhaps he was even afraid of him. At any rate, Diaz was convinced that the wine merchants had tricked his father into selling.”

“And Diaz waited for his chance to avenge himself against Howard French. The grandfather of the present family.”

“Precisely.” Dr. Milton nodded. “By that time, apparently, the elder French was no longer traveling to Madeira. He’d left that to his son. It took some time for Diaz to find the money for his passage to England—his own father was dead now, and his second wife, whom he’d married while Afonso was in prison, was not about to share her inheritance with the black sheep of the family. But he finally reached England some twenty years ago, bent on revenge, his mind absorbed by it to the point of excluding everything else. Howard French was the cause of all his problems, and Howard French would pay for that.”

“Was he armed when he came to the house in St. Hilary?”

“He was, although Howard’s son had managed to disarm him before the police arrived. A rather nasty-looking knife. He was declared mentally unfit to be tried for assault, trespass, and attempted murder. Instead he was brought here.”

“And where did he go when he was released?”

“He was growing infirm physically, but he loved to garden, and I found a family in Surrey, the Bennetts, who would take him on as an undergardener. I didn’t think he was capable of carrying out his revenge—after all, both Howard French and his son were dead by this time. And Diaz had earned the right to leave.”

“He’s still with the family in Surrey?”

“Yes, of course. I receive monthly reports.”

“Did he make friends when he was here?”

“Not really. There was one man he seemed to like. But I couldn’t describe it as a friendship. It was more the sense that both were outcasts, unwanted, unwelcomed in society as a whole.”

“I’d like to speak to this man.”

“He died in the influenza epidemic. Quite a few of our patients did. It swept through the clinic like wildfire and was as quickly gone. Many of them had physical as well as mental deficiencies, and they were vulnerable.”

“Is that all you can tell me about Afonso Diaz?”

“Yes. He was an odd case, I never really got to know him. The language barrier, for one thing, and the way he nursed his belief that his life was ruined by others. But that faded with age, leaving a shell of the man he once was. The fires of hate consume some people, and in the end there’s little left because the person never filled the void with anything else.”

“And yet you felt that he was safe enough to be let out into a population that knew nothing of his history.”

“But the Bennetts do,” Dr. Milton said. “They have always felt strongly that we have a duty to the less fortunate, and they have taken in many of our patients as well as a few of the criminally insane who are declared cured. And in all this time, they’ve never been proved wrong.”

Rutledge thought that Dr. Milton was more than a little naïve. Once out of his care, people could revert to their true selves. Could connive and plot and inveigle and even kill. And by the time the good doctor learned he’d been wrong, someone else would have paid the price.

He thanked Dr. Milton and left the clinic. But he carried one thing away with him. The address where the Bennett family lived in Surrey.

He slept in his own bed that night, and in the morning, despite a slow drizzle of rain as he set out, he drove into Surrey. The sun found him there, the rain clouds moving northeast.

The Bennett family owned a sprawling property along the Berkshire–Surrey border. The drive led through an overgrown wood, but the grounds near the house were well manicured, the flowers in the two borders planted with an eye to coordinating colors. The effect was like a rainbow.

The door to the house stood wide, sunlight spilling into the flagged hall. Rutledge saw no bell, and he was about to knock when a voice from the corner called, “Help you, sir?”

“I’m looking for Mr. or Mrs. Bennett.” He turned to see a skeleton-thin boy standing there.

“Mrs. Bennett is sitting on the terrace watching a croquet match.”

“Show me the way, if you please.”

The boy nodded and waited for Rutledge to come up to him at the corner of the house. “I’m Luke,” he said. “I’m recovering from tuberculosis.”

“Are you indeed?” Rutledge replied, not giving his name, although he was fairly certain the boy had expected him to.

“Yes. Fresh air and good food. That’s the ticket,” he responded. “I drink a lot of milk.”

Along the west front of the house, a terrace looked out over a grassy lawn where a fierce game of croquet was in progress. The woman sitting in a chair under a black umbrella looked up. “You were right, Luke. A motorcar. Wonderful. And who is this?”

Rutledge reached the terrace steps and paused. “The name is Rutledge.”

The woman frowned. “I thought they were sending someone named Martin. Well, of course I might have misheard. Now then, Mr. Rutledge, you can see that we occasionally play croquet together. It promotes a sense of cooperation and provides exercise.”

Looking at the croquet game, Rutledge thought it promoted a competitive spirit that bordered on warfare. The players were all men of various ages, from fifteen to sixty, if he was any judge. Sweating in the sun, they must have been thirsty and uncomfortable.

Mrs. Bennett herself was closer to fifty than forty, her hair already streaked with gray, her clothing more classical than cool, despite the umbrella. It was then he noticed the twisted foot under the hem of her skirt.

“I can see that it does,” Rutledge said. “Could I speak with you in private, please?”