Charles Todd - Proof of Guilt

“Asleep?”

“I couldn’t say, sir.”

Rutledge considered what Nan had told him. There had been enough time for Agnes French to kill her brother. If he had come home again and found her in the rose garden, if the quarrel had been renewed, she could have rushed to the motorcar and turned it in the heat of her anger and run him down as he walked away.

But then why had the bit of cloth he’d discovered under the French motorcar matched the dead man’s clothing, and not French’s?

There was the possibility that in his mad need to leave the house behind, French could have hit someone else on the road and suffered a seizure because of it. And his sister had let him die.

That would explain everything.

He said, intending to catch the maid unaware, “Who took the dead man to London, left him there, and then abandoned the motorcar in Surrey?”

She frowned. “I’ve never been to Surrey, sir. Are you meaning Mr. French? Is he dead, sir? Is that why you’ve come, to tell Miss French?”

“No,” he said, feeling the tension in his shoulders from the long drive and the weariness of knowing he had wasted more of his forty-eight hours than he could spare. “We haven’t located Mr. French.”

“I’m glad, sir. I didn’t want to be the one to wake Miss French and tell her.”

He changed the subject. “Did Miss Whitman have a bicycle? Do you remember it?”

“Yes, sir, she and Mr. Michael would go off together, pedaling their bicycles and stopping somewhere for lunch. Just an ordinary bicycle, sir. Nothing special about it. She rather liked it, because Miss French’s father had given it to her one Christmas.”

“Thank you, Nan. I don’t think we need to disturb your mistress after all.”

He turned to go, and she wished him a good night.

He drove as far as the dark churchyard and walked for a time between the gravestones. He couldn’t help but see that Miss Whitman must be awake because there were lights in one of the upstairs bedrooms.

Standing there watching the light, he said aloud, “He’s going to have her taken up for murder. Markham. And her grandfather as well. Where the bloody hell is Lewis French? Or saving that, where in hell is his body?”

Hamish, who seemed to be standing just behind his shoulder in the soft darkness, said, “It’ull do no good to lament. Ye still have half your time left.”

But what to do with it?

Rutledge walked back and forth under the trees, barely missing some of the older, sunken stones as he paced.

Markham wouldn’t allow him to search for the connection between Diaz and a killer he could have hired.

But there might be a way to do it without prejudice.

The light in the upstairs bedroom finally went out.

Hamish said, “Ye’ve lost the distance a policeman must keep from his suspects.”

“I don’t know that I have,” Rutledge said. “It’s just hard to believe, that’s all. There’s been nothing—absolutely nothing—that points to her except circumstantial evidence.”

“And yon photograph,” Hamish said. “The van guard has said so.”

At that moment, the cottage door opened, and Miss Whitman, a shawl around her shoulders, came out and walked down the path to her gate.

He stood there watching her. Waiting to see where she might go.

But she crossed the street and came into the churchyard.

“Are you there?” she asked, peering into the darkness beneath the trees. “It’s you, isn’t it? I saw you from my window as I blew out my lamp. Are you waiting for morning to take me into custody? Is that why you’re come to St. Hilary?”

He walked toward her. “I came looking for something that would explain the unexplainable. French isn’t the only one who has vanished. Traynor has gone missing as well.”

She sucked in a breath. He could hear it.

“Dear God. And you think my grandfather and I have done these things.”

“No. I think—I thought I knew who was responsible. But there’s no way to prove it. And I’ve come to the end. I won’t be the one to take you into custody. They’re sending me to Staffordshire. But it will happen. I’m sorry.”

“Yes,” she said slowly. “It will happen.”

She stood there, a black silhouette against the starlight that lit the street and the front of her house.

And then without a word she turned and walked away.

Rutledge watched her until she had gone inside and closed the door behind her before turning toward his motorcar.

Apropos of nothing, Hamish said, “They burned witches.”

But Rutledge wasn’t to be drawn. This time he ignored the voice in his head and resolutely turned toward the London road.

Chapter Fifteen

Tired as he was, Rutledge drove all night, and when he reached London he went not to the Yard but to Chelsea.

He stopped the motorcar some distance from the place where the body was found and walked the street again.

Why here? Why had this been the best site to leave an unwanted corpse?

Why not in Bloomsbury or Whitechapel or on the Heath?

Hamish said, “Until ye ken his name ye willna’ know.”

And there was nothing he could do about it. So far.

He walked on. None of the constables who had interviewed residents of this street or the ones on either side had come up with any information that was useful. If anyone had secrets, they had kept them well. The constables were experienced, men who knew Chelsea. And they had shaken their heads over the collected statements, telling Gibson, “If there’s a connection, we haven’t found it.”

Rutledge had reached the house belonging to Mr. Belford.

It was where he’d been going from the time he left St. Hilary.

The maid who answered the door told him that Mr. Belford was in, but she would have to inquire if he was receiving visitors.

After several minutes, she came back to ask Rutledge to follow her.

It was the same room where he’d spoken to Belford before.

The man was standing by the cold hearth, hands clasped lightly behind his back, his expression bland.

“Good morning.” He considered Rutledge. “You’ve driven how far? Not from the Midlands, I should think. And you haven’t been to the Yard, or you would have shaved and changed your shirt. Your expression is grim. Is there another body on this street that my staff has not remembered to mention to me over my breakfast?”

Rutledge smiled. “Not another body, no. But a conundrum, I think.”

“You’ve come for information, then. As I didn’t know the man before he was murdered, I can tell you nothing.”

“You were right about the watch. It was very helpful. Sadly, it didn’t belong to the man in whose pocket it was found. Nor does he appear to have any connection with the man whose watch it was. But now the watch’s owner has gone missing and his cousin as well, two men who have no reason to disappear and who seem to have no enemies.”

“Interesting indeed.” Belford took the chair across from the one he’d offered Rutledge. “Why do you think I should know the answer to this riddle?”

“Because,” Rutledge answered, “I have looked into your past. As you must have looked into mine.”

“Yes. I’ve learned to leave nothing to chance. You had an interesting war.”

“And you as well. Although you left no footprints to follow.”

Belford laughed. “Yes, well, I do try. I had no more success identifying your body than you did. I don’t care for . . . messages . . . left near my house.”

“If I tell you the entire story, can I do so with the assurance that it will go no further?”

“Of course. It goes without saying. But first I’ll ring for tea, shall I?”

When it had been brought in and Belford had poured two cups, he reached into a cabinet to one side of the door and brought out a bottle of whisky, adding a small amount to each cup.