Charles Todd - Proof of Guilt

“Yes, sir, I’ll see to it.”

Rutledge went out into the middle of the street and walked up and down for some twenty yards in either direction from where the body had been discovered, but keen as his eyes were, sharp as the morning light was, he still could find no evidence to show that the victim had been dragged here. Or that such signs had been brushed away, in an attempt to point the police in a different direction.

He was forced to agree with Belford, although it would have been more satisfying on general principles to find the man wrong. He smiled at himself. It would most certainly have made his task easier. Wherever the victim had died, it wasn’t here.

Had this site been chosen at random? Or was it meant as a message to someone who lived on this street? For that matter, the killer could have got the address wrong.

“You cover several streets on your rounds,” he said to the constable as he came to stand beside him again. “Have you seen anything, heard any gossip that might indicate someone else in this area was engaged in activities that could have resulted in a rather nasty warning?”

“I was wondering that myself, sir, but I can’t think of anyone who isn’t respectable. There’s an artist or two, and one famous actor. But they live as quietly as anyone as far as I can tell.”

Finally satisfied that he could do no more here, Rutledge left, asking Constable Meadows to see that statements were copied and sent along to the Yard.

He was glad to be out of Chelsea, and drove directly to Galloway and Sons, a jeweler on Bond Street. As a young policeman, Rutledge had found the man who had broken into the shop one Saturday evening, and recovered most of the stolen items as well. Galloway had been in his debt ever since.

He greeted Rutledge warmly, and when he had finished his business with the young couple already in the shop, he turned to the Inspector.

“You’ve neglected us of late,” he said, smiling. “I should have thought by now you’d be purchasing a ring for a young lady.”

“One day perhaps,” Rutledge answered. “Today I’m here on police business. Would you take a look at this watch and tell me what you can about it?”

He passed the watch to Galloway, who studied it carefully before opening it.

“Is this connected in any way with a crime?” the jeweler asked as he worked.

“It would be helpful to learn the identity of the owner.”

“To be sure.” After inspecting the back of the watch, Galloway finally turned to Rutledge. “I thought at first that this was a French timepiece. Well, of course it is, but it was sold in Lisbon. The jeweler left his mark just there, do you see? On the frame. At a guess, it was not a presentation piece—a coming of age or advancement, that sort of thing—but bought to use every day. Some slight signs of wear, but maintained beautifully. I’d put the date at perhaps 1890, 1895?”

“Interesting,” Rutledge said. “Anything else?”

“I’m afraid not. I do have a connection in Lisbon. Would you like me to make inquiries? Quietly, of course.”

“Yes, that would be very helpful.”

Galloway jotted down his observations and returned the timepiece to Rutledge.

“Contact you through the Yard, as usual?”

“Please, yes.”

Rutledge walked back to his motorcar with his mind on the inquiry.

A voice said, “I see you’ve no time for old friends.”

He came back to the present to find former Chief Inspector Cummins standing in front of him. Smiling, he said, “Sorry! I was debating with myself whether this latest inquiry is a murder or an accident someone tried to cover up. What brings you to London?”

“My daughter and my wife are looking at wedding gowns. I’ve been cast adrift and told not to return for at least an hour. It’s nearly up. I’m glad I ran into you. A pity about Bowles’s heart attack, but I daresay there were many who were surprised to learn he even had one. Myself among them. What do you think of the new man? Markham?”

It occurred to Rutledge that if Cummins had been still at the Yard, he would have been in the running for the position of Acting Chief Superintendent. It was a loss to the Yard that he wasn’t.

“A dark horse. So far he’s been reasonable enough to work with, but his reputation precedes him. He doesn’t care for leaps of intuition and is a stickler for regulations.”

“The new broom sweeping clean, yet?”

Rutledge considered the question. “He’s too new. Time will tell.”

“One school seems to think Bowles is mending and will have his old position back or know the reason why. Another thinks he’s stepped on too many toes and that he’ll be asked to retire, if the Home Office finds a satisfactory replacement.”

Rumors that Rutledge hadn’t heard. “Thank you for the warning.” Better the devil you know? He wasn’t sure.

“Good to see you again, Ian. Keep your head down, and you’ll be all right.”

But Rutledge stopped him. “Do you miss it? The Yard?” He hadn’t intended to ask the question. It was too personal for one thing, and none of his affair for another.

After the clinic, he had used his return to the Yard to stop himself from sliding into irreversible madness, and he had fought to hold on to that in the face of Bowles’s intransigence and the fearsome darkness occupying his mind. He had survived, because he had never dared to look beyond the Yard. Never dared to contemplate what would become of him if his work were suddenly taken away. As it had been for this man.

“I do,” Cummins said, and Rutledge felt cold. And then Cummins added, “But not as much as I’d expected to. Does that make sense?”

Rutledge could only say, “Yes.”

At the Yard, Rutledge’s first order of business was to ask Gibson to find out whatever he could about the helpful Mr. Belford. In his office with the door shut, he sat down at his desk, turned his chair toward the dusty window, and looked out. He was grateful for this glimpse of the outside, even if it consisted mostly of trees and a part of the road below. His claustrophobia, a relic of the trenches, hadn’t gone away with time, as the doctors had suggested it might. And it helped him to think, staring out at green leaves and tree trunks that hadn’t been blighted by artillery and turned into churned-up mud, bone, blood, and lost hopes.

The Acting Chief Superintendent would be impatiently awaiting his report, but Rutledge wasn’t quite satisfied with what he’d seen in that street in Chelsea.

The victim was still wearing both shoes. Surely if he’d been dragged ten feet, one of them would have fallen off. Had someone replaced them? And while his coat showed every sign of dragging, no attempt had been made to simulate a track in the dust of a Chelsea street. Rutledge found that interesting. Where, then, had the man come from? And why was he brought to London? Because it was large and anonymous, or because this was the place where he needed to be?

“Because where he died would point to the killer,” Hamish suggested in the back of his mind, answering so clearly his voice seemed to come from just behind Rutledge’s shoulder.

He should be used to it by now. That voice, neither specter nor friend nor rational thought.

Whatever had brought the dead man to Chelsea, it would be necessary now to circulate a description of him to large cities all over the country. And hope that inspectors there would pass the word to the smaller towns and villages in their patches. If the Yard was very lucky, a constable somewhere would recognize the man and put a name to him.

Rutledge had been warned that the Acting Chief Superintendent didn’t care for inquiries with loose ends.

He was more optimistic about the watch. It was expensive enough that jewelers in England, like Galloway, would have kept a record of such a purchase and a satisfied client, in the expectation of future business. But would that be true in Portugal?