Charles Todd - Proof of Guilt

“How odd. Lewis had nightmares when he was a child. He said he saw Papa with blood all over his shirt. It was summer, not quite dark, late as it was. Papa was standing below the Nursery window, talking to the doctor and the constable, and Lewis thought they were about to take him away. They kept urging him into the doctor’s carriage, and he refused to go. Michael’s new tutor was here the next morning. Mama brought him up to meet us, not Papa, and Lewis was frightened that something had happened. Lewis began to cry and ask for Papa. Mama told him not to be silly, he’d see Papa at tea. After she’d gone downstairs again, Lewis asked the tutor if he’d come because Papa was dead. The tutor was quite shocked. He told Lewis that he’d spoken to Papa at breakfast. But we didn’t see him until the next afternoon at tea. Lewis refused to go to sleep that night and several nights thereafter, afraid the dream would come back again. I know because he was still in the Nursery and kept me awake as well. But I don’t think it did reoccur. Perhaps because it wasn’t a dream after all. But who came here? Was it someone we knew?”

“It was someone connected to the winemaking business in Funchal.”

“Well then, I expect that was the end of it. Nothing was ever said about trouble with the Funchal part of the business. I’m sure Matthew would know—would have known if there was.” She dismissed the matter, returning to her earlier grievances. “I had a note from Miss Townsend. She wanted to know if I’d had news of Lewis. I had to be the one to inform her that Lewis was very likely dead and that Gooding had been taken up for his murder. If she really cared, she would have come rather than write. It would have saved me the trouble of having to explain such things on paper.”

He said, “Have you spoken to Miss Whitman again?”

“No, nor shall I.”

“If Gooding was Chief Clerk in London, why should he give it all up just because your brother preferred Miss Townsend to Miss Whitman?”

“He dotes on Valerie. Of course he does. Everyone always did. Even my father.”

Rutledge wondered, not for the first time, if Agnes French could have killed her brother and purposely prepared for Gooding and Valerie Whitman to take the blame. After all, it was a woman’s touch, to leave the handkerchief in the motorcar, to cast the blame on Miss Whitman.

That brought him full circle to the fact that her maid would know if she was away for more than a few hours. The cook, the maids—impossible.

He said, “How long has your maid been in your service?”

“Since I was ten. She was eighteen at the time, and my mother thought I would benefit from having someone look after me. I expect she felt that Nan would keep me out of trouble, but we were soon fast friends.”

And fast friends would lie for one another.

Not just childhood peccadilloes but murder as well?

Hamish said, “Did she kill her mother and father? She had the keeping of them, and could ha’ rid herself of them when they were too much trouble.”

She was just selfish enough that it was possible. And her brothers left the care of them to her. Surely the doctor would have caught anything unusual. Besides, they had been long dead, there would have been no way to prove that suspicion one way or another.

Still—it was an interesting argument. He decided to probe.

“You cared for your parents, in their last illnesses. It must have been very difficult for you.”

“It was. My father could have afforded the best nursing care. But he wouldn’t put out the money. He told me that I could take over the sickroom and care for Mama. It was very difficult. She was not always the best of patients. But it was my duty, and I did it.”

“Again, with your father.”

“Oh, yes, Michael and Lewis decided between them that it would be for the best. I was never very close to my father. It was rather nice in some ways for me to see him dependent on me.”

She was very open about her feelings. Would she be, if she had been guilty of their deaths?

He couldn’t be sure. She was so supremely certain that life had given her less than she deserved, that she might not see the pitfalls of being too truthful about all her emotions.

Rutledge left soon after, still no closer to an answer that satisfied him. All that he had was further proof of Afonso Diaz’s presence in the house.

He knew, when he’d chosen to see Miss French first, that he was using it as an excuse to put off calling on Valerie Whitman.

Driving on to her house, he tried to think what he could say that would help Miss Whitman through this dark time, with her grandfather facing murder charges and her own situation more than a little precarious.

But when he reached her door and knocked, he was no closer to an answer to that question.

As she opened the door narrowly, Rutledge could see for himself how stressful the past few days had been. There were circles under her eyes, and their color was less green now, more a dull brown. It wasn’t surprising that she hadn’t been sleeping well.

“Why have they done this to us?” she asked when she saw who was on her doorstep. “I have had enough of people coming to commiserate. Or so they tell me. Sometimes I think it’s more like gloating. Miss Townsend was one of the first, out of kindness. I felt so terrible for her. She was to marry Lewis. It must have been a shock to hear that my grandfather had killed him. She did say that she had come against her father’s wishes. He was upset, she told me, because he didn’t care to have his patients making comments to him about his daughter’s choice of husband.”

“He seems to be a rather hard man.”

“He’s a good doctor. That’s why people have tolerated his manners. Or lack of them.”

“Do you believe your grandfather murdered Lewis French?”

Her cheeks flushed. He couldn’t be sure it whether it was anger or something else.

“Do you wish to gloat too? I thought— You warned me.”

“The warning still stands. It’s believed he must have had an accomplice.”

She made to close the door. “I don’t need to hear this sort of thing.”

“I’m trying to get to the truth,” he said in self-defense, but she shook her head.

“Or hoping that I’ll blurt out something that will help you prove he’s guilty.” She glanced up the street and saw a neighbor watching her. Angrily she said to Rutledge, “Did it ever occur to you that the real truth is that Lewis wanted the whole business, not just the London half? And that he tried to kill Matthew himself? Or have him killed? And the reason you can’t find Lewis’s body is that he’s in hiding somewhere until my grandfather is hanged?”

And then, apparently wishing that she could take back her own cruel words, she went inside, shutting the door with a firmness that was little short of a slam.

As a defense for her grandfather, her argument was sound enough. It would explain both Traynor’s death and French’s disappearance.

And if that was true, it would mean that the body in Dungeness was Traynor’s. But what had she said? Or have him killed . . . It would be more consistent with the man French was to hire someone to see that Traynor never landed in England.

Rutledge nodded to the neighbor who had been watching the exchange with Valerie Whitman and drove back to Dedham. This time he found Miss Townsend alone in her father’s house.

“My father’s at a lying-in,” she said, clearly hesitant about inviting him in. And remembering how her father had behaved when he had called the first time, Rutledge could understand her concern as she added, “And my mother is calling on a friend.”

“Would you prefer to walk with me? This is police business, Miss Townsend. Your father can have no objection to your helping us in our inquiries.”