Charles Todd - Proof of Guilt

“Then where is French? Why has he no’ come forward?”

“Because he knows Gooding isn’t the killer. Either that or he’s dead.”

“The tiger ye’ve angered is no’ a man to toy with.”

“We’ll see.”

“And if he does come for ye, where is the proof that he ordered the deaths of the ithers? He willna’ speak.”

“No, but Bob Rawlings will talk, faced with the rope as an accomplice in murder. He’s arrogant. And behind that is weakness.”

“Then why not tak’ him up for murder and see what he has to say.”

“I have no reason to take him into custody. Only my suspicion.”

It was a vicious circle, and Rutledge had thought it carefully through.

The minutes turned into hours. He glanced at his watch several times, knowing he should be halfway to Dedham by now.

And then, coming down the road, whistling in a monotone under his breath, was Bob Rawlings. Frowning, apparently deep in thought, he was swinging the stick he was carrying rhythmically back and forth, back and forth in an unconscious counterpoint to whatever tune was in his head. In his left hand was an envelope, and as Rawlings got closer, Rutledge could see the stamp affixed to it and the black scrawl of a name.

He waited for Rawlings to come back again from the post office. And it wasn’t long before the man appeared, for he’d wasted no time in the village. The frown had deepened into a scowl, and he was wielding his stick like a scythe now, viciously whipping off the heads of the wildflowers along the verge of the road. Taking out on them the mood he was in.

Hamish said, “If he’s no’ a killer now, he’ll grow inta one.”

As Rawlings passed Rutledge’s vantage point, Rutledge could see the edge of an envelope sticking out of his pocket.

A reply to previous letters? Or one for Mrs. Bennett? Impossible to tell, but something had happened to infuriate the man.

Rutledge made certain that Rawlings was well out of hearing before cranking the motorcar and driving quickly toward the village.

The postmistress was reluctant to let him see the letter, but her feelings about the men at the Bennett house overcame her scruples once more, and Rutledge recognized the direction on the letter as the same one he’d seen on his last visit.

The postmistress glanced around, then leaned toward Rutledge.

In a whisper she said, “And I just handed him one from that same address.”

“Has he had replies before this?”

“Not one. But someone wrote this time, and when he tore it open, he didn’t like what he read. He went out of here looking like a thundercloud.”

And that, Rutledge thought, explained what he himself had witnessed.

What had been in that letter?

“I telt ye,” Hamish railed as Rutledge drove toward the Thames and the crossing for Essex. “He isna’ coming for ye himsel’. And you willna’ know the face of the man who will shoot ye.”

“It’s a risk I must take. And even so, that man will lead the Yard back to Diaz.”

“The tail of the tiger can be as dangerous as the teeth.”

Rutledge said, “It’s always possible for the goat to outsmart the tiger.”

“It doesna’ happen verra’ often,” Hamish said dourly, and blessedly fell silent for several hours, leaving Rutledge alone with his own thoughts.

It was very late when Rutledge reached Dedham, and a summer storm was breaking over the town, the flashes of lightning illuminating the stone face of the handsome church, the windows of the shops across from it, and the tall façade of the inn.

He found a room, slept hard, and in the morning, made his way to Dr. Townsend’s surgery.

It was three quarters of an hour before Townsend came in, late for his hours because of an early call from one of the outlying farms. He apologized to the patients waiting to see him, and then nodded to Rutledge.

“Will you come into my office, Inspector?”

Rutledge followed him, and as soon as the door was shut behind them, Townsend turned to him. “Mr. MacFarland has no recollection of what happened to him. He was sitting in the arbor studying something by Liszt, and the next thing he knew he was awakening in my examining room.”

“I had hoped for better.”

“I’m sure you had. It’s a wonder the man’s brain functions at all. He could have suffered irreversible damage.”

“That’s the other matter I came to discuss. It’s important for several days that you tell anyone who inquires that MacFarland has suffered just that. It will save his life. He knows something that has already proved dangerous once.”

“Miss French came to inquire, when she’d learned MacFarland was here. I told her he was still not stable, but I thought it possible that he’d make a full recovery.”

“Then let it be known that the man suffered a massive stroke as a result of his injuries.”

“I can’t do that. I can’t tell people he’s had a stroke, and then tell them I was mistaken, that he’s recovered completely. I’m a doctor—”

Rutledge remembered that Townsend had already been involved in a scandal because of his drunkenness and a missed diagnosis.

“Then tell them that you were asked to help the police in their inquiries. If you don’t,” Rutledge said, “someone will walk through that door determined to kill him, and you and your staff will be at risk with him.”

Alarmed, Townsend said, “Surely no one would carry this business so far?”

“Will you take that chance?” Rutledge asked. “Your wife and daughter are just next door. If there’s shooting and one of them comes running, what then?”

“Leave my family out of it,” Townsend answered, angry.

“I’m only saying—”

“Yes, I know what you’re saying. There has been enough unpleasantness for them to deal with already, and I won’t add to their troubles. People believe what they hear first, and don’t always accept what they’re told about it afterward.”

Rutledge thought it was more likely the father who was having trouble with the whispers. And he suspected that Miss Townsend might have accepted Lewis French’s proposal of marriage at her parents’ behest. She had been very concerned for him, but there had been none of the tearful pleas for information that usually followed a much loved fiancé’s disappearance.

Dr. Townsend was finally persuaded to see the advantages to himself of protecting the tutor, and then Rutledge went in to visit MacFarland. He was still pale and shaken, but he was quick to grasp what Rutledge had proposed. “I can’t think of any of my pupils who held a grudge. I don’t know what this is about.”

Rutledge made certain the door was closed and no one was listening outside it. Coming back to MacFarland’s bedside, he said in a low voice, “I think this has to do with the man who came unannounced into the house the evening you interviewed for the position of tutor.”

“But that’s decades into the past. I can’t imagine what it has to do with me.”

“You were there. You knew what had transpired. You could therefore point a finger at the man responsible.”

“Yes, but he is in an institution. Surely they knew why. There must have been some sort of treatment or the like. I’m not the only source of information. Am I?”

“They did know at the time why Diaz was there. But it wasn’t fully laid out in his records—perhaps to protect the French family. You are the last link with the truth. You could tell the police why Diaz came to St. Hilary and what he did that night that sent him to the asylum. You are not a member of the family, your evidence would be objective and accepted. And so you became a target.”

“Dear God. I’d not thought about it in years. It wasn’t until you came and asked questions that it popped back into my mind.”