Charles Todd - Proof of Guilt

Rutledge, wincing at the mention of shell shock, said, “We’ll have to keep this man in mind. What’s his name?”

“Fulton, sir. He’s from Nottingham. Married a Cornish girl before the war, and the pair have been living in a cottage on her father’s farm.”

“He could have made his way to Nottingham,” Rutledge said. “If he was determined enough.”

The man from Chester was unlikely to be their victim. He’d been wounded in the war and his arm had been badly fractured. According to the police there, he had never regained full use of it.

“And the postmortem didn’t show a bad arm,” Gibson reminded Rutledge. “Only wounds that caused his death.”

“Did you tell Chester that we don’t have their man?”

“I did. There’s still the missing man in Norfolk.”

“We’re back to the watch,” Rutledge said. “And I should have heard something by now.”

“What if it was stolen?” the ever-dour Gibson wanted to know.

“I rather think, considering the quality of the dead man’s clothing, that it must have belonged to him.”

But Gibson wasn’t convinced. “More than one pickpocket dresses like a gentleman. Best way to pass unnoticed at a gathering where the pickings are good.”

It had been nearly a week since the body was discovered when Galloway came himself to see Rutledge at the Yard.

He was escorted to Rutledge’s office by Constable Thomas, and as he came through the doorway, he said, “Patience has its reward. I’ve something here I thought you ought to know at once.”

“That’s good news, I hope,” Rutledge said, rising to greet Galloway. “What does your contact have to say?”

“The watch in question was actually one of a pair ordered from the jeweler in Lisbon in 1891. They were presented by a Mr. Howard French to his son and his son-in-law on the occasions of their marriage and, in due course, were returned to Lisbon for cleaning and polishing by the owners before being given to grandsons on reaching their majority.”

“Why were they purchased in Lisbon rather than in London or Paris?”

“It seems that French was part owner of a winery on Madeira, and he visited Lisbon often on business matters. Before he was forty, he was sole owner of the firm and had bought land on Madeira where he could grow his own grapes. It was an experiment that succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. So I was told.”

“Does the firm have an English address here in London?”

“There’s an office here, but strictly for the importing and selling of wine. The jeweler in Lisbon tells me that the family owned vineyards in Portugal, but it was the ones on Madeira that gave their wines such a recognizable quality. Quite extraordinary, in fact. I fancy a glass of Madeira wine myself, after a good meal. And it’s usually from the cellars of French, French, and Traynor.” He shook his head. “Imagine that.”

Madeira wine was fortified and then aged. Rutledge’s father had enjoyed a five-year-old Madeira, although there had been several bottles in his cellar much older than that—one crusty forty-year-old, in fact, that his father had put down.

“Then the place to start is here in London. I don’t see the Yard paying for a jaunt to Madeira.”

The jeweler smiled thinly. “Not at public expense. But I daresay it would be a very pleasant holiday.”

Rutledge thanked Galloway and saw him out.

Sergeant Gibson, he was told as he returned to his office, was closeted with the Acting Chief Superintendent. And so he searched out Sergeant Fielding. Five minutes later, armed with the information Fielding had given him, Rutledge was on his way to the City and the firm of French, French & Traynor.

Neither of the principals was in, he was told by a junior clerk when he arrived at the handsome building near Leadenhall that housed the firm. It was three stories high, with an ornate façade that could have been designed by Wren. It was the right age. Above the door was a gilded sign with the name picked out and nothing more.

He opened the door and stepped into a small reception room. The paneling was well polished, the chairs were Queen Anne, and the thick carpet was Turkish, the rich colors in its pattern gleaming like dark jewels. The impression was of a well-established firm accustomed to serving the best clientele.

The junior clerk who had greeted him and asked his business deferred to a more senior clerk, and the man who then came out to speak to him would have been at home in a solicitor’s chambers: tall, graying, with a high forehead and still-black eyebrows that gave his face an air of dignity and authority.

He also knew how to sum up a visitor in one swift glance.

“Mr. Rutledge? I’m the senior clerk. Gooding is my name. Frederick Gooding.”

“Do you know where I can find Mr. French? I’d like very much to speak to him.”

“I’m afraid he’s not in today. I’ll be happy to help you in any way I can.”

“Mr. Traynor, then. Where will I find him?”

Mr. Gooding’s eyebrows rose. “The senior Mr. French was killed in the war. The younger Mr. French is presently in Essex. Mr. Traynor handles the firm’s business on Madeira.”

Rutledge brought out the watch and set it on the table beside him, where the lamplight caught the gold of the case and the chain. “Have you seen this watch before?”

“It looks very like the one that the senior Mr. French inherited from his father. It went to the younger Mr. French at his brother’s death. Returned from the Front in his kit.” He touched it lightly, turning the face toward him. “Yes, indeed. I could almost believe that it is one and the same.” Glancing up at Rutledge, he said, “How did Scotland Yard come by it? Can you tell me?”

“By chance,” Rutledge answered. “I’ve been told that a grandfather founded the firm, passed it to his son and son-in-law, and they passed their shares to their own sons. Is this correct?”

“The French family has been in the wine business for centuries. Shakespeare records that the Duke of Clarence was drowned in a butt of Malmsey. If this is true, then very likely it was a wine provided to the Court by the French family. The grandfather, as you describe him, decided to go into the business of growing the grapes and producing his own wine, instead of merely importing it. He had a son—that would be Mr. Laurence—and a daughter, who married a Mr. David Traynor, who was then brought in by Mr. Howard French as a partner. Their son is the Mr. Matthew Traynor who presently lives on Madeira. Mr. Laurence had two sons of his own, Michael, who was killed in the war, and his brother, the present member of the family in charge of the firm.” Gooding had been concise, deferential, and yet obstructive.

“Where in Essex can I find Mr. French the Younger?”

Gooding smiled slightly. “Mr. Lewis French has a home in a village in Essex just north of Dedham. A village called Stratford St. Hilary.”

Constable country, near the Suffolk border, where the artist’s most famous scenes were painted. Rutledge’s grandmother had been particularly fond of Constable’s work.

Rutledge asked, “When did you last speak to Mr. French?”

The clerk pursed his lips. “Friday of last week, I believe. He telephoned me to ask if I’d received final word of his cousin’s travel plans. I hadn’t, and he was not pleased. But then Mr. Traynor had business in Lisbon as well, and that could have taken longer than he’d expected.”

That would have been the Friday before the body was found on Monday morning.

“Does Mr. French usually reside in this village and commute to London?”

“No, no, he has a house in London. He wanted to be sure the ancestral home, as it were, was ready for Mr. Traynor’s arrival.”