Charles Todd - Proof of Guilt

Rutledge took it, thanked Galloway for his efforts in tracing the workmanship, and went to his flat for a valise before setting out for Norfolk.

Standish had never come back to his cottage, and the general view of the village was that his war had overturned his mind and he’d done away with himself.

“So sad,” the woman in the pastry shop said, shaking her head. “He was such a nice young man. Quiet, yes, kept to himself, but I liked him. My own son died in the war. But I often found myself thinking, if he’d come home, he might be the same as Gerald Standish, shut off from everyone and everything. And so I was kind to him.”

It seemed to be a fitting epitaph.

Rutledge thanked her and was about to leave when she said, “I asked him for a photograph once. He thought it forward of me, I’m sure. A middle-aged woman? But then he came back in the shop the next day, as if he’d known what I was feeling. And he gave me one he’d had taken in France. I put it in a frame next to Tommy’s. My two boys.”

“Would you show me this photograph?” Rutledge asked.

“I’m finished here at three. If you can wait that long?”

Rutledge could. He found the constable, and together they returned the miniature to Standish’s cottage.

“Although what’s to become of this lot, I don’t know,” the constable said, surveying the front room. “Sad, isn’t it?”

There had been nothing here that connected Standish to the Bennett family. No letters, no entries in the family Bible, no paperwork in the desk that pointed to the entailment. If Gerald Standish had known he was a distant relation, he had had no sentimental feelings about it. No photograph of the house, no letter of condolence from the Bennetts on the death of his father. Of course the Bennett estate was hardly wealthy, stately, or famous. It had probably been half forgotten with the years, an anachronism, from a time when keeping property intact ensured money and power, retainers to fight at one’s side and a voice at Court. Still, Rutledge would have expected the grandmother to have kept his father’s papers for him. But then perhaps she had, reminding Standish of ties to a distant future. And after his war, he had not cared.

Rutledge knew how the man had felt. Perhaps his death had been a blessing to him.

But it was still murder, if what Rutledge suspected was true.

At a quarter past three, the woman in the pastry shop stepped out the door and looked around for him. She had changed into street clothes, and he almost didn’t recognize her in the upswept hairstyle and a becoming hat. She said, “Perhaps it’s best I don’t know what happened to Gerald. I can always hope he’ll come back one day. But if the constable had found his body, I’d like to lay him to rest where my Tommy would have been buried, if he’d lived a long and happy life at home. It’s important for all of us to know that someone cares.”

Her cottage was not far from the pastry shop, with pretty curtains at the windows and matching chintz on the chairs. He followed her into the front room, and she passed him the photograph.

“That’s my Tommy,” she said, her fingers lingering on the frame as if reluctant to let it go.

He could see the likeness, the same straight nose and firm chin, the same short, stocky build. Tommy smiled for the camera happily, and Rutledge thought the photograph must have been taken just as the young soldier arrived in France, before he knew what war was.

“A fine young man,” he said, giving the photograph back to her.

She held it for a moment longer and then set it down. “Yes, he was. I couldn’t have asked for better. It was just that I had him for such a short time. He was only eighteen when he enlisted.”

With a sigh, she set the photograph back by the chair that must have been her favorite, because her knitting was beside it on a small stand. She took up the next frame and handed it to Rutledge.

And he recognized the dead man in Chelsea. He was standing by a gun carriage, one hand resting on it, the other on his hip. He was smiling, but not as Tommy had done, still free from the shadows. Standish was already showing the strain of battle, although he was trying to keep it at bay. Any likeness to Howard French was tentative at best here. The way one might see a stranger on the street and ask , Did I know that man? He looked familiar . . .

Rutledge wondered who it had been meant for, this photograph. His grandmother? A girl back in England who cared? What had become of her?

“I was here before, asking about Standish in the village. I don’t remember seeing you in the shop then.”

“I was in Norfolk with my sister. She’d had kidney stones, and I went to stay with her until she was well again.”

Would it have shortened the long, tangled road to the truth if he had found this woman here in the village and talked to her then, seen the photograph?

There was no way of knowing.

Rutledge wasn’t quite certain what she would feel if he told her how Standish had died. Or that his body was already in a pauper’s grave in London.

He said simply, “Another fine young man.”

“Indeed.” She looked at him, her head to one side. “You were in the war. You remind me of Gerald somehow. Not in appearance, just . . . something.”

He smiled. “We were both soldiers.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

He thanked her and left.

Driving out of the village, Rutledge said aloud, “I don’t believe Standish would have cared about the Bennett house or been in any hurry to send Mrs. Bennett packing.”

Hamish answered, “Sae it would seem. To her, it would be verra’ different, a cloud that blotted out the sun.”

Nor would anyone who had come to live in the Bennett household and knew it as sanctuary want to count on the kindness of a stranger. Still, Rutledge thought that Diaz had protected himself and his plans, not Mrs. Bennett.

As he drove to Essex, and St. Hilary, Rutledge considered what this meant to Gooding’s case, now that the dead man in Chelsea had been identified.

Hamish said, “The motorcar that killed the man is still the motorcar of Lewis French.”

And so it was, straw with which the K.C. could make bricks to wall up Gooding. The connection to Diaz was too slender a thread.

Where the hell was Lewis French?

If Gooding’s trial was to begin Monday, Rutledge was bound by duty to tell what he knew about the corpse found in Chelsea. He would have to testify, like it or not.

Rutledge drove into Dedham late that evening and went to look in on MacFarland.

Townsend, still unhappy with the pretense that his patient was suffering damage that was irreversible, said, “I hope you’re here to release both of us from this charade. My patient’s well enough to go home. And he’s no happier here than I am to have him here. I have to smuggle in his meals, pretend my daughter is helping me nurse the man around the clock, keep my staff in the dark.” He shook his head. “Surely you’ve brought us some answers.”

“Not yet. Gooding’s trial begins Monday. This is Thursday afternoon. I’m doing all I can.”

“Well, then, you must tell MacFarland that he can’t leave yet.”

Rutledge walked back to the small room where the tutor was being kept and said as he opened the door, “I’m sorry. This is difficult for you. It is difficult for all of us. Give me a few days more.”

MacFarland said, “If someone would bring my books to me, it would help. Staring at the walls, nothing to keep my mind busy—no way to pass the time. It’s difficult. My head aches, and the doctor says I shouldn’t read. But if I read, perhaps it wouldn’t ache at all.”

“Tell me what you need.”

Rutledge handed MacFarland his notebook, and the man made a list for him. “You shouldn’t have any trouble. I’ve only asked for titles you will see straightaway.”