Charles Todd - Proof of Guilt

“I found him in the house. When he ran, I stopped him.”

The curate looked quickly to the houses on either side. No one had come to the door. “Let’s get him to the Rectory. We’ve got to stop that bleeding. Take his other arm.”

“Wait here.” Rutledge disappeared into the house, back in a matter of seconds with a small pillow, which he added to the handkerchief. “Keep it there,” he ordered and then took the man’s other side, all but dragging him down the path and toward the gate.

The curate had it open, and Rutledge got the man through. “There’s no time to bring up the motorcar. We’ve got to hurry.”

His senses returning, the man managed to stumble along between them. It seemed to take ages to reach the Rectory, tombstones and plantings catching at their unwary feet as they made their way around the church to the Rectory gate. The steps were hardest, and then Rutledge had the door open and pulled the man into the lamplight of the Rectory parlor.

He nearly stumbled over a chair, hooked it with his foot, and brought it around to push the man into it.

The curate went into another part of the house and came back with a wooden box.

“Bandages and the like,” he said. “Altar boys always have skinned knees and stubbed toes.”

Rutledge had removed the pillow and the handkerchief. The bleeding had slowed, clotting over. He could see that the gash was an old one. Very likely, in the man’s attempt to climb through the window, he’d reopened it because it had never healed properly.

“Who are you?” the curate asked gently. “Are you hungry? In need of work? I can help you.”

The man’s temper flared. “I’m—” He stopped short, eyes on Williams’s clerical collar. “Is this man really from Scotland Yard?”

“Yes, of course he is. He’s been in St. Hilary conducting an inquiry.”

The man turned to Rutledge. “You’re the bastard who took Valerie away. Where is she?”

“In prison,” Rutledge said shortly. “Charged along with her grandfather in the murder of Lewis French. Are you French? If you are, why didn’t you show yourself and keep that young woman out of Holloway?”

“Damn you, she said she was going to bring home her grandfather. She told me it was finished, and I let her go.”

“But he’s not French,” the curate was saying. “I tell you, he’s not Lewis French.”

“Then who is he?”

“My name is Traynor. Matthew Traynor. French tried to kill me—he sent someone to make sure I never reached England. I got away from him, just, and I’ve been in hiding ever since, not knowing where to turn, who was against me. I’m in no condition to survive another attempt.”

“Where have you been since your ship docked?”

“My parents’ house. It’s been closed since before the war. The problem was food. I’d walk to another town and buy what I needed, until the money I had in my pocket ran out.” He grimaced. “I’m a wealthy man, and I couldn’t pay for my dinner. I’ve had to forage—steal—dig in gardens at night. I was chased by a dog one night, and had to sleep in a barn. Miss Whitman found me when I’d fainted from hunger. I was out of my head for two days, and she had to keep me in the cottage. She wanted to call in Dr. Townsend, but he’s the father of Lewis’s fiancée. She left food for me when you took her away, but that’s gone and I’ve been forced to steal again.”

“You never went to the police? Or to the authorities at the port?”

“I never even showed my passport. I got off the ship by carrying an elderly woman’s luggage for her. Her son come to fetch her, as far as anyone could tell. I knew perhaps twenty people in England, most of whom hadn’t seen me since before the war. My neck was inflamed, I was so feverish the driver of the first omnibus accused me of being drunk. I walked for miles before taking the next omnibus, for fear of being followed. And there was someone in the grounds of my parents’ house when I got there. I thought he was waiting for me. I watched as he tested windows, doors, looked in all the outbuildings, then waited, sitting on his motorcycle in the drive until well after midnight. He left finally, and I got in the way I sometimes got out as a boy. What was I to tell the police—this scruffy stranger, a knife wound in his neck, no money, in England without the proper papers—if they brought Lewis or Agnes in to identify me and were told that I wasn’t Matthew Traynor, what then?”

“You’d have had to come to the police in the long run.”

“Yes, I know. But on my terms, when I could stand on my own two feet and not faint from hunger or pain. And then Valerie—Miss Whitman—told me that someone had tried to kill Lewis, and that Lewis had disappeared. I didn’t know what to think then. Now you tell me she’s in Holloway Prison. For what?”

“Her grandfather is about to go on trial for killing French and you.”

“She never— My good God. That’s what you meant earlier. That I could have saved her from that.”

“What did you do with the man who tried to kill you?” Rutledge studied the man, fairly certain that his account was truthful. But there were gaps all the same.

“He came up to me as I was standing at the ship’s rail, watching for the white cliffs. I should have been able to see them; it was a clear night and we weren’t that far out to sea. We spoke, the way strangers do, and then he took out a cigarette, asking if I had a match. I was looking down, finding it, when suddenly he bent over, grabbed my ankles, and had me half over the rail. I somehow managed to beat at his head and shoulders until he let me go, and I fell hard to the deck. He had a knife then, and he went for my throat. We fought—I was in the Army, I knew a thing or two about that—and in the end, it was he who went overboard, not I. We were coming up on Dungeness Light, but I never waited to see. I was bleeding badly and hurried down to my cabin to take care of it. I stayed there, afraid of questions, until we docked.”

The man at Dungeness Light.

“Was he English? The man with the knife?”

“Oh yes. A London accent, I should think. I asked the purser, and he said he thought the man had got on in the Azores. I went down to his cabin, searched it, found nothing, and packed up his belongings for disembarkation.”

“Did you learn his name?”

“I did. Benjamin R. Waggoner. Whoever he may be.”

The other man in the lodging house. The one called Ben . . .

“I tell you, it has to be French who is behind this. He’d told me that when I came to England, we’d talk about some changes he had in mind. I wouldn’t be surprised if my death was one of them. And who else would know to look for me in the grounds of a house closed for six years?”

“He could have been looking for French,” Williams suggested.

Satisfied that the wound had stopped bleeding sufficiently to bandage, Rutledge put on a field dressing and then said, “He ought to eat.”

“I have a little leftover soup from my own dinner, and some bread, some cheese,” the curate offered.

“That will do,” Traynor said. “I’ve had nothing today.”

Rutledge and Traynor left for London soon after Traynor had eaten and Rutledge had looked again at the wound on his throat. It had sealed, but the flesh around it was inflamed. He needed medical care, and sooner rather than later.

Traynor slept for the first two hours of his journey, his head cushioned on the bloodstained pillow from Miss Whitman’s parlor. Rutledge waited until his passenger was fully awake, then told him about Diaz.

Traynor said, “Are you telling me that I was nearly killed because of something Howard French, my grandfather, did years ago?”