Charles Todd - Proof of Guilt

Rutledge considered asking the clerk to view the body of the accident victim, then changed his mind. He didn’t relish having the news precede him if this was, by any chance, French the Younger. Lewis, he corrected himself.

“Is there a staff at the Essex house when Mr. French is in London?”

“Oh, yes. And his sister lives there. Miss Agnes French. She keeps house for her brother and her cousin.”

“Both men are single?”

“Mr. Traynor lost his fiancée during the war, and Mr. French has recently announced his engagement.” Something in the clerk’s face changed. “There’s to be a Christmas wedding,” he added, as if he disapproved.

“Does his fiancée live here in London?” If the dead man was French, then he might well have been on his way to call on her.

“She lives with her parents in Dedham, I believe.”

Which shot down that possibility. Unless there was another woman in the picture. But Rutledge rather thought Gooding wouldn’t tell him even if there were.

The door behind the clerk stood ajar, as if he had expected his business with Rutledge to be brief. Rutledge could just see the edge of a heavy gold-leaf frame, the sort favored by firms that choose to display portraits of founders or benefactors.

He walked around Gooding, saying, “I’d like to see the portraits in the passage there, if you don’t mind.”

Surprised, the clerk said, “The portraits?” He turned. “Ah. Mr. French and Mr. Traynor.”

He reached the door before Rutledge in a swift but discreet movement and held it open for him to enter, with the air that looking at the paintings had been his own idea, not Rutledge’s.

The passage was quite wide, and there were two larger-than-life portraits hung on the dark walnut paneling between doors to what must be private offices.

“Both were painted by artists of the Royal Academy,” Gooding was saying. “This is Mr. David Traynor. He was perhaps fifty when this was done.”

Rutledge recognized the name of the artist in the lower-left-hand corner.

Traynor appeared to be of medium height, his fair hair combed in the style of the day, and his sober expression that of a successful man who knew his own worth but had earned it. One hand rested on a large crate of wine with the firm’s name emblazoned on the side, and the other seemed to point to a map lying on the table next to him, showing Portugal and the island of Madeira some distance away.

There was no resemblance to the victim lying in the hospital mortuary.

Rutledge moved down the passage to the next portrait as Gooding said, “This of course is Mr. Howard French, the original founder. I have often felt there was a likeness to the present Mr. French. More so than to his elder brother, who closely resembled their mother.”

“There is no portrait of Mr. Laurence, Mr. Howard’s son.”

“It hangs in the office of the present head of the firm, Mr. Lewis. He is quite fond of the painting.”

The man also appeared to be of medium height, his hair a medium shade of brown, his eyes a medium shade of blue. But there was no mistaking the fact that there was nothing “medium” about the shape and thrust of his jaw. While Traynor celebrated for posterity his rise to new heights of wealth and prestige, there was no doubt that his father-in-law was the force behind the firm’s changing fortunes.

Nor was there any doubt that the dead man bore enough of a likeness to the portrait that he could very well be a relative of the founder, even though he didn’t possess that thrusting jaw or air of power. It was mainly in coloring and size, the ordinary nose, the shape of the head. Not conclusive, of course.

But that likeness, coupled with the watch, was convincing evidence that Mr. French the Younger was dead.

Now the question must be why? And where had he been killed?

Chapter Five

It was time to speak to the Acting Chief Superintendent again.

Rutledge thanked Frederick Gooding for his assistance and turned to go. But he had a feeling, as the clerk politely accompanied him to the door and closed it almost silently behind him, that the man was more than curious about this visit from Scotland Yard and was busily speculating about what had precipitated it.

Then why had he not pressed for more information? Shown more concern? He had maintained the reserve that made chief clerks a formidable presence in any firm, giving Rutledge the French family genealogy but not much else in the way of real information. Was it an attempt to protect the head of the firm with silence until Gooding could find out for himself why the watch was in the hands of Scotland Yard? Or did he already know—or guess—how it had got there? Some indiscretion that would reflect unpleasantly on the firm’s good name and reputation?

What sort of man was Lewis French?

Certainly the firm was not accustomed to receiving representatives of Scotland Yard. The police had no file on it. The question was, would Gooding himself try to locate Lewis French to warn him of the Yard’s visit and possession of the watch?

Rutledge wished he had known enough beforehand not to have shown the watch to Gooding at all. But it had been the only lead he’d had when he knocked on the firm’s door.

The Acting Chief Superintendent was in his office when Rutledge returned to the Yard, and according to Gibson, there was no one in there with him.

Rutledge knocked at the door, then opened it as Markham called, “Come.”

Joel Markham had come through the ranks as Bowles had done but so far seemed to hold no grudge against men who had been to University. He was a burly man, fair hair beginning to recede, rather avuncular in appearance, but it would have been a mistake to think his easy manner was weakness. His hard green eyes told another story.

He considered Rutledge as he gestured to a chair. “I expect you have something to tell me about that accident in Chelsea. Just this morning I was asking Sergeant Gibson if we were to be favored with word on the result of your inquiry.”

Rutledge smiled. “I’ve only just found the last piece of the puzzle regarding the dead man. And I am forced to the conclusion that he was murdered, his body brought to Chelsea, and left there on the street without identification in the hope that he might not be identified either in the near future or ever, depending on how clever the police were in learning more about him.”

He went on to explain about the watch and the queries from other parts of the country, and finally his visit to the wine merchants.

“And no one had reported this man French as missing?”

“He was in Essex, according to the clerk. He may have come to town on a personal matter. He was recently engaged; it could have had something to do with a ring or other arrangements. Whatever it was, no one appears to have had any reason to worry until now.”

“Then you’d best get yourself to Essex before they do miss the man. Catch them before they hear the news from someone else.” Markham considered Rutledge. “You drive your own motorcar, I hear. Why is that? Why not the train like everyone else?”

Rutledge could feel himself stiffening. How to answer this man without telling more than he wished to be generally known?

“The war, sir.” It was curt almost to the point of rudeness, but he was still struggling with the question.

“The war?” Markham prompted.

He’d been buried alive when a shell landed too near his sector, and all that had saved him was the dead man’s body flung on top of him. Only, the dead man was Hamish MacLeod, whom he’d just been forced to execute for disobeying an order under fire. He’d never quite got over owing his life to the man to whom he’d delivered the coup de grâce mere seconds before the shell exploded. The young Scottish corporal had not wanted to die. But he would not lead his men back into the teeth of a German machine-gun nest when they’d lost so many already in futile attempts to silence it. Rutledge had wanted to spare him—but his corporal’s very public refusal had left him no options. The claustrophobia he’d endured since then had been nearly unbearable. Nor had he been able to free himself of Hamish or that memory.