A Fearsome Doubt

7

Before he could answer, the door opened, and a man and woman came in, followed by a young man of perhaps thirty.

Lawrence made introductions, and Rutledge studied Raleigh Masters. The barrister had been heavyset. Now his jowls drooped like a bloodhound’s and his clothes fit rather too loosely. His brown hair was streaked with gray and his frame was a little stooped, although that might have been from the crutches under his arm.

He swung into the room, a powerful man still, and undaunted, it seemed, by his infirmities. “Hallo, Mrs. Crawford, good to see you again, my dear. Forgive me for not shaking hands, Mr. Rutledge, but I have not yet learned the knack of these sticks.”

His wife came to greet Melinda Crawford, and then spoke to Rutledge in a breathless rush. “Down from London, are you? How very nice!”

Bella Masters seemed to possess a rather diffident nature, and her face was worn with worry, as if she slept poorly. But there was an underlying attractiveness there, and a strength, if Rutledge was not mistaken, that was the last defense against her own weakness.

Lydia and Elizabeth returned to greet the newcomers, and Bella went on in that breathless way, “We are so sorry to be late-the weather was very bad just past Hever.”

“Nonsense!” her husband retorted, adjusting his sticks as he sat down heavily into a chair. “I could see perfectly well!”

Bella glanced apologetically at the young man-who must have been driving them-but he ignored the remark and came to speak to Mrs. Crawford and then Rutledge.

Lawrence Hamilton had introduced him as Tom Brereton, and he said now to Rutledge, “Did I hear Mr. Hamilton correctly? You’re an inspector?”

“Yes. Scotland Yard.”

“Then you’re here on duty?”

“Actually, I’m on leave.”

Brereton nodded. “I believe Lawrence said you are a friend of Mrs. Mayhew’s?”

“Yes. I’ve known her for some years. Richard and I were at Oxford together.”

“I met her in hospital during the war. She read wonderfully well-it was rather like hearing a play. Everyone came to listen. I never had the good fortune to know her husband. They tell me he was an excellent barrister. I was interested in the law at one time, but my eyesight isn’t what it was.” Brereton smiled wryly. “Shrapnel. They did what they could, but I won’t be studying long hours anymore.”

“Yet you drive.” It was a typical policeman’s response, as Hamish was pointing out.

“Oh, yes, I can manage. Now. But they tell me a great many more motorcars will be on the road in the next year or so. That might make a difference.” He shrugged. “I know Kent fairly well. It helps.”

Mrs. Crawford was chatting with Lydia, and Brereton continued in a lowered voice, “She’s a truly amazing woman. Did you know she’d been at Lucknow? During the Mutiny? I can’t quite comprehend it. 1857, that was!”

Rutledge responded, “She has several interesting souvenirs, including one of the greased paper cartridges that sparked the Mutiny. And the ball that passed through her skirts one afternoon, as she carried water to the wounded. Her mother nearly fainted at the news-young Melinda was supposedly taking a nap.”

Brereton smiled. “I can believe the story. My grandmother told me once that Mrs. Crawford had been quite a heroine. But she denies it.”

At dinner, they were well into their soup before Masters looked up from his spoon and said, “Mrs. Crawford. I’m told mulligatawny soup is an old Indian specialty.”

“I shouldn’t know, Mr. Masters. I’ve never been in a kitchen in my life.”

Rutledge nearly swallowed his soup the wrong way. But Masters took her at her word, and grunted. “Well, I’ve never been one for foreign dishes. Although they tell me the French cook surprisingly well.”

Bella Masters turned to stare at her husband, and Rutledge caught a shadow of fright in her eyes. Searching in her pocket she found a small vial of powder, and asked the maid for a glass of water. After mixing the two, she handed the glass down to her husband, on the other side of Elizabeth.

Masters shook his head, and finished the course without saying more, but over the roast of beef, he turned to Rutledge and asked, “Are you here, Inspector, in an official capacity?”

“No, fortunately. I’m on leave and have come down to visit friends.”

“Hmm. If the Yard knew what it was about, you’d be looking into these murders of ours.” It was said with a proprietary air, as if they were his own.

Bella said, “I don’t think we ought to discuss here-”

“Nonsense,” her husband interrupted. “They’re the talk of the district. You can hardly step into a shop without hearing the whispers!”

“All the same,” Melinda Crawford put in firmly, “it can wait until the ladies have withdrawn. Elizabeth, I hear you’ve been blessed with puppies. How many did Henrietta produce?”

“Five,” Elizabeth answered, as Masters said something under his breath. “Would you like one of them? Unless Ian intends to speak up, you have first choice.”

“I’m afraid not; there’s no garden for a dog at my flat,” Rutledge replied. “Let Mrs. Crawford have her pick.”

Lydia said, “The children would love one, don’t you think, Lawrence?”

“Or two, perhaps. They’ll be squabbling constantly over just one,” Hamilton drawled, in mock enthusiasm.

Brereton laughed. “I’ll take one of them, Mrs. Mayhew. I’ve got a small house, but the garden is walled. A dog should be quite happy there.”

Masters glared at Brereton. “You’re not taking it home in my motorcar!”

Elizabeth interposed soothingly, “Their eyes are barely open. It will be weeks before they can leave their mother.”

Bella nodded to her husband’s glass. The powder was settling to the bottom, no longer in suspension. “Do drink your medicine, my dear. It’s long past time for it!”

Masters grudgingly picked up the glass, swirled it irritably, and swallowed half of it with a grimace. “I daresay it could be poison, for all I know. But I trust you, my love.”

She seemed to shrivel before his glare. “It was the doctor who ordered it, Raleigh. Hardly poison!”

Lydia signaled the maid to remove the dishes. “Well,” she said brightly, “have you heard the gossip? That house on the other side of the church has been bought by someone from Leeds! He made his money in scrap iron during the war, or so they tell me…”

The conversation moved on smoothly, and Bella thanked Lydia with her eyes. The powder, whatever it was, seemed to shift her husband’s mood, and he joined with good humor in the speculation over the newcomer and what effect he might have on village affairs.

“If he’s a bachelor, every woman within ten miles will be inviting him to dine, in hopes of marrying him off.” Laughter met his comment. “Ask Brereton, here. He’s never at a loss for a way to spend his evenings.”

Brereton answered, “If he’s a rich bachelor, he’ll have the edge. I’ll be forgotten in a day.”

“It’s a beautiful house,” Elizabeth commented. “I’m glad someone will live there again.” For Rutledge’s benefit she added, “The last of the family died of influenza a year ago-Oliver Hendricks. He always offered us the pick of his gardens for the church. Oliver lost both sons in the war, poor man. Richard knew both of them well.”

Rutledge himself remembered Walter and John Hendricks, but said nothing. What was there to say? Death had not played favorites…

It was after the ladies had withdrawn for tea and the port was being passed that Masters returned to the subject of murder.

“I can’t understand,” he demanded, “why the Yard hasn’t been more forward in this business. Two bodies in a matter of weeks!”

“I’m afraid I know nothing about the murders, sir,” Rutledge answered him.

“I wonder what you are about, then! To be giving officers leave when they ought to be doing their duty is the height of stupidity!”

“The Chief Constable-” Rutledge began, but was interrupted.

“I know the law, Inspector. I spent twenty-five years as a barrister, ten of them as K.C. My question is, why does no one take these murders seriously enough to put a stop to them!”

“That’s unfair,” Lawrence Hamilton put in. “You have to remember-”

“I remember only that invalided soldiers are dying, and no one seems to care,” Masters retorted. “When my mentor, Matthew Sunderland, was alive, he believed that there would come a time when murder was tolerated, as long as it inconvenienced no one but the victim. I daresay he’s being proved right.”

Rutledge’s attention swung back to Masters. Matthew Sunderland had been the King’s Counsel in the murder trial of Ben Shaw. Rutledge remembered him distinctly, a stooped and thin figure in his black robes, his voice and his manner patrician as he conducted the prosecution. Mr. Justice Patton had treated him with cordial respect, well deserved by a man who had served the law for nearly fifty years. Sunderland was seldom wrong when he cited a precedent, and young barristers lived in dread of facing him across the courtroom.

“It’s interesting that you knew Sunderland,” Rutledge said, shifting the subject to one he preferred to explore. “Do you recall the Shaw trial?”

“Why should I?” Masters countered.

“I wondered if Sunderland had ever spoken of it to you,” Rutledge returned mildly. “It received widespread publicity at the time.”

“Sunderland was always conscious of his duty,” Masters replied. “And convinced that he’d done his best. I never knew him to feel any doubt about the outcome of any trial.”

Hamish, in the shadows of Rutledge’s mind and quiet for most of the meal, spoke now.

“You didna’ ask him that…”

Masters, as if suddenly aware of the small glass with his medicine in it, stared at the remaining portion for a moment, swirled the contents again, and then drained it at one draught.

By the time Lawrence Hamilton had described a fraud trial in which he was involved, Masters’s chin was resting on his chest, and he was breathing heavily. Hamilton glanced at Rutledge. “I think it’s time to join the ladies. We’ll let him sleep, shall we? It’s happened before.”

Rutledge and Brereton quietly rose and followed their host to the drawing room. Bella Masters looked up quickly as they came in, and relief spread across her face as she saw that her husband was not with them.

“Is he sleeping?” she asked softly. When Hamilton nodded, she said only, “Well. It will do him good.” She had been sitting next to Mrs. Crawford, and now came to take a chair beside Rutledge. “I want to say,” she told him, smiling, “that it’s wonderful to see Elizabeth out and about again. It’s time she put the past aside. She’s one of my favorite people, you know.” A shadow passed over her face, and the smile faded. “Widowhood is something we all must learn to live with. God knows, every wife must look ahead to the possibility.”

“She’s a remarkable woman,” he agreed, wondering if Mrs. Masters was matchmaking.

But she surprised him by adding, her eyes straying to Brereton, sitting by Elizabeth now, “There’s someone-well, I may be speaking out of turn!”

“Someone?” Rutledge prompted, curious. Brereton, perhaps? Or was Mrs. Masters warning him-the houseguest-off on general principle?

“There’s a young man she’s had lunch with. A time or two. I’ve seen them in the window of The Plough.” The hotel on the High Street. “I hope it’s someone suitable-” A worried frown touched her face. He found himself thinking that Bella Masters wasn’t the sort who could prevaricate successfully. Her expressions were too easily read.

“I’ll bear it in mind,” he said, answering the concern rather than her actual words.

He spent perhaps another five minutes sitting with Mrs. Masters, and then was commandeered once again by Mrs. Crawford, who wanted to know what Frances, his sister, was thinking of, letting that handsome major slip through her fingers.

Rutledge laughed. “I rather think it was the other way round. Frances enjoyed his company, but was not in the right frame of mind to accept a proposal.”

Melinda Crawford said, “I do wish she would settle. She’s a very intelligent young woman, and your father spoiled her. She won’t find his like, and she should stop trying-before the better choices are snapped up.”

It was, Rutledge thought, a unique way of regarding his sister’s spinsterhood. He suddenly realized that he shared it. Caught up as he had been in his own problems, he had not stopped to consider why Frances was still unmarried. Had there been someone during the war-someone he had never known about, and she had not wanted to speak of?

A little more than a half an hour later, Rutledge and Elizabeth took their leave. Masters, rested and less belligerent, had departed with Brereton driving. Mrs. Crawford had gone a little before them, her chauffeur summoned from the kitchens where he’d been gossiping with the Hamilton staff. Lydia had carried Elizabeth off for a moment to review the Christmas flower schedule for church services, leaving the two men alone.

Hamilton said, apropos of nothing, “You said something earlier about the Shaw murders. What brought them to mind?”

“My chief superintendent,” Rutledge answered mildly. “He was promoted on the coattails of them. We aren’t allowed to forget that.”

“Our first cook was horribly shocked by the deaths, even though they occurred in London. I remember she refused to let a man into her cottage after that. She was convinced she’d die the same way. Dreadful to be old and fearful. I went myself a time or two to help nail up the back steps or whatever needed doing, and always took care that Lydia was with me.” He shook his head. “The poor woman died in her sleep, and wasn’t found for two days.”

“Did you know Matthew Sunderland at all?”

“I knew him to nod to, as we passed each other. I was too provincial and too young to have the courage to sit at the great man’s feet. Although, to do him justice, he was never as lofty as he appeared. But the man had a regalness about him, the white hair and his carriage. Someone, I forget who, compared Sunderland to General Gordon-that same charismatic belief in his own power.” Hamilton smiled. “To tell you the truth, I often wondered how many cases Sunderland carried just striding into the courtroom. And he had a voice to match, deep and impressive enough to read the Old Testament to savages. We won’t see his like again this century!”