A Lonely Death

10

I t was closer to five in the morning when Rutledge drove into Eastfield and drew to a halt outside the police station.

He had had to stop for an hour's rest somewhere in the New Forest, pulling to the side of the road in an effort to rest his eyes. The night sounds around him were soothing, and he had slept instead. For a wonder Hamish was quiet. He had been busy ever since Rutledge had left Chaswell, taking advantage as he so often did of the stress that was already filling Rutledge's mind.

It was becoming increasingly apparent that something more than an event in the war lay behind these murders. For one thing, there was the face that Hartle couldn't place, a face that worried him, on the day he was killed. Who was it he'd seen, and had he not only tried to find that man again, but encountered him in the dark on the headland? And why the headland? For another, the connection between those identity discs and the murders was less clear than it had first appeared.

And there was Daniel Pierce as well, whose name kept cropping up.

Were these pointers toward the truth, or was he still missing something that would bring the disparate pieces of the puzzle together?

But even Hamish was silenced by sleep, brief though it was-no more than twenty minutes, but twenty precious minutes if a man's life was hanging in the balance. The day had broken now. Whatever was going to happen had already happened.

He sat for a moment in the motorcar, fighting his fatigue and staring at the closed and silent police station.

It was one of the hazards of police work, making the wrong judgment. He had done his best to protect the six potential victims of this killer, rather than taking the chance that the murderer wouldn't strike again while he was away. But at the same time, he'd accepted a risk of a different sort-by denying the killer his opportunity, he could have changed whatever plan there was to these murders and caused it to take on different, possibly more personal overtones. He wasn't interested in finding out whether he could outwit the murderer or not. He was only intent on stopping him.

He got out of the motorcar and stretched, his muscles tight and cramped from the drive from Wales. And then he walked to the door of the police station and put out his hand to lift the latch.

The door was firmly locked.

He stood there for a moment, his tired mind trying to grasp what that meant. A police station was always open. If the constable wasn't there, he left a message on the desk telling whoever needed him where he could be found.

Foreboding gripped him. He knocked firmly, using his knuckles. And there was no answer.

He had no idea where Walker was. At home? At the scene of another death? And there was no one about at this hour, the street quiet and shuttered.

And then Rutledge remembered Mrs. Sanders, who had seen the lorry driver come through Hastings and then return again for the police after he'd spotted the first body on the road. Rutledge had read her statement.

He turned and looked across the way. Where was she? Not in the shops-or even above them. Then he saw the tall, narrow house wedged between a milliner's and an apothecary's. It looked to be one of the oldest buildings in Eastfield, brick and timber, the upper story leaning slightly to one side, as if the foundation had begun to subside when the newer apothecary's had been built.

Crossing the street, he walked up to the front of the house and looked up at the double windows of the first floor.

One window was open to the slight morning breeze, the lacy white curtain billowing into the dark room behind, and Hamish said, " 'Ware!"

Rutledge peered intently at the window and then realized that behind the panel of white curtain was a tiny, wizened face, looking to be as old as the house itself.

He called to the woman staring down at him, pitching his voice so that it carried to her but didn't rouse neighbors on either side.

"I'm looking for Constable Walker."

"Come in," Mrs. Sanders called after a moment. "I never lock my door."

He turned and lifted the latch. The door swung open easily, and he stepped into a narrow dark passage. To one side, stairs climbed to the first floor. To the other, shut doors led into two rooms, and then a third door closed off the passage at the far end.

He took the stairs two at a time, and rounded the railing toward the open door of the room that overlooked the street.

A chair stood by the window, and in it sat the woman he'd glimpsed from below, cushioned and pillowed and covered with a quilted comforter.

She turned her head to smile at him, the wrinkles in her face smoothing across her withered cheeks. But the eyes in that face were neither clouded nor dim. They were the color of pansies, almost a purple they were so dark a blue. Her well-brushed white hair, drawn back into a smooth braid that lay over one shoulder, looked like a pale halo in the shadow of the curtain.

"Come in, young man. You must be the policeman from London. I've seen you come and go from the station with Constable Walker."

"Yes, I'm Inspector Rutledge. Mrs. Sanders?"

"Indeed I am. There's a chair behind you. Do sit down."

He sat. "I'm trying to find the constable. Unaccountably, the station is locked."

"So it is. He came out shortly after midnight and walked away. I think he locked the door as a precaution."

"A precaution?"

"He was afraid those who were inside would try to leave."

Rutledge felt a surge of sheer relief. "He's kept the six men locked up inside?"

"Oh, yes, but it wasn't an easy task. I could hear the yelling last night. My guess is, that's why Constable Walker left. There's nothing wrong with my eyes or my ears. Only my limbs have given out."

"I believe you. Do you sit at that window every night?"

"And every day, except when I take my meals. I'm nosey, you see. And I have the world spread out before me here. I don't need much sleep. I doze when I feel like it, and the rest of the time, I watch. It can be quite entertaining. Eventually the whole town passes beneath my window or across the street from me."

"You gave Constable Walker a statement regarding the lorry driver-" He had been about to say, the driver who found the first body, but broke off.

"Don't be shy, young man. There have been four murders in this town, if you count poor Theo Hartle. I have a woman who comes and cleans for me, and another who brings my evening meal. We gossip."

He was sure they did.

"Have you seen anything else from your window? Strangers who come to Eastfield in the night but who aren't to be found during the day?"

"There was a man, before the killings began-perhaps a week before. It was dark when he came walking up the Hastings Road. I couldn't see him clearly enough to identify him. He was moving without haste, like a sightseer taking in the view. I thought it was odd, even so, but I decided he was looking for work and trying to determine whether he stood a better chance here or in Hastings. I expect he chose Hastings, because I never saw him again."

He said, taking a chance, "Did you know Daniel Pierce well enough to say with any certainty that the man wasn't Pierce?"

Her eyebrows rose. "Danny Pierce? Do you think he's come home? Or considered it?"

"I don't know. You must tell me."

She gave that some thought. "I can't see Danny slinking through Eastfield in the dark. He'd come striding in. There are those who would be happy to see him, if he did."

"Then who else could that man have been?"

"If I come up with a name, I'll tell you," she promised. "Meanwhile, there's Constable Walker standing by your motorcar, wondering where you might have got to."

Rutledge rose and glanced out the window. And he had a perfectly clear view of the constable, framed as neatly as a photograph for Mrs. Sanders's pleasure.

He thanked her and left, closing the house door behind him. As he started across the street, Constable Walker called testily, "I wondered where you went. I was about to try the hotel." He waited until Rutledge had reached him and added, "What did you learn about those discs? I hope it was worthwhile. I've had to put up with enough abuse while you were away."

"The Yorkshire corporal had never had discs. The Welsh sapper found that his were still in his trunk, where he expected them to be. There was no time to move on to Cheshire, but I'm beginning to think we need to take a closer look at those discs we have."

"You're saying there's no feud between companies?"

"The two men I questioned had never heard of our victims. But they knew Daniel Pierce by hearsay. He was a colorful man, apparently."

Walker frowned. "Mr. Pierce-his father-won't be pleased with that news."

"And you are not to tell him. This is a Yard matter. We'll leave him out of it until we need to question him again. Meanwhile, I was very glad to see you'd kept your charges."

"Actually, I let one of them go in the middle of the night. His wife had her baby, there were complications, and Dr. Gooding sent to ask if he could come home. I locked the door to the police station and took him there myself. As it turned out, mother and child are fine, but they could have lost the baby."

"Well done. Let's see how the rest of our charges are faring."

Walker unlocked the door to total silence. He glanced at Rutledge, and crossed to the cabinet behind his desk to retrieve the lantern he kept there. Then he led the way to the large holding cells where he'd incarcerated the six men. When he opened the second door into that passage, his eyes had to adjust to the gloom before he saw his five remaining prisoners. They were standing, backed up against the cell wall, faces pale and eyes squinting against the sudden glare of the lantern, trying to see who was behind it. And then they recognized their jailer, their gaze traveling on to the tall figure behind him.

There was an outburst of protest, vociferous and heated.

Rutledge had expected their anger to be directed at him, since he'd insisted on locking them up here. He wasn't disappointed. As he sorted through the words tripping over one another as the men demanded to know why Walker had abandoned them for the remainder of the night, he realized that they had come to agree with him about the danger they were in.

After a moment, Rutledge raised his own voice, accustomed to being heard on a battlefield, and stopped them in midsentence.

They glared at him but fell silent. He turned first to Walker's nephew.

"Now. One at a time. What's happened?"

"There was someone outside. Not fifteen minutes after my uncle had left with Tom. And here we were locked tight in here, like fish in a barrel," Tuttle told him.

"What do you mean, someone outside?" Walker demanded. "In front?"

"No, there, " Tuttle said, pointing to a side door.

Walker said to Rutledge, "There's an alley outside. It led down to the stables and outbuildings. They were torn down at the turn of the century, and a warehouse for Kenton Chairs built in their place, facing the street that runs behind the station." He strode down the short passage and shook the latch, but it was still secure. As he came back, someone else took up the story.

"At first it sounded as if he was trying to force the lock. And then for a time there was nothing. We were just settling down when we could hear him again. I swear it sounded as if he was sliding something under the door. Marshall thought he might be blocking it, but after a bit it smelled as if he was trying to burn his way through. The passage filled with smoke. You can still smell it!"

Walker sniffed the air, then turned to Rutledge. "Do you?"

Rutledge nodded. It was faint, but enough smoke lingered to pick it out, now that it had been brought to his attention. Walker went again to the door and this time opened it. "Inspector? Sir?" he said after a moment, and Rutledge went to see what he'd found.

Charred rags were jammed against the bottom of the door, and Rutledge bent down to touch them. They were still damp, as if they had been lit and then nearly doused, to create a maximum of smoke with a minimum of fire. Rutledge looked up the alley toward the main road, but he couldn't see Mrs. Sanders's window. Which meant she couldn't have seen whoever was at work here.

"He could have set the building on fire," Walker declared, kicking the rags away from the door, and then squatting beside them to sift through them. But they were torn cloths, something that could have been found in a dustbin or a tip, Rutledge thought, used for cleaning and then discarded.

"I doubt the station would have caught. The outside of the door is blackened but not heavily charred. I think he was intending to stampede your charges."

Walker got to his feet. "If that's what he was after, he succeeded. There must have been pandemonium. Nobody relishes the thought of being burned alive."

"He must have seen you leave with Tom. He knew he was safe."

Walker looked at Rutledge. "I don't like the sound of that. That he was watching." He took a deep breath. "I was of two minds when you wanted these men clapped up. But now they'll be released, and the two of us can't watch six of them."

"But fright may have sharpened their memories. Let's find out."

They went back inside and told the anxious men in the holding cell what they'd discovered.

Tuttle, Walker's nephew, said, "Be damned to him, then. He's a coward."

But Marshall disagreed. "My uncle was out in India for a time. He told me that old tigers got a taste for man, when they couldn't kill larger prey. And they were more dangerous because of that. Their brethren in the jungle would slip away if they got the scent of a person. But not these."

"He's not a tiger," one of the other men said. "He's mad, that's what he is."

"I don't think so," Rutledge answered him. "And I ask you again. Is there anything in your pasts that could have come back to haunt you? Is there anyone who has ever held a grudge? In the war, here in Eastfield, in any place for that matter."

But they shook their heads.

Hamish said, "It was something loomed large in the killer's mind. But ye ken, not in theirs."

"How well do any of you know Daniel Pierce?" Rutledge asked. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Walker's gesture intended to stop him from asking these men about the younger Pierce. But this was a murder inquiry, and Tyrell Pierce couldn't set limits on the directions it took.

"We knew him as a boy. But not as a man," Tuttle said after a glance at his companions. "He went away to school, you must know that, and even when he was home during holidays, he didn't have anything to do with us. Then after the war, he was hardly here in Eastfield before he was gone again. It was 'Mr. Daniel' then, and touching your cap to him."

"Did you resent his going away to school? Or was there something between you before then, while he was still Daniel? An old hurt, a misunderstanding, a case where no harm was meant, but he took it hard? Or perhaps you did?" His eyes swept the half circle of men, and he read nothing there that would help him.

"He gave as good as he got," Marshall answered, his glance sliding toward Walker and then away again. "We avoided him if we could manage it. He was Anthony's-Mr. Pierce's-little brother, and no one cared to have him tag along after us. What's more, he was a tattletale if we weren't careful, and on purpose he never got it right. Often as not, we were in trouble for something we hadn't done. I was that glad when he and his brother went off to that school. We'd had enough of both of them."

Rutledge considered the man, wondering what he had to hide. Because his voice and his shifting gaze betrayed him.

Hamish said, "He didna' care to be caught."

And that was very likely it-Marshall had been a ringleader in whatever mischief was afoot, and Daniel Pierce was a thorn in his side.

"The only reason we was allowed to play together was Mr. Pierce was busy at the brewery and couldn't always keep an eye on Anthony. And who else was there, I ask you, his age? The rector's son was older, and Dr. Gooding only had girls," Henderson added.

"Anthony was all right," one of the other men put in. "He never caused any trouble."

Which was an odd way to put it.

Still, they were getting nowhere. Burning down an empty mill and frightening lovers in a churchyard hardly led to murder. On the whole, he thought Hamish was right, the killer saw injury where others did not. If, in fact, it was the past that had led to these deaths.

He said, "When you leave here, don't take what happened last night lightly. Don't go out alone after dark. Not even on your own property. Take someone you trust with you. Between nine at night and early morning, lock your doors. If someone summons you, ignore it unless there's another person to go with you. And don't turn your back on a stranger. It could cost you your life. The four men who were killed had no chance to cry for help. Remember that. They were dead before they quite knew what was happening to them. It's not a risk worth taking."

And he let them go home. There was nothing else he could do.

Walker watched the five men gather their belongings and walk out the door of the police station without looking back. Even Tuttle, his nephew had nothing to say as they left.

"Do you think they'll heed your warning?" Walker asked.

Rutledge shook his head. "We'll know when the next victim is found." R utledge left the constable at the police station and went to The Fishermen's Arms to shave and change.

After an early breakfast, he went to the brewery and waited patiently in the office until Tyrell Pierce had finished overseeing the work on a new gauge for their primary vat.

He came in, brisk and busy, the distinctive aroma of roasted hops following him in the door. He ushered Rutledge into his office and said immediately, "Is there any news? Have you found this killer?"

"Not yet." Rutledge took the chair Pierce indicated and watched the man round his desk and sit down.

Hamish was saying, "Do ye reckon there's a reason his son canna' come back to Eastfield? And the father knows what it was he did, and who is to blame for it?"

Pierce was fit enough, Rutledge found himself thinking, but it was difficult to see what Daniel Pierce was afraid of-or was ashamed of. No one else seemed to remember. Unless of course the smoking rags under the police station door was a red herring, and the four men who might have told the police the truth were already dead. It was hard to believe that Pierce had murdered his elder son to protect the younger.

He recalled Tyrell Pierce's barely concealed fear on his first visit, fear that Daniel was somehow involved. Or at least that the police would suspect him.

Rutledge said, "Several differing possibilities are emerging in this case. I had thought initially that the war was at the bottom of these murders. The identity discs most certainly pointed in that direction. But the more I learn, the more questionable that assumption may be. Which brings me to another line of inquiry. Your son Daniel."

For an instant Rutledge thought Pierce was going to come across the desk after him. The man's face suffused with blood and there was such a deep anger in his eyes that Rutledge wondered if he'd taken Hamish's suggestion too lightly.

And then Pierce got control of himself and said tightly, "Are you like all the rest? At a loss to find the truth, and eager to lay these crimes at the door of a man who hasn't lived in Eastfield-really lived here-since well before the war?"

"I'm not interested in crucifying your son, Mr. Pierce. The best way to clear his name is to confront reality, not hide from it. Did your sons get on well together?"

"Of course they did," Pierce snapped.

"Were they both in love with the same girl?"

That caught the older man by surprise. "What are you talking about?"

"I spoke to a sapper in Wales. A man by the name of Jones. He told me that Daniel Pierce had quite a reputation during the war. Tales of his exploits were popular fare amongst sappers. There was even the story that he'd dug his way to hell and supped with the devil."

Pierce forced a laugh. "Hardly surprising. Daniel was nothing if not brave. And he had a cool head. Always did. He said it made him an ideal sapper."

And the murderer of four men also had a cool head, Hamish was reminding Rutledge, but he said only, "Your son was a man who preferred to work alone in the tunnels, when he was setting the charges. I imagine he must have had trouble with authority. He wanted to do things his way, including how to mine tunnels properly."

"All right, yes," Pierce said, goaded. "He wrote something in a letter. Something about the fact that if he was going to die, it would be his own mistake, not that of anyone else."

"They also said he appeared to live a charmed life. But that he was unlucky in love. The girl he wanted to marry died. If memory serves, before Anthony took an interest in Mrs. Farrell-Smith, he was engaged to a girl who died young."

"That's true. As far as it goes-"

"Is it possible that his brother Daniel was in love with the same woman?"

"I've never heard anyone even suggest that he might have been."

"Was there another girl, then?"

"I was unaware that my son fancied anyone, much less had formed an attachment. He'd always said that he never wanted to settle down to an ordinary life. As a boy he was forever reading about explorers and lamenting that there was nothing left to discover."

"Perhaps his brother was already set to inherit the only life Daniel wanted to live."

"Nonsense!"

"Men will also say such things when they've been disappointed in love."

"You never knew my son," Pierce told Rutledge, his voice harsh.

"On the other hand, I believe that Mrs. Farrell-Smith's late husband did in fact know Daniel. At school, perhaps?"

That surprised Pierce. "I don't know anything about that."

"When I called on her, Mrs. Farrell-Smith believed at first that I'd come to her because we knew where your son was."

"What are you driving at, man?"

"It makes me wonder how attached she was to Anthony Pierce. Or if she was fond of him because he was your heir."

That left the older man speechless.

"This is a small town," Rutledge continued, "hardly more than a village that has outgrown itself. It's difficult to keep secrets when people have known each other most of their lives. Men here went to the same school as children, they served in France-what else connects them? I don't know. Yet. You can't ignore the fact that when this killer has finished his work here, he could begin to search for Daniel next. Does your son know the danger in which he stands? Or will he be caught off guard like the first victims? You may feel that obstructing the police protects your son, but it could have just the opposite effect. Because he could possess the missing piece of information that could save other lives, including his own."

Tyrell Pierce's face was as pale as the shirt he was wearing.

"I've lost one child to this killer. I don't want to lose another. The truth is, I don't know why Daniel won't return to Eastfield. Or where he is. I write to him in care of a tobacconist shop in St. Ives, Cornwall. I have reason to believe he doesn't live there, that his mail is forwarded to him by the friend or acquaintance who owns the shop. Or whoever comes to collect it. It's a fragile link, but it's all I have, and I will preserve it at any cost. I want you to understand that. If you do anything to interrupt this line of communication-send policemen to question that shop owner or have my son's mail watched, or interfere in any way-I will see to it that your career at Scotland Yard is over. I have the power to break you, and I will break you."

Rutledge believed every word of that warning.

"You can try," he said. "But if I were you, I'd do everything in my power to keep my son safe." He stood up, and for a moment regarded the frightened man on the other side of the desk. "Including asking the police to help me. As it is, if Daniel is killed, it will be no one's fault but your own."

He turned and walked out the door, not waiting for a reply. Behind him he heard Pierce clear his throat, as if on the point of calling him back, but in the end, he did not.

Rutledge went from the brewery to the school begun by an emigre Frenchman and now run by Mrs. Farrell-Smith.

She was just finishing a report when the girl on duty that morning led Rutledge to her office. She frowned when she saw who was standing in the doorway, but signed her name to the report, put it in a folder, and set it to one side before acknowledging her visitor with a nod.

Rutledge suppressed a smile. She would, he thought, have been quite happy to live in the era when a policeman was relegated to the servants' entrance and was shown to the family's quarters by a housemaid stiff with disapproval.

He stood there in silence, and finally, she was irritated enough to offer him a chair and ask him what brought him to the school this morning.

"Daniel Pierce," he said, and waited.

It took her a moment to compute this, clearly having expected him to begin with the murders.

"Daniel Pierce?" she repeated, trying to recover control of the conversation. "And what have I to do with Anthony's brother?"

"I'm waiting for you to tell me."

A slow flush crept up her fair skin. "Nothing," she snapped. "I have nothing to do with him."

"I'd wondered why you had been willing to take this position with the Misses Tate Latin School. I thought perhaps you were in straitened circumstances after your husband's death. Or that you felt a strong family tie to your aunts. Now I'm coming around to the possibility that you chose to accept this position because Daniel Pierce lived in Eastfield, and you expected him to return to the village when the war was over. Which he did. But he hardly spent a fortnight here. Was it because of you?"

"I shall have you recalled for incompetence and rudeness-"

"Rudeness to my betters? I'm sure you'll try. Meanwhile, I'll leave you with a problem that has been on my mind since Theo Hartle's murder. He recognized a passerby while he was in Hastings, the day of his death. He couldn't place the face he'd seen, but it disturbed him enough that he could well have gone in search of that person when he should have been returning to Eastfield. And that could very easily have cost him his life. Who did he see? Was it Daniel Pierce?"

He stood, and walked to the door. "I don't know why you feel I'm your enemy, Mrs. Farrell-Smith. Why you should feel more comfortable with Inspector Norman conducting this inquiry. I have no wish to probe into your personal life or your secrets. But I have four dead men to whom I owe a duty. And six living men I'm here to protect. If you can put your antipathy aside long enough to help me do what I came to do, we might save Daniel Pierce's life. It could well be that his name is on this murderer's list. Like his brother, he served in the war, and like his brother, he went to school here as a boy. If someone believed he had a good reason to kill Anthony Pierce, then it's likely that he also has a good reason to kill Daniel Pierce. Please consider that."

He walked out the door without waiting for an answer or looking back to see how Mrs. Farrell-Smith had taken his suggestion.

He was halfway down the passage when he heard her call his name.

But he kept going, and she didn't call a second time.

From the school he went to collect his motorcar, and drove to Hastings.

There was a telephone available in the offices of the Pierce Brothers Brewery, but the favor Rutledge expected to ask of Sergeant Gibson was not something he wanted to be overheard by anyone in Eastfield.