A Long Shadow

31

Rutledge found Mrs. Channing sitting in the small parlor at The Oaks, writing a letter.

She looked up as he came in. “I never heard the end of the story about the cow.”

“She’d been taken from one of the barns past the church. Her owner was glad to have her back unharmed.”

“I’m sure he was...” She put her hand into the portable correspondence box she’d brought with her from her room and held out his torch. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

After a moment he added, “I need a favor.”

“What is it?”

“I’d like you to invite someone from Dudlington to have dinner with you in Letherington. Mrs. Ellison. I want her out of her house for several hours.”

She was ahead of him. “You’d search without a warrant?”

He said, “You don’t want the answer to that. It makes you an accessory.”

She looked at him. “You’re risking your reputation.”

“Yes. I won’t do any damage, I won’t take away anything. What I want to see is what sort of flooring she has in her cellar. I could go in at night, when she’s asleep, but there are times when she walks about the house. I shouldn’t like to frighten her.”

“What possible excuse could I have for asking a stranger to dine with me?”

“That you knew—or thought you knew—her family.

Harkness is the name.”

“I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.”

He was disappointed but said, “That’s all right. I understand.”

That night, when the street was dark and all the lights were out in most of the houses on Whitby Lane, Rutledge, dressed in a black sweater and black trousers, walked boldly to the door of the Ellison house and tried the lock.

It was open. He slipped into the entrance and listened.

From somewhere in the house he could hear snoring, a steady, rhythmic sound that indicated a deep sleep. Hard of hearing Mrs. Ellison might be, but sudden sounds in the night penetrated dreams.

He moved silently toward the kitchen, finding his way with his torch, his fingers shielding most of the light.

The kitchen was tidy, a kettle ready for morning, a cup and saucer set out on the table next to the floral tea caddy and the sugar bowl.

Looking at the doors leading off the kitchen, he decided that one was a pantry, another the door to the back garden, and the third possibly the back stairs. He tried them each in turn and found a fourth door near the back entry.

That proved to be a rough staircase into the cellar.

He went down carefully, as Hamish warned him to be wary.

“This isna’ the way to find an answer,” the soft Scots voice whispered.

“Cain won’t listen if there isn’t a very good chance I’m right.”

“Aye, but how will ye tell him ye’re right?”

Rutledge ignored him. He’d reached the bottom of the stairs and cast his light about the cellar. It looked like a hundred others, the door to the yard slanting over the head of a short flight of stairs, a collection of scuttles and gardening implements scattered here and there, a barrow, and all the oddments of a house lived in for many years. A shelf held preserves and jams and tins of fruit, another held jam kettles and strainers, and other kitchenware not frequently used. A third held a collection of chipped dinner plates, bowls, cups and saucers in at least two patterns.

Old boots stood in a box by the outer door, and on hooks above them, he saw a man’s trousers, a worn coat, and an old hat. Three umbrellas lay on a ledge nearby. Overhead in the rafters were bunches of herbs set to dry. From the look of them, they hadn’t been used in many years, for something had been at them. As he touched one of the bunches of lavender, it crumbled between his fingers.

The floor under his feet was earthen, packed hard over the decades, certainly not loose enough for a woman to dig graves in.

“A wild-goose chase,” Hamish said, urging him to go.

Where else but the cellar could Mrs. Ellison have buried the bodies of two women?

“Mind, it’s already been searched by the constable.”

“No. According to his notes, Hensley took her word that she’d already searched the house. Who was going to call that into question? Why would anyone even consider the possibility that Mrs. Ellison had murdered her own grandchild? She took a calculated risk, and won.”

What’s more, the back garden was overlooked by the windows of her neighbors, and she would have drawn attention to herself if she’d gone out to dig in her flower beds late in the night.

His torch went methodically from left to right, floor to rafters, without a break in the walls or floor to indicate past activity of any sort.

Taking two steps across the floor, careful not to leave the marks of his shoes in the dust, he turned to throw his light behind the stairs, and there he saw a large wooden cupboard up against the wall, its double doors barred with a short length of plank nailed across them. In front of it was an old bull’s-eye target of straw with a faded canvas covering. The kind that was used in practicing at the butts with a bow and arrow.

The light stopped there as Rutledge absorbed what he was looking at. He thought, measuring the cupboard with his eye, that he could easily fit any two women he’d met in Dudlington inside those doors, providing they weren’t unusually tall or heavy.

He walked around the staircase and put his free hand on the wooden bar. It was solidly nailed in, and he would need a crowbar to pry it off.

“It’s no’ proof,” Hamish was saying.

Rutledge leaned forward to sniff at the tiny crack where the doors on either side met.

A musty odor met his nostrils, leavened with herbs.

Rosemary, he thought, for one. And thyme. What else?

Lavender, yes, that was it.

A blanket chest? Or a coffin for Beatrice Ellison and Emma Mason?

He made his way back up the stairs, walking carefully on the outside of the treads to keep the creaking of old wood at a minimum. Once in the kitchen he shut the door behind him, and took out a handkerchief to wipe the soles of his feet, so as not to leave dusty tracks on the kitchen’s floor.

He had reached the dining room on his way to the front door when he realized that the snoring had stopped.

He froze where he was, flicked off his torch, and listened.

At the top of the stairs a light bloomed and faded, as if someone had walked across the head of the stairs with a lamp in hand.

Rutledge stayed where he was, breathing as shallowly as he dared.

A door opened, shut.

He thought he could move then and was halfway through the parlor when a voice called.

“Who’s there?”

He stopped again, hidden beside the tall case clock against the parlor wall. He wasn’t sure whether she had actually heard him moving about or sensed his presence.

Hamish scolded, “If she comes down wi’ the lamp, there’s no hope. She’ll see you! And it will no’ look verra’ good in London.”

Rutledge thought, She’ll hear him.

But after a moment the lamplight faded again, and there was silence in the house.

He stood there by the clock for a good half an hour, unwilling to move in the event she was waiting at the top of the steps where she could see the door.

After a while, satisfied that she had gone back to sleep again, he moved silently to the front door and opened it, stepped outside, and closed it.

For the first time he was able to take a deep breath. It seemed to seep into every corner of his body, reviving it.

Moving swiftly but quietly, he went down the steps and into the street. There was no one in sight. He scanned each direction, his eyes taking in the windows overlooking him as he listened for any sound or footsteps. But not even a dog had barked as he stood there.

He was halfway to the door of Hensley’s house when something made him look up at the windows of Emma Mason’s bedroom.

He remembered then what Mary Ellison had said when he caught her by the church two nights ago.

“You aren’t the only one to watch from windows.”

He could just barely see her there, in the darkened room, staring down at him, the white oval of her face set above the black of her dressing gown.

And he was speared by moonlight, in the unshadowed middle of the street, his torch in his hand, his face upturned toward her, and guilt probably written there in his expression of surprise.

For an instant their eyes held.

And then Rutledge strode briskly into Hensley’s house and shut the door behind him.