Legacy of the Dead

22

AFTER RETURNING TO THE BALLANTYNE, RUTLEDGE went to the telephone room to put in a call to Sergeant Gibson in London.

He got Old Bowels instead.

“Rutledge? Is that you?”

Rutledge closed his eyes. Hamish was still furious with him for breaking his promise to Fiona regarding the name of Mrs. Cook. The angry rumble at the back of his mind, like a headache, had shortened his own temper.

“Yes, sir.”

“What the hell are you doing, man! This business should have been cleared up by now.”

It was useless to explain the complexities involving Fiona MacDonald and Mrs. Cook. “It’s difficult tracing a woman who didn’t want to be found.”

“I’m not interested in excuses. I’m interested in results.”

The receiver was slammed down.

Hamish said, “You’ve lost your skills—”

“You’re wrong—”

It was an old argument. The sting of it hadn’t faded with time. Rubbing the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, he tried to think. Gibson . . .

He called the Yard again and this time reached the sergeant.

“I need to know who might have had a brooch engraved—” He described the brooch in minute detail, the letters on the back. “It could be very important.”

“Where do you want me to begin?”

“Edinburgh. Glasgow. Not the fashionable shops.” The engraved letters had seemed worn, their shapes elegant but their depth shallow. “A middle-class shop, where a cairngorm brooch wouldn’t cause comment.” He paused, considering all the possibilities. “It’s going to be the proverbial needle, Sergeant, but I need the answer. And I know for a fact that the engraving was done within the past five weeks.” He remembered the water in his petrol. Not vandalism— time bought? “Possibly within the past two or three. That should help.”

Gibson sounded dubious. “It’s a tall order.”

“Yes.” Rutledge tried to think. Hamish wouldn’t let him. He said, “Gibson—try England first, will you? Just over the border from Duncarrick. I have a feeling—”

“Feelings are all very well, sir, but they don’t help very much, do they?”

“This time, Sergeant, I think they just might!”

EARLY THE NEXT morning, Rutledge pulled out of Duncarrick with his luggage in the boot of the motorcar.

But he had kept his room at The Ballantyne, and made it clear to Constable Pringle, whom he met in the hotel yard, that he would be gone no more than a few days.

Heading east, he reached David Trevor’s house in time for dinner, and Morag greeted him with the warmth lavished on lost sheep. Lost black sheep, Hamish corrected him.

Trevor was also happy to see him. “I was looking forward to a lonely meal and only Morag’s company,” he told Rutledge. “Have you finished your work in Duncarrick? Is this visit a farewell before leaving for London?”

“No. I haven’t found Eleanor Gray. And Ha—” He was about to say, “Hamish is giving me no peace!” But he stopped in time, and instead ended lightly, “—and I’m not going to be very pleasant company in this mood!”

“Nonsense. You’re always good company, Ian.”

As they sat in the drawing room after dinner and drank whiskey that Trevor had stocked before the war, Rutledge waited until a comfortable silence fell, and then said, “I’ve come for a reason. I need to talk to someone sensible who isn’t connected with the investigation that’s under way.”

“I’ll listen. I might not have sensible answers.”

“Listening is enough.” Rutledge launched into the events of the past week, and in the process of putting them into coherent order found himself thinking more clearly as well.

“And that’s where it stands.”

Trevor said, “Yes, I see your point. There could be two separate investigations here. Or only one. And if there’s only one, then Fiona MacDonald will be found guilty of the charges brought against her. If there are two, then the woman on the hillside may have nothing to do with Duncarrick. And you won’t be able to answer that until you find out who she is. It’s going to be nearly impossible after all this time, isn’t it? I don’t envy you the hunt! But it seems to me that you’ve come a long way in establishing that Eleanor Gray reached Scotland.”

“Yes. If I weren’t a damned stubborn policeman, I’d have concluded yesterday that Oliver is right, it’s finished, and gone back to London satisfied.”

Trevor looked consideringly at him. “You like this MacDonald woman. You would like to see her proven innocent.”

“You’re telling me I’m not objective,” Rutledge answered, feeling himself flush. “Is that a fair judgment?”

“Oh, I think you are objective. What I see from my own vantage point, not knowing any of these people well enough to be anything but objective, is that you may well be in danger. Have you considered the possibility that from the start of this business, Fiona MacDonald was going to be sacrificed? And your questions are getting in the way of that. Take care that you don’t threaten someone who believes he—or she—is well hidden behind the scenes.”

“That’s an odd warning.” Rutledge rubbed the bridge of his nose. His head still ached. But Hamish had fallen silent. “I can’t find any reason for someone to hate Fiona MacDonald deeply enough to concoct such a mound of evidence against her. I’ve searched.”

“Yes, I’m sure you have. Which leads me to believe that the girl is a scapegoat for someone else.”

“The child’s mother. I’ve considered that, yes. Fiona won’t tell me who she is. If the woman is dead, then surely it doesn’t matter?”

“Turn it another way. Who is that child’s father? Is he alive? If so, why mustn’t he be told he has a son? Or, if he’s dead, his family. Why should it be so important to keep someone in ignorance? So important, in fact, that Miss MacDonald is willing to hang and leave the child to the tender mercies of an orphanage.”

Rutledge said tiredly, “If the mother is alive, she’s sacrificing Fiona and the child as well. Willingly. And that makes no sense either!”

“Then that’s where the secret lies. The one you have to dig out.”

He had left Mrs. Cook out of the story. He said, “Before I can find the father, I have to find the mother. And before I can be sure I’ve found her, I must track down Eleanor Gray.”

“Then walk carefully. I don’t have a good feeling about this, Ian. Walk carefully!”

IN THE MORNING, Rutledge left to drive north to the Trossachs. Sir Walter Scott had used the district’s great beauty for the setting of his poem Lady of the Lake, and again in the novel Rob Roy. Whether Rob Roy MacGregor was a bandit or a Scottish Robin Hood depended on who was telling the story. But between them, he and Scott had made that stretch of lochs and hills famous. Even the Wordsworths, William and his sister Dorothy, had walked there.

Rutledge spent most of his second day searching for a Robert Burns. Ordinarily, he’d have asked the fiscal for his son’s direction, but he wanted to avoid any interference with the neighbor, Mrs. Raeburn, before he got to her.

He didn’t distrust the fiscal; he thought the man was probably honest and by his own lights dependable. But when it came to family secrets, even the most honest of men fiercely protected their own.

On the third morning, he found what he was looking for. Driving into a ring of spectacular barren hills, he reached a town called Craigness. It lay in a tree-rimmed bowl, east of where two rivers joined and a bridge wide enough to take motorcars crossed them. Its tall, slender church tower gleaming in the morning mists, and its houses looking far more English Georgian than Scottish, gave it an oddly graceful air, but north of it spread out the Highlands. Here Rutledge located the law office of Burns, Grant, Grant, and Fraser. It was an old building in a line of old buildings, with a first-floor bay window that jutted into the street. The brass handles and doorknob shone with polish against the dark red door.

“With prices to match the furnishings,” Hamish commented as Rutledge opened the outer door to the smell of beeswax, good leather, and better cigars. An aura of respectability, timelessness, and good taste hung in the air.

Neither Mr. Grant Senior nor Mr. Grant Junior was in, he was informed by a young clerk. But Mr. Fraser would see him.

Rutledge walked into a paneled room filled with books, floor-to-ceiling shelves, volume after volume spilling over onto chairs and tables and every other flat surface, even jostling for space on the windowsills and cluttering the beautiful old carpet on the floor.

The man behind the desk rose to greet him, offering his left hand. His right arm was missing. “Inspector Rutledge! I’m Hugh Fraser. I hope there’s a grisly murder under our noses. I’m sick to death of wills and deeds and title disputes.” The fair face beamed at him, but the blue eyes were sharp.

“No such luck. I understand from the local police that one of your partners was a Robert Burns.”

“Yes, Robbie died in France in 1916. We’ve left his name on the door out of respect. Although I must say, I would welcome his ghost as a partner to help me sort out this tangle.” Fraser waved his left hand at the chaos.

No, you wouldn’t, Rutledge silently replied. Aloud, he said, “Do you know when he was killed?”

“In the spring of 1916.” He gave Rutledge the date. It was the same week Eleanor Gray had told Mrs. Atwood that she was going north to Scotland. “I heard it almost at once, actually. From a supply sergeant I was dealing with. He wasn’t aware that Robbie was my law partner. He just said he’d been told one of the Trossachs men had bought it that morning and thought I might know him. Hell of a way to find out. Robbie was a good man.” The smile had faded. “We lost too many good men. Were you out there?”

“On the Somme,” Rutledge answered, his voice cold enough to ward off friendly reminiscences.

Fraser nodded. “That was the worst of a bad lot. Why is the Yard interested in Robbie? Is it to do with any of his personal affairs? We handled everything. The will was straightforward, as you’d expect. I can’t imagine that three years later it might interest the police.”

“Not the will, no. I’m looking for the property that Captain Burns owned here. A house, I think.”

“His father hasn’t sold it. As I remember, it was a family property and Mr. Burns Senior was not prepared to part with it. He hasn’t changed his mind, has he?”

“Not to my knowledge. During the war, did Captain Burns’s friends use the house from time to time?” If Burns was killed the week she came north, he hadn’t driven Eleanor Gray to Scotland. Someone else had.

“I have no idea. I wouldn’t be surprised. Robbie was a generous man; he often did such things. You’ll have to speak to Robbie’s father. But I can tell you how to find the house. Craigness is small. You’ll have no trouble.”

“There was a young woman Captain Burns met in London whilst on sick leave. Eleanor Gray. Did he ever speak of her to you?”

“Eleanor? Oh, yes. Often. Robbie had helped her find pipers to entertain the wounded. Quite an undertaking, that was. He sent me a witty account of it, and it reached me in the middle of a push. It was a bad time, and the laugh did me good. At any rate, he and Eleanor went on to spend a good deal of time together before he was sent back to France. Showed me her photograph, in fact, when we crossed paths the last time. I got the feeling it was fairly serious. Robbie had enormous charm, you know, people liked him. A pity he didn’t make it home. I tried to look up Eleanor after the war, but no one had any idea where she might be. I wanted her to know how much he cared.”

Would it have made a difference if she’d known that in 1916? Aloud, Rutledge said, “Have you kept any of his letters?”

“Regrettably, no. I needn’t tell you how it was in the trenches. Paper was the first to rot in the rain and the mud—nothing lasted very long, not even boots. And what the weather didn’t get, the rats did. Stinking bastards!” It was said unemotionally. The rats had become so fierce and so common that not even a heavy shelling rid the trenches of them. You got used to them.

Rutledge nodded. “If you can tell me how to find the house, I’ll be on my way.”

“I’ll do that if you’ll come and have lunch with me. My wife’s in Edinburgh for the week, and I’m damned tired of my own company!”

THE HOUSE STOOD in a street of houses that had well-kept gardens and a remarkable view of the hills. Two nursemaids with prams passed him as he stepped out of the car, deep in earnest conversation while their charges slept. Rutledge studied number fourteen for a time, then went to the door of number fifteen. But no one appeared to be at home. He tried number thirteen, and an elderly woman opened the door, peering at him over the top of her spectacles, the silver chain attached to them almost the same color as her hair.

“Yes?” She looked him up and down. “If you’re here to see Barbara, I’m afraid she’s out.”

“Inspector Rutledge, Scotland Yard,” he told her. “Can you give me a few minutes of your time? I’m interested in the Burns house. At number fourteen.”

“Inspector, are you? Why should anyone in London care about the Burns house? It hasn’t been lived in since poor Robbie’s death.”

“Yes, that’s what I’m told. He died in France. Do you remember when?”

“In the spring of 1916!” she retorted as if he had doubted her mental alertness. “It’s my legs that are giving out, young man, not my brain!”

“I meant no offense, Mrs.—”

“The auld biddy—” Hamish interjected.

“Raeburn. Robbie used to tease me about that. Burns and Raeburn, he said. A better name for a law firm than Burns, Grant, Grant, and Fraser.” She stepped back. “Do come in! I can’t stand here the morning long.”

He followed her into a sitting room cluttered with glass bells covering specimens of dead animals. Giant fish and heads of deer decorated the walls. She caught his eye and said, “My late husband liked to kill things. Birds, red deer, fish—never understood it myself, but there you are. That chair, over there, if you please. I can hear you better. Barbara—my niece—calls it barbaric. But I suppose I’ve grown used to seeing them. That’s a particularly fine fox, you know. I’m told several of the birds are nice as well.”

Hamish said, “I wonder who killed her husband?”

Catching the eye of a snarling lynx, Rutledge took the chair Mrs. Raeburn indicated. After a moment, he said, “I’ve just come from speaking with Mr. Fraser. He tells me Captain Burns had given you a key before he went away to France.”

“Mr. Fraser is wrong. Captain Burns gave me the key in 1912, when he joined the practice. I was to let in the painters and carpenters. After they’d finished, he told me to keep it in the event more work had to be done.”

“Did he have guests often?”

“At first he did. His fiancée and her family came to dinner any number of times. After the war started, there was less entertaining. But he came home when he could and sometimes brought friends.”

“Do you recall hearing the name Eleanor Gray?”

“He was in mourning. His fiancée died unexpectedly in late 1915. There was never any other young lady. The Captain never said anything to me about another young lady!”

“Fellow officers, then,” Rutledge amended hastily.

“Oh, yes, he sometimes offered them the house. There was a blind officer who stayed for a month. And a flier with severe burns on the face and hands. Better off dead, if you ask me. And one or two others on leave, with no place of their own.”

“Was there an officer here—just about the time word came that Captain Burns was a casualty? I believe he might have brought a woman with him.”

“There was an officer about that time. From London. I can’t tell you his name. But he came alone, arriving quite late. That’s why I remember him.”

“Because he came later than expected?”

“No, no. He woke me out of a sound sleep, all but knocking the door down. It was raining, and he was wet through. I handed him the key, then slammed the door shut against the wind. But I watched from the window to see he got in all right. The lock is sometimes stiff in bad weather. I’d have known if he’d had a woman with him, wouldn’t I? I’d have seen her go in with him!”

“How long did he stay at the Burns house?”

“He was to stay a week, and left after two days.”

“Did he tell you why he was leaving?”

“I didn’t ask. He brought back the key and thanked me. But it had rained every day. I suppose he found that depressing.”

“How was he wounded? Shoulder? Leg?”

“Sometimes it isn’t possible to tell, and I never care to ask. He was very brown. I did ask about that. He’d served in Palestine, he said.”

“Was he Scots?”

“Yes. He told me he was English, but he was Scots.”

“Would you recognize him if you were to see him again?”

She shook her head. “I expect I wouldn’t. He didn’t have a remarkable face.” She studied Rutledge, pushing her spectacles up on her nose. “You do. I’d remember meeting you.”

Rutledge said, “If you still have the key, would you allow me to go in and look through the house?”

She stared at him suspiciously. “Why should you wish to do that?”

“I’m sorry. I’m not at liberty to say.”

“Oh, very well. Come along. But I warn you, I can’t stand on my feet while you take your time about it!”

She went off to fetch the key, and led him to a gate in the middle of the low hedge between the two properties. He looked at the house carefully as they made their way around back. If the bedrooms were on this side, Mrs. Raeburn might well know who had come to stay here. But if they were on the other side—

Mrs. Raeburn unlocked the garden door and bade him wipe his feet before he came into the house. He did as he was told, then followed her down a short passage to the kitchen.

As they walked in, Hamish objected, “There’s nithing to find here—”

He was right, the house would have been cleaned many times since Eleanor Gray had come here—if indeed she’d come at all. But Rutledge thought now he could guess the reason why she might have wished to. With news of Robbie Burns’s death, she had wanted to see the house where he lived. Where she might have lived as his wife. But where would she have gone from here?

Rutledge and Mrs. Raeburn walked from room to room. The dining room, the parlor, a small study. The furnishings were comfortable, with a number of lovely old pieces that Burns must have inherited, and a wonderful mantelpiece in the parlor. Upstairs there were two bedrooms, one on Mrs. Raeburn’s side of the house, and one on the other, with a sitting room in between. The far bedroom appeared to be the master bedroom, and Rutledge studied it with particular interest.

It held a large spindle bed, a wardrobe of carved mahogany, a maple desk under the window, several comfortable chairs, and a tall bureau that matched the wardrobe. He went to that and was about to open one of the drawers, but Mrs. Raeburn stopped him.

She didn’t hold with police prying into people’s lives, and told him so. “Not without a warrant!”

He turned to the bookcase. Law books for the most part. He touched the spines of several novels, a three-volume history of Scotland, and a collection of six works recounting travels to Europe. He pulled one out at random, expecting to hear Mrs. Raeburn scold him. But apparently books were not as intimate as the contents of a drawer.

It was the volume on traveling in Italy, many of the pages still uncut. He put that back and took out one of the law books. Robert Edward Burns was inscribed in handsome copperplate on the flyleaf. The novels held nothing of interest, and he moved on to the volume of travels in France. These pages had been cut, and from the way the spine fell open to “Paris,” the chapter had been read a number of times. He flicked through the pages, admiring the line drawings of cathedrals, châteaux, and statues, found nothing of interest, and was on the point of closing the book, when something in the margin of one page caught his attention. The chapter heading was for the north of France. What had become, in fact, the battlefields of the war.

There were brief notations here, in a woman’s handwriting. He took the book to the window, his back to Mrs. Raeburn, and read one after the other.

Here he was wounded. Ypres had been underlined on the page. Here he met one of the pipers we found to play for us. The name of a small village had been marked. It had become an aid station, Rutledge remembered, and finally abandoned because the smell of death had soaked the ground.

Rutledge moved through the chapter. There were a number of other notes here and there, each relating to some personal event the reader had connected with a place in the guide. Small landmarks in the life of a dead man. A retracing of his journey to death.

On the last page of that chapter was another note, in a hand that was shaking. Here he died. And then below that, a last, touching line. I wish I could die too. E.G.

Eleanor Gray had been here.

Rutledge closed the book with triumph.

She had reached Scotland. The question was, had she ever left it?