Proof of Guilt

Chapter Twenty-five

Rutledge cursed Diaz all the way back to his office.

And he knew, without the insistent voice of Hamish in the back of his mind, that the fault was his.

Rawlings was dead. There had been no way around killing him, but Rutledge had wanted him alive. Still, someone had gone to Kent and brought back the telltale motorcycle. Diaz still had a henchman he could rely on.

Turn it around, Rutledge told himself. Upside down.

He found the sheet he’d been working on, crumpled it, and tossed it aside.

Taking out another, he began to draw diagrams.

He could see before him the evidence against Gooding and his granddaughter, very solid, except for the missing bodies.

He heard an unexpected sound in the corridor—the mew of a cat.

Gibson tapped on his door, then opened it, carrying a young white cat in his arms. One eye was pale blue, the other a pale green. Under the sergeant’s elbow was a sheet of paper.

“What are you doing with a cat?” Rutledge asked, amused. He hadn’t pictured Gibson as an animal fancier.

“She was up a tree, and a constable brought her in. The owner will be here in half an hour to claim her. She was in Fielding’s office but set him off something fierce. His eyes are red and weeping, and he’s sneezing every breath. I volunteered to take her away. Here’s what I’ve discovered so far about your Mr. Bennett.”

Rutledge came around the desk to take the sheet from him, and for good measure smoothed the cat’s fur.

He stopped, his hand in midair.

“Not you as well?” Gibson said, turning quickly toward the door. “I’ll take her away.”

“Yes, go on,” Rutledge said absently, his mind elsewhere. “Thank you.”

He was scanning the sheet as he spoke. It was almost exactly the same information that Belford had given him. Except for the last line.

According to the constable whose rounds included the Bennett property, Mr. Bennett had not been well after his return from internment. He’d finally been reduced to being pushed about in an invalid’s chair for weeks. The constable hadn’t seen him for some time and assumed that he was now bedridden.

The eyes of the police—constables walked their rounds and filed away information that was often invaluable when a crime occurred.

Still, what if no crime had occurred here? What if Mr. Bennett had finally died of the injuries incurred in Germany while he was making good another escape attempt? And his wife, for unknown reasons, had kept his death a secret?

So that she could hire a staff, even without the money to do so? If her husband hadn’t returned to his position in the Bank of England, what had they lived on? A good many families with lofty bloodlines back to the Crusades were nearly penniless . . .

And the cook could answer the telephone as Mr. Bennett, just as he had pretended to be Inspector Chambliss.

Mr. Bennett hadn’t been a party to anything that had happened, because he hadn’t been there.

Rutledge left in a hurry, driving as fast as he could back to the house in Surrey. It was after the dinner hour when he arrived, the late summer evening already drawing to a close.

Mrs. Bennett wouldn’t bury her husband in the orchard or under the compost pile. She would find a way to honor him.

Rutledge took out his torch, shielded it, and set off for the gardens. There was the terrace above the croquet pitch, with formal borders boxing in a broad, sloping lawn, at the bottom of which was a narrow pond. Pretty, open, offering a handsome view from any of the formal rooms that overlooked it. The beds had been planted to reflect three seasons with maximum effect.

Here? He thought not. Too open, too public, not somewhere to grieve in private. Where, then?

On the far side of the house, Rutledge found what he was after. The main bedroom wing looked down on a more or less private garden, set behind a wall some four feet high but not solid, the bricks forming a lacy diamond pattern that offered light and air as well as seclusion. At the far end, an allée of shrubbery protected it from storms, with access through an ornate wrought-iron gate. Above the garden was a small balcony, and a light showed in the room connected to it.

The master suite?

He found a place where he could climb the wall and let himself down easily on the far side.

Even in the darkness it was lovely. An old garden, old as the house, very likely, but given new life and color. Roses and other flowers formed patterns that led to the center of the garden. There only white flowers had been planted, and they gleamed in the ambient light like sentinels, marking the circle where a small statue of an angel in white marble held pride of place.

No churchyard could have provided a more touching memorial to the dead. Looking out from the balcony above, Mrs. Bennett could find her husband’s grave even in the dark of night, and be comforted. In the mornings she could see it when she sat on the long terrace outside her private sitting room, or in late afternoon when she took her tea there.

Had Diaz done this? If so, it showed a side of the man that no one else had seen. A thoughtfulness, a kindness, a sense of beauty and compassion.

Rutledge stood there for a moment, staring up at the serene face of the angel.

Mrs. Bennett was not the person to question about this. But he thought he could find out what he needed to know from Somerset House.

He left the garden in the same fashion as he had come in, over the wall, then threaded his way back to the drive. He walked down it and out the gates, to where he’d concealed the motorcar.

Hamish was saying, “Ye canna’ know for certain the woman’s husband is under yon statue. No’ until ye dig it up.”

“I will stake my reputation on it.”

“Aye, ye may verra’ well have to do just that.”

Strike Bennett off the lists of those in league with Diaz.

By morning Rutledge would know more.

Somerset House was quiet when he arrived. He found the clerk he usually turned to for information. There was, as he’d expected, no will for Bennett. He was not officially dead.

But Bennett’s father’s Will was there.

The house, surprisingly for such a small property, was entailed. The implication was, once it had been far larger.

It was left to Mrs. Bennett’s husband as the only son of Henry George Albert Bennett. If he should predecease his father or have no living male heirs, the house went to a distant cousin.

Rutledge stared at the name.

It wasn’t Gerald Standish. It was his father, William.

And a swift search showed that William had died in 1902, leaving one son, Gerald.

Gentle God. Early on, Rutledge had investigated the disappearance of one Gerald Standish of Norfolk.

That was why Bennett’s death had never been made public. The house and property would have gone to Standish, and unless he was a compassionate man, Mrs. Bennett, crippled though she was, would have only the money her husband left her in his will. And if the estate had already fallen on hard times, to the point of having to let her previous servants go, Rutledge could understand how Mrs. Bennett had tried to find a way to keep the house staffed by turning to the likes of Afonso Diaz and Bob Rawlings.

“Did they also hasten the husband to his death?” Hamish asked. “If he didna’ care to have such men in the house?”

“I doubt it,” Rutledge answered silently, only just catching himself in time. “If he was also ill, there was no need. But I’ll lay you odds that Standish is dead.”

He thanked the clerk and left Somerset House, of two minds about what he ought to do next.

A brief stop at Galloway’s produced unexpected confirmation.

“I just posted a letter to you,” the jeweler said, looking up from a tray of diamond rings he was about to put away. “I found the artist. The one who painted that exquisite miniature. His name was Mannering. Henry Westin Mannering. The subject was his neighbor’s young daughter. She married a Standish and disappeared from the record. He painted her on her sixteenth birthday as a gift. I shouldn’t be surprised that he was in love with her. He never married, went on to fame and fortune, and died of cholera before he was forty-five.” Galloway reached into a private drawer and brought out the miniature. “You’ll want to return this to the owner. I’m glad I saw it. Such a beautiful piece.”

Rutledge took it, thanked Galloway for his efforts in tracing the workmanship, and went to his flat for a valise before setting out for Norfolk.

Standish had never come back to his cottage, and the general view of the village was that his war had overturned his mind and he’d done away with himself.

“So sad,” the woman in the pastry shop said, shaking her head. “He was such a nice young man. Quiet, yes, kept to himself, but I liked him. My own son died in the war. But I often found myself thinking, if he’d come home, he might be the same as Gerald Standish, shut off from everyone and everything. And so I was kind to him.”

It seemed to be a fitting epitaph.

Rutledge thanked her and was about to leave when she said, “I asked him for a photograph once. He thought it forward of me, I’m sure. A middle-aged woman? But then he came back in the shop the next day, as if he’d known what I was feeling. And he gave me one he’d had taken in France. I put it in a frame next to Tommy’s. My two boys.”

“Would you show me this photograph?” Rutledge asked.

“I’m finished here at three. If you can wait that long?”

Rutledge could. He found the constable, and together they returned the miniature to Standish’s cottage.

“Although what’s to become of this lot, I don’t know,” the constable said, surveying the front room. “Sad, isn’t it?”

There had been nothing here that connected Standish to the Bennett family. No letters, no entries in the family Bible, no paperwork in the desk that pointed to the entailment. If Gerald Standish had known he was a distant relation, he had had no sentimental feelings about it. No photograph of the house, no letter of condolence from the Bennetts on the death of his father. Of course the Bennett estate was hardly wealthy, stately, or famous. It had probably been half forgotten with the years, an anachronism, from a time when keeping property intact ensured money and power, retainers to fight at one’s side and a voice at Court. Still, Rutledge would have expected the grandmother to have kept his father’s papers for him. But then perhaps she had, reminding Standish of ties to a distant future. And after his war, he had not cared.

Rutledge knew how the man had felt. Perhaps his death had been a blessing to him.

But it was still murder, if what Rutledge suspected was true.

At a quarter past three, the woman in the pastry shop stepped out the door and looked around for him. She had changed into street clothes, and he almost didn’t recognize her in the upswept hairstyle and a becoming hat. She said, “Perhaps it’s best I don’t know what happened to Gerald. I can always hope he’ll come back one day. But if the constable had found his body, I’d like to lay him to rest where my Tommy would have been buried, if he’d lived a long and happy life at home. It’s important for all of us to know that someone cares.”

Her cottage was not far from the pastry shop, with pretty curtains at the windows and matching chintz on the chairs. He followed her into the front room, and she passed him the photograph.

“That’s my Tommy,” she said, her fingers lingering on the frame as if reluctant to let it go.

He could see the likeness, the same straight nose and firm chin, the same short, stocky build. Tommy smiled for the camera happily, and Rutledge thought the photograph must have been taken just as the young soldier arrived in France, before he knew what war was.

“A fine young man,” he said, giving the photograph back to her.

She held it for a moment longer and then set it down. “Yes, he was. I couldn’t have asked for better. It was just that I had him for such a short time. He was only eighteen when he enlisted.”

With a sigh, she set the photograph back by the chair that must have been her favorite, because her knitting was beside it on a small stand. She took up the next frame and handed it to Rutledge.

And he recognized the dead man in Chelsea. He was standing by a gun carriage, one hand resting on it, the other on his hip. He was smiling, but not as Tommy had done, still free from the shadows. Standish was already showing the strain of battle, although he was trying to keep it at bay. Any likeness to Howard French was tentative at best here. The way one might see a stranger on the street and ask, Did I know that man? He looked familiar . . .

Rutledge wondered who it had been meant for, this photograph. His grandmother? A girl back in England who cared? What had become of her?

“I was here before, asking about Standish in the village. I don’t remember seeing you in the shop then.”

“I was in Norfolk with my sister. She’d had kidney stones, and I went to stay with her until she was well again.”

Would it have shortened the long, tangled road to the truth if he had found this woman here in the village and talked to her then, seen the photograph?

There was no way of knowing.

Rutledge wasn’t quite certain what she would feel if he told her how Standish had died. Or that his body was already in a pauper’s grave in London.

He said simply, “Another fine young man.”

“Indeed.” She looked at him, her head to one side. “You were in the war. You remind me of Gerald somehow. Not in appearance, just . . . something.”

He smiled. “We were both soldiers.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

He thanked her and left.

Driving out of the village, Rutledge said aloud, “I don’t believe Standish would have cared about the Bennett house or been in any hurry to send Mrs. Bennett packing.”

Hamish answered, “Sae it would seem. To her, it would be verra’ different, a cloud that blotted out the sun.”

Nor would anyone who had come to live in the Bennett household and knew it as sanctuary want to count on the kindness of a stranger. Still, Rutledge thought that Diaz had protected himself and his plans, not Mrs. Bennett.

As he drove to Essex, and St. Hilary, Rutledge considered what this meant to Gooding’s case, now that the dead man in Chelsea had been identified.

Hamish said, “The motorcar that killed the man is still the motorcar of Lewis French.”

And so it was, straw with which the K.C. could make bricks to wall up Gooding. The connection to Diaz was too slender a thread.

Where the hell was Lewis French?

If Gooding’s trial was to begin Monday, Rutledge was bound by duty to tell what he knew about the corpse found in Chelsea. He would have to testify, like it or not.

Rutledge drove into Dedham late that evening and went to look in on MacFarland.

Townsend, still unhappy with the pretense that his patient was suffering damage that was irreversible, said, “I hope you’re here to release both of us from this charade. My patient’s well enough to go home. And he’s no happier here than I am to have him here. I have to smuggle in his meals, pretend my daughter is helping me nurse the man around the clock, keep my staff in the dark.” He shook his head. “Surely you’ve brought us some answers.”

“Not yet. Gooding’s trial begins Monday. This is Thursday afternoon. I’m doing all I can.”

“Well, then, you must tell MacFarland that he can’t leave yet.”

Rutledge walked back to the small room where the tutor was being kept and said as he opened the door, “I’m sorry. This is difficult for you. It is difficult for all of us. Give me a few days more.”

MacFarland said, “If someone would bring my books to me, it would help. Staring at the walls, nothing to keep my mind busy—no way to pass the time. It’s difficult. My head aches, and the doctor says I shouldn’t read. But if I read, perhaps it wouldn’t ache at all.”

“Tell me what you need.”

Rutledge handed MacFarland his notebook, and the man made a list for him. “You shouldn’t have any trouble. I’ve only asked for titles you will see straightaway.”

“Give me an hour.”

“Yes, of course. Thank you.”

Rutledge left, drove to St. Hilary, and went into MacFarland’s cottage.

The tutor’s reading glasses were exactly where he’d left them, and the books were relatively easy to find. A satchel under a window provided transportation, and Rutledge had just finished adding the last title when someone flung back the door and said, “Whoever you are, step outside and identify yourself!”

“Constable? Inspector Rutledge. I was just . . . looking for anything that might help us find out who attacked MacFarland.”

Constable Brooks stepped inside and saw the satchel in Rutledge’s hand.

“I’m sorry. We’ve had a rash of petty theft lately. I thought I might have caught the culprit.”

“Petty theft?”

“Small things. Someone went into a neighbor’s henhouse, milk was missing from a porch, another woman put a pie on the windowsill to cool—”

Rutledge interrupted. “Did this begin when MacFarland was attacked?”

“No, later on. I suspect it’s one of the lads I’ve had trouble with before. He’ll be in borstal before the summer is out, if he keeps on the way he’s going.”

“Thank you, Constable. Sorry to have given you trouble.”

“Any news of Miss Whitman?”

“None so far.”

“I don’t like thinking about her in prison.”

“Nor do I.”

“She’s not a killer,” Brooks persisted, taking up the satchel and following Rutledge back to where he’d left the motorcar. “Whatever her grandfather has done. Why didn’t you drive down to the cottage?”

“Because I didn’t want to draw attention to where I was heading. Since the cottage is empty.”

“Mr. MacFarland is better, isn’t he? You’ve got his spectacles there. I went to look in on him yesterday, and the doctor forbade me to see him. If he’d taken a turn for the worse, the doctor would have wished me to add it to my report.”

Rutledge smiled grimly. “Keep that to yourself. I think he could still be in danger.”

“Here, not my petty thief, hanging about for another chance at the tutor?”

“Not very likely. But someone went to a great deal of trouble to kill him, and the next try might succeed where this one failed.”

Brooks nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind, and see that the cottage is watched.”

Rutledge drove away, heading not for Dedham but for the village church, leaving his motorcar out of sight by the Rectory. Walking through the churchyard, he observed Miss Whitman’s cottage for a time, and then crossed the road once the sun had set.

Hamish said, “Ye have no right to search here.”

“I don’t intend to search. I can’t shake the feeling that she was hiding something before she left. She wouldn’t let me in—she was willing to go to prison in what she stood up in, no toothbrush, no comb, no change of clothes. It’s been worrying me, but now I think I may know why. If Standish was killed by French’s motorcar, French may have got away and eventually come to Valerie Whitman for help.”

“It’s no’ likely. They parted on bad terms.”

“Still, he couldn’t go to his fiancée, could he? She lives with her father, in the center of Dedham. And perhaps he isn’t up to dealing with his sister’s uncertain temper.”

“Then why did she no’ tell everyone that he isna’ dead? It would save her fra’ prison.”

“I don’t know. But I’m going to have a look.” Rutledge let himself in through the gate carefully, so it would not squeak, then walked up to the door. She had not locked it then—and it was still unlocked. He opened it quietly, stepped inside, and then pulled it closed.

Using his shielded torch, he walked from room to room, and he could smell her scent, he thought, in each of them. Lilacs? It was as if she had only just left. She had good taste in furnishings, fine pieces, with a few paintings that her father must have bought. China dishes in the cupboard, a pretty porcelain shepherdess on the shelf above the hearth, next to her an ormolu clock. All in their places, waiting silently for their owner to return.

The torch picked out a square of white linen lying on the table, flashing for an instant across the rich colors of embroidered pansies. How easy it would have been for someone to walk in here and take one of Miss Whitman’s handkerchiefs for later use. A handkerchief was very personal, dropped in a moment of intense anxiety or anger at the scene of a crime, or left under the seat of a motorcar after wiping one’s fingers. And this was known to be her favorite pattern. A simple thing, and so all the more readily damning.

He reached the stairs to the upper floor and hesitated. He didn’t feel comfortable going through her bedroom. And the house was silent. No one was here after all. He had misunderstood her reluctance—that strong sense of privacy that seemed to come so naturally to her—to open her door even to Scotland Yard, and he wanted to make amends by leaving as quickly as he could.

And then he heard a foot brush against something over his head.

Someone was there.

He waited, holding his breath so that he could hear better.

He’d been right.

There was another sound, as if whoever it was had heard him as well, and was trying to stay still. And the harder he tried, the harder it became.

Rutledge called, “Scotland Yard. I know you’re there. You might as well come down.”

Nothing, not even the sound of breathing.

Mice? Scenting him and looking for cover?

He said again, “I’m here to help. If you won’t come down, I shall have to come up.”

He waited for a whole minute, counting off the seconds in his head.

And then he turned for the stairs, starting warily up them, prepared for anything.

A window went up, and he could hear someone struggling to get out.

Rutledge went back down the stairs, raced through the front room, and reached the door as a foot came into view.

He caught the foot and pulled, and with an oath, someone came down almost on top of him and lay there for an instant, winded.

Rutledge turned the torch on the man’s face—and didn’t recognize him at all.

“Constable Brooks’s petty thief. Come on then.” He reached for the man’s collar and prepared to bring him to his feet.

“Get your damned hands off me. If you’re a policeman, I want to see proof.”

Rutledge reached into his pocket for his identification, and as he did, the man came to his feet, hit Rutledge with all his strength, and turned to run.

Rutledge still held the torch, and he swung it, intent on stopping the intruder any way he could. And then he remembered using the torch on Bob Rawlings just before he went over the railing, and he tempered the strength of the blow.

The intruder fell, gasping for breath, then struggled to rise.

“Now listen to me. I’m from Scotland Yard, and you’re coming with me to the police station—”

Breaking off, Rutledge stared.

The torch couldn’t have done the damage he saw in the man’s throat. He had aimed higher. But the ugly gash had broken open and was bleeding heavily.

“My God,” Rutledge said, jerking out his handkerchief and trying to stem the flow. “Hold on to that.” He pressed the man’s hand to the handkerchief, turning quickly back to the house. “Stay where you are, or you’re likely to bleed to death.”

A voice in the darkness said, “Rutledge? Is that you? What’s happened? I saw your motorcar.”

And the curate stepped through the gate into the pool of brightness that was Rutledge’s torch. Just then he saw the man on the path, and the handkerchief already dark with blood. “This man has been injured—Rutledge, did you do this?”

“I found him in the house. When he ran, I stopped him.”

The curate looked quickly to the houses on either side. No one had come to the door. “Let’s get him to the Rectory. We’ve got to stop that bleeding. Take his other arm.”

“Wait here.” Rutledge disappeared into the house, back in a matter of seconds with a small pillow, which he added to the handkerchief. “Keep it there,” he ordered and then took the man’s other side, all but dragging him down the path and toward the gate.

The curate had it open, and Rutledge got the man through. “There’s no time to bring up the motorcar. We’ve got to hurry.”

His senses returning, the man managed to stumble along between them. It seemed to take ages to reach the Rectory, tombstones and plantings catching at their unwary feet as they made their way around the church to the Rectory gate. The steps were hardest, and then Rutledge had the door open and pulled the man into the lamplight of the Rectory parlor.

He nearly stumbled over a chair, hooked it with his foot, and brought it around to push the man into it.

The curate went into another part of the house and came back with a wooden box.

“Bandages and the like,” he said. “Altar boys always have skinned knees and stubbed toes.”

Rutledge had removed the pillow and the handkerchief. The bleeding had slowed, clotting over. He could see that the gash was an old one. Very likely, in the man’s attempt to climb through the window, he’d reopened it because it had never healed properly.

“Who are you?” the curate asked gently. “Are you hungry? In need of work? I can help you.”

The man’s temper flared. “I’m—” He stopped short, eyes on Williams’s clerical collar. “Is this man really from Scotland Yard?”

“Yes, of course he is. He’s been in St. Hilary conducting an inquiry.”

The man turned to Rutledge. “You’re the bastard who took Valerie away. Where is she?”

“In prison,” Rutledge said shortly. “Charged along with her grandfather in the murder of Lewis French. Are you French? If you are, why didn’t you show yourself and keep that young woman out of Holloway?”

“Damn you, she said she was going to bring home her grandfather. She told me it was finished, and I let her go.”

“But he’s not French,” the curate was saying. “I tell you, he’s not Lewis French.”

“Then who is he?”

“My name is Traynor. Matthew Traynor. French tried to kill me—he sent someone to make sure I never reached England. I got away from him, just, and I’ve been in hiding ever since, not knowing where to turn, who was against me. I’m in no condition to survive another attempt.”

“Where have you been since your ship docked?”

“My parents’ house. It’s been closed since before the war. The problem was food. I’d walk to another town and buy what I needed, until the money I had in my pocket ran out.” He grimaced. “I’m a wealthy man, and I couldn’t pay for my dinner. I’ve had to forage—steal—dig in gardens at night. I was chased by a dog one night, and had to sleep in a barn. Miss Whitman found me when I’d fainted from hunger. I was out of my head for two days, and she had to keep me in the cottage. She wanted to call in Dr. Townsend, but he’s the father of Lewis’s fiancée. She left food for me when you took her away, but that’s gone and I’ve been forced to steal again.”

“You never went to the police? Or to the authorities at the port?”

“I never even showed my passport. I got off the ship by carrying an elderly woman’s luggage for her. Her son come to fetch her, as far as anyone could tell. I knew perhaps twenty people in England, most of whom hadn’t seen me since before the war. My neck was inflamed, I was so feverish the driver of the first omnibus accused me of being drunk. I walked for miles before taking the next omnibus, for fear of being followed. And there was someone in the grounds of my parents’ house when I got there. I thought he was waiting for me. I watched as he tested windows, doors, looked in all the outbuildings, then waited, sitting on his motorcycle in the drive until well after midnight. He left finally, and I got in the way I sometimes got out as a boy. What was I to tell the police—this scruffy stranger, a knife wound in his neck, no money, in England without the proper papers—if they brought Lewis or Agnes in to identify me and were told that I wasn’t Matthew Traynor, what then?”

“You’d have had to come to the police in the long run.”

“Yes, I know. But on my terms, when I could stand on my own two feet and not faint from hunger or pain. And then Valerie—Miss Whitman—told me that someone had tried to kill Lewis, and that Lewis had disappeared. I didn’t know what to think then. Now you tell me she’s in Holloway Prison. For what?”

“Her grandfather is about to go on trial for killing French and you.”

“She never— My good God. That’s what you meant earlier. That I could have saved her from that.”

“What did you do with the man who tried to kill you?” Rutledge studied the man, fairly certain that his account was truthful. But there were gaps all the same.

“He came up to me as I was standing at the ship’s rail, watching for the white cliffs. I should have been able to see them; it was a clear night and we weren’t that far out to sea. We spoke, the way strangers do, and then he took out a cigarette, asking if I had a match. I was looking down, finding it, when suddenly he bent over, grabbed my ankles, and had me half over the rail. I somehow managed to beat at his head and shoulders until he let me go, and I fell hard to the deck. He had a knife then, and he went for my throat. We fought—I was in the Army, I knew a thing or two about that—and in the end, it was he who went overboard, not I. We were coming up on Dungeness Light, but I never waited to see. I was bleeding badly and hurried down to my cabin to take care of it. I stayed there, afraid of questions, until we docked.”

The man at Dungeness Light.

“Was he English? The man with the knife?”

“Oh yes. A London accent, I should think. I asked the purser, and he said he thought the man had got on in the Azores. I went down to his cabin, searched it, found nothing, and packed up his belongings for disembarkation.”

“Did you learn his name?”

“I did. Benjamin R. Waggoner. Whoever he may be.”

The other man in the lodging house. The one called Ben . . .

“I tell you, it has to be French who is behind this. He’d told me that when I came to England, we’d talk about some changes he had in mind. I wouldn’t be surprised if my death was one of them. And who else would know to look for me in the grounds of a house closed for six years?”

“He could have been looking for French,” Williams suggested.

Satisfied that the wound had stopped bleeding sufficiently to bandage, Rutledge put on a field dressing and then said, “He ought to eat.”

“I have a little leftover soup from my own dinner, and some bread, some cheese,” the curate offered.

“That will do,” Traynor said. “I’ve had nothing today.”

Rutledge and Traynor left for London soon after Traynor had eaten and Rutledge had looked again at the wound on his throat. It had sealed, but the flesh around it was inflamed. He needed medical care, and sooner rather than later.

Traynor slept for the first two hours of his journey, his head cushioned on the bloodstained pillow from Miss Whitman’s parlor. Rutledge waited until his passenger was fully awake, then told him about Diaz.

Traynor said, “Are you telling me that I was nearly killed because of something Howard French, my grandfather, did years ago?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Traynor whistled. Then he turned to Rutledge and demanded, “If you know all this, why is Gooding standing trial? Why is his granddaughter in prison?”

“Proof has been hard to come by. This could just as easily have been a feud between you and French that Gooding was caught in the midst of. The police believe Gooding will tell them where the bodies are buried, to keep his granddaughter from going to trial. But he doesn’t know, you see. He has nothing to bargain with. And so she will have to suffer as well.”

“But I’m alive—I can testify.”

“To what? That someone tried to kill you? You can’t prove it wasn’t Gooding’s plan in the first place. And whoever attacked you can’t testify as to who hired him, if he’s drowned.”

“What can I do? There must be something. I can’t wait for the jury to bring in a verdict.”

“I’ll find a doctor to look at that wound. And then I’m taking you to Hayes and Hayes. They’ll deal with the trial by asking for a postponement on the basis of new evidence. You. And Inspector Billings saw that body at Dungeness Light. It can substantiate your story of being attacked while on board the Medea. I can also show who the dead man in Chelsea was. And why he was killed. But there’s still Diaz. There are still the charges against Gooding. Lewis French is still missing.”

“He’s got to be stopped. Somehow. This man Diaz.”

“Meanwhile, Hayes will see you safe. I could put a constable on his door, but it would only serve to draw attention to the house.”

“Watch your own back, meanwhile,” Traynor told him grimly.

Hayes greeted Traynor like the long lost Robinson Crusoe, calling him “my dear boy!” over and over again. Rutledge thought that the fact that someone able to run the firm had actually survived was more important to the elderly solicitor than the fact that it was Traynor.

“I’ll start proceedings straightaway to halt the trial. And I’ll find a safe place for you to stay, Mr. Traynor. Meanwhile, my own house is at your disposal, and I’ll see that your baggage is retrieved from Portsmouth.” He went on, laying out solutions to every problem but that of Lewis French. And that he tiptoed around.

At length Rutledge was free to leave. Traynor thanked him profusely, and Hayes promised to keep him informed.

“But what do we do about Mr. Standish?” Hayes asked. “He isn’t a client, I have no authority to settle his affairs.”

“Leave him to me,” Rutledge said.

He went directly to the Yard, wrote a full report on Traynor’s experiences and the probable postponement of the trial, and handed it to a constable to be put in the Acting Chief Superintendent’s basket. He was in no mood to wait for Markham to come in, even though it was close on dawn already.

As he left the Yard, Rutledge searched for a motorcycle anywhere in the vicinity, and again on his own street, and there was no sign of one.

Ben Waggoner was dead, Rawlings as well. If Standish was the man in Chelsea, then there was Baxter still to contend with.

And Diaz.

Rutledge let himself into the flat, and almost at once knew that he was not alone.

Something in the stillness had changed. And there was the faintest scent of applewood fires.

Hamish said, “The bedroom.”

Rutledge put on the lamp by the door as he always did, and went through the post that had been come in his absence. Working his way slowly toward the bedroom doorway, he reached the hearth and stopped.

His service revolver. It was in the chest beneath his bed. Had Diaz found it?

That changed the odds.

He said, well to the side of any shot from the half-open bedroom door, “I know you’re there. Let’s finish it.”

After a moment, Diaz walked into the sitting room lamplight. He appeared to be unarmed.

“I’ve rather spoiled your plans,” Rutledge said easily. “Traynor is alive, and MacFarland will live. We’ve taken steps to halt Monday’s trial. I now know why Standish had to die. You’d be wise to take the next boat to Portugal or the Azores. While you can.”

“Standish was Bob’s decision, not mine. He grew very protective of Mrs. Bennett. I had only to tell him that you would see her punished for what he and I did to make him want to kill you.”

“Where’s Baxter?”

“I have no idea. He is of little interest to me now.”

“Then you’ve come to say good-bye?” Rutledge smiled.

“I’ve come, as you said, to finish this.” Diaz reached into his pocket and drew out a pale green scarf.

Rutledge had seen Frances wear it many times over the summer. Diaz had been inside her house. Baxter. Was he there? Had something happened to Frances?

Feeling a surge of anger that was red hot in his blood, Rutledge crossed to where Diaz was standing and, without hesitation, knocked the older man down.

Diaz, stunned for a few seconds, raised himself on one elbow and put out his tongue to taste the blood on his lip.

“Without me, she will die,” he said simply.

“You won’t know whether she will or not,” Rutledge said, standing over him. “Now get up.” When Diaz didn’t move, Rutledge reached down, caught the man’s collar, and hauled him to his feet. He pushed Diaz ahead of him across the room, and through the door.

He held on to Diaz while turning the crank, shoved him into the motorcar, and was in beside him before Diaz could recover.

Diaz sat up, smiling, certain that Rutledge would drive to his sister’s house.

But Rutledge did not. He went directly to the Yard, marched Diaz up the stairs, and went to find Billings, who was in his office.

The Inspector looked up, startled, as Rutledge came in with Diaz.

“What the hell?” he began, and then saw Rutledge’s face. “What’s happened?”

“There’s something I have to do. This is Afonso Diaz. I want you to keep him here, and if I don’t come back, take him to Markham. He’s killed before, and he will kill again. Don’t trust him.”

He shoved Diaz into a chair, then unfolded the scarf so that it spilled across Billings’s desk.

“He’s just given me the proof of guilt I’ve been searching for. He was in my flat threatening me. And he’s been inside my sister’s house. I want him up on charges for that. We’ll sort out the rest later.” He faced Diaz. “On Mrs. Bennett’s property, I was the trespasser, and whatever happened to me could be explained away. You should have left it at that.”

“Who is Mrs. Bennett?” Billings demanded, but Rutledge had turned on his heel and was leaving.

He heard Billings say, as the door swung closed, “Now, then, Mr. Diaz. Why don’t we have a little conversation while we wait.”

Back in the idling motorcar, Rutledge drove to his sister’s house.

A motorcycle rested on its stand just down the street.

He’d found Baxter.

Leaving his motorcar where it couldn’t be seen from the house, he got out, went through the back garden of a house next but one to where Frances lived. Out the gate at the bottom of the garden, he walked down to her back gate, quietly let himself through, and then stood for a moment, listening.

The garden was quiet, save for a few crickets by the little pond. He circled it and made his way toward the rear of the house, keeping to the shadows of trees and shrubs.

No lights showed.

Where was Baxter, and where was he holding Frances?

Hamish was silent in the back of his mind.

Reaching the terrace door, Rutledge tested the latch. Locked.

Swearing under his breath, he walked quietly across the grass to the servants’ door. This he found unlocked, and he stepped inside, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom of the passage that led to the servants’ hall. The rooms were empty—the live-in staff was a thing of the past. Instead, dailies came early in the morning to do what was required.

He made his way to the servants’ stairs and chose that route up to the bedrooms. They were narrow, and he was a tall man. It took a little time to reach the first floor quietly, and there he stood in the passage once more, getting his bearings.

If he were Baxter, where would he be?

Not in the ground-floor rooms, surely, where he would be cornered if Rutledge had already dealt with Diaz.

At the top of the main staircase, then.

The passage was carpeted. Still, Rutledge took off his boots and left them in the servants’ stairwell. Walking in his stocking feet, he stayed close to the wall, a few steps at a time. The main stairs were just ahead.

Movement caught his eye. Someone was there, sitting on the top step, watching the main door. Waiting for him to unlock it and walk in.

But where was Frances? In one of the bedrooms? It was likely—she wasn’t the target, he was. And hurt or unhurt, she must wait. His first duty was to deal with Baxter and keep him alive, if it was humanly possible to do so. If the anger racing through every nerve ending would let him stop in time.

Baxter had a split second of warning, no more, wheeling in time to see Rutledge hurling himself forward in a tackle that pinned Baxter just as he was rising.

They rolled, and Rutledge saw the flash of a knife. Silent, deadly.

He was on his feet first, Baxter just that second slower, and they closed, Rutledge keeping the knife hand well away from his face and throat. But Baxter had recovered, was quick now, rearing back for better purchase, and Rutledge felt the blade cut through the cloth of his coat and plunge toward his chest.

The wound wasn’t deep, but it was bleeding, the breastbone hurting. Rutledge threw himself at Baxter before the knife had been fully withdrawn, catching the man’s wrist and turning the blade back, forcing it toward Baxter’s throat.

He had a fleeting thought, that Frances wouldn’t care for blood on her carpet, and the knife slid sideways into Baxter’s shoulder instead. The man yelped, twisted away, and Rutledge went after him, catching the knife wrist once more and pinning it to his side. Baxter, smaller and more agile, twisted away again, just as Rutledge landed a very solid blow. It caught Baxter on the side of the head rather than the jaw, and it sent him reeling backward.

Rutledge had a flashback to Rawlings, turning in the air, just as Baxter lost his balance and went backward down the stairs.

Rutledge went after him. Baxter hit the landing and stayed where he was, lying on his side. The knife was near his free hand, and Rutledge kicked it the rest of the way down the stairs.

“Help me,” Baxter said, his voice a thread. “Something’s wrong.” He frowned, tried to move, and cried out instead. “It hurts.”

Bending over him, Rutledge couldn’t judge how badly the man was injured, but he took no chances, keeping well clear of Baxter’s feet. He said roughly, “Where is she?”

Baxter misunderstood. “He’s in the roses. When the French woman went to London. The staff’s half day. For her to take the blame if the rest went wrong.” He coughed, and blood frothed on his lip. Raising frightened eyes to Rutledge’s face, he whispered, “I can’t breathe.” He tried to clutch at Rutledge. “Don’t let me die. I’ll do anything. Please.”

For putting Frances in danger, dying was what the man deserved, Rutledge thought grimly. But the Yard needed him alive. And so did Gooding.

Judging Baxter’s weight, Rutledge picked him up. Baxter writhed, screaming in agony, and Rutledge almost dropped him. “Be still. I’m trying to help you.” He managed to carry him down the stairs, got the door opened.

Pausing there, he called, “Frances? I’m here—I’ll be back.”

Baxter was in Casualty ten minutes later, under the eye of a constable Rutledge dragooned into guarding him. He waited only long enough for Baxter to be examined.

“He’ll live,” the doctor said. “Broken ribs, possibly a punctured lung—”

“He is in charge and will have to stand trial. Make certain he lives,” Rutledge ordered.

Before the doctor could answer him, Rutledge was racing out of Casualty to his motorcar, driving at speed to the house, pulling up by the door, and dashing back inside, cursing himself for not having taken five minutes to find Frances. If she’d heard the fight and Baxter’s fall down the stairs, she would be frightened alone here.

It took more than five minutes. It took him nearly three quarters of an hour.

He began searching on the first floor. It was where Baxter had been waiting, and he would have been guarding his prisoner as well. But there was no sign of her in any of the bedrooms. In her dressing room, he saw at once that she must have packed several bags. They were missing as well. Spaces in her closets confirmed this.

Where had they taken her?

He went through the bedroom a second time. No signs of a scuffle, no overturned furniture, the bed showing only the indentations of the valises. Who had packed them? Was she still in the house, or had they already taken her away?

Frantic, he went downstairs, calling her name as he opened the door to the small drawing room.

And the first thing he saw was an envelope resting on the mantelpiece. His name, her handwriting.

He crossed the room in three strides, took down the envelope, and tore it open. He could feel the cold fist in the pit of his stomach as he unfolded the notepaper.

Ian, darling,

You’re away again, and Sergeant Gibson wasn’t there to tell me where. I’m off to spend the weekend with Peter and his parents. Wish me well.

Much love,

Frances

She hadn’t been at home.

They hadn’t found her here. But they’d taken the scarf to convince him they had.

Rutledge could feel himself shaking, first with relief, then with helpless laughter.

She need never know how frightened he’d been. She need never know what had taken place in the house she considered her home and her sanctuary.

Hamish said, “Can ye be sae sure she’s no’ under duress?”

The niggling doubt was there. Along with his need to hear her voice.

He told himself that if she’d been forced to write that note, she’d have given him Simon’s name, not Peter’s. A warning. All the same, he would think of an excuse tomorrow to call the Lockwoods.

He was turning away, the note still in his hand, when he saw the blood on his shirt. He had forgot that he’d been stabbed.

Going out to the motorcar, he retrieved his torch and spent the next half hour on his knees, making certain there was no telltale blood for Frances or her maid to find. He marked the few spots and scrubbed them out himself.

Finally satisfied, he left the house.

He spent another hour dealing with Baxter, then reported to the Yard that the man was in custody and asked Billings to see to the paperwork.

“Where is Diaz?” he asked the Inspector.

“He’s under lock and key. Not without a struggle. He told me you were a man tormented by ghosts. What did he mean by that?”

For an instant Rutledge could think only of Hamish. Not a ghost, but a haunting nevertheless of the living by the dead. And then he remembered the ghosts of dead shepherds calling from the edge of the cliff. The piping of seabirds coming in to nest at night. He said, forcing amusement into his voice, “It’s a legend of Madeira. Meant as a taunt. That I was chasing a will-o’-the-wisp.”

“He’s a nasty piece of work, I’ll say that for him,” Billings told Rutledge.

And then Rutledge went home.

The flat felt stuffy, but there was no lingering scent of applewood smoke.

He dressed the thin cut on his chest and went to bed.

Late in the afternoon of the next day, Hayes arranged for Miss Whitman to be released. Gooding was to remain in custody until Monday morning, when all charges would formally be dropped.

Hayes himself was present when she walked through the gate. Traynor had come with him, and he went forward quickly to greet her and lead her toward freedom and Hayes’s motorcar.

Rutledge was there as well, standing a little distance away from the lawyer’s motorcar.

She looked very tired; there were dark circles under her eyes, which seemed more brown than green from where he was watching. Her hair, usually so lovely in the sunlight, was dull, without life.

She saw him, stopped for a moment, and their eyes met. But she didn’t acknowledge him. After all, he hadn’t kept her out of Holloway.

He waited until Hayes’s motorcar was out of sight before walking back to his own and driving away.

Ahead of him still was the knotty problem of what to do about Mrs. Bennett and her household.

And whether to leave Mr. Bennett in peace in that quiet garden.