Proof of Guilt

Chapter Six

Rutledge carried Miss French into a small waiting room that the attendant pointed out to him, and it was not long before she came to.

Her statement had taken him completely by surprise. But he didn’t press her for more information until her color had returned and she seemed to be aware of her surroundings again. She wheeled around, as if expecting to see the table with the covered body somewhere just behind her.

“It’s all right,” he said quietly. “This is a private room. We can stay here as long as you like.”

She relaxed and closed her eyes again. After a moment she said, “Michael was buried in France. My elder brother. I didn’t— We never saw him.”

“But you saw Lewis just now?” He wasn’t convinced she knew what she was saying.

She opened her eyes, a little of her spirit evident again. “I have told you. That was not Lewis. Although at first—the scratches on his face—I saw those first. But it wasn’t my brother.”

“You are absolutely certain then.”

“Absolutely.” She saw the glass of water he was holding, took it, then gave it back to him, her hand shaking too much to try to sip it. “Could we leave, please? I seem to smell that odor still. It’s making me quite ill.”

Other witnesses had said much the same thing. Rutledge himself had become inured to it. But he had never become inured to the dead, even after four years in France, where bodies had been almost as common as the rats underfoot.

He gave her his arm, and they walked together down the long passage back to the motorcar. Once there she seemed to revive completely, pulling on her gloves and fiddling a little with the buttons at the wrists as if to distract her thoughts.

When they had left the hospital behind, she said, “I can’t understand why you thought that man might be Lewis.”

“The watch, of course, which sent me to French, French and Traynor. The clerk there identified it, and he told me Lewis French was in Essex. I went there to find out. And he’s not at the London house. Where, then, is he?”

“I have no idea. My brother has been his own man since he left for University.”

“Was he in the war?”

“No. He’s subject to seizures. The Army wanted no part of him. He might as well have had the plague. It bothered him more than he was willing to admit.”

Which meant there were no war wounds to use for identification purposes. Rutledge was still not satisfied that the dead man was not French.

There was also the likeness to the portrait of Howard French.

As if she sensed his reaction, Miss French said, “My father had a mistress, I think. I was never told, of course, but I remember my mother crying sometimes when he seemed to be too busy to come home. It wasn’t until much later that I understood why his absences upset her. And when he died—he outlived my mother—there was a woman’s photograph in his desk. It had one of those hidden compartments, and I found it quite by accident. Perhaps my mother had found it as well. I can’t say. I did wonder— I’d look sometimes at the village children, searching for a likeness. But of course if he’d been involved with someone locally, it would have been the height of foolishness. Gossip would have ferreted out the truth, wouldn’t it? Perhaps she lived in London. I don’t know.”

“You are telling me that the man in the mortuary could be your illegitimate half brother?”

She took a deep breath. “Women do have children out of wedlock.” And then without warning, she began to cry. “It could have been Lewis lying there. I haven’t got over Michael’s death. What if I’d lost Lewis as well?” She fumbled in her bag for a handkerchief and buried her face in it.

They had almost reached the London house when she said, her voice thick with tears, “I’m so sorry. It’s the shock of everything. And I parted with Lewis on bad terms. Over airing bedrooms. I was so angry— I know I haven’t married, I know I haven’t got a house of my own, but I’m not a servant, and I couldn’t bear to be treated as one.”

He was glad to hand her over Robert. Between them they got her into the house, and as the door swung shut behind the footman and the woman on the verge of collapse, Rutledge could hear the harried young man’s voice saying, “I’ll call Mrs. Rule, shall I? She’ll know what to do.”

He was to dine with Frances that night, and he was twenty minutes late.

As soon as he’d left Miss French in the hands of her brother’s household, Rutledge had returned to the wine merchant’s offices in the City. Frederick Gooding came to collect him after he’d been greeted by another young clerk, this one named Simmons. Gooding conducted him past the portraits and into an office where bills of lading, orders, and ships’ manifests nearly covered the top of a large partners desk.

“I’ve been going over the books,” he said in apology. “That’s one of my duties. The late Mr. French, Mr. Lewis’s father, believed that a quarterly review of accounts discouraged embezzlement and gave him a clear picture of where the firm stood. Where the wine was going, who had purchased it, what bottoms we were shipping it in, and what the output of the vineyards was, as well as the status of wine being aged in the main office, in Funchal.”

“And how does the firm’s business stand?”

“Quite well, as a matter of fact. Since the end of the war we’ve been very fortunate in rebuilding our clientele and finding ships that can carry our wares. Shipping took a terrible blow, what with submarines and raiders attacking convoys. But I daresay the newer vessels have a faster turnaround rate than the old ones. There’s always a silver lining.” Shifting the subject, he said, “And have you been to Essex? Have you spoken to Mr. French?”

“He was not in Essex,” Rutledge said. “Nor is he in the house in London. His sister is in residence there now. She has no suggestions for finding him. I was hoping that you might help me.”

Gooding frowned. “This is most unusual. When he’s away, Mr. French is always careful to tell me precisely where he will be at any given time—within reason, of course—so that I can reach him if there is an emergency. If he says he’s in Essex, then he is in Essex.”

“Unless of course he’d dead.”

Gooding’s face paled. “Don’t even say that. There is no one to take over the English half of the firm if something happens to Mr. French.”

“There’s his sister.”

“Sadly, I don’t believe she knows enough about the business to make sound judgments.” He studied Rutledge’s face for a moment. “You aren’t— You had Mr. French’s watch. He is never without it. Is there something you haven’t told me?”

Rutledge said, “Before I go into that, there’s something else I need to discuss with you. I’m told that Mr. French’s father had a second family, one that his wife and children were not aware of. Is this true?”

If he’d suggested that the late Mr. Laurence French had possessed two heads and was born a Hottentot, Gooding couldn’t have looked more astonished.

“If the Mr. French I served was engaged in such an affair,” he said after a moment, “he would not have confided in me. If you are after such details about his private life, I suggest you speak to his solicitors. The firm of Hayes and Hayes.”

But the Mr. French the clerk had served was an older man—and a junior clerk would have been the last person he’d have confided in. Still, this meant that there was no gossip in the firm about the man. He had been very discreet. Not surprising if he was expecting his son and his nephew to come into the business at some future date.

“I had reason to believe that Mr. French was killed last week in a motorcar accident,” Rutledge said. “Miss French went this morning to identify the body. She didn’t know the man.”

“Then it wasn’t her brother. I should think she knows him better than anyone.”

“Will you go with me to look at the body?”

“No,” Gooding said firmly. “If I disagreed with her for any reason at all, whose word would you take?”

“I should be forced to take hers. But I should continue to search for Lewis French.”

“Then my word would be superfluous.”

And Gooding wouldn’t budge from that position.

In the end, Rutledge went to the Inns of Court and found the street where Hayes and Hayes had their chambers. The elder Mr. Hayes agreed to see him. Rutledge said nothing about the dead man. Instead he began with the late Mr. French’s will.

“I should like to know if he made any provisions for a second family, one that his wife and children knew nothing about.”

Hayes regarded him with what Rutledge could only describe as hooded eyes, although the impression came from the second fold of skin that age had deposited on the lids. His eyes were a cold gray, deep set. Bristling gray brows like an overgrown thicket jutted out above them. Rutledge found himself thinking that such a fierce scowl would be a very effective weapon in a courtroom.

“I could of course show you a copy of the will,” Hayes said finally. “But I can assure you that there was no mention made in it of a mistress or children born out of wedlock.” Rutledge was about to speak, but Hayes held up a blue-veined hand. “Nor was there a codicil setting out such an arrangement. Why should you believe that such a provision existed?”

“Miss French went with me this morning to look at a dead man I believed to be her brother. It was very difficult for her. I was already fairly certain that it was Lewis French. She assured me it was not. And she told me later that her mother had been very concerned about the elder Mr. French’s fidelity. It would account for a resemblance I’d noticed between the dead man and a portrait at the wine merchant’s, if the victim had been her father’s child by a mistress.”

“Then she is greatly mistaken. Her father as far as I know was faithful to his wife. It was his father, Mr. Howard French, who had an affair before he was married with a young woman who died in childbirth. The child was adopted by one of his father’s servants. We have no other information about that child. Presumably he was never told of his true parentage.”

Which would explain, Rutledge thought, why a nervous and rather insecure wife might imagine her own husband had strayed.

He said, pursuing that thought, “Was Lewis French’s mother wealthy?”

“She was very wealthy. Her father had made a fortune in shipping, and with the marriage came a very satisfactory arrangement for the French and Traynor wines to be carried around the world in that firm’s bottoms.”

Small wonder the woman was insecure, more especially if she had been as plain as her daughter.

“Then the man in the mortuary could well have been a descendant of Howard French’s—er—indiscretion.”

“It is entirely possible. Although highly unlikely.”

But how did he come by that watch? And where was Lewis French?

“Do you know the name of the family that was given the child to foster?”

“There is no record to my knowledge. Mr. Howard French provided for them at the time, and no bequests were made at his death or that of his son. Lewis French’s father.”

It was the ideal way to handle such a youthful indiscretion. The servants would be given a tidy sum to move elsewhere and take the child with them. A gamekeeper, a groom, a coachman, a head gardener. No one would think anything about a family suddenly coming into a small inheritance from a distant relative and deciding to move to the cottage in Wales or Kent or Cumberland that had been left to them. And it would be surprising to find anyone who remembered such an obscure event so long afterward.

“The baptismal record? Was there one?”

“The child would have been baptized in whatever village the family chose. Or not, as the case may be.”

If the servants were Chapel, then it would be almost impossible to find any record at all.

A dead end. And Rutledge disliked dead ends.

“If the man in the mortuary is not Lewis French, then where is he? And why is he not in Essex or in his London home?”

“I can’t answer that,” Mr. Hayes replied. “Not from any reluctance on my part. Simply the fact that we don’t know the answer. But if there was something he wished to do without his sister’s knowledge, then it’s his business and not that of Scotland Yard.”

Rutledge left soon after. His experience of dealing with solicitors had long been one of accepting that they would answer the questions put to them precisely and generally quite truthfully, with very little additional information volunteered, unless giving that was also to their advantage. For all he knew, Mr. Hayes held in the firm’s boxes the solution to his inquiry—but to unlock that bit of information would require a prodigious leap of imagination on Rutledge’s part to come up with the right question. He smiled to himself at the thought. Still, Hayes was not concealing information concerning the whereabouts of Lewis French. Of that Rutledge was nearly sure.

He carried this knotty problem with him to dinner, although he tried to hide his distraction from his sister. Frances was all too perceptive when it came to her brother, and she soon had him in a better frame of mind.

But as he drove home at the end of the evening, he had come to accept Miss French’s statement as the final word on the identity of the man who had been left on Huntingdon Street in Chelsea. Whether he was satisfied or not, there was no alternative.

The next morning Rutledge gave an oral report to the Acting Chief Superintendent.

Markham listened, nodding from time to time, until Rutledge had finished. Then he leaned forward in his chair, his brows drawn together in a frown.

“You’ve told me who our inconvenient corpse is not. You can’t tell me who killed him or why he possessed a watch he had no right to. What’s more, you’ve lost its lawful owner, Lewis French.”

Rutledge took a deep breath. “French has a fiancée in Essex. I’d like to speak to her before Miss French returns from London. There was no reason to call on her during my first visit. French may have confided his intentions to her rather than to his sister.”

“They weren’t on good terms, the brother and sister?”

“I have a feeling that French imposed on his sister. She maintains the family home, and she was in the midst of preparing for a cousin’s arrival. She was rather angry with French for leaving when she could have used his help.”

Markham linked his fingers, stretched them, then uncoupled them. “The dead man’s not the cousin?”

“I should think Miss French would have recognized him. The wine merchant’s clerk is awaiting news of Traynor’s travel arrangements. He’s returning to England from the firm’s office in Funchal.”

“And what is Funchal when it’s at home?” Markham asked testily.

“The principal city on the Portuguese island of Madeira. It’s where French, French and Traynor have done business for three generations. Apparently before that, they were solely London importers of wines and spirits.”

Markham considered Rutledge with raised eyebrows. “You aren’t telling me you wish to travel there, are you?”

Rutledge smiled inwardly, remembering that Yorkshiremen were notoriously tightfisted. “I’m sure any information I need can come through the police there.”

Markham sat back in his chair, his face clearing. “Off to Essex with you, then. And bring back results, if you please.”

An hour later, Rutledge was on the road again, heading toward Dedham.

What results? he asked himself as he drove through London traffic and turned east, then north.

Hamish, restless in the back of his mind, reflecting Rutledge’s own unsettled mood, said, “Ye ken, ye canna’ return now withoot something.”

His first duty was to look for the nearest local police station and speak to the constable there. On his earlier visit, there had been no need to pay a courtesy call, but now there was, and Rutledge was hoping not to have to deal with the larger force in Dedham. Smaller police stations, often with a single constable on duty, generally knew the people in their villages better. Nor was there that tendency toward resentment of the Yard infringing on another man’s turf.

Passing the French house, Rutledge found the village of Stratford St. Hilary less than a mile beyond. There was no sign of the Dominican abbey, although a wide green could well have been the site of the order’s church and outbuildings. If so, then this had been no more than a satellite community rather than a major branch of the order. Clustered around the green were a number of rather handsome houses and shops, and a small, ancient building that was a pub now—The Tun and Turtle, according to the sign—which could have been here in coaching days. Too small for a hotel, it probably offered a room or two to visitors when necessary. He could just see a stream running past the back garden and winding away among a thin stand of trees. On the far side of the stream he glimpsed the chimney pots of another large house. He wondered if wool had built the small church or if it had been a private chapel in the days of the abbey, for without it the village was no more than large hamlet.

Rutledge found the police station sandwiched between a stationer’s shop and a narrow-fronted bakery. The bakery was already closed, but as he passed the door, the faint smell of yeast breads and cinnamon lingered in the warm evening air.

The constable was not in. But he’d left a message on a small board by the door for anyone who needed him. It read:

AT HOME

There was no indication where HOME might be.

Rutledge had counted on the constable to give him the name and direction of French’s fiancée. The other source for information was of course the rector.

He left the motorcar where it was and walked toward the church. It sat on a slight knoll, and in the churchyard that sloped down to the street he could see mossy and lichen-etched stones leaning crazily in front of much later ones that marched up the slope to disappear around the apse before reappearing at the far side.

The French family monument was ornate, and in the shadow of the tower. But there were a number of other grand mausoleums and weeping angels in the centers of family plots. As he stepped out of the motorcar, Rutledge could see TRAYNOR incised in the base of a stone, the shaft broken and draped with mourning in a very Victorian concept.

The Rectory was a modest house up a lane overlooking the churchyard.

Rutledge walked there as the sun dropped behind the yews that encircled three sides of the low wall.

A man in shirtsleeves was standing on a high ladder, painting the house trim.

Rutledge called to him as he came up the path, “Is the rector in?”

The man looked down at him. “Sadly he is out. Is there something I can do for you?”

“I’m looking for Lewis French. He isn’t at home. Nor is his sister—”

The man spilled a great dollop of paint as he lifted his brush out of the jar without wiping it. “Drat!” he exclaimed. Then to Rutledge he went on: “Miss French isn’t at home?”

“I believe she’s still in London.”

“London? Is something wrong?”

“Should there be?” Rutledge asked.

The man came down the ladder. “She never leaves St. Hilary. Well. Only to visit the shops in Dedham.” He looked ruefully at his paint-stained fingers. “I can’t offer to shake hands. But we don’t run to rectors here. I’m the curate. Williams is my name.”

He was fairly young, thirty perhaps, and he walked with a limp. When he saw Rutledge had noticed it, he grimaced. “The war. I was a soldier and then a chaplain after I was invalided out. But what’s this about Agnes French going to London?”

“She was looking for her brother. She didn’t find him. I thought perhaps his fiancée might know where he went after he left the house nearly a fortnight ago. Apparently he hadn’t confided in his sister.”

“He seldom does,” Williams replied with a shake of the head.

“They don’t get on?” Rutledge asked with interest.

“I wouldn’t put it that strongly. Both of the brothers—that’s Michael, who died in the war, and Lewis—were often in London with their father, being introduced to the firm. Agnes was a homebody. She never went anywhere.”

“By choice or by lack of invitation?”

“I don’t really know,” Williams said, considering the question, his head to one side. “I wasn’t here then, of course. I’ve been told that she looked after her mother throughout her last illness and then took care of her father after his stroke. It’s what daughters do. Unmarried ones, most particularly.”

“Had the sons—Lewis and Michael—visited Madeira?” Rutledge asked.

“Yes, from a very early age—twelve, I’ve been told. But Agnes never showed an interest in travel.”

“Or pretended she had none,” Rutledge said, “after being excluded.”

“She never gave the impression she felt excluded.”

But then, Rutledge thought, she wouldn’t have shown how she felt, if it had hurt her. Her general disposition spoke volumes.

“Lewis is responsible for the management of the London office, I understand.” When Williams nodded as he cleaned paint from his fingers with a cloth that was already saturated, Rutledge went on. “Would Miss French take a position in the firm if anything happened to her brother?”

“Oh, I’m sure she wouldn’t. She’s had no training, you see. There’s the cousin, Traynor, of course. It’s not as if there’s no one at the helm.” He gestured over their heads. “The last time Traynor was in England he paid for the Rectory chimneys to be repaired. Before that the house was nearly uninhabitable for weeks, with smoke filling the rooms. I wasn’t here then, it was before the war, but my predecessor told me what we owed to his generosity. Sorry. I’ve wandered off the subject. Why should Miss French be looking for her brother?”

“You must ask her when she returns. Meanwhile, I’d like to find Lewis French’s fiancée.”

“Yes, of course. Mary Ellen Townsend lives in Dedham. There’s a house not far from the church. You can’t miss it, there’s a plate on the door just before it—her father’s the local doctor and that’s his surgery.” He glanced up at his own house. “I’ve lost the light, haven’t I? Well, I can’t say that I’m sorry. I really can’t abide painting, but there’s no one else, is there? I’m sorry, I don’t believe I caught your name?”

He hadn’t given it. “Rutledge.”

“I’ll bid you a good day, Mr. Rutledge. I hope you enjoy your stay in St. Hilary.”

Rutledge walked back to the motorcar, listening to Hamish in the back of his mind.

“Ye didna’ tell him the whole truth. Or who you are,” the soft Scottish voice said from behind Rutledge’s left shoulder, where he’d so often been standing in the trenches. He wasn’t there, of course. But Rutledge had never had the courage to look and see if he was when Hamish MacLeod was speaking.

“Sometimes the whole truth is not the best choice,” Rutledge answered aloud and earned himself a stare from the man walking a small dog. He hadn’t seen them in the gathering dusk.

He drove back to Dedham and quickly found his way to the surgery, avoiding construction in the square.

It was located in a smaller brick building adjacent to the three-story house where Townsend and his family lived. Leaving his motorcar just down the High Street, Rutledge walked back to knock at the house door.

A maid answered, and he asked for Miss Townsend.

“Your name, sir?”

“Rutledge,” he said. “I’m looking for Lewis—Lewis French. He isn’t at his house, and it was suggested that he might be here or that Miss Townsend knew where he was going. It’s urgent that I find him. A matter of business.”

“One moment, sir.”

Two minutes later, a young woman came to the door. She was fair, with blue eyes—and quite pretty.

“I’m told you’re looking for Lewis. I thought he’d left for London. Is something wrong?”

He looked up the street where an elderly couple was strolling in their direction, enjoying the warm evening. “May I come in?” he asked.

“Yes, of course.”

She ushered him into a formal room where she offered him a seat, and then she hesitated before taking one herself, as if doing so would encourage him to stay longer than he should.

“I was told at the firm in London that I could find Lewis French here in Essex. But apparently he’d already left some days ago. His sister couldn’t help me, but she thought you might know his plans.”

That seemed to surprise her. “Did she? Well, I’m afraid I don’t know anything myself. He was here on the Thursday before he left, for lunch, and he told me that he expected to get an early start for London the next day. He needed to reach his cousin in Madeira. He said something had come up that he wanted to discuss with Mr. Traynor.”

“I’d heard that Mr. Traynor was on his way to England.”

“Yes, but his travel plans were indefinite, and Lewis didn’t want to wait for his arrival.”

“Did he seem upset about whatever it was he needed to discuss with his cousin?”

“Not—upset. I had the feeling he was more annoyed, out of patience. He said he’d always wondered how he was going to solve the problem if it ever came up, and now that it was actually here, he could see he needed help. The clerk Gooding seemed to be the person Lewis always went to when he wanted advice, and I suggested that he telephone London rather than make the trip. But he shook his head and said that even Gooding couldn’t work any magic here. Then he changed the subject, and we talked about other things.”

. . . he’d always wondered how he was going to solve the problem if it ever came up, and now that it was actually here, he could see he needed help . . .

It would be easy to jump to the conclusion that what had disturbed Lewis was the sudden appearance of a member of the illegitimate line of the family. And if his mother had indeed been fearful that her husband was a philanderer, then he would have been primed to believe whatever he was told.

Had he met this man? What had happened? If the other man was dead, had Lewis French killed him and then disappeared?

Except for the watch, there would have been nothing to connect the French family with the dead man.

On the other hand, Lewis’s problem could be a question of dealing with a shipping firm that was no longer satisfactory or changing bank managers. A matter in which the partners themselves would have to make a decision.

Hamish said, “Or how to deal wi’ his sister, and her increasing outrage.”

An interesting point. She herself had told Rutledge that she had quarreled with her brother before he set out for London.

Miss Townsend was still speaking. “Are you a friend of Lewis’s? I don’t believe I’ve heard him mention your name.”

“I’m not surprised,” Rutledge said. “I’ve only known him . . . officially.”

Her face was lit by a smile. “I know very little about the business side,” she admitted. “I don’t think I’ve ever tasted Port or Madeira. My father doesn’t care for wine or spirits.”

“Yet you are marrying a man whose livelihood is wine.”

“My father understands that. Of course he does. His feelings are personal.”

Rutledge had run into this sort of thing before. He’d have been willing to bet that someone in the elder Townsend’s family had been a drunkard.

“I’m so sorry I couldn’t help you,” Miss Townsend was saying.

It was dismissal, but he’d learned more than he’d counted on.

“Do you know if Mr. French was wearing his watch when you had lunch with him?”

“His watch?” She was completely lost. “Should I have had a reason to notice it?”

“No, not at all. I was thinking that perhaps he’d mislaid it—it could explain why he’d missed our appointment.”

She smiled, her face clearing. “Lewis is always on time. No, there must have been some other reason.”

He was just preparing to thank her and take his leave when the door opened and a portly man with fair hair and a mustache came into the room.

“Mary, I was told someone called.”

“Papa, this is Mr. Rutledge. He’s looking for Lewis. Something to do with the firm.”

“Indeed.”

“Thank you for your help, Miss Townsend. It’s possible I just missed him in London. I’ll try again. Good evening, sir.”

Rutledge made his escape before Townsend could ask more questions than he was prepared to answer. And as he was opening the outer door, he heard the man’s voice saying, “You have no business entertaining a stranger without a member of the family present. Furthermore, I shall tell French that he’s not to send his business acquaintances—” The rest was cut off as Rutledge stepped outside.

As he walked back to the motorcar, he swore under his breath. Neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring . . . Why did the dead man have that watch? Or to turn it around another way, why was Lewis not wearing the watch? It was a symbol of who and what he was. Not something he was likely to give up easily.

Hamish said, “Unless it was no’ for verra’ long.”

It occurred to Rutledge that French had palmed the man off with the watch and then looked for a chance to run him down. Then why hadn’t he recovered the watch first thing? Had he been interrupted?

And that brought up another missing piece of property—Lewis French’s motorcar. Had there been enough damage to make it impossible to drive into London without questions being asked? Was it somewhere in England where an unwitting smith was making repairs so that French could reappear? It would be impossible even for Gibson to trace such a small shop.

Rutledge drove back to the Sun, once an old coaching inn, and took a room for the night. It was too late to return to London anyway, and he could put the morning hours to very good use here.

It was nine o’clock when he rang the bell at the French house. Nan opened the door and at once looked beyond Rutledge, as if expecting to see her mistress alighting from the motorcar.

He said, “I’m afraid Miss French has decided to stay in London for a few days. I’ve come to ask—did Mr. French leave his motorcar here or take it with him to London?”

She stared at him.

“The problem is, we can’t seem to find him in London. If the motorcar is still here, perhaps he took a train.”

Her face cleared. “I believe he drove himself, sir. He usually preferred it.”

“Then very likely he stopped off to visit a friend.”

“He could have. He wasn’t expected in London for several days.”

“And you saw him leave?”

She looked away and then back at him. “He left in the evening. He and Miss French had had words about readying the house for Mr. Traynor. I heard the door slam, and Miss French went out after him. Then she came back, dismissed me for the night, and went into her room. I thought she’d been crying and didn’t want me to see.”

“Did they often quarrel? Miss French and her brother?”

“Not often, sir. But she felt sometimes that he was unappreciative of all she did. And I must say, it was true. She told me once that she didn’t envy Miss Townsend.”

“Where were they to live when they married? Here? Or in London?”

“I expect in London.”

He thanked her and left.

Coming out of the drive, Rutledge saw the curate, Mr. Williams, peddling his way. He waited for him, and Williams pulled up by the iron gates.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” the curate asked.

“Yes, thank you. Are you going into Dedham? I’ll give you a lift.”

“Nice of you! Shall I lash the bicycle to the boot?”

“Yes, you’ll find rope in there.” When Williams had finished and joined him in the motorcar, Rutledge said, “I haven’t known Lewis French long. What sort of person is he?”

“Nice enough chap. I think the elder brother, Michael, was the pick of the family. Everyone had high hopes for him. But then he didn’t come home from the war, more’s the pity. Lewis has made a go of the firm, and his fits seem to have lessened with age.”

Rutledge had forgot that Miss French had mentioned her brother’s seizures. “Were they severe?”

“Not as a rule. But a time or two they were very bad. If he were very upset, the spells were worse. Dr. Townsend had to be called in once. French had bit his tongue rather badly. You’ve been asking a good many questions about the family, and French in particular. And you listen, which encourages confidences. Perhaps it’s time to ask who you are?”

There was nothing for it but to give the curate a fair answer.

“My name is in fact Rutledge. And I’m an Inspector at Scotland Yard.”

There was stunned silence. His companion turned to look at him, then stared straight ahead.

He could see the curate remembering everything he’d told Rutledge. A lonely man—there had been no sign of a wife—he’d talked freely, trusting that his instinct about people was right, and this stranger was what he seemed.

“Forgive me. I hope I have done no one any harm,” he said at last, then paused. “If the Yard is involved, then we must be dealing with murder. Are you here about the victim? Or the killer? And what does the French family have to do with this business?”

“A dead man turned up on a quiet street in London. There was no identification, and we were at a loss to explain how he got there, where he’d died, and most urgent of all, who he was. But he was carrying a rather unusual timepiece. Somehow, whoever emptied his pockets missed it. Or for all we know, left it there on purpose. We investigated the watch, and it turned out the owner was one Lewis French. We thought we had identified our man. He was not French, as it happened. Still, we needed to know how he’d come by French’s watch. But we haven’t been able to find Mr. French. Or the motorcar in which he left his house over a fortnight ago.”

“Dear God.” As the whole of what he’d been told sank in, Williams shook his head.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you. But have you spoken to Miss Townsend? Could she tell you where French had gone? Surely he wouldn’t hare off on a whim without saying something to her. It’s my understanding that he had planned to be here at least a week. That was the impression he gave when he came to services that first Sunday morning after he arrived from London. He told me there was a problem at one of the farms on the estate. Worm, he thought, and he was to speak to a man in Dedham about replacing the infected wood.”

“And did he, do you know?”

“I expect he must have done, as later in the week I saw the carpenter’s dray turning into the farm lane as I was coming back from visiting one of our parishioners.”

That was the thing—in a village as small as St. Hilary, there were eyes everywhere. But if he was returning to London, French would have gone in the opposite direction, through Dedham.

“The assumption is that he stopped off to visit a friend on the way to London, and since he wasn’t expected to return to French, French and Traynor straightaway, he didn’t think to tell anyone his plans. But that seems odd to me. Gooding, the senior clerk in London, hasn’t heard from him, and French had had a telephone put in at the house here expressly to allow him to stay in touch with his clerk whenever he was in Essex.”

“I don’t like the sound of this. Not at all.”

“Precisely why the Yard has sent me here. Until now I’ve been very careful not to raise any alarms. But it’s important to start a search now. He could have been set on and robbed. He could be injured or unable to report what happened.”

“Have you spoken to our constable here in St. Hilary?”

“I stopped at the station yesterday. He wasn’t in.”

“I don’t know that he’ll be much help,” Williams said skeptically. “He knows his patch, and if anything had happened to French near St. Hilary, he’d have heard something by now. He keeps his ear to the ground. But he hasn’t said anything, has he?”

“He would have no reason to be looking for French. I have to begin where he was last seen.” He let the silence between them lengthen. He didn’t think the curate had ever encountered murder, for he still appeared to be taking it all in. Then he asked, “Was French’s father—or grandfather for that matter—ever involved with other women?”

“Involved with—not to my knowledge. And I’ve heard no gossip in that direction. How does this fit into murder?”

“Sometimes people left out of a will are vindictive. I understand that that watch has some significance in the family. Perhaps it has more value in that direction than if it were sold. If a thief tried to sell it, many jewelers would be suspicious.”

“I see where you’re going here. Still, why had your London victim been stripped of his identity?”

“There’s the possibility that someone else hired him to steal the watch. And when it came to turning it over, the thief got suddenly greedy.”

Or whoever killed him had decided that he knew too much?

“Then why did the thief’s killer leave it?”

“Because it was now tainted. Most especially if anything had happened to the owner, Lewis French.”

“Oh dear. I quite see now why you’ve been reluctant to raise the alarm until now. And I also understand what took Agnes French all the way to London. If her brother wasn’t here, he had to be in London. I’ll be happy to help in any way I can. But I must ask to see your identification. You will understand why.”

Rutledge pulled to the verge. They were nearly into Dedham, and this was the widest place in the road. He took out his identification and passed it to Williams. The curate examined it with care, then handed it back to Rutledge.

“Thank you. I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered anyone from Scotland Yard before this.”

Rutledge could see that Williams wasn’t certain whether to consider this an honor or a curse.

After a moment the curate added, “To be honest with you, I can’t think of anything I might know that would be helpful to you. None of my parishioners has any deep dark secret that might lead to murder.”

Rutledge found himself thinking that if there were secrets, no one would consider confiding them to Williams. He was rather naïve for a man who had fought in the war and then turned to the church for his livelihood.

“There must be someone else who knows the family well.” Rutledge reached for the brake and let in the clutch, moving out in the sporadic traffic on its way into Dedham.

“I never knew Michael, of course. But his tutor is still alive, and he lives in a small house here. He was also Lewis’s tutor, I believe. And there’s Miss French’s governess, but her mind isn’t what it once was. Sad, really, but she’s up in years. Michael French went to call on the tutor whenever he was on leave, or so Miss French told me. But Lewis finds him too dull to visit, I’m afraid. Sorry.”

“Still, I’ll keep the tutor in mind, if this inquiry isn’t closed one way or another soon.”

“With French dead? God save us, I hope not.”

It wasn’t until Rutledge was waiting for the curate to remove his bicycle from the boot that Williams said, “There is someone. I should have thought—she was engaged to Michael, and then to Lewis. Only she broke off the engagement quite suddenly. She’s known the family for years. She might be able to help you.”