Hunting Shadows: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery (11 page)

And so Ruskin had moved away from the main body of Swift’s followers and found himself next to Mrs. Percy, behind the market cross.

“Did you see Swift fall?”

“I couldn’t help but see it. One minute speaking, the next pitching over, and half his head missing.” Something changed in Ruskin’s face. “It brought back the war. I can tell you that. I thought I was done with the dead falling at my feet and the sound of gunfire. I’d put it behind me, and it all came rushing back. So I left. I saw no need to stay. There must have been forty some people who could talk to the police. They didn’t need me.”

That explained his leaving. It was something Rutledge could understand. And Hamish as well, stirring in the back of his mind.

“What did you see?” Rutledge asked quietly. “Up there in the dormer window?”

“God knows. It happened so fast, I thought it was a flashback to the war.”

“Describe it for me.”

Ruskin shook his head. “No. I don’t want to remember. It made my blood run cold. I told myself I was wrong, and that I’d imagined it. And so I set it aside.”

“Did you see the rifle?”

“No. No, not that.”

“Then what?”

He shook his head.

“You must tell me. I can’t find this killer if I don’t know what I’m searching for.” He waited. “Ruskin, I can have you arrested for refusing to cooperate with the police. Don’t make me take that step.”

The man looked directly at Rutledge then, his eyes haunted. After a moment he said, “Will you go away and leave me alone? I don’t want the police here, hounding me. I don’t want to dredge it up again and again.”

“I won’t tell Inspector Warren. Or your own constable. No one knows I’m here anyway. I came on my own.”

Barely satisfied, Ruskin searched Rutledge’s face. And then, against his will, Ruskin stood up.

“A helmet,” he said. “I saw a German helmet. I know, it’s impossible. But that’s what I saw. ”

And with that he walked away, disappearing into the back of his shop.

Rutledge sat where he was for a moment.

Hamish was saying, “He saw what he feared to see. Only that.”

Taking a deep breath, Rutledge got up and walked back to his motorcar. Across the rooftops facing him, he could see the elegant tower of the village church. He bent to turn the crank and got into the motorcar.

Had Ruskin imagined the helmet? He must have done, Hamish was right. Shocked by the rifle’s report and the dead man almost at his feet, he’d reverted to what he knew, the war and the trenches. Who else would be shooting at him but his German foes?

Still, the fact remained. He
had
seen something.

“Will ye tell the ithers?” Hamish demanded. “Ye gave your word.”

“Warren and McBride? The constable here? No. We’ll see what comes of it.”

Reversing the motorcar, he added, only realizing too late that he’d spoken aloud. “Who’s behind this business? Who is using the war to exact his revenge?”

I
f he was to remain in Wriston for several days, he needed somewhere to stay. Rutledge wasn’t certain that Priscilla Bartram would accommodate him. It was one thing to take in a stranger lost in the mist. Quite another to go to all the trouble of opening her inn to someone who might spend only a night or two there. Still, he hadn’t seen any other lodgings in the village. The Wake Inn was small, more pub than hostelry.

Then he remembered something Miss Trowbridge had said.
She needs the money.

Leaving the motorcar by the police station, he walked down the High Street to The Dutchman Inn.

Hamish said, “She willna’ be pleased ye didna’ tell her who you were.”

There was that. But he rather thought Miss Bartram would choose company in the evening over turning him down out of pique.

Whether she would talk as freely once she knew he was Scotland Yard was another matter.

When she came to the door, it was clear she was happy to see him again, telling him almost in the same breath that his room was still available.

“Have you finished your business in Ely?” she asked, urging him toward the sitting room. “Well, then, you’ve earned a bit of time to yourself. Not that spending it here in the Fen country is anything special, when the waterfowl aren’t coming in.”

Her face, however, changed when he told her who he was. She wasn’t best pleased.

“Scotland Yard, then. You could have told me when you were here. I’d have said nothing, you know, not even to Constable McBride, if you’d asked me not to. As it was, I may have said too much. About the people here. Mr. Swift.”

“I had yet to report to Inspector Warren in Ely. It was proper to do that first. In fact, it was happenstance that I came here first at all. It wasn’t where I intended to be.”

“You told me you’d come from Cambridge. Not London.” There was an accusing note in her voice now.

“And so I had come from there. I thought at the time you might prefer someone from Cambridge to a stranger from London.”

“Did Miss Trowbridge know? What brought you here?”

“She never asked,” he said carefully. “After all, if it hadn’t been for her cat, I’d have likely stumbled over the ruins of the mill keeper’s house and broken my neck.”

That mollified her, but she said stiffly, “What brings you back here now?”

He told her the truth. “I came to confer with Constable McBride. And to speak to Mrs. Percy. Although she appears to have withdrawn her remarks about a monster. She now claims she saw nothing at all.”

“Yes, well, who can blame her?” Finally satisfied, Priscilla Bartram relented and invited him to join her in the kitchen. “I was just about to put the kettle on.”

Rutledge followed her and sat down where he’d had his dinner the night of the fog. It had been a very different evening. Now the sun came through the windowpanes in golden shafts of light that fell across the well-polished floor, and the door to the yard was standing open. The light breeze carried in a sweet scent from the cut-flower garden just outside.

“Well now. Scotland Yard. My heavens. I never thought I’d be speaking to Scotland Yard,” Miss Bartram went on, the kettle filled and beginning to boil, the tea things set out.

“I remember looking at the waterfowl in the glass cabinets. Which reminded me of the reason this inn is here. Was there any hunting with a rifle?”

“My grandfather and his father owned a flat-bottomed boat, with a screen made of reeds raised above the bow. The hurdle maker made a new one each season. There was a duck gun hidden in it, only the barrel visible. A great noisy thing. One shot from that could bring down a dozen or more birds, and their dogs were hard-pressed to bring them in. But that was for market, you understand. In my father’s day, he’d take out guests in his boat and they’d wait for the birds to come in of an evening. A shotgun was all they required. There was nothing in the Fens of a size to warrant a rifle.”

“Perhaps someone used to do a little deer stalking in Scotland? Or shooting in Africa? Bringing his gun along to show the other guests.”

She smiled as she turned to the teakettle. “None of our guests had such lofty ambitions. They were shooting for pleasure and for the table. Mostly they’d come up from the south. London, some of them, and the Home Counties. One man was writing a book on migrating waterfowl. He drew the birds he brought back, then used watercolors to fill in the outlines. Quite lovely, the drawings were. Very clever. He’d pin the birds up into position against a painted backdrop, then start to work. Every feather in its proper place. When he’d finished with them, his wife plucked and cooked them.”

Not a very fitting end for the man’s models, Rutledge found himself thinking.

“How well did you know Mr. Swift?”

She went to the pantry and brought back slices of meat and bread, and the chutney he’d liked before. “Of course I never had any need of his advice. My father’s solicitor was in Burwell. Still, I’d met him here and there, but more a nodding acquaintance than
knowing
him. When he returned from Scotland and reopened his law business after the war, he kept to himself.”

“What was his background? Was his father a solicitor as well?”

“His father was a farmer, and he married more acres. There was money enough to send the two sons to university, but Swift chose the law, while his brother wanted the farm. They had words when the father died over what to do with the land. Swift wanted his share of the inheritance.”

“Trouble?” He took the sandwich she’d made up, and realized how hungry he was.

“In fact they came to an amicable agreement. I’ll tell you where there might be jealousy, though. There was a third boy. Wild oats, before the elder Mr. Swift was married. Still, he acknowledged the lad, paid for his education and the like, but he wasn’t legitimate and there was nothing for him in the will. He was apprenticed to Ned Miles. The barber. And the day the father died, Anson left Wriston and has never came back.”

“Was he in the war? This Anson Swift?”

“If he was, nobody knew of it. He didn’t join with the local men, if that’s what you mean.”

She brought the pot to the table and poured Rutledge’s cup.

He thanked her and then said, “No one seems to think that the Swifts were acquainted with the first victim, Captain Hutchinson.”

“Well, you never know,” she said, considering it. “Stranger things have happened. But on the whole, I’d say it’s not likely. Did you know that the Captain was here in the Fen country some months ago?”

Rutledge nearly choked on his tea. “What? Are you sure?”

“Well, not in Wriston, of course. But he came to a funeral in Burwell. The only reason I know of it is that later I recognized his photograph in the Ely newspaper.”

“Tell me.”

“I went to the service myself. The dead man, Major Clayton, was from Burwell, although he lived in London. His father was a military man before him, but their roots were here in Cambridgeshire. My father had known the family, you see, and I felt I ought to go. At any rate, there was a Colonel to give the eulogy and this Captain Hutchinson came north with him.”

“Have you told Constable McBride about this? Or Inspector Warren?”

“I thought surely they must already know.”

But Inspector Warren had been concentrating on Ely, and by extension, on Wriston. He’d said nothing about Burwell.

Rutledge sat there, trying to think. Was this the only time that Hutchinson had come north, before the wedding? Or had he had connections here that no one knew about?

Hamish, stirring in the back of Rutledge’s mind, said, “Ye ken, it changes everything.”

It bloody well did.

“Was anyone else from Wriston at Major Clayton’s funeral?”

Priscilla Bartram frowned. “I don’t believe so. No, I don’t remember seeing anyone I knew from Wriston. But that’s not surprising. I told you, Major Clayton lived in London. I never met him myself.”

The question now was, why hadn’t the murderer taken that opportunity, if he’d been intent on killing Hutchinson? Why wait for the far more public venue of Ely Cathedral and the wedding?

And the answer, Rutledge thought, was that Ely offered the killer a better chance of escape.

“Did Captain Hutchinson travel to Burwell with anyone in particular?”

“I have no idea. When I saw him, he was generally with the Colonel or the Major’s sister. There was no reason to pay particular attention to him, it was just that he was a rather handsome man, and you tend to notice such people.”

What had Mrs. Sedley told him? That the Captain had managed to find himself in the company of the prominent guests more often than was usual? A man who courted the wealthy or the powerful . . .

It was the first break he’d had. And he was going to make the most of it.

“What sort of man was Hutchinson?” he asked Miss Bartram.

“Well, of course I didn’t speak to him. I was just one of the mourners. But he was very pleasant to everyone. It seemed to me that the Major’s sister was grateful for his support when we went to the graveside. But then he left with the Colonel after the luncheon, while Miss Clayton was staying over with friends, unable to face the journey south that same day. At least that’s what I heard someone say. I really didn’t know anyone there, you see. I expect that’s why I noticed what was happening.”

Which must have been unpleasant for Miss Bartram, but very useful for the police.

Rutledge asked, “Was Herbert Swift at that same funeral?”

“I don’t believe he was. I never saw him if he was there.”

“How did you learn about the funeral in the first place?”

“There was an obituary notice in the Ely newspaper.”

Rutledge finished his tea and thanked her. She reminded him to leave his valise in the sitting room, and he saw to that before going out.

Ten minutes later, he was back at his motorcar and reversing to drive to Burwell.

It was necessary to pass Wriston Mill on his way, and at that moment Miss Trowbridge was opening her gate and stepping out into the road.

She was surprised to see him again and stopped by the gate.

Rutledge slowed. “Thank you for rescuing me. I spent a comfortable night at Miss Bartram’s inn,” he said, smiling.

“I thought your business was in Ely. Are you returning to Cambridge, or have you misplaced the road again?”

He was amused, but there was another side of the coin that had to be addressed, and laughter was not the best way to handle it. “Neither, as it happens. I’m afraid my business in Ely is only a part of what I’m here to see to. Miss Trowbridge, I’m an Inspector, Scotland Yard, here to investigate the murders of Captain Hutchinson and Mr. Swift.”

Her expression had been friendly, surprised, and a little pleased to see him again. But at his words it changed. “Indeed,” she said coldly.

“I have fences to mend,” he replied wryly. “But the fact is, I hadn’t reported to Inspector Warren in Ely. I was still—en route.”

“Are you not still an Inspector, ‘en route’?”

“Yes. In truth. But it’s not always pleasant to be reminded of duty.”

She had nothing to say to that.

“You and I didn’t discuss the murders. It was not official, that encounter.”