Hunting Shadows: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery (34 page)

“Is it something—awful?”

“Nothing so important. That’s why I haven’t asked for a search warrant.”

Finally she agreed to allow him to take the key. He could see that Thornton was eager to accompany him, but he didn’t want the man there, any more than he wanted Miss Trowbridge to come.

Walking out to his motorcar, the key heavy in the palm of his hand, he wondered if he was right. If he would find what he wanted.

It took no more than five minutes to drive down to the church. He left the motorcar behind some trees, out of sight, and then crossed the grassy churchyard to the mausoleum.

It was built more like a Greek temple than the usual edifice of this kind, he thought, and perhaps that was what Ellen Trowbridge had wished to have. He stood for a moment, looking up at the inscription above the door. She had been buried under the name of the husband who had died. Had that rankled?

And then he set the key into the lock.

He expected the key to turn with some difficulty. Instead it clicked open without a sound, and he swung the gate wide. It moved smoothly on its hinges. The second lock yielded just as easily. And he knew then what he would find inside.

There was an opaque glass window in the back of the mausoleum. It gave a little light, enough to see the coffin of Mrs. Trowbridge to the right, and an empty ledge to the left.

And against the back wall in the space between the ledges was a small altar with a photograph and a candle and, of all things, a Celtic cross, not an Anglican one.

On the floor just inside the door was a large canvas sack.

So it was here after all. Almost a sacrilege, to leave evidence of murder in the tomb of the woman MacLaren had loved so deeply.

Or perhaps it was not. Catriona was her granddaughter too. And if she loved Angus MacLaren, then she knew the depths he was capable of. It was possible that she herself would have wanted to see Catriona’s persecutor dead.

Only MacLaren’s revenge had gone wrong. Was that why he’d killed himself? Or had it been to spare Marcella Trowbridge the truth about her grandmother’s other life? Or for Ellen MacLaren?

There was no way of knowing now.

Rutledge knelt on the smooth cool stone, his hands on the length of rope that tied the top of the sack. Then, remembering that he was in the churchyard where anyone might pass by, he decided against opening the sack here. Instead he picked it up to carry back to his motorcar. It didn’t clank or rattle, he noticed. Giving nothing away.

There was no one about when he locked the door and the gate again. He shouldered the heavy sack, pocketed the key, and started for the motorcar.

Halfway there, a voice called to him.

Rutledge turned to see Andrew March striding across the churchyard toward him.

Tensing in every muscle, he stopped.

“What have you got there?” March asked, coming up to him.

“Evidence, I’m afraid,” he said. “It’s a police matter.”

March looked around. “Did you collect it
here,
in the churchyard?”

“It was hidden here. It belongs—belonged to someone in Soham.”

“Ah. Not a Wriston man, then. Well. I’ll pray for his soul all the same. And how are you? Have you considered my offer of a little talk?”

“I—don’t believe I’m ready. But I’m grateful, all the same.”

March nodded. “I understand. But I will tell you that the longer you keep your fears trapped in your head, the harder it will be to free yourself from them. Remember that. And if you don’t come to me, find someone else to trust.”

Rutledge said, before he could stop himself, before Hamish could warn him to beware, “It was a letter, Rector. I received it just before I came north. It was from someone I cared for. Rather deeply.” He stopped, and then added, “It closed a door.”

It was offered as an explanation for Hamish’s presence, vigorously pursuing him from the time he left London. He wasn’t certain the Rector would understand. But it was the best he could do.

The letter had come from Meredith Channing. It had told him she wouldn’t be returning to England, that she was staying in Belgium with the man she believed was her missing husband.

I must do this,
she had written.
For my sake as well as yours. We would have nothing if we tried to build on a broken past.
But I have given my heart in your keeping. And if you find someone else to love, then you must promise to send it back, so that I will know.

And enclosed in the letter was a gold locket on a chain. The initials engraved on the front were those of her maiden name, not Channing. He’d thought it must have belonged to her as a young girl, for it was small and delicate, the sort of thing a child might have been given on her birthday. His parents had given his sister Frances a similar gift when she was twelve. Not a heart but a book that opened to show the photographs of her parents.

He hadn’t opened Meredith Channing’s locket. He didn’t want to see what was inside.

March, watching him, said, “And so the nightmares have been worse. Yes, it explains so much. Well, I’m here. You can always find me here.”

And he turned to walk away, not looking back.

Rutledge carried the canvas sack the rest of the way to his motorcar, and there he opened it.

Inside, well wrapped in wool, he found the steel helmet that a German sniper had worn, a Lee-Enfield rifle, with the name
H. R. I. BEATON
roughly carved into the stock, a medal with the same name on the back. Catriona’s father, who had died in the war? Brought home on leave, a gift from a present-day sniper to a man who had served in the Lovat Scouts? There was also a German sniper scope. Under them lay a smaller holdall with what appeared to be the tools of a scissors sharpener, a long-haired wig made of silk threads, and a gray cloth.

Rutledge stared at the last item and then reached into his pocket for the handkerchief he’d kept there, folded over a gray thread. He gently put the two together.

The thread and the cloth matched perfectly.

Rutledge stowed the items in the boot of his motorcar, all except the medal. He saw no reason why that should become the property of the police. It belonged in the African box.

Driving back to the Bower House cottage, he found Miss Trowbridge and Thornton waiting for him in the parlor.

She rose at once as he came in the door, saying, “What did you find?”

He handed her the medal. “I was mistaken. There was nothing to find. Except this, caught in the doorway. Someone must have wanted your grandmother to have it.”

She looked at it, then turned it over. “Beaton? But I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“Perhaps your grandmother did. I shouldn’t worry about it, if I were you. I’d put it in her box. After all, she’d have explained if she’d wanted you to know.”

Nodding, she said, “Yes, of course,” and then took the key from him as well.

Rutledge turned to leave. Thornton hesitated. “I’ll be in touch,” he said finally to Marcella before they walked to the door.

Miss Trowbridge, smiling, thanked him for offering to see to the windmill keeper’s remains, and then she stood in her doorway, watching as the two men went out to the motorcar.

After they were well away, Thornton said, “What did you discover? Surely it wasn’t just that medal?”

Rutledge pulled to the side of the road. It was empty in both directions, the day quiet, the land basking in the sun. He went to the boot, retrieved the sack, and showed Thornton the contents.

He whistled. “Good God. Is that what he was wearing when he shot Swift?”

“Very likely.”

“Where’s the straw suit he wore when he shot Burrows?”

“If he was as clever as I think he was, he’s burned it long since.”

Rutledge showed him the thread and how it matched the gray cloth, explaining the connection with Ely Cathedral.

Thornton shook his head. “Remarkable. His planning—I couldn’t have—I’d have been caught straightaway.”

Rutledge put everything back in the boot, got back behind the wheel, then turned to stare at Thornton.

“If I had obtained a search warrant, what would I have found in your house?”

Thornton blinked. Then he said, “Only a few unimportant souvenirs.”

Rutledge nodded. “I thought as much,” he replied dryly.

I
nspector Warren was not happy to have missed the conclusion of the inquiry. He looked at the items that Rutledge had spread across his desk, and said, “You’re sure of your information? You’re satisfied with it?” His glance strayed to Thornton, standing in the doorway. “It will all be in your report?”

Rutledge said, “Everything you will need to know will be in my report. I’ll finish it tonight.” It was not quite what Warren had asked for.

But the Inspector was moving on to what had happened in London. “And you say this man Lovat is dead?”

“Ruskin and others in Soham can show you his place of business and where he lived. They should be searched.”

“Then why were these items found in Wriston?”

“Would you keep evidence that would send you to the hangman in your house?”

“No, I expect I wouldn’t.”

They went over the details a second and a third time before Warren was satisfied. And then he remembered.

“That washerwoman. The one you questioned. She sent me an urgent message. I passed it on to you. What did she want?”

Rutledge had all but forgot about the messenger and his urgent summons.

“I haven’t spoken to her yet.”

“Then I’ll go with you.”

Hamish was in the rear of the motorcar as Inspector Warren stepped in. Rutledge tried to shut the thought out of his mind as Thornton turned the crank and they went to find Mrs. Boggs.

They were forced to wait for more than an hour until she came home from her work in the households of the well-to-do.

Her face was flushed, her eyes tired, but she smiled when she saw the three men on her doorstep.

“Well, then,” she said, “I thought perhaps it wasn’t important. What I’ve got to say. No one came to ask.”

“I was in London,” Rutledge told her. “Mr. Thornton here has also been helping us with our inquiries, and you know Inspector Warren, I think.”

“Indeed,” she said, nodding to him. She insisted that they come inside and have a cup of tea, and Warren, trying to quell his impatience, reminded her that he was expected back at the police station sooner rather than later.

Disappointed, she offered them the chairs in her tiny front room and sat on the end of her own as she faced them.

“You’d said, Mr. Rutledge, that if I remembered anything I thought might be important I ought to speak to Mr. Warren, here. And I did. I don’t quite know what brought it back to mind. I was doing some mending at the time, so I expect it was looking for my scissors.”

“What did you see?”

“I did tell you that I came quickly to see what the fuss was about. There were all these ladies and gentlemen come rushing out of the church, staring up where that poor man, Captain Hutchinson, was lying. It was then I saw him. The scissors grinder. He came out of the Cathedral behind them and walked away down the street there, toward the school or perhaps the shops. He had his canvas holdall, and I wondered what he was doing in the wedding, if someone putting up the ribbons and the flowers had sent for him. And then the police came, and he went clear out of my head.”

“Did you know him?”

“I’d seen him there and about. But he seemed a little taller than I remembered. I expect that was just because he was standing a little straighter in that company. I mean to say, he was the
scissors grinder
. The old man. As ordinary as can be. Still, I thought perhaps he might have seen something, and you’d want to question him if you hadn’t already.”

“Yes, that’s very true, Mrs. Boggs. We appreciate your help,” Rutledge said. “No one else reported seeing this man.” But he was thinking that even if he’d known about the scissors grinder, it wouldn’t have led to Lovat. Now, however, it reinforced what he knew.

They rose to leave, and Mrs. Boggs, basking in their gratitude, thanked them for coming, as if they had been valued guests.

In the motorcar, Rutledge said to Inspector Warren, “This scissors grinder. Who is he?”

“Old as he is, he gets about on his bicycle, going door to door, or wherever anyone stops him and asks for his services. He was at our kitchen door only last week. My wife was complaining that her scissors and some of the knives needed a new edge. My God, it never occurred to me to ask if he’d been in the Cathedral that day.”

“I doubt he was. But someone had a bicycle and tools. And he went unnoticed because everyone was accustomed to seeing him—or someone like him—around the countryside.”

“He’s a religious man,” Warren said. “He’s often coming in or out of a church.”

And MacLaren had somehow discovered that. It had been useful.

Thornton, listening, said, “Dear God.”

Rutledge knew what he was thinking. That whatever he himself had considered doing to Captain Hutchinson, it was MacLaren’s clever plan that had made it possible to kill the man.

They left Inspector Warren at the police station, still fingering the items from the canvas sack, as if still only half convinced that Rutledge was right.

From there, Rutledge drove to Isleham and set Thornton down at his house.

“It was a near-run thing,” Thornton said. “I could be facing trial right now.”

“Is that why you were searching for the killer on your own?”

“I wanted to know who held a grudge stronger than mine. I wanted to know who had killed the man I hated so much. I didn’t know what hate was.”

“Do something about your own rifle,” Rutledge warned him. “Don’t leave it for someone else to find.”

“I told you, I have nothing more than a few souvenirs.”

Rutledge said nothing, his gaze never leaving Thornton’s face.

“Damn it, you’re as sharp as that man Belford,” Thornton said finally. Then, “You must have kept your service revolver.”

Rutledge had. It lay in his trunk beneath the bed. Waiting until Hamish became unbearable. Cleaned, oiled, and ready to use.