No Shred of Evidence: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery (29 page)

“This is why I’ve been away. Trying to track down who’s behind it. I’m fairly certain now it’s a different inquiry altogether, but until I could prove that, there was a strong possibility that George St. Ives was somehow responsible. Trying to throw doubt on the charge against his sister and Victoria.”

She was silent for a moment. “I don’t know George St. Ives. But I find it hard to believe that he would do such a thing—according to Elaine he almost never goes out. And to attack the vicar? What good would it have done if he’d killed Mr. Toup?”

“If I’m right about what I’ve learned, he had no reason at all.”

She said, “We live with silence. Mr. Grenville is careful not to overstep his role as our guardian. I hardly see my friends. My father is very angry, and he refuses to let my mother come to Cornwall. She feels Victoria ought to stand up and confess, clearing our good names at the same time. She believes it’s the only answer, that Victoria owes it to us. You’ve been my only anchor through this.”

He was touched by her words. “The problem is, there isn’t a shred of evidence to support a charge of murder against three of you. But Mr. and Mrs. Saunders have joined Trevose in his call for a trial. And then you’re in the hands of a local jury, which is uncertain at best. It may come to that, but I’d much rather it didn’t. As for Victoria, she may not stand up and confess because she sincerely believes she has done nothing wrong.”

“Ian . . .” She hesitated. “I have spent a good bit of time alone, thinking. It’s worried me that Victoria was being so difficult that afternoon. I don’t know why, really, we’ve never had the chance to talk about it. I don’t want to believe she deliberately tried to harm Saunders. I don’t think, to be honest, that she took his plight seriously until she saw us struggling to bring him into the boat. Perhaps that’s why she belatedly thought about the oar, because for a moment or two, it looked as though Sara and I would be pulled into the water with Saunders. We couldn’t have clung to him very much longer, and that’s the truth. As it was, it took more strength than we realized we had to keep his head above water and his arms in our grasp. The thing was, we’d lost so many friends in the war, sometimes very quickly, often terribly slowly. The thought of letting go, of watching him drift away and drown, was insupportable. We were desperate to save him. At any price. Sometimes I’ve wondered if she dropped that oar to make us let him go, for our own sakes. Or if she was trying to put it in his hands, in order to save us. If he could just have held on to it, while we made for shallower water, we might have been all right. But he was too far gone. If we’d fallen overboard with all our petticoats and heavy autumn clothes, we very likely would have drowned too. Sara surely would have.”

She looked away, fighting tears. After a moment, she went on. “If you ask, I expect all of us will admit to nightmares. Even Victoria. It was, actually, rather awful.”

“I wish she had told me this at the start.”

Kate shook her head. “I don’t know that Victoria herself understands it. And there was no one from Scotland Yard present when we gave our first statements. We were surrounded by men, all talking at once, and the farmer was shouting murder, and we didn’t know what was wrong with Harry, whether he would be all right. Someone thrust a pen into my hands, and gave me a sheet of paper, telling me to write down what had happened. I hardly knew myself.”

A thought occurred to him. “Did you mention, in that first statement, that the dinghy had sunk in midriver?”

“Yes. But no one believed us. The farmer had told them we were pushing Harry Saunders out of the boat when first he saw us.”

And when Inspector Barrington died, and no one knew if the Yard was going to send a new man to Cornwall, those statements disappeared, along with Barrington’s notes.

He stared at Kate, hardly seeing her sitting there in front of him.

Bloody hell, he thought, realizing what must have happened. If those first statements were missing, no one would be able to say with any certainty that in them the four women had claimed the dinghy was sinking. It could be considered an afterthought, and a good prosecutor could very well have claimed they made it up later to save themselves. Even Pendennis had dragged his feet when ordered to bring in the salvage boat.

When Barrington collapsed, there must have been chaos in the inn dining room, and someone could have climbed the stairs, found Barrington’s papers, and hidden them. Or taken them home to burn in the farmhouse hearth.

Trevose. He was the only person to have anything to gain by taking them.

He rose, had to stop himself from embracing Kate for her help.

“I must go. They’ll be wondering why I have kept you so long.”

Startled, she looked up at him. “Ian. Is everything all right?”

She knew him too well.

“Something has occurred to me. It might be important, it might not. But it’s worth pursuing. Come on, we’ll find that maid to see you safely upstairs again.”

“You’ll tell me, won’t you, if it has helped?”

“I promise.”

R
utledge was eager to be on his way, but he changed his mind at the last minute and asked to speak to Elaine St. Ives.

Waiting for her, he thought about what Kate had told him.

Hamish, in the back of his mind, was warning Rutledge that he must not weigh her words more heavily than those of the other three women.

“I haven’t,” he said under his breath, loud enough for Hamish to hear him. “But I know how to measure what she says against what I’ve learned. I can’t believe she would lie to me.”

“She was no’ charged with murder before,” the Scot said darkly. “In 1914.”

And then Elaine was there, and he set aside the question he’d been about to ask her and instead said, in a voice that blended sympathy and knowledge, “Tell me what it was like during the war.”

Surprised, she forgot her nervousness in remembering. “It was rather awful. We couldn’t train as nurses, our parents forbade that. So we did what we could, what we were allowed to do. Mostly helping people cope. I didn’t mind that. But it was hard, meeting the trains. The men going to France were often frightened, and trying valiantly not to let anyone know. Some of them were little more than boys, they’d never left their village before, and here they were on their way to war in a foreign country where no one even spoke English. We gave them tea and buns, and talked to them, jollying them a bit, asking if they had a sweetheart at home, telling them we thought they were the bravest of the brave.”

Tears filled her eyes. And Rutledge thought, she should never have been allowed to do what she had done at the trains. It had taken too much of a toll on a sensitive and kindhearted nature.

“That was bad enough. The trains of the wounded were worse. Shattered bodies, burned or broken or gassed, bloody bandages, so much pain. And we smiled and welcomed them to London, telling them they’d be all right now. I lit cigarettes for some and put them in their mouths. I just held the hands of others. Or told them England would take great care of them. But I came to recognize the shadow of death. Some of them would never be all right. And sometimes when I was tired, I’d see George lying there, or Stephen. I was almost glad when I was told Stephen was dead, had died quickly, without pain. It was a relief. Such a relief.”

Rutledge had written many such letters to the families of the dead, and it was a stock phrase, used over and over again by all the officers:
Your son—brother—husband died quickly, without pain, and his final thoughts were of you. He was a brave man, a good soldier, and I was proud to have been his commanding officer . . .

Even when that man had died screaming in agony, cursing the war and the Germans. A kind lie, a last service for the dead.

And those at home had believed the kind lie, because they needed to.

“Tell me about Stephen Grenville.”

“He and Victoria were very close. Just as George and I were. I think sometimes she wished it had been Stephen who’d been sent to America. I think she resented the fact that Harry had been safe and never fired his revolver at anyone.”

“Was that why she didn’t encourage his interest in her?”

“I don’t know. She told me once even a conscientious objector did help win the war. He served in a hospital or drove an ambulance or was a medic. Something that didn’t require him to shoot anyone.”

“Do you think Victoria resented his posting to Washington enough to wish Saunders dead?”

Startled, Elaine said, “Oh—no—no, of course not. I meant only that having lost her brother, she probably couldn’t bring herself to care about someone like Harry. I didn’t see anything wrong with what he’d done—someone had to go to Washington, to convince the Americans to come into the war. It was important. Think what would have happened if they hadn’t come in at all.”

“Did Harry care for her?”

She gave him a wry smile. “In a village like ours, or even in Padstow, there aren’t many choices for people like us. We’re allowed to be friends with the vicar’s daughter, the doctor’s daughter, the squire’s daughter. But Mr. Toup and Dr. Carrick didn’t have daughters. I think that’s why Victoria and Stephen and George and I were so close. As for poor Harry, there was no one. He could fish and sail with our brothers, but he was the banker’s son, and not considered a suitable match for us. And I expect his father felt the same way, that he wished his son to marry well, in his own circle. But I don’t think Harry was above teasing Victoria a bit.”

It was said without arrogance or condescension. It was merely the quiet assurance of someone who had grown up in a house like Padstow Place and had been taught from the nursery on what was expected of her and the name she bore.

“Did you like Harry?”

“Of course I did. He was very nice.”

It was time to ask the question that mattered. “Do you think Trevose—the farmer—did all he could for Saunders, once he got him into the boat?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. It happened so fast, everything at once, and there were Sara and Kate and the farmer floundering in the bottom of the boat, thrown there in a heap as Harry was pulled from the water. Someone kicked me in the shins as I tried to find the oars, and then someone stepped hard on my foot, and my hand got caught against a thwart. I could see that Harry was on the bottom, and I was afraid he couldn’t breathe. We were rocking wildly all that time, and then Kate and Sara righted themselves somehow. But the farmer did try to get the water out of him. I do remember that.”

“And it was successful?”

“Harry coughed a bit, as I remember. And that’s when they turned him over, and I could see the wound in his head. Then I remembered Victoria and the oar. But she was trying to help, to give him something to hold on to. Kate and Sara would never have got him into the boat. He was too heavy, with all those wet clothes.”

T
he maid who came to escort Elaine St. Ives back to her room was surprised when he asked to speak to Victoria’s mother.

If Trevose had watched her carefully over the years, she must surely have watched him equally closely.

Mrs. Grenville was showing the stress of recent events. There were dark smudges under her eyes, and he guessed she must be having difficulty sleeping.

“I hope you’ve come to bring me good news,” she said, trying to smile.

He said, “I’m sorry, I only have more questions. For instance, I would like to know if Trevose ever had difficulties with the elder Saunders. At the bank, perhaps?”

“I have no idea,” she said. “You must ask Mr. Saunders, I think.”

“It’s understandable, but Harry Saunders’s parents aren’t speaking to the police at the moment,” he replied wryly.

“Then I don’t know where to tell you to turn. If a matter came to the attention of the magistrate, then my husband might be able to tell you.”

But Rutledge had no intention of speaking to her husband about Trevose.

He thanked her and left the house, driving on to the Trevose farm.

The farmer hadn’t come in, he was told by the housekeeper, Bronwyn, and she was holding back his dinner for him.

“It’s you I’ve come to see,” he told her, and watched the morose expression on her face change to one of curiosity and then dark suspicion.

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“I’ve heard rumors in The Pilot about Trevose’s dealings with the elder Saunders at the bank. I’ve come to give you a chance to refute them.”

“Here. I don’t know his business. It’s not my place.”

“You’ve heard him pace the floor and swear at the bank. It must have been difficult to get credit after the war. And Saunders doesn’t strike me as a kind man. He knows the rules, he doesn’t offer any respite over monies due.”

“And that’s the truth of it,” she said, suddenly angry. “The sowing hadn’t been done nor the sheep shorn. And there he was, knocking on the door, wanting his money. It’ud been a bad year for everyone, but the well was drying up and we couldn’t pay to dig another one. And then the well had water again. Just after he saw the piskey.”

With an effort of will, he managed to keep himself from reacting as her words registered. He said, “A piskey?” And made it sound as if he were amused.

“Don’t make light of it,” she scolded. “Trevose saw him, and the dog never growled. Next morning there was water enough to draw up. After that we got the seeds in and it was warm enough to shear.”

“When was this?

“During the war. ’Seventeen, it was,” she retorted. “Didn’t I just tell you so?”

But she hadn’t. For many people like Bronwyn, time was not marked off in numbers on a calendar but by events. The day the cow went dry, the day the rains spoiled the hay, the day the baby died . . .

But the spring of 1917 was too early. Rutledge had hoped for a more recent sighting.

He was about to thank her when she said, “And the piskey was there again.”

“The same one?”

“That’s daft, who can tell one piskey from another? It was the night before poor Mr. Saunders was pulled into the boat. Trevose said it was a sign. He is always one for signs.”

“What sort of sign?”