No Shred of Evidence: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery (30 page)

“How would I know? He did say the piskey was too tall. But he was in no mood to quarrel over that.”

Had someone been walking through the farm that night?
Too tall for a piskey
 . . .

“Perhaps he mistook George St. Ives, wandering about in the dark, for one. I’m told he sometimes does take to the fields.”

“I’ve seen St. Ives walking about. Face like a prune. Enough to sour the cow’s milk. He didn’t think I saw him, but I did. Trevose had told me he walked sometimes. You wouldn’t mistake him for a piskey, would you? Not the way
he
walked.”

Rutledge wasn’t entirely certain if he could tell a piskey from a person. And he wasn’t certain Trevose, accustomed to the superstitions of his Cornish upbringing, could tell the difference either.

But the question was, where had this “piskey” been going?

H
e all but forced his way into the Saunders home, setting aside the maid who had attempted to turn him away.

They were just sitting down to their dinner when he called, and turned on him as if he himself had killed their son, demanding that he leave the house at once.

Rutledge stood his ground.

“It’s urgent, sir, or I would not have presumed to disturb you. How much does the farmer Trevose owe your bank?”

“It’s confidential business in the first place, and I will not deign to answer you when I’ve already asked you to leave.”

“I am sure London will provide me with a court order to examine the bank’s books, and give me someone trained in doing just that. If I must turn to them.”

Saunders glanced at his wife. “If you will forgive me, my dear, I will answer his question and we will be rid of him.”

Tight-lipped with fury, she nodded. “This is a house of mourning. He should not be here. Give him what he wants,” she went on after a moment, “and let’s be done with it.”

Saunders turned back to Rutledge. “I can’t give you the exact sum. I don’t carry such numbers around in my head. It’s what I employ clerks to attend to. But he has had to mortgage his land. It’s not the best land in the parish to begin with. Even so, one man can’t farm there alone. And the men who worked for him left in 1915 to fight the Germans. It’s a common story, I’m sorry to say. And the men haven’t come home, have they?”

“Sadly, no.”

“I have not foreclosed. But we have had to badger him for what payments he can make. A bank can be a charitable institution only so far. Or it too is finished.”

“Thank you, sir. I will leave you to your dinner.” Rutledge nodded to Mrs. Saunders, and turned to go.

Saunders had the last word. “I shall report this intrusion, nevertheless. It was uncalled for.”

From the doorway, Rutledge said only, “You are required to help the police in their inquiries, and it is your son, after all, whose death we are investigating.”

“Then take those murderers to Bodmin Gaol. Then I will speak to you.” He turned his back on Rutledge and sat down at his table.

But Rutledge had got what he came for.

19

R
utledge ate a late dinner and went to bed. It was already past ten. He would have to speak to Trevose in the morning.

He seldom slept deeply since the war, although it was often only in sleep that he could escape Hamish’s voice and the reminders of the war that it brought with it.

And so sometime after three in the morning, Rutledge awoke with a start.

He couldn’t have said what it was that had brought him out of his sleep that abruptly. The inn was quiet around him, and the night outside his windows was quiet as well. He lay listening, almost certain he could hear the river as the tide turned to run out.

Hamish, lying in wait, was there in the darkness, the soft Scots voice low as it repeated his own doubts and worries in his ear. Try as he would, Rutledge couldn’t shake it off and return to the haven of sleep.

Finally, he got up and dressed, then quietly let himself out of the inn to go and sit on the bench by the landing. There was a chill in the air, and he lifted his coat collar against it, crossing his arms. In the distance he could have sworn he heard rowlocks, but the moon had set and the ambient starlight showed him nothing, even though he looked upstream and then down.

Hamish, whose hearing was even more acute, said, “By yon ither landing.”

Where the Padstow Place rowboat was kept? The man guarding it had been withdrawn long since . . .

He ran for his motorcar and cranked it, got in, and drove toward the landing. Unable to see the terrain, he left the motorcar close by the road and went in on foot, his torch in his hand.

By the time he reached the landing, the rowboat was drawn up onshore, where it was always kept.

But in the light of the torch, he could see that the hull was still wet, water dripping into the sand along the gunwales.

Someone had taken it out, and Rutledge would have given much to know who it was and where he had been.

“Upstream,” Hamish said. “Where yon houses overlook the water.”

George St. Ives, even though he was forbidden to go out on the water? It was said he loved the river . . .

Although Rutledge cast about for footprints, the loose sand refused to give up its secrets. In the end he walked back to the motorcar.

The steering wheel was wet, when he touched it after turning the crank. He looked down at his hands, feeling the moisture there, and then he reached for the torch and shone it in every direction. But no one was hiding in the rough grass or the low scrub that bordered the track just here. Turning the motorcar, he drove fast toward the gates of the St. Ives house, but he met no one on the road.

Nor was there any sign of life on his way back to the inn, except for a hare crossing in the glare of his headlamps.

He put the motorcar back where he kept it in the inn yard, and went up to his room. He didn’t like what had just happened. And Hamish, in the back of his mind, had much to say about it as well.

After lying awake until dawn, and then waiting another hour until the inn woke up and he could smell rashers of bacon frying, he went down to breakfast.

The question on his mind this morning was whether he should take Constable Pendennis with him as a witness when he went to see Trevose. It would be expedient, but he rather thought the farmer would have little to say to him with a witness present. In the end, he went alone.

Trevose was in the little shed to one side of the house, the one with the cracked window glass, sharpening tools on a wheel he ran with a foot pedal. Rutledge could hear the high-pitched squeal of metal. Following the sound, he found his quarry before Bronwyn had spotted him in the yard.

Standing in the shed doorway, he watched Trevose putting a fine edge on a scythe, but the dog at the man’s feet got up and stared at him. This caught Trevose’s attention, and he took his foot off the pedal, looking around.

He must have expected Bronwyn, for his expression was impatient as he turned. Then, seeing who was there at the shed door, Trevose set the scythe aside and rose slowly.

“Looking for me?” he asked.

“I was.”

“You came questioning my housekeeper last night.”

“Did she tell you? I’m not surprised.” Rutledge stepped away from the door, so that Trevose could move outside. The shed was filled with tools that would make excellent weapons, and he didn’t relish fighting off the dog and a hand scythe or hammer.

Trevose walked into the yard and stretched. “What’s brought you here today? Have you come to tell me those murderers are going to trial at long last?” His tone was sarcastic. “You stick together, your sort. I should have known.”

“Actually, I’m prepared to report that they should be tried.”

Trevose stared at him. “Are you now?”

“I’ve been busy searching out the truth, and I think I’ve found it finally.” Over Trevose’s shoulder he could see Bronwyn at one of the house windows, the white lace curtain pushed aside so that she could watch. “The fathers of the accused have sent for lawyers to handle the matter. London men, all of them. They won’t know much about the ways of Cornwall, but they are well trained in the law. It should be a short trial.”

“There was no truth to search out. I saw what was happening. I told everyone at the landing as soon as we were in shouting distance. Attempted murder,” he said with satisfaction. “Clear as the nose on your face.”

Rutledge smiled. “Yes, it probably was attempted murder. The report will state the facts. That there is no motive I can uncover for those four women to kill Harry Saunders.” He watched the other man’s smile change to a look of uncertainty.

“When they put me in the box, I shall make it clear enough.”

“There’s George St. Ives, you see. His sister and her friends rowed up as far as the St. Ives house to wave to him on the terrace. And it was quite obvious that Harry Saunders wasn’t with them at that stage. Meanwhile, we’ve recovered the dinghy just where the accused told us it ought to be. At this point it will be equally obvious that Saunders was in the water and the women went down to rescue him.”

“It changes nothing,” Trevose said. “I saw what I saw.”

“I think that’s true. You saw an opportunity. Here was Harry Saunders floundering about in the water, and two of the women were trying get him aboard. Only they weren’t strong enough to manage it. So you went out to help them, and between you and Miss Gordon and Miss Langley, you got him into the boat. That’s when you saw to it that in the commotion, Harry’s head was banged against one of the thwarts. Hard enough to knock him out. And then you proceeded to revive him. That’s when you told the women in the boat that they had attempted to kill him.”

“Not a word of that is true.”

“But I think I can persuade the lawyers from London that you saw a chance for a little revenge. Against Mrs. Grenville and against Saunders’s father. Mrs. Grenville was never tried for your brother’s death, but you could accuse her daughter of the same crime. Rather a poetic justice, that. And by harming Saunders, even though you didn’t realize he would die, you appeared to be his savior, which would put you in his father’s good graces when you next failed to make a payment on your mortgage.”

Trevose’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lying. Every step of the way, you’re lying.”

“The shoe is on the other foot. If I were you, I would begin to worry about perjury. If you’re sent to Bodmin gaol for perjury, who will care for this farm through the winter? I’m not a justice, I don’t know precisely how long you will be clapped up in prison. He very likely will take into account those stolen interviews in deciding your sentence. Quick thinking on your part, I grant you that. I expect they were lying there on the table beside Inspector Barrington’s bed, in plain sight and tempting. You’d been wondering, hadn’t you, how likely he was to take your word against that of Grenville’s daughter, and so far, Saunders hadn’t been able to talk to the police. But then Barrington’s belongings were packed away, and you couldn’t very well return the papers at that stage. What happened to them? I expect you burned them.”

Almost at once, Rutledge could see that he’d hit his mark.

“Get off my land,” Trevose said, his voice dropping as he made his threat. “Come again and you’ll have a nasty accident. Farmyards are dangerous places.” Beside him, the dog growled in its throat. “See, she knows what I’m saying. Whatever’s left of you can be plowed under, come spring.”

Rutledge stood there and laughed. “Threatening the police, are you? I’d as soon have a bruise or two to back up my account.”

He thought for a second he’d pressed the man too far. But Bronwyn was watching, and he wasn’t sure just how far Trevose could trust her, if he decided to act.

Rutledge silently counted to ten, then turned away.

“Think about it, Trevose,” he said over his shoulder as he walked back to the motorcar. “You’d have been all right, you know, if you’d only accused Miss Grenville. It might have worked, sad to say. But it’s too late. You were greedy and chose to implicate all four of those women. Their parents will see to it that you are punished for that.”

He had left the motorcar running, and he got behind the wheel, looking back at Trevose. “A few days ago, I wouldn’t have given the accused a chance in hell of being cleared. Now I’m certain it will happen.”

And he drove away.

Hamish said, as Rutledge made his way down the rutted, muddy lane that ran from the house, “And who’ll watch your back, when you walk abroad at night?”

It didn’t matter. He’d given Trevose something to consider.

If the man had told the truth as he had witnessed it, he would go straight to Constable Pendennis, or even, if he was angry enough, to Inspector Carstairs, and report what Rutledge had done.

And if the man had twisted the truth to suit himself, Hamish was right. Rutledge could expect Trevose to be there one dark night when no one else was about.

T
he telegram was waiting for him when he got back to the inn.

It had been brought over from Padstow shortly after he’d left.

He looked first at the sender, expecting it was the Yard wanting a report. But it was a name he didn’t know: S. Browning.

He must have followed you. He beat them, they are in Dr. Learner’s surgery, Bodmin. If you come, I will accept any help gratefully.

It was signed
Margaret Haverford.

The name she had used in Fowey. A name the gossiping Padstow telegrapher couldn’t have recognized.

He hadn’t been followed. Rutledge was certain of that. But he had told her:
If I can find you, so can he.
She hadn’t believed him.

He went back to the motorcar and set out for Bodmin.

When he reached the surgery in a trim house not far off the High Street, Rutledge was shown not to the reception room for patients but into a sitting room in the house itself.

The woman whose real name he still didn’t know sprang up from her chair as the door opened, and then relaxed a little.

“Thank God!” she said, and sat down again, rather heavily. “Every time that door opens, I’m afraid.”

“How are your friends?”

“The doctor won’t let me see them. I found someone to drive their motorcar and brought them here myself. There was so much blood—I hardly recognized them. It was awful.”

She was drawn, and he thought she had gone without sleep since the attack had occurred. The smudges beneath her eyes looked more like bruises, and the whites were bloodshot. She kept her arms folded close to her body, as if she felt cold, although the room was fairly warm from the fire on the hearth.

“Tell me what happened.”

“It was in the night—I think it was last night, I’ve lost track of time—I couldn’t sleep and I went for a walk.” She shuddered. “I could see Ronnie’s cottage from the road, and the lamps were still lit. I thought perhaps they’d found it hard to sleep as well. Your visit had unsettled all of us. I went toward the cottage, thinking we might have tea together. But the door was half-open, and that frightened me. I didn’t go directly to it, but to one of the windows. I couldn’t see anything, and I tried another. That’s when I saw Ronnie’s feet. Veronica. She was still wearing her street shoes. And the room looked as if it had been ransacked. I dared not go in alone, I was afraid he might still be there. I woke up the constable, and he came with me.” She stopped and swallowed hard. “It was so ugly. Blood everywhere, furniture overturned, Ronnie lying there, crumpled and hardly breathing, and Patricia hanging from her bonds where she sat in a chair, her clothes black with blood, her face so bruised, one arm dangling as if it were broken. Ronnie looked as if she’d been struck over and over again.
And they hadn’t told him
. That was the worst possible part—they had not told him.” She couldn’t cry. She was beyond the comfort of tears. She stared at Rutledge, not seeing him, remembering that room and what she’d walked into.

“I have to ask. Are you sure it was your husband?”

“I couldn’t ask—I don’t think they were conscious. They whimpered all the way to Bodmin. With every movement of the motorcar. And at one point, Ronnie said, ‘No, don’t hurt me any more, Will. She hasn’t told me.’ ” The woman’s voice was a mere whisper as she finished her account, her gaze pleading with him to understand what they had endured. “William. My husband’s name.”

“What about the police?”

“I have asked the doctor to wait until they are able to talk. And then I am away. Dr. Learner only knows that they were attacked. Not by whom or why.”

“That’s foolish. Let the police in Bodmin handle this.”

“I can’t. I tell you they’re no match for him. I’ll be dragged into court. And who knows what will happen? I’ll be blamed. Or they will be. He won’t be caught, I tell you. He hasn’t been caught.”

He swore under his breath. She was right in some respects. But it couldn’t go on. It had cost too much already.

“I want your name—your real name. Or I can do nothing for you.”

“Alexandra Worth.”

Rutledge went back to the surgery, found Learner working with his patients, and introduced himself.

“Yes, my nurse told me you were here. She’s under orders not to admit anyone she doesn’t know.”