No Shred of Evidence: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery (32 page)

But Hamish, in the back of his mind, was raising doubts.

“If he canna’ find yon lass, if he kens you were in Fowey and Boscastle as well as in Bodmin, he will come for you. And when ye send a telegram through yon meddlesome man in Padstow, you canna’ be sure he willna’ hear of it.”

“I’m more concerned about the man in Bodmin who sent the telegram for Mrs. Worth. The only alternative is to ask the Chief Constable to contact the Yard.”

Restless now, he would have liked to go out after his meal and walk for a time. But when he looked out the window, a mist was rolling in from the sea. Rock had disappeared entirely, and the river itself was hard to find.

Not a night for wandering about. Not when his revolver was in his London flat, in the trunk under his bed.

20

T
here was a pounding on his door in the middle of the night.

Rutledge, awake on the instant, thought, My God, he’s found her.

But when the door burst open before he could set his feet on the floor, it wasn’t Daniels standing there, a torch in his hand. It was a livid Walter Grenville.

“There you are, lying in your bed!” he shouted. “And all hell breaking loose.”

Rutledge reached for the matchbox and lit the lamp. “What is it? What’s happened?”

“She’s gone. A quarter of an hour, that’s all it was. A quarter of an hour.”

“Where did she go?” He was already dressing.

“How the hell do I know?”

“Where is Daniels?”

“Daniels? Who the hell is Daniels?”

“Have you come from the vicarage?”

“I came from the Place. It’s the bloody middle of the night.”

“Who, precisely, is missing?”

“Kate—Miss Gordon.”

Rutledge stopped buttoning his shirt and stared at Grenville. “What are you trying to tell me, man? Start at the beginning, damn you.”

He did, launching in a nearly coherent account, this time.

“We let them exercise after dinner. We can’t keep them shut up in a room day after day. With the fog, it felt close in the house, breathless. I let them go out to the terrace to walk up and down. One at a time. It’s safer than the lawns. They run down to the river. First Victoria, then Sara—Miss Langley. After that, Miss Gordon. I timed them. I sat there in the room and timed them. When a quarter of an hour had passed, I went to the door and spoke her name. Quietly, sounds carry in the night. She didn’t answer. I stepped out on the terrace. She wasn’t there. We spent the better part of two hours searching the house and then the grounds. I went to the St. Ives house, thinking she might be there. God knows why, but I couldn’t think of anything else. But she wasn’t. They hadn’t seen her. I even went down to the landing, for God’s sake. And the damned boat is wet. Someone had it out tonight. You knew her before this. I thought she might have come to you.”

“No. She didn’t,” he said trenchantly, tying his boots. “Why didn’t you send for me at the start? Why wait until now?” He looked at his watch. It was nearly two in the morning.

But he knew why Grenville had waited. He was the magistrate, he was responsible for the accused put into his keeping. He had wanted to find Kate Gordon without any fuss.

And he had come to the man from London as a last resort.

Wasting precious time.

Without waiting for an answer, Rutledge said, “Quite. Do you let them walk every evening?”

“I’ve told you. They can’t remain shut up into a room.”

“Was there anyone on the river tonight? Did you ask the others? Your daughter or Miss Langley?”

He hadn’t. Rutledge read the answer in his face.

“Who would be on the river in this fog?” Grenville asked after a moment.

“Someone was. Your boat was wet. Whoever took her, he came in that way.”

Grenville ignored him. “Kate gave me her word. As did the others. She’s broken it. There was no one else. My wife told me she was homesick for London. She must be trying to make her way there. In the dark, alone, without a penny in her purse.”

“I doubt it,” Rutledge said, going out the door. Grenville followed him down the passage, leaving the door standing wide behind him. “Kate Gordon isn’t a fool.”

But where to look? Rutledge asked himself as he went down the stairs.

He had no doubt at all about who had taken Kate Gordon.

And if he was right, there would be a message soon. He could have told Grenville what it said, without even seeing it.

Kate Gordon for Alexandra Worth.

Hamish had been right. Her husband had found out who had sent that telegram. And who had received it.

R
utledge searched Kate’s room a second time, although it had been searched before, but there was no message waiting for him. That sealed his certainty. She hadn’t gone off on her own. And she hadn’t taken it into her head to play detective and help him find a way out of their predicament. She was too sensible for that. But by this time, he could almost wish she wasn’t. It would have been simpler.

“I shall have to send for Gordon,” Grenville was saying as they closed the door to Kate’s room. They had already spoken to Victoria and to Sara Langley, but neither of them had noticed anyone on the river that night.

“But I thought I heard a motorcycle,” Sara said. “I couldn’t swear to it. There aren’t many around here, I’m sure.”

He wasn’t convinced there had been a motorcycle. Putting someone bound and gagged on a motorcycle was a tricky way of going about a kidnapping. Still, he hadn’t been told of a strange motorcar on the road. Rare as they were even in London, they were rarer still in these parts. But how else had Worth traveled to Boscastle, to Bodmin, and then here?

“Right,” Rutledge said as he and Grenville came down the stairs again. “Do you have a map of this part of Cornwall?”

“From the turn of the century,” he said, and led the way into the study. “You think someone’s taken Kate. Why? What’s this got to do with Saunders’s death?”

Rutledge said only, “It’s too long a story and there isn’t time. But it has to do with the vicar as well as Saunders. I can set your mind at ease on one matter. Whoever it is doesn’t want Kate. She’s a pawn.”

“Who does this person want?”

“A summer visitor.”

Grenville, still asking questions, pulled open a long drawer beneath the table and took out a large map of North Cornwall that appeared to be from 1900. But Rutledge found that it held true, for the most part, despite the passage of twenty years. He could pick out roads, villages, even farmhouses and more than one of the sacred wells, dolmens, menhirs, and other relics of the past. It was amazingly complete. But he didn’t have time to study it in detail.

“If you wanted to conceal someone’s whereabouts, where would you go?” Rutledge asked, ignoring everything else.

Grenville cast him a sharp glance, then bent over the map spread across the table. Mrs. Grenville had come into the room and was standing by the fireplace. The fire in the grate was snapping sharply and taking some of the evening’s chill out of the room.

“Bodmin Moor,” Grenville said at once, a finger going to the moorland. “Or here.” He pointed to the headland beyond Rock. “There’s the ruin of an ancient fortress here. Certainly not medieval.”

“The moor is too far. And the headland is a trap, he won’t go there. What’s this large spot?”

“That? An abandoned quarry. Cornish stone was taken out of the ground, leaving a layered pit.”

“That’s what, about fifteen miles from here?”

“Nearer twenty, I should think.”

“Then that’s where he’ll take her.”

Grenville was all for summoning St. Ives and Langley and doing a little reconnaissance in force. But Rutledge shook his head.

“No. We’ll see what his demands are. She won’t be harmed. Not as long as he believes he’ll have what he wants in the end.” But she would be frightened—and stoic. He could count on Kate.

“Why Gordon’s daughter?”

“I don’t think he cared whose child she was. Only that she was someone with a father who cared. He may even have mistaken her for the magistrate’s daughter.”

“He must be mad.”

“Cunning is a better word.” He didn’t add the word chasing itself through his own mind:
dangerous
.

“But what has this to do with the charges against my daughter and her friends?”

“Nothing,” Rutledge said, and started for the door.

“Wait,” Mrs. Grenville said. “You say Kate—Miss Gordon—is a hostage. What does this man want?”

“His wife. He refuses to recognize a judicial separation.”

“Do you know where she is? Will you take her to him, to exchange for Kate? It seems rather—cruel.”

Rutledge had already considered that. “I can’t exchange her for Kate. Nor can I leave Kate at his mercy.”

“Then take me. Can you make me look enough like her? There’s nothing to be done about height or size. But it could work.”

It could. Mrs. Grenville had the same coloring and build. But he was reluctant to agree.

He knew why she had volunteered. She felt responsible for what had happened to her daughter. She was afraid to tell her husband. This was in a way her expiation.

Grenville was already protesting. “I won’t have it. We’ll go after Kate ourselves, and bring her back.” He started for the door. “Be damned with this.”

“He’ll kill her,” Rutledge said quietly.

Grenville stopped, wheeling to face him. “You can’t be sure of that.”

“I have seen what he can do. I won’t risk it. Not with Kate Gordon.”

“My dear, Inspector Rutledge will see to it that I come to no harm.”

“No, I refuse even to consider this.”

She put her hand on her husband’s arm. “Give Mr. Rutledge your revolver. I don’t think he will hesitate to use it.”

“Absolutely not. If we must do this, we’ll ask one of the maids.”

“No. That would be very unfair. Think about it, Walter. I can carry it off. I’ve always been good at charades, haven’t I?”

He smiled in spite of himself. “That’s hardly a skill you will find helpful in dealing with such a person. No.”

She wasted half an hour in persuading him. But in the end, he agreed. She went up to her daughter’s room and came back with a selection of gowns, asking Rutledge which might be more suitable to Mrs. Worth.

He chose a blue wool with a short jacket, and then a hat that more or less covered her hair. A heavy cloak against the wind, and appropriate shoes—she had only one sensible pair, for walking out—and she might just pass as Mrs. Worth.

“I’m going back to the inn,” he told her. “I must await the summons. Then I’ll come for you.”

Her eyes were worried, but she said steadily, “Of course. I’ll be ready, Mr. Rutledge.”

A boy from Padstow brought the message an hour later. He told Rutledge that the man had given him sixpence to bring the note and a shilling if he lost his memory on the way.

“And so I can’t describe him, sir. I have taken his shilling.”

“I’ll give you a pound, if you tell me.”

But the boy shook his head firmly. “No, sir. I have given my promise.”

Admirable, but frustrating. It didn’t matter, the man who had given the lad the message would have left Padstow before the boy reached the village.

Rutledge went up to his room and unfolded the square of paper.

You know what I want. If you are standing on the village landing at noon, I will give my word that she will come to no harm. For twenty-four hours.

Rutledge swore, but he drove again to Padstow Place, asked for Mrs. Grenville, and said, “I shall need you to stand on the village landing at noon. He has field glasses; you must be careful.”

“Give me fifteen minutes to change clothes.” She left the room.

Grenville said, “You have a message. Let me see it.”

Rutledge gave it to him.

“Yes, all right, then.”

Ten minutes later he and Victoria Grenville’s mother were in his motorcar on their way to the village.

“You didn’t need to do this, you know.”

She smiled and shook her head. “You know I must.”

“Your husband will understand.”

“He will. And that’s the worst part of it, you see. This way, I’ve done something to make amends for my part in what has happened.”

They were silent for the rest of the way. Rutledge drove the motorcar directly to the landing, and got out.

“No, stay here,” he said to her as she prepared to get down. And then he walked on to the edge of the landing. He didn’t know quite what to expect. Whether the ruse would work. But he was counting on the man watching them to be hungry enough to take the bait. Unless, of course, he possessed a rifle, and what he wanted as well was revenge.

He was standing there, scanning the opposite side of the river when something caught his eye. It was a single flash. He located it in a small stand of wind-shriveled trees high on the slope.

The flashes started again.

Morse code, he realized as he recognized the flashes. He shook his head.

The flashes began once more, and this time he pulled up the code from the depths of his memory and began to read.

The quarry. Ten o’clock tonight. Come alone with her. If you fail me, you know what to expect
.

Rutledge waited, but the message was not repeated. The flashes had ended.

He turned and walked back to the motorcar, thinking hard. Why ten o’clock? Would it take the other man that long to set up his traps?

He made a decision. He reached Mrs. Grenville’s side, and leaned forward.

Very quietly, he said, “I’m telling you something. Listen to it, and then shake your head vigorously. Angrily. Can you do that?”

She leaned forward, as if hanging on his words, then moved away, showing distress and anger.

He continued to talk to her, and she appeared to burst into tears. At that point he walked around the motorcar and got in, driving away.

When they were safely away from the River Camel, Mrs. Grenville said, “Do you think he believed in me?”

“I hope so.”

“I saw the flashes. What did he want?”

“Ten o’clock tonight. The quarry.”

She bit her lip, then said with more courage than she must have felt, “Very well.”

He spent another hour convincing Grenville. And then, drained, he went back to the hotel and up to his room.

“It’s a verra’ grave risk.”

“I know. God, I could use an aircraft. I would give a great deal to see this quarry.”

But there was no one he dared to ask, except Grenville, who hadn’t been there since he was a boy.

“A great empty bowl,” he said. “They scooped out the rocks like porridge, and left it. An eyesore. There’s no place to hide.”

“But he can see anyone approaching.”

“Yes, that’s right. I don’t think anyone has worked there these past twenty years. There’s talk of opening it again. Nothing has come of it. You aren’t proposing to do this alone? You can’t take the risk, Rutledge, with two women caught in the middle.”