Read Tales: Short Stories Featuring Ian Rutledge and Bess Crawford Online
Authors: Charles Todd
Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Mystery, #British Detectives, #Historical, #Traditional Detectives
“By the time the paperwork is completed, it could be too late. I’ll see if I can persuade Matron to put you on the next convoy to England.”
But Matron shook her head after Rutledge had made his request. “We have far more serious cases than this one. Private Williams is healing well. I can’t justify sending him back.”
“His life could be in danger, if he stays here.”
“Surely you exaggerate, Lieutenant. We’ve had no trouble at this hospital. The men who are here need care, and there’s no time for or thought of private quarrels.” She looked at a list. “What’s more, I don’t even have a record of the two men you’ve mentioned. Private Aaron Lloyd, Private Taffy Jones. It could be that you are entirely mistaken.”
But she didn’t know Private Lloyd or his half-brother. It was worrying that they hadn’t been treated yet—where were they? And Williams’ willingness to believe in the danger facing him was further proof that he wasn’t satisfied that the two Welshmen had finished with him.
Rutledge went to have a final word with Williams. “Matron won’t consider England. Still, I’ve warned the Sister in charge of this ward that you have enemies. It’s the best I can do. I’ve also asked one of the orderlies to watch for Lloyd and Jones, and report to Matron. It’s possible they won’t turn up here, that they’re waiting for you come to them. I wouldn’t go walking far, if Sister asks you to start exercising your legs again.”
“I’m grateful, sir. Truly I am.”
Rutledge stayed at the base hospital another day, walking through the wards, speaking to the patients, keeping an eye open for Private Jones and Private Lloyd. On the third day, his ambulance was set to leave for the Front and he had no choice but to be aboard, if he was to rejoin his company.
He spoke to Williams a last time, and five minutes later he was settling himself in the uncomfortable seat beside a different driver when he heard a commotion in the ward he’d just left.
“Wait for me,” he ordered the man as he got out and sprinted back the way he’d come.
He found a Sister bleeding from a blow to the face, and down the ward, where Williams had been lying just minutes before, he could see an overturned chair and bedclothes dragged out into the aisle. Men were sitting up in their cots, shouting to Rutledge, pointing back the way he’d just come.
He bent over the Sister, asking her, “What happened here?”
“Two men—they took away Private Williams. I couldn’t see their faces. They were wearing hospital masks. I don’t know where they’ve taken him.”
He shouted for help, but didn’t stay to explain to the staff rushing to the Sister’s aid, his mind already busy with the problem of where the three men might be. Had his own presence at the hospital precipitated this attack? Or the fact that he was seen to be leaving?
And then he heard one of the ambulances roaring into life, men shouting, and someone firing a shot.
He raced toward the line of ambulances he’d just left, saw his driver lying on the ground, dazedly trying to raise himself on his elbow. An orderly was already kneeling beside him. Rutledge ran on to the second ambulance in the line and called to the driver, “We’ve got to stop them.”
But the driver leapt out of his door, shaking his head. “They’ve got a weapon.”
Rutledge took his place behind the wheel, gunned the motor, and pulled out of line, turning in the direction of the fleeing ambulance heading fast toward the main road to Calais.
The ground was wet from recent rains, and he could feel his tires slipping and sliding in the viscous mud. Holding grimly to the wheel, he drove as fast as he dared, and then, when he saw he was making no headway, faster than was safe.
He was gaining, even as the ambulance bucketed across what passed for a road, narrowly missing a column of men marching toward the Front. He could hear the big guns behind him, opening up for another punishing marathon of shelling. And then the ambulance ahead of him skidded wildly, spun around, and missed a yawning ditch by inches. The driver got control again, but it had given Rutledge his chance. Praying that the tires would hold, he rammed his foot down on the accelerator and came up even with the fleeing vehicle.
Someone swung open one of the rear doors, and Rutledge could see Private Lloyd kneeling there. Behind him lay Williams. Lloyd was raising a revolver, pointing it toward Rutledge. But Williams somehow managed to use the rigid brace on his shoulder to spoil the man’s aim just as he fired. Furious, the man backhanded him, sending Williams hard against the metal side of the ambulance, just as Rutledge sped past, cut in front of the vehicle, and forced it into the low wall that was all that was left of what had been the approach to a French barn.
The ambulance hit the wall at speed and came to a jarring stop, throwing Private Jones, the driver, into the wheel and then the windscreen. By the time Rutledge had braked and got out, he could see blood running down Jones’s face. But it was the man with that revolver who was his main target.
He ran to the back of the ambulance and flung open both doors. Williams and Lloyd lay on the floor in a jumble of legs and arms.
Rutledge could hear another vehicle coming after him, but there was no time to wait. He climbed into the ambulance and pulled the unconscious Williams out, setting him against the stone wall. And then he went back for the armed man.
But Private Aaron Lloyd had broken his neck in the crash, his head striking the metal rim of the upper berths that held stretchers in place. He lay where he’d fallen, the revolver still clutched in his hand.
Leaving him, Rutledge went to look at the driver. Jones was badly hurt but alive, his nose and cheekbones broken by the impact with the windscreen.
“What the hell were you trying to do?” Rutledge demanded, pulling him from behind the wheel and leaning him against a wing. “Was it worth it, this abduction? Your half-brother is dead!”
“Williams ran off with my wife,” Jones tried to answer, his voice muffled by his bleeding nose. “Then he left her in Manchester to die penniless and alone.”
“Was he a trades union man? This Williams?”
“Aaron thought it likely. He came to the village where Sarah was staying with her sister. There was trouble with the colliery owner, and the man had to get out. When he left, Sarah went with him.” He closed his eyes. “Williams was the right man. I swear he was. My brother told me. He recognized the bastard.”
“Williams is a slate man. From North Wales. He had nothing to do with your wife.” Rutledge was watching the approaching ambulance come to rescue them. “Your brother lied to you.”
“Aaron never lies. Williams is from Manchester.”
“Then why didn’t Lloyd try to stop Sarah—or call you to come to Manchester to fetch her back? Where was he all this time, watching and doing nothing, letting her die alone?”
Jones stared at him through bloodshot eyes. “He said he tried. He said he even followed them to Manchester, but Sarah wouldn’t listen.”
“Apparently Aaron was a great one for
saying
. Where was
he
?”
“He was ill, bad lungs. He was sent away to recover. Away from the coal dust.” After a moment he added unwillingly, “To the same village. That’s how he knew.”
“And he didn’t warn you? He didn’t summon you to come and put a stop to whatever Williams was up to?”
The man’s gaze went to the open doors at the rear of the ambulance. He couldn’t see his brother’s body from where he lay. He made to get up, and Rutledge shoved him back down. “He said—” Taffy Jones began again.
“Why weren’t you holding the revolver on Williams? Why was it Aaron? She was your wife. You should have shot him.”
“He said I had no stomach for what had to be done. It’s one thing to be killing Germans. The blood’s up. I’d failed twice, when it came down to it. He said he’d see to it. Are you certain he’s dead? I don’t believe you.”
“Don’t you understand, you fool? I’d wager it was Aaron who ran off with your wife. Abandoned her when he had finished with her. And she was too shamed to come home again. Why else would he have been in the back of the ambulance, with the weapon? He didn’t want you to confront Williams. To listen to him. Why was he so insistent that Williams had to die? She was
your
wife, not his.”
Jones roused himself, putting a hand up to his nose and eyes. As if to fend off what Rutledge was saying.
“He wouldn’t do such a thing. You’re lying.”
“He tried to persuade you to kill an innocent man. For all I know, it was Aaron who shot Williams in the back—for
you
.
Your
revenge.”
In spite of the bloody mask that was Jones’ face, Rutledge could read his eyes. “It’s true, then. Bloody cowards, both of you,” he said in disgust.
“He told me he was a better shot. Doing it in cold blood.”
The other ambulance had caught up with them. An orderly jumped out and ran to Jones, then peered into the back of the stolen vehicle. Another came to kneel beside Williams, still lying against the wall but just regaining consciousness.
A third was demanding to know what had happened.
As Rutledge got to his feet, Jones tried to shake his head but was in too much pain. “I won’t believe you. Not until I’ve spoken to Aaron.”
“Believe what?” the orderly demanded. “Sir, we need to get these men to hospital. And what am I to do about that ambulance?”
Rutledge moved back. “I’ll explain later. Just now I want this man to be held under guard for attempted murder. There will be other charges, but that will do for now.”
The orderly lifted Jones to his feet. Jones looked up at Rutledge. Something stirred in his eyes. And then he lashed out at the man holding his arm.
Rutledge swore as the wounded man broke free of the orderly’s grip and stumbled toward the back of the ambulance. He held on to the doors and leaned in, peering at his brother’s body. “He wouldn’t have lied to me,” he insisted, his voice heavy with grief and pain. “Not Aaron. Not about Sarah.”
Rutledge pointed to the revolver. “Where did he get this?”
“He took it from a dead officer. He couldn’t find Williams in Manchester—he thought the bastard might be in France. And he was. Family honor, Aaron said.” Jones put up a hand and wiped at the blood on his face. “I loved her. I never thought she’d betray me. But when I looked at Williams, it all made sense. She always did have an eye for tall men.”
“Lloyd must have been afraid that you’d find out the truth and go after him instead. And so he tried to persuade you to kill an innocent man. That’s the only thing that makes sense. Family honor indeed.”
“He’d never lied to me before.”
“Have you asked Sarah’s sister? Did she describe Williams?”
“Aaron spoke to her. He said. I was down the mines, you see. I couldn’t go. But he could. What with the pneumonia.”
“You’re a fool,” Rutledge said again. “For all you know, Sarah is still in Manchester, waiting for your half-brother to come back from the war. You have only Lloyd’s word that any of this happened, and under the circumstances, I’d not trust anything he said. And if Williams was killed, you’d have hanged for it. Not Aaron. Didn’t it occur to you that if the Germans didn’t shoot you, your own side would? For murder? Cheaper than a divorce.”
Jones lunged at Rutledge, but the orderly caught him and this time held him.
Leaving them, Rutledge went to search the pockets of the dead man, and stopped, staring at something he’d just pulled out of Lloyd’s tunic.
Stepping out of the ambulance again, he held what he’d found out for Jones to see.
It was a letter. It didn’t require a policeman to realize that Jones recognized the writing. He also recognized the name on the envelope.
Private Aaron Lloyd.
Jones snatched the letter from Rutledge’s hand. Pulling the sheets out of the envelope, he unfolded them and started to read. Halfway through, he crumpled the pages in his fist.
“He told me she was dead! Buried in a pauper’s grave.”
Without warning, he reached into the ambulance, took the revolver from his half-brother’s dead hand, and before Rutledge could stop him, he fired three shots point blank into Aaron Lloyd’s inert body.
And then he dropped the weapon and meekly followed the orderly to the waiting ambulance. Stepping inside, he sank into the nearest cot, his hands shaking.
Rutledge bent down to retrieve the discarded letter.
It had been written only three weeks before. The first paragraph told him enough.
My darling Aaron,
Is it over yet? Please tell me Taffy is dead and that other man as well. And that you are safe, and will come home to me soon. I beg you to take care of yourself and let nothing happen to you. I couldn’t bear it . . .
Rutledge folded the letter and returned it to the envelope. He’d been right about Aaron Lloyd. But it gave him no satisfaction. Still, the letter could be entered into evidence when Jones was tried as an accomplice to attempted murder.
Williams, shaking his head as the second orderly tried to help him back to the same ambulance, said, “No. I won’t ride with that bloody man, Jones. Not after what he did.” And then to Rutledge he said, “Private Lloyd intended to kill me as soon as we were clear of the hospital. ‘Boyo,’ he said, ‘it’s a bit of bad luck for you, but the only way out for me.’ Cold comfort, that.”
A Bess Crawford Story
British Army Garrison, Northern India, when Bess Crawford was ten
“B
ESS, FOR GOD’S
sake, what are you doing?”
It was my father’s batman—his Army servant—standing in the tent opening. I was sitting cross-legged on the dusty carpet, and the fortune-teller had just finished spreading out her cards.
“Simon, please! I want to hear what she has to say.”
“And your mother will have my head if I don’t bring you back to tea
now
.”
“Pretend you haven’t found me—keep looking for another few minutes.
Please
?” I begged. “I know I must change before the Maharani arrives. It would never do to appear for tea looking as if I’d just come from the bazaar. But there’s still plenty of time.”
“You
will
have just come from the bazaar. She arrived early. And you’ll have fleas before you leave, if not worse.” He pointed to the dog lying behind the fortune-teller, busy scratching its shoulder.
If the Maharani had just arrived, it would be at least another half hour before tea was brought in.
“Simon—”
“I’ll be cashiered, Bess.”
“Shhhh. It will only take another moment or two,” I begged, then I turned back to the fortune-teller and said in Hindi, “Continue. But hurry, please.”
She bent over the cards, frowning. “You will be in danger on the water,” she said in that singsong voice that gave the impression she was in a trance. But she wasn’t. It was part of the show one pays for when one has one’s fortune told. “And I see a great conflict, not now, but to come.”
So far her guesses were on the mark. I was English, and there was always danger on the water as we took ship to and from home. As for a great conflict, my father was a British Army officer. War was his business, great or small.
Simon, still in the doorway, said again, in a voice that brooked no argument. “Elizabeth.”
I said to the fortune-teller, “Quickly! Who will I marry? And will I be happy?”
But her face had changed as she studied the tattered cards spread across the space between us.
“The life of someone you care for is in grave danger. My child, you must go now. Before it is too late.”
Simon’s life, for not bringing me posthaste to tea? She must have understood what he’d been saying to me. It wasn’t among his duties to play nanny to my father’s daughter, but occasionally it was necessary for someone to look for me when I strayed to the horse lines, the bazaar, the temples, and all the other far more exciting places than our quiet garden, and lost track of the time. It certainly wasn’t going to be my governess. Miss Stewart would have the vapors if she saw me now.
She didn’t care for India very much. I suspected she’d come out to find a husband, and had taken a position as governess when she failed to meet a young man to her liking. She wouldn’t be the first young Englishwoman to do so. When we left for England on my father’s next leave, she would very likely go with us, and remain in London rather than travel back with us.
I thanked the fortune-teller, disappointed. I hadn’t expected truth and wisdom, but I’d hoped for something I could write about to friends who had been sent back to school in England. Half our native staff went to fortune-tellers and believed in them. I had it on the authority of my
ayah
, the nursery-room maid, that this woman was the best.
I got up and walked to the tent opening, put out with Simon for spoiling my adventure. I said crossly, “I thought you and I were friends.”
“So we are,” he said, clearing a path for me past the snake charmer and the man eating fire. “But I have a duty to your father, and by extension, to your mother. You should have guessed the Maharani would arrive early. She often does. You could have asked me to take you to a fortune-teller tomorrow.” He pushed aside a sacred cow meandering through the crowded marketplace, and caught my arm before I could pause to watch the man climbing a rope to nowhere.
“I
could
have asked,” I said, “but I knew very well you’d have said no. So I came on my own.”
Exasperated, he said, “Bess, you aren’t safe wandering about a village by yourself. You’re an English girl, your father is an officer. You could be abducted, held for ransom. Worse.”
“In the last village where we lived, yes, I know. But here everyone is friendly. I’m not in any danger. Someone would come to my rescue. Besides, I brought my syce.” My native groom was holding our horses on the outskirts of the village.
Simon shook his head in disgust. “Much good he would be.”
I looked up at my companion. He was tall, and my mother said he was still growing. He’d come to us a recalcitrant, stubborn boy, having lied about his age to join the British Army, and nearly found himself in a cell before he’d been here six months. My father, seeing more in the rebellious boy than others had, made him his servant and set about taming him. Simon, he soon discovered, had come from a very good family and had been well educated. What had sent him haring off to become a soldier I didn’t know, but I’d grown so accustomed to having him underfoot and keeping an eye on me when my father was busy that he was now almost a member of the family. In fact I could barely remember a time when he wasn’t there. Sometimes I saw my father treating Simon as the son he’d never had. I wanted to be jealous, but I liked Simon too much to feel anything but relief that he hadn’t been court-martialed and shot before my father took an interest in him. He’d saved me from countless escapades that might have incurred the wrath of my mother and he sometimes had been my co-conspirator in mischief as well.
But not today.
Simon had left his own mount with my syce, and as he gave me a foot up to my saddle, he told the groom what he thought of him for allowing me to come to the village without a proper escort.
The syce listened soberly, but when Simon’s back was turned, gave me a sheepish smile that said he forgave me for getting him into trouble.
We trotted back to the cantonment, Simon smuggled me in through the kitchen, and my
ayah
, my nurse, was waiting, scolding me as she led me to my room. My clothes were laid out on the bed, and I bathed my face and hands, put them on quickly, and stood still while the
ayah
brushed out my long hair, bringing out the red-gold strands that kept it from being a mousy light brown.
She stood back to take a long look at me. “You’ll do,” she told me in Hindi. “Now quickly before the governess woman comes to find you.”
I hurried down the passage, took a deep breath at the door to what would have been called a small drawing room in England, and tapped lightly before opening it.
“There you are,” my mother said brightly, and I knew then she’d had to send Simon to find me—he hadn’t come on his own.
The Maharani smiled at me as I curtsied. “Come and embrace me, child. Are you feverish? Your cheeks are pink.”
I’d been hurrying, but I couldn’t tell her that. “A touch of sun. I went riding this morning.”
“Without your bonnet? My dear, you must remember you aren’t used to this sun.”
She was an old friend of my father’s, her husband one of the strongest supporters of the British presence in his state. Forward thinking and intelligent, the Maharajah had tried to modernize his lands and introduce prosperity to his people, measures not always popular with his fellow princes or some members of his own family.
Tea was brought in and the conversation became general. But I could sense that before I’d arrived, the Maharani and my mother had been talking about something they didn’t wish me to overhear. There was a tension in both women that was unusual.
I’d always thought the Maharani was beautiful. Slim and attractive, her dark eyes lined with kohl to make them even more exotic, she wore silks woven with gold and silver threads, and the ends of her saris were almost stiff with heavy, shimmering embroidery. The pearls she wore were legendary—long ropes that must weigh on her neck, and the most perfect I’d ever seen in size and quality. On her fingers were huge stones set in gold. Burmese rubies caught the light, along with first water diamonds, sapphires, and even a large square-cut emerald. But she wasn’t at all stuffy. She sat in my mother’s parlor as comfortably as if she were on the silk and jewel-encrusted cushions in a room three times this size.
As I took my place beside her, I realized she’d dismissed her servants—they were probably having their own tea in my mother’s sitting room—and that was another sign that the two women had been holding a very private conversation.
My father came in soon afterward. Tall and handsome in his uniform, he bent over the Maharani’s hand and kissed her fingertips. She laughed up at him, and patted the seat on the other side of her. “Come and tell me what you have been doing.”
My father, a major at this stage in his career, entertained her with humorous stories, and she laughed and clapped her hands in delight.
“Richard, you make soldiering seem so amusing. And all the while I know you are lying to me in the politest possible way.”
He laughed as well, and then with a glance toward me, sitting quietly as I turned the pages of the new book she’d brought me, gave her his view of what was happening politically. None of us ever forgot the dreadful Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, even though it was decades in the past. We never took our safety or the loyalty of the men who served in the army or worked in our houses for granted. I’d been trained from childhood to obey instantly if there was the least sign of trouble. The irrefutable fact was, the British were outnumbered thousands to one, and we could as easily be murdered in our beds as not, if anything went wrong.
It was one of the many reasons parents sent their children to England and safety, to be educated and brought up far away from India. My parents, wiser than most, had kept me with them.
The Maharani listened intently to what he was saying, and then suggested that my father might like to accompany her on a walk in the gardens to see the roses. My mother understood that this wasn’t an idle flirtation—it was their only chance to speak freely without being overheard.
When my father had escorted her through the double doors giving onto the verandah, my mother said to me in a low voice, “It’s as well you know, my dear. That cousin of the Maharajah’s has been causing a great deal of trouble again over some of the reforms being put into place. His Highness has sent his wife to visit us as an opportunity to tell Richard what’s happening. He’ll know how best to advise Colonel Haldane and consider what we can do to help.”
“Will they be all right?” I asked anxiously. For I was very fond of the Maharani and I liked her husband as well. He’d been educated in Britain, and his friends there had called him Harry. His son, my age, and his daughter, a year or so older, had been my playmates since I was in leading strings.
“I’m sure they’ll be fine,” my mother told me, but there was a tiny echo of doubt in her voice.
I said, “Is there anything that Father can do? Or the colonel? To support the Maharajah?” But that I knew could be a double-edged sword, giving his enemies cause to claim he lived in the pocket of the British. It had been difficult, persuading many of the Indian princes to give up their feudal power for the greater good, relinquishing so much authority to the British Crown. The Maharajah’s son, like his father, was to be educated at Eton, leaving in August with his entourage. All of a sudden it dawned on me that possibly he was being sent to where he would be safe.
“I daresay there will be something.” Again that tiny echo of doubt in her voice.
At that moment, my father returned with the Maharani, and they smiled as they came through the door. But I’d seen, as they stepped onto the wide verandah, that they hadn’t been smiling then.
The Maharani took her leave soon after. She often invited me to come and stay, but this time there was no mention of it.
We followed the Maharani and her entourage out to where her motorcar waited. I remembered that the first time I’d seen her, I was sadly disappointed that she hadn’t arrived on an elephant. Now, as my father was handing her into the rear of the motorcar, I looked at her guard, always handsomely dressed, plumes in their caps, sitting astride lovely black horses. Behind them was an assortment of grooms, and as her driver set out for the compound gates, I realized that I’d seen one of those grooms before. It was in the village not an hour ago, and he’d been standing behind one of the stalls near the fortune-teller’s tent, talking to a man with a long scar on his face. But what could he possibly have been doing there?
I touched my father’s arm. “That groom—I’m sure I saw him today in the village. But he wasn’t wearing the Maharani’s livery at the time.”
My father turned quickly. “Tell me.”
If I explained what I’d seen, it would mean confessing to my own escapade. But I could hear the fortune-teller’s voice again:
The life of someone you care for is in grave danger. My child, you must go now. Before it is too late.
Had
she been telling my fortune at that point? Or warning me? Had she heard something? Gossip flew about the marketplace like birds on the wing.
Had it been said in an entirely different tone of voice, not the singsong of a pretend trance?
“The village fortune-teller. I think she knew something. It was after Simon had come into the tent, you see. Perhaps the warning was meant for him or even for both of us. Please? Ask Simon.”
. . .
You must go now. Before it is too late.
If I’d lingered at the bazaar, I’d have arrived too late for the Maharani’s visit. Go with this man, she must have meant. Now. Before it’s too late.
Of course it was known that the Maharani would be calling on my mother. Her entourage would have been seen arriving at the compound. Everyone talked about whatever the Maharajah or his family did. A new parrot, a new motorcar, a new jewel, a new elephant—it didn’t matter, the news would spread on the wind.
My father said urgently to me, “I can’t go to the colonel with only the information I’ve collected from my daughter, my batman, and a fortune-teller. What else do you know? You must tell me.”