A Fine Summer's Day (19 page)

He looked at the old man sitting hunched in his chair, alone and lonely.

As if aware of his visitor's scrutiny, Gilbert changed the subject, saying pensively, “Always liked the night. I can't say why, but even as a boy, the dark intrigued me. What brings you to Swan Walk? I'll wager it's not for news of Claudia nor my scintillating conversation. Tell me it's something interesting, before I die of ennui. I should never have retired from the law. Biggest error of my life.”

“The story I've come to tell could be interesting. I can't say. I'm still trying to decide that for myself.”

“Are you indeed?” He sipped his brandy and sighed softly with sheer pleasure. “All right, begin.”

“I'm looking to find a trial that might have been held in the Crown Court in Bristol. I can't begin to guess just when this was. But I have four dead men whose only connection appears to be that they owned property in Bristol at some point in their lives. The only way that these men could have met is when they served on a jury. And now I believe someone has tracked them down and is killing them.”

“Then it couldn't have been a capital charge. If the man had been sent to the gallows, there's no possibility of revenge.”

“All right then, his wife,” Rutledge answered. “Or perhaps a child? Who had reason to think the verdict was wrong. That would explain the delay between the trial and seeking revenge.”

“Or he has been brought up on the theory that it was wrong.”

“Yes, there's a difference, isn't there?”

“When a man serves on a jury, he's enjoined to silence on the deliberations and the verdict. Your four victims wouldn't have talked about this trial.”

“Which of course will make my task all the harder,” Rutledge agreed. “Even so, a man's family might recall that he'd served on a jury at such and such a time, and perhaps even the charges, if not the name of the accused. With luck, someone might even have followed accounts of the trial in the newspapers.”

“For that matter, the family of the accused is free to think or say whatever it wishes,” Gilbert pointed out.

“Sadly I don't know who they are. Not yet.”

“Yes. Which brings us to another question. If no one remembers—or never knew about it—how are you going to find when this trial was held? You don't know the crime, the defendant's name, or the judge's.”

“That's why I'm here. My father always said you were a walking compendium of information on the English judicial system.”

A shadow passed across his face, and was gone as quickly. “A jury's task is the finding of fact on the question. Yes. Did you know that trial by ordeal was halted when the Catholic Church refused to support it any longer? And so a jury was the solution, much wiser than hoping the better man with a sword was also the innocent man. Or trusting that torture could reveal the truth. Still, a jury is not always right either.”

The gray eyes were distant now, as if Gilbert had slipped into the past. Rutledge sat there for a moment, and then was rewarded by a sharpening of the man's gaze again.

“You say there are four men dead. A jury is twelve.”

“In a month's time, he's managed to find and kill four. If I'm to find the others, I'll have to get ahead of him.” He said nothing about the blackened headstones.

“When did these four men live in Bristol?

“I'm not in possession of the exact dates, although at a guess between twenty-five and thirty years ago.”

“Great God, even my memory isn't that good.”

Rutledge smiled. “I daresay it isn't. But you may be able to point me in a direction that will help.”

“How do you know he's killed only these four?”

“I don't. They're the only recent deaths I can find where laudanum was added to a glass of milk that the victim apparently drank of his own free will.”

Gilbert shivered. “No one does that. Not without good reason.”

“Once I have the information I need, the reason may make itself apparent.”

“Twenty-five to thirty years ago? Some of your precious twelve may already have met their Maker. Have you thought of that?”

“I have. Which will mean that I don't know whether he's finished his goal and has disappeared into whatever normal life he stepped away from. Or if he has his eye on other unsuspecting targets. There's no mark of Cain to ease a policeman's lot.”

“Nor a barrister's. Tell me more about the four.”

Rutledge gave him an overview of the three inquiries he'd conducted, ending with what had happened in Alnwick. Gilbert listened intently, posing a question now and again.

“Your Inspector Farraday is a piece of work,” he commented at one point. And when Rutledge had finished, Gilbert added, “That still doesn't answer my question. What about the dead, Ian? He won't forgive them any faster than he's forgiven the living. He'll turn to them next.”

Rutledge said slowly, “He may have already seen to them.” And he related the troubles Inspector Davies had encountered trying to solve the puzzle of who had tried to permanently stain the grave stones. “I've seen several of them myself. I'd even spoken to Chief Inspector Cummins about the possibility that Davies's inquiries have to do with a jury. Now—now I am in the process of rethinking all I know.”

“Good luck convincing the Chief Superintendent,” Gilbert said, giving Rutledge a look that spoke volumes. “I remember him, you know. Giving evidence in the courtroom. Pedantic and unimaginative. He'll see this as a confession of incompetence on your part. Reaching for a solution to cover the fact that you've failed to find your man.”

It was too close for comfort.

Rutledge said, “Still, if I could find the trial, could confirm that each of these men had served on the jury in question, it would go a very long way toward convincing Bowles.”

Gilbert was tiring. Rutledge could see the strain in his face, the slurring of his voice as he tried to concentrate.

Rutledge rose. “I've overstayed my welcome,” he said, finishing the last of his brandy and taking the empty glass from Gilbert's hand.

“I don't sleep very much, Ian. As often as not, I sit here in my chair and watch dawn coming in the windows. Hadn't you realized that no one had interrupted us, telling you it was past my bedtime?”

Rutledge gestured toward the night, where the lightning was more serious now, sheets of it on the horizon. He listened but failed to hear the thunder. “You'll not be sleeping here tonight, sir. Or if you do, you'll be wet to the skin. There's a storm coming, and with it cooler air, I hope.”

“Damnation. Very well, then, ring for someone. And ask them to make up a room for you while they're about it. I won't see you driving off into this, if you're right.”

Rutledge tried to decline the invitation to stay the night. But Gilbert wouldn't hear of it, and in the end, he was shown to a room on the western side of the house, not far from his host's own bedroom. There were large windows here, and as he prepared to undress and get into bed, he opened the curtains to the slight breeze that had come up. He lay there, listening to the thunder as it grew closer, watching the night turn nearly to day in the ever brighter flashes of lightning.

And he had a sudden sense of foreboding, as if the breaking storm was a sign of what was to come. He got up and closed his windows.

Morag, his Scottish godfather's housekeeper, who claimed to have The Sight, would have crossed herself and told him to beware.

He closed his eyes against the approaching storm and tried to convince himself it was a sign of fatigue compounded by a glass of brandy and the excitement of the evening. Nothing more.

R
utledge breakfasted alone. Gilbert, he was told, seldom appeared downstairs before ten, if he'd gone up to his room the night before.

He walked out to the terrace with his teacup, sniffing the rain-washed summer morning, and watched bees hunting nectar in the hollyhocks in the gardens on either side of the terrace, although many of them, like the delphiniums, were beaten down by the storm.

As he finished his tea, his thoughts turned to Jean, and he wondered what she was doing today—shopping with her mother or her bevy of bridesmaids, or sleeping in after coming home late from a party. He wanted her to enjoy herself, to do the things she had always loved doing. But he would have liked to be there at her side, watching her face light up with happiness. Once this inquiry was closed, he would ask for a week of leave to make up for so much time away from London.

That brought him to consider his work, the Yard, the long hours in London and the frequent days away from the city. For the first time he doubted that it was suitable employment for Jean's husband. Perhaps Major Gordon had been right after all. And there would be children, he'd be away from them as often as he'd be away from their mother. Was it really for the best that he'd stubbornly resisted any suggestion of a change? That he clung to what had seemed to him the work he wanted to do, without weighing the cost?

For that matter, he'd left Frances to her own devices more often than he should. More often than was wise.

Was a man's desire to do what he felt he'd been born to do merely a selfishness that he was blind to? Was it the excitement of the chase, of outsmarting the murderer, rather than his concern for the victim, who no longer had a voice? Was that victim merely an excuse to clothe his own shortcomings?

He'd never looked at the Yard from that angle before, and it was unsettling.

Turning, he walked back across the terrace and stepped in through the sitting room windows. Half blinded by the sunlight, he blinked.

Gilbert was sitting there in his chair, the shawl around his shoulders, looking up at Rutledge as if he'd never moved last night.

Startled, he said, “Good morning! I was told you never showed yourself until ten at the earliest.”

Gilbert chuckled. “I told you I seldom slept. I've written out a list of QCs who may've tried cases in Bristol. It's not complete, but it's the best I could do. A few names had to be struck from the list when I remembered that the poor devil was already dead. But there it is.”

He took a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and passed it to Rutledge. “You were right about the storm, of course. Best display of pyrotechnics I've seen in quite a while. But we have long views here, we can watch storms roll in. At least I enjoy that. I daresay the women on the servants' floor pull their coverlets over their heads and wish it
was over as quickly as possible.” He watched as Rutledge scanned the names on the sheet of paper. “It will take you some time to run down all of them. And still you might not have the answers you seek. What about newspaper files?”

“It may come to that, of course. And that will take time as well. In fact, I might have to hire someone to research it for me. London will start asking questions about my absences if I'm not careful.”

“I can recommend someone to do the research, if you need it. Let me know.”

“I shall. Thank you, sir. I don't know how I'd have managed without your help.”

“You'd have managed very well. You're an intelligent young man, Rutledge. God help us if you ever take to crime.”

Rutledge laughed and reached down to take the thin, veined hand offered him. “And thank you for refuge from the storm.”

Gilbert seemed reluctant to let go Rutledge's hand. “You've inquired about Claudia, while I've been remiss in not asking about Frances. How is that lovely sister of yours? She's so much like your mother at that age. Breaks my heart to see her. Is she happy?”

“I think she is. I hope she is. I'm to be married in December. Major Gordon's daughter, Jean.”

Gilbert relinquished his hand. “Don't meddle with the Army, my boy. Stay with your own kind. The law. You'll be happier.”

Rutledge smiled. “Too late. And Major Gordon has been very kind.”

“Army men see things differently, that's all. You're a thinker, Ian, you work things out in your head, and know where you're going. Military minds rush into action. It's what's leading Europe into war right now. Clearer heads didn't prevail, and now everyone wants to teach the other fellow a damned good lesson. No one has considered the thousands if not millions who are going to die, the miles of good land laid waste, the starvation and disease and cruelty that marches
in an Army's wake. For God's sake, the Austrian Emperor didn't even
like
his heir. Now he's willing to slaughter the Russians to punish the Serbs. God help us.”

“Your name isn't on this list,” Rutledge said, to shift the subject.

“I can't remember that far into the past. The law, now, I haven't lost that, I can give you chapter and verse on any matter. It's burned into my memory. But the individual cases—they're blurring. Bristol has always been a commercial center, and as it happened, I knew more than most about Admiralty Law. Commerce, salvage, navigation. That sort of thing.”

Rutledge nodded. His father had sometimes conferred with Gilbert on such matters.

“You can't go wrong with Edgerton, though. There at the top. His favorite sister lives in Gloucester, and he was always looking to try a case in Bristol.”

Rutledge took his leave soon after, and once on the high road, he pulled to the verge and gave his next move some thought. He was eager to speak to Miss Tattersall in Stoke Yarlington and that was possible. Moresby and Alnwick were beyond his reach at the moment. And there was the barber in Netherby.

Stoke Yarlington, then.

He looked at the map he carried in his head, chose his way, and set out in the direction of Wells.

Miss Tattersall had just come in from attending a small afternoon gathering of women who were planning the Harvest Festival in the autumn.

Taking off her hat, she greeted him as the housekeeper moved aside to allow him to step through the door.

“Inspector?” she said in some surprise. “Have you news for me?”

Rutledge glanced at Mrs. Betterton, all ears, and said, “Could we speak somewhere a little more private, please?”

She stared at him, then dismissed the housekeeper and said,
“Come this way.” She led him to the room where he'd interviewed her before. The windows were open to the fresh breath of air that had followed in the wake of the storm, and he could smell the scent of flowers carried on the breeze.

Offering him a chair, she considered standing, then sat herself, as if she might need to face whatever news he brought with him.

Rutledge said at once, “I have no new information for you. I'm truly sorry. Still, there is information you might have that would be useful to me.” He tried to word his request as if there was no urgency about it, just another lead he was following.

There was disappointment in her face. “I daresay I've answered every question you could think of. How can there be more?”

“We are trying to locate several people who might have known your brother during his time in Bristol. Does the name Jerome Hadley mean anything to you? Or Benjamin Clayton, for instance? Or a schoolmaster by the name of Stoddard.”

She shook her head. “If I met anyone by those names, I've long since forgotten them. I would say therefore that they were passing acquaintances of my brother's, if that. Hardly friends.”

“Did your brother ever serve in a trial as a juror?”

“No, I'm sure he didn't—” She stopped in midsentence. “But yes,” she went on more slowly. “I vaguely remember something about that.” Frowning, she tried to bring the memory to the fore. “And then only because I was quite curious about how such things were done. Women aren't called upon, of course, but everyone says that serving as a juror is what makes English law superior to what is found in most of the world. He was living in Bristol at the time, and I must have bombarded him with questions. But he told me he was sworn to secrecy—not just at the time of the trial, but ever after. So there was an end to it.”

“Surely you followed the trial in the local newspapers?” he asked, striving to keep hope out of his voice.

“My dear Inspector, you didn't know my brother. He felt that the lurid information contained in newspaper accounts wasn't fit for a woman's more delicate sensibilities.” There was irony in the words. “He subscribed to the
Times
of course, but had no patience with the local newspapers. They weren't allowed in the house. And of course this important case that required his presence every day for nearly a week was not important enough to warrant so much as a paragraph in the
Times
. My father was much the same sort of man. Women were not to be troubled with something like murder.”

“You're saying it was a capital case?”

“Not at all. I have no idea. I was just thinking that while I was never
troubled
by murder while my parents and my brother were alive, now I've been pitched right into this horror, and I don't have the faintest useful knowledge about what to expect or how to cope.”

He felt the sadness behind that remark. She was an intelligent, able woman, and in London might once have marched with Mrs. Pankhurst and the suffragettes. Instead she'd been relegated to a life of Good Works.

“Do you by any chance remember the year that your brother served on this jury?”

“It was during the time Joel was living in Bristol, but I can't tell you just when. That was nearly thirty years ago.”

They talked for several minutes more, but there was nothing else she could tell him.

All the same, it was a first step. Tattersall
had
served on a Bristol jury.

F
or the sake of thoroughness he would have liked to drive on toward Bristol, to the village of Netherby, and ask Lolly the barber if Benjamin Clayton had ever served on a jury. But he needed to reach Kent as soon as possible.

Rutledge drove through the night, taking the most direct way he could think of across Wiltshire and Surrey to Kent. His sense of direction, sharp as he left Wells, dulled as he tired. He concentrated on the powerful beams of the motorcar's headlamps. The roads seemed to be swarming with wildlife and not a few domestic animals. Badgers and hedgehogs, foxes and prowling cats, a grazing horse, and once a rooster that for some reason stood in his way and challenged him. He had to step out onto the road and coax it to the verge, before it finally dashed through a break in the hedgerow and vanished. It occurred to him to be grateful that last night's rainstorm had not chosen tonight instead and drenched him and the arrogant rooster as well.

Finally, for fear of falling asleep and running into a ditch, he pulled over somewhere in western Surrey to rest.

He reached Melinda's house at seven in the morning, bathed and changed before breakfast. Despite her attempts to persuade him to rest a little longer, he set out for Aylesbridge and the Hadley farmhouse.

Mrs. Hadley had not come down by the time he arrived. He was taken to the sitting room, where he paced impatiently.

When she finally appeared, she looked tired in the morning light, as if she were still having trouble sleeping. He felt a surge of sympathy for her as she asked politely if there was anything he needed from her, and he responded with the question that had been burning in his mind on the long journey east across half of southern England.

“Jury duty? I'm sure he never served. I'd have remembered.”

“Perhaps before you met? Before your marriage?” He didn't want to put words in her mouth, false memories in her head, but his need was desperate.

“Now that was possible. Before we were married. Let me think. I went to spend three weeks with an aunt who was quite ill. Jerry wrote to me, of course, but they were the letters a man writes.” She smiled with sadness, remembering. “Things like ‘The dog flushed two rabbits this afternoon during our walk.' Or ‘I had dinner with Freddy'—a friend—‘and we talked about this new corn seed that is supposed to
be resistant to many of the ills we see in damp weather.' I was grateful, mind you, but there could have been earthquakes and floods, and the Fifth Ice Age, and he'd never had thought to mention it.”

“When was your aunt taken ill?”

She frowned. “Oh, dear. How precise do you need me to be?”

“As close as you can recall. It's rather important.”

“Let me think. It was late May, early June. I remember that the lilacs came out while I was there, and I could smell them below my window when the wind caught them. So yes, that's about right. The year? 1887, I should think. No, that's not right. 1888.”

Not as far back as Rutledge had thought. But then Hadley had been the youngest of the three victims.

“And you're quite sure?”

“Oh, yes, Aunt Lydia died late the next year. She never fully recovered her strength, and we had to postpone the wedding twice for her sake. Not that I minded, she was a lovely old girl, the sort of favorite aunt everyone should have.”

“It would have been in Bristol, this trial?” he repeated, to be absolutely certain.

“It must have been. Jerry was living there before we married.”

And then with her hand to her mouth, she said, “How stupid of me. Come with me!” She was walking briskly to the door, and he followed her down the passage to a room at the back that someone—perhaps Hadley himself—had turned into an estate office. Shelves ran around the small room, and a desk with two chairs in front of it stood between the outside windows.

Ledgers filled many of the shelves, going back a hundred years or more, Rutledge thought, glancing at their dates. Farm records? And then more rows of what appeared to be tenant accounts. But Mrs. Hadley ignored them, going instead to a cabinet next to the hearth. Opening it, she scanned the leather-bound personal diaries that marched across the shelves.