A Fine Summer's Day (28 page)

Even Lucy Muir hadn't been able to find an answer to that.

The graves had come first. And then the murders. Appetite whetted? Or had it just taken a little longer to find his victims?

Rutledge was up early the next morning, driving out to the London cemetery where, according to his obituary, Judge Abner had been interred. It wasn't a necessary visit, but he was curious to see if the black substance had been poured out there as well.

There was a morning fog, lying heavily over the Thames Valley, giving the landscape a featureless sameness that twice nearly made him miss his turn. But he found the cemetery, opened the unlocked gates, and let himself through.

He found himself thinking that it was a good thing he didn't believe in ghosts. The funeral monuments here were far more ornate that those found in most village churchyards. Tall plinths bearing urns draped in marble shrouds loomed over his head, angels with outspread wings seemed in the murky light about to take flight, and grieving figures reaching toward tombs had about them a Gothic air. Mausoleums designed like miniature houses or Greek temples seemed to shut him into the narrow avenues that led between plots of graves. He made a mental note at each intersection which direction he'd come from, uncertain if he could find his way out again. And the mist was getting heavier.

He had no idea where he might find Abner's grave, and at this early hour, there was no one else about. The man had died some fifteen years ago, and so Rutledge searched for an older section.

A pair of doves, asleep in the lea of a stone bench, flew up almost at his feet, and he started before he could stop himself, then smiled. What had he thought they were? The spirits of the dead?

Two more turnings, and then at the corner of the next intersection, he saw it.

The monument to the man who had sent Evan Dobson to the gallows.

At first it appeared to be part of the design of the monument. A rough-hewn marble obelisk broken off at a little less than midshaft, as in a life cut off before its time. But as he drew nearer, he could see that it hadn't been rough-hewn at all. Someone had taken a heavy hammer to it in a frenzy, smartly bringing down what must originally have been quite a tall shaft, then striking it again and again until the splintered shards lay like pebbles at its base.

Abner's name was still visible, as if that was intended. All around it was desolation. The smaller stones for his wife and son, his father and his mother, hadn't been spared. It appeared that the frenzy hadn't stopped until the marble had been utterly destroyed.

Whoever had done this wished he could reach into the grave itself and grind the very bones to powder.

R
utledge made his way out of the mist-shrouded cemetery, still feeling the shock of what he'd seen.

It was obscene in its way, a glimpse into a fury so violent that whoever had done this must have been spent when he had finished.

The destruction had never been reported to the Yard. Rutledge was fairly certain of that. The groundskeepers must have notified the cemetery authorities, who could well have contacted the family or heirs of the dead man. But nothing had come of it yet. He didn't even know when this had been done. After the other graves had been vandalized, but before Benjamin Clayton had been killed?

Or was this destruction what had sent Dobson to Moresby, to begin killing anyone from that fateful trial who was still alive?

Rutledge found a caretaker just arriving for his day's work. Dressed in coveralls and pushing a barrow, he was whistling to himself as he
approached the tall cemetery gates. He started when he saw a figure looming out of the gray wall of mist that nearly obscured them.

Setting down the barrow, he waited until Rutledge came closer, a man and not a spirit, then said, “You could age a man fast, coming at him like that out of thin air. Looking for a family grave, are you?”

“There's a damaged stone in the eastern part of the cemetery. Someone by the name of Abner. How long has it been that way?”

The workman tilted his cap forward and scratched his balding head. “That obelisk pounded into rubble? Seems it was about the first week of July. One of the lads found it. We searched the cemetery, but there wasn't no other trouble. Whoever he was, he'd gone. One of the sheds was broken into, but nothing was taken.”

“Was there a heavy hammer in the shed?”

“Aye, the big one we use to drive in stakes. But he never took it.”

But he'd used it. Dobson couldn't have carried a tool like that with him. Not all the way from Somerset.

Rutledge thanked him and went on to where he'd left the motorcar.

He wished he could bring the Chief Superintendent here, to show him what they were dealing with. Not a twisted mind, but a passionate one that could take at least four murders in stride as deaths owed to him.

For a moment he wondered if the polite young man witnesses had described was one and the same as this angry slayer.

There would be no way to answer that until Henry Dobson was brought in for questioning

He drove on into the city and to the Yard.

Chief Superintendent Bowles, he was told by the first person he encountered, was attending a function with the Lord Mayor. The averted eyes of the constable he'd stopped left Rutledge with the feeling that the raised voices from Bowles's office the day before had raised more than a few eyebrows among those within hearing.

Cummins, however, was in, and Rutledge asked him for a few minutes.

As the Chief Inspector shut the door he grinned. “I gather you
have survived the dressing-down, although a little singed around the edges.”

“Unfortunately it was a day premature,” Rutledge answered ruefully. “Last evening I was given more pieces of our puzzle. Today there was another.”

He told Cummins first about what he'd learned about the killer's way of discovering the information he needed about each victim. “I suspect his mother had intended at some stage to take matters into her own hands, but she'd never been free to carry out whatever she'd had in mind. Or perhaps she expected her son to act for her one day. It's the only explanation for keeping in touch with the jurors and Gilbert over the years. I have even wondered if perhaps she'd hastened any of the dead to their graves. But we'll never know the answer to that.”

“Go on.”

Moving on to Fillmore Gilbert and spotting the man on the bicycle from the upstairs window of Swan Walk, Rutledge said, “I wanted to ask the Chief Superintendent to send a description to every police station in Kent to be on the lookout for this man. But he wouldn't even consider the possibility, much less act on it.” He took a deep breath. “Then last night, I was given this. It's a handwritten copy of Bristol newspaper accounts of the Dobson case and trial.”

“Very thorough work,” Cummins commented as he read it through.

“All the names are there. Including Gilbert's. And the judge's name as well.”

He glanced out the window. The mist was lifting, and in an hour or so, it would be replaced by bright sunlight. “I went to the cemetery this morning to look for him.”

Cummins listened, appalled, as Rutledge described the grave site.

“Gentle God,” he said softly. “I expect we can ask the cemetery authorities for a statement on when the destruction was done and what they think they know about it. I'll send Gibson or someone out there this afternoon.”

“Not Gibson. I need him. There are two names left on the list
of victims. A man named Chasten. And a policeman—most likely retired—by the name of Ralph Taylor. The arresting officer. We must find both of them as soon as possible. Still, it's just as well to document what happened in the cemetery. I can tell you, in the mist it seemed to take on a horror that it might not have had on a sunny morning.”

“No doubt.” Cummins studied the man across his desk. “This is a damning piece of evidence, Ian. The newspaper cutting. It all hangs together, just as you predicted. The question is, how are we going to find this man and take him into custody? Will he come peacefully, do you think, or will he make us pay dearly for it?”

“I can't answer that. I can only say, if we don't find him quickly, we might never put our hands on him. If I were in his shoes, as soon as I'd finished the last name on my list, I'd enlist. Under my own name or another, it wouldn't matter. I'd be out of reach.”

“I have a feeling you may be right. If so, he's the only man in England that this war is bringing any good to. We've had more resignations tendered. For the duration. Most of them tell me they'll be back before the year is out. I pray to God they're right.”

“I must return to Kent as soon as may be. I was ordered to see that inquiry through, and I can interpret that to mean I now have freedom to hunt for Dobson. And I've got to make Gilbert talk to me. I know everything now except why these men willingly died.”

“Who defended Evan Dobson?”

“Now that's one of the interesting discoveries. It appears to be the father of the man who handled Joel Tattersall's trust. Simmons, the solicitor. Someone broke into his chambers in Wells fairly recently, but nothing was taken. I expect Dobson might have been looking for the file on his own father.”

“How did Mrs. Dobson afford a barrister from Wells?” Cummins asked.

“I don't know. It will be worth looking into.”

“Leave Taylor and Chasten to me. I'll see they're located straightaway
and send word to you as soon as I have the information. Your task until then is to locate Dobson. Do you think he's still hanging about Swan Walk?”

“I doubt it. I'm sure I put the wind up him when I followed him into Leicester Square, there by Penshurst Place. He must know who I am by this time. The village of Swan Walk does. But then I know who he is.”

“Be careful, Ian.”

“What about the Chief Superintendent?”

“He ordered you to Kent. I'd go if I were you.”

Rutledge grinned. “Yes, sir.”

He packed a valise, sent messages to Jean, and left another for Frances, who was attending one of her meetings with volunteers.

Dr. Greening had just left when Rutledge arrived at Gilbert's house later in the afternoon. The nurse shook her head when he asked if there had been any change.

“I'm afraid not. I think he's asleep just now.” She hesitated. “It might be time to summon his family.”

“A day or two more won't matter.”

He asked Mrs. Thompson if she could prepare a room for him.

“It will be ready when you are, sir. Is there any change in Mr. Gilbert?”

“I'm afraid not,” he said, unconsciously quoting the nurse. “Is there a firearm in the house? A revolver?”

“There is, in the estate office. I haven't seen it, but I'm told it's locked in one of the desk drawers.”

“Then if you will, leave the key in my room.”

Soon after that he went back to Penshurst Place. But there was no bicycle propped against the arch. And of course no one in the church. He hadn't expected there to be.

When he came back to Swan Walk, he drove his motorcar around to the rear of the house and found a space large enough for it in one of
the barns, to the dismay of the horses. Coming back around, he collected the constable's bicycle, still leaning against the house wall by the door, and stowed that in the barn as well.

He took his dinner in his room and waited there until the house was quiet. It was close on ten when he walked down the passage and spoke to the constable on duty. The man yawned. “They've made up a bed for me as well,” he said. “I sleep during the day, when the servants are up and moving about, and return to my post in the evening. If that's all right.”

“Yes. Good man. It's the night I'm worried about.”

“In what way, sir?”

“It wasn't suicide. Whoever tried to kill Mr. Gilbert came into this house late at night and found him still awake. I don't think he'll risk coming when the staff is going about their duties. But the servants' rooms are well away from the rest of the house.”

“Understood, sir.” He lifted the heavy truncheon beside his chair. “I'll be ready.”

Rutledge walked through the rooms of the ground floor, checking to see that the windows and outer doors were well and truly locked. Satisfied, he went back to the study where he'd met Gilbert on his first visit. Without turning on the lamp, he set about his preparations.

He took a cigar from the humidor, but before sitting down in the chair that faced the long windows, he unlocked and opened them wide. As he stood there a moment, he could hear a frog calling from a pond. He poured himself a small glass of Gilbert's favorite brandy and put it on the table by the arm of the chair.

In a dressing gown that was too big for him, wrapped in shawls, and slumped in the chair, he tried to shrink into himself enough that he might pass as Gilbert sitting there. The masquerade wouldn't have passed muster with the lamp on, but in the dark he hoped that it would appear to be natural enough.

It was a risk, waiting here when the danger could very well be
upstairs, but he thought, on the whole, with the constable and a nurse guarding him, Gilbert was safe enough. And he had Gilbert's revolver now.

He cut and lit the cigar, drawing on it until he could see the glowing tip. He held it between two fingers, keeping an eye on it.

An hour must have passed, and then two. The house was quiet, settling around him with the sounds of the day's heat cooling off a little. A fox barked somewhere in the dark, and he refreshed the tip of the cigar for the tenth time. Rutledge had never been a smoker, but Gilbert was, and very likely he did most of it when there was no one about to tell him he couldn't.

It must have been easy for Dobson, here and at Hadley's farm, Rutledge thought, with windows open to catch the coolness of the night after a long hot day. He could have watched his victim for some time before stepping in and confronting him. It had been easy as well at the Tattersall house, using the unlocked kitchen door for access.

Just as another half an hour had ticked by, there was a sound. Barely on the threshold of Rutledge's hearing, keen as it was, and he tensed. The revolver was by his right hand, under the blanket, and he closed his fingers around the grip.

Footsteps on the grassy lawn—or in the drying beds of delphiniums by the terrace?

Or had he imagined it, because he'd been listening so long for it?

He could feel the hair on his arms stir as he waited. Something was out there. Or someone.

Lifting the cigar to his lips again, he made the tip flare out. It cut into his night vision, but he could still judge that the terrace was empty.

He stared out into the night. And someone stared back at him.

Minutes passed.

And then as surely as the presence had come, it began to fade away. Going the opposite way around the house? Looking for the motorcar out of sight in the barn?

Flinging off the scarves and shawls, dropping the cigar into the ashtray, Rutledge was through the windows and after him.

But Dobson moved in the night with the swiftness and certainty of someone who knew the terrain, and Rutledge was hard-pressed to keep him in sight as he used every bit of shadow he could find.

Along the west side of the house, Rutledge began to gain ground. He saw his quarry turn the corner closest to the drive.

There was a soft clink. And Rutledge heard the pedals of a bicycle begin to turn. He ran flat out, narrowed the gap, snatched at the handlebars, almost had his man, and then felt rather than saw the foot lash out at him. It caught him on the flat of his knee, and he was forced to let go as pain shot through his leg.

Dobson had reached the harder earth of the drive now, beginning to make better time. Through the shadows of the trees, Rutledge could see that the gates stood open. A matter of seconds, and the man would be out of range. It would be too late. Rutledge still held the revolver. He swung it up, took careful aim, and fired.

The bicycle jiggled wildly, then steadied.

Rutledge whirled and raced toward the barn and his motorcar.

But he never found the cyclist again.

A
s soon as it was light enough to see, Rutledge went inch by inch down the drive to the spot where he'd seen the bicycle wobble, and searched for blood.

He found it, large drops that led almost to the gates of Swan Walk; and there they stopped.

He'd hit his mark in the night as the bicycle moved toward the uncertain patchy shadows beneath the trees that lined the drive. But just how badly was the man hurt?