Authors: Charles Todd
She took his hat and coat and pointed him toward the parlor. He stood there, studying the watercolors done by Beatrice Mason. They were good, he couldn't fault them technically. But he wondered if she would have made the essential leap to London tastes, a quality that would have made her first-rate. As Catherine Tarrant and others had done in oils. It would depend, he decided, on her dedication and how quickly her skill matured.
"She had a husband and a child," Hamish reminded him. "They would ha' dragged her down."
What if her dreams had faded, and she realized that a little talent could be more heartbreaking than none? It might explain her decision to marry her first husband and then her second. Security, while she played at being an artist. Security while she went to parties or showed her portfolios, and talked about her work. Hardly the glory she might have hoped for, but talented wives were given a very different reception from young women struggling alone in rooming houses with no entree into society.
He turned as Grace Letteridge came back with a tray of tea things. "You'll have to make do without cakes or sandwiches. But at least it's warm."
Rutledge took the cup she handed him, adding sugar and milk from the tray.
"You like her work, I think?" Grace said, glancing up at the paintings.
"She has a wonderful sense of light," he told her.
"Yes, that's what struck me. Harder to achieve in watercolors, I should think, than in oils."
She took a chair on the far side of the room and said, "All right, what is it? You're bursting to ask questions, aren't you?"
"I've been trying to piece together some of the things I've learned as I asked questions about Hensley and Emma Mason—and lately, asking questions about her mother as well. Is Beatrice Ellison Mason living comfortably in Liege, do you think? Or did she die in the German attack in 1914?"
"Liege? I'd never heard that Beatrice had moved to Liege. Why are you asking me? You know we never kept in touch, or I'd have known where to search for Emma. What does Mary Ellison have to say about that?"
"She believes her daughter went to Paris, married there, and shortly afterward, moved to Belgium."
"Well, then, what's the matter with that?"
"I think Mrs. Ellison has been covering up the truth, that Beatrice was dead." It was what he himself had begun to accept. "Did Emma ever suspect that?"
"Of course not. She believed her mother was living in London. It's what the whole world—well, what the Dudlington world believed, anyway." She set her teacup down and considered the policeman in her parlor. "Are you suggesting that Beatrice killed herself? That she couldn't face living without her husband, and after seeing to Emma's future, she did something awful?"
Mary Ellison would never admit that her daughter was a suicide—it was not something that happened in respectable families, and her pride would prefer that people believed any plausible tale rather than stumble on the truth.
"My friend in Paris writes. . . "
"It needna' be suicide," Hamish said. "There's prostitution."
Social suicide, by anyone's standards.
"Perhaps that's why Mrs. Ellison paid the debt at the rooming house, when Mrs. Greer wrote to demand her money. It could have been quiet blackmail."
"What debt?" Grace Letteridge asked him. "And who was blackmailing whom?"
He'd answered Hamish aloud. Cursing himself, he said, "No one. I was just speculating on something that Inspector Cain discovered in the records Inspector Abbot had left. An address for Beatrice Mason in 1904. But it was useless by the time Mrs. Ellison learned of it two years later." He quickly shifted the subject. "Do you remember Abbot?"
"Of course. We saw him about as often as we see Inspector Cain. He would pay brief visits to Dudlington from time to time, looking in on the shopkeepers and the rector and the doctor. Keeping his ear to the ground, he'd called it."
"What sort of policeman was he?"
"He was disastrous when it came to something serious like Emma's disappearance. He couldn't fathom why she'd left a loving and comfortable home to run off to London. He was close to retirement, old-fashioned in his thinking about women, and unwilling to believe that a Harkness could do anything approaching the scandalous. He left most of the questioning to Constable Hensley. Mrs. Ellison was distraught, and it didn't help when Inspector Abbot badgered her, practically tearing poor Emma's room apart in an effort to learn how she'd hoped to make her way to London. The fact is, no one came forward and admitted to helping Emma leave, and in the end the inquest returned a verdict of foul play by person or persons unknown. That upset Mrs. Ellison even more, and I lost my temper with Constable Hensley, calling him incompetent and stupid. And that's when I began to suspect him. I couldn't believe a London-trained policeman was so inept. He had to be covering up something, and the only thing that made sense was his part in Emma's murder."
"Murder is hardly more socially acceptable than suicide."
"Yes, well, even the fact that Mary Ellison is related to the Harkness family isn't much comfort to her now." The words were bitter, spoken with anger.
"I'm told that someone saw Emma somewhere behind the church one day, rolling in the grass, as he put it, with a young man."
She stared at him. "So that's—" And then she broke off.
"That's what?" Rutledge asked when she failed to go on.
Grace Letteridge shook her head vehemently, but her mouth had tightened.
"Who was the young man?" he persisted.
But she was already collecting the tea things and carrying them out to the kitchen, effectively closing the subject.
He followed her through the house.
"I even know the name," he told her as she set the tray on the kitchen table, her back to him. "It was Robert Baylor—"
She whirled so quickly he wasn't prepared, couldn't even defend himself. Her right hand slapped him so hard across the face that he saw pinpoints of light dancing in front of his eyes.
"Don't ever say his name to me, do you hear? Don't you ever
dare
!"
And before he could prevent it, she was out of the room and going up the stairs where he couldn't follow her.
Rutledge stood there in the kitchen, his face stinging and his own anger mounting.
"You shouldna' ha' pressed her sae hard. No' if the young man was hers."
"If it was Robert Baylor who seduced Emma Mason, why does she feel so strongly that it was Hensley who killed the girl?"
But then there was no proof that Emma had been seduced. She could just as easily have fought Baylor off. Especially if the attack had been a trial balloon, as it were. A test to see whether this very pretty girl was willing or not. Hensley, on the other hand, hearing about what appeared to be a successful seduction, might well have tried his own luck, and when Emma threatened to tell her grandmother, rid himself of the girl and the problem.
Then why had Hensley even brought up what Constable Markham thought he'd seen?
Because, Rutledge realized, Robert Baylor was safely dead in France and couldn't deny it. And Hensley had quietly managed to shift suspicion to Grace Letteridge.
Hensley was clever. He'd escaped one black mark against his name in London. He couldn't have risked a second one here, particularly not laying hands on a young girl whose grandmother was connected to the Harkness family.
Was that a strong enough motive for the first murder? Emma's?
Bowles had given the constable a second chance, allowing him to redeem himself in the backwaters of Northamptonshire. But even Bowles would quickly wash his hands of Hensley if there was a raging scandal of that nature. Chief Superintendent Bowles valued his title and his position more than he valued a subordinate.
Rutledge had the feeling that the disconnected bits and pieces were beginning to make more sense.
But what about the second attempt at murder? Hensley's own?
Rutledge had made an enemy of Grace Letteridge, bringing up Robert Baylor's name. And if she'd shot Hensley in revenge for what she believed he'd done to Emma, Rutledge realized he'd better be watching his own back.
Then where exactly did the relationship between Robert Baylor and Grace Letteridge fit into this picture?
In late afternoon, Rutledge walked to The Oaks and received a chilly reception from Keating.
"When am I to have my barmaid back again?"
"It won't be long. Towson is showing improvement."
"What brings you to my door? I've nothing more to say to you."
"I've come to speak to one of your guests. Mrs. Channing. Is there a parlor where we can speak privately?"
"You're not to upset her," Keating told him belligerently. "Not under my roof."
Surprised by such unexpected protectiveness, Rutledge said, "I've come to ask a favor of her. Not badger her." Hamish said, "She has befuddled him."
Keating went away to speak to her and after several minutes returned to conduct Rutledge to a small but pretty sitting room done up in cream and gold, as if Keating had followed the existing color scheme when he repainted the room for his use.
Meredith Channing was there, standing.
"Is anything wrong?" she asked anxiously, trying to convey her concern without giving the listening Keating anything to whisper about over the bar.
"I need someone I can trust to help me test a theory."
"Ah." She nodded to Keating, thanking him and dismissing him at the same time.
The innkeeper left the room reluctantly, and Rutledge wouldn't have put it past him to listen outside the door.
"I didn't know I was someone you trusted," she told Rutledge with a wry smile. "You continue to surprise me."
He had the grace to flush and said, answering her smile, "It's your eyesight and your honesty I want to put to the test."
"Then tell me what you need."
"Will you come with me first, to pay a visit to the rector, Mr. Towson? He's taken a nasty fall, and I think you might cheer him a little."
He inclined his head toward the door, and she glanced at it, recognizing his suspicion.
"Of course. Let me fetch my coat, Inspector, and I'll come directly."
He waited in the entrance hall, and after a time she came dressed in a warm coat of deep burgundy and a very attractive hat. He thought of his sister Frances, who enjoyed hats and wore them with grace and style.
She walked with him down the hill to Whitby Lane and then to Church Street. When they were out of earshot of the inn, she said, "Do you really wish me to visit the rector? I can't quite believe you've got the time to take up good works."
"As a matter of fact, you'll spend a few minutes with him, and afterward I want to take you to a window in his attic. I'd like you to wait there until I've walked to Frith's Wood, and then mark my progress. After that, depending on what you've got to tell me, I'll take you to stand at another post."
"Why me?"
"Because as far as I can tell, God help me, you haven't got any connection to anyone here, and you have no reason to lie about what you see. I need that objectivity."
She laughed. "Ian—I may call you Ian, I think, if I'm pressed into service by the Yard—what is it I'm supposed to see?"
"Wait a bit, until I've shown you the setting. Then it should be very clear."
They walked on in silence. Her stride matched his; this was a woman who was independent and self-assured—and more than a little unsettling.
When they turned into Church Street, she said, "Oh, what an interesting church!"
"As a reward for good behavior, I'll show you the ceiling before I take you back to the inn. Which reminds me, do you think Keating is trustworthy? You're the only guest now. And his barmaid is currently nursing the rector."
"Oh, I think I'm quite safe. My virtue as well as my life. What is Keating's history? One seldom meets an innkeeper who is surly to his guests, as if he would prefer it if they never came at all."
"I don't know, frankly. He appears to like The Oaks because it isn't in the center of Dudlington, as most pubs and inns generally are. He isn't watched, I expect—not a part of the rampant gossip that keeps the village on its toes."
"Yes, that could be. The bar isn't rowdy at night, I can tell you that. Oh, people laugh and they play at darts and there's even a chessboard in one corner, if anyone is interested. I peeked in there this afternoon when he'd gone to Letherington to buy my dinner."
"You'd make a good policeman," he told her, opening the gate to the rectory walk. "Watch the flagstones."
But she'd turned to look beyond at the encroaching fields. "It's so barren, so empty."
"There are fruit trees here and there. In fact I think that's a pear in the corner of the wall. It might be pretty here in the spring—or pastoral in summer, when the cattle and sheep are out there grazing."
"Yes, I'm sure. But just now, I feel—I don't know—the word that comes to me is naked."
"A target," Hamish said, and Rutledge shivered.