A Lonely Death (25 page)

The White Swans was quiet, most of the guests in their beds. He walked into the lounge and beckoned to the sleepy attendant at the far end.

“Whisky,” he said and chose a table that was secluded enough that his presence wasn’t obvious. As he sat down, he remembered another hotel, the Marlborough in London, and Meredith Channing’s last remark.

He took a deep breath, trying to put it out of his mind. But he couldn’t. He’d tried for days, but it was there, underlying everything he did during the day and his last thought as he fell asleep at night.

He couldn’t imagine a future with her. He couldn’t imagine a future without her. That was the dilemma. There was something about her, the poise that was so unusual in one so young, the quiet understanding that had seen him through a rough afternoon, the willingness to help even when she didn’t particularly care for the fact that he dealt with murder and violence. Her voice, low and soothing. He’d fallen in love with Jean because she was pretty, she was of his own social class, and she was amusing. He had slowly fallen in love with Meredith Channing because she was herself.

What sort of man had her husband been? The war was over. Had been for two years. If Channing had been missing for four—five—years, it was more than likely he was dead. But she refused to accept it. Had she loved him so much? And was her guilt the growing realization that she must admit he was dead?

Rutledge didn’t know. But he was a policeman, and solving riddles was bread and butter to him.

A good many men had gone missing. Blown up, their bodies mutilated beyond recognition by shells and gunfire, rotting in No Man’s Land under the summer sun until the black, bloated body held no resemblance to the living.

Had she loved him so much?

The attendant brought his whisky and Rutledge paid for it on the spot. The harsh swirl of his first taste seemed to burn down his throat, and he set the glass aside.

This had been a wild goose chase. If the man from St. Mary’s churchyard had come to Hastings, he wasn’t here, or if he was, he was in bed and asleep, where he himself ought to be now.

But he waited all the same.

And just before dawn, after he’d finished his whisky and was fighting the fatigue that was slowly dulling his senses, he heard footsteps, brisk and male, crossing the marble floor of the lobby.

He turned his chair very slightly, so that he could see the elevator. But the man didn’t use it, he took the broad, carpeted stairs two at a time.

Rutledge reached the lobby about a dozen steps behind him, and setting his hat on his head at an angle that shadowed his face, he went up after the man.

He reached the first floor in time to see his quarry disappearing into the fifth door on the seaward side. Rutledge followed, leaning lightly toward the door to listen.

A warm female voice said, “You’re late, my dear.”

And a man answered, “But I’m here now.”

She laughed, a silvery sound, pleasant. “Come to bed, then.”

Rutledge looked at the number on the door.

He moved silently away from it and then walked back the way he had come, down the stairs to Reception, where he rang the bell for the night clerk. The man limped as he stepped out of an inner office, his face slack with sleep.

“May I assist you, sir?”

Rutledge said, “Scotland Yard. You can verify that by contacting Inspector Norman, if you like. I just need information at the moment. And my request will not fuel the morning gossip. Is that understood?” He set his identity card on the mahogany counter. “Who are the guests in number eight?”

He repeated it, as if trying to take it in, then he opened the book and scanned the entries. “Number eight. The guests in that room are a Mr. and Mrs. Pierce. Is there any problem, sir?”

The last thing Rutledge wanted was for this man to wonder about the occupants of number eight. And so he said, “Someone in London must have made a mistake. They aren’t the guests I was expecting to find in that room.”

“They’ve been here for several nights. Newlyweds, I’m told.”

Surprised, Rutledge said, “Indeed? I wish them happiness.” He turned and walked out to the terrace and down the broad steps to the street. The rain had stopped, but the waves, invisible in the darkness, were rolling in with the wind still behind them. He could smell the sea, and feel the spray on his face.

He turned in the street and looked up at the hotel facade, counting windows and focusing on what must be number eight.

And as he watched, the lights went out, and someone drew the curtain wide, letting in the sound of the sea. Rutledge turned away, wondering if he’d been seen. He walked on to his motorcar without looking back.

Daniel Pierce was in Hastings New Town. And with a wife. A new wife, according to the clerk at Reception.

That hardly sounded like a murderer. And yet—and yet the man had been out very late. Alone.

Hamish said drily, “This willna’ sit well with Mrs. Farrell-Smith.”

W
hen Rutledge awoke in the morning, the sun was well up. As he’d crested the ridge coming out of Hastings, he had seen the first hint of dawn struggling for a foothold among the clouds scudding east. The sun, apparently, had finally won, although there was no strength to it, as if it held on by a thread.

He ate a hasty breakfast and drove first to the home of Jimmy Roper. It was early for a social call, but not for the police to knock at the farmhouse door.

The housekeeper opened it a crack and peered out. “If you’re wishing to see Mr. Roper, he’s not himself this morning. Call again, if you will, later in the day.”

“Scotland Yard. It’s important that I speak to him.”

Grudgingly, she opened the door to allow him to come inside. The passage was furnished simply, one narrow table with cut flowers in a black glass vase, a portrait above them, and across the way, by the stairs, another portrait facing it.

Looking at that one, a man and a woman in wedding clothes, he thought this must be the elder Roper himself and his wife. Young and happy and unaware of what the future might bring.

The housekeeper led Rutledge to a small parlor, opening the door to usher him in. It faced west, and on this dreary morning was still filled with shadows.

Rutledge thought he was expected to wait here, but as he turned he saw that Roper was seated in a chair by the window, a rug across his knees, his head tilted at an angle that indicated he was dozing.

“Mr. Roper?” the woman said, crossing the room to nudge him gently. “There’s an inspector from Scotland Yard to see you.”

The man lifted his head and looked up at the woman bending over him. “What did you say, Sadie?” The words were slurred.

“Scotland Yard to see you.”

“I thought the bastard was dead,” he replied in clearer tones.

“As far as I know, he’s still alive,” Rutledge answered, coming forward so that Roper could see him in what light there was. “I spoke to you in the village, shortly after your son was killed.”

Roper turned to stare at him. “So you did. What brings you here?”

“I’d like to talk to you about your son. Do you feel like answering a few questions?”

“My son is dead,” he said flatly. “What’s the use of talking about him? It won’t bring him back, will it?”

“It won’t,” Rutledge agreed. “But in remembering, you may find a little solace.”

Roper was quiet for some time, and Rutledge had almost despaired of an answer when the man said, “He was a beautiful baby. My wife said so, and even I could see that he was. A good one too, never any trouble. Well, that changed when he started walking. Nothing was safe, he’d clamber on anything, and never cry when he brought it all down with him. More surprised than afraid, as if he’d expected it to hold.” A flicker of a smile touched his mouth, pride in his son. “He was a good student. He wanted to go on to university, but of course there was no money for that. He said that farming was changing, and we had to change with it or be left behind. And then there was the war. When he marched away, it was the blackest day of my life. But he came back, like he said he would. Though it changed him, I could see that. I thought he might marry and settle down, but he said he needed to forget first. He didn’t say what he needed to forget, but I expect it was the horrors.”

“Did the Misses Tate feel that he should go to university?”

“They spoke of him as promising. He never had to study long hours, he just listened to his lessons and remembered what he’d heard. He took after my dear wife, there. She was a great reader, and read to him of an evening in winter. I liked listening to her voice. She could make you believe the story was real.”

“Did he get on well with his fellow students?” Rutledge probed patiently.

“Oh, yes. He rose to corporal in the war, did you know? But he didn’t like soldiering very much.”

Rutledge had no choice but to bring up names. “Was he friends with Theo Hartle? Or William Jeffers? Or young Tuttle? Did he get on well with Virgil Winslow or Tommy Summers? Or the Pierce brothers?”

Roper turned to look at him. “Imagine you knowing all their names! I’d not say friends, so much as they grew up together. Still there’s a bond in that. He didn’t care much for Winslow, he said he traded too much on his illness. Some do, you know. Others never let it change them.”

And Summers’s name was conspicuous by its absence in his recollections.

Rutledge said, “What about the Summers boy?”

“As I remember, he left Eastfield early on. I doubt I could put a face to him now. I don’t think Jimmy much cared for him. It was sad, you know, the girl was such a pretty little thing, took after her mother. And the boy was plain as a fence post, with a nature to match. I don’t think I’ve ever met such a disagreeable child. Jimmy told me he could never keep up and was always whining. What’s more, he could never see when he wasn’t wanted.”

“Was there ever any particular trouble between Tommy Summers and your son?”

Roper shook his head. “Jimmy was never a troublesome child. Well, there was the fair in Battle. As I remember, Tommy’s father had given him a pony for his birthday, and Tommy was to show it at the fair. For a lark, Jimmy and the other boys painted the pony’s hooves purple the night before the fair. They thought it would wash right off, Jimmy said, but of course it didn’t, and they were sorry for that. It wasn’t meant to keep the pony from being shown. They just wanted to see Tommy’s face when he walked out of the barn that morning.”

“What did Tommy’s father have to say about this prank?”

“He was that upset, of course, but I said to him, they are only lads, they didn’t know the paint would stain the way it did. Even blackening the hooves didn’t help, when the sun struck them, the purple showed. I sent Jimmy over to apologize to Tommy, and that was that.”

But of course “that was that” may have satisfied the father, but what about the boy?

And Roper answered as if Rutledge had spoken aloud. “Tommy was the butt of more than one prank, now that I think about it. But it’s all part of learning to get on together, in my book. The lad just seemed to have the knack for making a nuisance of himself.”

Rutledge found himself wondering how Roper would have felt if the shoe had been on the other foot. But he said only, “Was Jeffers one of the youngsters who painted the hooves?”

“I believe he was. It was such a long time ago, and my memory isn’t what it used to be. I do recall sending Jimmy to apologize. To his credit, I don’t believe he was as thoughtless after that. It was a good lesson learned.”

“What about Anthony Pierce? Did he take part in these pranks?”

“Jimmy said he didn’t care to join in, but he never told on any of them, either. When one of the Misses Tate asked him about some difficulty Tommy was having with his books and belongings disappearing, Jimmy told me that Anthony professed ignorance of the whole episode, and of course Miss Tate believed him. He was a good sort, Jimmy said, never ratting them out.”

And that had been Anthony’s sin. He’d wanted to belong as well, and he stood by while the torment went on, rather than trying to protect the Summers boy or telling the Misses Tate what was happening. Many a bullied child suffered in silence, afraid to ask for help, enduring what couldn’t be stopped. Rutledge was beginning to see why Tyrell Pierce had sent his sons off to public school in Surrey. The sons of brewery workers and farmers and the like were not his sons’ peers. Farrell-Smith must have been more to his liking.

Mr. Roper was tiring, and Rutledge rose to leave, thanking him for his time.

The man said, his dry, thin hand shaking Rutledge’s, “He’s still dead. It didn’t help.”

Rutledge said, “Sadly.”

Driving back to Eastfield, Hamish said, “This was in the past. Ye canna’ crusade for justice for Tommy Summers. It’s too late.”

“I don’t want to crusade for him. I need to find out now if he’s turned to murder to settle old scores.”

“If it’s old scores, why did he put yon discs in the mouths of the dead?”

“To put us off the track? And if it was, he nearly succeeded. But there could still be a connection we’ve overlooked.”

18

R
utledge went next to Hastings New Town. He arrived at The White Swans to find that the clerk at Reception was not the same man he’d spoken to the night before. He asked for Mr. Daniel Pierce, but he was told that Mr. and Mrs. Pierce had gone out. He waited for an hour, but they didn’t return. Rutledge went back to Reception.

“Could you tell me, please, how long the Pierces intend to stay at The White Swans?”

The clerk consulted the register. “The rest of the week at least,” he said. “Would you care to leave a message?”

“I think not. I’d like to surprise them.”

The clerk smiled. “They should be dining in the hotel this evening.”

Rutledge thanked him and then left.

He stopped next at the police station, to ask after Inspector Mickelson.

The latest report confirmed that he was holding his own, but only just. He had come to his senses very briefly during the night, but had had no idea where he was or why. That, Hamish pointed out, boded ill for clearing Rutledge’s name.

Inspector Norman was in, and Rutledge asked to speak to him.

Norman received him with ill-concealed distaste. “If you’ve come for Carl Hopkins, you’re wasting your time.”

“I need your help,” Rutledge told him. “I want the loan of Constable Petty. We need to patrol Eastfield at night, and Constable Walker can’t do it alone. If you want Petty to spy for you, you can spare him for my purposes as well. I’ll see that he’s put up at The Fishermen’s Arms.”

After a moment, Inspector Norman said with evident reluctance, “He has a cousin there. Works in the brewery. He can stay with him. I don’t want him beholden to you.”

Which, Hamish was pointing out, went a long way toward explaining how Inspector Norman had been keeping an eye on Eastfield.

Rutledge answered, “That’s fair enough. I’ll expect him there tonight.”

“It won’t stop your murderer. If that’s what’s in your mind. Even with three of you, you can’t be everywhere at once. It takes no time at all to garrote a man and then walk away.”

“It’s better than nothing,” Rutledge answered shortly. “There was someone in St. Mary’s churchyard last night. I followed him around the church itself, where I lost him, and then I heard a motorcar leaving without its headlamps turned on.”

Norman’s manner changed. “Is that the truth? Where was it heading? Which direction, did you see?”

“Toward Hastings. There were lights on in the rectory as well, but the house was empty. We searched for Mr. Ottley, and finally met him walking toward us as we came back into Eastfield from the Roper farm. He sometimes goes there to sit with the second victim’s father. But for a time, we were afraid he might have been the next target.”

“Ottley is a good man,” he said, defending the rector, “but sometimes he puts duty before common sense. He nursed the Spanish flu victims in Eastfield, day and night, without thought for his own safety. Before that, one evening when he was in Old Town, we had a ship in trouble off the East Hill. He went to the lifeboat station and offered his services if they needed another man. He’d kept a sailboat here in his youth. He’d have gone out with them.”

“He may be at risk, all the same. If Carl Hopkins is innocent. I’m not convinced that these murders are connected with the war. They may have to do with someone with a long memory for the past.”

“That’s the trouble with educating a policeman,” Inspector Norman said. “You’re easily distracted by ideas.”

Rutledge laughed. “Carl Hopkins is your war connection. But you haven’t found the garrote and you haven’t found where or how he managed to create those identity discs. It shouldn’t have been hard to do, mind you, but he’d need the same type of fiberboard and the same type of rope, as well as the names of men in other units. Show me those, and I’ll go back to London.”

Inspector Norman’s mouth twisted sourly. “Early days,” he said as Rutledge took his leave.

He went back to The White Swans to look for Daniel Pierce, but he still hadn’t returned.

Using the telephone, Rutledge put in a call to London.

Sergeant Gibson was wary, and Rutledge could almost hear the man trying to work out whether the inspector was back in good odor or not.

Rutledge told him what he wanted.

“It’s a needle in a haystack,” Gibson complained.

“His father went north to work when he was nine or ten years of age. Start with the War Office. If he was in uniform, they should know where he lived in 1914. And unless he has married, Somerset House won’t help us.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Gibson told him and asked how to reach him.

“Leave a message at Reception here in The White Swans.”

But he was not destined to be there when it came through. As he was driving to The Stade, a police constable spotted him and hailed him.

Rutledge drew to the verge. “Constable?”

“Inspector Rutledge? Inspector Norman asked us to be on the lookout for you. Someone telephoned Hastings Police from the Pierce Brothers Brewery office. They’ve found another body.”

Rutledge swore. “All right, thank you, Constable. I’m on my way.”

He drove out of Hastings and made good time to Eastfield. Constable Walker, his face marked by sleeplessness and strain, was waiting for him at the police station.

“It’s Hector Marshall,” he said as Rutledge walked through the door. “He was garroted, like the others, and a disc was found in his mouth. We’ve taken the body to Dr. Gooding’s surgery. He says there’s no doubt. The wounds are much the same. Very little struggle. Left where he was killed, as far as we can tell.”

“Where was he found?”

“He raises pigs out on the road to Battle. He goes about Eastfield with his cart, collecting scraps people save for him, and he takes milk from the dairy herds that they can’t sell. He was on his rounds before first light, and stopped in a copse of trees just north of the turning for Hastings. It appeared his horse was lame, or he thought it was, and he drew up out of the road. Or someone hailed him, we’ll never know. But the horse is indeed lame, a stone in its shoe. We found that out when we tried to turn the cart for a better look at Marshall’s body.”

“My motorcar is still outside. Show me.”

The copse was some hundred yards past the turning to Hastings, just as Constable Walker had described it. On the far side, where the trees began, there was a small grassy opening among the trunks, and Walker pointed to it.

“Just there. The body was still warm. And if you look hard enough, you can see the roof of Marshall’s barn beyond the treetops in that direction. He died within sight of his own farm.”

Rutledge turned. There was indeed a barn roof, nearly hidden by the leaves of a stand of trees.

“Have you notified his family?”

“Not yet. Do you want to deal with that and afterward see the body?”

“They’ll be wondering where he went. We’ll go there first. What sort of family did he have?”

“A mother who lives there with him, his wife, and three small children. He always claimed he made up for the war years as soon as he got home. He was wounded early in 1918, and by the time he was fit to return to active service, the war was over.”

They could smell the pigs as they approached the farm, but the house was tidy and there were flowers along the track that led to the door.

An elderly woman opened the door to their knock, fear in her eyes. And then she clapped a hand to her mouth as she read their faces.

“He’s dead.” It wasn’t a question. “When he didn’t come home with the cart, I knew something must have happened.” Her voice was low, almost a whisper. Ushering them into a front room, she added, “My daughter-in-law is upstairs nursing the little one. Let her finish.” She glanced up the stairs and then shut both doors quietly.

Rutledge identified himself. “I’m afraid we’ve come to confirm your fears, Mrs. Marshall. Your son was found this morning in the copse down the road. He was murdered.”

“Like the rest of them. I told him. I said, you mustn’t leave so early.” She pressed her knuckles against her mouth, as if to stifle the scream rising in her throat. A low moan escaped, and she sat down suddenly. And then with an effort of will, she raised her head and said, “Where is he now? My son?”

“At Dr. Gooding’s surgery,” Constable Walker answered her.

“He lived through that awful war. And now this.” It was an echo of what Mrs. Winslow had said. “I want to see him.”

“I think—” Constable Walker began,

But she cut him short. “I brought him into the world. I’ll see him out of it.” Again she looked upward, as if she could see through the ceiling to the room above. “How am I going to tell her?”

In the silence that followed, Rutledge could hear the faint, rhythmic sound of a rocking chair moving back and forth, and a low hum, as if someone was singing softly.

Mrs. Marshall stood up. “I’ll just call up to her, and then we’ll go. The rest can wait. I want to see my son now.”

They couldn’t dissuade her. In the end, she did as she’d said she would. She called to her daughter-in-law, “I’m just stepping out, Rosie, I’ll be back shortly. Mind the soup on the fire.”

Then she led Rutledge and Constable Walker to the motorcar and sat beside Rutledge as Walker turned the crank. Rutledge had a moment’s panic as the constable turned and opened the rear door, but he couldn’t look to see where Hamish was. He felt the motorcar shift as the man settled in his seat. And then he had no choice but to drive on, pointing the bonnet back to Eastfield.

Mrs. Marshall sat in stoic silence, her eyes straight ahead. Neither Rutledge nor Walker could find words of comfort. None seemed adequate.

People on the street turned to stare as they passed. Rumor had already run ahead of them, and villagers knew who was in the motorcar as well as where they were going.

Rutledge pulled into the drive in front of Dr. Gooding’s house, and before he could step out and open her door, Mrs. Marhsall was already out of the motorcar and striding toward the surgery.

She was a tall, rawboned woman in a faded apron over a blue dress patterned with small white sprigs of flowers, her graying hair drawn back into a bun. But she moved with the dignity of a Spartan woman preparing to receive and bury her dead. Rutledge watched her and was moved.

Dr. Gooding was surprised to see her, looking over her head at Rutledge and the constable.

“She wished to see her son,” Rutledge said, and Gooding said, “Er—give me a moment, and I’ll take you back.”

He disappeared, and Mrs. Marshall showed no sign that her resolve was weakening. Dr. Gooding’s nurse came out of an adjoining office and asked Mrs. Marshall if she would like a cup of tea before her ordeal.

“No, thank you, Mrs. Davis, I’ll be all right. Rosie is waiting at home for me.”

The doctor came back just then and escorted them to the room where the body had been examined. It was tidy, and Hector Marshall lay under a sheet drawn up to cover the ravaged throat.

Ignoring the others, Mrs. Marshall walked straight across the room without faltering and looked down at her son’s face. After a moment she touched his hair, which Dr. Gooding had combed. Then she bent to kiss him. Her voice was audible, but not the words as she addressed him. She stared at him a moment longer, and before the onlookers could stop her, she stripped back the sheet. Nodding at the body as if she understood something, she gently pulled the sheet back into place.

“I’d thank you to take me home, now.”

Rutledge moved to her side, but she walked out of the room without help, down the passage, and out to the motorcar, thanking the doctor for taking care of her son.

Walker was there to open her door, and she got in without another word. When they had delivered her again to her home, Rutledge said, “Would you like us to help you break the news to your daughter-in-law?”

“Thank you, no, she’ll be able to cry if we’re alone.” She turned to Constable Walker. “Could you send someone to feed the pigs today? They will be hungry by now.”

He promised, and with a nod she disappeared inside, shutting the door quietly.

Rutledge said, “Will she be all right? Should we send someone to look in on her later?”

“Best to let them mourn,” Walker said.

Rutledge turned the motorcar, hearing Hamish’s voice like thunder in his head. And as he started off down the track, he heard a woman’s scream, so full of pain he winced.

T
hey went back to the surgery, but Dr. Gooding could tell them very little more.

“When was he killed?” Rutledge asked.

Gooding said, “Later than the others by a good four hours. After the rain ended, I think. Marshall was on his back, and his clothing was wet from lying in the leaves. His chest was dry. Of course the killer had to wait for him to start his rounds, that may account for a change in timing.”

Or the killer had been thwarted, unable to reach the victim he had been waiting for.

“I was driving back from Hastings close to that time,” Rutledge said slowly. “I’m surprised I didn’t meet anyone on the road.” But Daniel Pierce had walked into The White Swans just before dawn broke. Where had he been?