A Long Shadow (9 page)

The parlor was feminine, with lacy curtains, crocheted antimacassars on the arms and backs of the chairs, and a long lacy cloth over the table by the piano. On it were photographs, and one was of a young girl holding a black and white kitten and smiling up at the camera. She was quite pretty even at the age of around ten, with good cheekbones and a high forehead, framed in hair that appeared to be dark and thick and curling.

Mrs. Ellison offered him a chair and sat down herself. In the flat tones of the near deaf, she asked him his business.

"I'm looking into the . . . accident that befell Constable Hensley in Frith's Wood," he said, pitching his voice so that she could hear him.

"I'm not deaf, young man," she retorted, and he smiled. "Apparently not."

"I do have trouble sometimes with what the words are. Putting them together to make sense."

"Do you know Constable Hensley well?"

"I'm his neighbor across the street. I don't invite him to my house to dine."

"Is he a good policeman?"

"How should I know?" Her lips tightened, as if to hold back what else she might have said.

"He investigated the disappearance of your granddaughter. And couldn't find her," he reminded her gently.

"It's always been in my mind that she went to look for her mother. My daughter. When her husband died— Emma's father—she wanted no more to do with the child. I think it was too painful a reminder of happiness lost. I don't know what became of her, to be truthful. She never wrote to me in all these years. Not even to ask how young Emma fared." Her face crumpled, but she recovered and said in a reasonably steady voice, "Beatrice was pretty too, and it was her downfall. Sad, isn't it, how blood can tell."

When he asked to see Emma's room, Mrs. Ellison raised her eyebrows in disapproval. "This has nothing to do with Constable Hensley's unfortunate accident!"

"She's not here," he prompted her. "I shan't be intruding. But it might help me to see what interested her."

"Even that Inspector Abbot, from Letherington, respected her privacy," Mrs. Ellison retorted. "I can't think what good it would do you. Unless it's voyeurism."

Stung, he said with some harshness, "You can't be the judge of what's important in a police matter. I can go to Northampton and ask for a warrant to search. It would be far less pleasant than five minutes in her room."

"Very well." She rose, led him to the stairs, and climbed ahead of him, her back stiff with protest.

The girl's room was on the front of the house, and when he went to the windows, he could see that one of them, the one nearest the dressing table, looked directly into Hensley's bedroom across the lane.

The walls of Emma Mason's room had been painted a pale yellow, with cream curtains at the window and a patterned cream coverlet on the bed. The skirts of the dressing table were a yellow and cream print, matching the cushions on both chairs. The carpet was floral, with splashes of cream and ivory and yellow mixed with a pale green. The effect was like sunlight pouring in, on such a gray day, even though the lamps hadn't been lit.

"Her granny treated her well enough," Hamish commented as Rutledge looked about him. "It wasna' unhappiness at home that made her leave."

To Rutledge's eyes nothing appeared to have changed since Emma Mason's disappearance. The room was clean, fresh, ready for its owner to step back into it again, as if these three blank years hadn't existed. The delicate scent of lavender filled the air, and Hamish said, "It lacks only flowers."

It was true. Something in keeping with the pretty surroundings. Daffodils in a slender glass vase, violets in something silver, roses in a cream pitcher. Rutledge could imagine it.

But there was nothing personal in the room, no dolls long since outgrown, only a few well-read books on the shelf by the bed, and a single photograph of Mrs. Ellison as a younger woman, placed by a ticking china clock on the bedside table.

A shrine? Or was this simply the way a grieving grandmother preferred to remember her grandchild?

He walked over to the wardrobe and was on the point of opening it when Mrs. Ellison said sharply, "Only her clothing is in there. Dresses and coats and shoes. A hat or two. You needn't pry into what she wore, surely."

He had seen what he had come to see.

On the way down the stairs, he asked, "I understand Emma had been interested in practicing with a bow, when she was younger."

They had reached the foot of the stairs by the time she answered, and she made a point not to invite him back into the parlor. "Emma went through a stage where she admired that young woman who was in the Robin Hood tales. I can't think what her name was."

"Maid Marian?"

She frowned. "My memory isn't what it once was. It hasn't been since—since she left me. At any rate, she read every book I could find for her about that forest—"

"Sherwood."

"Yes. Thank you. She begged me to take her there. But it isn't a great forest any longer, is it? I did ask the rector, and he said it would have been disappointing."

"Frith's Wood," Hamish said. "She would ha' seen it as filled wi' bandits and heroes."

It might have seemed an exciting, enchanting forest to a girl with an imagination that ran to old tales of adventure and damsels in distress.

"Can you tell me where her bow and arrows are now?"

"Good Lord, how should I know! It wasn't I who gave them to her, and I disapproved of them from the start."

"Then who did?"

"She never told me. I only discovered them by chance, and after that they were never left lying about."

"Do you remember the coloring of the feathers at the end of the shaft?"

Mrs. Ellison stared at him. "You must be mad! Of course not. I'm not always certain what day of the week it is, young man. Dr. Middleton tells me it will get worse, this forgetfulness. Worry, he says, that's what does it. But what do I need to remember, anyway? Losing my daughter and then my granddaughter? Hardly events one wishes to take into the shadows with one."

He thanked her then, and left.

But he had the strongest feeling that she was watching him from behind the parlor curtains as he crossed the street and opened the door of Hensley's house. She was right that he had no authority to poke about in an old mystery.

The problem was, it seemed to intrude of its own accord into the inquiry into Hensley's wounding. And he'd learned, long since, not to ignore distractions until he was sure that they had no bearing on the main issue.

His next step must be going to Letherington to speak to Inspector Cain about Hensley and about the Mason girl. His excuse was the recovery of the bicycle. If he needed one.

There was a man sitting in the constable's office, and Rutledge stopped in the doorway, wary and on his guard.

But the visitor came forward, his hand out, and said, "Inspector Cain. You must be the man they were sending from London. You got here sooner than I'd expected."

Hensley's superior officer.

Hamish said sourly, "He doesna' know the Chief Superintendent well."

Had Old Bowels's need for haste been intended to shut Cain out of the inquiry?

The Inspector was young, with fair hair and a ruddy complexion, and his carriage was military.

"In France, were you?" Rutledge added, after introducing himself.

"Yes, worst luck. Took a bullet in my hip. The doctors patched me up, but if you want to know tomorrow's weather, come and ask me."

Rutledge lit the lamp, and they sat down, Cain choosing Hensley's side of the table desk as if by right.

"Chief Inspector Kelmore sent word to me that you were here, but I had to wait for transportation from Letherington. Not much for bicycles yet, you know. And the carriage I generally use was busy elsewhere." He grinned. "My wife had errands to run. We're expecting our firstborn in three months. It's costing me more to set up the nursery than it will to send him to Eton."

"Congratulations," Rutledge said. "Yes, I visited Hensley in hospital. He's still in a great deal of pain, but the surgery appears to have been successful."

"Yes, well, he's a tough old bird. I never understood why he came here from London. I'd have preferred to be working in a city, myself, given half a chance."

"Much trouble in Letherington or Dudlington?"

"Not to speak of. This is cattle country, you know. Anyone who wakes up for milking at four in the morning isn't good for mischief by eight at night."

"I've hardly seen a man, much less a cow."

"They're in the barns in this weather. Most of them will bear calves in late winter. Lose a cow, and you lose the calf as well."

"Makes sense. Did you see Constable Hensley in Letherington on Friday last?"

"Everyone maintains he was on his way there, but if he was, he never reached us. None of my people at the station saw him, and he wasn't at his usual haunts. I've asked around. The fact of the matter is, I'd taken a bit of leave for personal business, because it was a quiet week. Or so we thought."

"Which would lead us to believe that there wasn't any pressing reason for him to speak with you. Nothing, for instance, so urgent that someone would go to any lengths to stop him."

"I can't imagine that's the case. Here, in Dudlington? It's probably the quietest of the three villages. And if there
was
an urgent problem, I'd have got wind of it by now."

"Since the attack occurred in broad daylight, we can't make a case for mistaken identity. Any idea who might have set out to kill Hensley?"

"God, no. I'm glad to see you feel it was attempted murder, by the way. In the first place, it doesn't make sense that someone would choose that benighted wood to play at archery. And in the second, Hensley's too big a man not to be heard as he came through the trees and into range. Finally, no one's stepped forward bow in hand with an apology. I've only been here two years—mustered out in late '17. Still, I can't think why anyone would wish him harm. I've had no complaints against him from the local people. That's generally the precursor to any trouble."

"What do you know about Emma Mason's disappearance?"

"I wasn't here, of course, when it happened. Pretty girl like that, though, might easily have her head turned by talk of better prospects than she could hope for here. Her mother ran off, I'm told. That's probably what put the notion into
her
head. No trace was ever found of her, and that's bothersome. But I would think that if she didn't want to be found, she would make sure she couldn't be. Grace Letteridge always believed she'd come back one day, weeping and repentant. If not pregnant."

"I haven't met Miss Letteridge."

"She's probably seen you, all the same. She lives at the corner of the main street and this lane. The thatched house, with the courtyard in front, and a garden."

"Did she know Emma well?"

"I don't know. The fact is, she doesn't talk about Emma at all. And the general impression is that Emma disappointed her. Well, of course, so much was expected of the child. Mary Ellison is a Harkness on her mother's side. And the Harkness family owned all the land here for miles around. It was the Harknesses who didn't care to see the muddy little village of Dudlington at their gates. And in 1817 they tore it down and rebuilt it here, out of sight— and presumably out of smell. That's why Dudlington is all of the same period, it started from scratch. The church is said to be a simplified design of Wren's. At least the spire is. And then in 1824, the Harkness manor house burned to the ground in a great conflagration, killing three people. Some said it was fired in revenge for moving everyone into the new village. But I expect, like many great houses of its day, it was likely to burn without any help. Gives me the willies to see my wife walking about with a candle. But there's no hope of electrical power in these scattered villages. There's no money for starters."

"How have you learned so much about the history of this place?" Rutledge asked, curious.

"I married into the history, old man. My wife's family has lived in Letherington for at least five generations. My mother-in-law reminds me of that daily. Another reason I pine for Canterbury." He shrugged. "I met my wife there, in fact, and never dreamed she would expect to live in a house across the road from her mother, after we'd married."

"Any suggestions about Hensley's past or present that might lead me in the right direction?"

"To be truthful, I can't imagine who would have the gall to shoot Hensley. You might ask yourself if it was something to do with his cases in London. I've learned that he was involved with a number of inquiries there. One into a German waiter who was a spy. Or said to be a spy. I doubt that he was. But in 1914 people could find spies under their beds. And there was another case, I don't remember the ins and outs of it. But a man named Barstow, in the City, claimed he was burned out by his rivals. Everyone agreed it was a case of arson—what it took some time to determine was exactly who had set the fire. Barstow was looking to rebuild, and he had a taste for revenge. He'd burned his own place of business, and blamed it on his enemies. And they actually went to trial for it."