A Fearsome Doubt Part 4

"I shouldn't know, Mr. Masters. I've never been in a kitchen in my life."

Rutledge nearly swallowed his soup the wrong way. But Masters took her at her word, and grunted. "Well, I've never been one for foreign dishes. Although they tell me the French cook surprisingly well."

Bella Masters turned to stare at her husband, and Rutledge caught a shadow of fright in her eyes. Searching in her pocket she found a small vial of powder, and asked the maid for a gla.s.s of water. After mixing the two, she handed the gla.s.s down to her husband, on the other side of Elizabeth.

Masters shook his head, and finished the course without saying more, but over the roast of beef, he turned to Rutledge and asked, "Are you here, Inspector, in an official capacity?"

"No, fortunately. I'm on leave and have come down to visit friends."

"Hmm. If the Yard knew what it was about, you'd be looking into these murders of ours." It was said with a proprietary air, as if they were his own.

Bella said, "I don't think we ought to discuss here-"

"Nonsense," her husband interrupted. "They're the talk of the district. You can hardly step into a shop without hearing the whispers!"

"All the same," Melinda Crawford put in firmly, "it can wait until the ladies have withdrawn. Elizabeth, I hear you've been blessed with puppies. How many did Henrietta produce?"

"Five," Elizabeth answered, as Masters said something under his breath. "Would you like one of them? Unless Ian intends to speak up, you have first choice."

"I'm afraid not; there's no garden for a dog at my flat," Rutledge replied. "Let Mrs. Crawford have her pick."

Lydia said, "The children would love one, don't you think, Lawrence?"

"Or two, perhaps. They'll be squabbling constantly over just one," Hamilton drawled, in mock enthusiasm.

Brereton laughed. "I'll take one of them, Mrs. Mayhew. I've got a small house, but the garden is walled. A dog should be quite happy there."

Masters glared at Brereton. "You're not taking it home in my motorcar!"

Elizabeth interposed soothingly, "Their eyes are barely open. It will be weeks before they can leave their mother."

Bella nodded to her husband's gla.s.s. The powder was settling to the bottom, no longer in suspension. "Do drink your medicine, my dear. It's long past time for it!"

Masters grudgingly picked up the gla.s.s, swirled it irritably, and swallowed half of it with a grimace. "I daresay it could be poison, for all I know. But I trust you, my love."

She seemed to shrivel before his glare. "It was the doctor who ordered it, Raleigh. Hardly poison!"

Lydia signaled the maid to remove the dishes. "Well," she said brightly, "have you heard the gossip? That house on the other side of the church has been bought by someone from Leeds! He made his money in sc.r.a.p iron during the war, or so they tell me . . ."

The conversation moved on smoothly, and Bella thanked Lydia with her eyes. The powder, whatever it was, seemed to s.h.i.+ft her husband's mood, and he joined with good humor in the speculation over the newcomer and what effect he might have on village affairs.

"If he's a bachelor, every woman within ten miles will be inviting him to dine, in hopes of marrying him off." Laughter met his comment. "Ask Brereton, here. He's never at a loss for a way to spend his evenings."

Brereton answered, "If he's a rich rich bachelor, he'll have the edge. I'll be forgotten in a day." bachelor, he'll have the edge. I'll be forgotten in a day."

"It's a beautiful house," Elizabeth commented. "I'm glad someone will live there again." For Rutledge's benefit she added, "The last of the family died of influenza a year ago-Oliver Hendricks. He always offered us the pick of his gardens for the church. Oliver lost both sons in the war, poor man. Richard knew both of them well."

Rutledge himself remembered Walter and John Hendricks, but said nothing. What was there to say? Death had not played favorites. . . .

It was after the ladies had withdrawn for tea and the port was being pa.s.sed that Masters returned to the subject of murder.

"I can't understand," he demanded, "why the Yard hasn't been more forward in this business. Two bodies in a matter of weeks!"

"I'm afraid I know nothing about the murders, sir," Rutledge answered him.

"I wonder what you are about, then! To be giving officers leave when they ought to be doing their duty is the height of stupidity!"

"The Chief Constable-" Rutledge began, but was interrupted.

"I know the law, Inspector. I spent twenty-five years as a barrister, ten of them as K.C. My question is, why does no one take these these murders seriously enough to put a stop to them!" murders seriously enough to put a stop to them!"

"That's unfair," Lawrence Hamilton put in. "You have to remember-"

"I remember only that invalided soldiers are dying, and no one seems to care," Masters retorted. "When my mentor, Matthew Sunderland, was alive, he believed that there would come a time when murder was tolerated, as long as it inconvenienced no one but the victim. I daresay he's being proved right."

Rutledge's attention swung back to Masters. Matthew Sunderland had been the King's Counsel in the murder trial of Ben Shaw. Rutledge remembered him distinctly, a stooped and thin figure in his black robes, his voice and his manner patrician as he conducted the prosecution. Mr. Justice Patton had treated him with cordial respect, well deserved by a man who had served the law for nearly fifty years. Sunderland was seldom wrong when he cited a precedent, and young barristers lived in dread of facing him across the courtroom.

"It's interesting that you knew Sunderland," Rutledge said, s.h.i.+fting the subject to one he preferred to explore. "Do you recall the Shaw trial?"

"Why should I?" Masters countered.

"I wondered if Sunderland had ever spoken of it to you," Rutledge returned mildly. "It received widespread publicity at the time."

"Sunderland was always conscious of his duty," Masters replied. "And convinced that he'd done his best. I never knew him to feel any doubt about the outcome of any trial."

Hamish, in the shadows of Rutledge's mind and quiet for most of the meal, spoke now.

"You didna' ask him that. . . ."

MASTERS, AS IF suddenly aware of the small gla.s.s with his medicine in it, stared at the remaining portion for a moment, swirled the contents again, and then drained it at one draught. suddenly aware of the small gla.s.s with his medicine in it, stared at the remaining portion for a moment, swirled the contents again, and then drained it at one draught.

By the time Lawrence Hamilton had described a fraud trial in which he was involved, Masters's chin was resting on his chest, and he was breathing heavily. Hamilton glanced at Rutledge. "I think it's time to join the ladies. We'll let him sleep, shall we? It's happened before."

Rutledge and Brereton quietly rose and followed their host to the drawing room. Bella Masters looked up quickly as they came in, and relief spread across her face as she saw that her husband was not with them.

"Is he sleeping?" she asked softly. When Hamilton nodded, she said only, "Well. It will do him good." She had been sitting next to Mrs. Crawford, and now came to take a chair beside Rutledge. "I want to say," she told him, smiling, "that it's wonderful to see Elizabeth out and about again. It's time she put the past aside. She's one of my favorite people, you know." A shadow pa.s.sed over her face, and the smile faded. "Widowhood is something we all must learn to live with. G.o.d knows, every wife must look ahead to the possibility."

"She's a remarkable woman," he agreed, wondering if Mrs. Masters was matchmaking.

But she surprised him by adding, her eyes straying to Brereton, sitting by Elizabeth now, "There's someone-well, I may be speaking out of turn!"

"Someone?" Rutledge prompted, curious. Brereton, perhaps? Or was Mrs. Masters warning him-the houseguest-off on general principle?

"There's a young man she's had lunch with. A time or two. I've seen them in the window of The Plough." The hotel on the High Street. "I hope it's someone suitable-" A worried frown touched her face. He found himself thinking that Bella Masters wasn't the sort who could prevaricate successfully. Her expressions were too easily read.

"I'll bear it in mind," he said, answering the concern rather than her actual words.

He spent perhaps another five minutes sitting with Mrs. Masters, and then was commandeered once again by Mrs. Crawford, who wanted to know what Frances, his sister, was thinking of, letting that handsome major slip through her fingers.

Rutledge laughed. "I rather think it was the other way round. Frances enjoyed his company, but was not in the right frame of mind to accept a proposal."

Melinda Crawford said, "I do wish she would settle. She's a very intelligent young woman, and your father spoiled her. She won't find his like, and she should stop trying-before the better choices are snapped up."

It was, Rutledge thought, a unique way of regarding his sister's spinsterhood. He suddenly realized that he shared it. Caught up as he had been in his own problems, he had not stopped to consider why Frances was still unmarried. Had there been someone during the war-someone he had never known about, and she had not wanted to speak of?

A little more than a half an hour later, Rutledge and Elizabeth took their leave. Masters, rested and less belligerent, had departed with Brereton driving. Mrs. Crawford had gone a little before them, her chauffeur summoned from the kitchens where he'd been gossiping with the Hamilton staff. Lydia had carried Elizabeth off for a moment to review the Christmas flower schedule for church services, leaving the two men alone.

Hamilton said, apropos of nothing, "You said something earlier about the Shaw murders. What brought them to mind?"

"My chief superintendent," Rutledge answered mildly. "He was promoted on the coattails of them. We aren't allowed to forget that."

"Our first cook was horribly shocked by the deaths, even though they occurred in London. I remember she refused to let a man into her cottage after that. She was convinced she'd die the same way. Dreadful to be old and fearful. I went myself a time or two to help nail up the back steps or whatever needed doing, and always took care that Lydia was with me." He shook his head. "The poor woman died in her sleep, and wasn't found for two days."

"Did you know Matthew Sunderland at all?"

"I knew him to nod to, as we pa.s.sed each other. I was too provincial and too young to have the courage to sit at the great man's feet. Although, to do him justice, he was never as lofty as he appeared. But the man had a regalness about him, the white hair and his carriage. Someone, I forget who, compared Sunderland to General Gordon-that same charismatic belief in his own power." Hamilton smiled. "To tell you the truth, I often wondered how many cases Sunderland carried just striding into the courtroom. And he had a voice to match, deep and impressive enough to read the Old Testament to savages. We won't see his like again this century!"

8.

AS SHE STEPPED INTO HIS CAR, E ELIZABETH M MAYHEW SAID TO Rutledge, "Sorry! I didn't mean to keep you waiting so long. But if Lydia and I don't settle the flower schedule ourselves, there's endless confusion. People by nature want to change things, and it takes hours for the committee to draw up a satisfactory list. We've learned to circ.u.mvent argument by working it out between us." Rutledge, "Sorry! I didn't mean to keep you waiting so long. But if Lydia and I don't settle the flower schedule ourselves, there's endless confusion. People by nature want to change things, and it takes hours for the committee to draw up a satisfactory list. We've learned to circ.u.mvent argument by working it out between us."

As the engine turned over, he got into the car beside her, then realized that earlier she'd folded the rug for her knees and laid it in the rear seat. With a cold shock of dread, he turned and fished for it, his eyes carefully away from the spot that Hamish seemed to favor. As his fingers touched the wool, he drew it toward him. It seemed to come with unexpected ease, as if Hamish had given it a push in his direction. But that was imagination, and he took a deep breath to dispel the feeling of having come close to the one thing he feared-finally confronting the nemesis that haunted his waking hours.

Hamish had died in France in 1916, in the nightmarish days of the first battle of the Somme. He had died as surely as any of the war dead. Shot by a firing squad at Rutledge's orders, shot by the coup de grace that Rutledge had administered with his own hand, buried deep in the stinking mud that the artillery sh.e.l.l had thrown up, killing men like nettles before a scythe. Rutledge had not wanted to execute the Scottish corporal, but Hamish MacLeod had been stubborn in his refusal to do what he had been ordered to do, and in the heat of battle, disobeying an order in the face of his men had left his commanding officer no alternative but to make an example-and hope with all his being that the young Scot would see the error of his ways well before the threat had to be carried out. But Hamish, worn and exhausted and tired of watching men die in the withering fire of No Man's Land, would not lead them out again. And Rutledge had had to do what he had sworn he would.

Hamish MacLeod had been a natural leader, not a coward, respected by officers and men alike. But he had been battered by too much death and too little sleep. He'd watched the corpses piling up, he'd lost count of the replacements, and the shock of the endless bombardments had left him shaken and tormented. Death had come as a release for him-and had nearly destroyed Rutledge.

And while Hamish lay somewhere in France-buried securely beneath a white cross lost in an alien garden of thousands upon thousands of war dead, hardly distinguishable from the soldiers who slept on either side of him-if his ghost walked, it walked in Scotland, not England. He had loved the Highlands with a pa.s.sionate intensity, and the woman he'd left behind there. But in Rutledge's battle-frayed mind, there was something that was still alive and stern and real, the essence of the soldier he'd known so well and had-for the sake of a battle-ordered killed. Murdered- Rutledge shut the thought out of his mind. As Elizabeth was settling the rug over her knees and he was putting the car into gear, he struggled to break the silence that engulfed him. But the first question he could think of was "What were these killings that Masters was talking about?"

"Oh. I hadn't said anything before. You're on leave, and I hadn't wanted to bring your work into this holiday."

"Masters seems to have had no such compunction," he said wryly.

"I've never faced death," she said thoughtfully. "So I can't tell you what I'd I'd do if someone-a physician-told me I probably wouldn't live much longer. But Raleigh has fought it bravely. It's just that he's turned . . . bitter-I suppose that's the word. The worst of it was, he's had to give up his work in London. And he's not the man we once knew. I expect that's why we're so tolerant of him. As well as for poor Bella's sake. She doesn't quite know how to cope. He won't let her touch him-they have nurses in for that." do if someone-a physician-told me I probably wouldn't live much longer. But Raleigh has fought it bravely. It's just that he's turned . . . bitter-I suppose that's the word. The worst of it was, he's had to give up his work in London. And he's not the man we once knew. I expect that's why we're so tolerant of him. As well as for poor Bella's sake. She doesn't quite know how to cope. He won't let her touch him-they have nurses in for that."

She sighed, drawing herself away from the Masterses' dilemma. "The murders. There have been two ex-soldiers killed. One was found on a lonely road, the other by a field, and no one quite knows who would do such a thing-or why. The pity is, they survived the war, and now it's not a German killing them, but an Englishman. Their own side! I find that rather horrible, don't you?"

ELIZABETH HAD FALLEN asleep, her head against his shoulder. He was no more than two miles or so from her house as the crow flew, and Rutledge could feel the weariness of the long day turning to drowsiness of his own as he drove. Fighting it, he concentrated on the road ahead-and swerved as he realized too late that a man was standing at a crossroads, almost in his path. asleep, her head against his shoulder. He was no more than two miles or so from her house as the crow flew, and Rutledge could feel the weariness of the long day turning to drowsiness of his own as he drove. Fighting it, he concentrated on the road ahead-and swerved as he realized too late that a man was standing at a crossroads, almost in his path.

As the lamps of his motorcar pinned the figure in their bright beams, he would have sworn in that instant that it was the face he'd seen the night of the Guy Fawkes bonfire.

Elizabeth came awake as the motorcar veered wildly. She said quickly, "What's wrong-?"

Rutledge's heart rate seemed to have doubled as he fought the wheel to bring the car back to the road. He had all but killed killed the man! the man!

"Someone-in the road-I didn't see him until I was on him-"

He must stop, he told himself disjointedly-be certain the man was all right-the wing had missed him-given the idiot a shock perhaps as severe as his own-but done the man no harm-there had been no contact- Yet he didn't want to go back-he didn't want to find that the figure on the road had existed only in his dream-filled brain as he had drifted unexpectedly into sleep.

"I don't see anyone in the road." Elizabeth said it doubtfully, turning to look over her shoulder. "Are you sure, Ian? There's no one there-Ought we to go back?"

Hamish said, "You must go back! You canna' leave him to bleed to death in a hedgerow!"

Rutledge was already slowing the motorcar, and with some difficulty turning it on the narrow road. Dread filled him, a deep and abiding belief that if he was right, there would be no body and no sign of one.

And when they reached the crossroads again, although he searched for a good ten minutes, no one was there-

RUTLEDGE WAS AWAKE before dawn, standing at the windows looking out over the back lawns of Elizabeth Mayhew's house. It was a pretty view, even in the early morning mists. Flower beds laid out asymmetrically formed a pattern that led the eye down a gra.s.sy walk to a bench overlooking the small pool at the bottom of the garden. In summer the beds held a wonderful variety of blooming plants, but an early frost had blighted summer's growth, leaving behind only the skeletons of what once was. before dawn, standing at the windows looking out over the back lawns of Elizabeth Mayhew's house. It was a pretty view, even in the early morning mists. Flower beds laid out asymmetrically formed a pattern that led the eye down a gra.s.sy walk to a bench overlooking the small pool at the bottom of the garden. In summer the beds held a wonderful variety of blooming plants, but an early frost had blighted summer's growth, leaving behind only the skeletons of what once was.

But what he saw at this moment was not a Kentish garden; it was the blighted landscape of France. It seemed he could still hear the guns, using up their stockpiled sh.e.l.ls in a mad frenzy of noise and destruction. It was as if there was to be no Armistice in a few hours. The rattle of machine guns, punctuated by the sharper fire of rifles, added to the din, and men were still dying, and would go on dying until the eleventh hour. He had tried to husband them, to stop the waste of life and the long, long lists of the wounded, but he could hear the cries of pain and the screams of the dying and the scything whisper of bullets overhead.

A political decision it had been, not a battlefield victory: The Armistice would commence on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, at the eleventh hour of the morning-11 November, 1918, eleven A.M. A.M.

It had held no reality for Rutledge. He had stood in the trenches, Hamish alive in his mind, and stared across the bleak, tortured land he had known intimately for four unthinkable years. And the Scot's words kept forming in his head: "I shallna' see this eleventh hour, I shallna' go home with the rest, I shallna' prosper in the years ahead. And you willna' prosper, either." "I shallna' see this eleventh hour, I shallna' go home with the rest, I shallna' prosper in the years ahead. And you willna' prosper, either."

Better to be dead. Better to walk out into that machine-gun fire and be dead, than to go home to nothing. . . .

He could hear the voices around him, men who had survived, talking tentatively about what would actually happen here. But not of home. Not yet. No one could quite grasp an end to the b.l.o.o.d.y Great War. There was neither jubilation nor hope, only an odd reluctance to think beyond the appointed hour. As if it would be unlucky. He wondered if the Germans in their hidden trenches were feeling the same fatalistic acceptance, or if they, too, counted their dead in their thoughts, and wondered why it had all begun anyway.

He didn't know why it had begun, this war. He understood the political reasoning, the invoked alliances, the a.s.sa.s.sination in Sarajevo, where the Austrian archduke had died. He had succ.u.mbed to the banners and the enthusiasm and the euphoria as all the others had, he had trained and s.h.i.+pped out for France, and gone into battle with a sense of duty and honor. Then he had watched it metamorphose into the most appalling slaughter in living memory. And still the generals and the political leaders and the press had fought on, safe in their coc.o.o.ns far from the dying . . .

Appalling . . .

Coming back to the present, he watched a wind lift the boughs of the trees and run lightly across the gra.s.s.

Was it barely a year ago that this slaughter had ended, with no banners and no enthusiasm and no posturing, in a last barrage of sh.e.l.ls and the cold gray November dawn? He s.h.i.+vered. For too many men, this was not a day of solemn commemoration but a day of agonized remembrance.

For him, a reminder that Hamish MacLeod had not not come home. come home.

WHEN HE WENT down to breakfast, Elizabeth was already there. "Good morning!" she said cheerily, then seeing his face, the tired lines that marked a sleepless night, she went on in a more subdued tone, "Melinda Crawford has asked us to tea. There's a note that just arrived. I'm to send back an answer." down to breakfast, Elizabeth was already there. "Good morning!" she said cheerily, then seeing his face, the tired lines that marked a sleepless night, she went on in a more subdued tone, "Melinda Crawford has asked us to tea. There's a note that just arrived. I'm to send back an answer."

"Yes, why not?" Rutledge answered. "And I'll take you both to dinner afterward, if you like."

"I'd like that," she agreed. She watched him lift the lids of serving dishes on the handsome buffet, and fill his plate. "I'll give the staff the day off. They'll be delighted."