A Fearsome Doubt (30 page)

As he straightened up, he said, “Mrs. Shaw. Where had your husband hidden this locket?” There was a different note in his voice.

Hamish said, “’Ware!”

Rutledge thought she was going to die then.

“We searched the house,” he said implacably. “We never found it. Where was it?”

Nell Shaw crumpled before his eyes.

Covering her face with her hands, she lay back in the bed and thrashed, moaning, from side to side. From an angry demanding harridan, she had become diminished, a woman without spirit and without hope. Margaret ran to her, throwing an accusing glance at him.

Hamish said, “It canna’ be true—!”

Rutledge answered grimly,
“You weren’t there!”

He left the room, and went down the stairs. In the kitchen, the remainders of a meal lay on the table, greasy plates, scraps of sausage and bread. He took the kettle, filled it with fresh water, and set it on the stove, then opened cupboards until he found cups and saucers.

As he took them down, he could see that his hands were shaking.

Guilt—

He thought then about what Tom Brereton had said about guilt—about the need to work it out.

But why had Mrs. Shaw suddenly taken it into her head to remove the locket from its hiding place and put it in among Mrs. Cutter’s clothing?

Why?

To what end?

Yes, it would make a difference in her children’s lives as well as her own to clear her husband’s name, but the passion driving her had been ferocious—

He reviewed everything he knew or had learned about the Shaws. And Margaret’s words came back to him . . .

“She went next door to help Mr. Cutter as he’d asked, and when she came home she looked sick, as if she was about to lose her dinner. She was that upset, she locked herself in her room. I’ve only known her to do that twice before. The day Papa was taken away, and the day the letter came.”

“What letter?”

“I never saw it. But after she read it, she cried for hours. Then she came out of her room and was herself again.”

The teakettle sang a cheerful note, startling Rutledge back into the present.

Mrs. Shaw had judged him well, he thought. And with a cleverness born of desperation, she had found the one chink in his armor: his understanding of Ben Shaw’s broken spirit, his fatal willingness to doubt his own judgment.

Like a tightrope walker fighting for his balance, he had been swayed by the wind of her vehemence, uncertain, unable to ask for help or support from his superiors, a man caught in a dilemma that cast doubt on the one part of his life he needed most to believe in—his career. The perfect foil to Nell Shaw’s intentions.

But
why
?

Hamish said, “She learned that you had survived the war—”

Rutledge shook his head. It went beyond that.

He poured three cups of tea when the pot had brewed, and set them on a tray with sugar and milk, then took it upstairs.

N
ELL
S
HAW WAS
sitting slumped in the chair by the door as Margaret struggled to make up the bed alone. Rutledge set the tray on top of the tall chest, carrying a cup to her.

It was hot and sweet, and she drank it thirstily.

Margaret, with the bed straightened up, sat forlornly on one end of it and sipped at her tea as if afraid it might be poisoned. She looked old, worn, an image of herself far into the future. Rutledge felt sorry for her.

He said, taking his own cup and going to stand by the window, “I think we need to get to the bottom of this matter.”

Nell Shaw, drained of emotion, said, “You’ve destroyed us. You know that.”

“No. That began when your husband murdered three helpless women.”

“He done them a favor. You don’t know the truth. You don’t know how they lay there day after day, with nobody to talk to, nobody to see to them except my Ben and the old charwoman who cleaned a little and cooked a bit. He’d come home of a night and shake his head with the pity of it. He said, once, ‘It would be a mercy if they was released from this life. I’ve prayed that it would come.’ But it never did.”

“Where was the locket hidden?”

“It was pinned to my corset, under my petticoat. In a little sack along with some other money he’d picked up as well.”

“Why in God’s name did you try to shift the blame to Mrs. Cutter?”

“I never liked her! And that son of hers, the policeman, he stole more from those houses than my Ben
ever
did. Some of the possessions listed as missing we never had. But there was no way to prove what we suspected. That bitch betrayed me, to save her precious George, and he went and killed himself from shame. It got her back, a little, for him to die almost the same week as my Ben. I didn’t see any reason why, with both of them dead, I couldn’t use them the way they’d used us!”

Hamish broke in. “You canna’ be sure that’s the truth, either!”

Rutledge said, “You could have told one of us—one of the officers here to find evidence—what you suspected.”

“Not without letting on that we knew which he’d stolen, and which he hadn’t. We was afraid to. George was a policeman—who would have listened to the likes of us?” She raised her head and stared at him. “You can still set this to rights. With a little help, we could still clear my Ben.”

“Why is it so important to you?”

“I told you—my children! Look at that girl of mine, and tell me I was wrong!”

“And what about the letter?”

For the second time that evening, her face turned gray with shock. Her lips tightened; she said nothing.

Hamish, already ahead of Rutledge, said, “That letter wasna’ to
her—
it was to her deid husband!”

“You might as well tell me,” Rutledge said. “I’ve guessed most of it. Ben’s cousin who went to Australia is coming home, and you thought he might be willing to help you, if you could prove you’d been wronged. . . .”

She glared angrily at him. “That’s charity!”

“Then what did this man want?”

“He didn’t want anything. Neville was dying, and he wrote to Ben to tell him that he’d always admired him for staying home and making a good life for himself here, carrying on the family name with pride. He was ashamed of the way he’d spent his own youth, and he said God had punished him for that, taking his son at Gallipoli. We never even knew he’d married! But he must have, and he took the loss of his son hard. And he wanted to leave his money, all of it, a whole bloody
fortune,
to Ben—for old times’ sake!”

28

H
ER BLEAK, RED-RIMMED EYES STARED AT
R
UTLEDGE, DARING
him to pity her.

“Ben predeceased him—” he began.

“That’s right. You can’t leave money to a dead man. But if I could prove that he’d been wrongfully hanged, if I could show he’d have been alive still if he hadn’t been taken from us, I thought I might stand a chance at the inheritance. Neville didn’t know, you see—he hadn’t kept up with Ben or us, he hadn’t ever heard of Margaret and young Ben. He was leaving it all to Ben,
and Ben was dead
!”

“And that’s when you decided to risk claiming you’d found the locket next door, in Mrs. Cutter’s possession.”

“I was afraid if it all went wrong, the police might think I’d taken it, and I’d be clapped in jail. But then I heard you was back at the Yard, and I thought, if I got to Mr. Rutledge, he might listen to me. With George’s suicide, it was easy to believe Janet Cutter’s son was guilty of something. And with her stroke coming when it did, it would be easy to think she knew more than she should and was guilty of letting Ben die in her son’s place.”

Hamish said, “Mrs. Shaw nearly succeeded.”

“It was wrong of you—” Rutledge began.

“Wrong be damned!” she cried, with a little of her old blazing spirit. “It was my family I cared about. Wouldn’t you fight for yours, if you had to?”

Hamish reminded him, “You fought for your men—but you didna’ fight for me!”

Rutledge retorted, “You refused to listen—you preferred to die!”

Struggling to collect his thoughts, he said aloud, “If you spoke to a lawyer—”

“And where’s the money for that to come from, I ask you! I could scarcely pay for my way to Marling, much less hire a solicitor who knows his arse from his elbow. I was desperate, and something in your face when I came into your room at the Yard made me think you’d listen. That I could make you believe in Ben.”

She had nearly done it. She had shaken him to the core, and driven him to listen to her demands, to ask questions, to revive, at least in his own mind, the trial that had left its mark on so many people.

“It was a near run thing,” Hamish was saying. “With yon Matthew Sunderland ill, and the constable guilty of theft, and Mrs. Cutter knowing what he’d done, it might ha’ turned out differently.”

“Differently, yes.” Rutledge answered silently. “But it was still Ben Shaw who put the pillows over the faces of defenseless women and smothered them!”

“Then why did ye no’ uncover the rest of the story at the time?”

“Because when George Peterson was taken on, he hadn’t told the Yard that his mother remarried. Nobody knew of his relationship to Mrs. Cutter.”

“Because he and his stepfather didna’ see eye to eye?”

It was one explanation. There might have been other reasons . . . Who could say what had tormented George Peterson?

As if she’d heard Rutledge’s thoughts, Nell Shaw said, “I never knew what possessed George, but something did. He was always looking for something—somewhere to belong. He was like one of them icebergs. You never saw what was below the surface, only the little bit at the top.”

She looked across at her daughter, forgotten in the anguish of the last hour. Margaret was quietly crying, lost in misery.

“You shouldn’t have heard any of this, poppet. I’m that sorry.”

29

R
UTLEDGE LEFT HALF AN HOUR LATER.
A
S HE CAME OUT
into the street, he found Henry Cutter standing by the motorcar, staring up at the Shaw house.

“What’s happened?” he asked, his face pale and shaken. “I heard such terrible screams. What’s happened?”

“Mrs. Shaw wasn’t well. Her daughter sent for me.”

“For the
police
?” Cutter asked, frowning. “Not the doctor?”

“He came and went,” Rutledge said. “But this wasn’t within his province.”

“I don’t think she’s ever got over what happened to Ben.”

“No.” He was on the point of telling Cutter about the locket. Instead he asked, as if merely curious, “She told me that your stepson also was troubled beyond the ordinary.”

“I never understood him. Janet claimed I never tried, but he made it too difficult, and I gave up. I thought everything would be better after he’d killed himself. But it wasn’t. It killed my wife, too. That and Shaw’s hanging. She took that hard. She had airs and graces, my wife did. In some ways she should have married Shaw, not me. I’ve always been a plain man.” He looked up at the brightly lit windows again. “Are you sure they’re all right?”

Rutledge would have liked to tell him the truth, but again he stopped himself. “You might call in the morning, and ask if there’s anything they need.”

Cutter said doubtfully, “I don’t know . . .”

Rutledge moved around him to crank the motorcar and then climbed behind the wheel. “No. I don’t expect you do,” he said in resignation and, after a moment, drove away.

H
E STOPPED AT
the end of the quiet street, and rubbed his face with his hands. His eyes burned, his very soul felt dry and warped.

Remembering the question that Brereton asked him—about the secrets he uncovered in people’s lives, and how he dealt with them—he thought,
I can’t pass judgment on what Nell Shaw wanted to do.

Hamish replied, “Her husband sowed the wind, and she reaped the whirlwind.” It was a very black-and-white interpretation of tragedy. And, in its way, true.

Rutledge dropped his hands to the wheel again. “I’ll speak to Lawrence Hamilton. He might be able to help her.”

“It’s no’ your business. The murders in Kent are.”

The murders in Kent—

He ought to be pleased that he hadn’t been wrong in his judgment of Ben Shaw. But that was no consolation. Nor did it offer insight into these other deaths, or a sense of purpose and renewed dedication. There was only emptiness.

Judgment had its well of sorrow.

And compassion had its pitfalls.

All the same, he was glad he hadn’t walked away from Nell Shaw, as he might have done. It would have been the coward’s way.

For a moment he considered going to his sister’s house in the city, and staying the night there. It would offer him peace and a little comfort.

But before the evening was over, he was afraid he’d blurt out Raleigh Masters’s accusation about Frances and Richard Mayhew. And that was not to be borne tonight.

Instead he turned toward Kent and his empty hotel room, where only Hamish shared his mind. That was where he ought to be.

I
N THE EVENT,
there was no sleep to be had.

Dowling had left a message under his door.

The Chief Constable called tonight after you left, wanting to speak with you. He believes there’s sufficient evidence against this Dutchman to charge him with the murders. It’s out of our hands—

Rutledge read the words again and then crumpled the sheet of paper into a ball.

Damn them all! he thought.

Five minutes later, instead of trying to sleep in his bed, he was walking to the police station and asking the constable on duty for the key to the prisoner’s cell.

If Hauser had been asleep, he showed no signs of it as Rutledge unlocked the door.

“Wait, I’ll find the lamp,” the German said, and after a moment light bloomed in the dark room, shadows falling across Rutledge’s face.

“Good God, man, you look worse than I do!” Hauser exclaimed.

“I live an exciting life. As you will, shortly. The Chief Constable is preparing to charge you with the murders of three men.”

“On your evidence?”

“There’s damned little of that. No, on circumstantial evidence.”

“There’s wine in the cellars. But there’s no laudanum. I poured that out, before I left the house yesterday morning, and threw the bottle into a field on my way into Marling.”

Rutledge laughed bitterly. “I never meant for it to convict you.”

“No. I know you didn’t. I’m beginning to get the measure of you.”

“I wish I could say the same for you,” Rutledge answered.

“The problem is, you’re an honest man. And you know that I am not. I am safe in believing you. But you may find yourself in trouble if you believe me.”

“Exactly. Did you kill those men? There are no witnesses here. Not even outside the door. And any confession is your word against mine. A good barrister could claim that I had very good reasons to want to see you convicted.”

“Elizabeth? God, I hope she won’t come into this!”

“She has already. Dowling has found out that she lunched with you at the hotel one day and has been seen several times speaking to you.”

“They will say I used her, to buy respectability. Yes. All right, if you want me to swear I’m innocent, I shall. On my brother’s soul.”

His face was sober, the blue eyes intense in the lamplight.

Hamish pressed, “Do you believe him?”

Rutledge answered, “Does it matter?” Aloud, he added, “Tell me, does this cup of yours exist?”

“There are records in my family. Letters. I can probably prove it was with me during the first years of the war, if someone can track down the men serving under me. But that would lead to the truth that my brother died after the cup was taken from me. It gives me a reason for murdering ex-soldiers from Kent who were in the unit that captured me. Better to believe I was here searching my family connection with England.”

“You’ve made a tangle of your life.”

“So I have,” Hauser answered regretfully. “But then I expected to be gone in a few days. Find Ridger, demand the cup be returned, and home again. It seemed quite simple, when I borrowed my cousin’s papers.”

Rutledge turned back to the door. “Is there anything—anything at all you can tell me about these dead men?”

Hauser rubbed his jaw with the tips of his fingers, feeling the beard there. “I’ve thought of little else shut away in here. Elizabeth was right, you know. I should have taken the train to London and the next boat to Holland.”

“It would help if you’d seen something suspicious out there wandering around in the dark.”

“I couldn’t even identify the man who stabbed me! But think about this. If you offer a man a drink that is drugged, a drink he’s not accustomed to—this wine of yours—how would you go about it?”

“I’d have a drink first myself. To show the bottle was safe.”

“That’s because you’re aware that it’s drugged. No. You would offer him the wine to keep out the cold. You may have driven these roads, but you haven’t walked them long after dark, as I did. At first the exercise warms you, and then you begin to feel tired. Your shoulders ache, and then your face grows cold, and your hands. The feet last. You’d be glad of a drink by and by. I cursed myself for not bringing a flask with me.”

It was an interesting approach.

“All right. Anything else?”

Hauser yawned. “You’re the policeman. You’ll think of something.”

R
UTLEDGE SLEPT HARD
. When he awoke to a cold and raw Thursday morning, he lay in his bed, trying to bring his mind to bear on the day’s work ahead.

As he shaved he sorted through all the possible motives that he had uncovered—Hauser’s revenge for Ridger’s actions; guilt; compassion; and a pure and callous evil. Not the work of a madman, nor of a passionate man, but of a wary one.

What drove ordinary people to the point of murder?

He considered the three women who had been married to the victims.

Had there been some collusion among them? To rid themselves of a husband who had become a stranger and a burden they hadn’t bargained for in the glamorous, exciting days of sending a soldier off to fight the Hun?

If so, they had concealed it very well.

And yet Mrs. Taylor had called her husband a stranger. Mrs. Webber had confessed to Rutledge that her husband had been unfaithful in France. Mrs. Bartlett spoke of being afraid to be alone, but perhaps she preferred it in some objective and well-disguised corner of her mind.

How easy would it be to kill your own husband? Or had they drawn lots, each taking on the responsibility for a man not their own?

Was that why the deaths had occurred on a dark road at night? Was the wine a gamble that had sucked the victim into conspiring at his own death?

“Ye’re avoiding yon Crawford woman—”

“I’m doing what I have been sent here to do—”

“Oh, aye—”

“Then I’ll talk to Mrs. Crawford. I won’t destroy a friendship on a whim.”

A
S IT HAPPENED,
Rutledge’s first item of business was a brief encounter with Lawrence Hamilton.

They had met in the triangular square within touching distance of the Cavalier’s broad back.

“What brings you to Marling at this hour?” Rutledge asked after greeting him.

Hamilton shrugged. “An errand of mercy, I expect. Elizabeth has asked me to act for this man Dowling is holding for the murders.”

“Indeed!”

“I’m not happy about it. But Elizabeth was adamant. And distraught. Do you know what this is all about? Lydia is very worried, I can tell you!”

“It’s Elizabeth’s place to answer that, not mine. The man Dowling is holding is trying to keep her out of it.” He carefully avoided giving Hauser a name.

“What’s between them? How serious is it?” Hamilton prodded.

“There’s nothing between them as far as I know. I think Elizabeth is—infatuated.”

“Yes, I gathered that. And the man?”

“He’s not what you expect. In other circumstances—who knows?”

“Well. Damn the war, anyway! If Richard had come home, this wouldn’t have happened.”

As he started to drive on toward the station, Rutledge laid a hand on the car. “I’ve a favor of my own to ask.”

“What’s that?”

“A Mrs. Shaw. London, Sansom Street. She’s got no money, and probably no hope of any. It’s about a will. She needs someone to act on her behalf, to protect her children’s interests.”

Hamilton chuckled. “You’re a dangerous man, Rutledge, do you realize that? I haven’t known you a month, and now I’m dragged into a murder case and asked to take on a questionable will.”

Rutledge smiled, and it touched his eyes, lighting them from within. “Yes, well, we’re neither of us in the law for peace of mind.”

“Richard always said you were a philosopher.” With that he drove on, leaving his motorcar in the hotel yard.

A
S HE WALKED
through the gate up to the Webbers’ door, Rutledge found himself thinking of Peter and his younger sister. What would become of them if their mother was a murderess?

Would they suffer as the Shaw children had done? Or were there relatives to take them in and give them comfort?

This was the distasteful part of his work. On the other hand, who had spoken up for the dead men? Who had heard their voices? Dowling was more concerned with a killer on his patch than he was with men who had slipped into oblivion. They were a blot on his record, and one to be removed. . . .

Rutledge knocked lightly on the door.

It was Monday morning, and Susan Webber, sleeves rolled up, was elbow deep in her tubs. She greeted him with surprise, and said, drying her arms on her apron, “I’m just finishing the wash.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt. I must ask a few more questions.”

She led him into the room where they had talked before, sitting stiffly in a chair facing him.

Hamish said, “You’d think she had a guilty conscience. . . .”

But Rutledge put her nervousness down to talking to the police at all.

“You told me you couldn’t think of anyone who might harm them, your husband or the other men. And you were not prepared to believe your husband had killed himself.”

“Yes, that’s right. What for? Kenny knew we had little enough, with him alive!”

“You’d managed throughout the war without him. Perhaps it would be easier to go on that way.”

She stared at him. “Bringing up two children, without a man? Go and speak with Bobby Nester’s wife! He died of the gas, and she’s making do as best she can. She’d dreaded the day when he was gone, and she’d got nothing. And nobody! Or try talking with my Peter, when he wants to leave school and help me. And I’m telling
him
that schooling is his only way out of this life. People have been good to us, and I’m not denying it. Kenny would have been proud of that. But it’s not the same. It’ll never be the same again. Who’ll marry a woman with two growing children, and take on that burden?”