A Fearsome Doubt (8 page)

10

T
HE NEXT MORNING
R
UTLEDGE REPORTED FOR DUTY, AND
then at midday, after a meeting ended earlier than expected, he found his way again to the street of soot-blackened houses where the Shaws had lived their entire married life. Winter sun splashed the roofs and walls, bringing out every flaw, like an aging woman who had ventured out too early into the merciless morning light. Even the mortar of the bricks seemed engrained with coal smoke, and in the windows, white lace curtains mocked it.

Number 14 was very like its neighbors, upright and lacking any individuality that would offer a hint about the occupants within. The iron knockers on several doors were Victorian whimsy, mass-produced rather than a reflection of personal taste. One house possessed an urn-shaped stone pot that had held pansies in the summer, their withered stems falling over the sides like a bedraggled veil, but most of the street seemed not to care about the image it presented. The white lace curtains were a last pitiful attempt at pride, but there was no money to spend on frivolous ornamentation.

Rutledge left his motorcar a block away and continued on foot, hoping to attract as little notice as possible. But now and again curtains twitched as the women of Sansom Street inspected the stranger with suspicion. He was as much an outsider here as he might have been on a street in Budapest—outsiders seldom brought anything but trouble. Particularly well-dressed ones with an air of authority.

He walked on to the end of the street where a church stood like a beacon, its early Victorian tower rising above the dingy roofs. The door needed paint, and the stained-glass windows were grimy, but when Rutledge stepped inside and opened the door to the nave, he was surprised to find the interior as bright and polished as any church in Westminster. His footsteps echoed on the flagstone as he walked down the aisle, and something large and black rose like a goblin from the chairs below the pulpit.

A scarecrow of a man, his robes flapping and his face flushed, called, “Good morning! Is there any way I can help you?”

The rector rose to his full height, a feather duster in his bony hand and a cobweb across his chest like a lace collar. His white hair, in disarray, looked like a ruff. The smile was genuine, if wry.

Rutledge said, gesturing around him, “This is truly a sanctuary.”

“Well, yes, we try to manage that. My wife had a committee meeting this morning, and I’m frightfully poor at dusting, but one tries.” He paused. “What brings you to St. Agnes?”

“Curiosity, I suppose,” Rutledge said slowly. “I understand you buried a parishioner not long ago. A Mrs. Cutter, Janet Cutter.” It was a guess, and apparently on the mark.

“It’s been three months since she was laid to rest,” the rector said, riffling the feather duster between his hands and sneezing briskly. “Her husband has taken it hard. Not being used to fending for himself, everything at sixes and sevens. Are you acquainted with the Cutters?”

“I’ve met them. My name is Rutledge. I had occasion to speak with them—some six years ago.”

The rector nodded. “That would be near enough to the time that Ben Shaw was arrested. I was at the trial when the verdicguess,brought in. I recall seeing you there.” He left the words like a gauntlet between them.

Rutledge smiled. “Yes. You have a very good memory.”

“In my calling—ss,in yours, I’m sure—s good memory is a necessity.” He put the duster down behind the steps to the pulpit and said again, “What brings you here?”

Rutledge took a chair,in the first row. “I don’t know. Recently I received information that intrigued

“Than trs. Chaw wook ay cadvice” the rector nestpoder. “Y waoderrd infshe wauld ” H/p>

t was aunexpctor. utledge taske, rYSe wcme io spe mou ”

“Tes.,she was lquit duisturbr. Se was ’t kurewhet thodon and Ithod ber dhodbegn tith the Cpolice ot tith tHeny iutter.It was anfer dlli anCpolicemarter.” Ihe rector s bong ,namrow. facemgve alitled awa. e pook a ot er dhair,,monvng yt asignhly Io feacemutledge. I/p>

Theer,ivoices echod infthe Cempingssi ofthe Cchurch and Iutledge tad oanauneasyfeneing thet inf Hamishspeoke,the words would bechotas wellh`Ashevedr pased tohoughthims I/p>

The rector was lsayng rYTowrd.the Ced Iofter dlife,tJant butter.was atwouanatith tome hing an ter dhonscience

“TDd aou tbeinveryen Shaw was atwmurerrer”

The rector wturne, awa. “I don’t know.toe Canswr dhodhet . Truthfule. en Sas aot atwoillfulwmurerrerIt was ’t knfths anature

Rutledge picked up the thread he was following. “The women were old, infirm. It was a kindness to end their pain and their loneliness . . .”

The rector shrugged. “Who can say what went through that poor man’s mind?”

“If Shaw
wasn’t
guilty of murder, who was? His wife? Mrs. Cutter?”

The rector turned tired but knowing eyes on Rutledge. “I don’t speculate on guilt. I try to bring comfort without judgment.”

“I’m a policeman. Judgment is my trade.”

“So it is.” The rector rose. “It has been interesting to speak with you. May I offer a word of advice? Not as a man of the cloth, but as someone thirty years your senior, and therefore perhaps—a little wiser?”

“By all means,” Rutledge answered, rising as well.

“Walk carefully. You can’t bring Ben Shaw back from the dead. He’s long since faced a judgment higher than yours or mine. Better for him to be a martyr than to open wounds you cannot close again.”

Rutledge considered him for a moment. “Yet you sent Nell Shaw to me.”

The rector smiled, a youthful look replacing the somberness. “Yes, Inspector. It’s my earnest hope that you won’t fail either of us.”

O
UTSIDE THE CHURCH,
Hamish said sourly, “He prefers riddles to plain speech.”

“No. I think he’s uncertain of his duty, and passed the problem on to me.”

“Or knows a truth he willna’ own up to.”

It was a cogent remark.

N
O ONE ANSWERED
Rutledge’s knock at Number 14, the Shaw home. He left, walking back to the motorcar, deep in thought. He had no excuse to call on Cutter, and no right. Henry Cutter would be well within his rights to complain to the Yard of harassment if he found a policeman on his doorstep asking questions about an old murder, and his wife’s possible role in it. But there was another source of information. . . .

Back at the Yard, Rutledge called Sergeant Bennett into his office. Bennett had been a constable when Ben Shaw was tried, and he’d known the people on Sansom Street better perhaps than they knew themselves. A sharp mind and a sharper memory had brought him to the attention of the Yard and seen him promoted.

Bennett was in early middle age now, of medium height and with nothing to set him apart from the ordinary man on the street he interviewed time and again. It had been his hallmark, this ability to fit in. Rutledge had seen it at work often enough. The question was, where did Bennett’s loyalties lie at the Yard? There was no way of guessing.

Hamish warned, “Then you’d best walk carefully.”

Rutledge began circumspectly, “This is in confidence, Bennett. But I’ve been looking back at the Shaw case. It seems one of the missing pieces of jewelry may have come to light.”

Bennett’s bushy eyebrows rose. “Indeed, sir!” Curiosity was bright in his eyes. “I’d a feeling he’d chucked them in the river!”

Rutledge was not about to enlighten him. “I want you to think back to the investigation—before I came into the picture. Philip Nettle was in charge of the case. Was there any suspicion that someone other than Shaw had had access to the murdered women? Mrs. Winslow. Mrs. Satterthwaite. Mrs. Tompkins.”

“There was a charwoman who did for two of them,” Bennett said slowly, digging back into his memory. “Not likely to smother anybody, frail as
she
was. No old-age pension for the likes of her—she worked until the day before she died. The victims went to the same church—St. Agnes, that was—when they could get about on their own. We looked at that connection closely, sir, but it went nowhere. Nor did they seem to have more than a nodding acquaintance with each other. But as it turned out, Shaw came to meet them through the church, after a fashion. The rector asked him to make some repairs for Mrs. Winslow, and on the heels of that, Shaw was contacted directly about the other two.”

Which, as Hamish was pointing out, might explain the rector’s unwillingness to involve himself in the past. . . .

“Shaw was a member of the same church?”

“He’d repaired the vestry door after a storm warped it, worked on the footing for the baptismal font when it cracked. But he wasn’t local, you know. Grew up in Kensington, and still had ties there, even attending services there in preference to St. Agnes. Mrs. Shaw was said to like that very well; she’d not cared for the local church, seeing herself as above it.” His mouth twisted. It was apparent he had not been among Nell Shaw’s admirers. “But after his marriage, Shaw appeared to have severed ties with his family. Or they severed theirs with him.”

“Mrs. Shaw must have been a member of St. Agnes at some time. As I recall, she’d grown up two streets over from Sansom.”

“Had been a member as a girl, yes, sir. There’s a story that was set about, that she went into service in Kensington, and married the son of the house. The truth was, she worked in a corset shop and took a purchase round to the house one day, for his mother. The mother wasn’t at home. When Ben told his future wife that, bold as brass didn’t she claim she was feeling faint and could she come in and sit for a few minutes?”

Intrigued, Rutledge asked, “How did you discover all this?” It hadn’t been included in the written reports.

“It was told me by the neighbor’s wife, Mrs. Cutter. I discounted it until I spoke to a neighbor of Shaw’s mother—she was still living in the same house—and she confirmed the corset version.” Bennett looked pleased with himself, rocking back on his heels. “Still, that had no bearing on the murders.” It was an afterthought, the policeman overriding the man.

“What was your opinion of the helpful Mrs. Cutter?”

“Now, there was a deep one! Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but she’d just let slip a bit of the story, see, and then wait for you to pry the rest out of her. As if she was reluctant to finish what she’d begun.”

Rutledge had met others of Mrs. Cutter’s ilk in his career.

“Did she know the three dead women?”

“Odd that you should ask that, sir,” Bennett answered, scratching his dark chin. “She swore she didn’t. But she went to that same church, didn’t she? Had done, for twenty or more years.”

Rutledge smiled. “Any chance that she might have been tempted to murder them? After all, her situation was hardly better than the Shaws.”

Bennett considered the question as he studied Rutledge. “As to that, I can’t say. But Mr. Nettle, God rest his soul, remarked once, ‘I’d not care to be in Mr. Cutter’s shoes, if he strayed too far from hearth and home!’ ”

Interested, Rutledge asked, “And had he strayed? Or been tempted to stray, do you think?”

“He was the only one defended Mrs. Shaw. Most of the street couldn’t abide the woman. I was never sure what to make of that, to tell you the truth, sir! Except that she was a strong-natured woman. That sort often attract weak men.”

A
S HE WAS
leaving the Yard for the day, Rutledge found himself thinking about Bennett’s last comment. He wished there was a viable excuse for calling on Cutter, but without making his interest in the Shaw case too apparent, there was nothing he could do at this early stage. As Hamish had warned him several times that day, he ought to watch his step. Bennett was very likely trustworthy, but he was also ambitious. And Rutledge had learned from his first day at the Yard that ambition ran rampant in the passageways and offices.

He himself had never craved promotion. It was a mark of achievement, but he had long since discovered that he preferred dealing with inquiries firsthand instead of rising to the level of delegating authority to others. He had found too often that objectivity was lost with ambition, and pleasing one’s superior officer became more important than getting to the root of an issue.

Philip Nettle, who had been the first officer charged with the Shaw case—or the Winslow case, as it had begun—had complained several times that Bowles was pushing him to conclusions. “You can’t
know
that,” Bowles was fond of saying. “Stick with what you do know, man, and leave imagination to the press.”

“Aye,” Hamish agreed. “It isna’ always wise to look for complexity when there is none!”

Complexity, Rutledge retorted as he walked out the door, was often what saved ith innocent. Judging only by the obvious facts could lead a policeman astray.

“It isn’t the guilt of a man,” he said as he turned the crank on his motorcar, “that we set out to establish, but the truth in a case. And sometimes that’s buried deep.”

“Aye,” Hamish agreed bitterly. “I wouldna’ be lying sae deep in a French grave, if there had been time to sort out the truth. . . .”

Wincing, Rutledge puhadis motorcar into gear and turned out onto the street. “You gave me no choice,” he said.