A Long Shadow (17 page)

"Tell me what became of Emma Mason. And why you watched her with your field glasses while she was in her bedroom."

His fingers kneaded the piece of bread in his hand. "You can't prove it," Hensley told him belligerently.

"She was what, seventeen, at the time."

"She was no innocent lily, I can tell you that," Hensley snapped, glaring at Rutledge now. "Half the village thinks her a saint. The others won't open their mouths because Mrs. Ellison rules the roost. But just ask Constable Markham, he'll tell you he saw our pure Miss Emma rolling in the grass behind the church with Miss Letteridge's fiancé. And she wasn't seventeen then."

It was Rutledge's turn to stare at Hensley.

Hamish said, "He's telling the truth."

It was all too apparent that Hamish was right. Hensley's eyes were blazing with fury, and there was no uneasy prevarication in the words he'd spat at the man from London. "It does you no good to blacken her character."

"Blacken it? Hardly that. Reveal it, more like."

"Was she promiscuous?"

"She wasn't having any of me or anyone else. But there was no doubt that Constable Markham was right. It explained why Miss Letteridge left for London, just afterward."

"And the man? Who is he?"

"That's not your business. Besides, he's buried in the churchyard. That's why Miss Letteridge came back."

On their way out of Northampton on the road north, Hamish said, "I willna' believe she murdered the girl." Rutledge, avoiding a milk wagon and gearing up to pass a lorry, said, "Grace Letteridge? At least it gives her a motive."

"Then why did she no' rid herself of the girl before leaving for London?"

Hamish was right, he thought. Jealousy was a hot-blooded crime, impetuous and filled with anger.

"Her hands may have been tied then. She might have been afraid to touch Emma, for fear the man would guess she'd been responsible, and reject her a second time. But when he was killed, she was free to come home and balance the scales. Anger and blame are a part of grieving." Hamish wasn't convinced. "Ye ken, she could ha' traveled to London to make it right wi' him before he went to France."

And she'd gone as soon as her father died. Her father might not have approved of her following any man on such a slim hope.

But then there would have been no need to kill Emma.

Unless of course Grace Letteridge had waited in London until the man got leave, only to discover he was marking time until Emma was of age and free to marry where she pleased. It would have been an appalling blow, especially if he'd died soon after their meeting, leaving her with an empty future.

If either case was true, then Grace Letteridge, for all her dramatic pronouncement, had no reason for taking a bow and arrow to shoot Hensley. She knew the truth.

"Or was covering up her own crime," Rutledge said aloud as the busy city road became industrial and then open countryside. "Especially if he was pressing too hard on her heels by searching the wood. Why wouldn't he admit to that?"

He knew, better than most, how jealousy could eat at the soul. He'd seen it in more than one murder inquiry, and he'd felt it himself when Jean walked away from him to marry a diplomat on his way to take up a station in Canada. She had vanished from his life as surely as if she'd evaporated into thin air.

"She wouldna' stoop to murder," Hamish said again in defense of Grace Letteridge. "She'd ha' walked away and no' looked back."

And Hensley appeared to have had problems of his own with jealousy of Emma Mason's alleged attentions to another man.

Rutledge stopped at The Oaks as he came to the fork that led to Dudlington. The inn was dark, and there were no motorcars in front of it. He went to the door, intending to knock, and then thought better of it.

Keating could look out any window to see who was at his door. And when he recognized Rutledge standing there, he wouldn't bother to come down.

Rutledge wasn't about to give him that satisfaction.

He didn't sleep well that night, and by the time the clock had struck two from the church tower, he got up and went to the window.

Dudlington lay quiet in a shower of moonlight that touched the cold roofs with silvered shadow. The streets were empty, and the houses were dark.

But even as he watched, a light appeared in Emma Mason's bedchamber, and he reached without thinking for the field glasses.

The room seemed to bloom before his eyes, and he could see someone's shadow cast by lamplight against the far wall. It was hard to tell who had walked into the room. The lamp was nearer the door than the windows, and only the shadow was visible from where Rutledge stood.

"The grandmother," Hamish said.

"She doesn't hear well. It could be anyone slipping into the house after finding the door unlocked."

The lamp burned for a quarter of an hour, and then went out. Rutledge was on the stairs in almost the same instant, going down them fast on his way to Hensley's office. There he had a clear view of anyone who might come out the Ellison door. But though he watched for nearly ten minutes, the door remained tight shut.

Hamish said quietly, "There's the kitchen door."

"I'm not going to be caught by the neighbors prowling in a woman's back garden at this hour. And if he slipped out through the rear of the house, he's had a long head start." He waited another ten, and then quietly went out Hensley's front door and crossed the street.

Turning the knob as silently as possible, he gave the door a little push.

It opened easily into the dark and empty hall.

Early the next morning, he crossed the street and tapped lightly on Mrs. Ellison's door, then knocked more firmly.

She came to answer it after several minutes. Dressed, her hair neatly brushed and in place.

"I thought I'd heard someone." She was abrupt, unwelcoming.

"I'm sorry to disturb you," he said, ignoring her coldness. "I saw a light in your house when I came in last night.

"I felt I ought to see for myself that all was well."

"Thank you." She was about to shut her door in his face.

"You do know that the rector fell yesterday."

Her eyebrows went up. "No. I hadn't heard."

"He was fortunate. He broke his arm," he told her, watching her face. "It could just as well have been his back."

"Indeed."

Her refusal to be dependent on anyone or anything was evident.

He made one more attempt. "Do you lock your door at night?"

"I don't need to lock it. For my sins, I live just across from the police. Good morning, Inspector."

And this time she was successful in shutting him out.

After breakfast, he went to see Dr. Middleton, to ask how the rector was faring. Middleton was just finishing his own breakfast, the smell of burned toast heavy in the room.

"Very upset with himself for being so foolish. Sit down, there's tea in the pot."

"Thank you, no. What took him up to the attic in the first place?"

"There was something about hunting for gloves—he wasn't very clear on that, but Hillary discovered woolen ones he'd apparently washed himself and set out to dry. He must have grown impatient and gone in search of a second pair." Middleton reached for the pot of marmalade and spread it thinly across a slice of scraped toast. "I told him he was growing as dotty as Mary Ellison, and he didn't find it very amusing."

"I don't recall a pair of gloves on the landing."

"Nor did I. I asked him what had become of them, and he thought he'd been distracted from his errand. But he can't think why. His best guess is the teakettle whistling, though for the life of me, I can't believe he'd hear it all the way from the kitchen. He's a logical sort of man, and these ambiguities are worrying him more than they should."

"Are you sure he was coherent when he said something about a summons?"

"Oh, yes, there was no doubt of that. When I reached him, he was dazed and fretting. He began by apologizing for taking me away from the other sufferer, or words to that effect, and wanting to know if all was well now. I asked him what he was going on about, and he said I'd sent for him. Well, I hadn't done anything of the sort, so I questioned him—concerned about the knot on his head and whether there was concussion—about who'd brought this summons and where he was to go. He said he hadn't seen the messenger, and I should know the answer to where he was needed better than he. I told him it was nothing to be agitated over, and he was to stop thinking about it, that he hadn't failed in his duty. He closed his eyes and let me get on with my examination. I can't be sure he was altogether conscious after that. I had to move him more than I liked, to see what the damage amounted to. And he'd held on far too long already."

"He was lucky," Rutledge said, meaning it.

"He should have broken his neck, or at the very least, his back. It was nothing short of a miracle. Tough old bird, as I've said before, and not about to give up. Hillary told me this morning that he was begging to be out of bed, even though I'd expressly forbidden it. If he's dizzy, he doesn't need to go over on his head a second time."

Rutledge left it for a moment, and then said, "I saw a light on in Emma Mason's bedroom, last night. In the middle of the night. I went this morning to see if Mrs. Ellison was all right. She bit off my head."

"She can't sleep, and I shouldn't be surprised if she walks about the house at night and broods. She won't let me give her anything to help her sleep. She doesn't want to spend her days befuddled."

"That may be. She's also slightly deaf, and yet she doesn't lock her door. I tested it myself."

Middleton chuckled. "Just as well she didn't catch you doing it. Policeman or not, you'd have been up on a charge before you knew what had happened to you."

"I was talking with Hensley yesterday—he's improving," he added hastily, as Middleton was about to interrupt. "But it will be another week before they allow him to leave. Meanwhile, there's another matter I want to bring up."

Middleton was suddenly wary. "A doctor, like a priest, can't go about talking about his patients."

"It's not a medical question, actually. What do you know about Keating, up at The Oaks?"

"Never been ill, to my knowledge. Beyond that, I can't tell you much."

"He's an independent devil."

"You aren't the first to notice that. He came here out of the blue early in 1911, so I'm told. He bought The Oaks and stayed to himself. The mothers of Dudlington watched him like a hawk—as it happened, he had no interest in their daughters, either to seduce them or marry them." He chuckled again. "He's not from around here, and that was one strike against him. Another was his reluctance to talk about himself. And finally no one knew his aunt or his third cousin or his great-grandfather. The men who frequent The Oaks were happy enough to have a local pub and didn't concern themselves with gossip. And after a time it died down. He's accepted as an anomaly, and ignored."

"Which is apparently the way he wants it."

"Nothing wrong with that, is there? Why the interest? Did he have a grudge against Hensley?"

"Possibly. He was ferocious in his defense of Emma Mason's good name and reputation."

"And a good many people would like to think that Hensley knows more about her disappearance than he's willing to say. Yes, I see where you're going."

"What I'd like to know is how Keating came to know Emma well enough to defend her."

"You may have it backward, you know—it could be Keating has something against Hensley, and Emma's just the smokescreen to conceal that."

Hamish said, "Aye, if yon constable recognized him." Almost as if Middleton had overheard the voice in Rutledge's head, he added, "Wasn't Hensley a policeman in London, before he came here?"

Rutledge walked up the hill from Holly Street to The Oaks, and this time found Keating in the bar serving a late breakfast to two travelers driving to Lincoln. He listened to the conversation for some time, the man and the woman chatting with Keating about an inn they'd stopped in the night before in Colchester. Finally, their meal finished, they went up to their rooms to finish packing, and Rutledge followed Keating through the door into the kitchen.

Keating had done the cooking himself. Hillary Timmons was still watching over the rector, and Keating had shown himself to be competent in the kitchen. The clutter of pans and dishes on the worktable and the spills on the stove indicated haste, but the remnants of toast, poached eggs, a side dish of bacon, and a plate of sausages were cooked well. He took off his apron and turned to face Rutledge.

"I have to be there when they come down to pay their reckoning. What do you want?"

"How long have you known Constable Hensley?" he asked abruptly.

"Since he came here three years ago. Why?"

"There's reason to think you knew him in London."

"Has he told you as much?"

"Someone else suggested it."

"Well, 'someone' is wrong."

"There was a motorcar here yesterday morning. It left quickly, running up the road to the north. Who was driving?"