A Long Shadow (6 page)
Authors: Charles Todd
"They do say that sudden and severe injury can shock the mind, and events just before it happened are lost. His memory might return as he heals. I'm not sure why the Yard was brought into this business before we'd had a chance to look into it ourselves. But there you are. No offense intended."
"None taken. I expect London was concerned because Hensley came from there. And it was possible that someone he'd helped convict had a long memory."
"That's always possible, of course. Yes, I can see where it might have caused concern." Kelmore stored the arrow away again and rose to his feet. "I'll speak to Hensley myself tomorrow. I must go. The doctor is coming to my wife, again, and I must be there. If there's anything you need, let me know. If you can't find me, leave your message with Sergeant Thompson. He'll see that I get it."
He was ushering Rutledge out of the tiny office and into the drab corridor. "How are you getting to Dudlington? It's isolated, you know. No bus service."
"I have my own motorcar."
"What luck! You can drive me home. It's on your way out of town."
It was nearly dusk when Rutledge came to the turning for Dudlington, and if he hadn't been on the lookout for it, he'd have missed it.
An inn, standing alone on a rise, was all that could be seen in a wide landscape of fields running from his left down the slope of the land toward a little stream only visible because of the straggling line of trees that followed it. In the distance he could just see a low line of roofs that indicated barns.
He passed the inn as he turned, and made a note of it. Then he was in the village some hundred yards beyond.
Holly Street was narrow, with houses on either side set directly on the road. Farther on, Whitby Lane turned off to his left, and when he followed that, he saw that Church Street, coming in on his right, led to the churchyard, with the slender steeple of the church rising over the roofs surrounding it.
No one was about, except a dog trotting down the lane toward his dinner. And there was no sign to indicate where Constable Hensley lived. Rutledge turned the motorcar near the churchyard and went back the way he'd come, toward the inn.
The Oaks stood on higher ground than the village, a large inn for its location, with a pedimented front door that spoke of better days.
He opened the door and found himself in a spacious lobby that had once been the entry to the house. A handsome stair climbed to a landing and turned out of sight.
There was a bell on a table by the door, and he rang it.
After a moment a woman came out of the back, tidying her hair, as if she had just taken off an apron.
"Good afternoon, sir, are you stopping for dinner? We don't serve for another two hours."
"I'm looking for a room."
She was skeptical. "I don't know that we have one available. I'll just ask Mr. Keating."
She left him there in the hall, and soon a balding man of about forty-five came out to speak to him.
"You're looking for a room, is that it, sir? For the night?"
The inn appeared to be empty, except for the man and the woman.
"For several days. Inspector Rutledge, from London." He was curt, tired of delay.
"Ah. You're looking for Constable Hensley's house, I take it. Second on the right, Whitby Lane. Not hard to find—follow the main road into the village and you can't miss it."
"I've no intention of staying the night at Hensley's house. I'm looking for a room here."
Keating was silent for a moment. Then he said, "We've got a room or two. I keep them for travelers. This is a rather isolated part of the world, as you must have noticed, and we're accustomed to people late on the road, looking to stop the night. But I'm afraid we're booked up, just now."
The words were firm, brooking no argument. But where were the motorcars or carriages by the door to support Keating's claim?
Rutledge was about to point that out when he recalled what an elderly sergeant had told him years before: "I remember the day when a policeman under the roof frightened away custom. I'd be offered poor service and a cramped little room at the back, beneath the eaves, in the hope I'd go away sooner."
He didn't think Keating was prepared to offer him even that. The innkeeper stood there, inflexibility in every line, although the pleasant expression on his face stayed securely in place. Short of calling the man a liar, there was nothing more to be said.
Rutledge turned on his heel and left.
He found Hensley's small house squeezed between a bakery and a greengrocer's. The door was unlocked, and he let himself in, feeling the chill from no fire over the last several days. The cold seemed to hang in the air, and the darkness in the tiny entry compounded it.
Retrieving his torch from the motorcar, he walked back inside searching for a lamp. The bloom of light dispelled the sense of emptiness, but it wasn't until he'd got a fire going well in the parlor that served as an office that he took off his hat and coat and set them aside.
The parlor was a square room, windows only on the front, and it was occupied by a desk sitting across from the hearth, papers scattered over its surface. Rutledge paused to look at them and found nothing of interest. Notices from Northampton, a letter inquiring for a Mr. Sandridge in the town, and a logbook that had been kept meticulously until the day Hensley was shot.
In the back was a sitting room, a kitchen with an empty larder, and upstairs a bedroom with sheets on the bed that were damp and wrinkled.
"It willna' do," Hamish told Rutledge. "It's no' a place to be comfortable."
Rutledge took out his pocket watch and looked at it. The Oaks would be serving dinner in another forty-five minutes, and the thought of a warm meal and a bed pulled at him. Keating be damned.
There was a voice from the hall at the foot of the stairs. "Halloooo!"
He went to the top of the steps and called down, "Inspector Rutledge here. What do you need?"
"Well, I told myself it couldn't be Bart Hensley." She moved into the light of his torch as he pointed it down the stairs in her direction. "What are you doing here? He hasn't died, has he?"
"No." He could see her now, a tall, slender woman wearing a knitted hat and a gray coat with a black collar. "I've come to investigate what happened to him."
"Well, then, dinner is at eight. I usually prepare it for him. An arrangement we've had since he came here in 1915. You might as well take your meals at my house too. There's not much choice in Dudlington. I'm your neighbor next but one, on the other side of the bakery. Oh, and you can leave your motorcar just by the side of the house. It's out of the way there." And she was gone, shutting the door firmly behind her.
Rutledge presented himself at the house on the far side of the bakery, exactly at eight. The door was opened, and the woman invited him in. "My name is Barbara Melford. I'm a widow, I live alone, and I am paid for each meal. The dining room is this way."
Her house was larger than the constable's, with good furnishings and a fire in the dining room where the table was set for one.
"You don't take your meals with Hensley?" Rutledge asked.
"I am paid to feed him, not to keep him company. As I've already said, I'm a widow. And I'm not looking to marry again, least of all, not to Constable Hensley."
He could see her clearly now in the lamplight: a woman in her thirties, smartly dressed—for his benefit and not Constable Hensley's—trying to cover her apprehensiveness with a chilly demeanor.
Hamish, taking a dislike to her, said, "Why did she invite you to dine?"
For information?
Rutledge took the chair at the head of the table and pulled his serviette out of a china ring with blue violets painted in a garish pattern.
"We've had no news about Constable Hensley's condition. Was his surgery successful?" Barbara Melford asked as she brought in the soup, creamed carrots with leeks.
"Apparently, although he was in a good deal of pain when I spoke to him," Rutledge answered, choosing his words with care. "Nothing was said about when he might be released."
"I can't imagine being driven that far with an arrow in my back!" she commented, returning to the kitchen while he sat in the dining room in lonely splendor. It was a pretty room with drapes of a floral brocade and an English carpet under a table that could seat eight. Rutledge found himself wondering if Mrs. Melford had ever entertained here, when her husband was alive.
He was tired, and it was a very tense meal, as his hostess brought each course in silence and disappeared again, but he could feel her eyes on him through the crack in the door leading to the kitchen.
Once he tried to question her about what had happened, but she answered brusquely, "I can't see the wood from my windows, thank God! You must ask someone who can." There was a flan for dessert, better than many he'd had, but he didn't linger over his tea. As soon as the first cup was empty, he folded his serviette, and calling to Barbara Melford to thank her, he started for the door to the hall.
She came to speak to him then, following him as far as the front door to point out a silver tray on the small table at the foot of the stairs. "You'll find your account waiting here every morning. I serve breakfast at eight sharp."
"I'll be here."
He stepped out into the cold night air, feeling it strongly after the heat of the dining room. Hensley's house was still chilly, the fire struggling to do more than heat the parlor. He searched for the linen cupboard and at length discovered clean sheets and pillow slips as well as two or three fairly new blankets.
Making up the bed, he considered his conversation with Hensley, wrapped in pain still, but alert enough to answer questions guardedly. Why, since he'd been found in that wood, would the constable refuse to admit he'd gone there? For one thing, moving a large man with an arrow in his back would have been difficult, and dragging him would leave marks. That would have to be looked into, tomorrow.
"And where is the bicycle he was riding?" Hamish asked.
"I'll find out tomorrow. There should be someone who can tell me. The doctor, for one."
"At a guess, yon widow doesna' care o'ermuch for the constable. She must be desperate for money, to put up wi' him."
"Or she finds him willing to talk more than he should about village business. A man can be flattered into boasting."
It was late when Rutledge finally got to bed. The house seemed unfamiliar and unwelcoming. And he hadn't found a key for the door. Yet Hensley had used the parlor for his office.
"Which means," Hamish answered the thought, "that there are no secrets to be found here."
***
Rutledge was up well before eight, dressed, and already searching through the meager files in a box in the parlor. It appeared that Dudlington had no experience with crime as such. The constable had registered every complaint with meticulous care. A lost dog found and returned to its owner. A quarrel over a ram's stud rights. Pilferage at the greengrocer's, traced to a small boy with a taste for fruit. A domestic matter, where a wife had accused her husband of spending more time than was necessary—in her view— repairing a chimney flue at Mrs. Melford's house.
He set the files back into their box and stood, looking around the room. There were no photographs here—or in the bedroom for that matter. And little else of a personal nature. But he'd discovered a letter in a desk drawer, a commendation from the then Chief Inspector Bowles for Hensley's services in apprehending a murderer in the City.
Then why was Hensley in this outpost of empire, serving his time chasing after lost dogs and calming irate wives?
It was apparent that Hensley had kept the commendation letter with some pride . ..
Rutledge glanced at the wall clock and saw that he had three minutes to get himself to the Melford house for breakfast.
The meal was as well cooked as last night's dinner, the eggs done exactly to his taste, but he asked as the toast was brought in, "I tried to find a room at The Oaks. They all but turned me away. Do you know why?"
"Mr. Keating has always been a private sort. He doesn't seem to care for guests staying there, not beyond one night. Mostly he serves meals to travelers, and of course the pub is popular with the men here in Dudlington."
"Who was the woman? An employee? Or his wife?"
She laughed, breaking the stern set of her face. "She may wish she was his wife, but Frank Keating is a misogynist. The woman is Hillary Timmons. She lives near the church. There aren't many opportunities for employment here."
"Which is why you feed Constable Hensley for a price."
"Indeed. I'll just fetch the warm milk for your tea."
Dr. Middleton was an elderly man, his face lined but cheerful. He welcomed Rutledge with a nod and took him back to his surgery, which was no more than a room at the rear of his house.
"Did you see Hensley? How is he faring?"
"Well enough. In pain."
"I should think he was. That arrow was in deep."
"How long have you been the doctor here?"
"Seven years last month. I retired from practice and came here to die. But I haven't had time to get around to that." He sat behind the table in a corner that served as his desk and gestured to a chair on the other side. "My wife died, and I lost interest in living. She was born in Dudlington and is buried in the churchyard. I feel closer to her here."
"Where had you lived before?"
"Naseby. It's not a very challenging practice, but I'm the only doctor within twenty miles. Babies and burns and bumps, that's mostly the extent of my duties."
"Dudlington is a quiet village. There was hardly a soul on the streets when I came in last night."
"That's an illusion. For one thing, there's the weather this time of year. The wind howling across those wide fields doesn't invite you to stop on the street and pass the time of day for a quarter of an hour. And the men are mostly stockmen, up at dawn and home after the livestock has been fed and bedded for the night. Many of them come home for their midday meal, which means their wives spend a good part of their day in their kitchens. They do their marketing in the morning, and this time of year, it's dark by the time the children come in from Letherington, where they're schooled now. We had a schoolmaster before the war, but he enlisted as soon as Belgium was invaded. He hasn't been replaced."
"Did Constable Hensley have trouble keeping the peace? His records are sparse, and it's hard to judge if that's because the village is relatively quiet, or because he was behind in his paperwork."
"We've had our share of trouble, I won't deny that. On the other hand, people often don't bother to lock their doors. Human beings are human beings, which translates into the fact that you don't know what they're capable of until they're pressed. Still, we seldom have the sort of crimes you'd find in London. Arson, rape, breaking and entering, theft of property. It doesn't mean that we're better than Londoners, just that we know one another very well, and the man who steals my horse can hardly ride it down Church Street without half the householders recognizing it on the spot." He smiled. "But don't be fooled. Everyone knows your business as soon as you set foot in Dudlington. Gossip is our pastime, and you'll do no better than Constable Hensley at ferreting it out." The smile broadened. "I shan't be surprised to see a flurry of patients this afternoon with all manner of minor complaints. Every one of them expecting me to tell them what I made of this man from London."
"Then what does gossip have to say about someone nearly killing Hensley with a bow and arrow?"
The smile vanished. "Ah. That I haven't been privy to. I wish I were."
"Then tell me about Frith's Wood, where Hensley was found."
"It's not a place people frequent." Middleton sighed. "Case in point. No one has ever cut firewood there, they don't wander there on a quiet summer's evening, and they will walk out of their way to avoid having to pass in its shadow. My late wife told me she'd never played there as a child, which tells you something. There's an old legend about a massacre there in the dim dark past, and such superstitions tend to strengthen with time. Consequently, the wood is avoided."
"Have you ever walked in the wood yourself?"
"Never. Except for once about three years ago. Not because I'm superstitious, but it would upset people. Why meddle?"
"Tell me about finding Hensley."
"It was nearly teatime. I was sitting in my chair in the parlor, napping, when Ted Baylor came to my door. His dog heard something in the direction of the wood and began barking. Baylor wasn't inclined to investigate, but after he'd seen to his livestock, he decided he'd better discover what the dog was on about, before it got dark. When Baylor let him out of the yard, the dog made straight for the wood, disappeared into it, and barked again. Baylor was of two minds about what to do, but he finally went in after the dog, and there was Hensley lying on the ground, cold as a fish. Ted thought he was dead, and told me as much. But it was shock and the cold air, and I managed to bring him around once I got him here and warmed again."
"And you broke the shaft of the arrow?"
"There wasn't any choice in the matter. I couldn't very well leave it sticking out of his back. I asked Ted Baylor and Bob Johnson to hold it steady while I cut it with my knife. I thought the tip would come out without doing more harm, but it was lodged in the rib, and I don't have the facilities here for major surgery."
"Do you still have the shaft?"
Middleton pointed to a basket on a table under the window. "It's in there. Nothing distinctive about it. Just an arrow fletched with blue and yellow feathers."
Rutledge crossed the room to examine it. Middleton was right, the shaft was wood, and not homemade. The feathers appeared to be a little bedraggled, but from age or use, he couldn't say. Their condition hadn't stopped the arrow from flying true—or again, perhaps it had, if the bowman had intended a killing shot.
Hamish said, "It's no' possible to tell if this was a woman or a man. Or how far fra' the target the archer was standing. If yon arrow was aimed at the constable's back, the archer didna' care whether his victim lived or died."
"He lay there in the wood for several hours. No one came back to finish what the arrow had begun," Rutledge agreed, unaware that he was answering Hamish aloud.
Middleton said, "It's not likely someone went to the wood to practice at the butts. For one thing the trees are too close together, and for another, it's just not done. Not here in Dudlington, at any rate. Unless you were an outsider and didn't know the history of the place. Of course, if you were looking to murder Hensley, I suppose that was a prime place to do it. Superstition or no superstition. But that makes no sense. You could slip into his house and cut his throat while he slept, if that's what you were after, and not take a chance on being seen walking into Frith's Wood. Or risk finding out that the tales of haunting are true."
"What became of Hensley's bicycle? He claims he was riding it on the main road, before he was attacked."
"I don't suppose anyone thought to look for it. I for one believed he'd been on foot. There was no sign of it near his body, I can tell you that."
"Did Hensley offer any explanation about why he'd ventured into the wood in the first place?"
"He didn't have to. I could imagine the reason for myself. We've always wondered if Emma Mason was buried there. And I think he's spent the last three years searching for her grave."
