Proof of Guilt (29 page)

“Her grandfather is about to go on trial for killing French and you.”

“She never— My good God. That’s what you meant earlier. That I could have saved her from that.”

“What did you do with the man who tried to kill you?” Rutledge studied the man, fairly certain that his account was truthful. But there were gaps all the same.

“He came up to me as I was standing at the ship’s rail, watching for the white cliffs. I should have been able to see them; it was a clear night and we weren’t that far out to sea. We spoke, the way strangers do, and then he took out a cigarette, asking if I had a match. I was looking down, finding it, when suddenly he bent over, grabbed my ankles, and had me half over the rail. I somehow managed to beat at his head and shoulders until he let me go, and I fell hard to the deck. He had a knife then, and he went for my throat. We fought—I was in the Army, I knew a thing or two about that—and in the end, it was he who went overboard, not I. We were coming up on Dungeness Light, but I never waited to see. I was bleeding badly and hurried down to my cabin to take care of it. I stayed there, afraid of questions, until we docked.”

The man at Dungeness Light.

“Was he English? The man with the knife?”

“Oh yes. A London accent, I should think. I asked the purser, and he said he thought the man had got on in the Azores. I went down to his cabin, searched it, found nothing, and packed up his belongings for disembarkation.”

“Did you learn his name?”

“I did. Benjamin R. Waggoner. Whoever he may be.”

The other man in the lodging house. The one called Ben . . .

“I tell you, it has to be French who is behind this. He’d told me that when I came to England, we’d talk about some changes he had in mind. I wouldn’t be surprised if my death was one of them. And who else would know to look for me in the grounds of a house closed for six years?”

“He could have been looking for French,” Williams suggested.

Satisfied that the wound had stopped bleeding sufficiently to bandage, Rutledge put on a field dressing and then said, “He ought to eat.”

“I have a little leftover soup from my own dinner, and some bread, some cheese,” the curate offered.

“That will do,” Traynor said. “I’ve had nothing today.”

R
utledge and Traynor left for London soon after Traynor had eaten and Rutledge had looked again at the wound on his throat. It had sealed, but the flesh around it was inflamed. He needed medical care, and sooner rather than later.

Traynor slept for the first two hours of his journey, his head cushioned on the bloodstained pillow from Miss Whitman’s parlor. Rutledge waited until his passenger was fully awake, then told him about Diaz.

Traynor said, “Are you telling me that I was nearly killed because of something Howard French, my grandfather, did years ago?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Traynor whistled. Then he turned to Rutledge and demanded, “If you know all this, why is Gooding standing trial? Why is his granddaughter in prison?”

“Proof has been hard to come by. This could just as easily have been a feud between you and French that Gooding was caught in the midst of. The police believe Gooding will tell them where the bodies are buried, to keep his granddaughter from going to trial. But he doesn’t know, you see. He has nothing to bargain with. And so she will have to suffer as well.”

“But I’m alive—I can testify.”

“To what? That someone tried to kill you? You can’t prove it wasn’t Gooding’s plan in the first place. And whoever attacked you can’t testify as to who hired him, if he’s drowned.”

“What can I do? There must be something. I can’t wait for the jury to bring in a verdict.”

“I’ll find a doctor to look at that wound. And then I’m taking you to Hayes and Hayes. They’ll deal with the trial by asking for a postponement on the basis of new evidence. You. And Inspector Billings saw that body at Dungeness Light. It can substantiate your story of being attacked while on board the
Medea
. I can also show who the dead man in Chelsea was. And why he was killed. But there’s still Diaz. There are still the charges against Gooding. Lewis French is still missing.”

“He’s got to be stopped. Somehow. This man Diaz.”

“Meanwhile, Hayes will see you safe. I could put a constable on his door, but it would only serve to draw attention to the house.”

“Watch your own back, meanwhile,” Traynor told him grimly.

H
ayes greeted Traynor like the long lost Robinson Crusoe, calling him “my dear boy!” over and over again. Rutledge thought that the fact that someone able to run the firm had actually survived was more important to the elderly solicitor than the fact that it was Traynor.

“I’ll start proceedings straightaway to halt the trial. And I’ll find a safe place for you to stay, Mr. Traynor. Meanwhile, my own house is at your disposal, and I’ll see that your baggage is retrieved from Portsmouth.” He went on, laying out solutions to every problem but that of Lewis French. And that he tiptoed around.

At length Rutledge was free to leave. Traynor thanked him profusely, and Hayes promised to keep him informed.

“But what do we do about Mr. Standish?” Hayes asked. “He isn’t a client, I have no authority to settle his affairs.”

“Leave him to me,” Rutledge said.

He went directly to the Yard, wrote a full report on Traynor’s experiences and the probable postponement of the trial, and handed it to a constable to be put in the Acting Chief Superintendent’s basket. He was in no mood to wait for Markham to come in, even though it was close on dawn already.

As he left the Yard, Rutledge searched for a motorcycle anywhere in the vicinity, and again on his own street, and there was no sign of one.

Ben Waggoner was dead, Rawlings as well. If Standish was the man in Chelsea, then there was Baxter still to contend with.

And Diaz.

Rutledge let himself into the flat, and almost at once knew that he was not alone.

Something in the stillness had changed. And there was the faintest scent of applewood fires.

Hamish said, “The bedroom.”

Rutledge put on the lamp by the door as he always did, and went through the post that had been come in his absence. Working his way slowly toward the bedroom doorway, he reached the hearth and stopped.

His service revolver. It was in the chest beneath his bed. Had Diaz found it?

That changed the odds.

He said, well to the side of any shot from the half-open bedroom door, “I know you’re there. Let’s finish it.”

After a moment, Diaz walked into the sitting room lamplight. He appeared to be unarmed.

“I’ve rather spoiled your plans,” Rutledge said easily. “Traynor is alive, and MacFarland will live. We’ve taken steps to halt Monday’s trial. I now know why Standish had to die. You’d be wise to take the next boat to Portugal or the Azores. While you can.”

“Standish was Bob’s decision, not mine. He grew very protective of Mrs. Bennett. I had only to tell him that you would see her punished for what he and I did to make him want to kill you.”

“Where’s Baxter?”

“I have no idea. He is of little interest to me now.”

“Then you’ve come to say good-bye?” Rutledge smiled.

“I’ve come, as you said, to finish this.” Diaz reached into his pocket and drew out a pale green scarf.

Rutledge had seen Frances wear it many times over the summer. Diaz had been inside her house. Baxter. Was he there? Had something happened to Frances?

Feeling a surge of anger that was red hot in his blood, Rutledge crossed to where Diaz was standing and, without hesitation, knocked the older man down.

Diaz, stunned for a few seconds, raised himself on one elbow and put out his tongue to taste the blood on his lip.

“Without me, she will die,” he said simply.

“You won’t know whether she will or not,” Rutledge said, standing over him. “Now get up.” When Diaz didn’t move, Rutledge reached down, caught the man’s collar, and hauled him to his feet. He pushed Diaz ahead of him across the room, and through the door.

He held on to Diaz while turning the crank, shoved him into the motorcar, and was in beside him before Diaz could recover.

Diaz sat up, smiling, certain that Rutledge would drive to his sister’s house.

But Rutledge did not. He went directly to the Yard, marched Diaz up the stairs, and went to find Billings, who was in his office.

The Inspector looked up, startled, as Rutledge came in with Diaz.

“What the hell?” he began, and then saw Rutledge’s face. “What’s happened?”

“There’s something I have to do. This is Afonso Diaz. I want you to keep him here, and if I don’t come back, take him to Markham. He’s killed before, and he will kill again. Don’t trust him.”

He shoved Diaz into a chair, then unfolded the scarf so that it spilled across Billings’s desk.

“He’s just given me the proof of guilt I’ve been searching for. He was in my flat threatening me. And he’s been inside my sister’s house. I want him up on charges for that. We’ll sort out the rest later.” He faced Diaz. “On Mrs. Bennett’s property, I was the trespasser, and whatever happened to me could be explained away. You should have left it at that.”

“Who is Mrs. Bennett?” Billings demanded, but Rutledge had turned on his heel and was leaving.

He heard Billings say, as the door swung closed, “Now, then, Mr. Diaz. Why don’t we have a little conversation while we wait.”

Back in the idling motorcar, Rutledge drove to his sister’s house.

A motorcycle rested on its stand just down the street.

He’d found Baxter.

Leaving his motorcar where it couldn’t be seen from the house, he got out, went through the back garden of a house next but one to where Frances lived. Out the gate at the bottom of the garden, he walked down to her back gate, quietly let himself through, and then stood for a moment, listening.

The garden was quiet, save for a few crickets by the little pond. He circled it and made his way toward the rear of the house, keeping to the shadows of trees and shrubs.

No lights showed.

Where was Baxter, and where was he holding Frances?

Hamish was silent in the back of his mind.

Reaching the terrace door, Rutledge tested the latch. Locked.

Swearing under his breath, he walked quietly across the grass to the servants’ door. This he found unlocked, and he stepped inside, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom of the passage that led to the servants’ hall. The rooms were empty—the live-in staff was a thing of the past. Instead, dailies came early in the morning to do what was required.

He made his way to the servants’ stairs and chose that route up to the bedrooms. They were narrow, and he was a tall man. It took a little time to reach the first floor quietly, and there he stood in the passage once more, getting his bearings.

If he were Baxter, where would he be?

Not in the ground-floor rooms, surely, where he would be cornered if Rutledge had already dealt with Diaz.

At the top of the main staircase, then.

The passage was carpeted. Still, Rutledge took off his boots and left them in the servants’ stairwell. Walking in his stocking feet, he stayed close to the wall, a few steps at a time. The main stairs were just ahead.

Movement caught his eye. Someone was there, sitting on the top step, watching the main door. Waiting for him to unlock it and walk in.

But where was Frances? In one of the bedrooms? It was likely—she wasn’t the target, he was. And hurt or unhurt, she must wait. His first duty was to deal with Baxter and keep him alive, if it was humanly possible to do so. If the anger racing through every nerve ending would let him stop in time.

Baxter had a split second of warning, no more, wheeling in time to see Rutledge hurling himself forward in a tackle that pinned Baxter just as he was rising.

They rolled, and Rutledge saw the flash of a knife. Silent, deadly.

He was on his feet first, Baxter just that second slower, and they closed, Rutledge keeping the knife hand well away from his face and throat. But Baxter had recovered, was quick now, rearing back for better purchase, and Rutledge felt the blade cut through the cloth of his coat and plunge toward his chest.

The wound wasn’t deep, but it was bleeding, the breastbone hurting. Rutledge threw himself at Baxter before the knife had been fully withdrawn, catching the man’s wrist and turning the blade back, forcing it toward Baxter’s throat.

He had a fleeting thought, that Frances wouldn’t care for blood on her carpet, and the knife slid sideways into Baxter’s shoulder instead. The man yelped, twisted away, and Rutledge went after him, catching the knife wrist once more and pinning it to his side. Baxter, smaller and more agile, twisted away again, just as Rutledge landed a very solid blow. It caught Baxter on the side of the head rather than the jaw, and it sent him reeling backward.

Rutledge had a flashback to Rawlings, turning in the air, just as Baxter lost his balance and went backward down the stairs.

Rutledge went after him. Baxter hit the landing and stayed where he was, lying on his side. The knife was near his free hand, and Rutledge kicked it the rest of the way down the stairs.

“Help me,” Baxter said, his voice a thread. “Something’s wrong.” He frowned, tried to move, and cried out instead. “It hurts.”

Bending over him, Rutledge couldn’t judge how badly the man was injured, but he took no chances, keeping well clear of Baxter’s feet. He said roughly, “Where is she?”

Baxter misunderstood. “He’s in the roses. When the French woman went to London. The staff’s half day. For her to take the blame if the rest went wrong.” He coughed, and blood frothed on his lip. Raising frightened eyes to Rutledge’s face, he whispered, “I can’t breathe.” He tried to clutch at Rutledge. “Don’t let me die. I’ll do anything. Please.”

For putting Frances in danger, dying was what the man deserved, Rutledge thought grimly. But the Yard needed him alive. And so did Gooding.

Judging Baxter’s weight, Rutledge picked him up. Baxter writhed, screaming in agony, and Rutledge almost dropped him. “Be still. I’m trying to help you.” He managed to carry him down the stairs, got the door opened.