Proof of Guilt (7 page)

As he walked back to the motorcar, he swore under his breath. Neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring . . . Why did the dead man have that watch? Or to turn it around another way, why was Lewis not wearing the watch? It was a symbol of who and what he was. Not something he was likely to give up easily.

Hamish said, “Unless it was no’ for verra’ long.”

It occurred to Rutledge that French had palmed the man off with the watch and then looked for a chance to run him down. Then why hadn’t he recovered the watch first thing? Had he been interrupted?

And that brought up another missing piece of property—Lewis French’s motorcar. Had there been enough damage to make it impossible to drive into London without questions being asked? Was it somewhere in England where an unwitting smith was making repairs so that French could reappear? It would be impossible even for Gibson to trace such a small shop.

Rutledge drove back to the Sun, once an old coaching inn, and took a room for the night. It was too late to return to London anyway, and he could put the morning hours to very good use here.

I
t was nine o’clock when he rang the bell at the French house. Nan opened the door and at once looked beyond Rutledge, as if expecting to see her mistress alighting from the motorcar.

He said, “I’m afraid Miss French has decided to stay in London for a few days. I’ve come to ask—did Mr. French leave his motorcar here or take it with him to London?”

She stared at him.

“The problem is, we can’t seem to find him in London. If the motorcar is still here, perhaps he took a train.”

Her face cleared. “I believe he drove himself, sir. He usually preferred it.”

“Then very likely he stopped off to visit a friend.”

“He could have. He wasn’t expected in London for several days.”

“And you saw him leave?”

She looked away and then back at him. “He left in the evening. He and Miss French had had words about readying the house for Mr. Traynor. I heard the door slam, and Miss French went out after him. Then she came back, dismissed me for the night, and went into her room. I thought she’d been crying and didn’t want me to see.”

“Did they often quarrel? Miss French and her brother?”

“Not often, sir. But she felt sometimes that he was unappreciative of all she did. And I must say, it was true. She told me once that she didn’t envy Miss Townsend.”

“Where were they to live when they married? Here? Or in London?”

“I expect in London.”

He thanked her and left.

Coming out of the drive, Rutledge saw the curate, Mr. Williams, peddling his way. He waited for him, and Williams pulled up by the iron gates.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” the curate asked.

“Yes, thank you. Are you going into Dedham? I’ll give you a lift.”

“Nice of you! Shall I lash the bicycle to the boot?”

“Yes, you’ll find rope in there.” When Williams had finished and joined him in the motorcar, Rutledge said, “I haven’t known Lewis French long. What sort of person is he?”

“Nice enough chap. I think the elder brother, Michael, was the pick of the family. Everyone had high hopes for him. But then he didn’t come home from the war, more’s the pity. Lewis has made a go of the firm, and his fits seem to have lessened with age.”

Rutledge had forgot that Miss French had mentioned her brother’s seizures. “Were they severe?”

“Not as a rule. But a time or two they were very bad. If he were very upset, the spells were worse. Dr. Townsend had to be called in once. French had bit his tongue rather badly. You’ve been asking a good many questions about the family, and French in particular. And you listen, which encourages confidences. Perhaps it’s time to ask who you are?”

There was nothing for it but to give the curate a fair answer.

“My name is in fact Rutledge. And I’m an Inspector at Scotland Yard.”

There was stunned silence. His companion turned to look at him, then stared straight ahead.

He could see the curate remembering everything he’d told Rutledge. A lonely man—there had been no sign of a wife—he’d talked freely, trusting that his instinct about people was right, and this stranger was what he seemed.

“Forgive me. I hope I have done no one any harm,” he said at last, then paused. “If the Yard is involved, then we must be dealing with murder. Are you here about the victim? Or the killer? And what does the French family have to do with this business?”

“A dead man turned up on a quiet street in London. There was no identification, and we were at a loss to explain how he got there, where he’d died, and most urgent of all, who he was. But he was carrying a rather unusual timepiece. Somehow, whoever emptied his pockets missed it. Or for all we know, left it there on purpose. We investigated the watch, and it turned out the owner was one Lewis French. We thought we had identified our man. He was not French, as it happened. Still, we needed to know how he’d come by French’s watch. But we haven’t been able to find Mr. French. Or the motorcar in which he left his house over a fortnight ago.”

“Dear God.” As the whole of what he’d been told sank in, Williams shook his head.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you. But have you spoken to Miss Townsend? Could she tell you where French had gone? Surely he wouldn’t hare off on a whim without saying something to her. It’s my understanding that he had planned to be here at least a week. That was the impression he gave when he came to services that first Sunday morning after he arrived from London. He told me there was a problem at one of the farms on the estate. Worm, he thought, and he was to speak to a man in Dedham about replacing the infected wood.”

“And did he, do you know?”

“I expect he must have done, as later in the week I saw the carpenter’s dray turning into the farm lane as I was coming back from visiting one of our parishioners.”

That was the thing—in a village as small as St. Hilary, there were eyes everywhere. But if he was returning to London, French would have gone in the opposite direction, through Dedham.

“The assumption is that he stopped off to visit a friend on the way to London, and since he wasn’t expected to return to French, French and Traynor straightaway, he didn’t think to tell anyone his plans. But that seems odd to me. Gooding, the senior clerk in London, hasn’t heard from him, and French had had a telephone put in at the house here expressly to allow him to stay in touch with his clerk whenever he was in Essex.”

“I don’t like the sound of this. Not at all.”

“Precisely why the Yard has sent me here. Until now I’ve been very careful not to raise any alarms. But it’s important to start a search now. He could have been set on and robbed. He could be injured or unable to report what happened.”

“Have you spoken to our constable here in St. Hilary?”

“I stopped at the station yesterday. He wasn’t in.”

“I don’t know that he’ll be much help,” Williams said skeptically. “He knows his patch, and if anything had happened to French near St. Hilary, he’d have heard something by now. He keeps his ear to the ground. But he hasn’t said anything, has he?”

“He would have no reason to be looking for French. I have to begin where he was last seen.” He let the silence between them lengthen. He didn’t think the curate had ever encountered murder, for he still appeared to be taking it all in. Then he asked, “Was French’s father—or grandfather for that matter—ever involved with other women?”

“Involved with—not to my knowledge. And I’ve heard no gossip in that direction. How does this fit into murder?”

“Sometimes people left out of a will are vindictive. I understand that that watch has some significance in the family. Perhaps it has more value in that direction than if it were sold. If a thief tried to sell it, many jewelers would be suspicious.”

“I see where you’re going here. Still, why had your London victim been stripped of his identity?”

“There’s the possibility that someone else hired him to steal the watch. And when it came to turning it over, the thief got suddenly greedy.”

Or whoever killed him had decided that he knew too much?

“Then why did the thief’s killer leave it?”

“Because it was now tainted. Most especially if anything had happened to the owner, Lewis French.”

“Oh dear. I quite see now why you’ve been reluctant to raise the alarm until now. And I also understand what took Agnes French all the way to London. If her brother wasn’t here, he had to be in London. I’ll be happy to help in any way I can. But I must ask to see your identification. You will understand why.”

Rutledge pulled to the verge. They were nearly into Dedham, and this was the widest place in the road. He took out his identification and passed it to Williams. The curate examined it with care, then handed it back to Rutledge.

“Thank you. I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered anyone from Scotland Yard before this.”

Rutledge could see that Williams wasn’t certain whether to consider this an honor or a curse.

After a moment the curate added, “To be honest with you, I can’t think of anything I might know that would be helpful to you. None of my parishioners has any deep dark secret that might lead to murder.”

Rutledge found himself thinking that if there were secrets, no one would consider confiding them to Williams. He was rather naïve for a man who had fought in the war and then turned to the church for his livelihood.

“There must be someone else who knows the family well.” Rutledge reached for the brake and let in the clutch, moving out in the sporadic traffic on its way into Dedham.

“I never knew Michael, of course. But his tutor is still alive, and he lives in a small house here. He was also Lewis’s tutor, I believe. And there’s Miss French’s governess, but her mind isn’t what it once was. Sad, really, but she’s up in years. Michael French went to call on the tutor whenever he was on leave, or so Miss French told me. But Lewis finds him too dull to visit, I’m afraid. Sorry.”

“Still, I’ll keep the tutor in mind, if this inquiry isn’t closed one way or another soon.”

“With French dead? God save us, I hope not.”

It wasn’t until Rutledge was waiting for the curate to remove his bicycle from the boot that Williams said, “There
is
someone. I should have thought—she was engaged to Michael, and then to Lewis. Only she broke off the engagement quite suddenly. She’s known the family for years. She might be able to help you.”

Chapter Seven

T
he name Williams gave him was Valerie Whitman. She lived in the village of St. Hilary, and according to the curate her house was easy to find, just across from the church.

Agnes French had mentioned another woman when first Rutledge had called at the house, telling him that if something had happened to her brother in St. Hilary, she would look first at his jilted fiancée. At that point, Rutledge had still believed French was dead in a London hospital.

Now Williams was telling him that Miss Whitman herself, not French, had ended the engagement abruptly.

He was more inclined to believe the curate than Agnes French, whose view of the broken engagement would have been colored by her brother’s feelings. Still, jealousy had been the motive for murder in more than one instance. And who had or hadn’t ended the engagement didn’t matter. What had come after that did.

Rutledge was fairly certain he’d noticed the Whitman house earlier, a pretty cottage with roses clambering up the sunny wall and overhanging the porch. Nothing to compare with the Townsend house in Dedham, but large and comfortable enough to indicate that Miss Whitman was Lewis’s equal. And he found it easily.

But the quandary was, while he had been able to approach Miss Townsend and Miss French’s maid, even the curate, using the excuse that he was trying to find French, Rutledge could hardly ask Miss Whitman if she knew where he’d got to. The general assumption would be that they had had no contact since the broken engagement. And he had no idea on what terms they had parted or how she felt about French now.

If he believed Agnes French, her feelings had been murderous.

He wasn’t happy with the plan of knocking at the door in official inquiry until he knew a little more.

And so he left the motorcar by the empty Rectory and walked in the St. Hilary churchyard while keeping an eye on the Whitman house.

His vigilance was rewarded. A young woman came out the door with cut flowers in her hand and walked down the path to the garden gate.

There was no certainty that this was Valerie Whitman. He had neglected to ask Williams if there were sisters. But it was a place to begin.

She continued down the road to a cottage near where the High Street made a slight turn to accommodate the Common and went up to knock at the door. He moved to the far side of the churchyard so that he could keep watch. She was admitted, and she stayed the proper fifteen minutes, returning without the flowers.

He was ready. Leaving his place of concealment under the heavy, drooping leaves of an old maple and timing his approach perfectly, he met her before she had reached her house.

Taking off his hat, he smiled and said, “My name is Rutledge. I’m from Scotland Yard.”

Her hair was a light brown with highlights of honey gold in the sun, and her eyes were hazel, green overlaid with flecks of brown and purest gold. She was not conventionally pretty in the way that Miss Townsend was, but he found himself staring, nevertheless. There was something about her that would still be attractive when she was old.

“Scotland Yard? I can’t imagine why you should wish to speak to me.” She moved past him, opened the gate, and was walking up the path to her door before he could stop her.

“Miss Whitman?”

She turned quickly, her eyes wary. “How did you know my name?”

“I told you. I’m a policeman. It’s my business to know such things.”

“Then what is it that you want?”

“I’m trying to find Lewis French. It’s urgent that I speak to him as soon as possible. It could even be that he’s in some trouble. I might be able to help him, if he is.”

“If he’s in trouble, I’m the last person he’d turn to. I can’t think why, if you know my name, you would believe I could tell you anything. His sister lives between here and Dedham. You should speak to her.”

“She’s in London at present. I asked the curate, Mr. Williams, if there was anyone else who knew the family well. He gave me your name.”

“But he knows I’ve been—estranged from the French family.” She shook her head.

“You were close at one time. You’ve been engaged to both brothers.”

“Michael was going off to war. We’d known each other for ages, and it seemed natural to make promises. I can’t tell you now if it was love or just the need to cling to something sane in a mad world. In any event, when Michael was killed, I think Lewis proposed because he’d always wanted anything his brother had. Once he had it—in this case me—he tired of it quickly.”

“But you accepted his proposal, did you not?”

“Michael was dead, it came as a shock, and I was silly enough to think my life was over. My grandfather told me I’d be happy with Lewis, and certainly he was kind and caring and
there
. So many of my friends were killed. Men I’d known from childhood. Like Michael they’d marched off to war as if it were a great adventure. Then they began to fall, one by one. Mons, Ypres, the Somme, it was horrible, and no end in sight. Three of my friends were already widows—”

She broke off, staring at him. “Why am I telling you these things? They won’t help you find Lewis.”

“You said, once he had something of Michael’s, he tired of it quickly. Did that include the firm?” That could easily explain Lewis French’s disappearance.

Miss Whitman considered the question. “It was still a new toy at that time. Now? I couldn’t tell you. Ask Miss Townsend.”

“I’ve spoken to her. French appeared to be himself, the last time she saw him. Perhaps he’s tired of her as well.”

“I doubt it. She never belonged to Michael.” A smile flitted across her face, warming her eyes. “I doubt he could jilt her, anyway. You haven’t met her father.”

But he had. Another possible reason behind a sudden disappearance?

That would also mean giving up position and his wealth. It might be easier to wed Miss Townsend, relegate her to Dedham, and go on with his life in London as he pleased. Would it be as easy to relegate a wife as it was a sister? The answer to that would lie in the strength of mind of Miss Townsend. Or whether her father would be pleased to keep her close by.

Miss Whitman had turned to go inside. He wanted to keep her there talking, but his concentration had been broken by the question of the relationship between Lewis French and his fiancée.

Hamish said, “Yon dead man.”

Rutledge began, more bluntly than he’d intended, “I drove Miss French to London because we’d found a man dead on a street in Chelsea. We had every reason to believe it was French.”

Valerie Whitman turned back to face him.

“Was it Lewis?” Her expression was unreadable. Her hat shadowed her eyes now, and he couldn’t see their color, whether the green had changed to brown.

Was there a need to know—the fear of what he would answer? Or only curiosity?

“She very courageously went with me to the hospital morgue. Because you see, he had no identification, but he was carrying Lewis French’s watch in his pocket.” He took a deep breath. “It was not her brother.”

After a moment, Miss Whitman asked, “Then why was he carrying the watch? I don’t understand. Is this the trouble you think Lewis might have got himself into? Do you think he had something to do with this man’s death?”

“I don’t know. Yet. Miss French told me that her mother had always suspected her father of affairs with other women—”

“She did. I remember it,” Miss Whitman interrupted.

She stood there, the sunlight on her hair under that summer hat, her teeth catching the edge of her lower lip as she considered him.

Rutledge waited.

And then she said, “I won’t invite you in. But I will walk in the churchyard with you.”

Surprised, he opened her gate and held it for her to pass through. They crossed the road in silence and went through the gate in the wall, where trees offered a little respite from the sun.

“Let me see your identification,” she said, and he gave it to her.

Handing it back to him, she said, “I will talk to you for Agnes’s sake, but not for Lewis’s. I knew Agnes French very well once upon a time. She took care of her mother even when Mrs. French couldn’t recognize her own daughter. Strangely enough, she could always remember her sons. She was a woman of nervous disposition who gave her husband and her children a very difficult time. Mr. French was away a good deal, of course. And she imagined that he must be having an affair. In London, in Madeira, even in Lisbon, where he went sometimes on business. I never believed it could be true. Surprisingly, he was devoted to her.”

“That’s interesting in light of something I’d heard, suggesting it was her father-in-law, Howard French, who had had an affair when he was quite young. There was a child of the union, who was adopted elsewhere. Which has led me to wonder if the dead man could have been a descendant of that child. There was a slight resemblance to the portrait of Howard French that hangs in the offices of French, French and Traynor. In fact, it was that likeness coupled with a watch that does belong to French that sent us searching for him. But he’s missing. And so is his motorcar.”

“Well, of course, wherever he is, he must be driving. He hated trains. The fact that you can’t find the motorcar surely means he’s off on a personal errand of some sort.”

They had walked as far as the French mausoleum. She stood looking at it with sadness in her eyes, and he could feel her slip away from him, her mind elsewhere.

“It would be nice if things were that simple,” he said, answering her suggestion about the errand. “You mentioned a grandfather. Do you have any other family?”

“I didn’t agree to talk about myself,” she said sharply, turning toward him.

“You told me that you’d been close to Agnes French ‘once upon a time.’ What caused the breach between you?”

When she didn’t answer, he went on. “Was it the engagement to Michael—or the breaking off of your engagement to Lewis?”

Miss Whitman shook her head. “I don’t know. It was a sudden coldness. I wondered if Lewis had said something. I tried to put as good a face on it as I could, but I was jilted, you see. Yes, Lewis was a gentleman, he let me cry off. He walked into the cottage one afternoon, stood there in front of me, and said, ‘I’ve changed my mind. I don’t think we’ll suit after all. Besides, there’s someone else. I leave it to you to think of a reason why we should no longer wish to marry.’ He waited only long enough to hear me say, ‘Yes, all right, if that’s how you feel.’ He replied, ‘It is.’ I handed him his ring, he thanked me with a cool little bow, and that was that.”

Rutledge found himself thinking that Lewis French was a fool.

And he was reminded all at once of his own bitter memories. Jean had been eager to leave him. She had broken off their engagement without even telling him, although he’d known he couldn’t marry her as he’d been in the spring of 1919. And she had been in such a hurry to leave the clinic after seeing him there for the first—and only—time. It had turned out for the best, but it had been impossible for him to accept that when, suffering from shell shock to the point that he couldn’t eat or sleep or think, he had needed an anchor, a connection to reality.

He would have given much to know whether it had only been Valerie Whitman’s pride that had been hurt. Or had the pain gone deeper? He had known that too, when Meredith Channing had traveled to Belgium to nurse the ruin of a man she believed to be her missing husband.

“A woman scorned . . .” Hamish’s voice startled him. Rutledge glanced quickly at Miss Whitman to see if she had heard it too. But she was staring up at the church tower, where a pair of rooks were circling and calling.

“There’s a pair that lives in the tower,” she said, changing the subject. Then: “I really must go.” And she turned back toward the High Street.

“I’ll walk with you as far as your gate,” he said, following her, although his motorcar was in the opposite direction. “If you think of anything that might be useful in discovering the whereabouts of Lewis French, please send word to the Sun Inn in Dedham.”

“I’m not likely to. I’ve already told you. Speak to Miss Townsend.” This time he could hear anger behind her words.

They continued in silence to her gate, which he opened for her to pass through. As he was closing it again, she said, “I’d rather not let it be known that I spoke to you. I have no right to discuss the French family with anyone.”

“There’s no need,” he said. “For anyone else to know.”

“Not even Mr. Williams,” she said, after considering the matter, her head to one side, the sun touching those honey gold lights in her hair. Rutledge wondered if she knew how she looked in the sunlight. “He sometimes forgets that a priest’s duty to his parishioners extends beyond the secrets of the confessional.”

And he had indeed forgot, Hamish reminded Rutledge. Because the man from London had been such a good listener . . .

Why had Miss Whitman told him so much? For reasons of her own?

Without another word, she was gone, walking briskly up the path and into the house. She didn’t look back.

He watched until the door closed and then stood there at the gate a moment longer.

On his way to the motorcar, he surprised himself thinking again that he wouldn’t have chosen Miss Townsend over Miss Whitman. If he had been Lewis French.

T
he inn in Dedham was on the telephone, and Rutledge shut himself into the tiny closet to put through a call to the Yard.

When Gibson had been found and brought to the instrument, he said to Rutledge, “You’ll be interested to hear Mr. Belford’s background.” Without waiting for a reply, he went on. “He was in the Military Foot Police. An officer.”

Which explained his easy recapitulation of the evidence surrounding the dead man. He was accustomed to setting out the facts in an orderly manner, for an inquiry.

“Anything else?”

“Not so far. His record was exemplary, according to my sources. And he doesn’t appear to have any connection with French, French and Traynor. Although he’s been to Lisbon, oddly enough. Something to do with deserters.”

That was food for thought, although Rutledge wasn’t prepared to see a connection. Yet. But if Belford was behind the death of the man on his street, it would have been to his advantage to try to lead the Yard astray.