Proof of Guilt

Charles Todd

Dedication

For Otto Penzler

and everyone at

The Mysterious Bookshop

For all you’ve done for the Mystery, for mystery writers,

and for mystery fans everywhere.

Here’s to you!

Contents

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

About the Author

Also by Charles Todd

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Funchal Harbor, Madeira

3 December 1916

He couldn’t remember, later, what had taken him down to the harbor.

Now, staring out at the masts of the CS Dacia, the British cable-laying ship, he found himself thinking about England.

Dacia was said to be diverting the overseas cable, in an attempt to deny the Germans access to it. Whether it was true or not, he didn’t know. But she and the French gunboat Surprise had brought the war home to him in an unexpected and unwelcome fashion.

England had been at war since August 1914. But Portugal and, by extension, Madeira had remained neutral in spite of a centuries’ old alliance with Britain. In spite, as well, of clashes with Germany in the Portuguese Colony of Angola, in Africa. Neutrality was one of the reasons he’d decided to live here. His grandmother had been a Quaker by conviction, and he himself held strong views about war and the waste it brought in its wake.

He turned to look upward. Madeira was volcanic, its climate temperate, and its soil fertile. A paradise of flowers, which his mother had loved. Clouds were beetling down the mountainside, concealing the heights, but on a promontory to the far side of the bay, he could still see the tower of his house. Three stories, like most in Funchal, and in his eyes far more handsome than the house where he’d grown up in Essex. It was his late grandfather Howard French, his mother’s father, who had introduced him to the wine business here. He’d come as a boy and stayed as a man. An exile, but a happy one.

A flash spun him around to stare at the harbor just as an explosion amidships sent a column of black smoke rising from Dacia. He was trying to think what could have happened aboard when another explosion rocked Surprise, and just above him, from the vantage point of the Grand Hotel grounds, someone was pointing and shouting.

“There—look, it’s a submarine!”

The voice carried clearly, this close to the water.

He didn’t lose time trying to see. He began to run, turning his back on the harbor as other explosions shook it. People were coming out of doorways, stopping in the streets to stare, calling to one another, unable to believe the evidence of their own eyes. He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw pillars of black smoke rising from Dacia, which had been hit again, and Surprise, and even Kangaroo, a third ship near them.

Someone in the water was screaming, and he could hear other cries as the heavy smell of burning timbers wafted inland on the onshore breeze, making him cough.

His offices were on the street just above the harbor. French, French & Traynor, Exporters, handled Madeira, the fortified wine that had made the island famous. And if this shelling of the ships in the harbor was a precursor to an invasion, there was work to be done in a hurry.

Sprinting across the street, where a few motorcars were halted, and several carriages and drays had pulled up, their occupants transfixed by the burning ships, he passed a wild-eyed horse rearing in its traces, the odor of smoke terrifying it.

In the doorway of the export house stood most of his employees, and those who couldn’t crowd into the narrow space were at the windows, their faces nearly as shocked as he felt.

“Mr. Traynor!” his foreman shouted in English. “What are they doing?”

“I don’t know.” He pushed his way inside and ordered his people to follow him.

His own office was in the front, overlooking the street. Behind the offices was the long space where the shop stood and the heavy drays were kept. Above and beyond that the cavernous rooms where great barrels of Madeira, coded by age and type, rested on their sides. And the high-ceilinged rooms with the kettles and vats and gauges that heated the wine, along with the smaller room where all the tools collected through centuries of winemaking were displayed. And at the very back, the long room where employees ate their meals, walls hand-painted by them down the generations and a source of much pride.

Wood, all of them, and they were all vulnerable to fire.

He stopped short, suddenly overwhelmed.

What to do? It would take days—and at best would be a very risky task—to move the wine, and as for the equipment, more days to disengage the pipes and lines that connected kettles to vats. An impossible task.

Even if he managed it, where could he take an entire building to safety?

Matthew Traynor stood there, feeling helpless.

Damn the Germans. And damn the war.

Someone was asking him if Portugal had been attacked—if it had fallen—if this was a prelude to invasion. Others were pleading with him to allow them to leave, to reach their families before it was too late.

Torn, feeling for the first time in his life that he didn’t know how to answer, he tried to collect his wits and act.

Just as he was about to speak, someone poked his head into the doorway behind Traynor and shouted, “The U-boat. She’s surfacing.”

He went to the door to see for himself, and there was the U-boat, in plain view, water still spilling across her hull, gun crews clambering out of the tower, racing across to the deck guns. The fort’s harbor batteries, such as they were, hadn’t opened up. By the time he looked back at the submarine, men had reached the guns, swung them around, and the shelling began.

Not of the harbor, but of Funchal itself.

He realized then that it was too late. “Go home. While you can,” he told the employees waiting anxiously behind him. “If this is an invasion, stay at home. Don’t do anything rash.”

“What about the wine?” his foreman asked. “What are we to do?”

Traynor took a deep breath. “We’ll just have to pray it survives. Now go, take the back streets. Hurry. No, not this way, out through the rear door.”

He could hear the shells exploding now, picture in his mind the damage being done, the cost in property and lives. People were screaming, running in every direction, panicked.

His secretary, a young Portuguese man he’d hired last year, was tugging at his sleeve. “Come, you must go too. Look how the shells are falling!”

And Matt Traynor let himself be led to his own rear door, his mind numbed by shock and a terrible anger he couldn’t control. Around him the building shuddered as a shell landed not more than three houses away.

Years of work. Years. And there was nothing he could do.

The shelling lasted all of two hours. The harbor guns, ineffectual at best, could do little to stop the ravaging of the capital. Runners had been sent to other towns on the island, asking if there had been landings of German troops, but no reports came back.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the shelling stopped. The submarine decks cleared, the hatch was closed, and she slipped quietly beneath the harbor waves, leaving behind two burning vessels, the Dacia already sunk, and countless lives lost. In the town itself, shells accounted for other deaths, falling masonry and timbers for more wounded and dying.

Matt Traynor, hurrying by horseback into Funchal again, saw to his utter amazement that the firm’s windows had been blown out, glazing everywhere, but the building was still standing and appeared to be sound. Still, there were the casks, the great barrels, and the shaking they must have sustained, seals broken, staves sprung. The new wine the vats held, which would either be all right or a total loss, nothing in between. Weeks would pass—months—before he learned what the cost of the shelling would actually be. And there were the glaziers, to replace the glass. They would be busy—he must contact them at once, today, to protect the building from looters come for the wine. Meanwhile, he must hire more night watchmen to stand guard until the House of French, French & Traynor was secure once more.

Dismounting, he stood there for a moment, staring around him at the destruction that had changed this familiar street into a nightmare, masonry everywhere, trees shattered, the pavement itself pocked and broken.

And then, taking a deep breath, he prepared himself for what he’d find inside.

Someone was running down the littered street, calling his name. It was a maid from the house of his fiancée. He felt his heart turn over. “What is it?” he shouted to Manuela and stood where he was, rooted to the spot.

“It’s the Senhorita,” she cried, and he wanted to cover his ears.

Please, God, nothing more. I can’t face anything more.

The bleeding of war-torn France, the endless lists of dead, wounded, and missing from Ypres and the Somme, the suffering in England—none of these had touched him. But this was different. This was his own safe, happy world.

“She’s dead,” Manuela was saying, tears streaming down her red face, and he could read her lips even though the words refused to register. “The beam in her bedroom—she was praying before the Madonna, and it— She’s dead.”

He heard himself say, “But—that’s not possible. Her house was out of range, it was safe.”

“It was the shaking, Senhor. It went on and on, and the plaster gave way . . .”

A week later, his affairs set in order, his fiancée and her mother buried in the hillside cemetery where scarlet bougainvillea spilled luxuriantly over the wall, a brightness that hurt the eyes, he set sail for Portugal. To enlist there.

Chapter Two

Summer 1920: The Sussex Coast

Edgar Billings had stopped at the small pub for a late lunch, lingering over the remnants of his pudding in spite of the glances cast his way by the proprietor, eager to see him off and clear away the noontime meal.

It was nearly two o’clock when the outer door of the pub crashed open and a man dressed in worn corduroy trousers and Wellingtons came quickly inside, calling for Constable Means.

“He’s not here,” the proprietor said. “I expect he went home for his meal. What’s happened, then?”

“A body. Washed up on the shale below Dungeness Light. I thought he’d want to know.”

“A body?” the proprietor repeated. “Not someone we know?”

The Pelican was some distance from Dungeness, but a good many of the fishermen along the coast stopped in there from time to time.

The man shook his head. “Didn’t recognize him.”

“Aye, well, that’s something to be grateful for.”

Billings had risen from his table and walked toward the two men, reaching into his pocket for his money.

He paid his account and went out the door. The man who had brought the news looked after him. “Stranger?”

“Yes,” the proprietor said. “Passing through. He said.”

“Well, then, I’ll be off to find Means.” The man nodded.

Billings, in the yard outside the pub, was already in his motorcar. “Give you a lift?” he asked the man.

“Thanks, no, I’m just off up the road.”

Billings had already cranked the motor, and he let in the clutch, turning toward the coast.

Watching him drive on, the man said to himself, “Now what’s his interest in the body?”

He set out at a trot for the constable’s small house.

Billings found the lighthouse with no trouble. It stood out across the flat land along this part of the coast. But there was no direct way to reach it. The track into it wandered past the rough houses of fishermen, skirted patches of wind-beaten grass, and finally came to an end above the long shelf of shale that began by the light and covered the quarter mile to the sea itself. After reversing the motorcar to face the way he’d come, he got out.

Walking was difficult through the shale. Each step seemed to spread a dozen stones into thousands, with no good purchase for his shoes, like walking in sand but harder, and by the time he was in sight of the sea, he was winded.

From here he could see the body lying just above the tide line. A lone fisherman kept watch, and the smell of his pipe tobacco reached Billings from where the man squatted by the corpse.

Billings plodded on, under the eye of the fisherman, and soon reached the body.

The dead man was dressed in a well-tailored shirt, summer-weight trousers, no shoes. Hair too dark and muddied with seawater to judge its color, his face scraped by the stones where he must have tossed and turned with the incoming tide before being washed up far enough to come to rest at the edge of the tide line, too heavy now in his sodden clothing to be carried out again.

Like a discarded piece of driftwood the sea didn’t want any longer.

The fisherman stood up as Billings approached.

“Stranger,” he said with a nod.

“I was at the pub when someone brought news of a dead man.”

“That’ud be Burton,” the fisherman said, still watching Billings with suspicion in his eyes.

“Burton? Yes, I expect it was,” Billings said easily. “I thought I’d have a look for myself.”

“Curious about a dead man?” the fisherman asked.

“I’ve been searching this coast for days, looking for a certain man. I thought perhaps this might be he.”

“Looking to find—or to drown?”

Billings smiled and took out his identification. “Scotland Yard.”

The fisherman scrutinized it. Billings wondered if the man could read.

Finally satisfied, the fisherman nodded. “Right, then. Have a look. Constable Means will be along soon. He might not care to have the Yard meddling in his patch.” It was said with an overtone of venom, as if the fisherman and Means didn’t get along.

Billings came forward, careful where he stepped, but there was nothing here that could tell him where the man had died or why. And there were no stains on the shirt to indicate a wound washed clean by the sea.

Squatting, as the fisherman had done, he peered into the dead face.

It wasn’t his quarry. He was sure of it. “Any identification on him?”

The fisherman shook his head. “Burton looked.”

“Did he take anything away from the corpse?”

“He’s an honest bloke, Burton. I doubt he’d rob the dead.”

“Yes, well, honest men have their price.” Billings rose to his feet. “My compliments to Constable Means. The corpse is all his.” He turned to leave, then thought of something else. “Your name? For the record, since you’ve kept the man company for some time.”

The fisherman hesitated, then said, “Henderson. George Henderson.”

Billings nodded. “Good day, Henderson.”

The wind from the sea buffeted him as he walked back to where he’d left his motorcar, making the going even harder. A sudden gust nearly knocked him off his feet, and he was glad, finally, when he’d gained the shelter of his vehicle.

He sat there for a time, in the shadow of the lighthouse, as the sun went in and out briefly and then retired from the fray altogether. And then, with decision, he got out, turned the crank, and drove back the way he’d come.

Chapter Three

London, Late Summer 1920

It wasn’t an inquiry that Rutledge relished. A man had been killed in Chelsea, not far from the house where Meredith Channing had lived.

It was closed now. Had been since he’d escorted her to Bruges, in Belgium, where the man she believed to be her husband—he’d gone missing in the war—had been discovered, ill and unable to care for or even name himself. Rutledge had not been convinced that she was certain the man was Channing. She’d been searching a very long time, and her need to believe it was and make her peace with her husband had been stronger than her usual sound judgment. He’d had no choice but to walk away and leave her there, cutting short whatever closeness might have bloomed between them in different circumstances. The attraction had been there. He himself had tried to pretend it hadn’t.

She was in Belgium still, although he was the only person who knew her whereabouts. Most of her friends assumed she was visiting in Scotland—or Yorkshire—or possibly Devon. It was not his charge to enlighten them.

He had been sent to the scene by the Acting Chief Superintendent with the comment “Bloody motorcars. The sixth death in London this month, by my reckoning. And not likely to be the last.”

“I should think a traffic death would be handled by the Metropolitan Police,” Rutledge had answered.

“As a rule,” the Acting Chief Superintendent had agreed. “But Constable Meadows felt the circumstances were a little odd. For one thing, the vehicle didn’t stop. For another, there are no witnesses. Not even a milk van, mind you.”

Someone should have seen or heard something, in spite of the fact that the accident had occurred in the predawn hours. The motorcar braking suddenly, the force of the bonnet or the wing striking the victim, even if there had been no time for him to cry out.

Sergeant Gibson, just coming up the stairs as Rutledge was leaving, greeted him with a nod and then said, “The doctor’s been and gone.”

“What did he have to say?”

“Injuries consistent with being struck by a motorcar, but he put the time of death closer to midnight than dawn.”

Rutledge thanked the sergeant and went on his way. He had noticed, but had said nothing about it, that Gibson was himself again. And he was happy to see it.

Chief Superintendent Bowles’s sudden illness had caused drastic upheaval at the Yard, compounded by frantic jockeying to fill his shoes and the temporary assignment of several Acting Chief Superintendents until Bowles’s condition had been clarified. When the new man had been brought in from Yorkshire and appointed to take his place for the foreseeable future, there had been a settling out.

As shocked as anyone about what had happened, Gibson had withdrawn into a strictly by-the-book mode that had made him prickly and unhelpful, as if by holding himself to Bowles’s standards now, he believed he could assure that no one would guess his true feeling about the man or the number of times he’d gone behind the Chief Superintendent’s back. But like good resolutions at any time, this one had been short-lived. Everyone was weighing the new man, but no one had uttered an opinion. Rutledge had already formed his own.

Constable Meadows was still standing guard over the body, waiting for the undertaker to arrive. Behind him, Rutledge could see two more constables, brought in for the purpose, canvassing either side of the quiet street. If the neighbors were curious, they were keeping indoors and watching events from their windows. But then Huntingdon was not the sort of street where residents or servants stood and gawked.

Meadows was a thin, quiet man of perhaps thirty-five, and he said as Rutledge approached, “Scotland Yard?”

“Inspector Rutledge.”

“Yes, sir. I was asked to wait until someone arrived.”

“I understand you felt the circumstances surrounding this accident were odd?” Rutledge stooped to lift the blanket that had been placed over the victim’s body. The man appeared to be in his late twenties or early thirties, slim and well dressed, brown hair matted with blood from the wound where the back of his skull must have struck the uneven edge of the street, one arm at an angle that would be unnatural in life, and trousers torn at the ankle.

Meadows reached down and turned the body a little so that Rutledge could see where the man’s coat was torn near the collar and covered with dust and bits of stone and grass. There was a long scrape down one side of his face. “It appeared that he was dragged some distance. The doctor’s estimate was close to ten feet, until the coat or even that edge of his trousers tore away. But if you look in the road there’s no sign of anything dragged.”

Rutledge let the blanket fall back into place and rose. Looking back down the road, the direction in which the body would have been carried by the motorcar, he had to agree with the constable. No sign at all, although the man was not slight, and even a sack of coal would have left some impression in the soft summer dust.

Meadows was saying, “For another thing, sir, the doctor told me he’d been dead longer than I’d thought. I walk this street at least once every hour on my rounds, and he wasn’t here before half after four. I’d swear to that. For another, there’s nothing in his pockets to show who he is. And you’d expect to find a wallet, if he was coming home at this hour.”

“Was he robbed, do you think?”

“Sir, no. No sign of that that I could see. Pockets weren’t turned out. And there’s a watch in his vest pocket. Rather a nice one. French, at a guess. No one would miss it, even in the dark. There’s a nice chain on it as well.” He held out his hand, and in the palm lay the watch and chain.

They were expensive. Rutledge could see that for himself, both case and chain well made and of smooth, heavy gold. They matched what he had seen of the man’s clothing.

Flicking open the case, he looked for an inscription, but there was none. “The jeweler or watchmaker who sold this might have a record of it,” he said. “Before the war, I should think. And you’re right, the face appears to be French.”

“I’ll see that’s passed on, sir.”

“Better still, I’ll ask a jeweler I know what he makes of it. And then the Yard can begin a search for the owner.”

Just then the undertaker arrived, and Meadows stepped forward to speak to the driver.

At the sound of a door closing, Rutledge looked up the street. A constable was coming down the steps of a house near the corner, and he turned in Rutledge’s direction.

Rutledge went to meet the man, leaving Meadows to deal with the removal of the body.

“Constable,” he said. “Found a witness, I hope?”

“Sir, not precisely. But the footman in the house with the iron railings above the door was waiting up for the owner to return from a dinner party, and I spoke to the gentleman as well. When he came home at a quarter past twelve, he saw nothing in the street. He’s willing to give a statement to that effect.”

“Was he driving? Could he have knocked the man down?”

“I’m to look at his motorcar, sir. The footman has gone to bring it around. But I’d say Mr. Belford was unlikely to have been the one we’re looking for.” The constable cleared his throat. “He’s a rather formidable gentleman, sir.”

“Perhaps I should have a word with him. After we’ve looked at his motorcar. He was driving himself? There was no one else with him?”

“No, sir, he was alone.”

“Could he have been too drunk to realize what he’d done?”

“According to the footman, Mr. Belford isn’t one for the drink.”

“Indeed. Ah, here comes the motorcar. Let’s have a look.”

The footman was an older man, to Rutledge’s surprise. As a rule it was a position for younger ones. He drew up in the street next to the two policemen and said, “Here you are, Constable Doyle. Have a look.” He nodded to Rutledge. “Sir.”

But they could see straightaway that the meticulously maintained motor had not been involved in any street accident. It could have rolled out of the showroom door only yesterday, it was in such excellent condition. As he was examining it, Rutledge saw the footman take out a handkerchief and briskly rub an edge of the near-side headlamp where Constable Doyle had briefly rested his hand as he bent to look more closely at the frame. The frown on the man’s face as he polished away the offending print indicated that the motorcar was in his charge and his joy.

Rutledge turned to Constable Doyle. “I’d like to speak to Mr. Belford. Will you tell Constable Meadows that I’ll be back shortly? He’s not to leave until I return.”

Doyle, still minutely examining the motorcar, said, “Yes, sir, I’ll pass the word.”

Rutledge walked on to the Belford house and knocked at the door. A housemaid answered and showed him into a small parlor. It was rather formal: dark blue and cream, the drapes dark, lined with the lighter color, the carpet the reverse, cream with a dark blue pattern, the chairs covered in a shade that complemented the drapes. Still, it had the appearance of being well used, as if the owner preferred it in the evening to the drawing room.

Within less than a minute after the housemaid had left Rutledge there, Belford came into the room.

He was a man of medium height, with iron gray hair and a trim mustache. There was an air about him that would have suited an earl, and he said without waiting for Rutledge to speak, “I’ve told Constable Doyle all I can about last night and sent out Miller with my motorcar. What is it now?”

There was neither irritation not curiosity in his voice, only impatience.

“I’m Inspector Rutledge, Scotland Yard,” he answered easily. “I understand that you saw nothing unusual when you returned to your house last night a little after midnight.”

“That’s true.”

“The dead man was lying on the far side of the road. Could you have missed him? You were driving yourself, I understand.”

“I was. And I would most certainly have noticed a corpse on my street.”

“And your footman returned the motorcar to the mews where you keep it?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Can you be certain that he didn’t strike the man?”

“Miller? He would have told me.”

But would he have? Still, there was no damage to the vehicle.

“Before the body is taken away, I’d like to have you look at the victim and tell me if you recognize him. He could well be a neighbor, although Constable Meadows didn’t know him.”

“Very well.” Belford turned on his heel, led the way out the door and through the foyer to the street, not waiting to see if Rutledge was following. The body had just been put into the rear of the van when Belford reached it, and he said, “Show me the man.”

The driver hesitated, looked over his shoulder at Rutledge, who nodded once, and then uncovered the face of the corpse.

Belford peered at it intently, as if to memorize the dead man’s features, then turned to Rutledge. “I have never seen him before. I can be quite sure about that.”

“Can you?” Rutledge asked as the hearse’s driver waited for permission to cover the body again.

“Absolutely. He does not live on this street, he did not serve under me in the war, he does not move in circles that I frequent, and I can think of no other occasion when he should have come to my attention.”

“Thank you, Mr. Belford.” Rutledge gestured to the driver, who nodded, dealt with the corpse, and shut the doors of the hearse.

Belford stepped to one side, waited until the hearse was driving away, and then said, “I should like to know what he was doing here, on this street.”

“There is no identification on the body,” Rutledge said. “We have no idea who the man is, where he lives, or what brought him here.”

“Then I can be of no further service to you.” With a brisk nod, Belford walked away. But he’d taken no more than a half-dozen steps when he turned and said, “Constable Doyle said the man was dragged some ten feet. I should think that would indicate an intent on the driver’s part to see his victim dead.”

“We haven’t determined whether he was or not,” Rutledge replied. “Constable Meadows could find no evidence of dragging after he discovered the body. But judging from the scrapes on the man’s face and the state of his clothing, it struck him as very likely.”

“Then you must take your inquiry elsewhere,” Belford said with some satisfaction. “Because the likelihood is that the dead man was not killed on this street at all, but brought here and left for someone to find.”

Rutledge studied Belford for a moment. “That’s an interesting supposition. What evidence is there to support it?”

“See for yourself, Inspector. He appeared to have been dragged after he was struck by the motorcar, but you can find no marks on the street, no tracks where his heels dug in or his body disturbed the dust. Nor does there appear to be any blood where he was found. Therefore he must have been dead for some time before he was left here. He’s not a resident of this street, and he couldn’t have been leaving a dinner party at that hour because he isn’t dressed for dining out. Those are more country clothes, in my opinion. Your men are going house to house, and if you came to call on me, then asked me to identify the victim if I could, you have had no success thus far. My motorcar bears out the fact that I have not run anyone down. Nor, clearly, has my footman. The question you must now ask yourself is, who wanted this man dead, and who brought him here after killing him elsewhere? I have no enemies who could have done that to embarrass me, and I think you’ll find that this will also hold true for my neighbors, when you have interviewed the remaining residents here and those in the streets on either side of this one. Now I have other matters to attend to, and I will leave you to your own work.”

Rutledge took out the watch. “This was in his vest pocket.” He held it by the chain, and it twisted for a moment before stopping, the early morning sun reflecting from the gold case. “Is there anything about it that strikes you?”

Belford reached out to touch the watch with the tip of his finger, turning the face his way. “You’ve looked inside for an inscription?”

“Yes.”

“It’s French, of course. And expensive. A gentleman’s watch, I should think, possibly inherited, because of its age. That’s all I can tell you.”

This time when he turned away, Belford continued to walk on toward his house without looking back, shoulders straight, head high, like the officer he must have been in the war. Rutledge had met officers like him, disciplined, fair, but strict observers of the rules. He found it interesting that the man had chosen not to use the honorific of his rank after returning to civilian life. For that matter, it would be interesting to know just what rank he’d held in the war.

Behind Rutledge, Constable Meadows was saying, “He makes a very good point, sir.”

He did, Rutledge thought. Observant, concise in his interpretation of what he’d seen, Belford had told Scotland Yard how to proceed. But Rutledge himself had reached the same conclusion. If the dead man had not been lying here by the side of the street when Mr. Belford returned home, he must certainly have been killed elsewhere, and someone had had time before daylight to rid himself of the body.

No identification. No business, as Belford had put it, in this street. And no sign of blood in the roadway to show where he’d died.

But Belford had driven here from somewhere. He could have brought the body this far, and left it to be found by a neighbor or the constable on his rounds. A cloth could wipe away any bloodstains on the leather seats. But that brought Rutledge back to the condition of the motorcar’s exterior.

Rutledge turned to Meadows. “How well do you know Mr. Belford?”

“He keeps himself to himself. Money—there’s a staff there, footman, two maids, cook, housekeeper, and valet. And never a minute’s trouble. I should know, I’ve been here ten years myself.”

“Which isn’t to say that Mr. Belford doesn’t have another life outside Chelsea.”

“True enough, I expect. But I’ve never got wind of it.”

Rutledge nodded. “The first order of business is to identify our body. Only then can we be certain he has had no interaction with Mr. Belford. When you and the other constables have finished speaking to everyone on this street, and you have no more information than you possess right now, begin on the adjacent streets, working your way toward the river. If there’s a connection with this part of London, we must find it before going farther afield. If there isn’t, then perhaps the watch will open up other avenues.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll see to it.”

Rutledge went out into the middle of the street and walked up and down for some twenty yards in either direction from where the body had been discovered, but keen as his eyes were, sharp as the morning light was, ave fill could find no evidence to show that the victim had been dragged here. Or that such signs had been brushed away, in an attempt to point the police in a different direction.

He was forced to agree with Belford, although it would have been more satisfying on general principles to find the man wrong. He smiled at himself. It would most certainly have made his task easier. Wherever the victim had died, it wasn’t here.

Had this site been chosen at random? Or was it meant as a message to someone who lived on this street? For that matter, the killer could have got the address wrong.

“You cover several streets on your rounds,” ave aid to the constable as he came to stand beside him again. “Have you seen anything, avard any gossip that might indicate someone else in this area was engaged in activities that y O results engagoses in nasme wathe ? to it.”

Haup seIly t telle to it.”

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“Interesting,” Rutledge said. “Anything else?”

“I’m afraid not. I do have a connection in Lisbon. Would you like me to make inquiries? Quietly, of course.”

“Yes, that would be very helpful.”

Galloway jotted down his observations and returned the timepiece to Rutledge.

“Contact you through the Yard, as usual?”

“Please, yes.”

Rutledge walked back to his motorcar with his mind on the inquiry.

A voice said, “I see you’ve no time for old friends.”

He came back to the present to find former Chief Inspector Cummins standing in front of him. Smiling, he said, “Sorry! I was debating with myself whether this latest inquiry is a murder or an accident someone tried to cover up. What brings you to London?”

“My daughter and my wife are looking at wedding gowns. I’ve been cast adrift and told not to return for at least an hour. It’s nearly up. I’m glad I ran into you. A pity about Bowles’s heart attack, but I daresay there were many who were surprised to learn he even had one. Myself among them. What do you think of the new man? Markham?”

It occurred to Rutledge that if Cummins had been still at the Yard, he would have been in the running for the position of Acting Chief Superintendent. It was a loss to the Yard that he wasn’t.

“A dark horse. So far he’s been reasonable enough to work with, but his reputation precedes him. He doesn’t care for leaps of intuition and is a stickler for regulations.”

“The new broom sweeping clean, yet?”

Rutledge considered the question. “He’s too new. Time will tell.”

“One school seems to think Bowles is mending and will have his old position back or know the reason why. Another thinks he’s stepped on too many toes and that he’ll be asked to retire, if the Home Office finds a satisfactory replacement.”

Rumors that Rutledge hadn’t heard. “Thank you for the warning.” Better the devil you know? He wasn’t sure.

“Good to see you again, Ian. Keep your head down, and you’ll be all right.”

But Rutledge stopped him. “Do you miss it? The Yard?” He hadn’t intended to ask the question. It was too personal for one thing, and none of his affair for another.

After the clinic, he had used his return to the Yard to stop himself from sliding into irreversible madness, and he had fought to hold on to that in the face of Bowles’s intransigence and the fearsome darkness occupying his mind. He had survived, because he had never dared to look beyond the Yard. Never dared to contemplate what would become of him if his work were suddenly taken away. As it had been for this man.

“I do,” Cummins said, and Rutledge felt cold. And then Cummins added, “But not as much as I’d expected to. Does that make sense?”

Rutledge could only say, “Yes.”

At the Yard, Rutledge’s first order of business was to ask Gibson to find out whatever he could about the helpful Mr. Belford. In his office with the door shut, he sat down at his desk, turned his chair toward the dusty window, and looked out. He was grateful for this glimpse of the outside, even if it consisted mostly of trees and a part of the road below. His claustrophobia, a relic of the trenches, hadn’t gone away with time, as the doctors had suggested it might. And it helped him to think, staring out at green leaves and tree trunks that hadn’t been blighted by artillery and turned into churned-up mud, bone, blood, and lost hopes.

The Acting Chief Superintendent would be impatiently awaiting his report, but Rutledge wasn’t quite satisfied with what he’d seen in that street in Chelsea.

The victim was still wearing both shoes. Surely if he’d been dragged ten feet, one of them would have fallen off. Had someone replaced them? And while his coat showed every sign of dragging, no attempt had been made to simulate a track in the dust of a Chelsea street. Rutledge found that interesting. Where, then, had the man come from? And why was he brought to London? Because it was large and anonymous, or because this was the place where he needed to be?

“Because where he died would point to the killer,” Hamish suggested in the back of his mind, answering so clearly his voice seemed to come from just behind Rutledge’s shoulder.

He should be used to it by now. That voice, neither specter nor friend nor rational thought.

Whatever had brought the dead man to Chelsea, it would be necessary now to circulate a description of him to large cities all over the country. And hope that inspectors there would pass the word to the smaller towns and villages in their patches. If the Yard was very lucky, a constable somewhere would recognize the man and put a name to him.

Rutledge had been warned that the Acting Chief Superintendent didn’t care for inquiries with loose ends.

He was more optimistic about the watch. It was expensive enough that jewelers in England, like Galloway, would have kept a record of such a purchase and a satisfied client, in the expectation of future business. But would that be true in Portugal?

Why had the killer overlooked that watch when he—or she—had emptied the dead man’s pockets?

By accident? Or by design?

The only other chance for an early identification was for a family member, a neighbor, an employer to report the victim as missing.

Rutledge turned around to his desk, wrote a description of the dead man, and carried it to Sergeant Gibson.

“We don’t have the doctor’s final report yet. Once we do, this should be sent out to your list of county police stations,” he told the sergeant.

“All of them, sir?” Gibson asked, already calculating the work involved.

“The victim could have come from Cornwall or Northumberland or any county in between. I’m afraid it’s all of them.”

With a nod, he went on to speak to the Acting Chief Superintendent, who grunted when Rutledge had finished, then commented morosely, “I’ve always said nothing good would ever come of a gasoline-propelled vehicle.”

Rutledge wasn’t sure whether the remark was intended as dark humor or whether the Acting Chief Superintendent was thinking about distances that could be covered more quickly.

It was late the next morning before the report arrived from the doctor who had examined the body.

Dr. Parker wrote:

My first estimate of the time of death still stands, as does the fact that the victim was dragged. Male, in his very early thirties, no distinguishing marks on the body, no indication of livelihood from his hands or his clothing. Possibly a gentleman of independent means, judging from the quality of said clothing. Internal injuries consistent with being struck by a motorcar. Broken left arm. No war wounds.

War wounds had become a factor in identification.

Rutledge passed the report on to Sergeant Gibson, and then read through the interviews from the constables canvassing the streets on either side of the one in which the body was found. The upshot was that everyone was accounted for in each of the houses that had been visited, and no one had had guests on that particular evening.

Hamish said, “Ye’ll no’ have any luck with this one.”

Rutledge was beginning to think he was right.

Chapter Four

Rutledge was in his office finishing a report on another case when Sergeant Gibson walked in.

“We’ve received three responses about your dead man,” he said, “but there’s not much to choose from between them.” He passed the sheets across the desk to Rutledge, who gestured to one of the chairs.

Scanning the three pages, he had to agree with the sergeant.

The first was in regard to a husband missing for the past two years. The constable reporting had added at the bottom of the sheet, Mrs. Trumbull being somewhat of a termagant, I expect Mr. Trumbull would have gladly thrown himself under the wheels of any motorcar to escape being returned to Derbyshire.

Rutledge said, “The man was a butcher. If it was the only trade he knew, then there’s probably no connection with our victim. Butchers generally don’t have the hands and nails of a gentleman. Still, we’ll keep an open mind.”

Moving on to the second sheet, he frowned. “A schoolmaster from Kent. It’s possible.”

No comment had been added here, but Gibson said as Rutledge finished reading, “I took the liberty of putting in a call to Kent. I happen to know Constable Parry from the war—a case having to do with the report of a spy at the Chatham Shipyard. False alarm, as most of them were. He tells me the schoolmaster recentl} most�a hiuld andhre’s not beensoibet�adayt snice thee.”

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“Did you speak to the Inspector?” Rutledge asked Gibson.

“Sir, there isn’t a telephone where I can reach him.”

“Then we’ll wait a few more days to see if the watch can tell us anything before taking these queries any further. There’s something more. What have you discovered about Mr. Belford in number 20?”

“I’m waiting for a reply from the War Office. He’s not known to the Metropolitan Police or to us.” Gibson cleared his throat. “Reading the report from Constable Meadows, I gathered Mr. Belford was cleared of any involvement.”

“So far. But he knew rather too much—or guessed more than he should have done—to strike him off the list just yet.” Belford’s manner hadn’t rankled—Rutledge was always grateful for whatever a potential witness could contribute, for it was impossible to know and see everything in a neighborhood he didn’t himself live in. Still, there had been something in the man’s brisk reconstruction of events that had been very different from the usual shocked response the police were accustomed to dealing with in the face of sudden death.

It was next afternoon when Gibson returned with a puzzled look on his face and handed Rutledge a sheet of paper without comment.

He scanned it, then slowly reread what was printed there.

As far as anyone could determine, Mr. Belford was precisely what he seemed to be—a helpful neighbor. There were few details added to that—the household staff had been with him for at least ten years and in two cases for fifteen. He had never been in trouble with the law. His military career had been exemplary, and he had risen to the rank of Captain. He had seen action at Mons, Passchendaele, the Somme, and Amiens, was wounded three times, and returned to active duty as soon as he was cleared by his doctors.

Rutledge had never encountered Belford in France, but that wasn’t too surprising. What was, was the fact that he’d never heard the man’s name mentioned. When new companies were being transferred in, there was usually information about where they’d come from, what regiment they had served with, and the name of the officer in charge of their sector.

Gibson said, “That’s all there is. The War Office was too quick to answer our questions. Makes you wonder.”

Pulling information out of the War Office was generally an exercise in patience, as all records were handwritten and the filing system was archaic. Sometimes it was also a matter of obfuscation. When Rutledge needed to know something urgently, he was forced to call in favors to speed up the search.

“As he hasn’t been shot at dawn, he can’t be a German spy living among us,” Rutledge said wryly.

Gibson answered, “Indeed, sir. When Constable Meadows asked the servants on either side of his house, they said he was an ornament to the neighborhood.”

“Good God,” Rutledge said blankly. “How did he achieve such a distinction?”

“The constable was told that he gives generously to any charitable cause.”

“Ah.”

“Always anonymously.”

“Interesting. Then we’ll keep Mr. Belford in the backs of our minds until we know more about the dead man.”

Two other reports came in from the description that had been sent out. One from Cornwall, the other from Chester.

Gibson followed them up.

The Cornishman had gone for a walk on Exmoor and hadn’t been seen since. He had a history of shell shock, and his actions were not, according to Constable Tilly, predictable. Still, the man had been missing for three weeks. In that length of time he could reasonably have reached London, if he had traveled by train or even on an accommodating lorry headed anywhere.

Rutledge, wincing at the mention of shell shock, said, “We’ll have to keep this man in mind. What’s his name?”

“Fulton, sir. He’s from Nottingham. Married a Cornish girl before the war, and the pair have been living in a cottage on her father’s farm.”

“He could have made his way to Nottingham,” Rutledge said. “If he was determined enough.”

The man from Chester was unlikely to be their victim. He’d been wounded in the war and his arm had been badly fractured. According to the police there, he had never regained full use of it.

“And the postmortem didn’t show a bad arm,” Gibson reminded Rutledge. “Only wounds that caused his death.”

“Did you tell Chester that we don’t have their man?”

“I did. There’s still the missing man in Norfolk.”

“We’re back to the watch,” Rutledge said. “And I should have heard something by now.”

“What if it was stolen?” the ever-dour Gibson wanted to know.

“I rather think, considering the quality of the dead man’s clothing, that it must have belonged to him.”

But Gibson wasn’t convinced. “More than one pickpocket dresses like a gentleman. Best way to pass unnoticed at a gathering where the pickings are good.”

It had been nearly a week since the body was discovered when Galloway came himself to see Rutledge at the Yard.

He was escorted to Rutledge’s office by Constable Thomas, and as he came through the doorway, he said, “Patience has its reward. I’ve something here I thought you ought to know at once.”

“That’s good news, I hope,” Rutledge said, rising to greet Galloway. “What does your contact have to say?”

“The watch in question was actually one of a pair ordered from the jeweler in Lisbon in 1891. They were presented by a Mr. Howard French to his son and his son-in-law on the occasions of their marriage and, in due course, were returned to Lisbon for cleaning and polishing by the owners before being given to grandsons on reaching their majority.”

“Why were they purchased in Lisbon rather than in London or Paris?”

“It seems that French was part owner of a winery on Madeira, and he visited Lisbon often on business matters. Before he was forty, he was sole owner of the firm and had bought land on Madeira where he could grow his own grapes. It was an experiment that succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. So I was told.”

“Does the firm have an English address here in London?”

“There’s an office here, but strictly for the importing and selling of wine. The jeweler in Lisbon tells me that the family owned vineyards in Portugal, but it was the ones on Madeira that gave their wines such a recognizable quality. Quite extraordinary, in fact. I fancy a glass of Madeira wine myself, after a good meal. And it’s usually from the cellars of French, French, and Traynor.” He shook his head. “Imagine that.”

Madeira wine was fortified and then aged. Rutledge’s father had enjoyed a five-year-old Madeira, although there had been several bottles in his cellar much older than that—one crusty forty-year-old, in fact, that his father had put down.

“Then the place to start is here in London. I don’t see the Yard paying for a jaunt to Madeira.”

The jeweler smiled thinly. “Not at public expense. But I daresay it would be a very pleasant holiday.”

Rutledge thanked Galloway and saw him out.

Sergeant Gibson, he was told as he returned to his office, was closeted with the Acting Chief Superintendent. And so he searched out Sergeant Fielding. Five minutes later, armed with the information Fielding had given him, Rutledge was on his way to the City and the firm of French, French & Traynor.

Neither of the principals was in, he was told by a junior clerk when he arrived at the handsome building near Leadenhall that housed the firm. It was three stories high, with an ornate façade that could have been designed by Wren. It was the right age. Above the door was a gilded sign with the name picked out and nothing more.

He opened the door and stepped into a small reception room. The paneling was well polished, the chairs were Queen Anne, and the thick carpet was Turkish, the rich colors in its pattern gleaming like dark jewels. The impression was of a well-established firm accustomed to serving the best clientele.

The junior clerk who had greeted him and asked his business deferred to a more senior clerk, and the man who then came out to speak to him would have been at home in a solicitor’s chambers: tall, graying, with a high forehead and still-black eyebrows that gave his face an air of dignity and authority.

He also knew how to sum up a visitor in one swift glance.

“Mr. Rutledge? I’m the senior clerk. Gooding is my name. Frederick Gooding.”

“Do you know where I can find Mr. French? I’d like very much to speak to him.”

“I’m afraid he’s not in today. I’ll be happy to help you in any way I can.”

“Mr. Traynor, then. Where will I find him?”

Mr. Gooding’s eyebrows rose. “The senior Mr. French was killed in the war. The younger Mr. French is presently in Essex. Mr. Traynor handles the firm’s business on Madeira.”

Rutledge brought out the watch and set it on the table beside him, where the lamplight caught the gold of the case and the chain. “Have you seen this watch before?”

“It looks very like the one that the senior Mr. French inherited from his father. It went to the younger Mr. French at his brother’s death. Returned from the Front in his kit.” He touched it lightly, turning the face toward him. “Yes, indeed. I could almost believe that it is one and the same.” Glancing up at Rutledge, he said, “How did Scotland Yard come by it? Can you tell me?”

“By chance,” Rutledge answered. “I’ve been told that a grandfather founded the firm, passed it to his son and son-in-law, and they passed their shares to their own sons. Is this correct?”

“The French family has been in the wine business for centuries. Shakespeare records that the Duke of Clarence was drowned in a butt of Malmsey. If this is true, then very likely it was a wine provided to the Court by the French family. The grandfather, as you describe him, decided to go into the business of growing the grapes and producing his own wine, instead of merely importing it. He had a son—that would be Mr. Laurence—and a daughter, who married a Mr. David Traynor, who was then brought in by Mr. Howard French as a partner. Their son is the Mr. Matthew Traynor who presently lives on Madeira. Mr. Laurence had two sons of his own, Michael, who was killed in the war, and his brother, the present member of the family in charge of the firm.” Gooding had been concise, deferential, and yet obstructive.

“Where in Essex can I find Mr. French the Younger?”

Gooding smiled slightly. “Mr. Lewis French has a home in a village in Essex just north of Dedham. A village called Stratford St. Hilary.”

Constable country, near the Suffolk border, where the artist’s most famous scenes were painted. Rutledge’s grandmother had been particularly fond of Constable’s work.

Rutledge asked, “When did you last speak to Mr. French?”

The clerk pursed his lips. “Friday of last week, I believe. He telephoned me to ask if I’d received final word of his cousin’s travel plans. I hadn’t, and he was not pleased. But then Mr. Traynor had business in Lisbon as well, and that could have taken longer than he’d expected.”

That would have been the Friday before the body was found on Monday morning.

“Does Mr. French usually reside in this village and commute to London?”

“No, no, he has a house in London. He wanted to be sure the ancestral home, as it were, was ready for Mr. Traynor’s arrival.”

Rutledge considered asking the clerk to view the body of the accident victim, then changed his mind. He didn’t relish having the news precede him if this was, by any chance, French the Younger. Lewis, he corrected himself.

“Is there a staff at the Essex house when Mr. French is in London?”

“Oh, yes. And his sister lives there. Miss Agnes French. She keeps house for her brother and her cousin.”

“Both men are single?”

“Mr. Traynor lost his fiancée during the war, and Mr. French has recently announced his engagement.” Something in the clerk’s face changed. “There’s to be a Christmas wedding,” he added, as if he disapproved.

“Does his fiancée live here in London?” If the dead man was French, then he might well have been on his way to call on her.

“She lives with her parents in Dedham, I believe.”

Which shot down that possibility. Unless there was another woman in the picture. But Rutledge rather thought Gooding wouldn’t tell him even if there were.

The door behind the clerk stood ajar, as if he had expected his business with Rutledge to be brief. Rutledge could just see the edge of a heavy gold-leaf frame, the sort favored by firms that choose to display portraits of founders or benefactors.

He walked around Gooding, saying, “I’d like to see the portraits in the passage there, if you don’t mind.”

Surprised, the clerk said, “The portraits?” He turned. “Ah. Mr. French and Mr. Traynor.”

He reached the door before Rutledge in a swift but discreet movement and held it open for him to enter, with the air that looking at the paintings had been his own idea, not Rutledge’s.

The passage was quite wide, and there were two larger-than-life portraits hung on the dark walnut paneling between doors to what must be private offices.

“Both were painted by artists of the Royal Academy,” Gooding was saying. “This is Mr. David Traynor. He was perhaps fifty when this was done.”

Rutledge recognized the name of the artist in the lower-left-hand corner.

Traynor appeared to be of medium height, his fair hair combed in the style of the day, and his sober expression that of a successful man who knew his own worth but had earned it. One hand rested on a large crate of wine with the firm’s name emblazoned on the side, and the other seemed to point to a map lying on the table next to him, showing Portugal and the island of Madeira some distance away.

There was no resemblance to the victim lying in the hospital mortuary.

Rutledge moved down the passage to the next portrait as Gooding said, “This of course is Mr. Howard French, the original founder. I have often felt there was a likeness to the present Mr. French. More so than to his elder brother, who closely resembled their mother.”

“There is no portrait of Mr. Laurence, Mr. Howard’s son.”

“It hangs in the office of the present head of the firm, Mr. Lewis. He is quite fond of the painting.”

The man also appeared to be of medium height, his hair a medium shade of brown, his eyes a medium shade of blue. But there was no mistaking the fact that there was nothing “medium” about the shape and thrust of his jaw. While Traynor celebrated for posterity his rise to new heights of wealth and prestige, there was no doubt that his father-in-law was the force behind the firm’s changing fortunes.

Nor was there any doubt that the dead man bore enough of a likeness to the portrait that he could very well be a relative of the founder, even though he didn’t possess that thrusting jaw or air of power. It was mainly in coloring and size, the ordinary nose, the shape of the head. Not conclusive, of course.

But that likeness, coupled with the watch, was convincing evidence that Mr. French the Younger was dead.

Now the question must be why? And where had he been killed?

Chapter Five

It was time to speak to the Acting Chief Superintendent again.

Rutledge thanked Frederick Gooding for his assistance and turned to go. But he had a feeling, as the clerk politely accompanied him to the door and closed it almost silently behind him, that the man was more than curious about this visit from Scotland Yard and was busily speculating about what had precipitated it.

Then why had he not pressed for more information? Shown more concern? He had maintained the reserve that made chief clerks a formidable presence in any firm, giving Rutledge the French family genealogy but not much else in the way of real information. Was it an attempt to protect the head of the firm with silence until Gooding could find out for himself why the watch was in the hands of Scotland Yard? Or did he already know—or guess—how it had got there? Some indiscretion that would reflect unpleasantly on the firm’s good name and reputation?

What sort of man was Lewis French?

Certainly the firm was not accustomed to receiving representatives of Scotland Yard. The police had no file on it. The question was, would Gooding himself try to locate Lewis French to warn him of the Yard’s visit and possession of the watch?

Rutledge wished he had known enough beforehand not to have shown the watch to Gooding at all. But it had been the only lead he’d had when he knocked on the firm’s door.

The Acting Chief Superintendent was in his office when Rutledge returned to the Yard, and according to Gibson, there was no one in there with him.

Rutledge knocked at the door, then opened it as Markham called, “Come.”

Joel Markham had come through the ranks as Bowles had done but so far seemed to hold no grudge against men who had been to University. He was a burly man, fair hair beginning to recede, rather avuncular in appearance, but it would have been a mistake to think his easy manner was weakness. His hard green eyes told another story.

He considered Rutledge as he gestured to a chair. “I expect you have something to tell me about that accident in Chelsea. Just this morning I was asking Sergeant Gibson if we were to be favored with word on the result of your inquiry.”

Rutledge smiled. “I’ve only just found the last piece of the puzzle regarding the dead man. And I am forced to the conclusion that he was murdered, his body brought to Chelsea, and left there on the street without identification in the hope that he might not be identified either in the near future or ever, depending on how clever the police were in learning more about him.”

He went on to explain about the watch and the queries from other parts of the country, and finally his visit to the wine merchants.

“And no one had reported this man French as missing?”

“He was in Essex, according to the clerk. He may have come to town on a personal matter. He was recently engaged; it could have had something to do with a ring or other arrangements. Whatever it was, no one appears to have had any reason to worry until now.”

“Then you’d best get yourself to Essex before they do miss the man. Catch them before they hear the news from someone else.” Markham considered Rutledge. “You drive your own motorcar, I hear. Why is that? Why not the train like everyone else?”

Rutledge could feel himself stiffening. How to answer this man without telling more than he wished to be generally known?

“The war, sir.” It was curt almost to the point of rudeness, but he was still struggling with the question.

“The war?” Markham prompted.

He’d been buried alive when a shell landed too near his sector, and all that had saved him was the dead man’s body flung on top of him. Only, the dead man was Hamish MacLeod, whom he’d just been forced to execute for disobeying an order under fire. He’d never quite got over owing his life to the man to whom he’d delivered the coup de grâce mere seconds before the shell exploded. The young Scottish corporal had not wanted to die. But he would not lead his men back into the teeth of a German machine-gun nest when they’d lost so many already in futile attempts to silence it. Rutledge had wanted to spare him—but his corporal’s very public refusal had left him no options. The claustrophobia he’d endured since then had been nearly unbearable. Nor had he been able to free himself of Hamish or that memory.

He said after a moment, “I took too many trains then. Packed with frightened men on their way to be slaughtered. Hours of watching them struggle to be brave. Watching them write last letters, pray to whatever God they believed in, or simply sit, staring at their own fate. I swore I’d never take another one again if I could help it.”

It was as close to the truth as he could come. He waited for the Acting Chief Superintendent to react.

Markham studied him closely for a moment, then nodded. “I appreciate your candor. All right, drive if it suits you. What I want is results. I don’t care, within reason, how you go about getting them.”

Rutledge managed to thank him and get himself out of the office. It had begun to close in on him, making him want to stand up and fight his way out, away from those all-seeing green eyes and the feeling that he couldn’t breathe. The panic of being cornered with no possible escape and disgracing himself into the bargain.

Once in the passage, he took as deep a breath as he could manage and tried to steady himself. He could feel the perspiration breaking out on his forehead, his mouth dry as a desert.

And then as swiftly as it had come, his anxiety dissipated as he walked on to his office, grateful not to encounter anyone along the way. But he could feel his heart still hammering in his chest for several minutes afterward.

Essex. He forced himself to think about the journey ahead. He began to collect what he would need to take with him, and that steadied him. Markham had come too close to the truth. For an instant, Rutledge had wondered if Bowles had said something to Markham. Or if the Acting Chief Superintendent had found something in his file. Rutledge had always suspected there must be something there.

He shook himself. His own imagination had made more of the situation that it had warranted.

Walking out the door, Rutledge located Gibson and told him where he was going and why. The sergeant listened and then asked, “Should I advise the Inspector in Norfolk that you’ll be looking into his missing man while you’re in Essex?”

“It will depend on what I discover about French. So far no one seems to be alarmed about him. If he’s as busy a man as he appears to be, it’s odd that a week has passed without someone needing to contact him. But then his senior clerk is perfectly competent.”

Gibson nodded. “Then I’ll hold off.”

Rutledge started down the stairs. And stopped to add, “I’d like you to look into Frederick Gooding, the clerk at French, French, and Traynor.”

“Any particular reason?” Gibson asked.

Rutledge considered the question. There was nothing he could put his finger on except for that one change in the man’s demeanor. “Thoroughness,” he said finally and continued on his way down the stairs.

He went home, packed his valise, wrote a note to his sister, Frances, to drop into a postbox on his way, and set out for Essex.

He had friends on the Thetford Road outside Bury St. Edmunds, so he knew a good bit about the general area. Dedham had been listed in the Domesday Book as a Saxon town, its history even older than that by several centuries. Situated on the River Stour with a year-round ford, it had prospered as an agricultural community and from an influx of Flemish weavers. Wool had made it rich, like so many towns, and when wool was no longer king, it had settled into genteel obscurity. But the town had produced one famous son, the artist John Constable.

Traffic was light, and Rutledge crossed the Thames before stopping for a cup of tea and a sandwich. He’d had nothing since breakfast, and the pub was pleasant, with a terrace in back that ran down to a little stream. The sun was warm, the air benevolent, and he was tempted to stay longer. But it was important to reach Dedham before news of his visit to the clerk in London came to their ears. The firm had a telephone, and it was not unlikely for the family to have a way of contacting London when French was in Essex.

The shortening of the summer days caught up with Rutledge, and it was dusk before he drove through Dedham and found the French property well outside the town. At the turning, he looked to see if there was another village beyond the house where he could stop for the night. But if there was, he couldn’t pick out lights through the wood that extended in that direction.

A large scrolled F adorned the graceful wrought-iron gates, and griffins stood watch on the tall stone posts, their wings folded.

The gates stood open, and he drove up the long, looping drive until he came to the house. It was not as large as he’d expected, but the size was perfect for the proportions. The dark red brick, faced with white stone, was illuminated by his headlamps as he swung into the loop of the drive. Lamps were lit on either side of the door, and the knocker he saw, as he got out and walked up the two shallow steps, was in the shape of a tropical flower. Hibiscus?

He lifted it and let it fall. After a time, an older woman dressed in black opened the door to him and asked his business.

Rutledge said, “I’ve come to speak to Mr. French. Mr. Rutledge.”

“I’m afraid you’ve missed him. He returned to London ten days ago.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Is there anyone else in the family in residence at the moment?”

“Miss French is here. Shall I ask if she’s receiving visitors?”

“Yes, thank you.” He smiled.

She was not taken in and left him standing there, the door ajar.

From where he stood, Rutledge could see part of a polished wood floor that ran down the left side of a staircase—the carved mahogany newel post was just visible. A painting graced the wall between two closed doors, and the table beneath it was Queen Anne, he thought. The painting itself appeared to be modern rather than the usual Italianate landscape. As in the style of the French Impressionists, the subject was not the French countryside but a vast grassy slope, grazing sheep in the distance, and in the foreground, an old man dressed in what appeared to be a hooded cape, leaning on a shepherd’s crook. There was something about the figure that spoke of such utter loneliness that Rutledge turned away.

It seemed that Howard French and his descendants had not flaunted their newfound wealth by renovating and enlarging their country house. No grand lobby with marble floors and statuary, to awe the visitor. He wondered if that indicated how little they used this house, or if they preferred to be comfortable here and entertained in London. An interesting insight into the man who had given his heirs a timepiece to be passed down to posterity. Solid, dependable, useful.

The maid returned to tell him that Miss French would receive him in the sitting room.

He followed her to a door down the passage. She tapped lightly and then opened it to announce him.

And the sitting room showed that he’d been right about the house. It was comfortable and well used, although the carpet and furnishings were of the best quality.

The woman standing by the hearth didn’t resemble the portraits he’d seen in London in any way except for her coloring. Her features were—he couldn’t be kinder than that—plain. And the dress she wore, a dark blue that made her skin appear sallow, did nothing for her appearance.

She said, in a pleasant but cool voice, “Mr. Rutledge.” And waited for him to speak.

“I apologize for coming to call at such a late hour,” he said. “I need to speak to your brother, Mr. French.”

“As I think you were told, he left for London last week.”

“Yes, which surprises me, as he wasn’t at the firm’s offices on Leadenhall Street.”

“It was a private matter that took him to the city.” She waited again, but when he didn’t fill the silence, she added, “I was not best pleased, I can tell you. He left me with the final preparations for our cousin’s arrival.”

“Was he expecting to meet anyone in particular?”

“I have no idea.” He could read the annoyance in her eyes. “If you want the truth, he often leaves me to finish whatever needs to be done. He finds household matters infinitely boring. His words, not mine. I would not at all be surprised if his pressing matter was merely an excuse. May I ask what brings you all the way to Essex? You aren’t carrying news of our cousin’s instant arrival, I hope. We’ve not yet aired the beds.”

“I’m afraid not.” They had remained standing, and he said, “Could we be seated, Miss French? This will take a little time to explain.”

He thought at first she was going to refuse. Then after the briefest hesitation, she offered him a chair and took the one opposite his.

“If this is a business matter,” she warned him, “I know nothing about wine, Madeira, or shipping. You’ve wasted your journey.”

He took the watch out of his pocket and showed it to her. “Do you recognize this, by any chance?”

She did, he could see that. But she took it from him and looked at it more closely. “If I didn’t know better I would say that this belonged to my brother. But he was wearing his when he left. I’d swear to it.” She passed it back to him, then said with severity, “Just what do you expect to gain by coming here? Are you suggesting that I should buy this watch back from you? I’m not a fool, Mr. Rutledge, and I think it’s time you left.”

She was on the point of rising to reach for the bellpull when he said, “I’m from Scotland Yard, Miss French.”

Sinking down again into her chair, she stared at him.

“I gave my name as Rutledge. It’s Inspector Rutledge.” He showed her his identification, but she didn’t take it. Her eyes were riveted on his.

“What has he done? My brother? Are we insolvent? Has he been embezzling, or does this have to do with my cousin’s visit? Is he involved?”

“I have no idea,” Rutledge answered. “We were called to Chelsea some days ago to investigate a body that had been discovered in Huntingdon Street. There was no identification on the body, but we did find the watch—”

She was on her feet before he could finish, pacing to the hearth, her face set.

“If a dead man had that watch,” she said huskily, “then something has happened to my brother. He would not part with it willingly. Don’t leave me in suspense. Did this man kill my brother? Is that what you are trying to tell me? Please—”

Rutledge hadn’t considered theft of the watch from French himself. It had seemed to him that the watch had been overlooked when the dead man’s pockets had been emptied.

Still, there was the faint likeness to the portrait he’d seen in the firm’s office.

Hamish, suddenly there again in Rutledge’s mind, said, “There’s more here than ye knew.”

“We feared,” Rutledge said carefully, “that the dead man was the victim, not the attacker.”

“My brother wouldn’t kill anyone. Why should he? He has everything he has ever needed.” Was there bitterness behind those words?

This time she did reach for the bellpull and in her agitation jerked it hard. “How did you come here, Inspector? By train, I should imagine.”

“I have my own motorcar with me.”

“So much the better. You will drive me to London, if you please, and we’ll get to the bottom of this business.”

“Miss French. There’s the possibility that your brother was the man we found in the street,” he said, trying to prepare her.

But she ignored him. “Nonsense. He didn’t have an enemy in the world. Well, at least not in London.”

And what did she mean by that? The interview was not going in the direction he’d anticipated.

“You are telling me that there is someone in Dedham who wishes him ill?”

“Not in Dedham,” she retorted impatiently. “In the village here. Did you not come through it on your way to the house? There was a Dominican abbey here, and when it was torn down by Henry the Eighth, a hamlet sprang up in the ruins. Servants from the abbey, dispossessed brothers— Ah, Nan, there you are. Would you please pack a small valise for me? I’m needed in London at once.”

When Nan had gone, Miss French turned to Rutledge again. “Where was I? Oh, the village. My brother was engaged to a young woman who lived close by the church, and then he jilted her for someone else. She didn’t take that very well. If he’d been attacked here, I’d have pointed the finger at her. But in London? I don’t believe it.”

“She could have followed him there,” Rutledge pointed out.

“Yes, yes, I know, but how likely is it? She doesn’t have a motorcar and she doesn’t know the city.”

She looked at the mantel clock. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll ask the kitchen staff to put up sandwiches and a Thermos of tea.”

And she was gone.

Shock took people in many different ways, Rutledge thought. And Miss French needed to be busy now, demonstrating that she was in control of the situation. He had a feeling she would fall apart if she was called on to identify the dead man and realized that it was indeed her brother.

Or had he jumped to conclusions based on a likeness that was not very strong?

On the whole, he didn’t believe he’d missed his identification. The man’s clothing had been that of a gentleman, and in the dark, the watch might easily have been overlooked by a killer in a hurry to rid himself of a corpse.

“Or was too well known to be of any value,” Hamish put in.

And that was true as well. But first things first. If Miss French was determined to travel to London, then so be it. He’d drive her. The body had to be identified.

Twenty minutes later, dressed in traveling clothes and followed by Nan hurrying after her with a valise in one hand and a picnic basket in the other, Miss French opened the sitting room door and said, “Thank you, Nan, I’ll telephone you from London. I’m ready, Inspector.”

She had very little to say on the long journey, and he was tired, in no mood to make light conversation. In the reflected light of the headlamps he could see only her profile, and it was set, as if her thoughts were already in London, facing whatever dreadful thing she might find there.

He could understand, but she had been determined not to listen, and he had had no choice but to let her have her way. And it was far better to put off the final shock until they reached the city. She would have long enough to mourn afterward.

It was very late when they drove into London. They had only stopped for petrol and to eat the sandwiches, drink the tea. Miss French said, rousing herself, “I didn’t call the house to tell them I’m coming. They’d have had it ready for my brother anyway. If you will take me there, I’ll be waiting at whatever time you suggest in the morning. I don’t feel up to doing more tonight.”

“Yes, that makes good sense,” he told her. “Will nine be too early?”

“Thank you. I doubt I’ll sleep, but at least I—at least I shan’t spend what’s left of the night having nightmares.”

He carried the valise and the picnic basket to the door as she pulled the bell.

The house was in a handsome square, although as in Essex it was not pretentious. Rutledge was beginning to understand Howard French. The founder of the present firm had inherited a business that was centuries old, even if he’d given it a new and very prosperous direction. But he appeared to have preferred to be thought of as old money and refrained from showing off his newfound wealth. Even the pocket watches passed down to the present generation had been elegant and expensive, but in perfect taste. Rutledge found himself wondering if the man had had hopes of a title from the Queen or at the very least from Edward VII. George V, the present king, hadn’t consorted with wealthy men in quite the same way his father had.

The door opened finally, and a young man stood there, his clothes hastily thrown on and his face reflecting his shock at seeing Miss French on the doorstep, much less, Rutledge thought, at this late hour of the night and with a valise, no maid, and a stranger in tow.

“M-Miss French,” he stammered, then got himself under control. “Is everything— I mean, please, come in.”

They stepped into the entrance hall, and Rutledge handed over the valise and basket.

“I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour, Robert, but I need to speak to my brother. Is he here?”

“No, Miss—er—he’s in Essex, I was told, and not expected back in London until this Friday.”

She turned to glance at Rutledge, willing him not to speak. Then she said to Robert, “Well, then, I’ve come ahead. I’ll be spending the night, what’s left of it, and possibly tomorrow night as well. If you’ll tell Mrs. Rule. I don’t require much in the way of food, but as she will remember, I do like it on time.”

“Yes, Miss, I’ll tell her. Is there anything else you need? Shall I wake up Nell and ask her to attend you?”

“No. I’m not used to a lady’s maid at home, and I don’t need one in London,” she said briskly, then thanked him for thinking about Nell. Turning to Rutledge, she held out her hand. “Nine o’clock then, Mr. Rutledge.”

It was dismissal, and he was glad to go now that he’d heard for himself that French wasn’t staying at the London address.

He turned and left. Robert had followed him to the door and locked it behind him.

Back in the motorcar, Rutledge let in the clutch and drove off, making his way to his own flat.

He wondered how much longer Miss French could sustain the pretense that all was well. Too many factors pointed to her brother’s disappearance, if not to his death. He wasn’t in London or in Essex; the watch was in the possession of the Yard; and even Gooding could give them no information regarding French’s whereabouts. Or did the clerk know something that Rutledge did not?

It was an interesting possibility. Whatever French had decided to do with himself, it was unlikely that he would cut off ties with his firm.

With that thought in his mind, Rutledge walked through the door of the flat and went directly to his bedroom.

For a mercy he fell asleep almost at once and did not dream for what was left of his night. It was a measure of how long his day had been.

He did not think, when he handed Miss French into the motorcar the next morning at nine o’clock on the dot, that she had slept at all.

There were puffy rings under her eyes, making her appear even plainer, and the effort to keep herself calm showed in the tension in her jaw.

“Please. Let’s get this over with as quickly as possible. I’ll agree to anything, just let it be done,” she said to him.

He drove to the hospital, where earlier he had made arrangements for the body to be viewed, and led her into the bowels of the building to the unmarked door halfway down the long poorly lit corridor.

He opened the door for Miss French, but she pulled back, her hands shaking. “I— Let me have a moment.”

Rutledge let the door swing to and waited. He thought she might faint, she was so pale. But she managed to collect herself finally, her breathing still a little rapid, her eyes already filling with nervous tears. With a nod, she indicated she was ready, and he took her inside the large, chilly room that smelled of formaldehyde.

Ignoring his hand at her elbow, she marched across to the lone table, where a sheet-shrouded body lay under a stark lamp. It was easy to see the human outline—the peaked tent of the feet, the amorphous shape of a skull. She swallowed hard, her head jerking with the effort.

A middle-aged man appeared from another room and came to remove the sheet from the dead man’s face.

Miss French reached the table just as he gently placed the last fold across the throat, showing only the face. The dust and stones that had been caught in the flesh and the hair had been washed away. Save for the abrasions, like little freckles down the ridges of the forehead, cheekbone, and chin, the skin was clear.

She was clutching her handbag now as if it were a lifeline. Glancing down at her, Rutledge realized that her eyes were closed, probably had been as they had walked across the room. After a moment she opened them, and then she swayed, and he touched her arm to steady her.

“Oh, dear God,” she said in a voice that was barely audible. “Oh, my God.”

“Is this your brother, Miss French?”

She leaned against him for an instant, and then recovered, moving away as if embarrassed by such brief weakness.

“You must tell me, Miss French. So that the attendant and I can hear your statement clearly,” Rutledge prompted.

“No. No, it is not my brother Lewis.” Her voice echoed around them, high pitched, as if she couldn’t control it.

And then she did faint.

Chapter Six

Rutledge carried Miss French into a small waiting room that the attendant pointed out to him, and it was not long before she came to.

Her statement had taken him completely by surprise. But he didn’t press her for more information until her color had returned and she seemed to be aware of her surroundings again. She wheeled around, as if expecting to see the table with the covered body somewhere just behind her.

“It’s all right,” he said quietly. “This is a private room. We can stay here as long as you like.”

She relaxed and closed her eyes again. After a moment she said, “Michael was buried in France. My elder brother. I didn’t— We never saw him.”

“But you saw Lewis just now?” He wasn’t convinced she knew what she was saying.

She opened her eyes, a little of her spirit evident again. “I have told you. That was not Lewis. Although at first—the scratches on his face—I saw those first. But it wasn’t my brother.”

“You are absolutely certain then.”

“Absolutely.” She saw the glass of water he was holding, took it, then gave it back to him, her hand shaking too much to try to sip it. “Could we leave, please? I seem to smell that odor still. It’s making me quite ill.”

Other witnesses had said much the same thing. Rutledge himself had become inured to it. But he had never become inured to the dead, even after four years in France, where bodies had been almost as common as the rats underfoot.

He gave her his arm, and they walked together down the long passage back to the motorcar. Once there she seemed to revive completely, pulling on her gloves and fiddling a little with the buttons at the wrists as if to distract her thoughts.

When they had left the hospital behind, she said, “I can’t understand why you thought that man might be Lewis.”

“The watch, of course, which sent me to French, French and Traynor. The clerk there identified it, and he told me Lewis French was in Essex. I went there to find out. And he’s not at the London house. Where, then, is he?”

“I have no idea. My brother has been his own man since he left for University.”

“Was he in the war?”

“No. He’s subject to seizures. The Army wanted no part of him. He might as well have had the plague. It bothered him more than he was willing to admit.”

Which meant there were no war wounds to use for identification purposes. Rutledge was still not satisfied that the dead man was not French.

There was also the likeness to the portrait of Howard French.

As if she sensed his reaction, Miss French said, “My father had a mistress, I think. I was never told, of course, but I remember my mother crying sometimes when he seemed to be too busy to come home. It wasn’t until much later that I understood why his absences upset her. And when he died—he outlived my mother—there was a woman’s photograph in his desk. It had one of those hidden compartments, and I found it quite by accident. Perhaps my mother had found it as well. I can’t say. I did wonder— I’d look sometimes at the village children, searching for a likeness. But of course if he’d been involved with someone locally, it would have been the height of foolishness. Gossip would have ferreted out the truth, wouldn’t it? Perhaps she lived in London. I don’t know.”

“You are telling me that the man in the mortuary could be your illegitimate half brother?”

She took a deep breath. “Women do have children out of wedlock.” And then without warning, she began to cry. “It could have been Lewis lying there. I haven’t got over Michael’s death. What if I’d lost Lewis as well?” She fumbled in her bag for a handkerchief and buried her face in it.

They had almost reached the London house when she said, her voice thick with tears, “I’m so sorry. It’s the shock of everything. And I parted with Lewis on bad terms. Over airing bedrooms. I was so angry— I know I haven’t married, I know I haven’t got a house of my own, but I’m not a servant, and I couldn’t bear to be treated as one.”

He was glad to hand her over Robert. Between them they got her into the house, and as the door swung shut behind the footman and the woman on the verge of collapse, Rutledge could hear the harried young man’s voice saying, “I’ll call Mrs. Rule, shall I? She’ll know what to do.”

He was to dine with Frances that night, and he was twenty minutes late.

As soon as he’d left Miss French in the hands of her brother’s household, Rutledge had returned to the wine merchant’s offices in the City. Frederick Gooding came to collect him after he’d been greeted by another young clerk, this one named Simmons. Gooding conducted him past the portraits and into an office where bills of lading, orders, and ships’ manifests nearly covered the top of a large partners desk.

“I’ve been going over the books,” he said in apology. “That’s one of my duties. The late Mr. French, Mr. Lewis’s father, believed that a quarterly review of accounts discouraged embezzlement and gave him a clear picture of where the firm stood. Where the wine was going, who had purchased it, what bottoms we were shipping it in, and what the output of the vineyards was, as well as the status of wine being aged in the main office, in Funchal.”

“And how does the firm’s business stand?”

“Quite well, as a matter of fact. Since the end of the war we’ve been very fortunate in rebuilding our clientele and finding ships that can carry our wares. Shipping took a terrible blow, what with submarines and raiders attacking convoys. But I daresay the newer vessels have a faster turnaround rate than the old ones. There’s always a silver lining.” Shifting the subject, he said, “And have you been to Essex? Have you spoken to Mr. French?”

“He was not in Essex,” Rutledge said. “Nor is he in the house in London. His sister is in residence there now. She has no suggestions for finding him. I was hoping that you might help me.”

Gooding frowned. “This is most unusual. When he’s away, Mr. French is always careful to tell me precisely where he will be at any given time—within reason, of course—so that I can reach him if there is an emergency. If he says he’s in Essex, then he is in Essex.”

“Unless of course he’d dead.”

Gooding’s face paled. “Don’t even say that. There is no one to take over the English half of the firm if something happens to Mr. French.”

“There’s his sister.”

“Sadly, I don’t believe she knows enough about the business to make sound judgments.” He studied Rutledge’s face for a moment. “You aren’t— You had Mr. French’s watch. He is never without it. Is there something you haven’t told me?”

Rutledge said, “Before I go into that, there’s something else I need to discuss with you. I’m told that Mr. French’s father had a second family, one that his wife and children were not aware of. Is this true?”

If he’d suggested that the late Mr. Laurence French had possessed two heads and was born a Hottentot, Gooding couldn’t have looked more astonished.

“If the Mr. French I served was engaged in such an affair,” he said after a moment, “he would not have confided in me. If you are after such details about his private life, I suggest you speak to his solicitors. The firm of Hayes and Hayes.”

But the Mr. French the clerk had served was an older man—and a junior clerk would have been the last person he’d have confided in. Still, this meant that there was no gossip in the firm about the man. He had been very discreet. Not surprising if he was expecting his son and his nephew to come into the business at some future date.

“I had reason to believe that Mr. French was killed last week in a motorcar accident,” Rutledge said. “Miss French went this morning to identify the body. She didn’t know the man.”

“Then it wasn’t her brother. I should think she knows him better than anyone.”

“Will you go with me to look at the body?”

“No,” Gooding said firmly. “If I disagreed with her for any reason at all, whose word would you take?”

“I should be forced to take hers. But I should continue to search for Lewis French.”

“Then my word would be superfluous.”

And Gooding wouldn’t budge from that position.

In the end, Rutledge went to the Inns of Court and found the street where Hayes and Hayes had their chambers. The elder Mr. Hayes agreed to see him. Rutledge said nothing about the dead man. Instead he began with the late Mr. French’s will.

“I should like to know if he made any provisions for a second family, one that his wife and children knew nothing about.”

Hayes regarded him with what Rutledge could only describe as hooded eyes, although the impression came from the second fold of skin that age had deposited on the lids. His eyes were a cold gray, deep set. Bristling gray brows like an overgrown thicket jutted out above them. Rutledge found himself thinking that such a fierce scowl would be a very effective weapon in a courtroom.

“I could of course show you a copy of the will,” Hayes said finally. “But I can assure you that there was no mention made in it of a mistress or children born out of wedlock.” Rutledge was about to speak, but Hayes held up a blue-veined hand. “Nor was there a codicil setting out such an arrangement. Why should you believe that such a provision existed?”

“Miss French went with me this morning to look at a dead man I believed to be her brother. It was very difficult for her. I was already fairly certain that it was Lewis French. She assured me it was not. And she told me later that her mother had been very concerned about the elder Mr. French’s fidelity. It would account for a resemblance I’d noticed between the dead man and a portrait at the wine merchant’s, if the victim had been her father’s child by a mistress.”

“Then she is greatly mistaken. Her father as far as I know was faithful to his wife. It was his father, Mr. Howard French, who had an affair before he was married with a young woman who died in childbirth. The child was adopted by one of his father’s servants. We have no other information about that child. Presumably he was never told of his true parentage.”

Which would explain, Rutledge thought, why a nervous and rather insecure wife might imagine her own husband had strayed.

He said, pursuing that thought, “Was Lewis French’s mother wealthy?”

“She was very wealthy. Her father had made a fortune in shipping, and with the marriage came a very satisfactory arrangement for the French and Traynor wines to be carried around the world in that firm’s bottoms.”

Small wonder the woman was insecure, more especially if she had been as plain as her daughter.

“Then the man in the mortuary could well have been a descendant of Howard French’s—er—indiscretion.”

“It is entirely possible. Although highly unlikely.”

But how did he come by that watch? And where was Lewis French?

“Do you know the name of the family that was given the child to foster?”

“There is no record to my knowledge. Mr. Howard French provided for them at the time, and no bequests were made at his death or that of his son. Lewis French’s father.”

It was the ideal way to handle such a youthful indiscretion. The servants would be given a tidy sum to move elsewhere and take the child with them. A gamekeeper, a groom, a coachman, a head gardener. No one would think anything about a family suddenly coming into a small inheritance from a distant relative and deciding to move to the cottage in Wales or Kent or Cumberland that had been left to them. And it would be surprising to find anyone who remembered such an obscure event so long afterward.

“The baptismal record? Was there one?”

“The child would have been baptized in whatever village the family chose. Or not, as the case may be.”

If the servants were Chapel, then it would be almost impossible to find any record at all.

A dead end. And Rutledge disliked dead ends.

“If the man in the mortuary is not Lewis French, then where is he? And why is he not in Essex or in his London home?”

“I can’t answer that,” Mr. Hayes replied. “Not from any reluctance on my part. Simply the fact that we don’t know the answer. But if there was something he wished to do without his sister’s knowledge, then it’s his business and not that of Scotland Yard.”

Rutledge left soon after. His experience of dealing with solicitors had long been one of accepting that they would answer the questions put to them precisely and generally quite truthfully, with very little additional information volunteered, unless giving that was also to their advantage. For all he knew, Mr. Hayes held in the firm’s boxes the solution to his inquiry—but to unlock that bit of information would require a prodigious leap of imagination on Rutledge’s part to come up with the right question. He smiled to himself at the thought. Still, Hayes was not concealing information concerning the whereabouts of Lewis French. Of that Rutledge was nearly sure.

He carried this knotty problem with him to dinner, although he tried to hide his distraction from his sister. Frances was all too perceptive when it came to her brother, and she soon had him in a better frame of mind.

But as he drove home at the end of the evening, he had come to accept Miss French’s statement as the final word on the identity of the man who had been left on Huntingdon Street in Chelsea. Whether he was satisfied or not, there was no alternative.

The next morning Rutledge gave an oral report to the Acting Chief Superintendent.

Markham listened, nodding from time to time, until Rutledge had finished. Then he leaned forward in his chair, his brows drawn together in a frown.

“You’ve told me who our inconvenient corpse is not. You can’t tell me who killed him or why he possessed a watch he had no right to. What’s more, you’ve lost its lawful owner, Lewis French.”

Rutledge took a deep breath. “French has a fiancée in Essex. I’d like to speak to her before Miss French returns from London. There was no reason to call on her during my first visit. French may have confided his intentions to her rather than to his sister.”

“They weren’t on good terms, the brother and sister?”

“I have a feeling that French imposed on his sister. She maintains the family home, and she was in the midst of preparing for a cousin’s arrival. She was rather angry with French for leaving when she could have used his help.”

Markham linked his fingers, stretched them, then uncoupled them. “The dead man’s not the cousin?”

“I should think Miss French would have recognized him. The wine merchant’s clerk is awaiting news of Traynor’s travel arrangements. He’s returning to England from the firm’s office in Funchal.”

“And what is Funchal when it’s at home?” Markham asked testily.

“The principal city on the Portuguese island of Madeira. It’s where French, French and Traynor have done business for three generations. Apparently before that, they were solely London importers of wines and spirits.”

Markham considered Rutledge with raised eyebrows. “You aren’t telling me you wish to travel there, are you?”

Rutledge smiled inwardly, remembering that Yorkshiremen were notoriously tightfisted. “I’m sure any information I need can come through the police there.”

Markham sat back in his chair, his face clearing. “Off to Essex with you, then. And bring back results, if you please.”

An hour later, Rutledge was on the road again, heading toward Dedham.

What results? he asked himself as he drove through London traffic and turned east, then north.

Hamish, restless in the back of his mind, reflecting Rutledge’s own unsettled mood, said, “Ye ken, ye canna’ return now withoot something.”

His first duty was to look for the nearest local police station and speak to the constable there. On his earlier visit, there had been no need to pay a courtesy call, but now there was, and Rutledge was hoping not to have to deal with the larger force in Dedham. Smaller police stations, often with a single constable on duty, generally knew the people in their villages better. Nor was there that tendency toward resentment of the Yard infringing on another man’s turf.

Passing the French house, Rutledge found the village of Stratford St. Hilary less than a mile beyond. There was no sign of the Dominican abbey, although a wide green could well have been the site of the order’s church and outbuildings. If so, then this had been no more than a satellite community rather than a major branch of the order. Clustered around the green were a number of rather handsome houses and shops, and a small, ancient building that was a pub now—The Tun and Turtle, according to the sign—which could have been here in coaching days. Too small for a hotel, it probably offered a room or two to visitors when necessary. He could just see a stream running past the back garden and winding away among a thin stand of trees. On the far side of the stream he glimpsed the chimney pots of another large house. He wondered if wool had built the small church or if it had been a private chapel in the days of the abbey, for without it the village was no more than large hamlet.

Rutledge found the police station sandwiched between a stationer’s shop and a narrow-fronted bakery. The bakery was already closed, but as he passed the door, the faint smell of yeast breads and cinnamon lingered in the warm evening air.

The constable was not in. But he’d left a message on a small board by the door for anyone who needed him. It read:

AT HOME

There was no indication where HOME might be.

Rutledge had counted on the constable to give him the name and direction of French’s fiancée. The other source for information was of course the rector.

He left the motorcar where it was and walked toward the church. It sat on a slight knoll, and in the churchyard that sloped down to the street he could see mossy and lichen-etched stones leaning crazily in front of much later ones that marched up the slope to disappear around the apse before reappearing at the far side.

The French family monument was ornate, and in the shadow of the tower. But there were a number of other grand mausoleums and weeping angels in the centers of family plots. As he stepped out of the motorcar, Rutledge could see TRAYNOR incised in the base of a stone, the shaft broken and draped with mourning in a very Victorian concept.

The Rectory was a modest house up a lane overlooking the churchyard.

Rutledge walked there as the sun dropped behind the yews that encircled three sides of the low wall.

A man in shirtsleeves was standing on a high ladder, painting the house trim.

Rutledge called to him as he came up the path, “Is the rector in?”

The man looked down at him. “Sadly he is out. Is there something I can do for you?”

“I’m looking for Lewis French. He isn’t at home. Nor is his sister—”

The man spilled a great dollop of paint as he lifted his brush out of the jar without wiping it. “Drat!” he exclaimed. Then to Rutledge he went on: “Miss French isn’t at home?”

“I believe she’s still in London.”

“London? Is something wrong?”

“Should there be?” Rutledge asked.

The man came down the ladder. “She never leaves St. Hilary. Well. Only to visit the shops in Dedham.” He looked ruefully at his paint-stained fingers. “I can’t offer to shake hands. But we don’t run to rectors here. I’m the curate. Williams is my name.”

He was fairly young, thirty perhaps, and he walked with a limp. When he saw Rutledge had noticed it, he grimaced. “The war. I was a soldier and then a chaplain after I was invalided out. But what’s this about Agnes French going to London?”

“She was looking for her brother. She didn’t find him. I thought perhaps his fiancée might know where he went after he left the house nearly a fortnight ago. Apparently he hadn’t confided in his sister.”

“He seldom does,” Williams replied with a shake of the head.

“They don’t get on?” Rutledge asked with interest.

“I wouldn’t put it that strongly. Both of the brothers—that’s Michael, who died in the war, and Lewis—were often in London with their father, being introduced to the firm. Agnes was a homebody. She never went anywhere.”

“By choice or by lack of invitation?”

“I don’t really know,” Williams said, considering the question, his head to one side. “I wasn’t here then, of course. I’ve been told that she looked after her mother throughout her last illness and then took care of her father after his stroke. It’s what daughters do. Unmarried ones, most particularly.”

“Had the sons—Lewis and Michael—visited Madeira?” Rutledge asked.

“Yes, from a very early age—twelve, I’ve been told. But Agnes never showed an interest in travel.”

“Or pretended she had none,” Rutledge said, “after being excluded.”

“She never gave the impression she felt excluded.”

But then, Rutledge thought, she wouldn’t have shown how she felt, if it had hurt her. Her general disposition spoke volumes.

“Lewis is responsible for the management of the London office, I understand.” When Williams nodded as he cleaned paint from his fingers with a cloth that was already saturated, Rutledge went on. “Would Miss French take a position in the firm if anything happened to her brother?”

“Oh, I’m sure she wouldn’t. She’s had no training, you see. There’s the cousin, Traynor, of course. It’s not as if there’s no one at the helm.” He gestured over their heads. “The last time Traynor was in England he paid for the Rectory chimneys to be repaired. Before that the house was nearly uninhabitable for weeks, with smoke filling the rooms. I wasn’t here then, it was before the war, but my predecessor told me what we owed to his generosity. Sorry. I’ve wandered off the subject. Why should Miss French be looking for her brother?”

“You must ask her when she returns. Meanwhile, I’d like to find Lewis French’s fiancée.”

“Yes, of course. Mary Ellen Townsend lives in Dedham. There’s a house not far from the church. You can’t miss it, there’s a plate on the door just before it—her father’s the local doctor and that’s his surgery.” He glanced up at his own house. “I’ve lost the light, haven’t I? Well, I can’t say that I’m sorry. I really can’t abide painting, but there’s no one else, is there? I’m sorry, I don’t believe I caught your name?”

He hadn’t given it. “Rutledge.”

“I’ll bid you a good day, Mr. Rutledge. I hope you enjoy your stay in St. Hilary.”

Rutledge walked back to the motorcar, listening to Hamish in the back of his mind.

“Ye didna’ tell him the whole truth. Or who you are,” the soft Scottish voice said from behind Rutledge’s left shoulder, where he’d so often been standing in the trenches. He wasn’t there, of course. But Rutledge had never had the courage to look and see if he was when Hamish MacLeod was speaking.

“Sometimes the whole truth is not the best choice,” Rutledge answered aloud and earned himself a stare from the man walking a small dog. He hadn’t seen them in the gathering dusk.

He drove back to Dedham and quickly found his way to the surgery, avoiding construction in the square.

It was located in a smaller brick building adjacent to the three-story house where Townsend and his family lived. Leaving his motorcar just down the High Street, Rutledge walked back to knock at the house door.

A maid answered, and he asked for Miss Townsend.

“Your name, sir?”

“Rutledge,” he said. “I’m looking for Lewis—Lewis French. He isn’t at his house, and it was suggested that he might be here or that Miss Townsend knew where he was going. It’s urgent that I find him. A matter of business.”

“One moment, sir.”

Two minutes later, a young woman came to the door. She was fair, with blue eyes—and quite pretty.

“I’m told you’re looking for Lewis. I thought he’d left for London. Is something wrong?”

He looked up the street where an elderly couple was strolling in their direction, enjoying the warm evening. “May I come in?” he asked.

“Yes, of course.”

She ushered him into a formal room where she offered him a seat, and then she hesitated before taking one herself, as if doing so would encourage him to stay longer than he should.

“I was told at the firm in London that I could find Lewis French here in Essex. But apparently he’d already left some days ago. His sister couldn’t help me, but she thought you might know his plans.”

That seemed to surprise her. “Did she? Well, I’m afraid I don’t know anything myself. He was here on the Thursday before he left, for lunch, and he told me that he expected to get an early start for London the next day. He needed to reach his cousin in Madeira. He said something had come up that he wanted to discuss with Mr. Traynor.”

“I’d heard that Mr. Traynor was on his way to England.”

“Yes, but his travel plans were indefinite, and Lewis didn’t want to wait for his arrival.”

“Did he seem upset about whatever it was he needed to discuss with his cousin?”

“Not—upset. I had the feeling he was more annoyed, out of patience. He said he’d always wondered how he was going to solve the problem if it ever came up, and now that it was actually here, he could see he needed help. The clerk Gooding seemed to be the person Lewis always went to when he wanted advice, and I suggested that he telephone London rather than make the trip. But he shook his head and said that even Gooding couldn’t work any magic here. Then he changed the subject, and we talked about other things.”

. . . he’d always wondered how he was going to solve the problem if it ever came up, and now that it was actually here, he could see he needed help . . .

It would be easy to jump to the conclusion that what had disturbed Lewis was the sudden appearance of a member of the illegitimate line of the family. And if his mother had indeed been fearful that her husband was a philanderer, then he would have been primed to believe whatever he was told.

Had he met this man? What had happened? If the other man was dead, had Lewis French killed him and then disappeared?

Except for the watch, there would have been nothing to connect the French family with the dead man.

On the other hand, Lewis’s problem could be a question of dealing with a shipping firm that was no longer satisfactory or changing bank managers. A matter in which the partners themselves would have to make a decision.

Hamish said, “Or how to deal wi’ his sister, and her increasing outrage.”

An interesting point. She herself had told Rutledge that she had quarreled with her brother before he set out for London.

Miss Townsend was still speaking. “Are you a friend of Lewis’s? I don’t believe I’ve heard him mention your name.”

“I’m not surprised,” Rutledge said. “I’ve only known him . . . officially.”

Her face was lit by a smile. “I know very little about the business side,” she admitted. “I don’t think I’ve ever tasted Port or Madeira. My father doesn’t care for wine or spirits.”

“Yet you are marrying a man whose livelihood is wine.”

“My father understands that. Of course he does. His feelings are personal.”

Rutledge had run into this sort of thing before. He’d have been willing to bet that someone in the elder Townsend’s family had been a drunkard.

“I’m so sorry I couldn’t help you,” Miss Townsend was saying.

It was dismissal, but he’d learned more than he’d counted on.

“Do you know if Mr. French was wearing his watch when you had lunch with him?”

“His watch?” She was completely lost. “Should I have had a reason to notice it?”

“No, not at all. I was thinking that perhaps he’d mislaid it—it could explain why he’d missed our appointment.”

She smiled, her face clearing. “Lewis is always on time. No, there must have been some other reason.”

He was just preparing to thank her and take his leave when the door opened and a portly man with fair hair and a mustache came into the room.

“Mary, I was told someone called.”

“Papa, this is Mr. Rutledge. He’s looking for Lewis. Something to do with the firm.”

“Indeed.”

“Thank you for your help, Miss Townsend. It’s possible I just missed him in London. I’ll try again. Good evening, sir.”

Rutledge made his escape before Townsend could ask more questions than he was prepared to answer. And as he was opening the outer door, he heard the man’s voice saying, “You have no business entertaining a stranger without a member of the family present. Furthermore, I shall tell French that he’s not to send his business acquaintances—” The rest was cut off as Rutledge stepped outside.

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.

It 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