Channing had come down to Hensley’s parlor, her face filled with sadness.
“I think I’m going to return to London,” she told Rutledge when there was a chance to speak to him privately. “I don’t like this place. It seems so bleak this morning, with everyone unsettled by what’s happening in the wood.”
“I saw the rector go into Mrs. Ellison’s house, hobbling on crutches. I would have taken my oath that I’d found her granddaughter. And I think she believed I had as well, although I didn’t tell her what we’d discovered.”
“Just as well. She’s a strong woman, she’ll manage.
Still, it brought everything back to her, I’m sure.”
“Yes.”
“Who is the young man who was working with you?”
“He’s from London.”
Mainwaring had gone up to Hensley’s bed and fallen asleep there, not stirring for several hours. Rutledge wished he could have done the same. Two nights without rest had left him groggy. And the ankle that had plagued him for several days had begun to ache again like the very devil from stumbling over the grave in the churchyard.
Hamish, withdrawn and silent, seemed tired as well.
Mrs. Channing, her mind elsewhere, said thoughtfully,
“This exonerates Constable Hensley. The girl wasn’t buried in the wood after all. Or so everyone is saying. But what happened to Emma Mason?”
“I don’t know. I don’t suppose anyone will.”
“I don’t think I’d be very good at police work. It’s dreadful sometimes, isn’t it?”
“Dreadful, yes.”
“I took the liberty of making tea,” she told him. “You’ll find it on the dining room table.”
“Thank you. I don’t seem to have much appetite this morning.” He walked into the dining room and poured himself a cup, adding sugar and a little milk.
She followed him there and stood in the middle of the room, as if uncertain what to do, go or stay. “Did you really want those bones to belong to the girl?”
He reached in his pocket for a telegram that Inspector Cain had handed him that morning, while waiting for his men to do their macabre work in the wood.
“I asked one of my best men in London to find what he could about Beatrice Ellison and her daughter, Emma Mason. He couldn’t trace either of them. Mrs. Ellison believes her daughter died when the Germans marched through Belgium. It may be true. Even so, it doesn’t explain what became of Emma.”
She took the telegram and scanned it. “Yes, I see. This, then, was your last hope. The body in the wood.”
“It may still be there, of course. But I have a feeling it isn’t.”
“I understand.”
She went back to the office to fetch her coat. “Was there a young man involved in the girl’s disappearance, do you think? If she’s married and living elsewhere, she’d be hard to find.”
“There was a young man—he was set to marry someone else. Whether she got herself involved with him or not, I don’t know. He died in the war. There’s a memorial to him in the churchyard.”
“Then she disappeared by her own choice. Perhaps because of that someone else. It would be hard to live in a village this small with the other woman, so to speak.”
“For a time,” he said, “I thought the other woman had killed her.”
Her eyebrows went up. “It could still be true.”
“I’d dig up that rose bed, if I thought it would do any good,” he said, half to himself.
It was Hamish who answered him. “Or look beneath yon wall.”
***
Grace Letteridge came to call shortly after Mrs. Channing had gone back to The Oaks.
She stepped briskly into the office and said, “I expect I owe Constable Hensley an apology. I always believed it was he who killed her. That he went to the wood time and again to see if anything had been disturbed. It made sense that he couldn’t stay away, that he wasn’t able to put it out of his mind. Out of guilt. But she’s not there, after all.”
Rutledge said, “Hensley isn’t well. He may not live.
Whoever shot him may be guilty of murder.”
“I didn’t do it, if that’s what you’re accusing me of.”
“You told me once,” Rutledge said, taking the chair behind the desk and leaning back in it, “that you would like to see him dead.”
She made a gesture with her hand, as if brushing away his words. “I’m not a murderer. Although I do have a temper sometimes. I won’t deny that.”
“We’re back where we began, then. Tell me, how old is your rose garden?”
“If you’re asking me if Emma is buried there, you’re a fool.”
“We could dig it up and find out. Inspector Cain can bring his men back to do it, after they’ve finished in the wood.”
She turned to go. “You’ll have to get a warrant, first,” she told him. “I won’t let you touch it without one.”
Rutledge was leafing through the file on Emma Mason when Mainwaring came in from conferring with the police in Letherington.
“I’ve talked to the local people—Cain, and his sergeant, and their coroner. Your body has probably been out there in the wood for some time. We aren’t in agreement about how long, but if you want my best guess, it would be forty years.”
“Forty—”
“Indeed. We’ve examined the bones in good light and in more detail, looked at the condition, and sifted through the soil around and under them. And this is what came out of the earth under them.”
He held out a slim gold toothpick.
Rutledge took it, turning it in his fingers. It had been engraved: Christmas 1881.
“It doesn’t prove he died then. He could have carried this for many years.”
“And this.”
It was a farthing, cleaned of its earth and corrosion. And it too bore the date 1881.
“Whoever went through his pockets missed both of them.”
“How many memories go back that far, to 1881?”
“Cain has promised to go through his predecessors’ files.”
“Yes, that’s the right place to start,” Rutledge agreed.
“Our bones must have come from one of the villages close by, if not Dudlington itself. Frith’s Wood is too far off the main road, and half hidden to boot. It’s not the most likely place for a stranger to conceal a body. For one thing, he wouldn’t know of the stigma attached to the wood.”
“The reverse could be said for the local people. They want no part of that wood, and I can’t say I blame them.
Cain had the devil of a time getting his work party together.”
Hamish said, “I wouldna’ wait for yon inspector to sift through files. There’s no pressing need to hurry, by his lights.”
It was true. But then Mrs. Arundel, the postmistress, could give him a list of the oldest inhabitants of Dudlington.
“I must say, Ian, that you do have the most interesting luck. I’m glad not to be in your shoes when Bowles hears of this.” Mainwaring held out his hand. “Cain has found someone driving to Northampton, and I should just make my train. Good luck, old man. You’re going to need it!”
Rutledge said, “Early days yet.”
They shook hands, and Mainwaring took the stairs two at a time on his way to fetch his case.
When he came down again, Rutledge had already gone.
Mrs. Arundel, sitting behind her brass cage, considered Rutledge’s question.
“The oldest residents... Well, Mrs. Lawrence on Church Street, for one. She lives with her grandson and his wife, Patricia. Mr. Cunningham, of course, but he’s not very clear in his mind, most days.”
It was the lorry belonging to workmen at the Lawrence house that had run him down. Mrs. Melford had informed him that they were turning one of the smaller bedrooms into a nursery.
“Yes, I think I know the house.” He thanked the postmistress and left.