“Keating. What is she to you? What does it matter what she’s done?”
“Have you been down in that cellar, Rutledge?”
“Yes. I have.” He kept his voice steady, his hands at his side. He could just see Mary Ellison’s expression as he answered Keating, a bleakness that was there and quickly smoothed away.
“Then you know what’s down there.”
“I think I know. Yes.”
“Don’t ask me what this woman is to me. You wrote that you had no proof. I’ve found it for you.”
“Keating—I have proof now. I went to Northampton to find it. You needn’t have done this.”
“Don’t lie to me. What proof is there in Northampton?
They’re in the cellar, not in Northampton!” He moved the knife so that the sharp tip pricked at Mary Ellison’s throat.
“Tell him. Tell him what you did! ”
“Keating,” Rutledge began. “I can’t use a forced con—”
“Tell him!”
But Mary Ellison stood there, the knife at her throat, and said nothing.
“There are witnesses here, Rutledge. You and Mrs.
Channing. Myself. And the proof is down there.” He jerked his head toward the cellar. “If she won’t speak, by God I’ll see she dies anyway.”
“You’ll hang.”
“What difference does it make to me? I’m a dead man already. What difference can it possibly make to me! ”
The anguish in his voice was so overwhelming that Mrs.
Channing took an inadvertent step forward, as if to offer comfort.
“Stay where you are!” he shouted, his grip on Mrs. Ellison’s arm tightening. She flinched but didn’t cry out.
Mrs. Channing stepped back. “I didn’t intend—” Then she fell silent, looking at Rutledge for guidance.
“Why are you a dead man?” Rutledge was already asking. The distance between them was too great. By the time he reached Keating and struggled with him, the knife would have plunged into Mary Ellison’s throat. He fell back on words instead, to talk Keating out of what he was intending to do.
The rector had called him a good listener. It would be words in this case that would make a difference. Must make a difference, as Hamish was busy reminding him. He had to choose them carefully.
Keating was shaking his head, unwilling to be lured into Rutledge’s trap.
Mary Ellison spoke for the first time. “This man,” she said, such loathing in her voice that even Keating appeared to feel it, “this man is under the delusion that he’s my sonin-law. Mr. Mason, Emma’s father.”
Stunned silence followed her announcement. Mrs. Channing uttered a little sound, half pity, half surprise.
Hamish said, “It canna’ be true. He died of a tumor.”
But so much of what Mary Ellison had told everyone was a lie.
“Are you Frank K. Mason?” Rutledge asked the man with the knife.
He spoke the name with authority, as if he possessed the knowledge to support it.
“You’ve asked London about me, haven’t you? Well, be damned to you! I served my sentence, I have a right to live as I please.”
It was beginning to make sense. Rutledge glanced at Mrs. Channing, then said to Keating, “Can she leave? The less she knows the better.”
“And have her go for help the instant she steps out that door? She came of her own free will, I didn’t bring her here. But here she’ll stay.”
“Then let’s move into the dining room where the women can sit down. Mrs. Ellison looks ready to collapse.”
“Let her!” The two words were savage. And then he said,
“I wasn’t guilty. But I couldn’t prove it. I’d been out looking for work, and a man promised me thirty pounds to help him break into a shop. I walked away. I had a family, I didn’t want any part of it, money or no. But when he came to trial, he told the court I’d planned the crime and carried it out.
That he’d been persuaded against his will to help me.”
“Why should the jury have believed him?”
“I was a locksmith,” he said, with simple pride. “And a good one. He’d never been caught before, that’s the truth of it. He’d been too careful. And he spoke well, like a gen-tleman. They tell me he’d all but cried in the witness-box, out of shame for what he’d done. And those twelve bastards in the jury box believed him. He went free, I was taken up and sent to prison, leaving my family destitute.
Beatrice would never have come home to Dudlington if I’d been there to feed her and the child.”
A locksmith married to the daughter of a woman with Harkness blood in her veins. It must have been a great comedown for Mary Ellison to learn that the daughter who had gone to London with such high expectations had married a working-class man. No wonder she’d told the world that he was dead. No wonder she’d taken in Emma, and then seen to it that the daughter who had disappointed her didn’t go back to London and her disgraceful life. Or worse, bring her unemployed husband to live in Dudlington when he was released.
Rutledge said, “And you came here, after you’d served your sentence, to watch over Emma.”
“I didn’t know she was alive. Mrs. Ellison had written to me in prison, to say that Emma and Beatrice had died in a fire in London. One day I came here, just to walk in the churchyard and stand at their graves. But there weren’t any.
And when the rector saw me and came over to speak to me, I asked him if he knew where Emma Mason was buried, here or in London. He said I must be mistaken, she wasn’t dead, she was living here with her grandmother. I nearly broke down, but when he asked my name, I said it was Frank Keating. The next day I took every penny I could scrape together and bought The Oaks. It was languishing, but I was good with my hands, I could fix it to suit me. I couldn’t tell the girl she was mine. I’d have ruined her chances. But I could see her, speak to her from time to time. And I didn’t think Mrs. Ellison would have any reason to recognize me, if I stayed out of the village as much as possible. I could still look out for Emma.”
He turned to Mrs. Channing and then to Rutledge, his eyes pleading but his words harsh. “If you tell anyone— anyone!—I was her father, I’ll kill you too!”
He had dropped his guard. Only for an instant, but it was enough.
Rutledge shouted a warning, far too late for Keating to recover.
Mrs. Ellison twisted herself out of his grip, dodged the knife, and with the full force of her body, pushed Frank Keating down the cellar stairs.
Rutledge heard himself swear. Shoving Mrs. Ellison to one side, he went leaping down the steps to bend over the injured man.
“Find Dr. Middleton!” he shouted at Meredith Channing. “Bring him here.”
Keating lay at the foot of the stairs, bleeding from one ear, his body crumpled and one leg thrust out at an awkward angle.
He looked up at Rutledge, his eyes trying to focus.
“Never mind me. Stop her!”
Rutledge dared not leave him. He knelt beside Keating and said, “Help is coming. Don’t move. Where can she go?”
Mrs. Channing came back shortly afterward with Dr.
Middleton. “Grace Letteridge told me where to find him,” she said. “Now go do your work and leave Mr. Keating to the doctor and to me.”
When Rutledge came back up the stairs, he found Grace Letteridge in the Ellison kitchen. She was shaking, her arms wrapped around her body.
“I was certain he’d kill her,” she said. “Not the other way round. I was in the passage just now, listening. I couldn’t stay there on the street, not knowing what was happening.”
“Which way did Mrs. Ellison go?”
“She ran straight into me, pushing me out of her way, and went out the door. Inspector—I think she’s taken your motorcar. I heard the motor turn over.”