“Yes, thank you. I don’t think I could have driven that far tonight. And Frank Keating?”
“He’s badly injured, but he’ll live. They’re to take him to Letherington, to be cared for,” Grace said. “I don’t think I could have killed anyone, after all. And I felt so certain.”
She shook herself, trying to come to terms with an old anger.
“Will you send Dr. Middleton to Mrs. Ellison’s house?” he asked her.
“Yes. After that I’m going home.” She turned to Mrs.
Channing. “I’ll make tea, if you’d like a cup.” She glanced toward the street and said, “I’ll just wait until—until she’s inside.”
Mrs. Channing held the motorcar’s door as Rutledge lifted Mrs. Ellison’s body and carried it into the house. He went up the stairs and laid her gently on her bed. It was all he could do.
“What happened?” Mrs. Channing asked again, standing a little behind him. “Was that man waiting on the road, as we’d feared?”
He told her briefly.
“How will you explain this gunshot wound to Inspector Cain?”
“I don’t know. Somehow. I can’t even give him a description of the man. He was ordinary, no different from thousands of others who came back in 1918. I must have passed him in the street half a hundred times and never noticed him. But I’m almost certain now he’s the one who brought my shoe back, after my encounter with the lorry.
Daring me to recognize him.”
“He’ll come for you again. When you least expect it.”
“I don’t know. Possibly not. I think killing Mrs. Ellison instead has shaken him.”
“Until he discovers she was a murderess and deserved to die.” Changing the subject, she said, “I haven’t looked in the cabinet in the cellar. I didn’t want to see.”
“No. It’s best you didn’t.”
They went through the house, turning out the lamps that Frank Keating had lit during his search for his daughter’s body. When Rutledge reached the kitchen again, he said,
“I don’t think I want to go down to the cellar myself. We’ll leave it to Cain, when he comes. It’s his case, after all.
Mine is finished.”
“You look terrible. And you ought to wash off her blood.”
“Thank you. As soon as Cain arrives.”
Dr. Middleton walked in just then, looking from Mrs.
Channing to Rutledge. “Where is she?”
“Upstairs. In her room.”
He nodded and left. In a few minutes he came back to the kitchen and sat down at the table, his shoulders hunched. “Keating made me look in the cabinet. I didn’t touch them. I couldn’t. After all these years, you’d think I had become inured to death.” He ran a finger around his collar. “Where was she trying to go? It seemed so—futile, fleeing like that.”
“She wanted to die where no one knew her. There’s an unused plot in London, she asked me to bury her there.”
“I’ll do what I can. I don’t think anyone would want her final resting place to be St. Luke’s anyway. Best if it’s all forgotten. Who shot her? That’s a gunshot wound, you know. And you weren’t armed.”
“I heard the shot. I wasn’t there to see it. No one from Dudlington. I’m certain of that. No one here could have caught up with us in time. Someone out after a fox, who knows?”
He could hear motorcars arriving outside. He said to Middleton, “I don’t suppose you know a man named Sandridge.”
Middleton raised his head to look at Rutledge. “There’s not going to be more killing, is there?”
“Not if I can prevent it.”
“Sandridge is Joel Baylor’s mother’s name. His father recognized him when they were married, but I don’t know that it’s official.”
“The brother who was gassed.” Rutledge turned to go.
“I’ll send in Cain. And then there’s one more thing I must do.”
***
In the event, it was nearly dawn by the time he had finished with Inspector Cain. After that he walked to the barn where the Baylor cattle were housed. As he expected, he found Ted Baylor mucking out.
The man turned to him. “Haven’t you caused enough trouble? That was a wild-goose chase to Frith’s Wood.”
“I didn’t know at the time that it wasn’t a matter of life and death. You’ve lost nothing except perhaps a few hours’ sleep.”
Grunting, Baylor turned back to his work, raking the warm piles of manure out into the center of the barn.
“What do you want?”
“To speak to your brother. Joel.”
“It won’t do you any good to see him.”
“It might clear up many things. For instance, why he hid from Constable Hensley. Hensley had known from the start that he was here.”
“I didn’t know about Hensley.” Baylor sighed. “Not until I heard them arguing one night soon after Joel had come home. After that, they avoided each other. Hensley swag-gered on the streets, but he knew better than to show his face here. I don’t think they trusted each other, to tell you the truth. I was always afraid it was Joel in Frith’s Wood with that bow and arrow. We had them as children. He knew how to use a bow. Look, I didn’t know about what Joel had done either. Not until much later. When he learned a man had been killed in that London fire, he joined the army. And he’s paid for what he did. I don’t think it will do any good to bring him to justice. He won’t live to see the hangman, you know that.”
“Still...”
Baylor said, “All right. I want to be there.” He stood his rake against a barn pillar and dusted his hands. “He’s still my brother. The only one left. Let’s get it over with.”
They walked in silence from the barn toward the house.
A few flakes of snow began to fall, desultorily at first, and then with gathering intent.
“It won’t last. But it will be colder tomorrow. By March the daffodils will be in bloom. Hard to believe, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” And then, endeavoring to bring something good out of so much pain and grief, Rutledge said to his companion, “Barbara Melford deserved better of you. You ought to tell her why you haven’t kept your promise.”
“It’s not your affair—” Baylor started to say, but Rutledge cut him off in midsentence.
“Good God, man, are you going to throw away your life and hers? She’ll wait for you, if you explain about Joel.
And who’s to inherit when both your brothers are dead, and you’re locked in your own bitterness, too stubborn to beg her forgiveness?”
“You don’t know anything about it.” But in the snow-filled darkness, Baylor’s voice was less sure.
“No, I don’t. That’s true. Perhaps you don’t care, after all.”
“Don’t care?” The words were wrenched from him.
“Gentle God!”
“Then tell her. When Joel is dead, she’ll believe you’ve spoken out of duty. And she’ll refuse, from pride.”
“I didn’t want to drag her into the shambles Joel had made of things. I thought it best.”
Rutledge held the door for Baylor and followed him into the house and up the stairs. “Rightly or wrongly your brother lived his life as he saw fit. In spite of that, you owe him the obligations of blood. That’s admirable. But Barbara Melford shouldn’t be expected to pay for his sins too.”
Ahead of him there was a quiet “No. I’ll see she doesn’t.”
Joel Baylor’s windows overlooked the barns and Frith’s Wood. He wasn’t asleep. Instead he was sitting in a chair, struggling to breathe through burned lungs. The sound of his efforts filled the room. He had been a strong and handsome man at one time. Now his clothes hung on his thin frame, and his face was lined with suffering.
“Hensley is dead,” Rutledge said as he walked in. “I’ve just been told.”
“Did he talk before he died?” The question was guarded but resigned.