“I understand. But you must examine this matter in the same way that the police must do. First a book is found by a dead man’s feet, one that has your husband’s name in it. That can be explained away very well. Then there’s some reason to believe that Henry Shoreham disappeared shortly before the corpse was discovered. If the man in the sketch is Henry Shoreham, then you lied to me and to Madsen. If it isn’t, then where is Shoreham? Let’s look at it another way. Until we can identify the victim with absolute certainty, we must investigate all the possibilities. Someone is dead, and he deserves to have justice. The police are bound to see to it that he will.”
Alice Crowell, no fool, looked at Rutledge with weary resignation.
“I don’t know that this poor man will receive justice of any kind. He’s too convenient a whipping boy, to make my husband suffer.”
“Could Albert Crowell have killed him? Either because he was certain he was Shoreham or thought he looked like the man?”
Her gaze moved toward the books on the shelves. “He believes in forgiveness. He forgave Henry Shoreham, and when he has done that, he wouldn’t take it back and kill the man.” Her mouth took on a grim expression. “For some time after this happened,” she touched her face, “I could have killed Henry Shoreham myself. I was asked to forgive him, and I said the words. But in the depths of my soul, I knew it to be a lie. And I hid it from everyone.”
Her eyes came back to his face, as she added, “I wouldn’t ask my husband to do murder for my sake. If Inspector Madsen wasn’t so blinded by his own anger over my turning down his proposal of marriage, he’d realize that he has the wrong Crowell in custody. I’m the one who had the best reason to kill Henry Shoreham.”
13
Addleford was a small dale village that had begun to shrink in the nineteenth century as men found work in the mills or mines. It had continued to shrink into the twentieth. On the outskirts of town were barns without roofs and houses with boarded-up windows. But the heart of the town, with its plain church and churchyard, its one pub and its tiny shops, seemed to be hanging on for dear life.
The houses on either side of the winding street were well kept and the white lace curtains in their windows were cheerful against the gray stone of the walls.
There was no police station here, but Rutledge went to that other source of gossip and information, the local pub. He ate tough beef with a mustard sauce and fresh baked bread, enjoying the peace and quiet of the small dining area next to the bar. The man who served him limped, one leg shorter than the other, giving him a swaying walk that spoke of years of pain. He set down the charger with Rutledge’s food and went about his business, taciturn and without curiosity about the stranger who had walked in and asked if luncheon was still being served.
Hamish was telling him that this was a wild-goose chase. Better to leave the troublesome Henry Shoreham to Inspector Madsen.
But Rutledge wanted every loose end tied up before he went south again. And so as he finished his flan, he asked the man who brought it where he might find one Peter Littleton.
“He’s the shoemaker, two doors down from the greengrocer. You have business with him then?”
“Indeed.”
The barkeep looked at him. “He’ll be finished his dinner in a quarter of an hour. He always goes home for it.”
“Then I’ll walk in the churchyard while I’m waiting.” He paid his reckoning and went out in the chilly air. The churchyard’s wall cupped a small purple flower growing in a crevice, and when he stopped to look at it, he recognized heartsease. It seemed forlorn there, as if it had lost its way from someone’s garden.
Hamish said, “It’s Fiona’s favorite among the flowers.”
Rutledge went through the gate and walked among the stones until he saw the shoemaker striding back to his shop.
Crossing the road after him, Rutledge waited until he’d opened the shop before going inside. The musical ring of a small bell above the door announced his presence, and the shoemaker raised his head from the leather he was trimming. He bore a faint resemblance to the dead man—around the same height, the same unremarkable shape of face, brown hair, and blue eyes. Nothing to set him apart from hundreds of other Englishmen.
I’m looking for Henry Shoreham,” Rutledge said. “I’m told you can help me find him.”
Littleton’s face changed from the smile he used to welcome custom to a wariness that went deep.
“Who’s asking?” He smoothed the leather with his fingertips, as if judging its quality without looking at it.
“Rutledge, Inspector, Scotland Yard.”
The shop was redolent with the scents of leather, wood, and polish. A cobbler’s bench sat by the window and there were lasts on the shelves against the back wall. Patterns lay on a table below. And two chairs, high enough to allow the shoemaker to work on the footwear of a client without squatting, were set into the near wall, facing the counter.
“He never went to trial for what he did.” It was defensive, as if Rutledge had come to take Shoreham back to Whitby. “So it never ended, you might say. No one let him forget what had happened. There was the young woman of course, she suffered and was scarred, mind you, but Henry also paid dearly for his drunkenness. And he never set out to hurt anybody. He wasn’t that sort.”
“I’m not here to charge him. The problem is we can’t seem to locate him at present. Is he still living with you?”
“If you’ve come this far, you know he’s not here. Inspector Madsen will have told you.”
“Quite. Why did Shoreham choose to come to Addleford? Because you were here?”
“Because he didn’t have two pennies to rub together. They didn’t want him back at the bank. Bad for business, they said. Everyone recognized him. There was nothing else he knew how to do but clerking. When no one would take him on and his savings ran out, he left Whitby and came to me to get back on his feet. But he couldn’t get the hang of shoemaking, and then a neighbor of his from Whitby moved here as well, and the story was spread about again. He decided to go to another cousin in Wales. Sheep aren’t easy to manage, but they don’t have to fit someone’s foot just right.”
Hamish said, “Ye canna’ judge how he felt about his cousin.”
It was true, there was a distance in what Littleton was saying, as if he were discussing a stranger.
Rutledge asked, “When did he leave?”
“I could tell he’d made up his mind, and I let him go. And the house was crowded with seven people under our roof, I’ll admit it. My wife was just as glad to see him move on. But then he’s not her kin, he’s mine.”
“When did he leave?” Rutledge repeated his question.
“It must be getting on to a week, now.” Littleton shrugged. “A fortnight even. One of the little ones has been ill. I’ve had more to worry about than keeping in mind when Henry set out. I had no way of knowing, see, that it would matter to have the exact day.”
“Did Constable Pickerel or Inspector Madsen tell you there was a dead man at Elthorpe who might be your cousin? Surely that should have worried you.”
“Constable Pickerel said nothing of that when he first came here. He was all for leaving for Wales straightaway. My cousin Llewellyn knew Henry was coming, but there wasn’t a fixed date. You could have blown me over with a feather when the constable reported Henry never got there. Then Inspector Madsen came, going on about a dead man. I was afraid that it might be Henry. That he’d finally done himself some harm, out of remorse. That he never intended going to Wales.”