she’d have been clean.…
Rutledge, standing there in the late-afternoon sunlight while a saw droned on and on somewhere in the distance, suddenly knew how Judas had felt. A traitor—a betrayer of someone who trusted him …
Or who trusted in her spell over him?
22
When it was finished, when Hildebrand had walked back into his office and the waiting knot of people—starved of news—had wandered away, Rutledge drew a long shuddering breath and went back to the Swan. He felt dazed with weariness, the emotional trial in Hildebrand’s office still searing his conscience.
What choice had he been given?
At what price had Mowbray won some respite from his own horrors? Or had they only been scored more deeply into the man’s tormented mind? And was he a killer at all, but only the victim as much as the dead woman in the pauper’s grave by the church?
Hamish, who disapproved of much that Rutledge did, holding him to the high standards of a man who was Calvinist in heart and soul, said, “When ye’re done feeling sorry for yoursel’, there’s the ither woman with nae name and nae face. What aboot her, then?”
“What about her?” Rutledge said. “Mowbray couldn’t have killed her, he couldn’t have made a practice of riding trains and murdering any woman with a passing resemblance to his dead wife! And she was dark-haired, not fair!” He suddenly lost patience with Hamish. “What has she to do with Margaret Tarlton, for God’s sake?”
“Aye, that’s the question. But look, if she has a part in this matter, she deserves justice even if there’s nae MP calling for answers!”
Tired to the bone, Rutledge said, “If we’ve cleared Mowbray of killing his children, and if we’ve shown that the dead woman is very likely Margaret Tarlton—if Miss Napier has told the truth about recognizing that dress—then we’re back to the people who knew her best. The Napiers. Shaw. The Wyatts.”
“Aye. Find that hat, forebye, and you’ll ha’ the answer.”
“You said that about the children,” Rutledge said wearily. “And it wasn’t enough.”
He had reached his room, but without any memory of walking into the inn or up the stairs or down the passage. Closing the door behind him, he took off his coat and threw himself face down across the bed.
Two minutes later, Hamish’s complaints notwithstanding, Rutledge was deeply asleep, where not even dreams could reach him. The dark head on the pillow stirred once as the church bell struck the hour, one arm moving to crook protectively around it and the other hand uncurling from the tight fist of tension.
You don’t, Rutledge told himself over a late dinner, lose your objectivity if you want to be a good policeman. You learn to shut out the pain of others, you learn to ask the questions that can break up a marriage, set brother against brother, or turn father against son. Willy-nilly, to get at the truth.
But what was truth? It had as many sides as there were people involved and was as changeable as human nature.
Take Margaret Tarlton, for one. If you believed the stories told, she was Elizabeth Napier’s friend and confidante, Thomas Napier’s lover, Daniel Shaw’s heartbreak, and a reminder of Simon Wyatt’s glorious past, when he was still destined for greatness. A reminder to Aurore Wyatt that her husband was vulnerable to the blandishments of the Napiers. Most murderers know their victims. It could be one of those closest to her—or it could be someone who had followed her from London.
It could be that by purest chance Mowbray had come upon her and killed her, just as they’d believed all along.
Or take the working-class woman who had died and been buried in a fallow field. On the surface of it, she’d nothing to do with Mowbray, and very likely little to do with Margaret Tarlton. Was she, then, a red herring? Or was she the first victim of the same killer? And how did you find the name and direction of a working-class woman who hadn’t been reported missing and who apparently had no connection with anyone in Charlbury? She could have come from London—Portsmouth—Liverpool. She could have come from the moon.
But he thought there might be one person who could tell him.
The next morning, while Hildebrand was busy interviewing Elizabeth Napier—tiptoeing on eggshells, as one of the constables put it—Rutledge drove back to Charlbury.
In every village, the one person who could be counted on to know every facet of the lives and failures of each parishioner was most often the rector’s wife. Whereas in a town of any size, it was usually the constable who could provide the smallest details about anyone on his patch.
Rutledge called on Mrs. Daulton. Henry answered the door and said, “She’s in the back. And rather too mucky, I think, to come inside. I’m not much of a gardener myself,” he added, and as if in explanation, “I always pull up the wrong things.”
“I’ll find her. Thank you, Mr. Daulton.”
She was in her garden, a shabby smock over her shirtwaist and skirt, a kerchief around her head, and what appeared to be her husband’s old boots on her feet. From the look of the boots she’d been wading in mud at some point. She was currently pruning the canes of a climbing rose that had grown too exuberantly that year. Her hair was pulled from its tidy bun by the thorns, and there were scratches on her face. She seemed to be thoroughly happy.
“Inspector,” she said, when she looked up to find him striding down the path from the side of the house. “How thoughtful of you to come to me. As you see, we are our own gardeners here at the rectory.” Straightening her back as if it hurt, she added, “Mind you, I recollect the day when there were two gardeners and a lad to keep these grounds! Not that I stayed out of them even then.” She took off her gloves and extended her hand. “What can I do to help you?”
Rutledge smiled as he took her hand and said, “I need your knowledge. Of people, and of one person in particular.”
She looked at him straightly. “I will not help you put Simon Wyatt in prison for a crime he’s innocent of.”
“I shan’t ask it of you,” Rutledge promised. “No, my interest is in a maid who vanished some time ago.”
“The body in the field.” She nodded. “I doubt it’s Betty Cooper, but then you never know, do you?” She set the gloves beside the trowel and the pruning shears in the barrow at her side. “Come along, then, we can sit over there.”
Over there was a small rustic bench in the shade of a great, ancient apple tree, its branches bowed down with green fruit. Before them the beds and borders of the rectory garden spread out like a fan toward the house. It was a pretty scene, peaceful and quiet. Rutledge followed her and sat down beside her. She sighed, as if tearing her thoughts from the rosebush and bringing them to bear on what he wanted to hear.
“I can’t tell you much about the girl. But enough, perhaps, for your purposes. Betty came to Dorset during the war. From a poor family near Plymouth. Many girls went into war work of some sort, omnibus conductors and the like. Mrs. Darley ran a large dairy farm and needed help. Betty was sent to her because the girl had some experience with animals and the work was to her liking, or so I was told. At any rate, she pulled her weight until the end of the war and afterward asked Mrs. Darley to give her some training as a parlor maid. As I heard it, Betty didn’t want to be a clerk in an office or a shopgirl, she wanted to be the person who opened doors to guests and served tea. That’s a rather silly view, maids do more than that, but Betty had aspirations, you see, and they included learning how to dress and how to speak properly. And she was quite pretty; it was only a matter of time before the lure of better prospects took her away. Mrs. Darley,” she ended dryly, “entertains less than stellar company. She’s a farmer’s wife, not a society hostess.”