The Best American Mystery Stories 2012 (50 page)

“You found her,” the woman said in a flat, hollow voice. It was not a question.

“Yes, ma'am,” Robert Earl said just as dispassionately. “I'm afraid so.”

She stepped back into the light and, by casually opening her hand away from her side, invited them in. On a coffee table with a glass insert, an open coloring book with crayons scattered across the top.

 

After they sat, backs rigid, on the end of their bunks nearest the aisle for the eleven o'clock count, and the lights were turned off, the snoring and the stench of near-naked bodies sweating in the still, humid air began. Ramsey lay on his stomach, chin resting on his laced fingers. He would not fall asleep easily, and when he did, he was still vigilant, with an edgy awareness, like some exposed animal, in peril, always seeking but never finding shelter. He watched the field, a gentle cross breeze caressing his face. Although he could not see the men still searching for clues, flashing lights sweeping in ocher waves across a shelf of fog sliding unevenly like silt low above the field said that some remained. He thought of Webster, not of the moment when his head exploded, but of the moment, the timelessness of it, between the decision to leave and the end, which had not really been an ending at all. Most would say it had been an act of desperation, which if reflected upon rationally would never have been attempted, and, after a cursory investigation, which would exonerate the guard who had fired, that was how it would most likely be reported, as an aborted escape, but Ramsey alone knew he had succeeded, that, like a translucent cicada husk clinging to a winter-stripped limb, Webster had left nothing behind to kill.

Ramsey had seen him on the compound but noticed nothing to distinguish him from hundreds of others, most, like Ramsey, with little hope of ever being released, and if they were, of use to no one, danglers, feeding along the edges. But Webster had not been just another jailhouse punk. He had had vision and, when he had smiled and offered himself sacrificially, had imparted to Ramsey the gift of clarity.

Without reference he had no sense of time, but it must have been close to midnight before the flashing lights surrendered the night; a razor-thin sliver of grinning moon hovered, its edges feathered by mist, as the great, silent field began repairing itself.

FROM
The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction

 

Mumford, Cambridgeshire, 1920

 

The old dog died at two o'clock, thrown unceremoniously out of his warm bed by the fire and onto the cold January ground.

And it was this fact that troubled Rutledge as he delved deeper into the mystery of Sir John Middleton's death.

It was the housekeeper-cum-cook, gone to the village for onions for Sir John's dinner, who found the old dog lying by the wall under the study window. Mrs. Gravely, stooping to touch the graying head, said, “Oh, my dear!” aloud—for the old dog had been company in the house for her as well—and went inside to deliver the sad news.

Opening the door into the study as she was pulling her wool scarf from her head, she said anxiously, “Sir John, as I was coming in, I found—”

Breaking off, she cried out in horror, ran to the body on the floor at the side of the Georgian desk, and bent to take one hand in her own as she knelt stiffly to stare into the bloody mask that was her employer's face.

Her first thought was that he'd fallen and struck the edge of the desk, she told Rutledge afterward. “I feared he'd got up from his chair to look for Simba, and took a dizzy turn. He had them sometimes, you know.”

The doctor had already confirmed this, and Rutledge nodded encouragingly, because he trusted Mrs. Gravely's honesty. He hadn't been particularly impressed by the doctor's manner.

Rutledge had been in Cambridge on Yard business, to identify a man brought in by the local constabulary. McDaniel was one of the finest forgers in the country, and it had appeared that the drunken Irishman, taken up after a brawl in a pub on the outskirts of town, was the man the police had been searching for since before the Great War. He fitted the meager description sent round to every police station in the country. In the event, he was not their man—red hair and ugly scar on the side of the face notwithstanding. But Rutledge had a feeling that the McDaniel they wanted had slipped away in the aftermath of the brawl. The incarcerated man had rambled on about the cousin who would sort out the police quick enough, if he were there. When the police arrived at the lodgings that their man in custody had shared with his cousin, there was no one else there—and no sign that anyone else had ever been there. The case had gone cold, and Rutledge was preparing to return to the Yard when the chief constable came looking for him.

“Sir John Middleton was murdered in his own home,” Rutledge was told. “I want his killer, and I've asked the Yard to take over the inquiry. You're to go there now, and I'll put it right with the chief superintendent. The sooner someone takes charge, the better.”

And it was clear enough that the chief constable knew what he was about. For the local constable, a man named Forrest, was nervously pacing the kitchen when Rutledge got there, and the inspector who had been sent for from Cambridge had already been recalled. The body still lay where it had been found, pending Rutledge's arrival, and according to Forrest, no one had been interviewed.

Thanking him, Rutledge went into the study to look at the scene.

Middleton lay by the corner of his desk, one arm outstretched as if pleading for help.

“He was struck twice,” a voice said behind him, and Rutledge turned to find a thin, bespectacled man standing in the doorway. “Dr. Taylor,” he went on. “I was told to wait in the parlor until you got here. The first blow was from behind, to the back of the head, knocking Sir John down but not killing him. A second blow to the face at the bridge of his nose finished him. I don't know that he saw the first coming. He most certainly saw the second.”

“The weapon?”

Taylor shrugged. “Hard to say until I can examine him more closely. Nothing obvious, at any rate.”

“Has anything been taken?” Rutledge asked, turning to look at the room. It had not been ransacked. But a thief, knowing what he was after, would not have needed to search. There were framed photographs on the walls, an assortment of weapons—from an Australian boomerang to a Zulu cowhide shield—were arrayed between them, and every available surface seemed to hold souvenirs from Sir John's long career in the army. A Kaiser Wilhelm helmet stood on the little table under the windows, the wooden propeller from a German aircraft was displayed across the tops of the bookshelves, and a half-dozen brass shell casings, most of them examples of trench art, were lined up on a cabinet that held more books.

“You must ask Mrs. Gravely that question. The housekeeper. She's been with him for a good many years. I went through the house, a cursory look after examining the body, to be certain there was no one hiding in another room. I saw nothing to indicate robbery.”

“Any idea when he was killed?”

“We can pinpoint the time fairly well from other evidence. When Mrs. Gravely left to go into Mumford, he was alive and well, because she went to the study to ask if there were any letters she could take to the post for him. She was gone by her own account no more than three quarters of an hour, and found him lying as you see him when she returned. At a guess, I'd say he died between two and two-thirty.”

Rutledge nodded. “Thank you, Doctor. I'll speak to her in a moment.”

It was dismissal, and the doctor clearly wished to remain. But Rutledge stood where he was, waiting, and finally the man turned on his heel and left the room. He didn't precisely slam the door in his wake, but it closed with a decidedly loud snap.

Rutledge went to the window and looked out. It was then that he saw the dog lying against the wall, only its feet and tail visible from that angle. Opening the window and bringing in the cold, damp winter air, he leaned out. There was no doubt the animal was dead.

He left the study and went out to kneel by the dog, which did not appear to have been harmed in the attack on Sir John. Death seemed to be due to natural causes and old age, judging from the graying muzzle.

Hamish said, “There's been no one to bury him.”

An interesting point. He touched the body, but it was cold, already stiffening.

Back inside, he asked the constable where he could find Mrs. Gravely, and he was told she was in her room at the top of the house.

He knocked, and a husky voice called, “Come in.”

It was a small room, but backed up to the kitchen chimney and was warm enough. Castoffs from the main part of the house furnished it: a brass bed, an oak bedside table, two comfortable wing chairs on either side of a square of blue carpet, and a maple table under the half-moon window in the eaves. A narrow bookcase held several novels and at least four cookbooks.

The woman seated in the far wing chair rose as he crossed the threshold. She had been crying, but she seemed to be over the worst of her shock. He noted the teacup and saucer on the table and thought the constable must have brought it to her, not the doctor.

“I'm Inspector Rutledge from Scotland Yard. The chief constable has asked me to take over the inquiry into Sir John's death. Do you feel up to speaking to me?”

“Yes, sir. But I wasn't here, you see. If I had been—”

“If you had been,” he said, cutting across her guilt-ridden anguish, “you might have died with him.”

She stared at him. “I hadn't thought about that.”

He began by asking her about Sir John.

By her account, Sir John Middleton was a retired military man, having served in the Great War. Rutledge could, of his own knowledge, add that Sir John had served with distinction in an HQ not noted for its brilliance. He at least had been a voice of sanity there and was much admired for it, even though it had not aided his army career. Had he made enemies, then?

Hamish said, “Aye, it's possible. He didna fear his killer. Or put up a struggle.”

And that was a good point.

“Was he alive when you reached him?”

“Yes, I could see that he was still breathing, ragged though it was. He cried out, just the one word, when I bent to touch him, as if he knew I was there. As if, looking back on it now, he'd held on, waiting for me. Because he seemed to let go then, but I could tell he wasn't dead. I was that torn—leaving him to go for the doctor or staying with him. “

“What did he say? Could you understand him?”

“Oh, yes, sir.
Trafalgar,
he said. Clear as could be. I ran out then, shouting for help, and I met Sam on the road. He was willing to take a message to Dr. Taylor, and so I came back to sit beside Sir John, but I doubt he knew I was there. Still, it wasn't until Dr. Taylor was bending over him that I heard the death rattle. I think he tried to speak again, just before.”

The doctor had said nothing about that.

“Are you certain Sir John spoke to Dr. Taylor?”

But Mrs. Gravely was not to be dissuaded. “I was in the doorway, facing Sir John's desk. He had his back to me, the doctor did, but I could just see Sir John's mouth, and his lips moved. I'd swear to that.”

“Did he know that it was the doctor who was with him? Was he aware, do you think, of where he was?”

“I can't speak to that, sir. I only know he spoke. And the doctor answered him. “

“Could you hear what was said?”

“No, sir. But I thought he was trying to say the old dog's name. Simba. It means lion, I was told. I can't say whether he was trying to call to him or was asking where he'd got to.”

“How did Dr. Taylor respond?”

“I don't know, sir. I could see the doctor rock back on his heels, and then came the death rattle. I knew he was gone. Sir John. There was nothing to be done, was there? The doctor said so, afterward.”

Rutledge could hear the echo of the doctor's voice in her words, “I couldn't do anything for him.”

“And then?”

“Dr. Taylor turned and saw me in the doorway. He told me to find my coat and go outside to wait for the ambulance. But it wasn't five minutes before he was at the door calling to me and telling me there was no need for the ambulance now. It might as well be the hearse. Well, I could have told him as much, but then he's the one to give evidence at the inquest, isn't he? He had to be certain sure.”

Rutledge went back to something Mrs. Gravely had said earlier. “Trafalgar. What does that mean to you?”

The housekeeper frowned. “I don't know, sir. As I remember from school, it was a battle. At sea. When Lord Nelson was killed.”

“That's true,” Rutledge told her. “It was fought off the coast of Spain in 1805. But Sir John was an army man. And his father and grandfather before him.” He had seen the photographs in the study. At least two generations of officers, staring without expression into the lens of the camera. And a watercolor sketch of another officer, wearing a Guards uniform from before the Crimean War.

“Will you come down with me to the study? There are some photographs I'd like to ask you to identify.”

“Please, sir,” she answered anxiously. “Not if he's still there. I couldn't bear it. But I'll know the pictures, I've dusted them since they were put up there.”

“Fair enough. The woman, then, with the braid of her hair encircling the frame.”

“That's Lady Middleton, sir, his second wife. Elizabeth, she was. She died in childbirth, and the boy with her. I don't think he ever got over her death. “

“Second wife?”

“He was married before that. To Althea Barnes. She died as well, out in India. He'd tried to persuade her that it was no place for a woman, but she insisted on going with him. Two years later she was dead of the cholera.”