Which left him with no identification and possibly no suspect. But then it would have been almost too easy for the killer to find his victim.
Hamish reminded him, “You canna’ be certain yon lass wasn’t mistaken for her. If she had left the well-digger and turned respectable. And someone knew it.”
But Rutledge had a feeling that his inquiry had just hit a dead end.
Driving back to the village, he found himself thinking ruefully that Chief Superintendent Markham would have been very pleased with such a swift and tidy solution: the sexton killing the straying wife who had returned hoping for forgiveness.
It was the sort of conclusion the man preferred: straightforward and uncomplicated by nuances.
Rutledge looked for Mrs. Branson as he came into the village, wondering if she might still be wandering the streets. Was her memory as trustworthy as she claimed, or was it a victim of lonely old age and imagination?
There was no sign of her. And the light was going.
It was just at the evening supper hour when he walked into The Dun Cow’s crowded bar and asked for sandwiches and tea to be sent up to his room. It was Saturday night, he realized.
The middle-aged woman who took his order said, “There’s a message from Constable, sir. I put it under your door.”
Rutledge took the stairs two at a time, hoping for good news. But the folded square of paper slipped under his door said only, Doctor wants to know what to do with the body if there’s no one to claim it.
It was premature to be thinking about a burial when there had been neither an inquest nor an arrest. But the surgery was small, and a dead body was a problem.
The question would have to wait. He slipped the square into his notebook, just as there was a knock at his door, and the woman from downstairs came into the room with his meal.
He sat by the window and ate it, grateful for the meager fire on his hearth, and thinking about the overheated study at the Rectory.
And there was the answer. Let the Rector decide what to do with the unclaimed body. Rutledge thought it was very likely that he would take on the charge as a matter of course. But surely there would be a name by the time such a decision had to be made.
That raised another thought: the Simmons funeral must still be waiting for the grieving family to decide whether they wanted to bury him in that grave after all.
The sandwiches—egg mayonnaise and a ham and cheese—were well made, and he finished them before taking out his notebook and putting down what he’d learned since his arrival.
Looking at what he’d written, he thought it seemed like very little progress had been made. He’d ruled out Joan Miller as the victim, but there was no one to put in her place.
He remembered the bruised, torn grass by the grave. Impossible to say now if there was blood around the site. If the woman hadn’t been killed there in the churchyard just before she was put into the empty grave, where had she been killed? In the vehicle that had brought her to the churchyard? In someone’s house? Her own? Wherever it had occurred, there would have been blood to clean up. The killer would have faced a dilemma—getting rid of the body or getting rid of the blood left behind somewhere . . .
He considered the empty ruin he’d seen by the river. But the woman didn’t appear to be the sort who would let herself be lured into such a place, even by someone she knew. It must now be the realm of bats, foxes, and owls. Hardly a romantic rendezvous.
And where was the weapon? Back in someone’s kitchen? Before it was noticed as missing? He remembered the man from the bar staring after Mrs. Branson. In the inn kitchen, perhaps.
Needles in a haystack, he thought wryly. But he closed his notebook and put on his coat again.
Driving out of the village, he came to the old bridge, stopped short of it, and then walked slowly across, casting about as he went. It would certainly be a far more romantic spot for two people to stand here in the middle of the bridge, watching the sun set, its winter brightness seeming to sink into the water below. Or as the moon rose, casting long shadows and lighting the water . . .
What if it wasn’t romance that had brought the woman here but fear? Or anger. Why then would she let herself be lured to this isolated place, where she was vulnerable? Perhaps it was jealousy, and she had threatened to make a scene?
But how had she got here? From the description of her clothing, she wasn’t dressed to walk far. In her killer’s motorcar? Was this where he felt it was safe enough to finish what he had planned for her? But why kill her? What had she done or done to him, that required murder?
Halfway across, he stopped.
Were those dark stains in the road bed? Or his imagination?
It hadn’t rained since the murder. Pulling off his gloves, he scratched at the dark spots. Then, taking out his handkerchief, he collected as much as he could before folding it and putting it into his pocket again.
He went twice over the bridge, but there was nothing more to be seen. He even walked along both banks some distance in both directions, letting the torch taken from the boot of his motorcar play along the water’s edge, under tree roots, or where the grass and brambles had drooped into the water.
Rutledge was about to turn away when he saw it. There, where a drifting dead limb had caught in the roots of another tree, along the bank on the far side, was that something snagged on the limb? He moved closer to the water, hoping he could reach out and fish whatever it was free. But he had to go back to the motorcar and put on his Wellingtons before he could get near enough on the spongy earth to find out what it was he’d seen.
Even so, he could feel his boots sinking into the soft, wet ground along the river’s edge, and he caught the heavy odor of rotting vegetation and stagnant water here by the roots. Reaching out as far as he dared, he just managed to touch whatever it was with the tips of his fingers. Getting a grip was impossible. He backed away, found a suitable length of branch farther up the bank, and with that in hand, tried again.
This time he was able to lift the object with his stick and slowly draw it toward him. Impatient, he forced himself to take his time, for the stream itself was flowing fast enough to carry his quarry off if he dropped it in the current.
And then it was finally where he could grasp it with his left hand as his right brought the object closer.
Dropping the branch, he stood there and examined his find.
It was a woman’s blue glove. It had been made of a fine leather, possibly Italian, but it had stretched and was soggy now.
Had it been dropped over the rampart of the bridge as she struggled with her assailant? And where was the other glove? Had the killer kept it along with a hat and a purse because he realized that one glove might lead someone like Rutledge to look for the other?
There was no way to tell. He smoothed the soggy leather and tried to judge the size of the hand that had been in it. It was too stretched now even to guess. And once dry, it would very likely shrink. But there was a round pearl button that closed the glove at the wrist. And that could be matched if the size could not.
Pleased with his success, he started back to the motorcar.
Coming into the village, he drove straight to the doctor’s surgery, and found Allen was just seeing a last patient out, a woman coughing heavily.
As Rutledge was stepping out of the motorcar, the young woman had reached the street. She ducked her head shyly as she passed him. He walked on toward the doorway where the doctor was still waiting.