But he felt safe enough tonight, late as it was. The Gordons kept early hours.
As he followed the waiter to a quiet corner, Rutledge saw Leslie dining alone and stopped by his table.
“Working late, also?”
Leslie looked up and smiled. “My wife’s in Suffolk, and my own cooking is not edible. Join me. I’m tired of my own thoughts for company.”
Rutledge nodded to the waiter and took the chair opposite Leslie.
In the light of the chandeliers, Leslie looked very tired.
Noticing that, Rutledge asked as he took up his serviette, “Busy with an inquiry?”
“Not at the moment. No. Thank God. You?”
“I just got in from a village not far from Derby. I found my desk buried in files. I’ve dealt with them and taken the lot down to Gibson’s desk, to bury it next.”
Leslie laughed. “The Sergeant is a marvel. If he ever retires, the Yard will collapse. Did you get your man?”
“I expect it will.” He shook his head, indicating that he would have no wine tonight, and the sommelier moved away. “As a matter of fact I did, or rather, my woman. A nasty one at that. The Vicar had lost his wife to influenza, and she was barely in the ground when the housekeeper’s sister began accusing every woman in the parish under forty of setting her cap for him if not worse. That was bad enough. Then she poisoned one of them because she was convinced the Vicar favored her. The Constable whose lot it was to take her into custody had his hands full—she fought and kicked all the way to the police station. Browning suffered a cut on his chin and bruised shins.”
“Good God.”
Rutledge gave the waiter his order and handed him the menu. Turning back to the Chief Inspector, he said, “From what I’ve heard, you had a rather nasty inquiry yourself last month.”
Leslie’s eyes hardened. “I didn’t catch the killer, if that’s what you mean. I’ve put out word that if anyone discovers a similar case on his turf, I’m to be told of it at once.”
Something in his expression brought a quiet “’Ware” from Hamish.
Rutledge heeded the warning. He couldn’t have said why, except that he could sense something in the man opposite him. A sudden tension in his body, the unexpected glare. It wasn’t like Leslie, but then he hadn’t taken any time off for weeks. He could be found at the Yard early in the morning and late at night, whether there was a major case on or not.
Rutledge said easily, “Well, supper isn’t the place to talk about murder. I hear that Sutton is getting married next month. He knew that my sister was wed in December, and he’s been asking me about the groom’s duties.”
The stiffness faded, and the glare as well. “Poor Sutton. His future mother-in-law will keep him in line. I don’t envy him.”
The conversation moved on to the war. Leslie finished his wine, and set the glass down. “I shouldn’t say this. It’s been two years. But I can’t seem to put France behind me.” He appeared to be thinking aloud rather than speaking to Rutledge.
“That’s not unusual.” Rutledge pushed the remains of his meal across his plate, refusing to be drawn. They all knew—he could see it in their faces sometimes when he caught them looking at him. Shell shock. But he was damned if that knowledge was going to force him to resign. That would be what was expected of a coward.
“No, I expect it isn’t,” Leslie answered thoughtfully. “I can’t talk to my wife about what happened out there. I couldn’t do that to her.” His gaze moved from the empty glass next to his plate to focus on Rutledge. “You aren’t married. That must be easier. And at the same time, more difficult.”
“I don’t think there is a solution.” He suddenly found himself remembering a friend. A suicide. He cleared his throat. He wanted to add, We live with it until we can’t any longer. But suicide, given the recent past, was not a subject he wanted to bring up. Instead he commented, “For many of us, the war didn’t end when the guns stopped firing. That’s the problem. We saw too much. Things that can’t be shared. Things we can’t forget.”
“You put it well.” Leslie was silent for a moment, then he said, striving to push the darkness aside, “Cheese or pudding?”
“I’ll finish with a second pot of tea.”
“Yes, I think that’s best.” He turned to signal the waiter.
The next day, Chief Superintendent Markham sent for Rutledge and handed him a file as he walked in the door.
“A rather nasty murder in Shropshire. See what you make of it.”
Rutledge opened the file and scanned it. There wasn’t a great deal of information. There rarely was.
A parish sexton had dug a grave in late afternoon for the next morning’s funeral service for a man in his fifties. As it was to be left overnight, the sexton had covered the opening with boards and sacking, to prevent any damage to it or to a person who might unwittingly fall in. The next day, an hour before the ten o’clock service, the tocsin already tolling the man’s years, the sexton went out to remove the boards and sacking, and set the coiled ropes to one side, ready to hand when the coffin was brought from the church. As he drew back the second of the boards, he discovered that the grave was already occupied. A woman’s body lay in the bottom, and even in his shock, he realized that she was dead and had surely been murdered. There was a great deal of dark, drying blood on her clothing and her face. Far more than a fall could have caused.
He sent the equally shocked Rector for the doctor and the Constable.
By the end of the day, the village Constable had asked for the Yard to be brought in.
“Can’t say that I blame the local man,” Markham commented as Rutledge finished reading and closed the file. “Apparently no one knows who the dead woman is. Much less who might have wanted her dead.” He smiled, but it was cold. “Just your sort of inquiry, I should think.”
Rutledge had angered Markham last month in the course of another case, and this was the Chief Superintendent’s less-than-subtle way of reminding him of that.
“I’ll do my best, sir,” Rutledge answered mildly, refusing to rise to the bait. “I finished the reports on my desk last evening. I can leave for Shropshire straightaway.”
“See that you do,” Markham replied, and picked up another file from his desk.
Dismissal.
Rutledge closed the Chief Superintendent’s door behind him, and in the passage, where no one else was about just then, he swore under his breath.
He reported to Sergeant Gibson that he was going to his flat to pack a valise for Shropshire, and left the Yard.
2
Rutledge spent the night in a small village halfway to his destination, and arrived in Tern Bridge just as dusk was falling the next evening.
He took a few minutes to explore. This was a flat part of the county, with a river that ran past the outskirts of the village. There was an ancient bridge across it, hardly as wide as his motorcar, and just beyond that was a fortified manor house, in ruins now, the empty windows black spaces in the brick walls and what had once been a garden, now wild with brambles and weeds, running down to the water.
The small village itself was a mixture of Tudor and Georgian buildings, some of the former still possessing their overhanging upper stories, diamond-paned windows, and tall chimney pots. The dying light was reflected in the old glass, and it faded as he watched.