“What is it, then? What do you see?” the man demanded. And after a moment, he yelled, “Who’s there? Come out, I see you.”
But he couldn’t, if Rutledge couldn’t see him. He stayed where he was.
“All right, come inside, Sandy. That’ll be enough,” the annoyed male voice said finally. “You’re after shadows, that’s all.”
The dog stopped, a door slammed, and the night was silent once more.
Still, Rutledge waited. A good ten minutes, by his estimation. In the event the owner, remembering a recent breaking in at the Leslie house, decided to dress and investigate.
Finally he managed to replace his dry boots with his Wellingtons, and then listened again for any sounds.
Satisfied, he edged his way through patchy shadows to the black rectangle near the bottom of the garden that must be a shed.
When he tried the door, he was surprised to find that it was unlocked. But he had to open it by inches, for the hinges were rusty. Once it was wide enough, he covered the torch with a handkerchief again and shone it around the interior.
And there was a tandem bicycle against the far wall.
Crossing a floor cluttered with an assortment of farm implements, watering pails, and even a small iron summer bench, he could see that a narrow path had been made to the bicycle. And it appeared to be in excellent condition. He pushed the pedals, watching their quiet, smooth movement. Then he knelt on the dry earthen floor beside it and pointed his torch toward the tires.
They were caked with earth and bits of dried weeds. But when had it last been used?
Hamish spoke, startling him. “Yon murderer would ha’ been a fool to bring it back.”
Which begged the question that it had been used to travel to Avebury. Surely it would simply have been abandoned as soon as the killer was safely away from the scene. A tandem would have attracted attention late at night, with only one person pedaling it.
And he dared not be caught with it. Better to have it discovered and traced back to the rightful owner, casting suspicion on him.
Rutledge rose to his feet.
Even in his early days as a London Constable, Rutledge had never encountered a thief who returned what he’d taken.
He didn’t want to believe that Leslie himself might have slipped into the house, borrowed his own bicycle, and returned it to the shed after he’d finished with it.
But where was his victim all this while? Where had she been waiting? And how had he explained himself when he collected her?
How could he convince a respectable woman to ride a tandem bicycle cross-country to a prehistoric site in the middle of the night? If he’d brought her from London there were any number of desolate stretches along that road where she could be killed and left for anyone to find. Surely that would have been more sensible.
What if he was completely wrong about the tandem? What if the killer and his victim had come only as far as the ancient avenue by motorcar, leaving it there to walk together between the double rows of stone until they reached the circle, as the builders themselves must have done? He had only to walk back there, drive off, and disappear.
That would clear Leslie and even an ex-soldier looking for an empty house where he might find a little food.
Nights were still long this time of year.
But how had the victim reached here? Had her killer brought her all the way from London? Or for that matter, from Bristol or Bath or Swansea in Wales?
“Aye,” Hamish said. “Ye canna ask yon victim to creep in and oot of a house ye own. It doesna’ stand up.”
Then how was it done? Rutledge wanted to ask him, even as he knew Hamish was right.
Making certain there was no one in the garden waiting to surprise him, he left the shed and took great care to shut the doors, stamping down any grass he might have displaced opening them. Then with a last look around, he started back the way he’d come.
He had just reached the corner of the house when something touched his face, and his heart leaped. But it was only a spider’s web, invisible in the darkness. Brushing it away, he got himself down Meadow Street, to the field, and finally to his motorcar.
Using his torch now without covering it, he took out his other handkerchief and looked at what it contained.
The small charred remnant of stiff black ribbon lay in his palm.
And at the very edge of it was a bit of gray cloth.
He stared at it.
Someone had tried to burn what might well have been a woman’s dark gray hat.
11
Rutledge drove directly to Marlborough, found the railway station, and went in search of the stationmaster.
“Good evening,” he said as the man looked up from the newspaper he was reading. “Scotland Yard, Inspector Rutledge.”
The stationmaster hastily put his newspaper aside and asked, “Is there some sort of trouble?” His hair was nearly white, his hands gnarled. Rutledge thought he had stayed at his post during the war, and had been kept on afterward because there was no one to take his place.
“The Yard is tracking a killer, and it’s possible he—or she—got down from the London train when it stopped in Marlborough.” Taking out the photograph, he showed it to the man. “Have you seen this woman? Alone or with another person, perhaps? We can’t be certain of that.” He gave the date. “Time has passed, I realize that, but perhaps you have a good memory for faces.”
“Murder?” He took off his glasses and leaned forward to peer at the photograph Rutledge was holding. Shaking his head, he said, “I can’t say that I remember her.” He looked again. “Is she dead?”
“She was the victim.”
The stationmaster stared at Rutledge. “Was she, now?”
He tried a different approach. “Who is usually waiting for the London train in the hope of a fare? Someone with a motorcar—or a carriage? He might be able to help me.”
The man’s face brightened. He knew the answer now. “That would be Mr. Barlow. An elderly gentleman. He died of pneumonia two weeks ago. Caught a chill in a heavy rain, and it went to his chest. A pity. I could count on him being there, if anyone asked.”
A pity indeed.
“I’ve a friend who comes to Marlborough by train and sometimes hires a driver. Chief Inspector Leslie, who has a house in Stokesbury. Do you know if he’s been here recently?”
“Mr. Leslie. I think he came through some time back. There was a Constable waiting to collect him.”
“Several days before that.”
The stationmaster shook his head. “I can’t say that I remember seeing him.” He peered once more at the photograph. “There was a fire on the train just as the passengers were disembarking. Might have been then. Some fool dropped a cigarette on a newspaper under his seat. No harm done, but there was smoke in the carriage and a passenger fainted, thinking she was about to be burned to death. Took me the better part of half an hour to bring her round. There was several people who got down, but I was too occupied to notice them. Three women, and a man? I expect that’s right.”
“Can you be sure about the date?” Rutledge persisted.
“It was a clear night—no one had umbrellas up.” He picked up his glasses. “I did count the tickets, and there was the correct number. Four. They’d left them on the bench by the gate.”