She turned, taking the younger boy by the hand, and walked on.
“I’ll send word to the undertaker in Chelmsford,” Wister said quietly. “She can’t see him like this. Tomorrow we’ll have to dig again. Where in God’s name did the head go?”
And he went back inside, firmly shutting the door.
Hamilton said, as they walked back to the station, “Who killed him, then? If he was stabbed.”
Rutledge took a deep breath. “We’ll have to find that out, won’t we?”
Hamilton turned to look at the man walking beside him. “Nothing happens when you’re here, does it? And you’ve been damned mysterious about those times away.”
“They were necessary,” he said tersely, cutting of any further questioning.
But Hamish was hammering in the back of his head. “Yon killer knows when you’re no’ in the village. He’s watching. And waiting.”
Hamish was right, Rutledge thought. His motorcar was distinctive enough, and it was either at the hotel or at the Hall. Easy enough to keep track of its whereabouts. But not even the killer could have known the bones would appear—that it had been decided to work on a flat that hadn’t been productive, hoping to bring it back to usefulness by digging it deeper where Time and lack of attention had seen it grow more shallow.
Hamilton was still asking questions when they reached the hotel, but walked on rather than follow Rutledge inside. For which he was grateful.
After his supper, Rutledge went to call on Mary Dunn, to be sure all was well.
The neighbor who came to the door said, “She’s not seeing anyone. She’s just sitting there in the dark in Gerry’s room. I tried to bring her a cup of tea, but she asked me to go away. She’d kept telling Major Dinsmore that her son wasn’t a deserter. He wouldn’t listen. That’s what’s gnawing at her the most, that everyone called him a deserter, when he wasn’t. And him dead and not able to defend himself from the stories.”
“Tell her I called. We can’t make a positive identification, but the doctor feels the age is right, and the time of death.”
The neighbor’s mouth drew up in a tight line. “That’s only offering her hope. And there is none,” she said finally. “She knows. A mother knows. Let her bury her boy.”
And she closed the door gently but firmly.
Rutledge turned away, angry still with Franklin, who discarded people who were in his way, like Patricia Lowell and now Gerry Dunn.
Almost over his head, the church clock struck the hour. Half past eleven. There was nothing more he could do tonight, but tomorrow—tomorrow would be different.
He was on his way to the police station when he encountered Liz coming down the street.
She stopped him. “Is it true they’ve found Gerald Dunn?” she asked.
“It’s possible that the body could be his.”
Liz sighed. “He was older, he never teased me, when we were in school. Sometimes he’d take up for me when they were particularly nasty. Everyone told me he was a coward, he’d deserted. I didn’t want to believe it. He’d stood up to the bullies.”
“It’s very late, you shouldn’t be out on the street like this.”
She smiled. “I’ve been to see Mrs. Hailey. She’s teaching me how to serve properly. There’s a place coming open at the hotel, it’s only in the kitchen, but she told me that if I showed promise, I’d be taken on in the dining room.”
“I’m pleased to hear it,” he told her.
“Yes, she stopped me on the street, and asked me if I was free to leave the pub whenever I wished. I told her I had no other way to keep myself, but I hated The Salt Cellar.” The smile widened. “I can’t believe anyone would do such a thing for me, but I’m not to tell, not until I’m ready to give my notice.”
“Yes, that’s very wise.” His mind still on Franklin, he added, “I hear the pub has rooms to let?”
“You don’t want to go there. There are cockroaches.” She shivered. “I see them on the walls of the kitchen.”
“I’m not going there. But I’m curious about someone who might have stayed there at one time. Several weeks ago, perhaps.”
“There hasn’t been anyone staying, not for months. People who come to Walmer stay in the hotel if they have any sense at all. And I told you before, the rooms have other uses.”
He thanked her, and watched her on her way, then went on to the police station. Hamilton had just come in from his own dinner, and was finishing his report on the body. He looked up, and Rutledge saw the dark smudges of worry under his eyes.
He said, “The Chief Constable wants to speak to me. Two murders and no one taken up for them. You’re to come as well. He’s worried about Lady Benton.”
“Put him off if you can. It’s too soon.”
Hamilton shook his head. “I don’t know if I can. I’ll be here long after you’ve gone. I’m the one who has to think about the future.” He rubbed his eyes, and said, “What is it you want at this hour?”
“You’ve told me that there have been no strangers in Walmer recently. Since all this began. Are you sure of that?”
“Of course I am,” Hamilton snapped. “If there were, I’d already be questioning them. I don’t know anyone in this village who might want to kill Mrs. Lowell. Damn it, most of us pitied her, losing her husband so young. As for Gerald Dunn, the Army was thorough in their search for him. I wonder if Wister is sure about that knife wound. I’d be more willing to believe he killed himself. But then who dismembered the body?”
“I’d like four or five men for a search party. It shouldn’t take long.”
“At this hour? What in hell’s name for?”
Rutledge ignored the sarcasm.
“In the morning. I want to begin with the pubs, the hotel, the lodging houses. Anywhere that a man might sleep for a night—perhaps two. A stranger who came to look for work. A traveler who might even have been here before, in the past. I need to find him.”
“You’re wasting your time. I live here, I know who comes and goes.”
But when Rutledge arrived at the station just after seven the next morning, Hamilton had collected a handful of men and was already giving them their instructions. Ten minutes later, Rutledge and Hamilton stopped at the Swan Hotel themselves, to look through the register at the desk.
The flustered clerk kept demanding a name. “It’s easier to look for a name. You must have one, surely?”
Rutledge handed him a slip of paper. On it were the four names he’d come to think might be his quarry: Jonathan Howe, Joseph Betterman, Allen Cooper, and Albert Reed.
They had never stayed at the Swan.
Outside, as they moved on, Hamilton asked, “Where did you get those names?”
“The Yard,” Rutledge told him, and refused to answer any more questions. “I’d like to question Johnson at The Salt Cellar myself. Your men know the few lodging houses, and where people take in occasional guests.”
Hamilton was still grumbling as they made their way down to the harbor. Walking into the door of The Salt Cellar, he called, “Anyone here?”