Rutledge wasn’t listening. Farmer didn’t know that Bert and his helpers had been let go.
He thanked the Rector and left.
On his way back to Walmer, he made two stops.
The first was at the Old Rectory, where he spent ten minutes looking for any sign of rats in the shed where Mrs. Lowell had kept her bicycle. But he found no sign of them, and there was no indication someone had been there to destroy a nest.
He went on to the Abbey. Lady Benton was busy but Margaret told him what he wanted to know.
“Bert left in early November, and the two under gardeners left about two weeks before him, because they’d found work at one of the estates in Suffolk. There hasn’t been anyone else.”
“Had Mrs. Lowell told you about the rat problem in her shed?”
“Rats?” She made a face. “Were you there at the house? Is that how you found them? She would have hated that. Nasty things, rats. We keep a sharp eye out for them here.”
He thanked her and left.
If the man the Rector had seen at the Old Rectory was Franklin, if the suitcase left at The Monk’s Choice was his, where was he now? And had he been the man the elderly woman had seen sleeping by the table tomb in the Rector’s churchyard?
That would mean he’d reached England, had had to sleep rough the first night, then was given a room at The Monk’s Choice.
But when Rutledge stopped there to demand an answer, Newbold swore that there had been no strangers there. And he denied all knowledge of the suitcase under the bed.
Oddly enough he appeared to be telling the truth.
Frustrated, Rutledge set out for Chelmsford. He’d have preferred London, to speak to Haldane face-to-face, but if he was being watched, he dared not stay away another night.
Someone was using the hotel’s telephone when he got there, and Rutledge paced for a good ten minutes before it was free.
He put through the call to Haldane’s house, was asked to wait—another five minutes—and by the time Haldane’s voice came over the receiver, he was in no mood to be kept in the dark.
He said, “There’s something missing in the information I’ve been given about Franklin. I need to know if there is any link he or his family might have had to East Anglia—or Essex in particular? Why, if he was here during the war, did he come back here? Why not Northumberland or Cornwall?”
“We can’t seem to find any more information about him. It’s possible that Franklin isn’t his real name. Still, there is no evidence to support that either. He seems to have come out of nowhere.”
“He was a schoolmaster in Dorset. There would have to be some credentials. Some proof that he was trained for that profession.”
“When we looked into them, they proved to have been forged. The headmaster told the police that Franklin gave every impression of having been well educated. But where is still a mystery. We can’t trace him beyond that first set of murders, the ones before Dorset. Which leads me to think he’s had to change his name several times. The barrister who took on his case in Dorset told us Franklin claimed he had no family living.”
“And you’ve been to Somerset House?”
“We have. The only Franklin who might have been our man died as a child.”
“Then he found the name in a churchyard.”
There was brief silence on the other end of the line. Then Haldane said, “A very good guess, Rutledge. The child died in a small village near Lancaster in 1876. But there was no trace of Miles Franklin there. One of the other schoolmasters in Dorset did mention to the police that he thought Franklin had a brother, but they were estranged. The question arose because Franklin never got any mail addressed through the school. The schoolmaster asked if he had any family, and that was why the mention of a brother came up. Another lie? Or the truth? So far we’ve been unable to trace so much as a cousin. But then the man is an accomplished liar.”
There was a reply swirling in the back of his mind now, but he wasn’t ready to put it to the test. He thanked Haldane and hung up.
Then stood there thinking. . . .
He’d asked over and over again if there had been any strangers in the village, and the answer had consistently been no.
Because there were no strangers. But there was someone’s relative, accounted for and accepted, for the simple reason someone could vouch for him. It was the only explanation for the man’s ability to come and go without attracting attention.
Hamish said, his voice loud against the bustle in the lobby just around the corner from the telephone closet, “Newbold.”
That made sense. It explained why, having to leave France so abruptly, Franklin had come back to Walmer. It was where the valise had been shoved to the far corner underneath the bed in the other room upstairs in The Monk’s Choice. And Newbold could lie with a straight face about strangers staying there.
He must have enjoyed deceiving the police . . .
And Newbold could easily have been the “victim” in that charade in Lady Benton’s garden.
The question that still needed to be answered was, given that Franklin had found temporary sanctuary in Essex, why had he brought attention to himself by playing at being a ghost, and then killing Patricia Lowell? Franklin had always appeared to kill for his own benefit. What was the benefit in Walmer?
16
Rutledge went directly to the Abbey as soon as he reached the turn for Walmer.
The gates were open, and two motorcars were waiting in front of the great doors.
There were guests today.
He walked in, went through the state rooms toward the sitting room, and encountered a party of five being taken round by Lady Benton herself.
He nodded to the surprised guests, and went on through to the sitting room.
Almost an hour later, Lady Benton came to find him.
“I heard that the body of Gerald Dunn has been found. How awful! I’m afraid my first thought was gratitude that he wasn’t on my property. I don’t think I could have borne it.”
She sat down in her usual chair, and almost in the same moment, the door opened again and Mrs. Hailey brought in a tray of tea and biscuits. She nodded to Rutledge and said to Lady Benton, “They’ve gone. And very happy with their tour.”
“Thank you, Margaret. That’s marvelous.”
When Mrs. Hailey had left, Lady Benton busied herself with the tea things, and when she had given Rutledge his cup, she sat down and sipped hers gratefully.
“I don’t find the same joy in the tours as I once did. I’m almost afraid I’ll find a body in one of the rooms, much to the horror of my guests.”
He said, “I’ve come to ask you about four names. I’d like to know if you recognize any of them.”
“Names? Of the airmen, you mean?”
“Yes.” He took the list from his pocket and read them one at a time, waiting for her to respond. “Jonathan Howe. He was a mechanic.”
“Howe . . . Oh, yes, he was too large to fly, perhaps taller than you, and several times he came in to help us shift a heavy piece of furniture.”
“Joseph Betterman. A clerk.”
“Yes, he was a bookkeeper before the war. Tall, thin. He helped Margaret set up a much better accounting system. We still use it.”
“Allen Cooper. Another mechanic?”