A False Mirror - Charles Todd [138]
He was heavily asleep, a pillow under his bad leg, and one arm thrown across his face. Rutledge woke him with some difficulty, and said, “I want you to come with me.”
Hamilton scrubbed his face with his hands. “Where am I? I don’t remember.”
“The Duke of Monmouth.”
“Yes, of course. Give me a few minutes.” But he lay there as if the willpower needed to get out of bed had slipped away in the night. “I don’t have any shaving gear. I’d like to clean myself up a little before Felicity sees me. Are you going to tell her, or will I?”
“Leave it to me. Are you coming?”
It took Hamilton all of ten minutes to dress, but he walked through the door finally and said quietly, “The leg hurts like the very devil.”
“It’s damp out this morning. A sea mist again.”
And there was a white blanket over the village, drifting in off the sea with a softness that could be felt on the skin.
There was no way that Hamilton could have walked up the hill, though it would have been less conspicuous. Rutledge held the door of the motorcar for him, but Hamilton refused his help getting in. As the engine came alive with a smooth roar, Rutledge said, “You’ll do exactly as I tell you. I don’t want to frighten them. Mallory is armed. He’s held Mrs. Hamilton at gunpoint in that house since you were found on the strand. The rector is there with her, and I can tell you that Mallory hasn’t harmed her. Inspector Bennett tried to arrest him, and he bolted. Mrs. Hamilton came home to find him in the house. Mallory told Bennett that he wouldn’t cooperate unless I was brought in to get to the bottom of what was going on.”
“I thought you were a friend of Miranda’s. How do you know all this?”
“I’m from Scotland Yard, Hamilton. Don’t you remember my telling you last night? Mallory sent for me. That’s why I knew so much about the inquiry.”
“You tricked me into a confession.”
“Did I? I thought it was given of your own free will. Is there any part of it you want to change?”
“Sadly, no. I wish I could. How am I going to face Felicity, with this on my conscience? I’ve thought about that and still have no answer for it.”
Rutledge put the motorcar in gear and drove to the road leading up to Casa Miranda. “Why did you name your house here and in Malta for Miss Cole?” he asked.
“As a reminder that I owed her my career.”
They didn’t speak again until Rutledge had pulled up before the front door.
It was several minutes before Mallory answered the summons of Rutledge’s knock. He said at once, “Damn it, you weren’t here last night. Putnam and I had to hold the fort.”
“Any trouble?”
“No, but we couldn’t know that, could we? It was a bloody long night.”
“There was something I had to do. How is Mrs. Hamilton feeling this morning?”
“Better, if Putnam is to be believed.”
“I’ve brought someone to see her.”
Mallory craned his neck to look toward the motorcar. “If it’s Miss Esterley, she’s too—” He stopped, his face registering a variety of emotions, uppermost among them shock and then anger. “If you’ve taken him into custody, she’ll have my head. Where did you find him?”
“In Exeter. It’s a long story. I’d like to bring him into the house. There are things he needs. Razor, a change of clothing.”
“Did he kill those women? In God’s name, why?”
“More to the point, he doesn’t remember what happened to him. And very little of the time he was under Dr. Granville’s care.”
“I thought you said he was being kept sedated. For the pain. And that it had played with his mind, what he’d heard while he was half conscious. You told us that.”
“What he does recall is tangled now. Will you let him in?”
Mallory said with bitterness, “Why not? It’s his house, after all. Everyone else has come and gone. And I shan’t be taken up now for killing him.”
“You may still stand trial for the attack on him.”
“I didn’t touch him, Rutledge. Haven’t you asked him yet?” He took a deep breath. “I don’t know how to feel now that it’s over. I’m so tired I can’t think.”
“Not quite over. Will you go and make tea? I think he’s going to need it.”
“Tell him—tell him I never would