A False Mirror - Charles Todd [148]
“Where will you go when this business is over?”
“Back to Dr. Beatie for a time, to work my way through everything that happened here. After that, abroad, possibly. It’s my turn for exile.”
“You could still marry happily and put this far behind.”
“What became of the girl whose photograph you carried with you in France?”
Rutledge hesitated. “She’s living in Canada now. It didn’t work out for me any more than it did for you and hundreds like us.”
“I watched Felicity change in just the few days we were shut in here together. I’ve got much to answer for. I understand now how she could have changed so much in three years. We didn’t think about that, in France. We believed England was there, that it would always be just the same as it was when we left. More fools we.”
“We were too busy staying alive.”
Mallory took a deep breath. “Do you know yet who’s behind this?”
“I’ve a very good idea.”
“I’d like to kill him with my bare hands and save the hangman his trouble.”
“Do you still have Hamilton’s revolver?”
“I put it back in the drawer, where I’d found it.”
“I’d keep it with you tonight. I want you to prepare yourself a pallet on the floor, the far side of Hamilton’s bed. If anyone comes through that door, and you have any reason to worry, shoot first and ask questions later.”
“Felicity is likely to come in there. I can’t risk shooting her.”
“Lock her in her room.”
“She’ll be furious with me!”
“Better furious than dead. Will you do as I say?”
“I don’t have any choice. But you’d better tell Hamilton why I’m armed. He’s likely to have something to say about that.”
Shortly afterward, Rutledge left the Hamilton house and walked down the hill into Hampton Regis. From a vantage point well out of sight, he waited outside the rectory for an hour and a half.
At last he saw Dr. Granville leave, carrying his medical bag and walking briskly in the direction of the Mole.
Rutledge had made sure that Putnam was safely ensconced at Casa Miranda, and now, with Granville gone, the rectory was empty.
He walked up the drive, cast a glance over his shoulder, and tried the door. It was unlocked.
Inside, the rectory echoed its Victorian roots, a small house that had grown into a three-story collection of passages and rooms and dead ends to house a growing family. The rector used only a small part of the first floor, meeting his needs with a room in which to sleep and another for what appeared to be an overflow of books from his study. Furnishings in the rest of the bedchambers were sheathed in dust covers.
Granville had been given the guest room, newly aired. Rutledge, putting his head around the door, saw the doctor’s valise standing under the window and a pair of shoes set neatly by the wardrobe. Granville’s possessions held no interest for him, and he withdrew, continuing his search.
But Putnam’s belongings did. He scoured the rector’s bedroom and the adjoining dressing room, which had been converted into a bath. Then he went down the steps and repeated his search on the ground floor. He ended in the plant room.
Rutledge had just put his hands on what he’d been searching for when he heard the hall door of the rectory open and then footsteps in the hall. He put the hammer back into the wooden box with the rest of the rectory tools, exactly as he’d found it, and got to his feet.
Hamish, warning him with a sharp word, added, “He’s away up the stairs.”
The door to the gardens was not five feet from his elbow.
Avoiding the clutter of rakes and shovels, baskets, cutting shears, and aging Wellingtons gathering dust on either side of him, Rutledge reached for the knob, praying that the door wasn’t locked. It was not. He went through it quietly and walked close to the side of the house until he reached the shrubbery. It led to the low churchyard wall. He followed the grassy path there and spent some time wandering among the gravestones, in plain sight. He hoped that he would leave the impression of a man with something on his mind, seeking solace among the dead.
As the clock over his head in