A False Mirror - Charles Todd [18]
For her sake, he had to do something. He must get her out of this nightmare unscathed, whatever the cost. And then he could go into the garden. It wouldn’t matter anymore.
He couldn’t hide behind her skirts much longer. He shuddered to think what half the town was whispering already.
“Stephen?” Her eyes were pleading with him. “I don’t know anyone at Scotland Yard. Do you?”
He held out his hand for the key to the desk. “There’s someone—I need stationery, an envelope.”
She handed him the key reluctantly, uncertain what he was going to do with it.
He rummaged in the drawer, ignoring the weapon, and drew out several sheets of stationery. Matthew Hamilton’s family crest stared back at him, but he ignored it. Felicity pointed out the pen and ink, and he began to write.
After a moment he stopped, tore up the sheet, and began again.
On the third try he appeared to be satisfied. He handed her the sheet while he wrote a direction on the envelope.
She held the sheet of paper like a lifeline, reading and rereading it:
Bennett, I refuse to surrender to anyone other than Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard. Bring him to me, here, as fast as you can. I won’t be had with promises.
And he’d signed it, simply, Mallory.
“Who is this man Rutledge?” she asked, frowning. “A policeman? He’ll be sure to side with Inspector Bennett. There must be someone else? Someone in the Foreign Office—they’ll take Matthew’s side, won’t they?” She rubbed her eyes with her hands. “I daren’t tell my mother. She’s not well. It will kill her.”
“You wouldn’t know this man. We—we served together in France. And just sending for him will give us a little time, don’t you see? When Matthew comes to his senses and tells Bennett the truth, I won’t need the Yard or anyone else.” It was sheer bravado. His reward was a tiny flicker of hope in her eyes. It faded as quickly as it had flared.
“But will this man travel all the way from London just to let you surrender to him? And what if he does? And Matthew is dead and can’t ever speak? There must be some other way. We’ve got to find a way.”
She looked at him, her face flushed with distress and her eyes filling now with tears. He wanted more than anything to take her in his arms and tell her it would be all right.
If Rutledge wouldn’t come, there was always the revolver in the drawer. He had seen the lock. It was flimsy, it could be broken. And when he was dead, Felicity would be safe. She could tell them whatever she pleased, and it wouldn’t matter how she must blacken his character.
He said none of that to her. But there was bitterness in his voice when he finally answered her.
“There isn’t another way. You should have thought of the consequences before you stopped Inspector Bennett from coming in. It’s too late now, we don’t have many choices left to us.”
7
Bowles was livid.
“Where have you been? Not where you ought to be, that’s certain. I sent men to the park to find you. You were away from your post, damn it!”
“I think I may have—”
“I don’t give a dance in hell what you think, man! You’re off the case.”
“If you will listen to me—sir—”
“Look at this.” Bowles shot a sheet of paper across the desk. “Know this man, do you?”
Rutledge scanned the message. It had come in as a telephone call from the south coast.
One Stephen Mallory holding two women at point of gun, refuses to surrender to local authorities, will speak only to Inspector Rutledge. Wanted for severely beating one Matthew Hamilton and leaving him for dead, for assaulting a police officer in the course of his duties, presently threatening to murder his first victim’s wife and her maid, if Rutledge does not come in person.
Stephen Mallory. His memory rejected the name. Drew a deliberate blank.
But Hamish said roughly, “Lieutenant Mallory.” Reminding him against his will.
The war. So many things came round to the war. He couldn’t escape it, no matter where he turned. For him it had really never ended.
He could feel himself sliding back there again. To the trenches, to the Somme. And Lieutenant Mallory,