A False Mirror - Charles Todd [58]
Rutledge found a cloth under his seat and scrubbed at the inside of the glass, swearing again. Then he tossed the cloth to the doctor, put the motorcar into gear, and turned in a shimmering fan of spray.
They came out of the inn drive and went toward the street that ran along the Mole. “Have you spoken to Bennett?” Rutledge asked, taking the next turn far too fast, feeling the tires slipping sideways in a spin. He brought the vehicle back under control and headed to the east.
“No. I couldn’t face him. I came straightaway for you instead. I thought perhaps—look out, you fool, there’s a bicycle ahead!—damn it, we’re no good to Hamilton or anyone else if we’re dead.”
But Rutledge paid him no heed. Every second counted now. Three minutes later, he found a very wet constable standing under a tree some distance from the drive to the house, where he’d taken what shelter he could find against the trunk.
“How long have you been on duty?” Rutledge asked, lowering the window.
“Since six, sir,” the man answered, looking as wretched as he must feel. “It’s been all quiet at the house. Not a sound out of them.”
“And no one has come in or out?”
“No, sir. No one.”
But if the earlier watcher had been standing where this man was, it would be hard in the dark to know who had come. Or gone.
Rutledge thanked him and drove up to the door.
The shrubbery by the drive was as wet as a rain forest, he thought, getting out to hammer on the house door. And the downpour had hardly lessened since it began.
Mallory came to answer his impatient summons, looking as tired as Rutledge had ever seen him. “What do you want now?” He glanced over Rutledge’s shoulder and saw the doctor in the motorcar.
“For God’s sake, why have you brought him? I’ve done them no harm.”
“Hamilton has disappeared,” Rutledge told him bluntly. “He may have come here. I want to search the house, and after that the grounds.”
“It’s a trick. He’s dead, isn’t he? Well, you aren’t bringing any of your men or Bennett’s here on a pretense to search. I’ll use the revolver if I have to. Do you hear me?”
“He’s missing,” Rutledge said grimly. “You’d better listen to me, Mallory. I’m not here to play at cat and mouse. If he’s been out in this rain for hours, he’ll be running a fever by now, or he could have bled to death from his internal injuries—God only knows. Will you let me in to search or not?”
Mallory called out to Dr. Granville. “Is this true? Is Hamilton gone?”
“In the night,” the doctor confirmed. “He must have come here, man! Where else would he go? In his condition?”
Mallory swore. “He isn’t here, I tell you!” But his gaze moved toward the dark, silent house behind him. “I’d have known.”
“Stay here if you like, and guard the door. But let me search,” Rutledge said rapidly. “I’ll do it alone, and I give you my word now that I have no other motive. I won’t leave a window or door unlocked, I won’t frighten either of the women. It’s his house, Mallory, he knows it better than you do.”
“I thought he was too badly injured to know where he was, much less walk away. You told me as much, damn it,” he retorted accusingly. “You lied to me!”
“We believed it to be true. But you know as well as I do that badly injured men are capable of heroic effort. We saw that often enough in the war, for God’s sake. If he’s determined to know why his wife hasn’t visited him, he may have tried to reach her, for fear something has happened to her as well. Or he may be out for revenge. It’s better if I find him first, before you come on him in the dark.”
The other man stood there, undecided. And then he opened the door wider and let Rutledge step inside, watching the water dripping relentlessly from his coat and his trousers to puddle on the floor.
Mallory gestured to it and said ruefully, “I can’t even call the maid to clear it up. Just stay away from Nan, and from Mrs. Hamilton. And don’t linger. I don’t trust you, and I’ll be searching the house again after you leave. I’m quite serious, Rutledge, don’t drive me into a corner.”
He said to Mallory, “If Hamilton