A Fearsome Doubt - Charles Todd [102]
“Fair enough,” Rutledge replied. “You might begin with our drunk from Seelyham.” And then, earnestly, he added, “If I tell you the whole story, people are going to jump to conclusions that will only muddle the facts. I need your help, but I don’t want it prejudiced by my suspicions. There’s probably enough circumstantial evidence to charge my theoretical victim, but when we do, the real killer will be the one who goes to ground. And the chances are, we won’t winkle him out again.”
“You’ve an odd way of putting it, but I see your point,” Dowling answered reluctantly. “On the other hand, I heard from London that you were a secretive bastard who played his own game. Perhaps there’s more to that than I was ready to believe.”
Rutledge smiled. “Not secretive. Merely careful. You’ll still be in charge here long after I’m gone. If I’m wrong, you won’t be brought down with me.”
HE WENT BACK to the hotel and made an effort to sleep for a few hours. But his usual ability to close his eyes and ignore the world around him eluded him, and for a time Rutledge lay there on the bed, rigid, one arm flung over his closed eyes, and his mind wrestling with one image after another. He could feel the tension in his bones, and for a while he thought he would never sleep again.
It began to occur to him that there was one grain of good in the disaster of his war. A single saving grace. He knew now he’d never abandoned his men before the fighting ended. He hadn’t walked away from the line while they were dying. Whatever else he had been and done, he had not forsaken them.
And with that, he drifted into a restless sleep.
It was sometime later that he was summoned to the lounge. Elizabeth Mayhew was waiting there. She was beyond anguish now, her eyes burning in a pale face, her hands tightly gripped together as if to keep them from shaking.
“I’ve looked everywhere. I telephoned the hotel in Rochester. There’s no one registered under that name . . .”
He sat down on the small footstool beside her chair. “What name do you know him by?”
“Gunter Hauser, of course!”
“Has he ever shown you his papers?”
“No, why should he? Do you go about showing people yours?” She remembered that he was a policeman. “I mean, at dinner parties or a cricket match?”
“Of course not.” Looking at her dark blue coat and the patterned silk of her collar, he was reminded of the Shaws and their faded, ill-fitting clothes. And that reminded him in turn of something that Melinda Crawford had told him. “Did Hauser give you the gift of a silk shawl?”
Elizabeth turned her head. “It’s none of your business.”
Which answered his question. “You know he was married? And that he has children?”
Her eyes came back to his. “It doesn’t make any difference. What kind of life will I have as Richard’s widow? Shall I travel, as Melinda Crawford did after her husband was killed? Or take up charity work? Set my cap for someone like you, who was Richard’s friend long before he was mine, because I’d rather have a safe marriage and children than none at all? You don’t know what it’s like, Ian, you aren’t a woman! It’s so easy for you to find love!”
Was it? He said only, “I’m not criticizing you, Elizabeth. I am trying to protect you. What if this man is a murderer? I’ve got witnesses who could identify him, people who will swear that he’s been stopping ex-soldiers and asking them for information about Jimsy Ridger. It casts a very bad light on his activities, when there’ve been murders among this same group of men. If you love him, of course I’ll do what I can for him. But if he’s guilty of murder, I can’t let him walk free! Nor should you expect me to.”
She seemed to shrink into herself, suddenly small and defenseless and very afraid in the overlarge chair. “Oh, Ian, how did we ever come to this?”
He could see the tears in her eyes. And the sorrow. He didn’t have an answer to give her.
“If Richard had only come home, none of this would have mattered, would it?” she asked. “But he didn’t, and