A Fearsome Doubt - Charles Todd [124]
They had met in the triangular square within touching distance of the Cavalier’s broad back.
“What brings you to Marling at this hour?” Rutledge asked after greeting him.
Hamilton shrugged. “An errand of mercy, I expect. Elizabeth has asked me to act for this man Dowling is holding for the murders.”
“Indeed!”
“I’m not happy about it. But Elizabeth was adamant. And distraught. Do you know what this is all about? Lydia is very worried, I can tell you!”
“It’s Elizabeth’s place to answer that, not mine. The man Dowling is holding is trying to keep her out of it.” He carefully avoided giving Hauser a name.
“What’s between them? How serious is it?” Hamilton prodded.
“There’s nothing between them as far as I know. I think Elizabeth is—infatuated.”
“Yes, I gathered that. And the man?”
“He’s not what you expect. In other circumstances—who knows?”
“Well. Damn the war, anyway! If Richard had come home, this wouldn’t have happened.”
As he started to drive on toward the station, Rutledge laid a hand on the car. “I’ve a favor of my own to ask.”
“What’s that?”
“A Mrs. Shaw. London, Sansom Street. She’s got no money, and probably no hope of any. It’s about a will. She needs someone to act on her behalf, to protect her children’s interests.”
Hamilton chuckled. “You’re a dangerous man, Rutledge, do you realize that? I haven’t known you a month, and now I’m dragged into a murder case and asked to take on a questionable will.”
Rutledge smiled, and it touched his eyes, lighting them from within. “Yes, well, we’re neither of us in the law for peace of mind.”
“Richard always said you were a philosopher.” With that he drove on, leaving his motorcar in the hotel yard.
AS HE WALKED through the gate up to the Webbers’ door, Rutledge found himself thinking of Peter and his younger sister. What would become of them if their mother was a murderess?
Would they suffer as the Shaw children had done? Or were there relatives to take them in and give them comfort?
This was the distasteful part of his work. On the other hand, who had spoken up for the dead men? Who had heard their voices? Dowling was more concerned with a killer on his patch than he was with men who had slipped into oblivion. They were a blot on his record, and one to be removed. . . .
Rutledge knocked lightly on the door.
It was Monday morning, and Susan Webber, sleeves rolled up, was elbow deep in her tubs. She greeted him with surprise, and said, drying her arms on her apron, “I’m just finishing the wash.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt. I must ask a few more questions.”
She led him into the room where they had talked before, sitting stiffly in a chair facing him.
Hamish said, “You’d think she had a guilty conscience. . . .”
But Rutledge put her nervousness down to talking to the police at all.
“You told me you couldn’t think of anyone who might harm them, your husband or the other men. And you were not prepared to believe your husband had killed himself.”
“Yes, that’s right. What for? Kenny knew we had little enough, with him alive!”
“You’d managed throughout the war without him. Perhaps it would be easier to go on that way.”
She stared at him. “Bringing up two children, without a man? Go and speak with Bobby Nester’s wife! He died of the gas, and she’s making do as best she can. She’d dreaded the day when he was gone, and she’d got nothing. And nobody! Or try talking with my Peter, when he wants to leave school and help me. And I’m telling him that schooling is his only way out of this life. People have been good to us, and I’m not denying it. Kenny would have been proud of that. But it’s not the same. It’ll never be the same again. Who’ll marry a woman with two growing children, and take on that burden?”
There was a sincerity in her voice that made him ashamed of how little a grateful country—a war-bankrupted country—could do for its soldiers and their families. But with hundreds of thousands dead, and so many wounded to care for, proper compensation was out of the question. Even a pittance