A Fearsome Doubt - Charles Todd [133]
His first reaction was “No—!”
And yet—it made a dreadful sense. Here was the hidden killer, the murderer seemingly with no motive. One not driven by familiar emotions—not guilt nor compassion nor greed nor vengeance. A hidden face, turned inward toward a grief that had no means of expression. And how in the scheme of things, had that grief turned to murder?
Hamish pressed, “Are ye verra’ sure?”
“It has to be. There’s no other answer,” Rutledge responded grimly. “We looked at the wine, and not the laudanum. We looked for any connection with victims, and there was none. We looked for opportunity, and didn’t see how it could be accomplished. We told ourselves it was the darkness that mattered—we told ourselves it was the road—we believed it had to do with men who’d fought together. And in the end it was none of these things. It all came back to dying . . .”
The sound came again. A footfall, too heavy to be concealed, echoing through the silent house and rising up the open stairwell.
“In the hall, then,”
“Yes.”
“Aye.”
Rutledge stayed where he was, furiously thinking through his experiences in Marling.
Chief Superintendent Bowles had been aware of his revived interest in the Shaw case—and had laid his plans accordingly. He’d used the Chief Constable and Raleigh Masters to keep his eye on Rutledge, and he’d isolated his troublesome inspector in Kent, where he could do no harm. But it had backfired, this stirring up of passions and fears . . .
Raleigh Masters, whose own obsession was Matthew Sunderland, had been primed to dislike and distrust the man sent down from London. And he’d had no qualms about showing it publicly.
But the fear that drove Raleigh Masters had nothing to do with Matthew Sunderland.
Raleigh Masters had already suspected who the killer was, and had done his best to throw Rutledge off the scent. A subtle legal mind’s misdirection . . .
It had succeeded admirably, because Rutledge had been thoroughly blinded by Nell Shaw’s vehement determination, driven and cornered and harangued into half believing her web of lies. He’d been distracted by Gunter Hauser and Elizabeth Mayhew. By that sudden return of a missing part of his memory and the truth about the end of his own war. He had been vulnerable, and Masters, the wily barrister, had recognized that.
But what had Raleigh Masters seen that he hadn’t?
A multitude of small signs, the first withering of the spirit, eyes that looked away, a silence where there had been conversation, an empty bed, the sound of a motorcar in the night . . . Little wonder that Rutledge had missed them: He hadn’t been privy to them. And whenever there was a chance that he might see too much, he’d been passionately attacked by Masters, driving him out.
He set the lamp down in the room nearest him, where the door was still ajar, and with great care he closed it behind him, shutting off the light.
Walking with the quiet tread of a soldier accustomed to the stealth of night attacks, Rutledge went down the passage and then descended the flight of stairs to the first floor.
The darkness seemed absolute after the brightness of the lamp.
And he could feel, like pressing ghosts, the presence of someone else, standing below him, looking up toward him from the hall.
“Rutledge?”
The voice was pitched to carry.
“I’m here.”
“So you are.” There was an inflection of satisfaction. “Odd place to find you, I couldn’t think why you’d come here. But it suited me well enough, too.”
“Did you follow me?”
“With great difficulty, I’m afraid. Yes. And I’d seen you outside the gates before this, if you remember. The grass was beaten down.”
Rutledge began to descend the stairs. “Do you know where Brereton is?”
“It’s my blood, not his, flung around the sitting room. If that’s what you’re asking. I believe he went up to London on a private matter. Last week he’d mentioned something to that effect. It had slipped my mind.”
“Where is she?”
“I’d like you to see for yourself. What did you do