A Fearsome Doubt - Charles Todd [84]
A bicycle, then, for a man unaccustomed to country distances . . .
And he thought he knew where to find one.
RUTLEDGE WALKED THROUGH the hotel doors and turned toward the dining room, in search of a cup of tea.
The man behind the desk said, “Inspector? There’s a letter for you. It came in the morning post.”
He turned back, and the man limped around the desk to meet him halfway.
Glancing at it, he couldn’t place the writing. It was rounded, curlicued, as if the owner had been at great effort to conceal his or her normal hand.
Going through the dining room door, he tore open the envelope and unfolded the letter.
It had come from Mrs. Shaw.
This woman, he thought tiredly, would haunt him like the husband he’d sent to a doubtful death.
Dear Mr. Rutledge,
I am hoping you are making some progress in the matter of my husband’s innocence. I cannot think why you have not come to see Henry Cutter and look for the chain to the locket that is still lying in Mrs. Cutter’s chest, where I left it. The locket is proof that someone besides my Ben killed those women, and I don’t know why it is taking so long to bring the truth to light! My heart is breaking with the weight of my worry, and yet nothing is happening to help my family recover from this terrible burden. You mustn’t let us down! We are counting on you to save us. It is poor recompense for not being able to bring my Ben back to life, but it will give my children a chance to live properly when the stigma is removed from our name. I do not want to die of hard work and hopelessness. It must be God who rectifies the wrong done to my poor husband, but you have it in your power to give something back to me and mine.
Your trusting servant,
Nell Shaw.
Rutledge swore under his breath.
She was a master at touching him on the raw. She seemed to see into his soul and find the most certain way of stirring up guilt and mistrust of his own judgment. She had brought her daughter with her, she had come on swollen feet to hunt him down, and she held over his head like the sword of Damocles the knowledge that he may well have failed her and her children.
And yet he was beginning to see, too, the will that must have driven Ben Shaw to murder, to satisfy the needs that this woman had felt were rightfully hers. Middle-aged and far from attractive, Nell Shaw still had a power that was intransigent and unyielding.
And yet Henry Cutter had admired her strength. . . .
He read the letter again. She pleaded as well as any K.C., he thought bitterly, her abilities wasted by her station in life and her limited opportunities.
But was she telling the truth?
He didn’t know. Nell Shaw believed it. And that was all that mattered to her.
RUTLEDGE SLEPT FOR four hours. Rousing himself at the end of that allotted time with the internal clock that more than one soldier had taught himself to use—when a lighted match to see the face of a watch spelled death from a waiting sniper or machine-gunner—he dressed in dark clothes and pulled a heavy black sweater over his head. Lacing his boots, he went through a mental checklist. Satisfied that he was ready, he descended the back stairs and slipped out to the hotel yard.
The night porter kept his bicycle there, and from casual observation Rutledge had noted that it arrived at the same time every evening, departing at the same time every morning. In between it was never moved.
Availing himself of it, Rutledge tested the tires and the brakes, and then, reassured that it would serve him well enough, mounted it and rode out into the quiet High Street.
It was a little after ten-thirty