Legacy of the Dead - Charles Todd [114]
“It was an old crime, and you have nothing to fear. If you like, I’ll just set these in the hotel lobby and walk with you.”
She wasn’t mollified. “And ruin my reputation for good? They’ll be whispering behind their hands tomorrow. And I can’t afford it!”
He said contritely, “I’m sorry. I thought the murders were common knowledge. I’ll walk down the other side of the street and keep an eye on you.”
Ann Tait shook her head. “No. I can look after myself.” She turned to go and then swung around. “If you mention a word of this to Dorothea MacIntyre and frighten her to death, I’ll see that you pay dearly for it!”
“I spoke to you,” he said, “because I thought you might give me information. It appears that we’re both in the dark. But Dorothea MacIntyre won’t hear such things from me, I promise you.”
She walked away. He watched her for a time, the swing of her shoulders and the straight back. She had confessed to envy of Eleanor Gray. But he thought that the two women were in many ways very much alike. Independent. Willing to make a life for themselves with their own two hands. Hiding behind a brusque shell because it saved them from pain.
White lace gowns with satin sashes and broad-brimmed hats had passed with 1914, along with lawn tennis and picnics on the Thames and a much simpler world. There were thousands of Ann Taits making a living for themselves now, and hundreds of Eleanor Grays looking for a different future. Five years, and a colder, bleaker world of war had reshaped a generation of women as well as men.
AS RUTLEDGE STOPPED at the desk to pick up his key, the clerk handed it to him and then reached into a drawer to find a folded sheet with his name on it.
In his room he unfolded it and read the brief lines written on it.
Sergeant Gibson requests that you call him at your earliest convenience.
Rutledge took out his watch and looked at the time. Far too late to find Gibson at the Yard.
He began to unpack, with Hamish rumbling at his back.
IT WAS NEARLY ten o’clock the next morning before Rutledge could reach Gibson.
The sergeant said, “It wasn’t a piece of cake. But I found the engraver.”
“That’s very good news,” Rutledge applauded. “I’m grateful.”
“You won’t be,” Gibson retorted, “when you hear what I have to say.”
The brooch had been engraved in a back street in Glasgow nearly three weeks before it had been “found” in Glencoe. It was a small shop that specialized in buying and selling jewelry. The owner was frequently asked to remove or change the engraving on items left for resale. But he seldom had the opportunity to use his skills on a piece that had no previous markings on it. He had objected when the man who brought in the cairngorm brooch insisted that the work appear older than it was. But the price agreed on helped overcome any qualms he might have had.
“Could the shopkeeper give you a description of the man who brought in the brooch?”
“Better than that. It had to be left and picked up in three days’ time. A name had to be put down on the card.”
Rutledge felt his spirits soar.
“Tell me. What was it?”
“Alistair McKinstry.”
24
STUNNED, RUTLEDGE ASKED GIBSON TO REPEAT THE name. He did.
“I asked for a physical description as well.” But the engraver had relied on the name. “He finally told me that the man was Scots—medium height, medium coloring, medium build. He might remember more if you confronted him with McKinstry. Then again, he might not. He wasn’t interested in the man, only the work that he was being paid to do.”
Rutledge thanked him and slowly put down the telephone receiver.
He refused to believe it. In the first place, it made no sense. McKinstry had been Fiona MacDonald’s champion from the very beginning—
Hamish said, “He had access to a key to The Reivers.”
Fiona MacDonald had said that McKinstry had probably seen her wearing her mother’s brooch. He must have known that it existed. And it would take him only a short time to search Fiona’s room for her jewelry.
The brooch had become the final