Watchers of Time - Charles Todd [105]
Hamish said, “It was no’ a verra’ guid idea after all—”
Rutledge replied absently, “The frustrating part of the search is not knowing what I’m after. Or if it exists in any recognizable fashion.”
Monsignor Holston’s words came back to him: If you come to me with the truth, and I recognize it, I’ll tell you so.
There were other rooms on the first floor. But opening the doors confirmed what Rutledge expected: bedchambers made up for guests, with nothing in them of a personal nature and all of them scrupulously clean.
“You couldna’ hide a wee mouse in here,” Hamish commented as Rutledge closed the last of the doors.
He climbed the narrow, uncarpeted flight of stairs to the top floor. Rooms here had been designed for servants— small and without character, unfurnished for the most part, or cluttered with the collected debris of several generations. Lamps, iron bedsteads, rusted coal scuttles, a wardrobe with one door warped on its hinges, chairs with caned seats that had never been mended, chipped mirrors, and the like. Even a broken window sash leaned against an inside wall next to two rakes whose bamboo handles had splintered.
A few of the odds and ends appeared to have been used year after year for bazaars, including a small cart, half a dozen umbrellas and long wooden tables, boxes of signs and ribbons, and the kit of clown’s makeup that Father James must have favored for entertaining the children.
There was also, near the top of the steps, where Rutledge would have expected to find such things, a small traveling trunk and a valise that bore the priest’s name on the labels. Cheap, conservative, and well worn.
Running probing fingers through the jumble of belongings stored in the trunk, he came across the corners of an envelope, fairly large and rather thick, but unevenly so, as if there were several things stuffed inside. Lifting out the assortment of hats and gloves and hiking boots that lay on top, he picked up the packet, testing its weight in his hands. It had been neither hidden away nor in plain sight.
Letters from Father James’s dead sister Judith? Or the ones he had written to her, with that enigmatic reference to the Giant?
Inspector Blevins would be pleased if they were!
Rutledge sat down on the dusty floorboards, his elbows resting on his bent knees, and held the envelope upright between his spread feet.
There were no identifying marks—it hadn’t been mailed and there was no name on the outside.
As he opened the flap and looked in, Rutledge said “Ah!” in almost a sigh. A fat collection of cuttings met his eye. Drawing them out, careful not to lose one, he could already see that they were newspaper and magazine accounts of the sinking of a ship that was unsinkable.
Sorting through them at random, he noted that certain developments had been clipped together—the publicity over departure, the tragedy, the search for bodies, reports from Ireland, editorial reflections on the tragic loss of life, lists of the dead and missing, accounts of the ensuing inquiry—as if Father James had carefully cataloged each new addition to his accumulating data. In the margins were handwritten notes, referring the reader from one article to another.
Dr. Stephenson was right—this had all the hallmarks of an obsession, not a passing fancy. Too much work had been done to coordinate all the information. Photographs from news accounts ranged from smiling Society figures boarding the great liner to pitiable corpses lying in plain wooden coffins in Ireland, eyes half shut and faces flaccid.
It was, in all conscience, Rutledge thought, a gruesome collection.
He looked down into the trunk to see what else might have been stored there, then ran his fingers again through the oddments of belongings that had formed the bottom layer. A frame came to light, one edge caught in a knitted scarf. Rutledge retrieved it and turned it over.
A young woman standing beside a horse, her face bright in the sun, smiled