Watchers of Time - Charles Todd [38]
Hamish, with relish, reminded him that there was no longer a case. “If yon Strong Man is the murderer, it’s no’ your duty to finish the investigation.”
Rutledge heard him, and even agreed. But he was not satisfied.
If he was guilty, Walsh’s motive had been theft. To pay for his new cart. And Father James most certainly would have recognized him. Even in a dark room, the sheer size of the man would have given him away. That alone might have turned Father James toward the window to call for help. On the other side of the coin, if Walsh had been startled to find someone walking into the study, he couldn’t have guessed that the priest was not likely to press charges. Cornered, he would have tried to protect himself as best he could, and once the crucifix was in his hand, it was a very small, frantic step to using it. A frightened man, looking for a way out . . .
What would Mrs. Wainer have to say to that? Or Monsignor Holston?
Even Inspector Blevins, with his man apparently safely tucked away in a cell, had asked Rutledge to stay on in Osterley.
Why?
By the time Rutledge had reached his dessert, he had come to realize that each of Father James’s defenders had spread over the indignity and degradation of murder a cloak of tragedy. But even their vision of that cloak was different.
What was it about this priest’s death that made everyone wary of the simple truth? Or made the simple truth a very odd choice? What had they failed to tell their visitor from Scotland Yard?
Hamish interrupted him to ask why a Protestant in apparently good standing with his own pastor would suddenly demand to see a different one—and one outside his own faith? It was not something that set well with his Covenanter’s view of things. Come to that, he persisted, why would Father James feel concerned about that dying Protestant’s mental stability?
Rutledge was moving on to the lounge for his tea. In a quiet corner, where the bay window looked out over the dark gardens, he discovered that he was staring at his own reflection in the uneven, two-hundred-year-old glass. It distorted his features, giving him a sinister look. But mercifully, the chair had been set at an angle, the reflection of Rutledge’s right shoulder masked by the shadows of the velvet drapes, and there was no way to tell if there was anyone standing behind him— A shiver ran through him and he turned away from the window. Even the teacup in his hands couldn’t warm the coldness that had touched him—what if the chair had been placed only another few inches one way or the other, and he had stared without warning into a bloody and accusing face?
Hamish prodded again, the voice just out of Rutledge’s line of sight. Still shaken, it took him several minutes to answer.
Confession was a sacrament in the Catholic Church. . . . The stricture on silence was not as strong in the Church of England.
If there had been something on the old man’s conscience, something serious enough for confession to ease his dying, he might well have chosen not to tell his own Vicar. As Dr. Stephenson himself had pointed out, Sims knew the family—the wife, if there was one, the children. Instead Baker might have turned to a priest who not only was bound by secrecy but had no close ties with the survivors.
“I canna’ see it makes sae great a difference! Unless the truth would prevent Baker from lying in consecrated ground.”
That was something Rutledge hadn’t considered.
“He wouldna’ fash himsel’ o’er small sins,” Hamish continued. “And I canna’ think whatever it was weighed sae heavily on his conscience, if he carried it about wi’ him to auld age!”
Rutledge agreed. Nothing so common as infidelity or an unpaid debt would send Father James to the doctor to ask questions about Baker’s sanity. And a man confessing to a sin, even to a crime long forgotten by everyone else, would present no question of conscience for the priest. A dying man was past trying in a court of law.