Wings of Fire - Charles Todd [7]
It was not something Bowles relished, and he put off any briefings for three whole days.
Then fate stepped in—he had extraordinary good fortune, he told himself, it was a sign of his righteous nature—and offered a partial solution. He grabbed it with both fists, and had soon twisted it around to his own satisfaction. Then, with energy and a sense of mission, he went to find Inspector Rutledge.
It was a warm day in early July, the sun flooding the dusty windows and collecting in pools on the dusty floor of the small office Rutledge had been allotted.
‘‘Beautiful day! Damned shame to be shut up inside. And I’m off to the City and conferences for the rest of the afternoon.”
Rutledge, looking up from his paperwork, said, “The Ripper?” He’d been expecting Bowles to send for him.
“Yes, they’ve all but called him that, haven’t they? Certainly drawn every parallel they can think of, although this fellow doesn’t gut his victims, just all but flays them, there’s so many cuts on the body. Still, it’s bloody enough to make the innuendos successful. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. It’s this.”
He tossed a heavy sheet of paper on Rutledge’s desk, and it settled upside down on the dark green blotter. Rutledge turned it over and saw the crest at the top. “Home Office.”
“Yes, well, that’s where it came from, but if you want my own interpretation, it originated in the War Office. Or the Foreign Ministry. Read it.”
Rutledge scanned the typed lines.
It said, in the flowery phrases of a man asking a favor he didn’t care to ask, that Scotland Yard was kindly requested to look into a trio of deaths in Cornwall that had been ruled a double suicide and an accidental death. The local people had not seen fit to pursue the cases further, but now information had come to hand that these were possibly not, in fact, what they appeared. If an officer could be spared from the Yard to travel to Cornwall and quietly go over the evidence, to be sure that ail was as it should be, the undersigned would be very grateful.
Rutledge considered the letter again, then regarded Bowles. “What cases? And what new information?”
“It seems,” Bowles said, availing himself of a chair, “that a certain Lady Ashford, who is somehow related to all three deceased parties, felt that there had been a hasty judgment, and insufficient consideration had been given to the likelihood of murder. Sounds like the old bitch got left out of the wills, and is now raising holy hell with some lord or other of her acquaintance, and he’s palmed her off on another lord in the Home Office, who’s now palming her off on us, worse luck!”
Suddenly realizing what he’d just been saying, Bowles’ amber goat’s eyes flickered. In his irritation, he’d lost sight of his goal. Rapidly mending fences, he added, “It means, of course, that whoever we send out has got to mind his manners with the local people and still satisfy this Lady Ashford that her fears are groundless. Or, if they aren ‘t, reopen the cases as soon as possible and deal with them before we all get a black name for sheer incompetence.” He gestured to the letter. “He’s important, this Secretary. If we don’t please him, we’ll never hear the end of it from upstairs.”
Rutledge read the letter again. “There’s a Henry Ashford in the Foreign Office,” he said thoughtfully. “Very highly placed.” He had gone to school with Ashford’s brother.
Trust Rutledge to know! Bowles scowled. “Yes, well, that’s as may be.”
“And you want me to go to Cornwall?”
“It’s the kind of thing you can handle. Bennett, now, he’s available, but he’s as clumsy as hell when it comes to soothing ruffled feathers in little old ladies, however good he is in Whitechapel. And there’s Harrison. I could spare him, but he’s not got the patience to pussyfoot around anyone else’s investigation. He’ll go in with the notion they’re in the wrong and before you know it, the Chief Constable will be demanding his recall! And the Home Office will be wanting to know what