there’s smoke, there’s fire, they say. But I’m not prepared to believe that. I’d rather believe that the letter-writer chose her- his-targets very carefully. Some people relish gossip if it’s shocking enough.”
“Will you make a list of all the people who have admitted to receiving these letters? What they do for a living. What reason they might have had for disliking the accused. How well they might have known her.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll do that today. But, begging your pardon, sir, I don’t see how that will help you find out the truth about the bones said to be Lady Maude Gray’s daughter’s.” He shook his head. “And that’s another whole kettle of fish.”
“It is,” Rutledge agreed. “But in my experience, where coincidence dovetails so perfectly, it becomes suspect. First we have these letters, apparently accepted as truthful. And now you tell me there was another one, from here-or from Glasgow, depending on how reliable the postmark may be- only this anonymous writer stoutly defends the accused, and in so doing puts her in even greater jeopardy. A charge of murder, not mere wantonness. There’s a search of the inn-where a body turned up. Only it isn’t the boy’s mother. Now, who knew enough about the history of The Reivers that he or she sent Inspector Oliver on such a wild-goose chase? But it does whet Oliver’s appetite for the hunt, and he begins to search for missing persons. The upshot of that is a set of unidentified bones and a connection with a woman in England whose daughter has not been seen since 1916. Now we have larger questions to answer than who wrote the letters. I wonder, was someone counting on just that?”
There was confusion in McKinstry’s eyes. “I don’t follow you, sir.”
But Hamish did. He said, “Is the woman in yon cell a murderer-a victim-or a scapegoat?”
As Rutledge took his leave, McKinstry said, “The worrisome thing in all of this-to my way of thinking-is that no one has lifted a hand for Fiona. No one has spoken up for her. Not Mr. Elliot, not Mr. Robson, not Mr. Burns-the fiscal. Not Inspector Oliver. It’s as if she’s been found guilty already, and the trial’s a travesty that’ll put a stamp on it for the world to see: We were right in what we did. A jury has said as much. And the truth will be buried with her. That keeps me awake at night.” He ticked the words off on his right hand. “Minister, Chief Constable, procurator- fiscal, policeman. And what if she’s innocent and they hang her?”
Walking back to his motorcar at the hotel, Rutledge went over again the information McKinstry had laid out for him. What intrigued him was how skillfully balanced each scrap of the puzzle seemed to be.
Like a game of chess, where the player knows in advance the moves of each piece on the board. In chess there were two players. Attack and counterattack. In life, there would be no certainties about the outcome…
Before Rutledge left the house, the constable had taken out a copy he had made of the letter that had been addressed to Mr. Elliot, the minister. He read it aloud. As Rutledge listened, he found himself thinking that Elliot would have been better advised to go directly to the woman herself and ask for some explanation. Instead he’d chosen to involve the police, indicating that he had already half believed the malicious accusations brought to him by his parishioners. That would be worth exploring…
Taking the copy from McKinstry, Rutledge had scanned it. It was untutored, apparently the work of a woman who earnestly tried to defend-and instead unwittingly pointed a finger of guilt. If it was a hoax, it was very cleverly devised. There was a ring of sincerity in the simple wording.
I have heard horrid gossip about a young woman in Duncarrick… It is sad that no one has spoken a word in her defense… I will lose my place if I tell you how I met her… Her given name was Fiona… It was the late summer of 1916… She was traveling with a very young baby and had no milk for him… It struck me that she could not be the mother, and indeed, I learned that the mother had just died and she had been given the baby to raise as her own… I was distressed for her, because she was unwed and had no family except for an elderly spinster aunt… When I asked her if the mother had any family who could help, she began to cry, and wouldn’t tell me how the poor creature had died or even where she had been buried… She told me fiercely that she would be a good mother and would not allow anyone to take the boy from her… I could see that she was very agitated… She was always looking over her shoulder as if expecting to see someone there. But there was no one… I soon gave up trying to reason with her… What struck me was her unshakable belief that she could bring up this poor orphan as her son… I cannot be convinced that she would turn wanton and betray the trust that had been placed in her… Please, do what you can on her behalf… It isn’t right for her to be tormented in this way… I would as soon believe that Fiona was a murderer as believe she has become a whore…
He had even read it a second time, finding the wording and the sense of it more interesting than the content. “And you never discovered who’d written this?”
“No, sir, though we made every effort. It came from Glasgow, but there’s no telling who had put it in the post box there. It doesn’t quite say that the mother of the boy was murdered, you see. But if the death was natural, surely there would have been a doctor in attendance-relatives notified? And Fiona should have been able to tell us where to find such witnesses! Instead there’s a mystery about where and how the child was born. She won’t say. She won’t tell us where the mother is buried, if it’s true that she’s dead.”
“But that’s knowledge after the fact. What convinced the Chief Constable that there ought to be some investigation into the matter? Merely the letter? Or was there more?”
“I’ve never been offered an answer to that.” McKinstry tugged at his earlobe, uncertain. He’d never considered the question himself. Orders were orders.
Rutledge had said, “After all, it began as a moral issue. Whether or not the accused was what she claimed to be, a decent widow with a child to raise on her own. And Mr. Elliot chose to do nothing about it. An admission that he had reason to believe the first letters were telling the truth?”
It would be damning.
McKinstry shook his head. “I can’t say. The Chief Constable summoned Inspector Oliver, and then Inspector Oliver sent me to search the premises, and I did. There was nothing out-of-the-way in the living quarters or the inn. The stables were a public place, I couldn’t see a body being buried out there, even in the dead of night. Any work would have been noticed straightaway by the handyman. But Inspector Oliver prides himself on being thorough, and he had the place apart. That’s when he found the bones in the back of a cupboard that had been walled up. It dumbfounded the lot of us, I can tell you!”
“And he believed he’d found the body of the child’s mother?”
“Oh, yes. There was long hair on the skull. I was sent to summon Dr. Murchison, and he came at once, then told Inspector Oliver he’d been brought out of his surgery on a wild-goose chase. The bones were not a woman’s. They belonged to a man. And they were all of a hundred years old!”
8
Walking back through Duncarrick’s main square, Rutledge stopped and considered the shops and houses lining either side of the road. These townspeople were prosperous enough, as Hamish had pointed out, but without obvious signs of wealth. Surely a small inn on the outskirts of town would offer neither problem nor competition. If The Reivers provided extra rooms to people on market day, so much the better. As for competing with the only hotel, Rutledge doubted if it could hold a candle to the amenities offered there. It would have served a simpler class of person who couldn’t afford the grandness of The Ballantyne. And any success it had enjoyed would have been modest in comparison to this part of the town. A good living for the owners, yes, but hardly extravagant.
He moved on, watching people going about their daily lives. Women entering and leaving the shops, a nursemaid with a pram carefully maneuvering it through the door of a house, a woman sweeping her front step, a small boy playing with a top, men in dark suits coming out of offices, others in work clothes, carrying the tools of a trade, a crocodile of schoolgirls marching in the wake of a schoolmistress wearing a thick coat and unbecoming hat.
Ordinary people, their eyes avoiding those of the stranger passing them. No curiosity about his presence or his business. As if once burned, twice shy…
Hamish said, “McKinstry was right. They’re a dour lot!”
There was one other common feature among them. Un-smiling faces and thin, tight mouths. As if life was a burden, and they were used to enduring it.
A woman stepped out of a shop close to where he was standing and cast a surreptitious glance in his direction.
Hamish saw her before he did, commenting that she could have studied him just as clearly from the front
