He took off his hat and looked ruefully at the wet brim. “Indeed. I think I could use a drink. Then I’d like a room.”
“I’ll be glad to see to that for you, sir.” She indicated the door to his left. “The bar parlor is through there.”
“Thanks.”
He went through the door and found the room filled with other refugees from the rain. The atmosphere was muggy, as if the dampness each had brought with him had settled in a cloud around them, like fog. The smell of wet wool mingled with wood smoke. Someone had lit the fire on one side of the paneled room, and it struggled to assert itself, adding measurably to the gloom. But no one paid any heed, lively conversations holding their attention instead.
Rutledge found a table by the windows that overlooked the street. He could hear the laughter from the bar, rough and male, workmen who had taken advantage of the rain to stop in for a pint.
He wondered how many of them had once patronized The Reivers.
A man with a fierce mustache came in, looked around him, and saw Rutledge. He came striding across to the table, nodded, and said, “I’m Oliver.”
Rutledge got to his feet and offered his hand. Oliver’s grip was strong but brief. He took the other chair at the table and beckoned to one of the barmaids. She came over, took their orders, and was gone.
Oliver stretched his feet out, looked ruefully at his wet shoes, and sighed. Then he turned to Rutledge and said, “I won’t beat about the bush. It’s not my way. I don’t like London sending someone up here to mind my business. But it’s done. I’ll cooperate in any way I can.”
“I’m afraid this is not my doing either. But there we are. I’d like to discuss the evidence with you when you have the time.”
The barmaid brought their orders, and Oliver drank his ale, savoring it. Then he said, “The evidence isn’t the problem. It’s the bones. Did you learn anything at all from that termagant in Menton? I’ve need of it, if you have.”
“Lady Maude refused to acknowledge that she’d quarreled with her daughter,” Rutledge answered, “but if I were a betting man, I’d give you good odds she did. The question is, where is Eleanor Gray now? And no one seems to know. Lady Maude swears her daughter had no interest in or enthusiasm for walking in the Highlands, that there’s no explanation that might put Eleanor in Glencoe or anywhere else in Scotland during 1916.”
“Yes, well, mothers are like that, they shut their eyes to a good deal that they find it unpleasant to take notice of. Look at it this way-if a handsome young soldier told the daughter he’d like to spend his leave walking about in the Scottish hills, do you think she’d refuse to go? War does strange things to women-put a man in uniform, and they trust him with their virtue and their lives!”
“She’d hardly go walking in the mountains when she was nine months pregnant. Or, for that matter, find a soldier willing to take her there.”
Oliver grunted. “I’m just saying that mothers don’t always know their daughters. Lady Maude may think what she pleases. The fact is, it’s not proof of anything.”
“Why were you and the authorities prepared to arrest this local woman? London gave me the outline of the case, little more.”
Oliver thought it over, then said, “It was this way. The anonymous letters started in June, as far as we can tell. And what I found curious about the dozen or so brought to my attention is that people believed them. At any rate, her neighbors began to shun Mrs. MacLeod, as she called herself then. A few of them finally stepped forward, taking the letters to the minister, Mr. Elliot, but not to ask if the accusations were true or not. They were more concerned about their own souls. And after some thought and prayer, Mr. Elliot came to the police.”
“The letters fell on fertile ground, then. Why? Was this woman not liked or accepted in Duncarrick?”
“If you’d asked me just a few months ago, I’d have said she was well liked. I never heard of any problems- moral or otherwise. And I hear most things. The general feeling seems to be that the young woman must have lied to her aunt, because Ealasaid MacCallum was an upright woman who would never have countenanced a falsehood told to her acquaintance. She’d have been the first to say ‘My niece has gotten herself into trouble, but I’ve brought her here to give her a chance to repent and atone. It’s my Christian duty.’ And people would have respected that, you see.”
Hamish said, “Aye, that’s the way it would ha’ been done.”
But without compassion, Rutledge responded. A cold and judging second chance.
Oliver went on. “Mr. Elliot then told me privately that a number of people had spoken to him about the young woman. Before the letters started. One man found himself tempted by her and was afraid for his soul. A young woman saw in her an instrument of the devil because she had turned the head of a young man who frequented the inn. Another woman found her far too warm to the child, saying that it was no way to bring up a lad. ‘Spare the rod’ was the message. And Mr. Elliot had already tried to speak to Miss MacDonald about her attendance at services. She’d told him that her duties at the inn sometimes kept her up late and she’d found it hard to be prompt on those Sunday mornings. He had thought at the time that it was not a proper excuse.”
“I see,” Rutledge commented into the silence that expected a response. But what he saw was a judgment, a sense that the accused had not lived up to the high standards others had set for themselves and, by extension, for her.
Oliver looked across the room at another table, something else on his mind, then picked up the thread of his narrative. “On the heels of the anonymous letters came another correspondence, and that damned more than it exonerated. I thought, as did the Chief Constable, that it bore looking into. Where there is a pattern-”
Where there was smoke…
“And that’s when I sent my constable-who knew her well enough to question her gently-to ask for her marriage lines. She as much as told him there weren’t any, and when he asked if she’d submit to an examination by a physician in regard to the birth of the child in question, she adamantly refused. McKinstry had no choice but to conduct a search of the premises but failed to carry it out to my satisfaction, and I came back. Instead of a buried woman, I came across a man a hundred years dead, and it made me a laughingstock, I can tell you. Dr. Murchison had more to say than I cared to hear on the subject.”
“Aye,” Hamish remarked, “it touched his pride.” Rutledge thought that that was possible and might account for Oliver’s unflagging determination to find answers to the questions raised about the woman.
“I sent out a request for information on any missing persons, and that’s when I heard about the corpse found up the glen. I’d just come back from viewing it, when Menton contacted me with the information they had on the Gray woman. And fool that I was, I set off to England with the feeling that I was bringing the loose ends tidily together, and got my head bitten off instead!”
He regarded Rutledge for several seconds, as if weighing how his view of the situation had been received. Apparently satisfied, he asked, “Can you tell me what you’re considering as the next step?”
“I don’t know,” Rutledge replied with honesty. “You’ve most certainly done all that was required of you, and more. What has the accused told you?”
“Precious little. Only that she’s committed no crime, and she’s worried for the child. I’m not surprised she feels an attachment there. Women have a natural mothering instinct whether they’ve borne a child of their own or not. It’s to her credit that she’s raised him to the best of her ability. Mr. Elliot has closely questioned the lad, and he appears to know his Bible stories. The boy’s particularly fond of Moses and the bulrushes, it seems. And Joseph’s coat of many colors.” He smiled. “Ealasaid MacCallum, the accused’s aunt, made the lad a bathrobe in multicolored stripes, and he’s very fond of it. We let him keep it. And the little stuffed dog the accused made out of one of her greatuncle’s wool socks. There was no harm in that either. It seems to comfort him. He’s cried more than a lad going on three should. But then, he believes the woman to be his mother. It will take some time to convince him otherwise.”
Rutledge found himself thinking of Morag and the expression on her face when he’d said that the child was not the concern of the law. The words had been spoken in another context, that of dealing with a woman charged with murder. But Morag had taken them to heart and let him know it. She’d always had a warm feeling for young things, children and puppies and kittens-even an orphaned lamb that Ross Trevor, age seven, had insisted on hand- rearing. Rutledge wondered what she would have to say about Oliver’s remarks. It will take some time to convince him otherwise. Left unsaid was the corollary: By the time she’s hanged, he’ll not be mourning for her.
Would anyone?
