“Aye, but there’s no proof Eleanor Gray went to Scotland with him !”
“He may know the name of the man who did accompany her. He may have introduced them, he may have been a friend of both.” Rutledge thought about it. “She wasn’t traveling alone. But she went of her own free will. She was alive when she left London.”
“Ye canna’ know that!”
“But I do-she told Mrs. Atwood where she was going, and with whom. It was planned. It was something she wanted to do.”
Yet her mood had been unsettled. “I could die -” From happiness-or despair? Had this been just after Eleanor’s quarrel with Lady Maude?
Rutledge had asked Mrs. Atwood to put a date to that conversation. It was early in 1916. Spring. The timing fit. If Eleanor was pregnant, she could still conceal it. If her mother had refused to help her, she could still make other plans.
A small house in the Trossachs. A place to hide?
A place to start, most certainly.
Rutledge stopped long enough in London to pack another case. He didn’t contact the Yard.
But back on the road, heading north again, he decided it was time to report to Lady Maude Gray.
17
Lady Maude received Rutledge with cool disinterest, as if he had come to report on the state of her drains or her roofs.
She again conducted the interview in the library, but this time had seen to it that tea arrived shortly after he did.
Pouring his cup, she said, “I knew nothing would come of this ridiculous business. There is nothing in your face that tells me you have been successful.”
“On the contrary, there have been a number of small successes. Not yet a whole. But enough to be going on with.”
She smiled, lighting the remarkable violet eyes from within.
“Then tell me. I shall be the judge.”
“Your daughter did not go to America to study medicine. We have that on the authority of a professor who had been advising her.” It was only a patchwork of truth and fiction. But he saw the small flicker of surprise in her face.
Like Mrs. Atwood, Lady Maude must also have soothed her conscience with the notion that Eleanor Gray had gone abroad to study. Against her mother’s wishes-but surely safely accounted for. Lady Maude had even closed her ears to Inspector Oliver, so certain was she. And then Rutledge had somehow raised niggling doubts. This was news she had not expected to hear. Hamish, who did not care for Lady Maude, was pleased.
“Go on,” she said curtly.
“She was last heard from on her way to Scotland with a young officer by the name of Burns. He had a small house in the Trossachs and enough leave to go there.”
Her voice was cold. “You are mistaken. Eleanor would not have gone anywhere with a strange man.”
“He wasn’t a stranger. She had known him for some time apparently, and a Mrs. Atwood believes that Eleanor was-attracted-to him. They had worked together to arrange for pipe concerts at various hospitals, to cheer the wounded. I was given the impression that your daughter had spent enough time in this man’s company to grow fond of him. Whether as a friend or more than that, I’m not able to tell you at this stage.”
Like a mask, her face remained unchanged. Her hands, holding her cup and saucer, were still quiet in her lap, too well-behaved to indicate by any movement of their own that she was unsettled. But along the firm jawline there was a small nerve twitching.
“When I requested that you be assigned to this case, Inspector, I believed I had chosen a man of intelligence and integrity. I had not expected you to be a listener to gossip and innuendo. You have disappointed me.”
He smiled. “For that I shall apologize. But the fact is, I talked to the person whom your daughter telephoned just before leaving for Scotland with Burns. She had been promised to the Atwoods for a weekend, and had-quite properly-called her hosts to explain the change in plan. You had brought your daughter up well. She remembered her manners even in a time of great distress.”
He set his empty cup on the tray. Check. And mate.
Hamish, in the ensuing silence, said only, “Well done!”
It was rare praise. Rutledge had no time to savor it.
Lady Maude said, “If your information comes from Grace Talbot-Hemings-now Mrs. Atwood-I’m sure she reported the conversation exactly as it happened. She was a truthful child and has no doubt grown into a truthful young woman. This is not to say that what my daughter told her is to be believed. On the contrary, Eleanor might well have left a false trail if she had found passage to the United States and wished to be absolutely certain that no one stopped her. This would also explain her great distress, as you call it.”
Rutledge had to admit that it did.
Lady Maude was not easily broken. She had been the mistress of a king and knew her worth. She had known her daughter’s worth as well, and lived to see Eleanor turn her back on it.
Rutledge thought: Eleanor died in her mother’s heart in 1916. And he suddenly knew why. The daughter Lady Maude had given up her own self-respect to bear to a Prince of Wales had not been worthy, in her mother’s eyes, of such sacrifice. Eleanor had neither understood nor appreciated the burden her mother carried, and if anything had, in her youthful rebellion, mocked it.
For the most fleeting instant of time, he wondered if Lady Maude might be capable of killing her only child.
Lady Maude also set her cup on the tray with firm finality. “You must realize, Inspector, that your”-she hesitated delicately-“small successes, as you call them, are proving to be a reflection on my daughter’s character that I find unacceptable. You will not pursue them.”
“Aye, she doesna’ want to learn that her daughter was pregnant,” Hamish said. “If it damns Fiona, neither do I!”
“I have no choice in the matter,” Rutledge said, “I am trying now to locate this man Burns. He should be able to lead us to the next step. Where Miss Gray went in Scotland. And why.”
Lady Maude rose. “I must thank you for your courtesy in reporting your information to me in person. I expect we shall not meet again.”
Dismissal. Permanent dismissal, Hamish pointed out.
Rutledge stood as well. “I shall respect your wishes. Would you prefer a written report to a message by telephone when I’ve completed my investigation?”
Their eyes locked. Hers a deep violet with her anger, and his a mirror of his voice, official and unyielding.
For a full twenty seconds she said nothing, waiting for him to look away first.
Then she snapped, “I can break you, Inspector.”
“No doubt,” he answered. “But it will not change the truth, nor will it give you great satisfaction. Good day, Lady Maude.”
He had reached the door before her voice stopped him.
“You will find nothing connecting my daughter to those appalling bones!”
He turned, and for a moment looked at the room enclosing them with such elegance and formality. “That’s my hope as well. It will be a great tragedy if I do. For many people.”
As the door began to close on his heels, he heard her voice, commanding and clear but not raised. “Inspector.”
He stepped back in the room. Nothing had changed in her face. She said only, “It is fortunate, is it not, that my daughter has found a champion in you. I fear that I have been hurt too often. It is difficult to summon the courage to face another disappointment. But I shall try.”
