I couldn’t risk brazening it out. If I hadn’t met Fiona-if she hadn’t been willing to take the child as her own-I would have killed us both. The boy and myself.”
28
Rutledge left Mrs. Holden with some apprehen Sion-concerned for her-afraid that when Alexander Holden walked back into his house, his suspicions would be aroused by something in her face. It wouldn’t take him long to discover that Rutledge had been there. He was too intelligent not to know why. Mrs. Holden was very fragile. What would he do? Bully her-or find a new, unexpected strength in her?
“Whatever he does,” Hamish said, “it’s no’ possible to stop him. You canna’ go to Oliver until you hear what London’s learned about Holden! You canna’ go to the fiscal without proof. This is Holden’s ground, he’ll ken what to do-”
“There may be a way to distract him.” Rutledge had nearly reached his motorcar, concealed well out of sight of the Holden property. He pulled it to the head of the drive, where Holden couldn’t pass him.
Then he waited. With infinite patience. Even Hamish stood the long watch in silence. They had shared such watches many times in the trenches-there was almost that same comfortable sense of companionship. Almost-but not quite.
It was nearly dusk when Holden came. The long shadows of the autumn day had given way to clouds, and the first sprinkles of rain.
The lights of Holden’s car picked out the dark shape of his own, and slowed.
Holden called sharply, “What’s happened?”
Rutledge replied, “I’ve come to speak to you. Your maid told me you were out, and I waited.”
“For God’s sake, why didn’t you wait at the house?”
“Because I didn’t want your wife or your servants to hear what I’ve got to say.” He gestured around them at the dark road and the dark drive. “We have a little privacy here.” The sprinkles turned to the first heavy drops.
Holden looked for hidden ears before turning back. “Then say what you have to, and let us both get in out of this rain!”
“I traced you to Craigness, Holden. To Rob Burns’s house. I found written proof there that Eleanor Gray had come north with you that night in 1916 when it rained so hard. She waited in the car until the worst had passed before coming in. And Mrs. Raeburn didn’t see her. You left with her-and Eleanor Gray disappeared. Did you kill her? Did you drag her body on a blanket up the slopes of the mountainside in Glencoe and leave her for the jackals and the ravens?”
Holden said, “Don’t be an idiot! I never knew Captain Burns. His father will tell you that. And my wife!”
“It won’t matter what they say. You’ve left a trail behind you. And I’ve uncovered it. You thought, trained as you were, that you were skilled at deception. But I can bring witnesses who remember your face and who can place you in Saxwold, in London, in Craigness, and even in Glencoe. Unimportant people you thought we’d never be clever enough to find. There’s other proof. I’ll have it soon. It’s a loosely woven net at present-but it will tighten.”
The car’s lamps were fully on Rutledge’s face, but they cast macabre black shadows on Holden’s. There was no way to read his eyes. His hands, on the wheel, were white-knuckled. Rutledge watched them. If they moved Hamish said, “Is there a weapon in his car?”
I don’t know, Rutledge answered silently. He could feel the tensing of his body. A sitting target, pinned by the light. Holden had tried to shoot him once “Save your wife the disgrace of seeing you brought in by Inspector Oliver’s men. Tell me what happened to Eleanor Gray.”
It was meant rhetorically, but to his immense surprise, Holden did.
“I’ve nothing to be ashamed of. She wanted to find passage to the States. There was nothing to keep her here, she said. I drove her as far as Glasgow, and then went back to London on my own. I don’t know what became of her after that. And I didn’t see any point in telling Inspector Oliver about it. That was in the spring, and they tell me she died in late summer.”
“You’re a very accomplished liar. But you aren’t dealing with Turks now. Or with Inspector Oliver. Your name carries no weight in London. The Yard is handling Eleanor Gray’s death, not Duncarrick.” Rutledge’s voice was cold.
Holden turned his head away, looking around them, trying to see beyond his headlamps. Satisfied at last, he turned back.
“You won’t believe me if I tell you the truth. No one will.” He lifted a hand to wipe the rain from his face. “Damn it, come to the house!”
“No. Your wife is ill. I won’t put her through this. Tell me here-or at the Duncarrick police station.”
“You’re a bloody stubborn man, did you know that? Eleanor Gray spent the night in Rob’s bed, which I thought rather macabre, but I couldn’t have cared less. I was so tired from driving that I fell asleep in the guest room almost at once. Heavily asleep. I don’t even remember closing my eyes. I must have been snoring. Or she might have felt ill, I don’t know. I woke with a start, and in the darkness sensed rather than saw someone bending over me.” He turned away again, the shadows on his face shifting and changing. “The Army had taught me how to kill. Fast and silently. My hands had found her neck before I’d even realized where I was or who was in the house with me. By the time I was awake enough to find a light, she was dead. I had to clean the carpet, and I was all for burying her in the garden. I even moved the bench so it would cover the grave. But the rain was coming down in buckets, I was afraid it would wash her out before the morning. So I got her into the back of the car, pulled a blanket and some of my clothes over her, and went through the house to find anything she might have left. The next morning as soon as the neighbor was up and about, I returned the key and drove off.”
“Where is Eleanor Gray now?”
“On that damned mountain in Glencoe! Where else? Or she was. I never dreamed- It was damned bad luck that Oliver was so good at his job, wasn’t it?”
Hamish growled a warning as Holden lifted a hand, but it was only to wipe his face again.
Rutledge said, “If her death was an accident, why didn’t you call the police straightaway, or a doctor?”
“She was professionally killed, man. Not a mark on her, except where my fingers found the spot on the back of her neck! Her mother is one of the richest women in England. Do you think Lady Maude would have believed me? She’d have seen to it that I hanged! I’d had a violent history at Saxwold, and the next hospital as well, and the Army was glad to send me off to France for cannon fodder. Look, I nearly killed a nurse once when she came up behind me unexpectedly. I had my hands on her throat before she could even scream. They thought I was out of my head. But I wasn’t. I’d lived too long with danger, and it was a reflex to strike first. Like a snake. They were ready to pack me off to an asylum with the shell-shocked men and leave me to rot!”
Rutledge involuntarily shuddered. With men like him- “How did you know the rocks were there-on the mountainside? They aren’t easily seen from the road.”
“My father took me there sometimes as a boy. He was obsessed with tales of betrayal and murder.” He pushed his rain-matted hair out of his eyes. “My father would have made a bloody Highlander if he hadn’t been born in Carlisle. He collected all those weapons you see in the hall, buying them up all over Scotland. It gave him a sense of history. I put them up when I married Madelyn. It was something from my own past. The rest of the house was hers.”
He looked at Rutledge for a long while, ignoring the rain. The patience of the hunter, waiting for the rabbit to break cover. But Rutledge was patient, too, and as skilled. Holden said at last, “You know the truth now. What do you think you should do about it?” When Rutledge didn’t respond, he continued, “I don’t intend to be railroaded into a sentence of death by Lady Maude and her lawyers. She was a distant and uncaring mother according to Eleanor, but she’ll raise heaven and earth to see me dead once she’s told I killed her daughter.” There was cold menace in the calm voice. “If I were you, I’d go back to London and let the MacDonald woman go to trial and pray that she’s acquitted. What is she to you, after all!”
What, indeed? Rutledge didn’t know the answer to that himself. He sat there feeling the rain soaking through his shirt to the skin, and fought his anger.
“Don’t threaten me!” he told Holden.
“Call it a friendly warning, Inspector. But keep in mind the fact that I could walk into The Ballantyne or
