“You’ve forgotten Fiona-” Hamish railed. “You promised to see that the child was given back to her!”
Rutledge could read the despair in her face. She also knew what she had lost. Not her trial, but her son.
No, Mrs. Holden and David Trevor would see that she was never alone again But Hamish refused to be mollified. He said, “How many promises will ye break?”
Rutledge leaned forward, kissing her cheek. “Fiona-it will be all right.”
She didn’t move. Her face wrung his heart. She said forlornly, “Will it? I wish I could be as sure.”
29
Oliver bade Rutledge farewell and wished him a safe drive back to London. “Although I don’t know what you’re to tell Lady Maude Gray.”
“The truth. What I know about it.” But not the part Holden had played.
“Well, then, she ought to be glad to learn what’s become of her daughter. You can tell her, we’ll see that the accused is punished for what she’s done.”
Rutledge shook his hand, walked back through the downpour to the hotel, and notified the Ballantyne staff to draw up his bill. Then he began to pack.
It was shortly after luncheon that he drove out of Duncarrick. He let the motorcar stand in the street in the rain, for all the world to see, his luggage in the back and a hamper of food on the seat next to him.
Ann Tait, worried about her geraniums drowning in their pots, paused to look down the street at his car, then hurried back into her shop.
Mr. Elliot, coming back from calling on a parishioner, stopped to ask if he was leaving.
“Yes,” Rutledge replied. “I’ve finished my business here.”
“You left a message with my housekeeper that you wished to speak with me.” His black umbrella glistened with raindrops, and the sleeves of his coat were damp.
“I found the information elsewhere. I’m glad I didn’t disturb you.”
“I wish you Godspeed, then.”
Rutledge thanked the minister and went around to turn the crank, drying his hand on his trouser leg before reaching for it.
He drove some miles out of town, then found himself a quiet spot in a small copse of very wet trees where the motorcar was nearly invisible from the road.
It would be a long wait. It might even be a useless one. But he was prepared to be patient. And to endure another soaking.
By nightfall Rutledge had completed his notes, setting out his entire investigation-when and with whom he had talked, what he had been told and by whom-each step in the long chain and the conclusions he had reached. Then he set the notebook under the dash, well out of the rain. He had also eaten the sandwiches, and nearly finished the tea. He wished for more to fight the raw chill.
He waited another hour, then got out and cranked the engine. The rain had let up a little. Still, it took him nearly half an hour to reach the western edge of Duncarrick, avoiding the main streets and the more traveled roads. He arrived at his destination reasonably sure he hadn’t been seen. Few people were out on such a wretched night.
Rutledge left the motorcar hidden deep in the shadows of the pele tower, well out of sight. Then he walked the rest of the way, his shoes heavy with water.
Hamish, restless in his head, was a low rumble like thunder. Like the guns in France, which haunted both of them still.
Some twenty minutes later, moving quietly and keeping to the shadows, he reached The Reivers. Wet and cold, he stood silently in the doorway of the stables and waited to see if anyone had noticed him slipping across the yard. But the windows of houses that overlooked the inn yard were either dark or had had their shades pulled.
Rutledge had considered summoning Drummond as an ally, then decided it was far from certain just where Drummond’s loyalties lay. Feeling to be certain that his torch was still in his pocket, he crossed quickly to the back of the inn and found a window that he was able to force open with his knife.
A London burglar, he thought, pleased, couldn’t have done it better-or more quietly.
Climbing in, he let himself down gingerly, then reached up to refasten the sash as best he could. Satisfied that the window wouldn’t attract attention on a night like this, he bent to remove his shoes. They felt heavy, waterlogged.
Something stirred in the darkness, and he jerked away from it, prepared to defend himself.
But it was only Clarence, her light mew of greeting lost in the frantic beating of his heart.
Stooping, he rubbed her back, then let his eyes grow accustomed to the darkness before moving on.
He found himself in the small back room that had been used as storage for the kitchen. A stack of wooden boxes stood there, and he cut a strip from the top of one to reinforce his temporary patch on the window frame. He also found some towels in a drawer and used them to wipe his wet face and his hair. His stocking feet were reasonably dry, and he was grateful for that.
Moving slowly, cautiously, Rutledge made his way through the inn. In each room he paused, his eyes alert, his ears tuned to the merest sound. The silence was heavy, even shutting out the sound of the rain, and the white blur that was Clarence had already gone ahead of him, disappearing around a door. The kitchen. The bar. The inn parlor.
Rutledge came to the stairs, and after listening intently went up them softly, his stocking feet close to the outer edge of the treads, where there would be the least chance of a sound as his weight settled on the old wood.
There was no one in the room upstairs that belonged to Fiona.
He moved around it with care, checking behind the door and in every corner, even lifting the curtain around her clothes before looking under the bed. The floorboard, his questing hands told him, was still in place.
No one had been here. He was fairly certain of that. The question was, would someone come in the night? This night? Another night? Not at all…
It was a long watch. His shoulders grew tired, and his eyes burned from staring into the darkness. His clothes began to dry from the warmth of his body. His ears, picking up the creaks and moans of an old building, tried to place each one. Later, moving quietly to the window, he looked out into the street. But there was no one about. The rain, heavy and growing chilly as the wind picked up, had kept most people at home. There was only one umbrella moving down the street, shining in the light spilled out from windows.
If Holden had come here and found the christening gown with the telltale initials-if he had come again to take away the brooch-surely he would come now There was a chink! from somewhere in the house. The cat?
Rutledge was very still now, no longer waiting, feeling instead the adrenaline surge of danger. His breathing grew deeper, steadying him.
Rutledge had no illusions about Holden. He would kill… given the need.
Nothing. No one stirred in the bar below. No one came up the stairs.
Another quarter of an hour passed.
Suddenly he could feel the cool rush of air and smell the dampness of the rain. Someone had opened a door. Then it was closed again.
He waited, drifting silently behind the curtain surrounding Fiona’s clothes. The faint scent of her perfume reached him, evoking her image.
But no one came up the stairs.
He waited, and in the end decided to go closer to the stairway, where sounds from below would be magnified.
Moving to the top of them, he listened again. And then in the silence a soft footfall reached his ear.
It was too late to go back to where he’d been.
He moved back a very little, opening the stairs to whoever was climbing them with such stealth. After a few seconds he could-he thought-make out the dark shape coming toward him. The stairwell, like a pit, yawned into stygian darkness. But the shape moved… breathed. He could hear the quick, shallow breaths, the carefully placed
