Watchers Of Time Part 26

As Blevins took over the wheel, Rutledge turned his own motorcar over to the grinning constable. Coming around the boot, he noted the bicycle lashed to the back of the motorcar Blevins was driving. The Inspector snapped, "Hurry, man!" and barely waited for Rutledge to close his door before the car was off down the road at speed.

"That's Jeffers, from Hurley. It's a town southeast of the Sherhams. He was sent to bring me back to where they've found a body. Some fool thinks it could be Walsh, but I can't for the life of me see how he came to be there there."

Rutledge felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. "Body, you said?"

"That's right. A body. Constable Jeffers doesn't have any information. The other constable, Tanner, who was out on foot searching the area, stopped a woman on her way in to the Hurley shops, and asked her to send Jeffers on to Osterley. Jeffers couldn't find a motorcar and had to bicycle in. Took the devil's own time doing it, too!"

"And the horse?"

"They didn't say anything about a horse. That's why I'm willing to wager this is a wild-goose chase. If Walsh has already run the mare into the ground, he wouldn't be shy about finding himself another mount. Why would he be on foot?"

Because he had started on foot- Hamish's voice rang through Rutledge's head.

They were silent the rest of the way. Carts were on the road at this early hour, and people walking to their fields or leading out the cows. Small boys on their way to school were trotting behind a pair of squawking geese, laughing as the geese darted at first one boy and then another and they dodged the attack. Blevins shouted at them to mind what they were about, and they dropped back sullenly.

"You wouldn't have seen that sort of behavior before the War," he told Rutledge. "There's a generation growing up wild. Mark my words."

It was a frequent refrain in rural England these days.

When they reached the outskirts of Hurley, there was a farmer in boots and brown corduroy trousers standing by the road. An old hat was jammed on his head and he wore a heavy green sweater with a ragged hem straggling down one hip.

"Inspector Blevins?" he called as the motorcar slowed. "The doctor's been and gone. Take the road just there, to your left, before you get into the village proper. Follow it near half a mile, and you'll see the farm gate."

Blevins found the road, and it soon dwindled into a lane, hardly worthy of the name. A farmhouse faced a sloping hill of pasturage, where the white backs of sheep caught the morning spears of light. The lane continued, little more than a wagon wide now, last summer's wildflowers brushing dry heads against the coachwork on either side. Within a few minutes they came to an open gate, where a muddy and well-rutted farm track began. "Here, I should think," Blevins said, turning in.

The track climbed a hill for some distance, angling toward the shoulder and a cl.u.s.ter of young trees. Blevins followed it for some fifty yards, and then pulled in where bruised gra.s.s indicated that the doctor had stopped as well. Beyond that, the track's ruts offered a challenge. Blevins said shortly, "I'd not like to find myself bogged down up there."

Rutledge got out and Hamish said, at his shoulder, "Walsh could ha' made it this far."

It was true. They trudged in silence toward the copse of trees, and a constable stepped out of it, standing there waiting. Blevins was finding it hard to get his breath, and Rutledge glanced at him.

The Inspector's face was nearly gray with strain, his jaw set and his body tense. With each stride he began to swear softly, trying to contain the pressure that was building in his mind. Rutledge's longer legs made easy work of the hill, but his chest burned from the night of driving.

The constable, hunched against the morning chill, touched his hat to Blevins, and nodded to Rutledge. "Constable Tanner, sir. I thought you'd want to see this. The doctor says he's dead, and they're sending up a cart from the farm, to bring him in."

"Who the h.e.l.l is it, man?" Blevins halted as if unable to walk another ten yards. But it was his fear of the answer that had stopped him.

"It's Walsh, sir. Just beyond the trees." Tanner turned to lead the way, and Rutledge followed. Blevins moved slowly in their wake, as if unwilling to confirm the truth.

Tanner continued his report to Rutledge. "I can't say how long he's been dead-just before dawn, I'd guess, or not long after. His clothes are damp."

Just beyond the trees, the land sloped again, this time to the south. And about ten feet beyond the crest lay the sprawled body of a man. Rutledge could see at once that it was Walsh-the size of the shoulders, the length of the awkwardly bent legs defined him before they had reached the head.

Rutledge looked down at the b.l.o.o.d.y dent in the temple, and had no need to squat on his heels and feel the hand nearest him for warmth or touch the throat for a pulse. But he did it anyway to give Blevins time to recover.

The hand was cold, damp. There was no pulse in the equally cold bare flesh beneath Walsh's collar. The giant-sized Matthew Walsh seemed shrunken, a bundle of discarded clothes, lying here on the wet gra.s.s, his trousers soggy with dew, and Rutledge found himself remembering what Dr. Stephenson had said about Father James. When the power of the personality had gone . . .

By that time Blevins had stopped just at Rutledge's back, and Rutledge could feel his gaze running over the corpse of his prisoner.

He rose slowly to his feet, not turning. Hamish said, "He died quickly. How do you think it was?"

But Rutledge was silent. Tanner, watching Blevins's face, shifted from one foot to the other, waiting for his superior to speak to him.

And then Blevins said harshly, anger and grief thickening his voice until it was unrecognizable, "I wanted to see "I wanted to see him hang!" him hang!"

No one spoke for what seemed minutes. Then Blevins said, "All right, Tanner, tell me what happened."

Tanner flinched, as if he'd been accused of murdering the man himself. He was young and all elbows and knees, but he said with a confidence that belied his years, "If you'll look just over here, sir-"

He led them some six feet from the body and pointed down at the iron half-circle lying in the gra.s.s. "See here, there's a shoe. And I backtracked the horse some distance. He cast it perhaps a quarter of a mile back-I found a muddy patch where you could see clearly that the off hind hoof was bare."

Blevins grunted, then squatted by the shoe. "All right. Go on."

"It's my thinking, sir, that the rider didn't want to do anything about it, exposed as he was. It's fairly open on the hill; with the farmers out early, he'd have been wary of being seen. But he brought it along with him, and here, with the trees to screen him from the farm, looked to see what the damage was, and if he could continue with this mount, or if he needed to find himself another."

"It makes sense," Blevins said, nodding.

"And when he lifted the off hind, the horse didn't care for it, backed away, and when Walsh bent to try again, kicked him in the head with the shod hoof."

"How do you read that?"

"The gra.s.s is trampled a bit, just below where he fell, sir. See, it's bruised and the ground is torn in one place. As if he might have been trying to make the horse stand still for him. Everywhere else you look, there's no sign of that."

Blevins went over to look at the gra.s.s. "Are you certain the doctor didn't do this? Or you, even."

Tanner's face was earnest. "No, sir, the doctor came in from the head. He said it was a heavy blow, caught Walsh just right, crushing the bone at the temple and killing him outright. An inch lower, and he'd have had a cracked jaw but lived to tell about it. An inch higher, and he'd have suffered a severe concussion." He was clearly quoting the doctor. "The wound itself supports the possibility of it being the shoe." He half turned, looking around them. "There's really no other clear explanation."

"Yes. I suppose that's true." Blevins's voice was flat. He wasn't interested in how Walsh had died. He felt cheated and was already trying to come to terms with that.

"The doctor says when he has the man in his surgery, he'll be able to tell if there're any gra.s.s bits in the wound, but he'd be surprised if his first opinion changes," Tanner finished diffidently. He had grown used to the corpse, guarding it. But the Inspector from Osterley seemed to be dazed, like a grieving relative.

Blevins got heavily to his feet, as if he'd aged ten years in the last ten hours. Looking around him at the empty hillsides and the long twist of the lane below, smoke rising from the farmhouse where a man in boots was. .h.i.tching two horses to a long cart, he was silent.

"I hadn't counted on it ending like this," he said.

"There's no other way it could have happened," Tanner answered, as if Blevins had challenged his account. "If the horse wasn't his, it might have taken exception to Walsh's handling. Especially if he was angry about the shoe, and rough."

Rutledge walked back to the body.

It made sense. He sat on his heels and studied Walsh's face. The expression was one of faint surprise, as if he had died even as he saw the blow coming. But was the shape of the wound right?

Hamish said, "It's deep. The rim of the shoe must ha' caught him. I canna' think what else would have struck such a blow. But it's tae bluidy to be sure."

"She'd have lashed out blindly, and put some force behind it. Catching him before he could leap away." Behind him, he could hear Tanner and Blevins talking quietly. "He isn't the first or the last to die this way. And he was close to giving us the slip. Still-if he'd stayed on this route, with luck I'd have crossed his path somewhere near East Sherham."

Hamish said, "Ye ken, horses pulled Walsh's cart. He'd have known how to handle the mare. He saddled her and got her out of the barn without fuss."

Below the hill, the farmer was bringing the cart through the gate, to fetch the body.

Rutledge put out his hand and roughly measured the wound without touching it. As the sun's light began to brighten the clouds, he could see a blade of gra.s.s in the b.l.o.o.d.y edge. The doctor was here-what, a good half an hour earlier? While it was still dark enough to make such small details nearly invisible. . . .

He got to his feet as Blevins came to stand once more at Walsh's head.

"I've let him down. Father James," the Inspector said with a heavy sigh. "I swore I'd find out who killed him. And I did! This was an easy way for the b.a.s.t.a.r.d to die!"

Rutledge's motorcar arrived, pulling up at the gate just as the farm cart reached the trees. Blevins went to meet the farmer, calling, "Leave the cart there. Better to carry him across to it than to muck up the ground."

"I'll just lower the tail, then." The farmer, red-faced from years in the wind, took out a handkerchief and wiped his gla.s.ses. "Doctor says he was kicked by a horse. The dead man. Not one of mine mine. They never left their stalls last night."

"No. Not yours." Blevins answered curtly.

The other constable was climbing toward them now, the smooth movements of a countryman in his stride.

With the farmer holding the horses' heads to steady the cart, the four men lifted Walsh, grunting under his weight. The body shifted awkwardly in their grip, mocking them in death as it had in life. They tried to move in step over the uneven ground, until one of the constables slipped, barely regaining his balance in time to prevent pulling the others down with him. It was as if Walsh were still struggling to stay free, fighting their efforts, and they were breathing hard by the time they got him to the wagon.

Heaving the corpse into its bed, they misjudged the weight again, and the head brushed along the wooden bottom, leaving a smear of drying blood.

Blevins swore. "You'll do the doctor's work for him, if you damage that wound!"

Then they stood back, as if by unspoken command, and stared mutely at Walsh. It was an unexpected ending to the night, the adrenaline that had energized them through the long hours of searching beginning to fade and leaving them with an odd sort of feeling-of having lost, not won. Keyed to action, there was nothing to do now but go home.

The dead man's eyes seemed to gaze at the side of the cart as if distracted by the rough pattern. The horses stirred uneasily, troubled by the smell of blood and sweat and death. One stamped its hoof, and the harness jingled.

Rutledge thought of the corpses he had seen in France, loaded like cords of wood onto wagons, stiff in the cold air that did nothing to stop the heavy odor of maggot-infested wounds and rotting flesh from choking the men handling the dead. There was no honor in death, whatever the poets claimed.

O. A. Manning, the poet who had never seen the Western Front, had said it best: "The bodies lie like lumber, / Obscene, without grace, / Like a house uninhabited "The bodies lie like lumber, / Obscene, without grace, / Like a house uninhabited and not yet ready / For ghosts . . ." and not yet ready / For ghosts . . ."

As the sun reached over the hill behind them, Rutledge could see the wound more clearly now.

It reminded him of something, and he was too weary to bring it to the fore of his mind. Something he'd seen, as a young policeman- Hamish said, "What? Think, man!"

But it had escaped him. . . . It didn't matter. And he was too tired to care.

At his elbow, Blevins was saying to Rutledge as the farmer raised the tailgate and turned his horses, "You'll be wanting to start back for London, I daresay."

"What? Yes, I suppose so." Rutledge looked back at the trees, as the cart began its rumbling descent down the hill, the farmer talking to his team as if they were old friends. There was no reason to stay. . . .

"Easy as you go, Nell. There's no haste, la.s.s-"

Rutledge turned to Blevins and said, "Where's the mare?"

"The mare? What mare?"

"Honey. She isn't here. There's no sign of her."

"At a guess she's halfway home by now!"

They started down in the wake of the cart. Rutledge said, "I'm surprised Walsh hadn't made better time than this. I'd have put him farther west by first light." He rubbed his hand along his chin, feeling the roughness of his beard against the skin of his fingers.

In the quiet morning air, the clump of their boots on the muddy hillside and the harsh breathing of men and horses was a counterpoint to the creaking of the cart's wheels echoing across the valley.

Blevins was still finding it hard to manage what he regarded as failure. "She cast her shoe, and it slowed him. What difference does it make?" he continued impatiently. "I'm not in the mood to speculate on the late Matthew Walsh's last hours. I'm cold and tired, I've not had my breakfast, and he's dead. It's finished. I'll write my report and officially close the case, and that's the end of it." He stared hard at Rutledge. "Unless you've got a more likely suspect to hand me, from all those questions you've been badgering people with. Oh, yes, it's my town, I hear what's been said! Right now, to tell you the truth, I feel like stringing up the b.l.o.o.d.y corpse! A live one would be a h.e.l.l of a lot more to my liking!"

May Trent's name came unbidden into Rutledge's mind.

CHAPTER 22.

THE LONG ORDEAL WASN'T OVER FOR Rutledge.

Someone had telephoned the Osterley Hotel and left a message for the man from London. A farmer's dairyman had come across Priscilla Connaught in her wrecked car, weeping hysterically, on a road a little east from where Matthew Walsh had been found dead.

Rutledge had forgotten her-she had left her house in a rush, looking for Walsh, and he had forgotten her.

The sleepless night showed in the dark circles under Mrs. Barnett's eyes, and in the faded color of her face. He couldn't ask more of her. Instead he said, "Will you go up to Miss Trent's room, and ask if she'd mind accompanying me when I fetch Miss Connaught and her car? I think it best to have a woman with me."

Mrs. Barnett raised her eyebrows in surprise. "But she left last night shortly after you did. Miss Trent. I thought you knew!"

"She hasn't come back?"

"No. I'd locked the outer door, you see. Until a quarter of an hour ago. Of course I'd have heard the bell, she'd have no other way of getting in. And I've been awake since the telephone rang."

"Never mind, then. Er-do you think I could have a cup of tea before I leave?" He couldn't worry about May Trent now. . . .

She looked at him, must have seen the weariness eating into the bones of his face. "Must you go out again? Surely Miss Connaught is better off where she is, while they're still searching!"

"Blevins has called it off. The search. Walsh was found."

"Well, that's a great relief, isn't it? It means we're all safe. I've just put the kettle on. And I think there's some cold bacon and a little cheese, if you want me to make up a sandwich."

"Please!"

As Rutledge climbed the stairs, Hamish said, "The woman's right. Sleep for an hour-there isna' any need for haste."

He answered, "She gave someone my name-the farmer or the dairyman-and sent him out to find a telephone. I should have stopped her rather than drive half the night on a fool's quest. In a way, whatever has happened is my fault."

When he opened the door of his room it seemed to open its arms to him, welcoming and silent and still dark, with the shades drawn. But he ignored the temptation of the waiting bed and walked across the carpet to run his fingers again over the bristles of his chin. He felt grimy, unkempt. Shaving and a clean shirt would help.

The face staring back at him from his mirror as he worked up a lather in his mug and applied the brush to his cheeks and throat was gaunt, with the dark growth of beard lending it a sinister look. Hamish reminded him that he could pa.s.s more easily as a murderer than the dead Walsh.

Rutledge could still see the big hands lying limp, without force, on the gra.s.s, and the flaccid muscles that had once given the impression of great power to the Strong Man's shoulders. In his mind's eye, as he shaved, he reexamined the wound. An irony-a horseshoe spelling the end of the road for an escaping murderer.

What were the lines he'd found so fascinating as a boy? Something about for want of a shoe, a horse was lost-for want of a horse, a rider was lost-and it went on in that vein until a battle was lost. . . .