Part 8 (1/2)
”He's already told the police that he can't identify the dead man. I have no choice, you see, but to speak to Mrs. Crowell.”
She came out from behind the desk, her face set. ”I'm going with you, Inspector. Let me find someone to mind the desk while I'm gone.”
”No, I think it best-”
”It isn't a question of what you think, Inspector. I won't have Alice upset about this business. I'm coming to be certain she isn't. A woman ought to be there with her.”
7.
Ten minutes later Miss Norton climbed into Rutledge's motorcar and settled herself. ”The quickest way is as the crow flies, of course. But as we aren't crows-” She began to direct him, out of Elthorpe, then around the skirts of the estate on whose grounds the great abbey ruins took pride of place, and down an unmade road that wandered for several miles before dividing. The right branch continued to the west, while the left turned more to the south.
”To your right,” Miss Norton said. ”It's only another mile or two.”
They soon came into a small village clinging to the road. ”There's the school,” she said. ”Alice should be upstairs. Alone, I hope.”
He pa.s.sed the row of shops, a tiny lending library, a church more the size of a chapel, and came to a house a little larger than the others he'd pa.s.sed, the front facade softened by stonework around the windows and above the door.
”It was a prosperous merchant's home,” Miss Norton was saying, her nervousness showing in the tenseness of her voice. ”And left to the village some sixty years ago to be used as a school. I wish I'd never mentioned Alice,” she went on. ”How did you trick me into saying anything about her?”
”It wasn't a trick,” he replied, drawing up in front of the school. ”You were telling me about your fiance. Julian.”
”Yes, and somehow-”
He got down and went around to her door as she added, ”You won't tell Inspector Madsen about this foolishness, will you? He's already brought Albert in for questioning four times now. It will only make him more anxious to prove something.”
”If Mrs. Crowell identifies this man from the sketch, then I've no choice.”
”Oh, blast the sketch,” she said furiously, slamming her door behind her. ”I wish I'd never seen you.”
She marched ahead of him, back ramrod straight, her face closed. She went directly into the school, leaving him to follow or not, as he pleased.
There was a central hall with stairs leading up to the first floor. The building was quiet, the students gone home at the end of the day. The sign over the nearest door read SCHOOL OFFICE SCHOOL OFFICE.
Miss Norton pa.s.sed it by and was already halfway up the stairs.
An echo of voices, a child's and a woman's, reached them, disappearing down the pa.s.sage ahead of them.
”Alice?” Miss Norton called.
”Yes? Mary? Is that you?” Mrs. Crowell turned to stare. ”What on earth brings you here at this time of day? Who's minding the hotel?”
”I asked Velma to step in for me.” As they came closer, Mary Norton indicated the man behind her. ”Alice-this is Inspector Rutledge from London. Scotland Yard.” Her words seemed to fill the pa.s.sage, floating ahead of her, echoing behind her.
To his surprise as he caught up with the two women, Mrs. Crowell turned warmly to him, extending her hand.
He took it as she said, ”How nice of you to come!” as if she'd been expecting him.
A cla.s.sroom door opened farther down the pa.s.sage, and a head popped out, vanis.h.i.+ng again just as quickly. Rutledge glimpsed a pale, startled boy's face. Then it was gone.
He followed the two women into a tidy office, and Mrs. Crowell shut her door.
”I'm so glad you came to see me first,” she went on, speaking directly to Rutledge, ”because it's important to know the facts behind my concerns. There is is a history of sorts between my husband and Inspector Madsen.” She was intense, earnest, as if she had rehea.r.s.ed the manner of her presentation many times over. ”This may well explain why he's so anxious to prove that my husband is guilty of murder. But he isn't-truly he isn't. I can think of no reason in this world why he should kill a stranger. I can't explain how my husband's book got to the ruins either, but if you think about it, is it likely that he'd take such a silly thing with him if he were intent on murder?” a history of sorts between my husband and Inspector Madsen.” She was intense, earnest, as if she had rehea.r.s.ed the manner of her presentation many times over. ”This may well explain why he's so anxious to prove that my husband is guilty of murder. But he isn't-truly he isn't. I can think of no reason in this world why he should kill a stranger. I can't explain how my husband's book got to the ruins either, but if you think about it, is it likely that he'd take such a silly thing with him if he were intent on murder?”
Rutledge could see the scar clearly now, running across her face from the corner of her left eye to the line of her jaw on the right, near her ear. It had healed smoothly without pulling at the flesh around it, but it was still ugly, marring the rather cla.s.sical features of straight nose, square jaw, and well-set gray eyes. She had not been strictly beautiful, but was certainly a very attractive woman, before the wound. He couldn't tell if she was still self-conscious about it or had grown used to it.
Hamish said, ”She doesna' look in the mirror verra' often.”
Before Rutledge could answer Mrs. Crowell, Mary Norton said quickly, ”He's brought a sketch to show you, my dear. Will you look at it and tell me if you recognize this man?”
”The dead man?” Alice Crowell paused as she was about to take her chair behind the desk. ”But-” she faltered. ”Why-I mean why should I wish to see it?”
”Because-well, to a.s.sure the police that Albert is telling the truth when he says he never saw this person before.” Mary's words were hurried, as if to break the worst news quickly and avoid any mention of the man who had scarred Mrs. Crowell's face.
”Oh. Very well.” Alice reluctantly held out her hand for the folder that Rutledge was carrying. ”He isn't-I shan't have nightmares, shall I?” she asked as he pa.s.sed the folder to her.
”It's merely a man's face. Nothing more frightening than that.”
As the two bent over the sketch he'd brought, Mary's dark head close to Alice's fair one, Rutledge wondered how he would have felt about someone who did such injury to Jean. Or to Frances, for that matter. If he could have forgiven the drunken man with such apparent grace. Or perhaps Crowell had seen the change in his wife's appearance as a way of keeping her here in this small, dingy school when it was clear that she wasn't from this part of the country. Her accent, like Rutledge's own, spoke of good schooling and a wider circle. Righteous men, he thought, often feel the need to serve in the most forbidding places.
He watched Mrs. Crowell's expression as she examined the sketch, but all he could read there was puzzlement.
”I don't think he's anyone I know,” she said doubtfully, still bending over the drawing. ”Should I recognize him?”
”It was important to ask, on the off chance you did,” Rutledge told her.
Mary Norton bit her lip. He could almost read the thought in her eyes. Better with you here than with Inspector Madsen...finish it now. Better with you here than with Inspector Madsen...finish it now.
Before he could stop her, she said, ”Think back, Alice. To Whitby. Could this be the man who knocked you down and hurt you? You told me once you'd never forget his face.” Mary spoke urgently, trying to protect and going the wrong way about it. ”Could it be he?”
”Oh, my G.o.d,” Alice Crowell said softly, her shock apparent even to Rutledge. ”Do you think-? But no, it couldn't have been this man. I know his name. Henry Sh.o.r.eham, that was the man's name.”
Mary Norton said triumphantly to Rutledge, ”It's not not the man.” And then to Alice she went on. ”Be quite sure! And we needn't speak of it again. To Inspector Madsen or Albert or anyone else. Ever.” the man.” And then to Alice she went on. ”Be quite sure! And we needn't speak of it again. To Inspector Madsen or Albert or anyone else. Ever.”
It was almost as if Mary Norton's anxiety sent the wrong message to Mrs. Crowell, twisting her promise into a warning.
Rutledge leaned forward and took Miss Norton by the arm. ”Let Mrs. Crowell take her time and look at the drawing in her own fas.h.i.+on,” he said gently, drawing her out from behind the desk to one of the chairs in front of it. ”Don't put words into her mouth.”
”But I'm not-” Mary Norton protested.
He cut off her indignation. ”Please. Give her time to think think.”
Mary Norton sat down, body stiff and still resisting.
Alice Crowell looked from one of them to the other. ”Are you saying you believe this was Henry Sh.o.r.eham? I can't believe it is. It just doesn't look look-”
There was a tap at the door, and one of the schoolboys stuck his head in.