A game of fear, p.26
A Game of Fear, page 26
“He got here quickly enough.”
“Yes, he lives just up the road, toward Walmer. Mrs. Hailey is locking up, then I’ll make my rounds. Will you stay, at least until I can learn to manage Bruce? We don’t have another tour scheduled for today. She tells me there is a sufficient amount of sandwiches left for our supper.”
But he had already made up his mind to stay.
When the usual routine of closing up the house had been carried out, Rutledge went round with Lady Benton to be certain the locks were in place and all the lamps had been turned out, while Bruce whined behind the door of the sitting room.
They spent the next hour going back over the past.
Rutledge hadn’t told her that he believed Franklin had killed Captain Nelson because he had somehow stumbled on the truth. That was the only explanation for the death of Gerry Dunn after the Captain’s crash. A mechanic himself, Dunn might well have discovered whatever had been done to the motorcar to cause it to crash. His mother had said he was mad about all things mechanical.
And so when they had brought a fresh pot of tea back to the sitting room, Rutledge said, “Did the men from the airfield come inside?”
“I’ve told you. I spoke to all of them, but in various places. On the lawns, in the kitchen, the old butler’s quarters. The Captain had the run of the library, but that was because I trusted him to be careful, discreet, and to lock up when he left.”
“Could the Captain have put something in the house for safekeeping? Something he wished to keep private? Flying as often as he did, he left his quarters unguarded. Anyone might go in. And he was killed in the crash before he could recover it.”
“What could he possibly have wished to leave here? And why didn’t he tell me it was here?”
“I don’t know. Something about the squadron, perhaps?” Rutledge wasn’t ready to tell her that it might have to do with a murderer.
“That’s not like Roger—Captain Nelson. If there was a problem at the airfield, he’d have gone straight to Major Dinsmore. And he only came into the house to borrow books.”
“Then we should go to the library.”
Once in the handsome room with its row on row of books, shelves climbing nearly to the high ceiling, with several lamps lit to enable them to search, it appeared to be a daunting task. They had brought Bruce with them, and as he curled up on the hearth rug, content, Rutledge asked, “What in particular did the Captain like to read?”
“The Classics. Books on navigation, history—memoirs. I never asked. I saw him with a Cicero once, and again with an account of the Great Mutiny in India. We had a fine collection of books with lovely plates of Greek statues. I pointed those out to him, myself.”
Rutledge considered shelves running around the room. “Did others know his tastes in reading?”
“I have no idea.”
Then Hamish spoke, and Rutledge turned away, to hide his expression.
“He wouldna’ leave anything in a book he had read.”
And that made a certain sense. Rutledge began to scan the shelves. He found a book on flowers of the world, and took it down to search. Lady Benton, watching him, said, “I see what you’re thinking. That he would choose something less likely to appeal to him.”
It was almost as if she too had heard Hamish’s comment.
She picked out a book on the development of firearms, another on the Moghul Empire, and two on ancient architecture. Rutledge meanwhile looked through a multivolume set of County Records.
He moved the ladder and climbed to look on the higher shelves.
Bruce lay snoring on the Turkish carpet in front of the hearth.
Lady Benton sat down, resting her head against the back of her chair. Looking at her hands, she said, “These shelves need a good dusting.”
A few minutes later she was back at work.
It was growing late. Rutledge looked at the tall coach clock on the mantel, and decided they could devote only half an hour more to what was becoming an impossible task. It would, he thought, take several people days to do a thorough search.
He had just found a three-volume set on fishing in Scotland when Lady Benton said in a surprised tone of voice, “Inspector? I think—you ought to have a look.”
He climbed down the ladder and crossed the room to where she was standing.
Rutledge couldn’t have said afterward exactly what he was expecting to find. Anything, from a newspaper cutting to a letter from the real Albert Reed’s solicitor trying to find him, even a military file.
Instead Lady Benton was holding a photograph.
It was of a wedding party. The bride and groom, smiling. A bridesmaid beside her, and another man standing next to the groom. It was an excellent photograph, quite sharp, quite clear.
“What is it? Do you recognize these people?” he asked.
“No. Well, yes. That’s to say—I’m not sure—perhaps the groom?” Her voice was doubtful. “Who are they? Ought I to know them?”
“Possibly. Someone did, or the photograph wouldn’t be here. Tell me who you think he might be?” Rutledge tried to keep his voice level—interested, but not alarmed.
Her answer was not what he was expecting.
“I’m not sure. He’s so much younger here.” She shook her head. “He’s—well, I believe he’s working at the Home Farm. Henry took him on for the planting season. I’d told him to look around for a man. He’s getting too old to do everything. Even with that new tractor.” She shook her head. “I’ve only seen him once, at a little distance . . . always working.” Looking up at Rutledge, she said, “But why is his photograph—I expect it must be his wedding photograph—in one of our books?”
Rutledge had seen the new farm laborer as well, but standing well back, head down, when he’d asked Henry about the horse in the wrong pasture.
“What is his name?”
“Blackwood? Blackburn? Yes, I believe it’s Blackburn. Henry sees to his wages, you see. I try not to interfere—Eric left Henry in charge of the Home Farm when he went to France. He’s been very good too, and I leave him to it. We go over the books every quarter.”
“Have you ever seen this man before? At the airfield?”
“I—I don’t think so.” She rubbed her chin, trying to remember. “Certainly not one of the pilots. Possibly one of the mechanics? Margaret might be able to tell us.”
Patricia Lowell might have answered that, if she’d lived.
He said, “Mrs. Lowell might have remembered him.”
“Oh—yes! Of course! One of her pets. Um . . . Perry? The one with the stutter? No, I think it must be Reed.” She stared at him. “Are you telling me that Blackwood is also Sergeant Reed?”
“I think it’s very likely.”
“But Patricia never said anything!— It was—she had a flat going home on the Saturday after what happened in the garden—Blackburn was waiting by the road for someone to take him somewhere, and he—he came to her rescue and fixed the flat for her. She told me on Sunday how grateful she was.”
“Did she recognize him? Realize that he was Reed?”
“She’d have said something if she had. Surely?” Lady Benton shook her head. “I’m sure she didn’t. Or perhaps it didn’t occur to her that he was Reed. At least possibly not then—but later—” Her fingers went to her lips, pressing them as the next thought came. Rutledge read it clearly in her eyes.
“If she asked questions, if the police investigated, they might well discover he was a wanted murderer. And he hadn’t finished what he came here to do. He wasn’t going to take a risk that she knew Reed was using the name Blackburn now.” He waited the space of a moment, then asked, “Did Henry have much to do with the men at the airfield?”
“Hardly at all. You can’t imagine what it was like, with everyone enlisting, no one to plant or harvest—making do at every turn. I worried about him—he was working day and night, he kept us fed, and the animals as well. And he was much older. He had nothing in common with the men who were here. They were all so—so very young.”
He took the photograph from her and turned it over.
Someone had written on the back.
Brides are so lovely, aren’t they? Overshadows yours truly. Much love, Penny
“Who is Penny? Do you know?”
“Ah, she was Roger’s sister. She married a young American and they went back to his home there. She was Roger’s only family, and he took her leaving hard.”
And that explained why he’d been buried here. Why no one had come to Essex to take him home.
But was this bride the wife that Franklin killed three years later? Or someone else? Another victim?
If it was, then this was the only known photograph of Miles Franklin, other than that unclear one in the newspaper cutting.
No wonder the Captain had hidden it. Rutledge looked at the title of the book that Lady Benton was still holding. Myths and Monsters: A History of Strange Beings.
A fitting title, he thought.
Lady Benton was saying, “There’s a second volume. Perhaps we should look in there. Would you bring it down?”
Rutledge found it and handed it to her.
She thumbed through the pages, and stopped toward the end. “There are cuttings here. I don’t recognize them. Roger must have put them in as well.” She passed them to Rutledge.
He took them, expecting them to be copies of what he already had in his possession about the murders in Dorset. But they were not.
Here was the first murder—earlier than the one where Franklin had escaped from a courthouse and disappeared. At the least, the first one that anyone had found, searching what they could of Franklin’s life.
murder most foul was the headline. And beneath that was the story.
Last night the bodies of Mary Elizabeth Morton Franklin and her father, Jerome Andrew Morton, were discovered by a cousin who had come to the house to return a cooking pan she had borrowed for a Maundy Thursday dinner at St. Joseph’s. According to Constable Merriman, Inspector Williams was brought in to take charge of the inquiry into their deaths and is seeking Mrs. Franklin’s husband, whose present whereabouts are unknown. There has been a search for his body, but it has not yet been found. Mrs. Franklin and her father died of multiple stab wounds, and it is feared that Mr. Franklin may have suffered a similar fate. Neighbors interviewed by the police can offer no explanation for the deaths. “They appeared to be such a nice family” according to one, while another told us, “They were lovely people. This makes no sense to any of us.”
The second cutting reported that Mr. Franklin had not been found, alive or dead, and the police were still searching for him. A third reported that the police now believed that Franklin was a person of interest in the deaths of his wife and father-in-law. He had disappeared, and it had been learned that he had made numerous large withdrawals from accounts at the nearest bank before his disappearance, and that items were also missing from the home. He was being actively sought by Scotland Yard.
The date on the cutting was 1911.
A note had been added at the bottom of the third cutting.
Roger, darling, you remember Mary, don’t you? We were in school together, and I was in her wedding party some years ago. I never cared for him, I could easily believe he has killed her. But the police haven’t a clue.
And the note was signed with a P. Penny . . .
Appalled, Lady Benton looked away. She had been reading over Rutledge’s arm as he scanned the cuttings.
“Why did he kill them? Why not a divorce—or simply leave? Disappear? I can’t understand it.”
“I don’t know that anyone can. Perhaps Franklin believed that a divorce would take too long and be too difficult. That it was safer just to be rid of them, if he could get away with it. Needless to say, he was never caught. There’s a very good chance he’s killed others. Not just Morton and his daughter.” He said nothing about the other cuttings in his possession. This wasn’t the time. Instead he added, “Men like Franklin find it easy to kill, if someone is in their way. They feel no shame and no remorse. It’s merely self-protection.”
She was frowning, working it out in her own mind, putting the pieces together.
“Is—is Reed this man Franklin—and dear God, the man at the Home Farm as well?” She found her handkerchief, and wiped away tears. “I don’t want to believe it. I don’t want to think of Patricia dying at his hands.” She set aside the book lying in her lap, as if it were contaminated by what had been hidden among its pages. “Roger knew, he knew what Reed—Franklin—was, didn’t he?” Reaching out, she caught Rutledge’s arm, her fingers gripping it hard. “Inspector—it was an accident, wasn’t it? Roger’s crash? Please tell me it was!”
“I can’t. I think the Captain must have done or said something to alert Franklin. Or perhaps he even confronted him. Who can say for certain? He may have intended to talk to the Colonel—the police—someone in authority, and he had to be stopped. Without drawing attention to his death. Everyone seemed to know the Captain drove fast. Fiddle with the steering or the brakes, and let nature take its course. I don’t think Franklin expected it to happen in front of witnesses, who could vouch for what they thought they were seeing. He was fortunate there. If the crash had occurred somewhere on the road from Walmer, late at night, there might have been a formal inquiry. It’s very likely that Gerald Dunn discovered what had been done to the motorcar. That sealed his death as well.”
“But how could he be certain the Captain would be killed? Not simply injured and able to tell the police what went wrong? Even who might have done something to the motorcar?”
“I daresay he was hoping it would be fatal. Desperate as he was, Franklin could hardly kill Nelson himself and toss the body into the sea. It might be believed that Dunn deserted. But not Nelson. Not the air ace. There would have been an uproar, and London would have sent people down here to help in the search.” People like Haldane, but he didn’t say that aloud.
“If this is true,” she asked, her voice husky, “why on earth did that man come back to Walmer? Why not leave well enough alone—leave these hidden forever?”
“For one thing, it’s possible that he didn’t know for certain just what the Captain had hidden. If this is indeed the only known photograph of Franklin, he’d want to destroy it. If it wasn’t in the Captain’s quarters, if it wasn’t in the records in Dinsmore’s office, it had to be here. And you might eventually come across it. Again, the simplest solution would be to kill you. But like the Captain’s death, yours would have to seem natural. Like a fall down the crypt stairs. It’s very likely Franklin was already planning a new life and name elsewhere, and he wanted to be certain there was nothing in the past that might follow him. He’s always carefully removed anyone who could prove who he was. For another, it’s likely that the real Franklin and Newbold, at The Monk’s Choice, are brothers. He’d feel safe here.”
“No, that can’t be true. We’ve known the Newbold family going back generations. He has no brother. Anyone can tell you that.”
“Are you sure?” he asked sharply. “Newbold’s father wasn’t married twice?”
“Of course I am sure. Ask Inspector Hamilton—or look in the church records at St. George’s. I don’t think he ever set foot outside Walmer.”
He was collecting the cuttings, and she handed him the photograph, and he took a last look at it, committing the face to memory.
Lady Benton leaned forward to see it one last time.
“Who is the bride? Is this the woman he killed? Is this Mary Elizabeth?”
“I expect it must be. Nelson’s sister sent it to him, and the clippings. She identified her on one of them.”
Lady Benton shivered. “Put that back where we found it. It’s safer there, and I don’t want to have to look at it again. And then we’ll go to the police—to Inspector Hamilton.”
“I think it’s best to wait until morning. I don’t want to leave the house unguarded.”
“You aren’t armed. There’s the gun room. My husband has a shotgun, and a set of dueling pistols that came down in the family—”
He was already closing the pair of books Myths and Monsters, crossing the room to put them back on the shelf. “That’s not a bad thought.”
She stopped halfway to the door. “Henry. At the Home Farm. Dear God, what are we to do about him? He’s got a murderer sleeping in the tack room in the barn!”
“It’s best to do or say nothing. He’s safe because he has no idea what’s happening. Leave it that way until we can take Blackburn, or whatever his name is, into custody.”
He had just turned from putting the books where they had come from, his hand already reaching for one of the lamps, to put it out, when Bruce lifted his head from the Turkish carpet and growled deep in his throat, a low, rumbling warning.
Lady Benton turned slowly, staring at the dog, then looking at Rutledge, her face suddenly pale.
Bruce lumbered to his feet, his massive head turned toward the terrace doors in the garden room on the other side of the passage.
“Keep him quiet,” Rutledge ordered her in a whisper and put out the other lamp, plunging them into darkness. She had already gone to the dog, taking him by his collar, he could hear her speaking softly to him. Rutledge joined her, and together they stepped into the passage.
He closed the door to the library as softly as he could.
She reached out, fumbling for his arm.
“This way. The gun room is this way,” she whispered softly.
Bruce was pulling against her grip, still growling deep in his throat, and Rutledge reached for his collar. “Good boy. This way.”
And she walked down the pitch-black passage as if it were noon and the doors were opened to all the rooms, letting in the light.
He brought the dog with them as she guided him. Opening doors and shutting them with ease. He had shifted his hand to her shoulder, so that both of her hands were free.
