A Fine Summer's Day (18 page)

How in God's name could he find out if these four dead men had
served on the same jury? Much less those whose grave stones had been blackened. But the seven who lay beneath blackened grave stones could wait.

Rutledge had a good memory for names and faces. He went through the long list of barristers his father had worked with, many of them later becoming QCs and then KCs. One of them might know where he should begin.

Who was still alive, who could he turn to, to ask for information?

And then he came up with the answer.

Fillmore Montagu Gilbert. Famous in his day for his successes, but even more famous for the dramatic way he conducted his crosses, sometimes shaking the prisoner in the dock to his very boots. Gilbert knew people, and he had had an uncanny feeling for guilt, even when the evidence seemed to point in the other direction. And he could ferret out details that led the prisoner to contradict himself or stumble over a fact that was pertinent to the case.

What's more, Gilbert was still alive. In his eighties if Rutledge's math was correct.

Where was he now?

Rutledge turned back to the Yard, thought better of asking Gibson, and instead went to his motorcar and drove to the house he shared with his sister.

She was there, arranging flowers for the main rooms, a skill she'd inherited from their mother.

Surprised to see him, she said, “If you're here to beg lunch, you'll have to take me out to dine. Mrs. Holly has found ants in the pantry, and she says it's a certain sign of heavy rain. Ants
know,
she says. And the kitchen is being given a scrubbing it probably hasn't experienced in twenty years.”

He laughed. “God forbid that we should find an ant swimming for its life in the consommé. All right, if you can help me find what I need, I'll take you anywhere you'd like to go.”

“Promise? You won't go haring off to the Yard instead?”

“Promise. Besides, it's a personal matter, not Yard business.”

But when he told her what he needed, she looked stricken.

“Ian. Everything was boxed up after the funerals. All the cards and letters and the names on the floral arrangements—everything. I can't—I can't do it.”

With a surge of guilt, he realized how thoughtless he'd been in his hurry to find what he needed. Taking her hand, he said, “Of course I can't ask you to relive it. All I need is to know where to look.”

“Melinda had it all taken up to the attic. I didn't ask—I didn't want to know.”

“Then I'll start there.”

“And still take me to lunch?”

“Yes, I've given you my word.”

But the grief he'd awakened hadn't gone away.

He took the stairs two at a time, walked on to the attic door on the second floor, and went up the next flight of steps just as quickly, although they were narrower and shorter.

The attics of this house held memories for him as well. His rocking horse, the cradle where Frances had slept for the first few weeks of her life, the collection of walking sticks that had belonged to father and grandfathers, a chest full of his mother's favorite hats, chairs and bedsteads and armoires and tables that had long since been replaced in fits of modernization, including the heavy Victorian table under which he'd played with his vast army of lead soldiers on rainy days. Its multiple branching legs had provided battlefield and barracks, parade grounds and cemeteries for fallen warriors.

He tried to shut out the past, searching for the boxed history of his parents' untimely deaths. He found what he was looking for under the eaves, in a corner where the boxes were safe but not intrusive. And he recognized them because they were labeled in Melinda Crawford's copperplate script.

Rutledge began with the labels, squatting there as he scanned them. He had told himself he could do this, but it was no less painful for him than it was for his sister.

Memories came flooding back.

Standing in the passage at the Yard as Cummins was walking toward him, a telegram in his hand, his face drained of all color. The feel of the telegram in his own hands as Cummins wordlessly passed it to him. The blurring of the type as he tried to read the message, and the wave of sheer disbelief that swept him, followed by shattering anger. Then the terrible realization that he would have to break the news to his sister.

Nearly two years had passed since the accident on the Isle of Skye that had killed his mother and father. They had been returning to the Kyle of Lochalsh on the small ferry that carried visitors, residents, goods, mail, and even the occasional Highland cow or sheep back and forth between the island and the mainland. It had been dusk, and there were no witnesses. It wasn't until the ferry was overdue that those waiting at the Kyle realized that something was wrong.

When the bodies were recovered, Rutledge and his wife were clinging together, almost impossible for anyone to separate.

After, everyone had said that it was good that they had gone together. That they would have wanted it that way. But Rutledge had refused to believe there was any goodness at all in what had happened, what had been so suddenly taken from them.

Shaking his head to clear it of the past, he concentrated on the task at hand.

It was then he located the box marked
C
ONDOLENCES
and against his will remembered sitting at the desk in his father's study, responding to each and every one of the many messages of sympathy that had poured in. How do you find the words to say at a time like that? And yet many people had found them. And he had had to thank them with a rote statement he'd written out to copy because it caused less pain than answering each message with an individual response.

Brief, to the point, his duty to his parents handled to the best of his ability. But Melinda, a hand on his shoulder, had approved.

“No one expects an outpouring of your feelings, Ian. Only an acknowledgment of their offer of comfort.”

Shoving that memory aside as well, he sat down on the dusty attic floor and opened the box. With resolute fingers he began to lift out the stacks of cards, a few at a time, and then a handful. He told himself he needn't open them or the emotions they evoked. He need only to look at the sender's name.

Forty-five minutes later, he had what he wanted: the letter of condolences that Fillmore Gilbert had sent. He remembered the contents all too well, the references to his father's infinite wisdom and experience in the law, and his mother's grace in every circumstance.
A rare woman,
Gilbert had called her,
and well suited to be the wife of such an extraordinary man.

He noted the address under Gilbert's name, and then he carefully repacked the box, closing it up again with a sense of finality.

Brushing off his trousers, he followed his own footsteps back to the stairs and went down them.

F
rances was waiting for him in the sitting room.

Looking up as he came through the door, she said, without really wanting to know, “Did you find what you were seeking?”

He took out his notebook to show her that he hadn't removed anything from the boxes. “An address I couldn't find anywhere else. I need information, and this was the best person I could think of to help me.”

“Yes, they knew so many people, didn't they? It was a great comfort at the—the time.”

“Are you still hungry, or have you found something in the ant-ridden kitchen?”

She grimaced. “Mrs. Holly won't let me through the door. I asked if she'd found mouse droppings too, but she exclaimed ‘Weovils' as if they were the devil himself.”

“Not surprising this summer.”

He took her to the Monarch Hotel with its famous restaurant, and enjoyed watching her greet friends and examine the menu. They talked of this and that, and finally Jean's name came up.

“Her mother has written. Asking me to be one of the bridesmaids. I was so pleased. You didn't put her up to it, did you, Ian?”

“I've never spoken to Mrs. Gordon about the bridesmaids.” It was the truth, and he was glad he could tell it with conviction. “I stay as far away from discussions about veils and slippers and church decorations as possible. It's a foreign language no man can comprehend.”

Laughing at him, she said, “We're to go to see the gowns they've picked out. I'm rather looking forward to it. It isn't often your favorite brother is married.”

He smiled in return. “Melinda sends her love. I was in Kent on Yard business and stopped to see her. She's worried about you.”

“I can't imagine why. Because I haven't decided to marry? I never lack invitations or dance partners. Early days, my dear Ian. I'm enjoying myself too much.” Then she was suddenly serious. “You'll be the first to know when the right person comes along. And I dare you to tell me he's not the right one for me.”

Yet she had done just that when he'd told her he'd proposed to Jean. A stir of worry suddenly wormed its way into his heart.

That was when he broached the subject of a companion for her.

There was fierce resistance. And that worried him more. Frances was one of the most sensible women he knew. But she was only twenty, not a great age for wisdom where the heart was concerned. He found himself wondering if she would have married before this, had it not
been for the long period of mourning for their parents. Mandated by grief, not etiquette, it had taken some time for both of them to come to terms with that loss.

“Think about it,” he said. “And speak to Melinda. Between the two of you, you can surely find someone who would suit.”

“I thought you were giving me a sister, so that I wouldn't be lonely anymore,” she reminded him.

“And so I am. But Christmas is five months away. And I've been out of London this summer more often than I like. You wouldn't want to find yourself the subject of gossip. No matter how unfair or untrue it was.”

“I will never find myself the subject of gossip,” she retorted, lifting her chin. “Mama taught me well.”

Rutledge took a deep breath. “Speak to Melinda. I'll agree to whatever you decide.”

But the mood of their luncheon had been spoiled now, and he regretted it.

Soon after, he took her home, changed the clothing in his valise, and set out again. He left without telling the Yard what he was about or why. As far as they knew, he was still in Kent.

It would be viewed as insubordination. But the fact was, Bowles would never agree to what Rutledge was doing, and permission would be refused out of hand.

A risk, but if he was right, then whatever had happened while these four men were living within shouting distance of each other in Bristol had come back to haunt them.

He drove to Kent, but not to Aylesbridge. Instead he headed for Swan Walk, no more than thirty miles southeast of London, where Gilbert lived presently, having given up his house in town some years ago. Swan Walk was not far from Penshurst Place, the great ancestral home of the Sidney family. Gilbert's was a placid estate set on high ground that gently sloped down to a narrow winding stream. Sheep
grazed in meadows or rested in the shade of walls and copses as he made his way down the winding road leading into the tiny village of Swan Walk.

Less than half a mile on, he turned in through the gates and took the long drive through an avenue of trees that led up to the house. It was cool there, branches arching high over his head like the ribs of vaulting. Rutledge savored it. And then he came out into the last of the long twilight. The view spread before him was of more fields and meadows, distant church towers and green countryside. But in the west, far to his right, there was heat lightning, constant flickers in a bank of dark clouds. He pulled up by the main door and got out, stretching his legs for a moment before mounting the steps and lifting the brass knocker.

A middle-aged maid in crisp uniform opened the door to him, peering out into the dusk at the tall stranger on the doorstep.

He gave his name, asking if he might speak to Mr. Gilbert, and was told to wait while she inquired if he were receiving visitors at this late hour.

Apparently Mr. Gilbert was in a mood to receive this visitor, and Rutledge was shown to a room overlooking the gardens. Through the long windows—the curtains hadn't been pulled—he could see his reflection and just beyond it, those flickers of light across the dark sky.

The room smelled faintly of cigar.

As he turned to greet his host, Rutledge was shocked by the changes in Gilbert. He was shrunken, a thin man where there had been a robust one, a paisley India shawl draped over his shoulders, in spite of the heat.

But his gray eyes were as alert as ever.

“Ian! Forgive me for not rising—I have a confoundedly painful big toe at the moment. Gout, they tell me, but I refuse to believe a word of it. Good God, man, you're as tall as your father! Come in and sit down. What can I offer you? I have an excellent Madeira, a French
brandy, and a single malt whisky, none of which I am allowed to taste unless I have a visitor.”

“The brandy, sir,” he replied, well aware that it was Gilbert's favorite tipple.

“There are glasses on the tray. If you bring me one, I can tell the confounded doctor I was coerced.”

Smiling, Rutledge poured two small glasses and took one of them to Gilbert before joining him by the windows.

“What news of Claudia?” Rutledge asked. She was Gilbert's daughter.

“She and Sidney and the boys are still living just outside Portsmouth. They come when they can, but of course his practice is growing by the day. He should be in Harley Street, but they much prefer the countryside.”

The town of Portsmouth was hardly countryside, the docks and shipping lanes dominating it, but with three young sons, it offered all the amenities that Sidney had known at their ages. They rambled, they fished, they went to the seaside, hunted birds' nests and held mock sea battles with a fleet of small wooden ships on the stream at the bottom of their garden. And then Rutledge realized that the boys were most certainly at school now, for the youngest must be all of nine.