A Fine Summer's Day (21 page)

“There's the man Clayton he strung up in Moresby.”

“The house was empty. He wasn't so lucky in other cases. Nor was there a suitable place. Or perhaps he didn't care for what he'd done. It may have smacked of his father's death, and turned him away from hanging the others.”

“Makes sense, in a macabre sort of way. But how does he persuade them to drink the milk laced with the drug?”

“Perhaps they don't know. I've not thought it through that far,” Rutledge said. “We've a long way to go before we know if I'm right. I've got to show that these victims did serve together. And then there's the question of how he manages to find his quarry.”

“The same as we do? Somerset House with its lists of births, deaths, and marriages. He could possibly work it out from there. That's assuming he knew the names of the jurors.”

“Yes, he would have to know that, wouldn't he? Someone would have told him. His mother. Grandfather. Someone.”

“And he remembered the names. Or they were written down in some way. A newspaper cutting?”

“I've confirmed the names of two of the dead men. Tattersall and Hadley. But only two. That could be viewed as coincidence. Especially since I have no proof they were on the same jury. I've been warned off Moresby, worst luck, and I can't think of a reason to go to Northumberland.”

“And it would take a dozen men weeks of work to run down the names of men under those ruined tombstones and ask their families. No, I can see you need to start with the facts, not chase them.”

“That's to say, if Bowles will countenance such a search.”

“What about this man Edgerton. The KC? Where does he live?”

“In Surrey, I think.”

“That's not unreachable. Thirty miles? Before you see Bowles, speak to Edgerton. He might well know something that will take you to the next level. He may even have personal notes of the trial, if indeed he was the QC you're after.”

Cummins got up and silently opened his door. “The coast is clear. On your way. And stop in when you get back. I want to hear what you've discovered.”

Rutledge nodded, slipped out the door, and walked quietly down the passage to the stairs. He made it out of the building without raising any eyebrows, and was on his way to Surrey five minutes later.

Edgerton lived near Guildford in a Georgian house on the outskirts of town.

Flower beds bordered the drive, full of summer bloom. Rutledge went up the slight incline and pulled up at the door.

He had no official appointment, he told the footman who answered his knock, but there was a matter of law that had come up at the Yard, and he needed to speak to Mr. Edgerton, if at all possible.

He was available, Rutledge was told, but busy writing his memoirs.

Memoirs meant information to hand. If writing them wasn't an
excuse to retire to the country, as it had been in Gilbert's case. Rutledge smiled and said, “Mr. Gilbert suggested that Mr. Edgerton was the man we should be seeking. Ask him, please, if he could spare half an hour?”

Ten minutes later, Rutledge was in Edgerton's study. He was a tall, cadaverous man with graying hair and green eyes. He looked Rutledge up and down, saying, “If I don't care for your questions, you're out on your ear. Understood? I have better things to do with my time than research legal niceties for Scotland Yard.”

“It's a question of a case, a capital case, that was tried in Bristol in May of 1888. As far as we can determine, the outcome was likely to be a guilty verdict, and the accused was condemned.”

“Good God, man, you must be mad to think I can remember every detail of every case I ever tried.”

“I'm told you're writing your memoirs. That suggests to me that you have kept notes on the cases you did try. And if you have, I'm sure they're catalogued in some fashion.”

“You are impertinent, sir.”

“I'm sorry. There have been at least four murders that could well be connected to this trial. And there could be other victims unwittingly being stalked.”

“A fresh murder, not an ancient one.”

“Precisely.”

“Tell me what you have, and then go away. If I can find anything, I'll contact you.”

Rutledge hadn't anticipated finding answers that morning. But this sounded to him like a rebuff:
Go away and if I feel like it I might look at my notes. If I don't, I won't.

He said, standing his ground, “I can't tell you how urgent this need for information is.”

“I am no longer an officer of the court, young man. I can do as I please.”

Rutledge hesitated, then said, “Mr. Gilbert was kind enough to give us your name. I see no reason for you to be less generous with your time.”

“Gilbert is an old man looking God in the eye. I have memoirs to finish. There's a difference in emphasis here.”

“Which tells me that you don't after all have notes you kept from your various trials. You're making up the memoirs as you go along.”

For a moment Rutledge thought he'd gone too far. Edgerton's face turned as dark as a thundercloud. And then unexpectedly he laughed.

“All right, you proper nuisance. Let's see what we can find.”

Edgerton took him upstairs to a bedroom where bookshelves had replaced most of the usual furnishings. And on the bookshelves were lined up row upon row of small black leather binders, each one with a month and a year stamped on the spine in gold.

Reminded of Jerome Hadley, Rutledge was impressed and said as much.

Edgerton answered dryly, “I found it cleared my mind to write down exactly what I knew about a case and then what I thought about it, initially and without preconceptions. Then I kept a log of what I did from my first interview with the accused, straight through the trial, to what the verdict was. Whether there was an appeal and what the outcome was. A tedious pastime. But I sometimes went back and read a similar case, to see what I'd made of that one. Law, my young friend, is not what you think it is. It's a compendium of human experience in learning to judge men fairly.”

And so they settled down to search.

Almost three hours later, they had to agree that the Crown prosecutor in the murder trial Rutledge wanted to find was not Edgerton.

He had been in Derby on the week in question. Not in Bristol.

Edgerton invited Rutledge to stay for lunch. “It's the least you can do, since you've spoiled my morning. I want to hear more about these abominable murders.”

But at the end of Rutledge's recital of the evidence, Edgerton shook his head. “Mind you, I think you may be on to something. But the fact is, I don't think you're likely to find it. Much less be able to prove it in a courtroom.”

“There must be court records. Something—”

“Oh, of course there are. Moldy boxes of them in the attics of chambers or the cellars of courthouses. If they were pertinent to new law or the interpretation of an old one, raised questions of jurisdiction or details of successful appeals, and the like, you'll find them in books on jurisprudence. Or in a judge's memoirs, if you're very lucky. If we had the name of the accused, it would make a huge difference. That's your task now. Find out who he was.”

But the men who could have told him that were dead, Rutledge thought, and even before that they'd been enjoined to secrecy about the trial and its outcome.

But there was still the barber . . .

T
he question was, should he return to London or go directly to Netherby? If he spoke to the Chief Superintendent, and he was warned off this particular line of inquiry, there would be an end to it.

If he didn't go back, if he went on to Netherby, Bowles would demand to know why he wasn't clearing up the inquiry in Aylesbridge.

He found himself ruefully thinking that if all else failed, he might be joining David Trevor's firm of architects sooner rather than later.

Still, if Lolly was able by some miracle to confirm that Benjamin Clayton had served on a jury, in fact, the same jury as Hadley and Tattersall, that would make three. And three was less of a coincidence than two.

If Netherby led nowhere, then he'd wasted his time, and what's more had nothing to offer the man defending Mark Kingston in Moresby.

To Bristol, then, and Netherby. Calculated risk though it might be.

Rutledge turned the bonnet toward the West Country and settled himself for the long drive.

Before he reached Netherby, however, he changed his mind and swung south of Bristol. Finding the road that led off to the village of Beecham, he followed it. It was in Beecham that the smaller number of churchyard stones had been damaged, and he realized that he'd never been there.

Rutledge ran the local vicar to earth in his back garden, where he was on his knees weeding the vegetables. As his housekeeper opened the kitchen door, he looked up.

“Someone to see you, sir,” she called, and he nodded. As Rutledge stepped out into the path, the vicar rocked back on his heels and frowned.

“I'm sorry, if you need me in my professional capacity, I'll be with you in a few minutes.” He dropped his handful of weeds into the basket by his elbow.

Rutledge gave his name and rank. “I've come for information. I was hoping you could help me.”

The vicar slowly got to his feet, dusting off the knees of his trousers. “Has Inspector Davies sent you? Is it about that trouble in the churchyard? Come along. There are benches over there, by the gooseberries.”

“I'm afraid not. Not directly.”

Rutledge followed him, and they sat down across from each other. The vicar said, taking out a handkerchief to wipe his hands, “God made everything, including the weeds. I accept that. I just wish he'd been a little less generous with the weeds.”

Smiling, Rutledge said, “You won't have been the first gardener to think so.”

“No, I expect that's true. How can I serve you?”

“I need to find someone who has lived in this village for a very
long time—twenty years or more. I'd like to know more about the men whose graves were painted black. At the moment this is in regard to another inquiry.”

“I can tell you, there's really no connection among them. Inspector Davies and I made a thorough search of the church records.”

“Setting those aside for the moment, I need to know whether they were men of property or not.”

“Property? Let me see. Thompson was the squire's nephew, but he owned the cottage where he lived. Died out in Kenya, his body brought home. As for Mr. Mayfield, he and his brother owned the general store. Quite prosperous, it was. Still is, for that matter.”

“Mayfield lived here all his life?”

“Yes, that's true.”

“I'd like to find out if they had served on the same jury in 1888.”

“Mayfield's widow is dead as well. I expect you could speak to Thompson's widow,” the vicar went on doubtfully, “but they weren't wed until 1890. Of course, there's Lucy Muir. She's not old enough to remember such things, but she's set herself the task of compiling a history of the village. It's to be printed and sold in the church.”

“I don't think,” Rutledge answered carefully, “that what I'm after would be of any interest to church visitors.”

“I'm sure that could be true. But in gathering information that might be of interest, Lucy has surely come across a good bit that isn't. I'd start with her.” The vicar looked down at his hands, at the earth that was caked under his fingernails. “Give me a few minutes to change, and I'll take you to call on her. My housekeeper makes a fine lemonade, if you'd like a cooling drink while you wait.”

And so Rutledge was settled in the parlor with a tall glass of lemonade while the vicar took the stairs two at a time, disappearing above to change.

The vicarage parlor was bright, the windows standing wide and white lace curtains lifting in the gentle breeze. There was a glass case
on beautifully carved feet that held an assortment of treasures, from enameled snuffboxes to thimbles. He was standing there admiring them when the vicar returned.

“My mother's collection,” he said. “She loved pretty things and my father found ways of indulging her. How was the lemonade?”

“As good as you promised. Thank you.”

They walked out to the motorcar, and the vicar said with a sigh, “My weakness. Mechanical things. It's new this year, is it not? Yes, I've seen some of the quite enticing advertisements Rolls has put out. You do realize that I insinuated myself into this visit with Lucy just to be driven there in this marvelous machine?” He walked around it, admiring it.

“My pleasure.”

They drove along the High Street to a lane that ran down to a fast-moving little stream crossed by an old stone bridge. Beyond that, a drive led from the lane up a slight rise to a cottage with a thatched roof and one of the prettiest gardens Rutledge had ever seen.

“Quite beautiful, isn't it?” the vicar agreed. “She advises me on the vicarage gardens from time to time. But I fear she wastes her knowledge.” He got down as the motorcar came to a stop, and said, “Don't be misled by what you see. She's really marvelous.”

The young woman who came to the door to greet them wore a simple white dress with a gold locket at her throat. She was no older than Rutledge, and her hair was the color of honey, her eyes hazel. Quite taken aback, for he'd pictured a middle-aged spinster, he smiled as the vicar presented him, and tried to think what to say.

Her eyes twinkled. “Yes, I know. The aged white witch in her cottage, musty herbs hanging from the rafters, and a black cat on the hearth,” she said. “Well, I don't have any herbs, I'm afraid, but I do possess a black cat. Come inside and meet Abigail.”

The vicar led the way, saying, “Mr. Rutledge has come down from London to look into the past of our village. I thought of you at
once and promised that you could help him. Don't let me down, I beg of you.”