A Fine Summer's Day (9 page)

She sent her admirers away and turned to him. “I'm glad to see you so happy.”

“Are you?” he asked, searching her face. “I thought you had reservations.”

“I did, I admit it. She's young, Ian, and I don't mean only in years. You'll need to remember that and help her find her way in a policeman's world. It won't be easy.”

“I've thought about that. Especially tonight. She's accustomed to a very different place in Society, isn't she? Which isn't to say she can't keep that place. But she knows how much Scotland Yard means to me.”

“Does she? I wonder if her parents do. They like you, Ian. But they might well like you even better, if you were in another line of work. The Army, her father's world, is a very close family. And you're outside it.”

He remembered his conversation with the Major. But he said, “She loves me. And she knows what I do. She's accepted that.”

Melinda Crawford smiled but didn't answer him. At that moment, dinner was announced, and he rose, ruefully.

“I must take Jean in. Do you mind?”

“My dear, I shall manage quite well. I was Army too, and I must still know half the General Staff. In fact, there's a retired Brigadier bearing down on us now, with a look on his face that tells me he's my dinner partner.” She touched his arm. “But thank you for caring.”

He moved across the room to where Jean was waiting with her parents, and the procession moved toward the dining room doors. Jean held his arm tightly. “I haven't had five minutes with you,” she whispered. “Will you come by tomorrow? We'll have a picnic somewhere in the country. Just the two of us.”

“I'd like that,” he said, and didn't have the heart to tell her then that he'd be halfway to Somerset before she was out of bed.

H
e left shortly after two in the morning, having stopped by the house to change out of his evening clothes and take up the valise he'd already packed. Gibson had left a message for him:
Start in Bristol.

This time he drove his own motorcar. It had been an extravagance, but he enjoyed it and had found it surprisingly useful. He'd spoken to Frances before she left the party on Ross's arm. She had been unexpectedly cheerful, and he realized with sheer relief that she'd enjoyed her evening. His sister was tall and very attractive, and there was an abundance of young Army officers who were happy to dance with her. He'd taken his own turn, and she had seemed almost preoccupied before asking him about his friend Richard, with whom she'd danced the last waltz.

“He's engaged, I think,” he said lightly. “Don't set your cap for him.”

“I shan't have to,” she said enigmatically, and then smiled. “Ian, I take back every reservation I've had about Jean. I think you've made a good choice. Truly I do. And I like her parents as well. This is the first time I've really spoken to them. More than the usual polite exchanges at parties or the theater.”

He brought her hand up to his lips and kissed her fingers. “It means more than you know,” he said, “to hear you say that.”

“You've always been my brother, always there when I needed you. I think I was just being selfish. Wanting to keep you to myself a little longer.”

What lay unspoken between them was the fact of their parents' deaths. She had had no one else to turn to. And together they had managed to live through the nightmare and all the changes it had brought in its wake.

“I think Jean understands that as well. She's another part of our family, that's all. Not a wedge. Never a wedge.”

The dance came to an end. Another officer was there to take his place, and he relinquished his sister with a smile. He went to find his next partner, one of Jean's closest friends, then found a moment to speak to Jean herself before taking another turn.

On the whole, he thought, the evening had gone very well indeed, and after the last guest had left, the Major had taken him into his study and said, “Well, that's past us now.” Grinning, he loosened his tie and reached for the brandy decanter. “I swear, I've not danced this much for ten years. I was the wallflower patrol. And I saw you doing your own duty there. Good man.” He offered his future son-in-law a drink, but Rutledge shook his head.

“Speaking of duty, I shall have to go to Somerset this weekend.”

“Oh, too bad. We were thinking of going up to Henley to have lunch with friends. Jean and her mother are looking forward to it.”

So much for the picnic. He was glad he wouldn't have to disappoint Jean.

But he had a feeling he'd disappointed the Major.

Toward three in the morning, he felt fatigue pulling at him, and he found a farm lane where he could sleep for a few hours, half hidden by tall hedgerows. An equally sleepy horse came to lean over the fence and inspect him, then it moved away again.

Stiff and in need of a shave, he drove into Bristol later in the morning than he'd expected, and found a hotel on the hill near the university where there was a little breeze in the rising morning heat. After shaving, changing, and sitting down for a quick breakfast, he made his way to the police station.

There he discovered that Sergeant Gibson had already been in touch with a Sergeant Miller.

The desk sergeant sent him down a passage to a cramped room where Miller had a table desk.

A tall, thin man with prematurely gray hair, Miller was deep in a collection of files. He looked up as Rutledge came into the room, a frown on his face. It cleared when he realized the interloper was a stranger.

“You wouldn't be Inspector Rutledge, by any chance?” he asked, rising. “I didn't expect you this soon.”

“This is a rather pressing matter. An inquiry in Yorkshire hinges on what I learn here. You've spoken to Sergeant Gibson?”

“I have, and I've been looking through some of these files. Nothing criminal on a man named Benjamin Clayton. Although I did find he sold the shop inherited from his father.” Miller thumbed through the papers before him, and gave the date.

“Did he indeed?” Rutledge asked, interested. The time was close enough to fit Clayton's arrival in Moresby to marry a young would-be schoolmistress. “Tell me more about this shop.”

“There are a number of families on the rolls with the surname of Clayton. The great-grandfather of your lot, a man with the Christian name of Harold, was apprenticed to a furniture maker, his son Alfred after him. Then the next in line, also an Alfred, opened his own shop. It sold household goods, mostly from Birmingham, as well as a few
handmade pieces of furniture, and it flourished. My next question was, where did this Alfred find the money for such a shop? I looked into
that
. It seems the father of your Clayton married well, and used his wife's dowry.”

The names matched what he'd learned at Somerset House in London. Still, he wanted to be absolutely certain. “And we're quite sure that this is the family of the man who went to live in Yorkshire.”

He could see Sergeant Miller bristle. “You must look for answers to that in Yorkshire. Benjamin sold up and left. That's as far as our information goes.”

“I understand. What I'm searching for is a past that might have followed him there. Does this shop still exist?”

Miller gave him directions, and Rutledge set out to find Netherby. It lay east of Bristol, and Rutledge discovered he'd actually driven through it on his way into Bristol although he hadn't seen a sign giving its name. In the shadow of the larger town, it had never attained more than village status. Still, Netherby had a small church with a tall, elegant tower, and a number of pretty houses on the High Street. He had no trouble finding the building he sought—but it had been converted into a barber's shop many years before. He spoke to the barber, who was busy stropping his razors, and learned that the furniture shop had only survived Ben Clayton's decision to sell up for some ten years.

“The new man didn't have the knack,” the barber told Rutledge. “Everyone needs a haircut, man and boy. But it's quite another matter convincing a housewife she needs a new carpet this year, or a more comfortable chair or a sturdier washtub. Mr. Stedman hung on as long as he could, but it was never the prosperous business it was under Alfred Clayton or his son Ben.”

To Rutledge's surprise, the barber, a stooped, graying man of perhaps sixty, actually remembered Ben Clayton.

“And for the price of a haircut,” he added, folding his razors and setting them away, “I'll remember more than the name.”

As the shop was empty, it was a fair trade, and Rutledge laughed as he sat down in the worn chair. “The sign says
LOLLY
'
S
. Is that you?”

“Was when I was a lad. I took the name for the shop because Edgar didn't sound quite right, to my ears.”

The barber whisked a sheet across Rutledge's chest, and set to work. Rutledge reminded him of their bargain.

“I remember the father best. As a lad I'd do errands for him, and earn a few pence. But I knew Benjamin also. Nice lad, he was. Alfred, now—the father—knew his worth, and he gave good value for the money in everything he sold. Wife died young of her appendix, and so there was only the one child. Clever with his hands, Alfred was, and the boy took after him. Ben was always trying something new. Most of it didn't suit at first, then people began to ask for his chairs. After that they wanted tables to match, and my wife bought one of his tea tables—the top tilted, you could push it against the wall, if you liked, out of the way. But he was quiet, you see, not one to stand about and chat, like his father.”

“Was he ever in any trouble?”

“Benjamin? No, not the sort, in my book. Went to church of a Sunday, fell in love with a nice girl from the teacher training school, and married her. But that was after his father had passed on. He was taking a cart to the school outside Wells, chairs I expect it was, and she was in the parlor when he came to the door.”

Once more the information fit. “Married her and left Somerset?”

“That's how it was. I can't bring to mind just where it was he went. He did say he had no ties here, not with his father gone, and I was looking for a place of my own to set up shop. But he sold to Stedman and shook hands on it.” He turned and pointed to a rosewood chair in one corner. “He did that one for me. My wife's having the cover redone, something a bit more cheerful.”

The elegant ladies' chair, with the knot of carved cabbage roses at the peak of the back, was beautifully made, the finish still rich with
beeswax and polish, although with time the seat had grown dark with wear, the original pattern of the fabric all but obscured.

“Of an evening she always sits in that chair.”

“Did Clayton have any friends to speak of? Anyone he owed money to, anyone he might have had difficulties with? Someone who might have known where he'd gone to live?”

“Benjamin? Not what you'd call close friends, no. Although he was on friendly terms with everyone in the village. He was a hard worker, with very little time to spare for an evening in the pub. Still, people respected him. He was meticulous about money, and everyone knew he was as honest as the day's long. If he gave you a price, he held to it. I never heard any word said against him.”

Lolly whipped off the covering and stood back. “Now, then, there you are.”

Rutledge looked in the mirror and was satisfied. He'd had his hair cut before the party, but Lolly had trimmed it nicely. He said as much and paid what was asked.

As Rutledge rose from the barber's chair, Lolly said, his head to one side, “You haven't said why you're interested in Benjamin Clayton. I've told you what you wanted to know. It's only fair you should tell me why you come around asking about a man gone these thirty years.”

“I never knew much about his past. He never spoke of Netherby to his family. I wondered why. I was in Bristol this morning. It wasn't far to come to Netherby.”

Lolly nodded. “I expect Netherby held only sad memories for him. Losing his ma so young, and then his pa before his time too. Horse stepped on his foot, gangrene set in, and the doctors couldn't stop it. Not an easy death. You tell Ben Clayton that old Lolly remembers him right enough, and the chair's still just fine.”

Rutledge added something to what he'd paid, and thanked the barber.

But as he went down the street, in the direction of the church, he thought that Benjamin Clayton must have indeed been the good man his children had claimed he was. Then who had killed him?

He stopped by the church, looking for the vicar, and found him changing the numbers on the hymn rack.

He turned, nodded to Rutledge, and clambered down the ladder to come and greet him.

“Good morning! Visitor, are you?”

“I'm doing a little research into family history. I wonder if you remember a Benjamin Clayton, late of this village and now a resident in Yorkshire. He tells me we shared a great-aunt, who lived here.”

The vicar smiled. “I've only been here these ten years. I'm afraid I don't know a Benjamin Clayton. But there are Claytons in the churchyard here. One of them might well be your shared great-aunt.”

Rutledge was looking around him. “This is a little gem of a church,” he said, amazed to find such beauty in a village this size. The wood paneling, the ends of the benches, and the choir were old and exquisitely worked.

“Yes, it was built in the years when wool was king. No expense spared by the Benton family. Benton's wife was from this village, and he rebuilt the church for her. There's gold leaf in the chancel, and the altar was carved by a German woodworker. And the misericords in the choir were done locally, with such vigor. The glass is quite good, and you can see the pulpit for yourself. A marble work of art. So is the baptismal font.”

It was clear he took great pride in his church, and for the next fifteen minutes he took Rutledge on a tour. And then, suddenly remembering that his companion was interested in the dead, he said, “But I'm forgetting my manners. I'll show you where to find the Claytons.”

They walked outside into the sunny churchyard. Flowers were rampant in front of some of the grave stones, adding bursts of color to the green of the grass. Trees shaded a good part of it, and sun picked
out the stones on the east side and lit the details of the tower. Rutledge had been looking at that when the vicar said, “Here are the Claytons. You should be able to read most of the inscriptions.”

They'd been buried along the south side of the church, and Rutledge knelt on one knee to look at them. He counted seventeen family members, going back five generations. The stones weren't ornate, but they had all been well carved, and verses from the New Testament had been engraved on most of them. Ben Clayton's mother and father were there, lying side by side.

“You'll find an Agnes Clayton just there,” the vicar was saying, pointing out a stone at the edge of the grouping. “Married a cousin, I believe. She may be the ancestress you're seeking.”

“She must be indeed.” He noted her dates, and then thanked the vicar for taking the time to show him the church and the graves. They made their way around the apse toward the far side, the vicar pointing out various features remaining from an earlier church on the site, and that was when Rutledge saw the stones.

Blackened, smeared, and ugly. An attempt had been made to clean them, but to no avail. Whatever the mixture was—lampblack and paint?—he couldn't read a single name carved into them. It was as if they had been deliberately obliterated.

“What happened here?” Rutledge asked, and almost at once answered his own question. “They've been vandalized by the look of them.” Davies's unsolved case? Cummins hadn't told him the village name, but he'd said the churchyard was in Somerset.