A Lonely Death (3 page)

“No. I’m here for old time’s sake.”

“Well, I’m just closing up. Walk down with me.” He limped toward the man, wondering for a moment if he’d served with him. But the face wasn’t familiar at all. And although he was dressed plainly, his clothes were of good quality. Not money then—he wasn’t looking for work.

When Pierce reached the wooden stairs, the man moved aside. “You’ve got a new leg, I see. Why don’t you go first?”

Pierce was reluctant, but he said only, “All right,” and started down, one hand on the rail. He could hear the footfalls of the man behind him, almost pressing on his heels, and he felt a sudden unease. He told himself it was only because the cursed leg was new and he was still nervous about falling.

They had reached the ground floor, and Pierce crossed to the heavy door, his hand already out to push it wide, when he realized that there was something wrong. He was on the point of turning to order the other man to precede him into the alley between the brew house and the storage sheds when he saw the wire flash in front of his eyes.

He put up a good fight for a man with one false leg. But of course it was no use. He was no match for his murderer. The last thing he heard was a harsh whisper almost in his ear, and then nothing.

When the first of the workmen arrived the next morning, he was lying on the stone floor within a few feet of the door, his body already cold.

4

R
utledge found a letter waiting for him in his flat. As he picked up the envelope from the floor, he recognized the handwriting at once. Setting his hat on the table by the door, he crossed to a window, opening the envelope as he went and pulling out the single sheet inside. He could feel the tension in his mind that was Hamish, and tried to ignore it as he spread the sheet wide.

There was no salutation.

I’m writing to say good-bye. My decision has been made and by the time you read this, there will be no turning back. I have tried, Ian. But the war changed me, it changed my family, it changed everything, and finding my way again to what I knew before isn’t possible. I went to Dr. Fleming, as you suggested, but he couldn’t help me. I think after so much time, there’s no real answer to be had. But he is a good man, and he did his best for me. I want you to know that. I have seen to financial matters, my wife will be taken care of, and I think she will be relieved not to have to deal with me. The nightmares are worse, and encroaching deafness from the guns is a frightful thing. It isolates a person, and I was already isolated. My wife must shout at me to ask the simplest questions, and even so I can barely hear her voice. Tenderness is impossible, and she sleeps in another room now so that I won’t keep her awake with my tossing and turning and the screams I don’t remember in the morning, but she does. We hardly knew each other when we married in 1914, and we never had a chance to build that common ground that might have seen us through. I’m tired, Ian, I can’t tell you how tired. And this is the only way to peace I can see. Forgive me, if you can. Pray for me if you will. But know that I will be happier out of this misery, and I have not decided that lightly. Fare thee well, my friend. I hope that you will see your way clear where I have not. You didn’t marry your Jean after all, and that may be your salvation. I have watched someone I believed I loved more than life itself withdraw a little more each day, until there’s only hurt and confusion left. It would break my heart, if it weren’t already broken. So good-bye, and may God have mercy on both of us.

It was signed
Max
.

Rutledge stared at the letter in his hand, and then slowly reread it. It was dated two days ago. Too late. Far too late.

Maxwell Hume had been a captain of artillery whom Rutledge had come to know well at the start of the war. A career man, he was an experienced and able officer, liked by his troops and his superiors. Early in the war, the two men had shared their first leave, staying in a shell of a château, unable to find transportation to Paris or London—five days where their friendship had been cemented with laughter and more than a little wine salvaged from the destroyed cellars. The time had passed quickly, both men still able to see in the other an odd reflection of himself as he was before the war. And yet they had been as different as night and day. Max had possessed a mad sense of humor—“All artillerymen are mad. Just look at Napoleon”— while Rutledge had been blessed with a level head that kept both of them from breaking their necks in Max’s impromptu dares amongst the chimney pots or on the half-missing staircase or wherever else his wild fancy took them.

They had convinced an elderly woman from the nearest village to cook for them and do their washing, closed their eyes to the minor pilfering that went with her, and dug through the ruins of a once-fine library to pass their evenings reading. It was the only time in all the war that Rutledge had been able to put aside what he had seen and done and felt. The certainty that the fighting would be over in the first year still blinded men, even when they began to realize it wasn’t true. And then came the Somme, and madness on a level that was intolerable.

Rutledge had always suspected that it was Max Hume’s guns that had fallen short and taken out his own salient the night that Hamish MacLeod had gone before the hastily collected firing squad. But he had never said anything about it when next they met. Hume, like Rutledge himself, was a changed man by that time, terse and fallible and near to breaking. Some things were better left unsaid.

And yet, he thought in some fashion that Max knew the truth, and that it was the last straw in what had been a fine career.

Setting the letter aside, Rutledge went to the cabinet beneath the other window and poured himself a drink. He silently toasted Hume, and then went to his bedroom to pack. Rosemary would need him now, and he had no choice but to go and do what he could.

“Aye.” Hamish was there in his mind, as he always was in times of upheaval or stress. “But will the lass want you there?”

The viewpoint was unexpected. Rutledge heard himself saying aloud, “I was Max’s friend. It’s the least I can do.”

“Aye. All the same, ye’ll remind her of the war. And she’ll no’ thank ye for that.”

Half an hour later, having told the Yard where to find him, he had set out for Gloucestershire and Hume’s home just over the border.

It was late when he got there, and he found lodging in the small hotel that stood on the main street of the town. He had hoped to arrive in time to speak to Rosemary that evening, but the drive had taken longer than he’d anticipated.

He had never been to Chaswell. It was a pretty little town, and Max had spoken of it often, but after the war neither man was fit for casual visits, although they had stayed in touch desultorily by letter.

The next morning, he went to Hume’s house. It was set back from the road, a low wall surrounding the front garden and two steps leading to the grassy walk up to the door.

Before he’d lifted the crepe-hung knocker, the door opened, and Rosemary Hume stood on the threshold, staring up at him with haunted eyes. Rutledge said, “I’ve come to do what I can.”

She flung herself into his arms and wept on his shoulder. It was the only time he was to see her cry. Pulling away at last, she wiped angrily at her tears before he could offer her his handkerchief. In the background he could hear voices, but she pulled the door closed behind her, to shut them away, and said, “He shot himself. He went to the far side of the churchyard, and shot himself, where I wouldn’t be the first to see him. And when they came to tell me that he was dead, I wanted to take up that revolver and shoot him again. The fool. The poor, wretched, damned fool.”

“He wrote to me. But by the time the letter came, it was too late.”

“He left only a brief message for me. He told me he loved me too much to drag me down into his despair, and he asked my forgiveness. That was all,” Rosemary told Rutledge. “After what we’d endured together, what we had tried to salvage out of his despondency, all he could leave me were a few dozen words. I deserved more, Ian, I deserved to know what he was planning and why. I could have accepted it then, hard as it would be, because I was included. But I was shut out.” She was a small, slim woman with fair hair and very dark blue eyes. There were heavy circles under them, now, with grim lines about her mouth.

Rutledge, who had broken such news to other people more often than he could count, said, “Rosemary. It’s natural to be angry with Max. All the same, I don’t think he could have borne telling you that he’d failed. That’s how he had seen it, his failure. And so it was a private matter because of that.”

“You’ve been a policeman too long, Ian,” she answered him coldly. “I was his wife, for God’s sake. What does it say in the Bible? Something about a man and a woman cleaving together? And in the marriage vows? Forsaking all others? I shall never forgive him. Until the day I die, I shall never forgive him.”

She swung the door open at that juncture, and led him inside.

Hamish reminded him, “Ye didna’ believe me . . .”

Rutledge tried to ignore him as he walked into the room where friends and family had gathered. There were twelve to fifteen people sitting and standing, talking together quietly. Rosemary made the introductions, although Rutledge knew several of the former Army officers. Her parents were there, but Max’s parents had died during the war, leaving only a distant cousin who had been gassed at Ypres. He was sitting in a chair by the double windows that led to the gardens, struggling to breathe and talk, finally falling silent, his face strained.

Rutledge hadn’t met Reginald Hume before this, and as they shook hands, he remembered Max saying something about his cousin having been schooled in England, although he’d returned to Scotland to live.

“Inherited the family pile on the Isle of Skye, filled it with books, and prefers them to people. That’s why he didn’t come south for my wedding. I shan’t be surprised if he misses my funeral as well.” It had been said in jest.

There were voices in the kitchen, where food was being collected as friends and neighbors brought dishes along with their sympathy.

The day dragged on, and at one point, Rutledge found himself speaking to the rector of St. Paul’s, Chaswell’s church.

“Scotland Yard, are you?” Mr. Gramling asked. When Rutledge nodded, he went on, “I understand you are here in your capacity as a friend, not as a policeman? Good. Then you’ll be pleased to hear that I’ve determined that Captain Hume died while his mind was overcome by his suffering. Wounds take many forms,” he said to Rutledge with a perfectly straight face. “I see no reason why he may not be buried in holy ground.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Rutledge responded. It was something that had been on his mind most of the afternoon. There would of course be an inquest. Someone else had brought that up. But he had hoped for Rosemary’s sake that it would be reasonably considerate of her feelings. “I hope that I shan’t be required to give evidence.” Hume’s letter was still in his pocket. He had no intention of reading it aloud at an inquest.

“I see no reason to impose on your personal grief,” Mr. Gramling agreed, understanding Rutledge’s unspoken message. “He regularly attended services with his wife, even when he couldn’t hear what was being said. I could consider that a proof, if we need it, that he was sound of mind and spirit. Mr. Hume did not fail in his duty to the church, and the church will not fail in its duty to him.”

“I consider that very enlightened of you,” he said, and Gramling smiled.

He was a short, stout man with heavy shoulders. Just beginning to gray, he had deep-set dark eyes under thick eyebrows, lending him a sinister look until he smiled. “I don’t hold with judging my flock. I see no reason to usurp God’s right.” He paused, then added, “Max and I spoke from time to time. Often on a tablet of paper I kept in my desk. I burned the sheets afterward. I considered him a friend.”

They stood there talking about the war and the past, and then Rosemary called to Rutledge, asking him to help Reginald up the stairs to lie down for a while.

He was a pale shadow of his cousin. Thinner, fairer, his features less well defined because of his suffering. Each breath was a testament to his will to live. If asked, Rutledge would have thought that Reginald was the more likely of the two men to end his own life. But there was a tenacity in his face that gave it its intense character. He thanked Rutledge as he sank back against his pillows. “I came for Rosemary’s sake,” he managed to say. “Not for Max’s. He told me he would not expect to see me at his graveside.”

“Rosemary will need your strength.”

“I’ve loved her as long as I’ve known her,” Reginald said. “Max was aware of that. He knew I would have come for her sake if not his.”

“Rest, while you can,” Rutledge said. “I’ll see that she’s all right.”

He left the room, the sound of Reginald’s raucous breathing following him even after he had pulled the door closed behind him. On the stairs he found Rosemary sitting on one of the treads, out of sight on the landing. He thought she was crying, but she was simply sitting there, quietly staring into space. She turned as she heard his footsteps, and said, “Is he all right?”

“He’s resting. It’s for the best.”

She nodded. “He got a letter too.”

“Did he?” He had said as much, but Rutledge hadn’t asked him the contents.

“Everyone but me.”

She stood up resolutely and walked down the stairs without looking back.

The funeral the next day was well attended, although most of the people there had known Rosemary Hume most of her life, and Max Hume only for the past eight years, four of them interrupted by war. Rutledge was glad to see that she would have support after he had left. The service was simple, stressing the qualities of the man they were gathered to bury. And then it was time to follow the wooden coffin to its final resting place.

Rutledge watched it being lowered gently into the ground, and as he took up a handful of earth to cast into the grave in his turn, Hamish said, “It willna’ be you, lying here. It’s no’ the answer.”

But it had been in his mind, and Hamish knew it.

No. Not yet, he silently answered as the earth spilled from his fingers to land softly on the coffin lid. And then he was following Rosemary and Reginald Hume back through the churchyard, to where his motorcar was ready to carry them to the house.

A police constable stood by the bonnet, and he nodded to Rutledge as he came through the gates of the churchyard. Rosemary was settling Reginald in his seat, trying to save his energy for the meal already waiting at the house. She looked up to say something to Rutledge just as the constable stepped forward.

“Inspector Rutledge?”

“Yes, I’m Rutledge.”

“A message from Scotland Yard, sir. Will you proceed with haste to Sussex. The village of Eastfield, just above Hastings. It’s a matter of some urgency.”