Legacy of the Dead (3 page)

His godfather, David Trevor, had written from Edinburgh, saying,

You’ve made a dozen excuses. Don’t make another one.
Come to see me. I miss you, Ian, I want to see for myself that
you’re alive and well. If that grim devil Bowles won’t give you
leave, come anyway. My doctor will tell him you need a rest.
And for that matter, so do I. Loneliness is the very devil!

But Scotland was the last place Rutledge intended to go. The love and duty he owed his godfather were very real, but so was his reluctance to go north of the border, which seemed in the clear light of day an almost superstitious dread, but in the dark seemed an unbearable, unspeakable burden. Not because he hated the Scots but because so many of them had been under his command in France—and he’d led so many of them to their death. He could name every one of them, even the raw recruits he’d known for less than a day.

And leave was the last thing he wanted. Tired as he was, idleness was worse. When a man was idle, his demons marched like ghostly armies in the forefront of his mind.

CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT BOWLES
would have been glad to grant Rutledge leave if he had asked for it. The less he saw of the Inspector, the happier Bowles was. The closed door of his empty office was like a benediction when Bowles passed it each day that Rutledge was away from London. Rutledge underfoot was a constant reminder of things best forgotten. Clever men always disturbed Bowles’s peace of mind, and clever men with good accents, men who’d been to university or moved comfortably in circles where Bowles, for all his authority, felt stiff and clumsy, were intolerable. Bowles made it a point to rid himself of such men as fast as he could. There were subtle ways to convince a clever man that it was in his best interests to ask for a transfer.

But Rutledge, damn and blast him, seemed to lead a charmed life. He had survived the bloodbath of the Somme, he’d survived wounds, he’d survived months in hospital. And if Bowles’s informant was telling the truth, Rutledge had been half out of his head, broken and silent, hardly a promising future. Yet for four months now he’d survived Bowles’s concerted attempts to show him up as inept and lacking his pre-war skills.

To Bowles’s way of thinking, England would have been better served if Rutledge had died with the rest of what the writers were now calling The Flower of English Youth. Dead “flowers” could be swept up with the rubbish and forgotten. Live challengers to his ambition were fair targets.

Bowles had climbed the ladder as far as his ability allowed, buoyed by some small success hunting German spies during the Great War. But it appeared he was destined to retire as a Chief Superintendent. Climbing higher was out of the question for a man of his station. And that knowledge was a constant goad to his anger and frustration.

He found himself this gloomy morning walking into Rutledge’s office and dragging the other chair from where it was usually kept near the wall, out of the way of the door. Sitting down heavily, he slapped a file on the desk.

“There’s a spot of trouble in the north, close by Durham, and it seems you’re wanted to handle it.” He opened the file, reached for a sheet of paper with a dozen paragraphs scrawled across it in heavy ink, and scowled at it. “Here’s the long and short of it. And the reports to confirm it.”

The Scottish police—with permission from their counterparts in England—had come to a village some miles west of Durham to tell a woman that it was possible her daughter’s remains had been discovered on a Scottish mountainside in a place called Glencoe. Lady Maude Gray took exception to the Scottish Inspector’s manner and insinuations, and she had her butler throw him out. This didn’t sit well with his Chief Constable, who complained to the Chief Constable across the border. Neither of them could persuade her ladyship to give them so much as the time of day.

“You’re being sent to smooth troubled waters, in a manner of speaking, and to find out whatever you can about this missing girl. The Scottish police will be grateful. As far as I can tell, reading between the lines, her ladyship is highly thought of in certain circles and she’s strong-minded enough to do as she pleases. You’ll need every ounce of diplomacy you possess to get through the door, much less into her presence. But failure is unacceptable. Do you understand me?”

Rutledge understood very well. If he annoyed her further, Lady Maude could crucify all of them. If he left without seeing her, it would be viewed as his incompetence.

He took the papers Bowles thrust at him and, when the Chief Superintendent had gone, read them over. The facts of the case itself appeared to be simple enough. The problem lay in Lady Maude Gray’s refusal to discuss her daughter with anyone. The local police had noted:
“She has never reported her daughter missing, but it is understood in the neighborhood that there was a rift between them that resulted in the
daughter leaving early in 1916. When the young woman came
into a large inheritance in 1918, the family solicitor advertised
throughout the country for her to contact him directly, and the
girl failed to do so.”
Further discreet inquiries by the solicitor discovered that none of her acquaintance had had word of or from her either. The solicitor reported his concern and asked for police help in locating her. That search was inconclusive as well.
“It may well be that the remains found in
Scotland are those of Eleanor Victoria Maude Gray—height
and age appear to be a close match, and the time of death
(thought to be autumn 1916) appears to be consistent with the
last time anyone saw her. Her mother refuses all comment.”

The Scottish police were convinced that the mother’s refusal had to do with the fact that the daughter had been pregnant. The English police were reluctant to conclude that that was the cause of the quarrel between the two women. Some stiffness between the two jurisdictions had developed—the Scottish police believed they had already identified Eleanor’s murderer, while the English police were unsure that the girl was in fact dead.

Rutledge looked out the window at the rain streaking the grimy panes and the wet pigeons huddled in whatever shelter they could find. He’d hated the rain in the trenches, it was a torment of body and spirit. Wet wool, the stench of urine or vomit, the heavy sweetness of rotting flesh, the stink of dirty bodies, the slick, black, filthy mud that weighed down boots and caked faces and hands and matted hair under the helmets. The low clouds that hid the gas—

The drive north ought to be pleasanter than the weather here, he mused. And Hamish, a countryman at heart, found that thought agreeable as well. Rutledge took out his watch, realized that he might reach York before nightfall. He stood and stretched, set his current files in order, then walked out of his office and closed the door behind him.

Down the passage, walking toward the stairs, Bowles heard the faint sound and smiled with contentment.

4

LADY MAUDE GRAY LIVED IN AN IMPOSING HOUSE THAT
could be described as palatial. It sat in a vast acreage of park-land that gave it privacy and offered fine views from all its windows. The village of Menton, which lay on the main road a mile and a quarter beyond the massive stone pillars that flanked the long drive, had been moved to its present location in the eighteenth century. Not even its church steeple was visible from the attics of the house. Where the village had once stood, a very fine allée of trees and grassy lawns led to a reflecting pool that mirrored a cloudless sky.

It had once been, Rutledge thought, glimpsing the sun-washed house in the distance as he made his way up the drive, a fortified abbey in the Middle Ages, but later architects had created a country house in the ruins, with the choir and apse of the abbey church, presumably the family chapel now, comprising one wing. The arched buttresses flowed smoothly upward toward a pinnacled roof, and the gray stone of the house fabric matched them to perfection, giving a sense of great age to the entire dwelling. The west front, the main entrance, boasted a graceful spread of steps rising from the drive; a formal garden set with an ornate fountain gave human dimensions to the spectacular view across the countryside that spread out beyond it. Hamish, regarding the view, grumbled, “A lonely place, this. You can hear the wind and feel the emptiness.”

To his Calvinist soul, the house itself was ostentatious and unwelcoming. For a man used to the crofts of the Highlands, often a heap of stone in the lee of a hillside, there was no room for display in the struggle for survival.

As Rutledge climbed the steps, he found himself wondering what his godfather would think of the effect achieved here. David Trevor felt the power of stone and mortar in his blood, a man whose eye and taste were trained but whose natural response to building had made him one of the most successful architects of his day.

He felt a sudden surge of guilt that he hadn’t replied to the invitation from his godfather, but there was no way to explain why the prospect of leave was anathema. The press of work would have to be his excuse.

Hamish said, “It’s no’ a lie, is it? Though ye’ve chosen it yoursel’. And I’d no’ care to come home now . . .”

The knocker, shaped like a pineapple—the symbol of hospitality—fell back on its plate with a heavy
throm
that seemed to echo through the house.

Eventually, a majestic butler opened the door, staring at Rutledge with cold disdain. His white hair, brushed to silver, and his height would have done honor to the lord of the manor. Lord Evelyn Gray, however, had been a short, stocky man with dark, curling hair and an iron-gray beard. Rutledge had seen him in London on a number of occasions before the war.

“Inspector Rutledge, Scotland Yard,” he said briskly into the silence. Hamish bristled in the back of his mind, an angry counterpoint to the icy regard. “I wish to see Lady Maude Gray.”

“Her ladyship has no business to conduct with the police,” the man replied, preparing to close the door in Rutledge’s face.

“On the contrary. The police wish to express regret for past misunderstandings, and I have been sent from London to offer this apology in person. It would be rude of her not to hear it.”

The butler looked Rutledge up and down. Rutledge smiled inwardly. If the intent had been to intimidate, it was a signal failure. Haughty the butler might be, but it was a reflection of his mistress’s importance and not his own. Sergeant-Major MacLaren, on the other hand, had been a different matter. A glance could quell an entire battalion. No one dared question his authority; it came direct from God. It was said that even officers walked in fear of him, and most certainly Rutledge himself had deferred to the man’s wisdom and experience on a number of occasions.

What the butler saw was a tall man with a thin face who was clothed in a well-cut suit and a firmness that matched his voice. Something in the dark eyes moved the butler to change his mind and say at last, “Wait here, if you please.”

He returned after nearly ten minutes. “Lady Maude will receive you in the library,” he informed Rutledge, and stepped aside to allow him to enter.

Rutledge walked into a columned hall that reminded him of a Greek temple. The floor, paved in marble, was smooth as cold ice, and the staircases—a pair—flaunted their airy grace as they rose like swans’ necks on either side of a niche where an exquisite Roman copy of a Greek Apollo was subtly lit. The stone face, slightly turned and limned by the light, reminded him all at once of Cormac FitzHugh. He buried the memory as swiftly as it had risen.

Hamish said, “Pagan, this is. Like the mistress, no doubt!”

How had the missing Eleanor Gray seen it? Rutledge wondered. Had she played here as a child, sliding across the shining floor, peals of laughter echoing among the columns? Or had it seemed cold to her, forbidding?

A long gallery led off in either direction, with French carpeting, busts on pedestals, and dark paintings of ancestors in massive gold frames.

“There’s space enough here to hold half a regiment,” Hamish said, his voice disparaging. “Aye, and a military band to sit and play on yon stairs.”

The library was a vast room down a passage on the first floor and was undoubtedly chosen to overawe a mere policeman. Its windows rose floor to ceiling, and books filled glass-enclosed shelves. The cream-and-rose carpet on the floor was so old, it had the sheen of antique silk, and the woman waiting for him in the center of it knew that it set her off like a jewel.

Hamish fell silent, in its own way homage.

Lady Maude was a tall woman with silver-gray hair and the carriage of an empress. Her afternoon dress was dark blue, austere in contrast to the handsome double rope of pearls that fell nearly to her waist. In her day she must have been quite beautiful, for the vestiges of beauty were clear in the bones of her face, her violet eyes, and the long, slender hands lightly clasped in front of her. She barely acknowledged the butler’s quiet murmur. “Inspector Rutledge, my lady.” The door closed softly behind him.

“Inspector,” she said as he inclined his head. After a moment, regarding him coolly, she added, “At least this time they’ve had the sense to send me someone who is presentable.”

“I haven’t met Inspector Oliver, my lady. His sense of duty, however, is something I understand, as you must yourself, having been born to it.”

“I will not listen—” she began, but he cut lightly across her words.

“I am not defending him, I assure you. I am merely pointing out that for any policeman, one of the most painful duties is to inform someone of a loved one’s death. If it was not your daughter the Scottish police have found, the sooner they know it, the sooner they can find her true parents. Another mother will have to bear that grief. If you were fortunate and this is not your child, then spare a little pity for the woman who has lost hers.”

She stared at him in astonishment, something moving behind her remarkably expressive eyes. He thought,
Her
daughter
is
missing
— Then she said, “You came, as I understood Kenton to say, to make an apology.”

“Yes. For the fact that Inspector Oliver did not handle this matter as well as he might have. That was unfortunate. I’ve come in his place to tell you that if you can give me assurances that this young woman discovered on a Scottish mountainside is not your affair, then we can move on to other names on our—”

“She is not my child. My daughter is alive and well.”

“And you have heard from her within the past—er—six months?”

“My relations with my daughter are not open to public scrutiny!” She scanned his face again, noting the tiredness, the thinness. Beneath them, she realized suddenly, was a will as strong as hers.

Rutledge listened to Hamish for a moment, heeding the warning that patience was not Lady Maude’s long suit. A change of tactics was in order.

“Very well. I accept that. Perhaps you can help us answer a puzzling question: Why has your daughter not contacted her solicitor to sign papers relating to her inheritance? I’ve read his statement. He expressed some concern that she failed to appear at the time set in 1918. In fact, his last correspondence with her was in 1916. He has made a concerted effort to locate her in the past year, and failed. It was his anxiety that was communicated to the local police, and this year, when a query about a missing person was circulated by the Scots, it seemed prudent for them to speak to Miss Gray. If only to reassure everyone that she could be safely struck off the list. If you could provide me with her direction, I have the authority to close this matter immediately.” His attitude was cool, as if Eleanor Gray was of concern to him only if she was dead.

“I might have guessed it was Mr. Leeds’s vexatious passion for meddling that lay behind this business. He shall hear from me!” Anger flared in Lady Maude’s eyes, deepening the color to dark violet.

“I’d no’ like to be in his shoes, then,” Hamish reflected.

“He, too, is required by law to carry out his duties to the best of his ability.”

“Indeed. Involving the police is an entirely unnecessary course of action.”

“I cannot believe that a young woman of your daughter’s rank would neglect
her
duty.” Rutledge paused and then repeated, “It is cause for concern.”

“Nonsense. Eleanor is young, contrary. She has had some ridiculous notion that she wanted to take up the study of medicine. It was the war; it unsettled all of us. But she insisted that she was well suited to it and that her goal was to become a physician. I hoped that with the Armistice and an end to the dying, this absurd dream would be seen in a different light. My daughter is something of a romantic, I must confess. Very like her late father.”

Rutledge, still standing, thought to himself,
We’ll have to
contact the teaching hospitals
— Aloud, he asked, “Would she have settled for nurse’s training instead?”

“A nursing sister? Hardly that!” Impatiently, Lady Maude said, “Sit down, young man! That chair, to your left.” She crossed to the desk and took the chair behind it. As if putting a solid barrier between them. “When my daughter sets her heart on something, she’s single-minded about it. And I must tell you that she doesn’t cope well with disappointment. Eleanor has always been rather impatient of impediments and usually finds a way around them.” Lady Maude gave Rutledge a space to digest that before continuing. “Now, as for this business of climbing in Scotland—or having an illegitimate child—it’s so out of character that I am at a loss to understand how your Scottish policeman arrived at such a conclusion. The man’s an idiot. I won’t allow him in this house. Nor the local man; he’s as great a fool as they come.”

“Your daughter never expressed an interest in climbing?”

“Not at all. She’s not one of these robust women with an enthusiasm for athletic pursuits. She enjoys a game of tennis. And she’s very fond of riding. Before the war, she spent some time at school in Switzerland, and never indicated then or afterward that she cared for climbing. As for the other business, she has far too much respect for herself and her family to find herself in trouble.”

The words were spoken with absolute conviction. Women of Eleanor Gray’s class were taught from birth what was expected of them. They were to be married off to the greatest advantage, social and financial. Lovers taken after marriage—with absolute discretion—were another matter. Never before it.

The more he heard, the more Rutledge found himself agreeing with Lady Maude that the dead woman found in Scotland was unlikely to be her daughter, Eleanor. None of the facts matched. Still—height and age did. And possibly timing?

“Would it be possible to see a photograph of your daughter, Lady Maude?”

“She’ll no’ allow it,” Hamish told him. “But yon solicitor might have one.”

She glared at Rutledge. “To what end?”

“Merely to give me some feeling for the person you’ve described. I have found that faces tell me more than facts sometimes.”

She hesitated. Rutledge was certain he’d given her the wrong answer, and had lost. Then she opened a drawer in the desk. From it she drew a silver filigree frame and passed it across to him without looking at it. He rose to take it from her hand, and sat down again before turning it over.

The face staring back at him was smiling, one hand on the horse at her side, the other holding a trophy. Beneath the riding hat it was difficult to see her features clearly, but she was an attractive young woman with her mother’s bearing. There was something familiar about the face all the same, and he frowned as he studied it. All at once he made the connection.

She reminded him quite strongly of one of the royal princesses—

As if his thought reached her at the same time, Lady Maude extended her hand imperiously, and he had no choice but to return the photograph to her.

Hamish, following his thought, was scandalized.

His sister Frances would know, if anybody did. But looking at the woman in front of him, and remembering the photograph she’d taken from him, Rutledge found himself wondering if Eleanor Victoria Maude Gray was— possibly—the child of a liaison between Lady Maude and the late King Edward VII. The king had had an eye for beautiful women. It wouldn’t have been surprising if she’d come to his notice.