A Pale Horse Read online

  10

  Rutledge was awake when at the back of the inn a rooster crowed, welcoming the early spring dawn. He got up, shaved and dressed, and went outside to walk off his mood.

  For a mercy, Hamish was silent.

  He found pansies blooming in the shadow of the small barn, and a clutch of hens picking busily at the sparse grass of the yard, then he walked on, down the road to Wayland’s Smithy.

  It was smaller than he remembered from childhood, but still an impressive grave. For whom? A chieftain? A warrior? Or perhaps a high priest, the Merlin of his age.

  Whoever had lain here, the power of his name had given him a great stone tomb, monoliths that time had barely eroded. And whatever grave goods had been buried with him were long since taken away as the power of his name faded in human memory. And the bones, had they also been scattered?

  Rutledge squatted down to look inside and shuddered. A narrow room in which to spend eternity. Claustrophobic and dark.

  He thought about Gaylord Partridge, who was being left to rot in an unmarked, unmourned grave, because in some fashion he had offended people with a long memory for revenge.

  An outcast. Like the others who lived in the Tomlin Cottages. Lepers, without the sores.

  What had Partridge done to deserve his fate? A spy would have been tried and shot behind walls where no one could see him die. How had he offended? That was the crux of this business, to know why he was better off dead in a back corner of a Yorkshire graveyard—a fortuitous death, surely, for those who had hated him.

  Or had it been somehow engineered?

  That was something to be considered. The army looked after its own, but transgressors were beyond the pale. Abandoned.

  T. E. Lawrence had offended and been snubbed. Would anyone weep if he died conveniently on a back road where no one knew him?

  It was time to go back to the inn. Rutledge turned away from the tomb and retraced his steps, thinking.

  When Rutledge had finished his breakfast in the quiet of the bar—empty and well scrubbed by Smith before the tea had steeped—he refreshed his memory about the nine people who lived near the foot of the great White Horse.

  He had met only two of them, these neighbors of one Gaylord Partridge.

  Slater, the smith, first to the left. Then Partridge, with the only gate in the low walls of the cottage gardens. The next five in the horseshoe he hadn’t met, but Rutledge had seen Number 4 staring up at him as he paced along the mane of the horse. Although Martin Deloran in London had never indicated that there was another watcher, Rutledge’s training told him it must be so. At the far right of the half circle was Quincy’s cottage, with the birds hidden in a back room. Behind him, at Number 8, a woman lived. Rutledge had seen her hanging out her wash as well as peering at him through a window.

  Finishing his second cup of tea, he left for the Tomlin Cottages.

  There was one thing he disliked about what he called a cold road—coming back into a place where he had got the pulse of the people and the way they lived and then had to walk away for whatever reason. He had done that here in Berkshire, and he had done it as well in Yorkshire. Possibly all because of one mysterious man.

  Much would depend on what Partridge’s neighbor Quincy had to say.

  He pulled his motorcar to the verge of the road, near the path up the hill of the White Horse. Near the muzzle of the great beast, he looked down on the cottages and waited for a door to open below him or a window curtain to twitch.

  What were the connections between these nine residents? If connections there were. Englishmen were not by nature gregarious, even abroad. But surely human curiosity made them draw conclusions about each other from what they had observed from a window or a stroll down the lane.

  The woman, he decided. From her windows she could see Partridge come and go. And women were sometimes less reserved than men, if approached in a sympathetic way.

  Or was it wiser, after all, to speak to Quincy?

  Quincy appeared to keep to himself. Would he admit to recognizing the sketch? He would most certainly want to know when it had been made and why. Driven by curiosity, yes, but beneath all that was his own reason for considering himself a leper of sorts and choosing to live here. He might well prefer to keep his distance from any trouble involving Partridge for fear of the impact on his own seclusion.

  The smith, then. A simple man, he wasn’t the sort to look below the surface of a question for hidden traps and meanings. And he was an honest man, as far as Rutledge could tell, with no secrets. His reason for living here was plain—he preferred to be left alone because his experience with people had taught him that they were unkind.

  Rutledge sat there on the hillside in the April sun, and waited until he saw the smith walk into view from the direction of Uffington.

  The man looked tired, his gait measured, as if there were something on his mind, holding him back.

  Rutledge waited until he’d disappeared into his cottage and then went down the hill. By the time he knocked at the door, the smith had put the kettle on and Rutledge could hear it whistling cheerfully in the background as Slater opened to him.

  “I saw you on the Horse,” he said. “What brings you back?”

  “Curiosity,” Rutledge answered. He had brought the file with him from the motorcar and put it aside for the moment on a small table near the door.

  “Curiosity?” Slater repeated. “It killed a cat, you know,” he added, quoting the old saying.

  “Yes, well, I’ll be careful.”

  Slater said, “Would you like a cup of tea?” He gestured toward the tiny kitchen, where the kettle was still whistling.

  “Thank you. I would.”

  While Slater was preparing the tea, Rutledge watched his deft, sure movements, big hands handling the tea things with the same ease as he handled his tools.

  The cup Slater offered him was thin porcelain, with cabbage roses around it. The man could have crushed it like eggshell, and it was lost in the large, callused hand.

  “How is work on the silver teapot handle faring?” Rutledge asked, to open the conversation.

  “Fancy you remembering that,” Slater answered, his face brightening. “It’s very well. Polish it and I’m finished.”

  “I hope the church is pleased.”

  There was a bitter smile now. “I’m told I charge too much.”

  “Who tells you that?”

  “The sexton. He says he could have done it at half the cost.”

  “Could he?”

  “I doubt it. But he’s one who opens his mouth and doesn’t care much what harm he does with what comes out.”

  “Tell them I’ve offered to buy the teapot myself. For twice the cost of repairs.” He couldn’t stop himself from saying it. Or cursing the sexton for his callous cruelty.

  Slater looked at him. “What do you want with a teapot? It’s not yours to start with. It belongs to the church service.”

  “Yes, it does. And I’ll make a gift of it back to them, so that it stays where it should.”

  “You’re mocking me.”

  He had got off on the wrong foot unintentionally, and Hamish was already telling him as much. But Rutledge said, “I’m mocking no one. You showed me that teapot, and I think the sexton is wrong. Good work deserves good pay, and I for one recognize that.”

  “Well. It’s not your problem. It’s mine. What have you come for?”

  “To show you a sketch, if you don’t mind.”

  “Of work you wish me to do?”

  “Sorry, no. I’d like to ask if you recognize the person in the sketch. I’m looking for this man.”

  There was instant hostility. “What’s he done, then?”

  “Nothing that I’m aware of. But friends are anxious about him. I’d like to put their minds at ease.” If Deloran could be considered any man’s friend…

  “You’re being fair with me?”

  “Actually, I’ve told you the truth.”

  “Why do you think
I might know him?”

  “Look at the sketch first. And then I’ll give you the answer to that.”

  He lifted the folder from the table and opened it.

  Slater looked down at it, but his eye went first to the quality of the drawing. “It’s well done, this sketch. Who made it?”

  “A young man in Yorkshire. He takes as much pride in his work as you do in yours.”

  “And so it’s a good likeness.”

  “We hope it is.”

  Slater didn’t need to study the face on the paper. He said at once, “Yes, I know him. As you know very well I do.”

  “Who is he?”

  “It’s Mr. Partridge.” Slater looked up. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  The certainty of identification was what Rutledge had been expecting, but not the conclusion that Slater had drawn from the face in his hands.

  Yet it was too easy. Deloran must surely have realized that, armed with the sketch, sooner or later Rutledge would learn who the dead man in Yorkshire was.

  “He couldna’ be sure you would come back here,” Hamish answered the thought. “He’s used to being obeyed.”

  “Why do you think Mr. Partridge is dead?” Rutledge asked the smith, but he already knew the answer. Slater worked with his hands, he had a feeling for skill and observation and how to translate that to whatever he was creating. And it was true, the likeness caught something that perhaps the living man had lost.

  “Because it’s a good likeness, that’s why. How could it be this good from memory?”

  “The artist might have used a photograph.”

  “No, I don’t think he did. He saw the man. And Mr. Partridge isn’t here, is he? Hasn’t been for a bit. And you were here earlier, looking for him, weren’t you? Somehow I have a feeling he’s dead.”

  “But how? And where?”

  Slater shrugged. “Ask a policeman to answer that for you.”

  “I am a policeman,” Rutledge said slowly. “Inspector Rutledge, Scotland Yard.”

  There was a pause. Then Slater said, “You have lied to us.” More than the words, his tone of voice and his face conveyed the sense of betrayal and dislike.

  “I wasn’t here as a policeman. I was here to see if there was an explanation for a man leaving his house and not coming back within a reasonable length of time. His motorcar and his bicycle are here. But he isn’t. People don’t disappear as a rule. When they do, there’s always someone who wants to know why.” Even as he said the words, in his mind’s eye he could see the bland face of Martin Deloran as he figuratively washed his hands of Gaylord Partridge. “No, that’s a lie as well,” Rutledge went on. “I don’t think, in the end, they really cared, these people, whether Partridge lived or died. What worried them was that he wasn’t where he was supposed to be.”

  “He has a minder. Why should they send you here?”

  “A minder?” He had suspected as much. But hadn’t expected confirmation.

  “I’m not a fool,” Slater said, “even though people believe I am. He drinks, does Mr. Brady.”

  “The man in Number Four?”

  “The first time Mr. Partridge went missing, he was beside himself. He’d got very drunk that night and passed out in his front garden. I put him to bed, and in the morning he must have thought he’d managed it alone. I never told him otherwise. He took his field glasses up the hill with the Horse, and searched everywhere. Even in the Smithy. But Mr. Partridge came home again, and all was well. Mr. Brady stayed sober for several weeks afterward, then went back to his drinking.”

  “Where do you think Partridge went?”

  “It’s his own business, isn’t it? If he’d wanted me to know, he’d have told me.”

  “Still, if he’s dead, it’s no longer his business. It’s a matter for the police.”

  “He didn’t die here. How could any of us be responsible?”

  “How do you know where he died?”

  “I don’t. But if the sketch was made in Yorkshire, then it must be that he died there.”

  Simple Slater might be, but stupid he was not.

  “A good point. But the fact is, we don’t know where he died. His body was found in Yorkshire. Hence the mystery. And the concern.”

  Slater shook his head as Rutledge finished his tea. “I’ve nothing to do with this. I’m sorry he’s dead, he wasn’t a difficult neighbor, though I didn’t know him well, but I had nothing to do with his death.”

  Rutledge set his cup aside and stood up. “I didn’t expect you had. But you’re a man with clear eyes, and it was important to ask you. Thank you for the tea.”

  He took up his sketch and walked to the door.

  As he was opening it, Slater, behind him, said, “I’d not ask the man in Number Seven about the sketch, if I were you.”

  Rutledge turned. “Why is that?”

  Slater said, “Whenever I see him, I feel the darkness in him. I try to stay out of his way.”

  “I’ll remember that. Thank you.” And with that, he closed the door.

  Slater had identified the sketch, just as Rutledge had expected. Moreover, he believed the smith. What he needed now was information of a different kind. And for that he chose to call on Quincy next.

  Quincy wasn’t at home—or at least failed to answer his door—when Rutledge knocked. And so Rutledge moved on to the next cottage, where he’d seen a woman’s face at the window on his earlier visit.

  She opened the door only, he thought, because after he knocked he stood there waiting.

  Through the crack she said, “Yes?” As if he had come to sell brushes or produce from a barrow. He couldn’t see her face clearly. But he could tell from her eyes that she was frightened.

  “My name is Rutledge. I’d like to speak with you.”

  “You were here before. Who sent you?”

  “Sent me?”

  “Was it my husband? He only sends someone if there’s bad news.”

  “I can’t bring you bad news,” Rutledge answered her quietly. “I don’t even know your name.”

  “It’s Cathcart,” she answered him. “Maria Cathcart.”

  “I’m sorry if I frightened you, Miss Cathcart—”

  “It’s Mrs. Was and still is, whatever he may tell you.”

  “Mrs. Cathcart. I’m here to ask if you recognize the man in a sketch I’d like to show you. Would you mind if I came in? I’ll only stay for a moment, I promise you.”

  Grudgingly she let him in. The cottage was obsessively neat, as if she had nothing better to do than keep it that way. House-proud? And yet she didn’t seem to be the sort of woman who would do her own cleaning. As if she came from different circumstances than he found her in here. Tall and slim, tired and afraid. It was the only way to describe her. The circles under her troubled blue eyes indicated sleepless nights.

  She didn’t ask him to sit down. Instead she said with some anxiety, “Show me this man’s face.”

  He opened the folder and held it out to her. She didn’t take it, just glanced at the sheet of paper inside, seemed relieved that it was not the person she’d been expecting, and said, “Mr. Partridge, I think. I don’t know him well. But I daresay that’s him.”

  “He’s been away for some time. Do you have any idea where he might have gone? Or why? Or with whom?”

  “I’m not his keeper, nor is he mine,” she answered him.

  Rutledge said, “Did he have family? Friends who came to call? You can see his cottage well from your windows. You might have noticed who came and went.”

  “I might have,” she agreed. “But I didn’t. He was of no concern to me. I doubt we said good morning more than a dozen times all told.”

  “You never saw anyone at his door?”

  “Once when I was in my garden I saw a young woman come to his door. But if he was in the house, he didn’t answer her knock. And shortly afterward she left.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “A well-dressed, fair-haired young woman. I couldn’t see
her face. I made no effort to try. It had nothing to do with me.”

  Was this the same woman Quincy had seen and assumed was Partridge’s daughter?

  “How long have you lived here, Mrs. Cathcart?”

  “For fifteen years, this June.”

  “Which means you were living here when Mr. Partridge first came. Do you remember when that was?”

  “Of course I remember. It was during the war. The spring of 1918.”

  “And he made no effort to be friendly with his neighbors?”

  “He was polite. We all are. But we have no desire to befriend one another.”

  He wondered why she lived here, alone and with no interest in her neighbors.

  “And so there’s nothing more you can tell me about Mr. Partridge that might help us find him or learn what’s become of him?”

  “I have no idea what he did with his time or where he went when he wasn’t here. I’ve told you.”

  “We have reason to fear he may be dead.”

  She heard him but seemed untouched by the news. “I’m sorry to hear it,” she said, but it was perfunctory, good manners coming to the fore. “I’ve answered your questions. Good day, Mr. Rutledge.”

  Rutledge accepted his dismissal, but said on the threshold, “Did you know—or hear—what Mr. Partridge did for a living?”

  “He appeared to be unemployed. That’s all I can tell you.”

  Rutledge thanked her and left.

  He went back to Quincy’s cottage and knocked again.

  This time the man came to the door and stepped aside to let him in. “Making the rounds of the neighborhood, are you?”

  “In a way,” Rutledge answered him. Dublin got up from a pillow by the fire and stretched before eyeing Rutledge with suspicion. “I see you’re still feeding Partridge’s cat.”

  “She doesn’t bother me, nor I her.”

  Rutledge opened the folder. “Is this Partridge?”

  Quincy looked at the sketch. “Yes. Yes, it is. You’ve found him then. If that’s what you came for before.”

  “We think we might have, yes. He’s dead. His body was lying in an old ruin, left for the caretaker to stumble over. There’s a possibility that he was murdered.”