Tales: Short Stories Featuring Ian Rutledge and Bess Crawford Read online

  “Why your wife, if it was a shooting camp?” Rutledge asked as they crossed the square.

  “I expect it was because her father never really liked Elston. He was a troublesome child and grew into a troublesome man.”

  They had reached the Lowery house. Rutledge knocked, but it was several minutes before the door opened. A thin, balding man stood there in his dressing gown. His brows rose in surprise.

  “I say, Dunstan.” His glance moved on to Rutledge.

  “Andrew, Cecily has been kidnapped,” Dunstan said before Rutledge could speak. “We’re trying to find her.”

  “May we come in?” Rutledge asked.

  Lowery stepped to one side. “Yes, of course. Are you serious, Dunstan? Cecily? What in God’s name has happened?” He led them into the drawing room and lit the lamp. “I don’t understand.”

  “How many people knew you’d invited Mr. Dunstan and his daughter to dinner?”

  “How many people? Good God, I have no idea. I never made a secret of it.” He looked up as his wife came into room. “My dear, it’s distressing news—something has happened to Cecily.”

  “But she was just here,” she exclaimed. “I don’t understand.” She was a fair woman, attractive and slim.

  Dunstan told her what had happened. “And we’ve just found the cabbie, across the square. He’s on his way to hospital. The police haven’t been able to question him.”

  Mrs. Lowery’s gaze moved to Rutledge’s face. “But the Yard is doing everything that’s possible, surely!”

  “Can you give me a list of the other guests this evening?” he asked. “And tell me whether they left before or after Dunstan and his daughter?”

  “But of course.” She went to the small desk by the door and sat down to write.

  Rutledge said, “The Dunstan house was ransacked. Whoever took Cecily Dunstan didn’t find what he was looking for there, nor on Mr. Dunstan’s person. That could well explain why his daughter was taken.”

  “Holding her—but that’s diabolic!” Mrs. Lowery said. “Is it money?”

  “There have been no demands for ransom,” Dunstan said, the beginnings of panic in his voice.

  “Early days,” Rutledge pointed out. “They’ll wait until you are ready to do anything to retrieve your daughter.”

  “They needn’t wait. I’ve already reached that point,” Dunstan answered.

  Mrs. Lowery finished the list and passed it to Rutledge.

  There were two other couples and a single woman, Dunstan making up the numbers. Mr. and Mrs. Carson, Mr. and Mrs. Frey, and Miss Abernathy. Two men and three women. There had been three men in the attack on the Dunstans. If Carson and Frey were involved, then Lowery himself would have had to be a party to the kidnapping of Cecily Dunstan. Was Dunstan mistaken or had he lied about his attackers? Or were those three men unconnected with the dinner party?

  “The Carsons are old friends,” Mrs. Lowery was adding. “We met the Freys six months ago. They’d been in Kenya for some years and have just returned to England. Miss Abernathy is traveling with them, at the request of her parents.”

  “Thank you.” Rutledge studied the short list. “Why were they in Kenya?” he asked.

  “Something was said about growing coffee,” Lowery replied. “Miss Abernathy told us her father is the doctor in Nairobi.”

  Mrs. Lowery smiled. “She’s quite charming, kept all of us laughing with tales of her life out there. Her story about trying to stalk and shoot a springbok in Ngorongoro Crater had us all laughing.”

  “Indeed?”

  “I can’t believe that our guests—it’s not likely that they’re involved with this,” Lowery said. “To what end?”

  “It’s what they may have seen as they left your house that interests me.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Rutledge asked for their direction and was sent to a hotel near Kensington Palace.

  Dunstan said, “I’m sorry to pull them out of bed,” as he and Rutledge took the narrow elevator to the third floor. “But for Cecily’s sake, we have no choice.”

  Miss Abernathy was in Number 307 and Rutledge knocked at her door first.

  A sleepy voice called, “Who is it?”

  “The police, Miss Abernathy. There’s been a thief in the hotel. I need to make certain that you’re all right.”

  “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  “Could you come to the door and verify you are not being held against your will?”

  Dunstan said, “What the hell—” but Rutledge silenced him with a raised hand.

  “I’m in bed,” the voice behind the door said plaintively. “Must I?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Rutledge answered.

  There was a long silence, and then Miss Abernathy came to the door, her long red hair spilling down the back of her dressing gown.

  “As you can see, I’m perfectly fine,” she told him. “Now am I allowed to return to my—” At that moment she recognized Dunstan, over her shoulder.

  With an angry cry, she shouted, “Tom!” and made to slam the door in Rutledge’s face. But she hadn’t reckoned with his quick reflexes.

  Rutledge’s shoe was in the crack, and his shoulder hit the door in the same instant, propelling her back into the room where she stumbled and fell against the bed. She was still calling for Tom, and Rutledge wheeled as Dunstan shouted, meeting the man as he charged into the room.

  “Police,” Rutledge warned him, but he didn’t stop. They grappled, Tom driven by fury. Rutledge was slowly getting the better of him when the woman from the bed threw herself on his back, and another woman ran into the room, her hands out like claws, attacking Dunstan. He swore as her nails raked his face, then beat her fists against his chest.

  There was a faint sound from the wardrobe behind him. Dunstan, hearing it, caught the woman by the shoulders, spinning her around with some force, and whipped the dangling sash of her dressing gown around her wrists before shoving her into a chair. Then he went at the door like a madman, flinging it open and saying something Rutledge couldn’t catch.

  Rutledge was able to put his shoulder into the next blow, and the man fell to the floor, dazed. He turned on Miss Abernathy and, without ceremony, snapped his handcuffs over her wrists and pushed her back down on the bed. He wheeled to where Dunstan was standing in front of the wardrobe, trying to lift his daughter out of the cramped space but his ribs wouldn’t allow him to shift her. She had been bound with cloths, and there was barely room for her to crouch. Rutledge stepped forward, lifted her out of the wardrobe and carried her to the only other chair in the room. Dunstan began to tear at the knots but Rutledge brought out a pocket knife and quickly cut them.

  The odor of ether was on her clothing, and in a black rage, her father turned on the man Miss Abernathy had called Tom. “You dined with us, you bastard, and when we left, you attacked us and used ether on my child.”

  Frey scrambled away from Dunstan’s fury, putting the bed between them, but that didn’t stop the outraged father. He launched himself across the bed, shoving Miss Abernathy out of his way, and caught the man by the throat. It was all Rutledge could do to pull him off Frey, as Dunstan’s hands tightened their grip.

  “Go downstairs,” he told the struggling, angry father. “Find a policeman and bring him here, then take my motorcar and drive to the Yard. We need help and we need it straightaway.”

  “I’m not leaving my daughter,” Dunstan said stubbornly.

  “She’s just regaining consciousness. Do as I say and bring a doctor back with you. She should be seen.”

  Dunstan turned to look at his daughter, her eyes closed, her mouth slack, and her face very pale.

  “Dear God,” he said, and was out the door, leaving it wide. Rutledge could hear his footsteps racing down the carpeted corridor.

  Rutledge turned to the three people eyeing him speculatively. “If you try something,” he said tightly, “it will give me great pleasure to use you as Dunstan would have done. In the name,” he added, “
of quelling an attempted escape.”

  Frey said, “We outnumber you three to one. Even with their hands tied.” He nodded toward his two companions.

  Rutledge smiled coldly. And waited. He watched the two women and one man weigh their chances against the tall, broad-shouldered young policeman, and then subside. Cowards, he found himself thinking, who would leap out at a man and kidnap his daughter but who were unwilling to try their luck with someone who was their match.

  After a moment Miss Abernathy said, “We covered our tracks well. How did you know?”

  He crossed to the door and swung it closed. “The fact that there were three assailants, and you were three to dine. That you left shortly before the Dunstans, with time to set up your trap. Three people dressed as men, to confuse the police. It was a well-prepared plan, and working it through the unsuspecting Lowerys was clever. But I was certain when I told Miss Abernathy here that a thief was on the loose in the hotel and she showed no concern. A woman alone in a strange city would have been frightened enough to welcome the assurance of a policeman making certain she was safe. But she couldn’t afford to have the police come into her room.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Miss Abernathy exclaimed. “I was glad you’d come to my door.”

  But she hadn’t been.

  That was all he could pry out of them. He went to sit beside Cecily, assuring her that she was safe as she sat up and stared with frightened eyes at her abductors. Finally Dunstan arrived with two men from the Yard and a doctor. As the constables took charge of the surly kidnappers, the doctor was bending over Cecily, examining her while reassuring her that all was well.

  A few minutes later, the doctor crossed the room to speak Rutledge. “She’ll be all right,” he said, “but ether is measured by drops according to weight, not just poured onto a handkerchief. They took a serious risk.”

  Dunstan said wearily, still kneeling by his daughter, “Whatever those people wanted, it must be valuable indeed.”

  “We’ll find out in due course,” Rutledge replied. “First we need to establish just who they really are, and where they came from. That could also tell us what they were after. They’ll be in prison, meanwhile. You and your daughter will have nothing more to fear from them.”

  He could tell that Dunstan was dubious. The night’s events had shaken him badly.

  It wasn’t until a cable to Canada was answered that they had what they needed.

  Roland Paley dead of heart attack ten months ago. Widow remarried to one Thomas Cochran Frey. Whereabouts unknown.

  Rutledge brought the news to Dunstan, who said, “But that doesn’t explain anything, does it? Unless they took Roland seriously, that he’d been cheated over that blasted hunting lodge.”

  “I sent a second cable to the Canadian Mounted,” he said. “It seems the hunting lodge that your father-in-law left to your wife is quite valuable now. The railroad wants to build a hotel on the property. They’re willing to pay huge sums for the lodge and the land. If you could be persuaded to make the deed over in Mrs. Frey’s name, she and her husband stood to make a fortune. The police are now looking at the post mortem results for your brother-in-law, to see if he died of natural causes.”

  “But I would have given them the deed, I knew nothing about Canadian railways,” Dunstan said as he and Rutledge sat down in his drawing room. Set to rights again, it was quite handsome. “They didn’t need to kidnap my daughter!”

  “Greedy people,” Rutledge answered, “as a rule judge others by themselves. They wouldn’t have handed over a valuable property without a fight. Your daughter was insurance.”

  “I don’t want anything to do with that property now,” Dunstan said. “Let them have it if they’ll stay away from me and my daughter. It has caused nothing but trouble since my father-in-law’s death.”

  “One isn’t allowed to make a profit from a crime. Sell it to the Canadian Pacific Railway yourself and invest the money for your daughter. It will ensure her future if anything should happen to you. And I’m sure that’s what your wife would have wished.”

  “Yes, I’ll think about it.”

  Rutledge left him then, and went back at the Yard.

  Sergeant Gibson said as Rutledge came up the stairs, “It could have ended far worse. Kidnappings often do. You were lucky.”

  Rutledge thanked him and walked on to his office.

  Chief Superintendent Bowles came in five minutes later. “You took a terrible risk. You should have sent for a more seasoned officer.”

  Rutledge smiled. There was no possible way of satisfying his superior. But he said only, “Sergeant Gibson feels it was a matter of luck.”

  “Yes, well, don’t count on luck the next time. Send for assistance.” He left, and Rutledge sat down behind his desk.

  He hadn’t told Dunstan the whole truth. Or Bowles. For it had been good police work that had brought the case to a satisfactory conclusion.

  What had triggered his suspicion of Miss Abernathy—who had turned out to be Mrs. Frey’s sister, one Josephine Tanner—was a remark made by Mrs. Lowery, that Miss Abernathy had boasted of shooting springbok in Ngorongoro Crater while growing up in Kenya before the war. But the crater was actually in what was then German Tanganyika, not Kenya. And Springbok was native to South Africa, not East Africa. Miss Tanner had enjoyed being the charming Miss Abernathy, amusing the dinner guests, but she’d got her facts wrong.

  Pride had been her downfall.

  And Rutledge had a geography tutor at Oxford to thank for teaching him about Africa. His name was Pieter Roos and he would have enjoyed learning that his pupil had solved a crime with that knowledge. But he had died in Egypt during the war, and Rutledge hadn’t felt like explaining that to Bowles.

  THE GIRL ON THE BEACH

  A Bess Crawford Mystery

  WHEN I SAW her on the strand, like a mermaid who had wandered too near our world, I knew at once that she was dead. The easy, relaxed sleeper enjoying the sun and a warm breeze was very different from a stiff, angular corpse. She had been dead some time, in fact, I realized as I got within a few feet of her. Rigor mortis had set in but not faded yet.

  A pretty girl, long dark hair spread under her head and across the white shirtwaist she wore, slim and nicely dressed—but not for an afternoon by the sea. Dark blue walking skirt, good black leather shoes.

  I disliked leaving her there, but I had the beach to myself. It was very early and there was no one I could ask to stand watch.

  Glancing at the tide, I saw that she was safe from the sea for now. I didn’t think it had washed her up, but it could take her away. And on the far side of her, someone had come this far, turned, and walked back. The prints weren’t deep enough for him—it was a man’s shoe and size—to have carried her and left her here. But he’d found her, as I had, and hurried away.

  “I’ll come back,” I whispered, and turned to run the way I’d walked this morning.

  Finding a constable proved harder than I expected, and then I had to explain who I was—a nurse, on leave from Britannic—who had driven here for a little peace and quiet. One could still hear the guns in Eastbury, on the Sussex coast, and there was very little beach for me to walk, given the barricades against invasion, but there was no time to go home to Somerset and none of my flatmates were in London just now to cheer me up. Still, it offered solitude.

  We walked back together, past the church whispered to be a nest of smugglers two hundred years ago, but serene now in its wooded churchyard.

  She was where I’d left her. But someone had been there in my absence. There was a third set of footprints now. And they belonged to a woman.

  I pointed these out to Constable Whitaker, and he nodded.

  Across the road behind us came more men, including someone I thought must be an inspector. We waited for him, and he knelt to look at the girl. He was graying, too old for the battlefield, staying on at his post like so many people striving to replace the soldiers gone off to war. But his eyes, a keen blue,
were young.

  “How did you know she was dead?” he asked, not looking up at me.

  “I’m a nurse,” I said tartly. “We are supposed to recognize the difference between life and death.” He hadn’t introduced himself, and I wasn’t a foolish hysterical girl.

  “Do you know what killed her?”

  “I didn’t touch the body,” I said.

  “Then let’s turn her over, shall we?”

  I helped him lift her and we both saw the wound in her back.

  “Knifed from behind,” he said. “But not here.”

  There wasn’t enough blood for that. “Then where? And whose footprints are those? The second set wasn’t here when I discovered her.”

  The inspector sent a pair of constables to follow the footsteps, then said to me, “We haven’t had many murders this spring.” He began to search the woman’s pockets, but there was nothing to identify her.

  It was 1916, the war to end all wars was now two years old, and Britain was getting tired. Working flat out, trying to keep the troops supplied, struggling to bring in what we desperately needed on ships plundered by the German fleet and subs, we had all done our bit as the King had asked, but the human body wasn’t a machine, it needed rest and good food and peace. Who still had the energy for anger, much less murder?

  I must have said that last aloud, because the inspector looked at me, a hard stare, and said, “Why do you think it was anger—or murder?”

  “She couldn’t have stabbed herself. The elbow doesn’t bend that far. And she wasn’t in a struggle with her killer, there are no signs of cuts or scrapes or bruises that I can see. She must have turned away from him. Or her. A lover’s quarrel? Or a matter of jealousy?”

  She was very pretty. He could see that himself.

  The inspector got to his feet and introduced himself finally. His name was Robbins. “Bess Crawford,” I told him.