BUT IT WAS ON THE THRESHOLD that Rutledge stopped, facing the elegant room and its three occupants. “Let me remind you, gentlemen, that there are many ways that a man can be judged. I leave you to the tender mercies of the Watchers out there in the dark. When you begin to feel them-and you will-you’ll start to turn on each other. It will happen. It’s only a matter of time.”
A stolid wall of baneful resistance met him. Sedgwick was flushed now, a look of frustration and malevolence in his face. Arthur was resigned, his eyes on the carpet, but there was no remorse in his stance. Edwin, first looking from his father to his brother, turned on Rutledge a hungry glance. He was already bringing to bear a formidable determination.
For an instant, Rutledge thought Edwin might be the first to break ranks.
But the moment passed.
Rutledge leaned against the closed door, feeling the cool rain, breathing in the damp, heavy air.
It wasn’t finished yet.
Concerted murder. It was, as Monsignor Holston had claimed, violent and primeval. This family cared for nothing but their power, their will. It had made them implacable, cold-blooded. Virginia Sedgwick had been doomed from the day her husband discovered he’d been deceived. Her family was to blame, too-for their selfishness in pushing a bewildered child into the ranks of Consuela Vanderbilt and Jennie Randolph: a fortune traded for a title, nevermind happiness.
Hamish said, of the night, “I didna’ think they would let you go.”
Rutledge answered, “They haven’t. They just didn’t want to dirty the carpets.”
A voice out of the rain called tentatively, “Inspector Rutledge?”
He had forgotten that May Trent was waiting in the motorcar.
He found her shivering in her coat. “I’m so very glad to see you!” she exclaimed. “It’s been more than five minutes- I thought you weren’t coming at all.”
“I was safe enough.”
She laughed nervously. “It’s been frightful, out here in the dark. I’ve seen and heard all kinds of things! Mostly my overworked imagination, but that’s small comfort.”
He turned the crank, and when he took his place beside her, behind the wheel, she said, “Where’s Peter? We aren’t going to leave him, are we? It’s a long, wet walk back to Osterley.”
“Actually, he was outside the French windows. Just beyond the terrace. He knows where to meet me.”
He waited. The rain dripped from the trees as the wind stirred them. And somewhere, they could hear what sounded like a woman crying. It was a peacock, out on the grounds, but May Trent caught his arm. “I’m frightened. More frightened than I was in there!”
“You shouldn’t be. That was a very brave thing to do in there. Facing your demons in front of the Sedgwicks.”
“I didn’t face any demons. I lied, for Father James’s sake,” she confessed. “Listening to what was being said, I suddenly realized what it was that he’d actually expected me to remember. I did it for him. I think he’d already guessed that she wasn’t on board. She couldn’t have been, could she, if she was already dead? Father James had talked to Herbert Baker by that time, and he was nearly sure. But he hoped I could give him proof -”
Rutledge took out his watch, but couldn’t see the face in the darkness.
“Shouldn’t we return to Osterley soon?”
“It’s barely been a quarter of an hour. Give it a little longer.”
“Give what a little longer?” she said, her gloved hands snuggled into her coat pockets for warmth.
“I’m not sure.”
It was nearly forty-five minutes later when Hamish, behind him, heard something. Rutledge stiffened, straining to catch the direction of the footfalls.
Then Peter Henderson walked swiftly around the corner of the house and climbed into the rear seat. “He’s coming,” Henderson said.
“ Who’s coming?” May Trent asked. “It’s Edwin you’re waiting for, isn’t it?”
Still they waited. And then the door of the house opened on a long rectangle of light that seemed to reach toward them. A man stepped out into the silvery path it made across the wet slate walk.
He seemed relieved to find Rutledge there. He came to stand beside the motorcar, looking in at Rutledge, the rain falling harder now, like tears on his face.
It was Arthur Sedgwick.
He handed Rutledge the umbrella he’d left by the door. “I don’t want to hang,” he said after a moment. “But I’m the one who’ll die next. One way or another. My spine is wrecked; I won’t live to old age. I’ll never father a child. Edwin won’t wait very long for the title. He wants it too badly; he has for as far back as I can remember. And my father grieves for a man who raced like the wind, and never thought twice about danger and dying. That’s gone, too.”
Rutledge said nothing.
Arthur Sedgwick said, “Can you protect me? If I agree to testify against them?”
“I can try.”
“They tried to persuade me for the good of the family to take a pistol to my head. ‘Driven by despair over my back.’ Hush it up. Inspector Blevins doesn’t want Walsh resurrected. He wouldn’t dare to point a finger at us. My death would be a nine day wonder and then fade away.”
He walked around the front of the motorcar and joined Henderson in the rear seat. Rutledge turned on the headlamps. The occupants of the car were ghostly in the reflected glow, after the pitch-black of the night.
As Rutledge turned the wheel and started down the drive, Arthur said, “I’ve always hated those damned baboons in the garden. They stare at me as if they can look through the flesh and blood into my very soul. I could see them tonight, watching. I always know they’re there. I’d promised myself that when I inherited the title, I’d destroy that damned stone. But my father has always had some sort of superstitious regard for it, like the Chastains did.”
They reached the gates and drove through.
May Trent asked Rutledge, as if it had suddenly occurred to her, “But what’s going to happen now?”
“You’ll see. I wish you’d stayed in Osterley. You wouldn’t have been dragged through this.”
“It was not your choice,” she replied. “It was mine. I’d let Father James down once.”
Rutledge pulled off the road in a wide patch of brush, the stiff dry fingers scratching against the paint, a shower of raindrops, dislodged from the branches, sprinkling down on the car. Then he drove deeper into the thickest shadows and switched off his headlamps. “Be very quiet.”
In a few minutes a motorcar came flying down the road from the direction of the Sedgwick gates, roaring past them like a thunderbolt. It disappeared into the darkness. From what Rutledge could tell, there were two people in the front.
Arthur Sedgwick said, “They’re hunting for me already.” There was a mixture of resignation and despair in his voice. “There are weapons in the house. Shotguns-”
Rutledge said, “No, they’re hunting me. But your turn will come. Where is your wife buried?”
“In the marshes. I killed her, but I couldn’t bear to bury her there. Edwin did it for me. He goes out there in the boat from time to time, to be sure she’s still there.”
Beside Rutledge, May Trent gasped.
After a moment, Rutledge said, “Sedgwick, we’re taking you straight to Norwich. Henderson, as soon as we reach Osterley, I’d like you to find Monsignor Holston at the hotel and tell him to come to Holy Trinity. We’ll meet him there by the church. Ask Mrs. Barnett, if you will, to send my luggage on to London, and Miss Trent’s as well. Then go to the vicarage and stay there out of sight. Will you do that?”
Henderson agreed.
“And thank you,” Rutledge added. “For tonight’s help.”
There was unexpected pride in Peter Henderson’s voice. “My pleasure. And I’ll keep my mouth shut, you can be sure.” He slipped out to crank the engine.
They waited by the church, its towers high and black against the sky. Arthur Sedgwick was morosely silent, Rutledge tense and watchful.
The bark of a fox was sharp and close. May Trent said quietly, “Are you sure this is the right thing to do?”
“There’s no choice. The Yard has to make this arrest. If I leave it to Blevins, he’ll lose another prisoner. Arthur Sedgwick will be safest in Norwich.”
Rain was falling hard again by the time a very wet and somber Monsignor Holston climbed into the seat Peter Henderson had vacated not ten minutes before.
“You’d better get out of here,” the priest warned. “As fast as you can! Edwin is searching the town. Peter told me a little of what has happened. He’s already gone to ground. They’ll never know he was protecting your back outside their windows tonight. He’ll be safe enough.”
The motor, rumbling quietly in the darkness, picked up a stronger note, and the motorcar drove down Trinity Lane to the main road and headed east, for the turning to Norwich.
But it was a very long time before Rutledge stopped listening for the echo of another vehicle behind him…