Rutledge, following his quarry through the busy London streets, kept a good distance between himself and the man who had been leaning against the lamppost.
Old Bowels would have his head on a platter if he was wrong. Hamish was busy reminding him of that. But instinct told him he wasn’t wrong. The man’s interest had been too intense. Too personal.
His quarry moved briskly, but without the illusion of hurrying. They were into Kensington now, shops and flats on one side, the palace grounds on the other. At length the man turned down a side street, walked four houses from the corner, turned up the steps, and let himself in the door.
Rutledge stayed where he was. It was an old trick, walking into a building and waiting to see who was behind you. And if someone was there, he was often gullible enough to keep on going, right past the window where you watched. And you simply stepped out when he was past and went quietly in the opposite direction.
But after half an hour, no one had come out the front door, and Rutledge was swearing with certainty that his quarry had gone out the back and disappeared.
He had resigned himself to losing the man altogether, just as his quarry stepped out of the door again, looked both ways, and then came toward Rutledge.
“Whist!” Hamish warned in his ear.
There was nothing for it but to disappear into the door at his shoulder, and Rutledge found himself in a tobacconist’s, the aroma of cigars strong in the confines of the small, paneled shop.
“May I help you, sir?”
He turned to find an elderly clerk behind the counter, staring at him.
If he confessed to being a policeman, Rutledge thought, it would be all over the neighborhood before tea.
And then his quarry came around the corner and opened the door to the shop.
Rutledge quickly said to the clerk, “I’m looking for a Mrs. Channing-”
It was the first name that came into his head.
“Channing? I don’t believe I know any Channings hereabouts. Mr. Fields, is it a name you’re familiar with?”
And Rutledge, turning, found himself confronting the observer at the lamppost.
His face was scarred, giving it a bitter twist, the slate blue eyes wary, the mouth tight.
“Channings? No, I can’t think of any. Sorry.”
Rutledge had no option. He thanked the man and the clerk and went out the shop door into the street. He made a pretense of standing there, looking first one way and then the other, as if uncertain what to do next. Hamish, in the back of his mind, said, “Ye canna’ loiter.”
Rutledge snapped, “You needn’t tell me.” He turned back the way he’d come and moved on, wondering where the constable whose patch this was might have taken himself.
He found a pub one street away, and went inside.
“Do you know where I might find Constable-” He left the name open.
The barkeep’s face was closed. “Constable Waddington? May I ask why you’re looking for him? Is there trouble?”
“There’s been a break-in at a neighbor’s house, I’ve been sent to find him.”
“Well, then-he’s just stepped over to Mrs. Whittier’s house, sir. He-er-he looks in on her from time to time.”
“And where do I find Mrs. Whittier?” Rutledge asked patiently.
“On Linton Street, around the next corner but one. You can’t miss it, number forty-one. If I may ask, whose house has had a break-”
But Rutledge was gone before the man had finished his question.
The Whittier house was no more than a stairwell-and-a-room wide. He went up the front steps and knocked firmly at the door.
A woman answered the summons, her face a little flushed, her curling fair hair more than a little mussed.
“Mrs. Whittier?”
“Yes?” Her voice was rather breathless, and her manner dismissive, as if he had no business knocking at her door at this hour of the day.
“I’m looking for Constable Waddington. Will I find him here?”
The flush deepened. “Oh-yes. He was just-he was just helping me with the-attic door. I couldn’t shift it at all, and my trunk is in there-”
But Rutledge was already moving past her into the house.
“Waddington!” he bellowed, and the constable came hurrying to the top of the stairs, buttoning his tunic at the neck.
“Who are you?” the constable retorted. “And what do you want of me?”
“Inspector Rutledge, Scotland Yard. Come down here and get on with your duty.”
Waddington moved swiftly down the steps, straightening his tunic as he came, and brought up short at the foot of the stairs. Braced for a reprimand and worse. The skin around his eyes was tight with apprehension. He was a short, thin man, with a ruddy complexion, as flushed now as Mrs. Whittier’s.
Rutledge said, “I need you to identify someone for me. Hurry!”
Relief flooded Waddington’s face, and he cast a swift glance at the woman watching anxiously. A wordless warning.
Rutledge was out the door with Waddington at his heels, and they had hardly reached the bottom step before the house door swung quietly shut, the latch turned.
“I’m sorry, sir. Mrs. Whittier is a widow woman and-”
“-the attic door wouldn’t budge.”
Waddington trotted beside him, attempting to keep up. “Er, yes, sir.”
“There’s a man called Fields who appears to live on Swan Street, the fourth house down. The tobacconist knew him by name. Do you?”
Waddington responded, “Scarred face, tall?”
“Yes.”
“That’s his sister’s house. He’s been living there since her husband was killed last month. A widow, three small children-”
“What happened to her husband? What’s his name?”
They had nearly reached the tobacconist’s shop on the corner.
“Greene, sir. He was murdered. By person or persons unknown.”
Someone had known. Whether the inquest had been aware of it or not.
“Any reason for the killing?”
“Money, sir. A scheme that went wrong, one that was to make his fortune. Only he was taken advantage of and lost everything instead. All his savings. This according to the widow at the inquest. All the same, she couldn’t name the man who tricked him. Greene had kept his dealings to himself, wanting to surprise her, he said. She begged him to go to the police, but the next day he turned up hanging from a tree along the Thames. His killer tried to make it look like suicide, but it didn’t wash. He’d been garroted first.”
And the men in Green Park had been garroted.
They had stopped at the corner, and Rutledge indicated the house in question. “Is that where Greene lived, and Fields now lives with his sister?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then let’s walk on, shall we? As if we’re looking for someone else.”
As they went on up the road, Waddington said, “What’s this in aid of, sir? Why are you asking about Mr. Fields? Do you think he committed the murder?”
“No. But I think he’s been out for revenge.”
A cab came along and Rutledge hailed it. “I want you to maintain a close watch on Fields for me. If there’s any change in his circumstances, call me at once. Or Sergeant Gibson, failing that. Meanwhile, keep this to yourself. I don’t want gossip in the canteen or the shops. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir. Am I to do anything else?”
“Yes. Stay away from Mrs. Whittier while you’re on duty.”
When he reached the Yard, Rutledge learned that Chief Superintendent Bowles was well on his way to an apoplexy, and screaming for Rutledge’s blood.