Proof of Guilt by Charles Todd

he couldn’t marry her as he’d been in the spring of 1919. And she had been in such a hurry to leave the clinic after seeing him there for the first—and only—time. It had turned out for the best, but it had been impossible for him to accept that when, suffering from shell shock to the point that he couldn’t eat or sleep or think, he had needed an anchor, a connection to reality.
    He would have given much to know whether it had only been Valerie Whitman’s pride that had been hurt. Or had the pain gone deeper? He had known that too, when Meredith Channing had traveled to Belgium to nurse the ruin of a man she believed to be her missing husband.
    “A woman scorned . . .” Hamish’s voice startled him. Rutledge glanced quickly at Miss Whitman to see if she had heard it too. But she was staring up at the church tower, where a pair of rooks were circling and calling.
    “There’s a pair that lives in the tower,” she said, changing the subject. Then: “I really must go.” And she turned back toward the High Street.
    “I’ll walk with you as far as your gate,” he said, following her, although his motorcar was in the opposite direction. “If you think of anything that might be useful in discovering the whereabouts of Lewis French, please send word to the Sun Inn in Dedham.”
    “I’m not likely to. I’ve already told you. Speak to Miss Townsend.” This time he could hear anger behind her words.
    They continued in silence to her gate, which he opened for her to pass through. As he was closing it again, she said, “I’d rather not let it be known that I spoke to you. I have no right to discuss the French family with anyone.”
    “There’s no need,” he said. “For anyone else to know.”
    “Not even Mr. Williams,” she said, after considering the matter, her head to one side, the sun touching those honey gold lights in her hair. Rutledge wondered if she knew how she looked in the sunlight. “He sometimes forgets that a priest’s duty to his parishioners extends beyond the secrets of the confessional.”
    And he had indeed forgot, Hamish reminded Rutledge. Because the man from London had been such a good listener . . .
    Why had Miss Whitman told him so much? For reasons of her own?
    Without another word, she was gone, walking briskly up the path and into the house. She didn’t look back.
    He watched until the door closed and then stood there at the gate a moment longer.
    On his way to the motorcar, he surprised himself thinking again that he wouldn’t have chosen Miss Townsend over Miss Whitman. If he had been Lewis French.
    T he inn in Dedham was on the telephone, and Rutledge shut himself into the tiny closet to put through a call to the Yard.
    When Gibson had been found and brought to the instrument, he said to Rutledge, “You’ll be interested to hear Mr. Belford’s background.” Without waiting for a reply, he went on. “He was in the Military Foot Police. An officer.”
    Which explained his easy recapitulation of the evidence surrounding the dead man. He was accustomed to setting out the facts in an orderly manner, for an inquiry.
    “Anything else?”
    “Not so far. His record was exemplary, according to my sources. And he doesn’t appear to have any connection with French, French and Traynor. Although he’s been to Lisbon, oddly enough. Something to do with deserters.”
    That was food for thought, although Rutledge wasn’t prepared to see a connection. Yet. But if Belford was behind the death of the man on his street, it would have been to his advantage to try to lead the Yard astray.
    And he hadn’t.
    Unless he had lied about recognizing the body. If so, where had the dead man come by the watch?
    “Has French turned up at his London house or at the wine importers?”
    “We’ve asked the constables in each street to keep an eye open for him, and they report daily. No sighting so far. And the constable in the City by the wine importers sometimes stops in at the neighboring