Blood Money
Author: Charles Todd
Date: 2019-12-15T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Mystery
Description: Sometimes the most mundane circumstances lead to much more than expected. In Blood Money, a frightened cat in a tree is more than a simple nuisance interrupting Rutledge on his way to the office. Secrets from the Great War and resentment are waiting in the wings...
Publisher: Wildside Press

Table of Contents

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

BLOOD MONEY, by Charles Todd

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright © 2019 by Charles Todd.

Originally published in Odd Partners.

Published by Wildside Press, LLC.

wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com

BLOOD MONEY,
by Charles Todd

London, 1920

Inspector Ian Rutledge walked out of his flat into May sunshine. He’d just reached his motorcar when Hamish, the voice he’d carried in his head since the Battle of the Somme, said, “’Ware.”

He turned to look toward the corner, and an older woman, her hair in some disarray, called to him.

“Mr. Rutledge? I’m so glad I caught you. Will you come, please? There’s a cat up a tree by my house, and her crying kept me awake all night. Can you bring her down?”

Groaning inward, Rutledge went to join her beneath the plane tree in front of her house. Mrs. Gregg had lived alone since her husband’s death the prior year, and every able man in the street had been called on to help in one way or another. Since his return from the trenches, he himself had dealt with a chimney clogged with a bird’s nest and a jammed window.

He could hear the soft piteous mews of the cat now. Looking up, he could just see her, white with splashes of bright orange, half hidden among the leaves. She was very small, even accounting for her long fur. She peered down at him, her amber eyes pleading with him to do something.

But the lowest limbs of the tree were beyond his reach. He turned to Mrs. Gregg. “It’s best to call the fire brigade—” he began, just as Constable Harris turned the corner.

Mrs. Gregg spotted him as well, and she hurried over to beg his help.

The constable touched his helmet to Rutledge, looked up, and sighed. “I’m a good deal heavier than you, sir, and not as tall. But I’ll give you a boost to that branch, if you like.”

There was nothing for it but to accept, although Hamish was reminding Rutledge that he had a meeting with Chief Superintendent Markham in an hour and needed to be presentable. “A torn cuff or a broken leg willna’ do.”

He handed his hat to Mrs. Gregg, glancing ruefully at his polished boots.

The constable cupped his hands, and Rutledge was able to catch the lowest branch and, with a grunt, swing himself up into the tree. He hadn’t climbed since he was twelve, in his parents’ back garden. But the knack of it hadn’t been lost in the intervening years. He got himself from branch to branch until he was just under the small cat. She’d nervously watched his approach, pacing up and down her own limb, and Rutledge had the distinct feeling she was about to go higher, beyond his reach.

But when he put out a hand to grasp her scruff, she didn’t struggle, and he was able to lower her against his chest. She began to purr softly as he tucked her inside his coat and began his careful descent. Below, Mrs. Gregg clapped her hands in delight.

He got himself and the cat down the tree with only a few scrapes to his hands and face. The next problem was how to make those last ten feet without breaking an ankle. He managed it somehow, lowering himself by his arms until he could safely drop.

He could feel the cat’s sharp claws digging through his shirt into his chest, but she made no effort to leave the safety of his coat, and when he reached the ground, he lifted her—still purring—out.

Constable Harris backed away. “Cats make me sneeze,” he said.

Mrs. Greg pointed. “She lives just there. With Sergeant Johnson.”

Two houses down from hers, white with a dark-green door. Rutledge had seen the occupant a number of times but had never spoken to him.

Leaving Mrs. Gregg with Harris, Rutledge carried the cat up the short walk to the door, but no one answered his summons. He went round to the rear of the house and through the gate into the back garden. There the cat jumped out of his grasp and ran to the door. Brushing himself off, he was about to turn away when he realized his shirt front was streaked with rusty splotches. He looked back at the cat and saw that her underbelly was the same shade—nowhere near as bright as the orange patches on her head and back.

She was standing at the door, waiting to be let inside, her tail twitching from side to side. Rutledge went forward, tried the door, and it opened under his hand. The cat hurried inside, mewing, and after a moment he followed.

A man dressed in shirt and trousers lay on the floor in the kitchen. The back of his head was bloody—drying blood, not fresh. The cat trotted over to him and curled up by his feet. Rutledge crossed the room and knelt, feeling for a pulse, although it was clear enough that the man was dead.

“It must be Johnson. Yon cat doesna’ fear him.”

Rutledge moved the man’s head slightly. “Yes. Johnson.” He’d answered Hamish out loud, as he often did in times of stress. The voice had been there since 1916, although he knew the Scottish corporal was buried in France. They had all come close to breaking by that August, exhausted, their dead often underfoot. And then he’d had to order Corporal MacLeod shot for openly refusing to lead his men into heavy enemy fire one last time. Military necessity, but he’d felt the guilt even so, and he’d brought Hamish back to England in the only way he could, in his head.

He looked around, saw the poker from the hearth lying in the shadows of the table. “And that, no doubt, is the murder weapon. There’s blood on it.”

Rising, he found a dish in a cabinet, filled it with water to lure away the cat, then stepped past the body to a door that was shut. The room beyond had been tossed with little concern for contents: a broken lamp lying in a pool of water from a cracked vase, the tulips crushed under foot, and chair cushions slashed with angry force. Even the carpet had been lifted and tossed aside. What had someone been searching for?

The upstairs rooms were also ransacked, with increasing frustration. It was this, then, that had frightened the cat. But whoever it was had put her out. Why?

He went down to the front door and called to Constable Harris. Leaving him in charge, Rutledge reassured the anxious Mrs. Gregg, then left to inform the Yard of the murder.

* * * *

Chief Superintendent Jameson frowned at Rutledge’s report. “Can’t have our inspectors climbing trees in such a respectable part of London. What will people think?”

“If I hadn’t, it might have been days before the body was discovered.”

“Then deal with it fast as you can,” Jameson told him, resignation in his voice.

While Rutledge was speaking with the doctor and the undertaker, Sergeant Gibson tracked down what he could about the late Alexander Hickson Johnson. When Rutledge returned to the Yard around six o’clock, the file on Johnson was on his desk. According to the doctor’s preliminary report, the victim had been killed toward midnight, the cause of death had been blunt force trauma to the head, and the weapon was likely the poker. The body had been transported to the morgue, autopsy still unscheduled. According to Constable Harris, who had spoken to the neighbors, Johnson had lived quietly, apparently within his means, and seldom had visitors. But he often left the house on Wednesday evenings, ostensibly to attend evensong. The man had no hobbies or vices, as far as the neighbors could tell, although he had enjoyed golf before the war, playing once a month at a club in Surrey. But not, they thought, since the war. He’d come home a quieter man than he’d been when he’d enlisted, except for his Wednesday evenings. The cat appeared to be his only survivor.

When Rutledge called on Gibson in his lair, a small room filled with reports and boxes of evidence, the sergeant brought out a sheet of paper and handed it across the desk. Rutledge could almost feel Hamish standing at his shoulder, reading it with him.

Gibson was giving a running commentary on his findings. “No police record that we can locate. Born in Gloucester, came to London at the age of twenty when his father died and left him a small inheritance. Wounded at Passchendaele in 1917 and again in late ’18. War record clean. A neighbor claimed he was one for the cards, but Johnson’s bank manager told the Yard his accounts seldom varied by more than twenty pounds over a year’s time. Either he was unlucky or he kept his winnings elsewhere.”

Hamish spoke, jolting Rutledge. “The way yon house was turned over, his killer didna’ find what he was after. The winnings?”

He coughed to hide his reaction. “If not money, what about secrets?”

Gibson shook his head. “If he had any, we’ve not uncovered them.”

But Johnson had something that someone else had wanted badly—and believed to be in that house.

Rutledge went back, using his torch to find a lamp, then lighting it. There were still smears of blood on the floor, and the little cat was huddled forlornly in the kitchen, anxious and uncertain. Rutledge found part of a roast chicken in the larder and cut up a portion in a bowl. She went to it at once, purring as she ate. And what am I to do with her, he asked himself, when the inquiry is finished?

He went to the parlor and began to sort through the wreckage.

Hamish sighed. “No’ here.”

He hadn’t expected it to be—not in such a public place.

Rutledge climbed the stairs to the larger bedroom. It offered no insight into the murder but showed him a solitary man’s life that reminded him of his own. Books from a bookshelf littered the floor, along with bedding and the contents of a slashed mattress tangled with shirts and underwear and stockings pulled from drawers. A small desk lay on its side, contents of the drawers scattered. Golf clubs were tossed around the room, the bag empty.

A military chest was overturned, uniforms and souvenirs spilling out. He could confirm what Gibson had learned, that Johnson had been a sergeant in a Wiltshire regiment. Digging deeper, Rutledge found medical discharge papers—Johnson had lost the sight of one eye and several toes, his war ending in early September 1918.

Looking at the books, Rutledge found that Johnson had an eclectic taste, from Dickens to Conan Doyle, biography to travel. A man of many interests...

What was his killer searching for?

The other bedroom was less personal, but it too had been tossed, bedding dragged off and trampled underfoot, pictures taken down from the walls, even the window curtains pulled off their rods. Seats of chairs were slashed, the lining of valises were shredded. A trunk was upended, its contents scattered across the floor.

Ignoring the chaos, Rutledge asked himself where he would hide something he didn’t want found. His own medical records, for one, showing shell shock... Dr. Fleming had destroyed most of them, but there must be a few still locked in cabinets of clinic records. Testing the floors, he didn’t find any loose boards, nor did the wardrobes have false bottoms.

A thorough search of the house yielded no answers, and trimming the lamp wick, he began again. It was nearly eleven o’clock when he stood in the center of Johnson’s bedroom and cast a glance around him, prepared to call it a night. A new man, Constable Turner, was posted at the front door to make certain no one else was allowed in. Tomorrow...

His gaze paused at a box of playing cards barely visible in one of a pair of Army boots. Cards. Johnson was a gambler...

He retrieved it, set an overturned chair back on its feet, and sat down to draw the cards from their water-stained box. They were Belgian, he realized, a souvenir from the war and not likely to be used for play. He was about to put them away when Hamish said, “Just there!”

He turned the face cards over. Nothing. Fanning them in his hand, he realized suddenly that there was writing on the lower number cards. Crossing to the lamp, he stared at them. Names. Nine of them. And beside each, a sum.

Now what the devil did that mean?

The cat came upstairs to wind herself around his feet, then curl up on a half torn pillow, preparing to sleep.

Rutledge took out his notebook and wrote down each name and each sum. Looking at them now, he could see that they represented a list. An accounting of some sort. But of what?

Hamish had no suggestions.

He put the cards in his pocket, closed his notebook, and went down the stairs.

At the door, he said, “Good night, Constable.”

“Good night, sir.”

Rutledge walked down the street to his own flat, and after a whisky, took out the cards and the notebook again.

Who were these men? No rank was given, but he had a feeling, given the cards, that they had to do with the war.

Hamish said, “Yon sums. What each man owed?”

“Owed?” Rutledge answered aloud. “Gambling debts Johnson hadn’t collected?”

Hamish chuckled. “Ye’re the man wi’ Scotland Yard.”

“Johnson could have served with them.” He got to his feet, collected his coat and hat, and, late as it was, drove to the Yard.

Gibson was still in his little room. Rutledge often wondered if the man had a home to go to.

He showed the sergeant the list of names. “What can you find out about these nine men?”

Gibson peered at them. “D’you think he served with them?”

“It’s possible. Start there.”

He took the list. “Tomorrow,” he said, and Rutledge knew better than to push.

* * * *

The next morning, after stopping by Johnson’s house and sharing his tea milk with the little cat, Rutledge reported to the Yard and went to find Gibson.

He was never sure how Gibson came by his information. One of the other inspectors swore it was black magic.

As Rutledge strode down the passage, Hamish said, “Ye ken, the cat was put out. No’ left in a house with a dead man.”

“A woman? Yes, you’re right, it’s the sort of thing a woman might do. But the names appear to be male. A cat owner?”

When the sergeant handed the list back without comment, Rutledge saw there was an address for each name. And they were all men in the ranks of a Wiltshire regiment, and from Johnson’s company.

Hamish noted, “There’s one in London.”

Rutledge went to find Corporal Thomas Tomlinson in Hounslow, but he had gone to work, running a small café near Charing Cross railway station. Rutledge found it, ordered tea at the counter, and asked, “Do you know a Sergeant Johnson? Wounded at Passchendaele in 1917?”

The man went still. “And who’s asking?”

He was indeed Tomlinson.

Rutledge told him. About the murder. About the deck of cards. And watched the shock spread across the man’s face.

“You don’t think I did it?” Tomlinson demanded apprehensively.

“If you didn’t, you’ll tell me why your name is on one of these cards.” Rutledge took them out and spread them so Tomlinson could see his.

After a moment Tomlinson said slowly, “It’s blood money.”

“What?”

Tomlinson looked over his shoulder and leaned toward Rutledge. “Lieutenant Mercer threw himself on a German grenade. If he hadn’t, we’d have all been killed. As it was, three men were wounded and sent home. Johnson lost an eye. But all of us lived, and we felt we owed the lieutenant’s widow for what he’d done. And so, we get together and play cards. But we don’t gamble. At the end of the evening, we pay what we can afford. No more, no less. A set amount, written on those cards. Each month it’s collected and sent on to her and her two children. It was Johnson who saw to that.” He considered Rutledge. “My wife knows I play cards. Not why. We took an oath.”

“Then who killed Johnson?”

“God knows.” But Rutledge thought the man did—that he must be able to guess.

“Johnson was bludgeoned. He survived the war and died in his own house at the hands of a vicious killer. Which one of the survivors wanted to stop these payments?”

“None of us. It’s a debt,” Tomlinson said. “We wouldn’t touch the sergeant.”

Rutledge stared at him until Tomlinson looked away. Finally he said, “All right. Maybe Private Burton’s wife. Since he was let go from the dockyards, she’s complained about what Jimmy ‘lost’ playing cards. I can’t believe he told her why we meet to play. We swore... But he might have told her about the lieutenant just to shut her up.”

“Or himself killed Johnson,” Hamish said, “rather than face her temper once more.”

Rutledge asked, “When did you last play cards?”

“Wednesday. This week.”

Johnson was killed the next night. Rutledge thanked Tomlinson and left the café.

He stopped at Johnson’s home to warn Constable Turner to be on his guard, intending to drive to Burton’s place next. That’s when he saw the constable speaking to a tall, stout woman. As Rutledge pulled to the verge, Constable Turner allowed the woman to enter the house.

He swore. She wasn’t one of Johnson’s neighbors, but Turner wouldn’t know that. He went to speak to Turner himself. “A problem, Constable?”

“No, sir. The lady from up the road came to rescue that little cat.” He shook his head. “I was going to ask if I might have her for my wife. Pretty little thing. Ah, well.”

Rutledge nodded and went quietly inside. Overhead he could hear someone moving about. Stepping into the kitchen, he saw the little cat cowering on the far side of the dresser. He climbed the stairs and stopped in the doorway of Johnson’s bedroom. “No luck finding the cat?”

Startled, the woman turned toward him with a grimace. It was then he saw a golf club half hidden by her skirts. In case Constable Tuner got curious and came to see what was taking so long?

“She must be hiding somewhere,” she said. “I expect she was frightened by the police tramping about.”

“There’s no money here,” he said coldly. “I’ve searched. Johnson must have deposited it in the widow’s account.”

She stared at him. “What money?” He watched her grip on the club shift slightly.

Behind him, Hamish softly warned him to beware.

“You know very well, Mrs. Burton.”

Her face flushed an ugly red. Still, the attack came so suddenly Rutledge fell back before it, and the club slashed viciously across the doorframe where he’d been standing. “She’ll not have it,” she told him in a low voice, almost a growl. “It’s mine. I need it more.”

They were in the passage now, and he threw up an arm to protect his head as she raised the club and brought it down again, narrowly missing his elbow as it tore through the pink cabbage roses on the wall paper.

There was no time to shout for Turner. He needed a weapon fast and backed away, into the smaller bedroom. A broom lying on the floor behind him nearly tripped him up, but he managed to catch himself in time, scooping up the broom handle and holding it like a cudgel to ward off the next blow. And then, moving swiftly, he brought the bristly head of the broom around and shoved it hard into her stomach as Mrs. Burton raised her weapon again.

Off balance, she stumbled backward, crashing into the door, her surprised expression changing to one of pain as he brought the broom handle down sharply across the arm holding the club. It clattered to the floor just as the constable came charging up the stairs, shouting for Rutledge. He came to a sudden halt in the passage, staring from Rutledge to the woman clutching her arm.

“Help me, Constable,” she cried, reaching out to him. “He’s run mad!”

“What have you done to her, sir?” Constable Turner demanded in alarm.

“Stopped her from killing me as she must have killed Johnson,” Rutledge said curtly, setting the broom against the wall and retrieving the club at her feet. “Take her into custody, Constable. And use your handcuffs. She’s likely to attack you if you turn your back on her.”

Between them, they got Mrs. Burton down the stairs, where the Constable stood guard while Rutledge summoned the police van. When they’d seen the last of her, still protesting that she’d been attacked, and showing anyone who would listen the darkening bruise on her arm, the constable asked, “But what possessed her, sir?”

“Greed.” He prepared to leave, then remembered. “Take the cat home to your wife, Constable.”

“Thank you, sir! I will that,” he answered, hurrying back into the house.

As Rutledge walked on down the street, Hamish said, “I do na’ think she believed in the story her husband told her.”

“No. And I find it interesting that the surviving men in that company felt obligated to help Mercer’s widow.”

“Guilt is a verra powerful emotion. Do you think that’s truly how yon lieutenant died?”

“I don’t know,” Rutledge replied as he opened the door to his flat. “But it wouldn’t be the first time men rid themselves of an unpopular officer and kept it secret.”

“There isna’ a way you can prove it. No’ now. Ye’re no’ in the army.”

“Not unless I could make Burton confess.” He paused, considering. “His wife must have got part of the truth from him. I might get the rest of it if I’m the one who tells him she’s in custody for murder. And what we know about the lieutenant. If I’m wrong, no harm done.”

Hamish was against it. “The Army will no’ like interference fra’ the Yard. Besides, the war is o’er. And ye werena’ there to judge those men.”

That was the view of a man from the ranks. Rutledge, as an officer, saw the question differently. The men had tried to make reparations, and the army would have to take that into account. But Mercer was dead—and how he died mattered.

Rutledge took out his watch. He must hurry. If Burton was going to break it would be now. Not later, not after he’d had time to think and then warn the others in this conspiracy.

Hamish continued, “Yon widow will no’ be given their money if the men are convicted.”

“I don’t think they will pay her, now Johnson is dead. He kept the others in line. The Belgian cards show that. What’s more, he was their sergeant. His murder will be the excuse they need to walk away from the arrangement. For their own protection. The truth will never come out.”

“It willna’ bring Mercer back.” Hamish was still protesting as Rutledge turned and walked back to his motorcar.

The Burtons lived on the southeast outskirts of London, not far from the railway lines coming into the city from Kent. Theirs was the last house on a street of houses that had seen better days. Rutledge could understand why Mrs. Burton resented her husband for playing cards when they clearly needed the money themselves.

Rutledge knocked at the door, and after several minutes a slovenly man in a dirty shirt answered. “Private Burton?”

Burton looked him up and down. “And why would you be wanting him?” he asked suspiciously.

Rutledge was certain now that no one had informed him that his wife was in custody. He said, “I’ve come from Sergeant Johnson’s house.”

Suspicion vanished as alarm took its place. “I don’t know any Johnson.”

“Your name is on one of his playing cards. And your wife has just been taken up for his murder.”

The shock made Burton take a step backward. “No. I don’t believe you. She—she left a bit ago to do the marketing.”

“She left hoping to find what she’s been searching for. The widow’s money. Why did you kill Lieutenant Mercer? Was he that bad an officer?”

His mouth still open in shock, Burton gaped at Rutledge. “Who told you?” he whispered. “We swore!”

Rutledge pushed him aside and stepped into the entry. “You broke your oath when you told your wife.”

“I didn’t tell her. I said what we’d all agreed upon. The grenade—”

Stepping into the front room, Rutledge looked around. Newspapers and empty Player’s packets littered the floor, while a stench of stale beer and too many cigarettes lingered in the air.

Burton followed Rutledge, protesting. “I kept my word, I tell you.”

He turned. “Face it, man. There was no grenade. What did you do, shoot Mercer in the back under cover of an advance?” When Burton didn’t answer, Rutledge added harshly, “This is only the beginning. The truth will come out now. At the trial or when the widow stops receiving her pittance and asks the army why. Other wives will begin to question your ‘gambling.’ The army will learn of it. Like it or not.”

“Honest to God, there was a grenade. The lieutenant was nearest it, and we shoved him on it—” Burton stopped, one hand clutching at the back of the nearest chair.

“And so you agreed to pay his widow. Blood money,” he said, remembering Tomlinson’s words.

“It wasn’t as through we didn’t like him. But we were all going to die. All of us. And he was right there.” He began to weep. “It was terrible. Three of us were wounded by the blast. But we lived. Afterward—afterward we agreed we’d make up for it. Make amends. Still, I haven’t been able to hold a job since I got home. You don’t know what it was like, Maud wigging at me, telling me I was taking food out of her mouth. I wanted to stop, but how could I? I keep seeing him there, what was left of him. A bloody shambles. You don’t understand.”

“It’s no wonder the wife got Johnson’s name oot o’ him,” Hamish said.

“Please tell me Maud didn’t kill the sergeant,” Burton continued. “She has a temper—I know that—but she wouldn’t kill him. Not Maud.”

Rutledge stared silently.

“Dear God.” Burton raised his hands, clenched into fists, and jammed them into his eyes. “I wish I’d died instead of Mercer. It would be better than this.”

To make certain Burton didn’t try to contact the other men, Rutledge stayed with him until the police arrived to report Mrs. Burton’s arrest. But as he sat there with the weeping man, Rutledge felt no satisfaction. There would have to be a reckoning. Even if it meant that Mercer’s widow learned the truth about her husband’s death. She wouldn’t welcome it. Would she resent the loss of the blood money too?

He sighed. Justice was seldom tempered by mercy. He’d learned that long ago. The innocent suffered as well as the guilty.

Hamish said, “Ye wouldna’ listen to reason.”

“It isn’t reason. It’s what was right.” Rutledge hadn’t known he’d spoken aloud until Burton answered him.

“I hope they hang me. It’s my fault, what she did. I don’t want to live.” He told the constables as much when they finally arrived.

It was late when Rutledge got out of his motorcar and walked to his door. But he stopped and looked down the street toward the plane tree where he’d rescued the cat.

“I’d always wondered why Johnson went out of his way to avoid me,” he said quietly. “I thought it was because he was the only man from the ranks on the street. But it wasn’t because I’d been an officer. It was because I was at the Yard. And he had a secret.”

Hamish waited until Rutledge had shut the flat door, until there was no escape, then said, “He didna’ ken you had one too. Only it wasn’ an officer you killed. It was one of your ain men. I’d have come home on my ain two feet, else.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Charles Todd is the mother-and-son writing team of Charles and the late Caroline Todd. They are the New York Times bestselling authors of the Ian Rutledge series and the Bess Crawford series. They’ve published over thirty titles, including two stand-alone novels and over twenty short stories appearing in mystery magazines and anthologies worldwide. Their works have received the Mary Higgins Clark, Agatha, Macavity, and Barry awards, along with nominations for the Anthony, Edgar, and Dagger awards. Learn more at charlestodd.com.