Free Proof of Guilt by Charles Todd

of Madeira. It’s where French, French and Traynor have done business for three generations. Apparently before that, they were solely London importers of wines and spirits.”
    Markham considered Rutledge with raised eyebrows. “You aren’t telling me you wish to travel there, are you?”
    Rutledge smiled inwardly, remembering that Yorkshiremen were notoriously tightfisted. “I’m sure any information I need can come through the police there.”
    Markham sat back in his chair, his face clearing. “Off to Essex with you, then. And bring back results, if you please.”
    An hour later, Rutledge was on the road again, heading toward Dedham.
    What results? he asked himself as he drove through London traffic and turned east, then north.
    Hamish, restless in the back of his mind, reflecting Rutledge’s own unsettled mood, said, “Ye ken, ye canna’ return now withoot something.”
    H is first duty was to look for the nearest local police station and speak to the constable there. On his earlier visit, there had been no need to pay a courtesy call, but now there was, and Rutledge was hoping not to have to deal with the larger force in Dedham. Smaller police stations, often with a single constable on duty, generally knew the people in their villages better. Nor was there that tendency toward resentment of the Yard infringing on another man’s turf.
    Passing the French house, Rutledge found the village of Stratford St. Hilary less than a mile beyond. There was no sign of the Dominican abbey, although a wide green could well have been the site of the order’s church and outbuildings. If so, then this had been no more than a satellite community rather than a major branch of the order. Clustered around the green were a number of rather handsome houses and shops, and a small, ancient building that was a pub now—The Tun and Turtle, according to the sign—which could have been here in coaching days. Too small for a hotel, it probably offered a room or two to visitors when necessary. He could just see a stream running past the back garden and winding away among a thin stand of trees. On the far side of the stream he glimpsed the chimney pots of another large house. He wondered if wool had built the small church or if it had been a private chapel in the days of the abbey, for without it the village was no more than large hamlet.
    Rutledge found the police station sandwiched between a stationer’s shop and a narrow-fronted bakery. The bakery was already closed, but as he passed the door, the faint smell of yeast breads and cinnamon lingered in the warm evening air.
    The constable was not in. But he’d left a message on a small board by the door for anyone who needed him. It read:
    AT HOME
    There was no indication where HOME might be.
    Rutledge had counted on the constable to give him the name and direction of French’s fiancée. The other source for information was of course the rector.
    He left the motorcar where it was and walked toward the church. It sat on a slight knoll, and in the churchyard that sloped down to the street he could see mossy and lichen-etched stones leaning crazily in front of much later ones that marched up the slope to disappear around the apse before reappearing at the far side.
    The French family monument was ornate, and in the shadow of the tower. But there were a number of other grand mausoleums and weeping angels in the centers of family plots. As he stepped out of the motorcar, Rutledge could see TRAYNOR incised in the base of a stone, the shaft broken and draped with mourning in a very Victorian concept.
    The Rectory was a modest house up a lane overlooking the churchyard.
    Rutledge walked there as the sun dropped behind the yews that encircled three sides of the low wall.
    A man in shirtsleeves was standing on a high ladder, painting the house trim.
    Rutledge called to him as he came up the path, “Is the rector in?”
    The man looked down at him. “Sadly he is out. Is there something I can do