Murder in the Cotswolds
Page 18
There was nothing for it but an honest answer, though he was slow in giving it. “That’s a possibility. I’m not sure. My headquarters was supposed to ask Washington about them. You’ll have to know. I was the one who suggested Washington.”
“I’m wanted, too, and the Posts.” She let out a little cry. “Oh, Fred, it’s such a miserable thing.”
He longed to take her in his arms, to pat her shoulder as if she were a child, but something told him not to. He said, “I’m sorry for your sake.”
“Don’t be. You mustn’t be that way. You just did what you had to do.”
“I’m still sorry. You’re perfectly innocent.”
“That doesn’t matter so much right now. Walter laughs and talks because that’s his way, but underneath he’s afraid, and Ben Post is cursing him for not going to South America sooner.”
“Has your husband asked you to stay with him?”
“Not in words, but I can tell. He wants me close to him for a change. He keeps saying, ‘We’ll see this thing through, you and I, Drusilla.’ He needs me, Fred. For the first time in his life he needs me, and for the first time in my life I am needed. I can’t turn my back, not and feel right with myself.”
“I need you, too.”
“And you know I need you, but Fred, I can’t make it seem right. Would you respect me?” Tears were running down her cheeks, unheeded.
“I would, regardless,” he said, “but that’s hardly the point. Oh, Christ, Dru. I know. You have to live with yourself. I hate it.”
He got up and found a handkerchief and gave it to her. While she wiped her cheeks and eyes, she said, “Yes, even tonight. You could make love to me, Fred, but I couldn’t answer to it.”
A fierce impulse seized him, to take her, to plunge deep in her, to have her mouth and feel her breasts against him. He hadn’t touched his drink, and he took it now in one gulp. He said, “It’s all right, Dru. It’s all right.”
She rose quietly and moved toward the door.
“I’m not saying goodbye to hope,” he told her. “I’m not saying goodbye forever.”
“Thank you, Fred. Thank you, my dear.”
Her shoulder trembled under his hand. She bowed her head and went out the door.
He went back and sat on the bed and looked at the closed door and let the other shoe drop.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Geeta was busy packing when Charleston came into the room about midnight. She put down a garment and came and kissed him, saying, “You must have had quite a day. Sit down and have some wine.” A frown came on her face. “Goodness, you look tired, Chick.”
“Tired but triumphant, if that’s the word.”
He told her then about the day, about the quizzing of Rose and the arrest of Bates, ending by saying, “It was you who found the way for me, you and your young Smith. Take some credit. Take all of it.”
“I knew you’d bring it off,” she said, “that is if you had time. You always do. Here’s your drink and my salute.”
“Yeah, and if I’d been keener, I might have saved Doggett’s life.”
“I don’t see how.”
“Me either, come to that.”
“You don’t seem very happy, Chick. I should think you would be.”
“Just put it I’m at ease. Geeta, you ever wonder if there’s any force more terrible than young love?”
She went back to her packing. “It’s only natural.”
“That’s the hell of it. The juices begin to flow, and the kids aren’t prepared for it. Not old enough. No experience. We call it puppy love when we get older and try to laugh it off, but when it happens to kids it’s the realest thing in the world. It’s the only thing.” He laughed shortly and said, “But here I go being preacher again.”
“Preach away, Reverend.”
“Thanks. Until it runs its course, reason can’t faze it. Advice falls flat. Sometimes it goes haywire, as in Bates’s case. Sometimes it leaves scars. It always leaves memories. They can haunt you.” He shook his head. “It’s a lovely lunacy.”
“I doubt you’re going to change it, even you, and not tonight.”
“Oh ye of little faith.”
She was folding things just so, patting out wrinkles, finding the right places for them, and humming as she worked.
“Put words to it,” he asked.
“To what?”
“To that tune.”
“I’ve been thinking that pretty soon now we’ll have our own mountains and our own glens and braes, and I’ve been changing some words in a Scottish song.”
“Well, sing it.”
“I can’t and go on packing.”
“Oh, sing it, Geeta.”
Her voice came out low and clear:
“For these are my mountains,
And this is my glen.
The scenes of my childhood
Will know me again.
No land’s ever claimed me
Though far I did roam,
For these are my mountains,
And I’m going home.”
“Thanks, dear. Yep, home. Montana.”
“But London first,” she said. “I do hope the hotel will take us. I suppose it’s too late for a reservation.”
“No need,” he told her. “I called the Chesterfield. It’s okay.”
“I might have known, Chick. Aren’t you getting excited? London and then home, and I’ll think of the gray stone of Edinburgh and the woolens there, and this lovely Cotswold country, and I’ll get impish and say ‘Fie on Ben Nevis. Look to our Rockies.’”
He came to his feet and said, “You’ve done enough.”
“I’m just through.”
“Time for bed, and you know what?”
“Stop it. I know what, all right. And you, you lecher, speaking of puppy love!”
“I’m a kid again.”
“It’s too late.”
“Never too late. Please.”
She gave him her good smile and began undressing.
Chapter Twenty-Four
As they finished breakfast the next morning, Charleston said, “I want to dodge over and tell Perkins goodbye. I’ll check out first, and then will you see if you can round up the bellman and get the things in the car? May be difficult with all the tourists.”
“I can manage, but I want to say goodbye to Mr. Ebersole. He’s sent the flow-blue on and wouldn’t take even a dime for expenses.”
“Hold that for the last. I want to thank him myself.”
All hands were present when he opened the door to the incidents room, all hands including Superintendent Hawley. He barely had time to close it before Hawley barked, “My congratulations, Mr. Charleston. Fine work.”
“Me? Congratulations? No, sir. They belong to Inspector Perkins and to Goodman and Rendell.”
“But Perkins was by way of saying you broke the case.”
Charleston laughed. “Isn’t that just like him? Generous with credits to everyone but himself. No, Superintendent, don’t you believe him. If he hadn’t insisted on questioning Rose Whaley again and again, we’d never have gotten to the bottom of this business. To tell the truth, I thought he was a bit daft, as you British might put it.
“You can be sure, sir,” he went on against Hawley’s sputter, “that I had little to do with the solution. In fact, they’ve given me quite an education, this fine team of yours. I’m going to write to your Chief Constable telling him about Perkins and the work of Goodman and Rendell. I think he might like an American’s impressions. And don’t you think it would be a good idea to sent a copy to Scotland Yard? I want to show my appreciation.”
Sergeant Goodman, all innocence, suggested brightly, “The Home Office?”
“Oh, yes. The Home Office. And the newspapers, if reporters come around.”
He didn’t wait for an answer, but reached out and pumped the limp hand. “I have to be going. My wife’s waiting.” He shook hands then with Goodman and Rendell and, last of all, with Perkins. Perkins
moved closer to him as their hands met. With his left hand he grasped Charleston’s shoulder. “Chick, you, you …” The handclasp was strong, but the voice unsteady. “Well, goddamnit, goodbye.”
Halfway across the street Charleston turned. They had all come out and were standing in front of the door, all but Hawley. He waved to them once and swung about and went on toward the car, where the bellman was stowing the last of the luggage and Geeta stood waiting.
It was a nice morning in the Cotswolds.
About the Author
A. B. Guthrie Jr. (1901–1991) was an award-winning American novelist, screenwriter, historian, and environmentalist. Born in Indiana, he was six months old when his father brought the family west to the Montana territory. Guthrie graduated from the University of Montana with a degree in journalism and worked as a reporter and editor for two decades before receiving a Nieman fellowship from Harvard University. During his grant year, he began to seriously pursue his interest in writing fiction. His first major novel, The Big Sky (1947), was followed by the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Way West (1949). Guthrie’s popular mystery series featuring Montana sheriff Chick Charleston earned a Silver Spur Award from the Western Writers of America and an award from the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. The five books in the series are Wild Pitch (1973), The Genuine Article (1977), No Second Wind (1980), Playing Catch-Up (1985), and Murder in the Cotswolds (1989). In 1954 Guthrie’s screenplay for the film Shane was nominated for an Academy Award.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1989 by A. B. Guthrie Jr.
Cover design by Drew Padrutt
ISBN: 978-1-4976-5282-8
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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THE SHERIFF CHICK CHARLESTON MYSTERIES
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