by Charles Todd
He glanced at the Inspector, and decided that he hadn’t slept well. Changing the subject, he said, “I checked with the dentist in Warwick. It’s true, Royston had an appointment on the morning of the murder, but he never came in. Of course that’s not surprising.”
“No. I think I should speak to Helena Sommers again, before she hears about Mavers’s shotgun coming to light. How do we get there?”
Davies had just had a very unpleasant discussion with Inspector Forrest about duty. It was his duty to assist London, and equally his duty to stay out of Scotland Yard’s way as much as possible, which seemed to his mind a simple contradiction of terms. Forrest hadn’t been pleased either that Rutledge failed to bring his own sergeant along, and before the interview had ended, a chastened Davies was beginning to feel that that was his fault as well. But there was no escape. Constable Reardon in Lower Streetham couldn’t be spared, and Warwick wasn’t about to send over one of their men, and Constable Miliken from Upper Streetham was still at home with a leg broken in two places from the kick of a half-wit horse that had accidentally poked its nose into a hornet’s nest and run amok afterward.
Trying to make the best of a bad situation and feeling uncomfortable in the lengthening silence that was beginning to sound very loud in the car, Davies cleared his throat and offered a suggestion that he had been mulling over while shaving that morning.
“I was thinking, sir, about who might have shot Colonel Harris, and it seems to me we’ve overlooked one thing. What if the killer hadn’t come from Upper Streetham at all? I mean, someone from Warwick, or London, or as far as we might know, from Canterbury or Liverpool?”
“It’s possible, of course,” Rutledge answered. “For that reason I don’t rule it out. But we’re short on motives, aren’t we?”
“Well, sir, it seems to me we’re short on motives for everyone else. I mean, the Colonel might have done something in the war, someone might hold him responsible for the loss of a leg or a son’s death or a wrecked career. Somebody we’d never heard of in Upper Streetham. And would have no way of knowing existed.”
“Before we could leave the case as ‘person or persons unknown,’ we’d still have to clear every suspect in Upper Streetham. Including the Captain.”
Davies sighed. “Aye, that’s true.”
Rutledge glanced across at him. “Tell me something. Why is everyone so determined to believe Wilton is innocent?”
Surprised, Davies said, “He’s a war hero, isn’t he? Admired by the King and a friend of the Prince of Wales. He’s visited Sandringham, been received by Queen Mary herself! A man like that doesn’t go around killing people!”
With a wry downturn of his lips, Rutledge silently asked, How did he win his medals, you fool, if not by being so very damned good at killing?
With Davies to guide him, Rutledge found the narrow road cutting into the Haldane property that led to a small, picturesque cottage standing isolated on a hillside, surrounded by fields and trees. Wild roses climbing over low stone walls set off the grounds, their scent filling the air with sweetness. On the north side, the wall was a good two feet higher, a windbreak for the gardens that lay at its foot. Someone had made a valiant effort to rescue them from weeds, and lupines stood like sentinels behind the sweet williams and the irises.
Drawing up in front of the cottage, Rutledge got out and was immediately attacked by an irate gray goose that took instant exception to invasion by unexpected strangers in motorcars.
Fending off the goose, he called, “Miss Sommers?”
No one answered, and after a moment, neatly outdistancing the irate fowl by doubling back the other way around the car, he made it to the steps and knocked on the cottage door.
No one came, and he was on the point of leaving when a sixth sense, that intuitive feeling that someone is there in the stillness on the other side of a door, made him knock again, louder this time. The sound attracted the goose, and she ceased her attack on her reflection in the car’s wing, bearing down on Rutledge with neck arched. But Davies had the presence of mind to blow the car’s horn, and she wheeled in midrun to hurry back to her first victim.
Finally the door was opened a narrow crack and a soft voice said, “Yes?”
“Miss Sommers? Inspector Rutledge. I’m looking for your cousin. Is she in?”
Reluctantly the door opened wider, and a pale face stared out. “She’s not here just now. There was a bird’s nest she wanted to check this morning.”
He noted the strong family resemblance in features, but this cousin was quieter, dowdier, younger. Her hair was a mousy brown, her eyes wide and fearful, her dress a muted gray-green that did nothing for her complexion or her coloring. “Do you know when she’ll be back?” he asked.
Maggie Sommers shook her head quickly, not wanting to encourage him to wait. She peered over his shoulder, saw the goose attacking the front tires of the Inspector’s car, saw Sergeant Davies laughing out of the passenger’s side, and then ducked back almost as if recoiling from any responsibility for what was happening on her lawn.
“She’s Helena’s pet,” she said defensively. “I don’t like her, she terrifies me.”
“Shall I put her in a pen or somewhere?” Rutledge asked, wondering how he was going to manage that feat, but Miss Sommers shook her head again.
“No, she’ll leave me alone if I’m not hanging out the wash. She hates that. Why do you wish to see Helena?”
“I wanted to talk with her about Captain Wilton. She saw him the morning that Colonel Harris was shot.”
Tears filled her eyes, and he thought for a moment she was going to start crying. “That was awful—I was never so terrified in my life as when I heard about it. He seemed like such a nice man.”
“You knew the Colonel?” Rutledge asked in surprise.
“Oh, no. No. But sometimes he rode this way—through the fields there,” Maggie Sommers said, pointing. “That’s his land, just beyond the high wall. The two estates meet there. If I was out in the gardens or something, he’d wave. At first I was afraid he’d want to stop and chat, but he never did, and Helena said I ought to wave back. It was—neighborly. She said he probably thought it was she anyway. She’d met him—at a dinner party.” She smiled timidly, giving her face a little more life and color, the tears forgotten. “I was invited too.”
He could see why she had been called a recluse, why there had even been the suspicion that she was simple. But she was only unimaginably shy, almost childlike. He thought that all he would have to do was shout at her in a harsh voice, and she’d scurry back inside and shut the door and hide under the bed. Torn between sympathy and irritation, he wondered where someone as brisk and active as Helena found the patience to cope with Maggie for an entire summer. Or perhaps she wasn’t quite so timorous when left alone.
She was saying anxiously, “Should I offer you tea or—or coffee? I don’t know when Helena’s coming back, truly I don’t, it would be useless to wait, and there’s the cleaning still to be done….”
Taking pity on her, he left, dodging the goose again, but he was sorely tempted to sideswipe it after one last onslaught as he cranked the car. The heavy wings had caught the side of his head a nasty clip as he bent over.
“At least it wasn’t a goat,” Davies said, enjoying himself. “You’d have sailed over yon wall like one of the Captain’s aeroplanes.”
When they reached Upper Streetham again, they found a message from Dr. Warren saying that he must see them urgently.
He was in his surgery when they arrived and he took them upstairs to a small room with an iron bedstead, a table, a single chair, and a very still form under starched sheets.
“Hickam,” Warren said shortly.
“What the devil’s happened to him?” Rutledge demanded, drawing up the only chair and sitting down to stare at the closed, gray face. “He looks half dead!”
“He is. Alcoholic poisoning—he drank enough to kill himself. A miracle he didn’t. I’ve never seen a man so full of
gin in all my years of practice. Hickam must have the constitution of an ox.”
Rutledge felt a surge of guilt. “Where did you find him? How?”
“I was coming home last night from the Pinters’ farm—just over the ridge, one of Haldane’s tenants, little girl’s in rough shape, and I’d stayed until the sedative finally started to work. This was about two in the morning. Hickam was lying in the middle of the road. He’d crawled that far, though God knows from where, and then passed out. I damned near ran over him, to tell you the truth of it, didn’t see him until the last minute because he was in the darker shadows cast by the trees along the High Street there, and I didn’t have my headlamps on—there’s something wrong with the fool things. I was so tired that I thought it was a sleeping dog and swerved to miss it, and damned near rammed the horse trough outside Miss Millard’s dress shop. Then I realized it was Hickam, and for a brass farthing would have just left him there in the road to sleep it off. But I got the car started again, managed to haul him into it, and brought him here. And a good thing too, or we’d have lost him for a fact.”
Rutledge could see the man’s unsteady breathing, the sheet over his chest rising and falling with soft but ragged irregularity, and said, “Are you sure he’ll live?” He found himself torn between wishing Hickam dead and keeping him alive. But if he died, and it was Rutledge’s doing—he cursed himself savagely.
Warren shrugged. “Nothing is sure in medicine. But at least the odds are on his side now. God knows, there must have been a pint of gin still in his belly when I pumped him out. And that would have killed him for certain before morning.”
“Where did he find enough money to drink that much?” Davies demanded, leaning over Rutledge’s shoulder for a closer examination of the sunken eyes, the scraggle of beard, the slack mouth.
Without answering him, Rutledge glanced up at Warren. “Did you know I’ve been looking for him? Most of this morning?”
“Forrest said something about it when I spoke to him about Hickam. That’s when I left the message for you. But if you’re thinking of questioning him now, you’re mad. He’s too weak to know what he’s saying—even if he could manage to speak.”
Rutledge nodded. He could see that much for himself. But he said, “Then I want you to keep him here until I can question him. Use any pretext you can think of, tie him to the bed if you have to, but keep him here, out of harm’s way. And no visitors, absolutely none.”
“You don’t seriously believe he can tell you anything useful!” Warren scoffed. “A man like Hickam? Nonsense!”
Rutledge’s eyes were dark with anger as he said, “Why? Because he’s a drunk? A coward? Out of his head? You might be the same in his shoes. I’ve seen more shell shock cases than you’ll ever attend, Doctor, and they’re tormented people with no way out of the prisons of their minds. You weren’t in France or Gallipoli or Palestine, and there’s nothing in your medical practice to tell you what it was like.”
“And I suppose you know?” Warren snapped.
Rutledge caught himself on the brink, realized in time where his outburst was carrying him, and said only, “I was there.”
Still angry when he reached the car, Rutledge said to Davies, “Tell Forrest I’m holding Dr. Warren responsible for Hickam, and if for any reason whatsoever he leaves the doctor’s care, he’s to be arrested on sight. Is that clear?”
“Where’ll you be, then?” Davies asked warily.
“I’m going back to Mallows.” To see what Lettice Wood might tell him, alone and with no notes being taken.
Glad not to be included in that visit, Davies hurried off to find Forrest. And Rutledge was left with Hamish’s company on the drive out to the Colonel’s home.
This time he was shown directly to Miss Wood’s sitting room, and Rutledge found it empty. She came in through a connecting door after a few minutes, still wearing black, but with her face no longer invisible to him. The drapes were drawn back, and the sun’s warm reflection filled the room with a softness that was kind to her grief-shadowed eyes.
And this time she offered him a chair facing the couch where she chose to sit, in the opposite corner, with her back to the light from the windows. More, he thought, for her own comfort than from any desire to make the interview difficult for him. But she was braced for something—he could see the tenseness in her body, the clenched line of her jaw.
“Have you brought me any news?” she asked, her voice still husky. As she looked directly at him he noticed that her eyes were not the same color. One was a smoky hazel, a green flecked with brown and gray, the other a warm green touched with gold. Startlingly odd, yet very beautiful.
“Not yet. We’re still exploring several avenues. I’m trying to build a picture in my mind of Colonel Harris. The sort of man he was, the sort of life he led.”
She brushed that aside with angry impatience. “I’ve told you. He had no enemies.”
“Someone killed him,” he reminded her. “Someone wanted him dead. He must have done something, if only that one single act, to rouse such terrible hate.”
She flinched as if he’d struck her. “But surely you’ve made progress?” she asked again after a moment. “You must have talked to other people. Laurence Royston? Mark? Inspector Forrest?”
Lettice Wood was fishing, he realized suddenly. She wanted to know what had been happening, what had been said….
“They’ve told me very little, actually. Everyone says that your guardian was a very fine man. Everyone, that is, except Mavers.” He said nothing about Carfield.
She smiled a little, more in irony than amusement. “I’d have been more surprised if he hadn’t. But Charles was a very nice man. He needn’t have been my guardian, you know. He was barely grown himself at the time, and it must have seemed a dreary job, taking on the responsibility of a parentless child—a little girl at that!—just when there was a war to go to. To me he seemed as old as my father. I was even a little frightened of him, clinging to my nanny’s skirts and wishing he’d go away. Then he dropped to one knee and held out his arms to me, and the next thing I knew I’d cried myself dry and he was ordering a tea with all my favorite things and afterward we went riding. Which scandalized the household, I can tell you, because I was supposed to be in deepest mourning, shut away in darkness and in silence. Instead I was out in the fields laughing and racing him on my pony and—” Her voice cracked, and she looked away hastily.
He gave her time to regain her composure, then asked, “What sort of mood had the Colonel been in, the last few days before his death?”
“Mood?” she repeated quickly. “What do you mean?”
“Was he happy? Tired? Worried? Irritable? Distracted?”
“He was happy,” she said, her thoughts fading where he couldn’t follow her. “Very, very happy…”
“Why?”
Disconcerted, she said, “What do you mean, why?”
“Just that. What had made him so happy?”
Lettice shook her head. “He just was.”
“Then why did he quarrel with Mark Wilton?”
She got to her feet and walked across the room. For a moment he thought she was leaving, that she would disappear into her bedroom and shut the door on him. But she went to the windows instead, looking out at the drive and seeing, he thought, very little. “How could I know the answer to that?” she countered. “You harp on it as if it was important.”
“It might be. It might decide whether we must arrest Captain Wilton or not.”
Turning back to him, a dark silhouette against the light, she said after a moment, “Because of one quarrel? When you claim you don’t even know what it was about?” Was it a statement? Or a question? He couldn’t be sure.
“We have a witness who says they quarreled again. The next morning. Not far from where your guardian was killed.”
Even with her back to the window he could see how shaken she was, her shoulders hunched suddenly, her body tense. Her hands were still. He waited, but she said
nothing, as if she’d run out of words.
And still no defense offered on behalf of the man she loved.
“If Captain Wilton is guilty, you’d wish to see him hang for it, wouldn’t you?” Rutledge asked harshly. “You told me before that you wanted to see the killer hanged.”
“Then why haven’t you arrested him?” she demanded huskily. “Why have you come here instead, and told me these things, why are you adding to my grief—” She stopped, somewhere finding the will to go on, to make her voice obey her brain. “What is it you want of me, Inspector? Why are you here? Surely not to ask my opinion of quarrels I didn’t witness, or to speculate on Mark’s hanging as if he were someone I’d never met. There has to be more reason than that!” She was insistent, almost compellingly so.
“Then tell me what it is.” He was angry with her, and wasn’t sure why.
“Because,” Hamish whispered, “she’s got courage, hasn’t she? And your Jean never did….”
She crossed to the hearth, restless with pent up emotions, fingers mechanically rearranging the flowers there as if their relative positions mattered, but he knew that she wasn’t aware of what she was doing. “You’re the man from London, the one they sent to find my guardian’s murderer. What have you been doing since you got to Upper Streetham? Searching for scapegoats?”
“That’s odd,” he said quietly. “Catherine Tarrant said nearly the same thing. About making the Captain a scapegoat for someone else’s crime.”
In the mirror above the hearth he saw her face flame, the warm blood flooding under the pale skin until she seemed to be flushed with a fever, and her eyes sparkled as they met his in the glass. “Catherine? What has she to do with this?”
“She came to me to tell me straightaway that she was certain Captain Wilton was innocent.” He was intrigued with the way her eyes darkened with emotion, until you couldn’t see the difference in them. “Though why she might have done that, before anyone had actually accused him of murder, is still something of a mystery.”
