A Test of Wills

by Charles Todd

  “You worked Mrs. Davenant’s land?”

  “Yes, her steward left before Christmas in 1914. Mad to fight, mad to be there before it was all over. He never came back. And the old steward wasn’t up to the work. I did it, and he kept an eye on things when I couldn’t be there.”

  “Did you know Hugh Davenant well?”

  Royston shrugged. “Well enough. Hugh Davenant made a wreck of his marriage. One of those selfish, careless bastards who go through life leaving grief in their wake, never taking notice.”

  “Was she ever in love with her cousin?”

  He frowned. “I’ve wondered. Well, it was natural, I suppose, to wonder. But there was never anything to support speculation. She’s fond of him.”

  “What was Wilton planning to do after he married Lettice? Live here at Mallows?”

  “No, he has a home of his own in Somerset—I’ve seen it, a handsome house, good rich land.”

  “I can’t picture the Captain quietly growing lettuces and wheat.”

  With a laugh Royston said, “His father was an architect, his mother’s family’s in banking in the City. Even if he never flies again, he’ll hardly be reduced to growing lettuces.”

  But when he came back to Warwickshire, he’d stay at Mallows, not with his cousin….

  “Right, thank you, Royston.” Rutledge stepped out of the way of a woman pushing a pram. She acknowledged Royston with a pleasant smile and walked on, glancing at Rutledge out of the corner of her eyes at the last minute.

  Royston waited until she was out of hearing. “You’ve made no progress, then?” He shook his head. “I keep thinking about it—how someone could shoot the Colonel down and then disappear so completely. Unless he’s left the County. But if he’s still here, there’s been no change in his manner, nothing to point to him. It was a bloody, vindictive sort of crime, Inspector. And yet it doesn’t seem to have changed the killer at all. Either to make him happier or make him angrier. Somehow I find that particularly horrifying. Don’t you? That someone could kill and not be marked by it?”

  14

  Rutledge watched Laurence Royston walk away down the busy street, then brought his mind back to the task he’d set himself. He stepped out into the afternoon traffic, following a woman with a pram. Standing by the market cross, he looked up and down the main street. Two boys on bicycles passed him, grinning, trying to attract his attention, but he ignored them.

  Mavers, that Monday morning when Harris was shot, had been busily haranguing the market goers. Both Mavers and any number of witnesses had sworn to it.

  But Sally Davenant, for one, had suggested that it was possible for him to disappear for a short time without anyone noticing his absence.

  Rutledge considered first of all Mavers’s cunning, and the distance from here to the meadow where Harris died.

  The gun was a problem. If Mavers went to his house first, retrieved the shotgun, then went to the meadow, waited for Harris, shot him, put the gun back, and returned to Upper Streetham, he would need at the very least some ninety minutes, possibly even two hours.

  Too long. He’d have been missed.

  All right then, what if he’d taken the shotgun and left it somewhere along the hedge before coming down to the village? Harangued the crowds, disappeared, and after the killing, concealed the shotgun again in the high grass before returning to his post? A long hour? Could he have done it that quickly? It was a risk, a calculated risk, and Rutledge wasn’t sure that Mavers was willing to run it. On the other hand, Mavers liked nothing better than thumbing his nose at his betters….

  Rutledge nodded to the woman he’d seen earlier with Sally Davenant, his attention on Mavers’s movements. And then he brought himself up sharply and caught up with her as she crossed the street in the direction of the greengrocer’s. Touching her arm to attract her attention, he introduced himself and said, “Were you in Upper Streetham last Monday morning? Did you by any chance hear the man Mavers speaking out here in the street?”

  She was a pleasant-faced woman, dressed well and carrying a small basket nearly full of parcels. But she grimaced as Rutledge asked his question. “You can’t miss him during one of his tirades,” she said. “More’s the pity!”

  “Could you tell me if he was there, by the market cross?”

  “Yes, he was, as a matter of fact.”

  “All the time? Part of the time?”

  She frowned, considering, and then called to another woman just coming out of the ironmonger’s shop. “Eleanor, dear—”

  Eleanor was in her fifties, with short iron gray hair and a look of competence about her. She came across to them, head to one side, her stride as brisk as her manner.

  “Inspector Rutledge from London, Eleanor,” the first woman said. “This is Eleanor Mobley, Inspector. She might be able to help you more than I can—I was here only very early that morning.”

  Rutledge remembered the name Mobley from Forrest’s list of witnesses. He repeated his questions, and Mrs. Mobley watched his face as she listened. “Oh, yes, he was here by the market cross very early on. At least part of the time. He went down along the street there, closer to the shops and the Inn, for a while. Later I saw him near the turning to the church. But he came back to the cross, he usually does.” She gave him a wry smile. “I was trying to line up tables for the Vicar’s summer fete. A fund-raiser for the church. You know how it is, everyone promises to contribute something for the sale. All the same, you can’t let it go at that, can you—you have to pin them down. Not my favorite task, but this year I’m on the committee, and market day brings most everyone into town, I just catch them as I can. I must have been up and down this street a dozen times or more.”

  “He moved from place to place, but as far as you know, he didn’t leave? To go to the pub, for instance, or step into the Inn?”

  “Not as far as I know. But since I wasn’t paying him much heed, I can’t be certain that I’m right about that. He just seemed to be underfoot wherever I turned, putting people’s backs up, spoiling a perfectly lovely morning.”

  Someone passing by spoke to the other woman, calling her Mrs. Thornton. She acknowledged his greeting, adding, “I’ll be along directly, tell Judith for me, will you, Tom?”

  Mrs. Mobley was saying to Rutledge, “Is that any help at all?”

  “Yes, very much so. What was on his mind that morning? Do you recall anything he might have been saying?”

  Mrs. Mobley shook her head. “He was running on about the Russians, you can usually depend on that. Something about the Czar and his family. I remember something about unemployment too, because I was thinking to myself that he was a lovely one to talk! The strikes in London.”

  “You don’t really listen, do you? He’s not a very pleasant man at the best of times!” Mrs. Thornton put in. “And riding his hobbyhorse, he’s—repellent. As Helena Sommers put it, any good he might do is lost with every word that comes out of his mouth!”

  “Was Miss Sommers here on Monday?”

  “Yes, just around noon, I think it was, buying some lace for her cousin,” Mrs. Mobley said. “I put her down for two cakes; I was glad to have them.”

  Mrs. Thornton bit her lip, then said, “You’ll think it silly of me, but I don’t feel it’s safe for two women in a cottage in the middle of nowhere. Since the Colonel’s death, I mean. Since we don’t know—And Helena might as well be alone, her cousin is such a ninny! I went out there to call one afternoon, and Margaret was working in the garden. Well, that goose gave my horse such a fright, and she was absolutely too terrified even to drive the silly thing away with a broom!”

  “I think they’re probably safe enough,” Rutledge said, refusing to be drawn.

  “If you say so.” Mrs. Thornton seemed unconvinced. “Now, if there’s nothing else, Inspector?”

  He thanked them both and went back to the market cross, threading his way between a buggy and a wagon piled with lumber.

  If Mavers had moved from place to place that Monday
morning, and given some forethought to the shotgun, he might—just might—have killed Harris and gotten away with it….

  From the market cross, Rutledge made his way to the lane where Hickam had seen the Captain and the Colonel together. Where Sergeant Davies had found Hickam drunk and rambling about the two men.

  He looked about the lane for several minutes, then walked to the first house and knocked on the door, asking questions.

  Did you see Daniel Hickam in this lane on the Monday morning that Colonel Harris was shot? Did you see Captain Wilton in this lane, walking? Did you see the Colonel, on his horse, riding through here, stopping to talk to anyone? Did you see Bert Mavers anywhere in the lane, coming or going toward the main street?

  The answer was the same at every house. No. No. No. And no.

  But at one of the doors, the woman who answered raised her eyebrows at finding him on her doorstep. “You’re the man from London, then. What can I do for you?” She looked him up and down with cool eyes.

  He didn’t need to be told what she was, although she was respectably dressed in a dark blue gown that was very becoming to her dark hair and her sea-colored eyes. A tall woman of middle age and wide experience, who saw the world as it was, but more important, seemed to take it as it was.

  Rutledge asked his questions, and she listened carefully to each before shaking her head. No, she hadn’t seen Hickam. No, she’d not seen the Captain that morning, nor Mavers. But the Colonel had been here.

  “Colonel Harris?” Rutledge asked, keeping his voice level as Hamish clamored excitedly. “What brought him this way, do you know?”

  “He came to leave a message by the door, knowing it was an early hour for Betsy and me, but he wanted to put our minds at rest about the quarrel we’d had with the Vicar.” Her mouth twisted, half in exasperation, half in humor. “Mr. Carfield is often of a mind to meddle; he likes to be seen as a thunderbolt, you might say, flinging the moneylenders out of the temple, the whores out of the camp. Not that there’s that much to go on about in Upper Streetham. It’s not what you’d call a regular Sodom and Gomorrah.”

  She caught the responsive gleam in Rutledge’s eyes. “The Colonel, now, he was a very decent man. We pay our rent, regular as the day, but Vicar had been onto that Mr. Jameson about us, and he called around, talking eviction. I could have told him who put him up to it! But there was no changing his mind. So the next time I saw the Colonel on the street, I stopped him and asked him please to have a word with Mr. Jameson about it.”

  “Jameson?”

  “Aye, he’s the agent for old Mrs. Crichton, who lives in London, and he manages her holdings in Upper Streetham. Well, the short of it was, Mr. Jameson agreed he’d been a little hasty over the evicting.”

  “Do you still have the message?”

  She turned and called over her shoulder to someone else in the house. “Betsy? Could you find that letter of the Colonel’s for me, love?”

  In a moment a thinner, smaller woman came to the door, apprehension in her eyes and a cream-colored envelope in her hand. She handed it silently to the older woman. “Is everything all right, Georgie?”

  “Yes, yes, the Inspector is asking about the Colonel, that’s all.” She gave the envelope to Rutledge, adding, “He never came here—as a caller. He was a proper gentleman, the Colonel, but fair. Always fair. If you’d asked me, I’d have said I knew most of the men in Upper Streetham better than their own wives, and I can’t think of one who’d want to shoot Colonel Harris!”

  There were two words on the front: Mrs. Grayson.

  “That’s me, Georgina Grayson.”

  Rutledge took the letter out of its envelope, saw the Colonel’s name engraved at the top, and the date, written in a bold black hand. Monday. He scanned it. It said, simply, “I’ve spoken to Jameson. You needn’t worry, he’s agreed to take care of the matter with Carfield. If there should be any other trouble, let me know of it.” It was signed “Harris.”

  “Could I keep this?” he asked, speaking to Mrs. Grayson.

  “I’d like it back,” she said. “But yes, if it’ll help.”

  Turning to Betsy, Rutledge went over the same questions he’d asked earlier, but she’d seen no one, not Mavers—“He knows better than to show his face around here!”—not Hickam, not Harris, not Wilton—“More’s the pity!” with a saucy grin. “But,” she added, a sudden touch of venom in her voice, “I did see Miss Hoity-toity just the other day, Thursday it was, following after that poor sot, Daniel Hickam. He’d spent the night on the floor here, too drunk to find his way home, and we got a little food into him, then let him go. She was onto him like a bee onto the honey, slinking after him into the high grass toward the trees.” She pointed, as if they had only just disappeared from sight, down toward the track that eventually led up the hill to Mallows.

  The one called Georgie smiled wryly at Rutledge. “Catherine Tarrant.”

  “What did she want with Hickam?” Rutledge asked. Thursday was the day she’d come into town to speak to him about Captain Wilton.

  Betsy shrugged. “How should I know? Maybe to pose for her—she asked Georgie to do it once, and Georgie told her sharpish what she thought about that! But it was him she did want! She caught up with him where she didn’t think I could see, and stopped him, talking to him, and him shaking his head, over and over. Then she took something from her pocket and held it out to him—money enough to get drunk again, I’ll wager! He turned away from her, but after only a few steps turned back and began speaking to her. She interrupted him a time or two, and then she gave him whatever it was she was holding, and he shambled off into the trees. She walked back down to where she’d left her bicycle, head high as you please, like the cat that got the cream, and then she was gone. She’s a German lover, that one. Maybe she’s got a taste for drunks as well!”

  The eyes of hate and jealousy…

  Mrs. Grayson said, “Now, then, Betsy, it won’t help the Inspector to do his job if you run on like that. Miss Tarrant’s business is none of ours!”

  He left them, the letter in his pocket, his mind on what it represented—the fact that the Colonel had been in the lane on Monday morning, just when Hickam had said he was. And Catherine Tarrant had given Hickam money….

  When Rutledge arrived at the Inn, Wilton and Sergeant Davies were waiting. There was a distinctly sulfurous air about them, as if it hadn’t been a pleasant afternoon for either of them. But Sergeant Davies got to his feet as soon as he saw Rutledge, and said, “We think we’ve found the child, sir.”

  Turning to Wilton, Rutledge said, “What does he mean? Aren’t you sure?”

  Wilton’s temper flashed. “As far as I can be! She’s—different. But yes, I feel she must be the one. None of the others matched as well. The problem is—”

  Rutledge cut him short. “I’ll only be a minute, then.” He went up to his room, got the doll, and came down again, saying, “Let’s be on our way!”

  “Back there?” Wilton asked, and the Sergeant looked mutinous.

  “Back there,” Rutledge said, walking down the rear hallway toward his car. He gave them no choice but to follow. “I want to see this child for myself.”

  He said nothing about Georgina Grayson as he drove to the cottage. While it was, as the crow flies, only a little farther from Upper Streetham than the meadow where the Colonel’s body had been found, it was necessary to go out the main road by Mallows, through the Haldanes’ estate, and up the hill, the last hundred yards on rutted road that nearly scraped the underpinnings of the car.

  On the way, he asked instead for information about the child’s family.

  “She’s Agnes Farrell’s granddaughter,” Davies answered. “Mrs. Davenant’s maid.”

  “The one we met at her house on Thursday morning?”

  “No sir, that was Grace. Agnes was home with the child. Lizzie’s mother is Agnes’s daughter, and the father is Ted Pinter, one of the grooms at the Haldanes’. They live in a cottage just over the crest of the hil
l from where the Captain says he was walking when he saw Lizzie and Miss Sommers that Monday morning. When Meg Pinter is busy, the little girl sometimes wanders about on her own, picking wildflowers. But she’s quite ill, now, sir. Like to die, Agnes says.”

  Rutledge swore under his breath. When one door opened, another seemed to close. “What’s the matter with her?”

  “That’s just it, sir, Dr. Warren doesn’t know. Her mind’s gone, like. And she screams if Ted comes near her. Screams in the night too. Won’t eat, won’t sleep. It’s a sad case.”

  The car bumped to a stop in front of the cottage, a neatly kept house with a vegetable garden in the back, flowers in narrow beds, and a pen with chickens. A large white cat sat washing herself on the flagstone steps leading to the door, ignoring them as they walked by.

  Agnes Farrell opened the door to them. He could see the lines of fatigue in her face, the worry in her eyes, the premature aging of fear. But she said briskly, “Sergeant, I told you once and I’ll tell you again, I’ll not have that child worried!”

  “This is Inspector Rutledge, from London, Agnes. He needs to have a look at Lizzie. It won’t be above a minute, I promise it won’t,” he cajoled. “And then we’ll be on our way.”

  Agnes looked Rutledge over, her eyes weighing him as carefully—but in a different manner—as Georgina Grayson’s had done. “What’s a policeman from London want with the likes of Lizzie?” she demanded.

  “I don’t know,” Rutledge said. “But I believe I’ve found the child’s doll. It was in the hedge near the meadow where Colonel Harris was killed. Captain Wilton here says he met her on his walk that morning, and she was crying for the doll. I’d like to return it, if I could.” He held out the doll, and Agnes nodded in surprise. “Aye, that’s the one, all right! Whatever was she doing in the meadow?”