A Test of Wills (18 page)

He hadn’t come forward in a heaven-sent rage to defy Mavers and protect his parishioners. He’d stood there, missing the opportunity of a lifetime to play the grand role of savior and hero, waiting in the shadows of the church door geared for flight and not for fight. Planning to make a hasty and unseen departure if need be, unwilling to do battle with the powers of darkness in the form of one wiry little loudmouth with amber goat’s eyes.

A mountebank, Mavers had called him.

He looked across the churchyard and saw Rutledge watching him. With a swirl of his robes he vanished inside the church, shutting the door firmly but quietly behind him.

Rutledge walked slowly behind the last of the parishioners hurrying down the lane. By the time he reached the High Street, he was alone.

That afternoon Dr. Warren allowed him to visit Daniel Hickam. Rutledge stood in the doorway, looking down at the man in the bed, thin, unshaven, but clean and as still as one of the carved Haldanes on the church tombs.

Then as Rutledge stepped into the room, the heavy eyelids opened, and Hickam frowned, knowing someone was there. He moved his head slightly, saw Rutledge, and the frown deepened, with incipient alarm behind it.

Dr. Warren moved out from behind Rutledge’s shoulder and said briskly, “Well, then, Daniel, how are you feeling, man?”

Hickam’s eyes moved slowly to Warren and then back again to Rutledge. After a moment he said in a croak that would have made a frog shudder, “Who are you?”

“I’m Rutledge. Inspector Rutledge, Scotland Yard. Do you remember why I’m here?”

Alarm widened his eyes. Warren said testily, “Oh, for God’s sake, tell the man he’s done nothing wrong, that it’s information you want!”

“Where am I?” Hickam asked. “Is this France? Hampshire—the hospital?” His glance swept the room, puzzled, afraid.

Rutledge’s hopes plummeted. “You’re in Upper Streetham. Dr. Warren’s surgery. You’ve been ill. But someone has shot Colonel Harris, he’s dead, and we need to ask people who might have seen him on Monday morning where he was riding and who he was with.”

Dr. Warren started to interrupt again, and this time Rutledge silenced him with a gesture.

“Dead?” Hickam shut his eyes. After a time he opened them again and repeated, “Monday morning?”

“Yes, that’s right. Monday morning. You’d been drunk. Do you remember? And you were still hungover when Sergeant Davies found you. You told him what you’d seen. But then you were ill, and we haven’t been able to ask you to repeat your statement. We need it badly.” Rutledge kept his voice level and firm, as if questioning wounded soldiers about what they’d seen, crossing the line.

Hickam shut his eyes again. “Was the Colonel on a horse?”

Rutledge’s spirits began to rise again. “Yes, he was out riding that morning.” He heard the echo of Lettice Wood’s words in his own, then told himself to keep his mind on Hickam.

“On a horse.” Hickam shook his head. “I don’t remember Monday morning.”

“That’s it, then,” Warren said quietly, still standing at Rutledge’s shoulder. “I warned you.”

“But I remember the Colonel. On a horse. In the—in the lane above Georgie’s house. I—was that Monday?” The creaking voice steadied a little.

“Go on, tell me what you remember. I’ll decide for myself what’s important and what isn’t.”

The eyelids closed once more, as if too heavy. “The Colonel. He’d been to Georgie’s—”

“He’s lost it,” Warren said at that. “Let him be now.”

“No, he’s right, the Colonel had been to the Grayson house!” Rutledge told him under his breath. “Now keep out of it!”

Hickam was still speaking. “And someone called to him. Another officer.” He shook his head. “I don’t know his name. He—he wasn’t one of our men. A—a captain, that’s what he was. The Captain called to Colonel Harris, and Harris stopped. They stood there, Harris on the horse, the Captain by his stirrup.”

And then there was silence, heavy and filled only with the sound of Hickam’s breathing. “There was a push on, wasn’t there? I could hear the guns, they were in my head—but it was quiet in the lane,” he began again. “I tried, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I could see their faces—angry faces, low, angry voices. Clenched fists, the Colonel leaning down, the Captain staring up at him. I—I was frightened they’d find me, send me back.” He stirred under the sheet, face agitated. “So angry. I couldn’t hear what they were saying.”

He started to repeat over and over, “The guns—I couldn’t hear—I couldn’t hear—I couldn’t hear—”

Warren clucked his tongue. “Lie still, man, it’s done with, there’s nothing to be afraid of now!”

The unsteady voice faded. Then Hickam said, so softly that Rutledge had to lean toward the bed to hear him while Warren cupped his left hand around his ear: “I’ll fight you every step of the way….”

Rutledge recognized the words. Hickam had repeated them to him in the dark on the High Street the night he’d given him enough money to kill himself.

“Don’t be—fool—like it or not—learn to live with it.”

“Live with what?” Rutledge asked.

Hickam didn’t answer. Rutledge waited. Nothing. The minutes ticked past.

Finally Dr. Warren jerked his head toward the door and took Rutledge’s arm.

Rutledge nodded, turned to go.

They were already in the hall, Rutledge’s hand on the door, preparing to close it. He stopped in the act, realizing that Hickam’s lips were moving.

The thready voice was saying something. Rutledge crossed the room in two swift strides, put his ear almost to the man’s mouth.

“Not the war…it wasn’t the war.” A sense of amazement crept into the words.

“Then what? What was it?”

Hickam was silent again. Then he opened his eyes and stared directly into Rutledge’s face. “You’ll think I’m mad. In the middle of all that fighting—”

“No. I’ll believe you. I swear it. Tell me.”

“It wasn’t the war. The Colonel—he was going to call off the wedding.”

Dr. Warren said something from the doorway, harsh and disbelieving.

But Rutledge believed.

It was, finally, the reason behind the quarrel. It was, as well, the Captain’s motive for murder.

16

The Inn was remarkably quiet, but Rutledge stopped Redfern in the hall and asked to have sandwiches and coffee brought to his room. He wanted to think, without distraction or interruption, and Redfern must have sensed this, because he nodded and hurried off toward the kitchens without a word.

Rutledge took the stairs two at a time. In the passage near his room, he paused as the first rays of a sultry, overly bright sun broke through the heavy clouds. Storm signs, he thought, watching the light play across the gardens and then flicker out again. They’d had a remarkable run of good weather as it was.

His eyes caught a splash of color in the small private garden, and he looked down. A woman in a broad-brimmed hat was standing there, her back to the Inn, hands on her arms, head bowed. He tried to see who it was, but in the gray light he wasn’t sure he recognized her. Searching his mind for someone at the morning church service wearing a hat like that, he drew a blank. He’d been more interested in faces than apparel. And in reactions to Mavers’s vicious denunciations. Leaning his palms on the windowsill, he cocked his head to one side for a better line of sight.

Behind him he heard limping footsteps—Redfern bringing up his lunch. He straightened and turned to meet him.

Redfern carried a tray covered with a starched white napkin, a pot of coffee steaming to one side, cream and sugar beside it, the sandwiches a large and uneven mound.

Rutledge gestured to the woman in the garden. “Do you know who that is, down in the private garden? The woman with her back to us.”

Redfern handed the tray to Rutledge and looked out. “That’s—aye, that must be Miss Sommers. The Netherbys brought her into town for the morning services. But she’s worried about her sister with a storm coming, doesn’t want to stay for lunch after all. Jim—that’s the stable boy—went to see if Mr. Royston or the Hendersons or even the Thorntons might take her home.”

He reached for the tray again, going on into Rutledge’s room to set up the table. Rutledge stayed where he was for a moment longer.

He’d have sworn it was Catherine Tarrant.

The small table by the window overlooking the street was ready for him when he followed Redfern to his room. “If you don’t mind, sir, you can just leave the tray in the hall when you go. I’ll be back to pick it up when the dining room is closed. We’re not all that busy today, but you never know; if it starts to rain, we could be full.”

He was already out the door when Rutledge stopped him. “Redfern. Did the Colonel come here often to dine? Or did Captain Wilton bring Miss Wood?”

Redfern nodded. “Sometimes. But I think they went into Warwick as often as not, if they wanted a dinner. Lunch, now, that was different. If the Colonel had business in the town, he’d often stop in. Always left a generous tip. Never fussy. Mrs. Haldane, Simon’s mother, was the fussiest woman alive! There was no pleasing her! The Captain’s not one to demand service, but he expects you to do a proper job, and he knows when you don’t. Miss Wood”—he smiled wryly—“Miss Wood is a lady, and you don’t forget that, but she’s a pleasure to serve, never makes you feel like a wooden post, with no feelings. Nicest smile I’ve ever seen. I enjoy having her come in.”

“How did she and Wilton get on?”

He thought about it for a moment. “Comfortably. You could see that they were happy. Never holding hands or anything like that, not in public, but the way he held her coat or took her arm, the way she’d tease him—the closeness was there. I was sometimes—envious, I suppose. My own girl married another chap while I was in hospital and they thought I’d soon be having my foot taken off. When you’re lonely, it can hurt, watching others in love.” There was a wistfulness in his voice as he finished.

Hamish, in the back of Rutledge’s mind, growled. “You’d know about that, then, wouldn’t you? How it hurts? And all you’ve got to ease your loneliness is me…. If there’s a more dismal hell, I haven’t found it.”

Rutledge almost missed Redfern’s next words.

“The last time I ever saw the Colonel, he’d come here for lunch.”

“What? When was that?”

“The Tuesday before he died. It was another day like this one. Overcast, you could feel the storm coming. Everyone was jittery, even the Colonel. Didn’t say two words to me all through his meal! Frowned something ferocious when Miss Wood came in looking for him. He left his pudding and took her into that garden where you saw Miss Sommers just now. I came up here to fetch some fresh linens for the maids, and they were still there. He had his hands on her shoulders, saying something to her, and she was shaking her head as if she didn’t want to hear. Then she broke away and ran off. As I came back down the stairs, the Colonel was just walking in from the garden, looking exasperated, and he said, ‘Women!’ But I had the feeling there was—I don’t know, an exhilaration there too, as if in the end he expected to have his way. I brought him another cup of coffee, but he was restless, and after drinking half of it, he was gone.”

“You don’t know what had upset Lettice Wood? Or the Colonel?”

“It mustn’t have been too important,” Redfern answered. “I saw her the next day, looking radiant. Walking down to the churchyard with Mr. Royston. I ought to be back in the dining room—”

Rutledge let him go with a nod of thanks.

He sat there, biting into the thick beef sandwiches, not even aware of the taste or the texture, absently drinking his coffee. There was a slice of sponge cake for dessert.

Wilton had motive, he had opportunity, and he had access to a weapon. All that was left was to clear up loose ends and then make the arrest. And to explain to Bowles on Monday morning the reasons behind the decision.

Was Tuesday the day that the Colonel had told his ward what he was planning to do? To call off the wedding?

But why? It was an excellent marriage from any point of view, as far as an outsider could tell. Wilton and Lettice were well matched in every way—socially, financially, of an age. Unless there were things about Wilton that Charles Harris knew and didn’t like. Then why allow the engagement to take place seven months ago? Because he hadn’t known at the time?

What could he have learned in the last week that would have made him change his mind? Something from Wilton’s past—or present?

The only other person who could answer that question was Lettice herself.

Rutledge drove out to Mallows in sunlight that poured through large cracks in the heavy black clouds, bringing heat in waves with it.

Lettice agreed to see him, and he was taken up to the sitting room by Johnston.

There was a little more color in her face this afternoon, and she seemed stronger. As he came into the room, she turned to him as she’d done before and said at once, “Something’s happened. I can tell.”

“It’s been a rather busy morning. Mavers was on the loose as services ended at the church. He raked most everyone there over the coals, as vicious a display of hate as I’ve ever seen. Royston, the Captain, Mrs. Davenant, Miss Sommers, the Inspector—even people I don’t know.”

Lettice frowned. “Why?”

“Because he’d just discovered that his pension from Charles Harris ended with the Colonel’s death. And he was furious.”

She was genuinely surprised. “Charles paid him a pension?”

“Apparently.”

Lettice gestured to one of the chairs and sat down herself. “It’s the sort of thing Charles might do. Still—Mavers!”

“And a very good reason for Mavers not to kill him.”

“But you said Mavers didn’t know the pension would end.”

“That’s right. He stopped Royston as he came out of the church and asked if the Will had made any provision for the pension to continue. All those months when he agitated for Harris’s death, Mavers doesn’t seem to have considered the fact that he might lose his own golden goose.”

She sighed. “Well. You said there were witnesses who claimed Mavers was haranguing everyone on Monday morning. He wasn’t in the running anyway, was he?”

“I’ve discovered that he could have been. With a little planning. But he isn’t high on my list. Tell me, what did you and Charles Harris argue about on Tuesday at the Inn? Or rather, in the garden there?”

The swift change in subject caught her unprepared, and her eyes widened and darkened as she stared at him.

“You might as well tell me about it,” he said gently. “I already know what Harris and Mark Wilton quarreled about on Sunday evening after dinner. And again on Monday morning in the lane. Harris was planning to call off the wedding. I have a witness.”

Her color went from flushed to pale and back again. “How could you have a witness,” she demanded huskily. “Who is this witness?”

“It doesn’t matter. I know. That’s what’s important. Why didn’t you tell me before? Why did you pretend, when Mark Wilton came to the house, and I was there to overhear, that you were calling the wedding off because you were in mourning? If Charles had already ended your engagement?”

She met his eyes, hers defiant, challenging. “You’re fishing, Inspector. Let me meet this witness face-to-face! Let me hear it from him—or her!”

“You will. In the courtroom. I believe Mark Wilton shot Charles Harris after he was told on Sunday night that the wedding was off and the Colonel refused again on Monday morning to listen to reason. All I need to know now is why. Why your guardian changed his mind. What Wilton had done that made it necessary.”

Lettice shook her head. “You don’t go out and shoot someone because a wedding has been called off! In another year, I’d have been my own mistress. It wasn’t necessary to murder Charles—” She stopped, her voice thick with pain.

“It might have been. If the reason was such that Wilton could never have you. Mrs. Davenant has said she’d never seen him so in love—that you’d given him a measure of peace, something to live for, when he’d lost his earlier love of flying. That he’d have done anything you asked, willingly and without hesitation. A man who loves like that might well believe that in a year’s time, your guardian would have convinced you that he’d made the right decision, breaking it off. Even turned you against Wilton while he wasn’t there to defend himself. When he thought he was in love with Catherine Tarrant, Wilton waited for her because her father felt she wasn’t ready for marriage—and in the end she changed her mind. It came to nothing.”

“That was different!”

“In what way?” When she didn’t answer, he asked instead, “Is that why you didn’t go riding with your guardian Monday morning? Because you were as angry as Wilton over what was happening?”

She winced, closing her eyes against his words. But he inexorably went on. “Is that why you had a headache, and left the two men alone to discuss the wedding? Because you’d already lost the battle?”

Tears rolled silently down her cheeks, silvery in the light from the windows, and she made no attempt to wipe them away.

“I will have to arrest Wilton. You know that. I have enough evidence to do it now. But I’d prefer to spare you as much grief as I can. Tell me the truth, and I’ll try to keep you out of the courtroom.” His voice was gentle again. Behind it, Hamish was restlessly stirring.

After a moment, he took the handkerchief from his pocket and, going to her, pressed it into her hand. She buried her face in it, but didn’t sob. Outside he heard the first roll of thunder, distant and ominous. Rutledge stood by the sofa where she sat, looking down at the top of her dark head. Wondering whether she grieved for Mark Wilton. Her guardian. Herself. Or all three.

“That first day I was here, you thought, didn’t you, that Mark had shot him. I remember your words. You didn’t ask who had done the shooting—instead you were angry about how it was done. I should have guessed then that you were a part of it. That you already knew who it was.”

She looked up at him, such anguish in her face that he stepped back. “I am as guilty as Mark is,” she told him, holding her voice steady by an effort of will. “Charles—I can’t tell you why it was stopped. The wedding. But I can tell you what he said to me on that Tuesday at the Inn. He said I was too young to know my own heart. That he must be the one to decide what was best for me. All that week I begged and pleaded—and cajoled—to have my way. Saturday evening, when Mark had gone home, Charles and I sat up well into the night, thrashing it out.”

Thunder rolled again, much nearer this time, and she flinched, startled. The sunlight was fading, an early darkness creeping in. Outside the windows the birds were silent, and somewhere Rutledge could hear a rustle of leaves as if the wind had stirred, but the heat was oppressive now.

Taking a deep, shaking breath, Lettice went on. “Charles was a very strong man, Inspector. He had a fiercely defined sense of duty. What he did on Sunday evening wasn’t easy for him. He liked Mark—he respected him. It was for my sake—not because of any weakness in Mark!—that he changed his mind about the wedding.”

“Charles doted on you—he’d have given you anything you wanted. Then why not this one thing—the man you planned to marry?”

“Because,” she said softly. “Because he did put my happiness above everything else. And he finally came to believe that Mark Wilton wasn’t the right man.”

“And Wilton, who believed as strongly that he was the right man, turned on his friend, shot him out there in the meadow, and with that one act, lost any hope he might have had of marrying you! I don’t see how he gained anything by killing Charles that he couldn’t have gained by waiting. Unless there was something else—some reason powerful enough that silencing Charles Harris was worth the risk of losing you forever. Something that might have destroyed Captain Wilton personally or professionally.”

She looked up at him, eyes defensive but resolute. It was a strange test of wills, and he wasn’t sure exactly where it was leading. Or even if she knew the answer he wanted to hear.

“All right, I did think it was Mark at first—not because I saw him as a murderer, but because of my own sense of responsibility over what had happened, the feeling that he’d done it to obliterate Charles, to get even. I was half drugged, ill with grief, not knowing where to turn or what to do. Charles was dead, they’d quarreled over the marriage—one thing on the heels of the other—what else could I think? But I’m not as sure now. When Mark finally came here, I couldn’t sense guilt, I couldn’t find any response in him—or in me—that ought to have been there if he’d killed. Only—a terrible emptiness.”