A Test of Wills (5 page)

“Then we’ll start with facts. When did you leave this house on Monday morning? Where did you go?”

“At half past seven.” Wilton had gotten himself under control again, but his words were still clipped. “Exercise strengthens my knee. On Monday I followed the lane that runs just behind the church and up the hill beyond, skirting Mallows. I reached the crest of the ridge, went on toward the old mill ruins on the far side of it, which lie near the bridge over the Ware, then returned the same way.”

This was not the lane where Hickam claimed to have seen the Colonel and the Captain having words. “Did you hear the shot that killed him? Or sounds of the search—men shouting or calling?”

“I heard no shooting at all. I ran into one of the farm people on my way home, and he told me what had happened. It was a shock.” He stirred suddenly, as if reminded of it. “I couldn’t really believe it. My first thought was for Lettice, and I went straight to Mallows.”

“Did you meet anyone during your walk?”

“Two people. A farmer’s child who had lost her doll and was sitting on a stump crying. I spoke to her, told her I’d keep an eye open for the doll, and asked if she knew her way home. She said she did, she often came that way to pick wildflowers for her mother. Later I saw Helena Sommers. She was on the ridge with her field glasses and didn’t stop, just waved her hand.”

“What about the Colonel’s man of business, Royston? He went down to the stables looking for Harris and got there just as the horse came in without its rider. In time, in fact, to direct the search. Do you think he’s honest? Or is there the possibility that the meeting he was expecting to have with the Colonel at nine-thirty might have been one he had reasons to prevent?”

“Do you mean, for example, that Royston may have been cheating Charles, embezzling or whatever, had been caught, and expected to be sacked at nine-thirty, when Charles came in?” He frowned again, considering the possibility. “I suppose he could have reached the meadow ahead of Charles, shot him, and made it home again before the horse arrived in the stable yard. Assuming he took the shortcut over the stile and the riderless horse stuck to the track. But you can’t count on horses, can you? Not if they’re frightened.”

Rutledge thought, No one has mentioned a shortcut—

“But Charles never spoke to me about any trouble with Royston,” Wilton continued, “and of course there’s the shotgun. He hadn’t taken one from Mallows. Forrest checked those straightaway.”

“I’ve heard someone say that it would have been less surprising to hear you were the victim, not Harris.” Across the room Rutledge saw Sergeant Davies stir as if to stop him from betraying Lettice Wood.

But Captain Wilton was laughing. “You mean Lettice’s other suitors might have had it in for me? I can’t see either Haldane or Carfield lying in wait to murder me. Can you, Sergeant?” The laughter died suddenly and a shadow passed over the Captain’s face. “That’s foolishness,” he added, but with less conviction.

Rutledge left the questioning there and took his leave.

Mark Wilton waited until he had heard the front door close behind the two policemen, then sat down again in his chair. He wondered if they had spoken to Lettice, and what she had said to them. What would she say to him, if he went to Mallows now? He couldn’t bring himself to think about Charles Harris’s death, only what difference it might make. He closed his eyes, head back against the chair. Oh, God, what a tangle! But if he kept his wits about him—if he was patient, and his love for Lettice didn’t trip him up, it would all come right in the end. He had to believe that….

As Rutledge and the Sergeant let themselves out, they saw Mrs. Davenant coming toward them with a basket of cut flowers, roses and peonies with such a rich, heavy scent that Rutledge was reminded of funerals.

“I’m sending these to Lettice, to cheer her a little. Have you talked with that man Mavers? I wouldn’t put anything past him, not even murder! We’d be well rid of him, believe me. He was haranguing people in the market square on Monday morning. Nobody really paid any attention to him—they seldom do. Making a nuisance of himself, that’s all he thinks of!”

Rutledge thanked her, and she went back to her flowers, humming a little under her breath in quiet satisfaction.

As the car pulled away from the gate, Hamish said unexpectedly, “The Captain’s a right fool! And too handsome for his own good. If a husband didn’t want him dead, a woman might.”

Ignoring the voice, Rutledge turned to Davies and said, “Where can I find Daniel Hickam? We might as well talk to him and get it over with.”

“I don’t know, sir. He lives in his mother’s cottage at the edge of the village—just ahead there, that ramshackle one beyond the straggling hedge.” He pointed to a swaybacked cottage so old that it seemed to be collapsing of its own weight, a bit at a time, and leaving in doubt whether it would go first in the center or at the walls. “She’s dead, and he’s taken over the place, doing odd jobs where he can to earn his food.”

They stopped by the hedge and went to knock at the door, but there was no answer. Davies lifted the latch and peered inside. The single room was dark and cluttered, but empty.

“He must be in town, then.”

So they drove on into Upper Streetham, and saw Laurence Royston coming from the post office. Sergeant Davies pointed him out, and Rutledge looked him over.

He was in his late thirties or early forties, already graying at the temples, neither plain nor particularly attractive, but he carried himself well and had that appearance of solidity which people seem instinctively to trust, whether trust is justified or not. His face was square, with a straight nose, a stubborn chin and a well-defined jaw set above a heavy neck and broad shoulders.

Rutledge blew his horn and Royston turned at the sound, frowning at the unknown man in the unfamiliar vehicle. Then he noticed Sergeant Davies in the other seat and came over to them as the car pulled into a space between two wagons.

“Inspector Rutledge. I’ve taken over the Harris case, and I’d like to talk to you if I may.”

Royston stuffed the mail he was carrying into his coat pocket and said, “Here?”

Rutledge suggested the bar at the Shepherd’s Crook, half-empty at this time of day, where they ordered coffee from Redfern. When he’d gone, Royston said, “I’ve never had such a shock in my life as Charles’s death. Even when I saw the grooms holding his horse, and blood all over the saddle, I thought he was hurt. Not dead. I thought—I don’t know what I thought. My God, the man came through two wars with hardly a scratch! There’s the Boer musket ball in his leg still, and a German sniper got him in the left shoulder in France, but even that wasn’t particularly serious. I never imagined—” He shook his head. “It was horrible, a nightmare you can’t accept as real.”

“You were expecting to meet the Colonel that morning at nine-thirty?”

“Yes. For our regular discussion of the day’s work. He liked to be involved when he could. My father told me once that he felt Colonel Harris had had a difficult time deciding between the traditional family career in the Army and staying at home to run Mallows. And you could see that it might be true. So when he was there I kept him informed of everything that was happening.”

“Why did you go down to the stables?”

“It wasn’t like Charles to be late, but we had a valuable mare in foal, and I thought he might have looked in on her and found she was in trouble. So I went to see. I needed to drive into Warwick, and if he was busy, I wanted to suggest that we put off our meeting until after lunch.”

“There was nothing set for discussion that you were glad of an excuse to postpone?”

Royston looked up from his coffee with something like distaste on his face. “If anything, I’d have been glad to postpone going into Warwick. I had an appointment with my dentist.”

Rutledge smiled, but made a mental note to check on that. “How long have you worked for the Colonel?”

“About twenty years, now. I took over when my father died of a heart attack. I didn’t know what else to do; Charles was out in South Africa. When he got home, he liked the way I’d managed the estate and asked me to stay on. It was a rare opportunity at my age, I was only twenty. But I’d grown up at Mallows, you see, I knew as much about the place as anyone. Charles could have found a far more experienced man, but I think he was glad to have someone who actually cared. That was the way he did things. He looked after his land, the men serving under him, and of course Miss Wood, to the best of his ability.”

“And you’ll go on running the estate now?”

Royston’s eyebrows shot up. “I don’t know. God, I hadn’t even thought about it. But surely Miss Wood will inherit Mallows? There’s no family—”

“I haven’t seen the Colonel’s will. Is there a copy here, or must I send to his solicitors in London?”

“There’s a copy in his strongbox. He left it there, in the event he was killed—with the Army, I mean. It’s sealed, of course, I don’t know what it says, but I see no reason why I shouldn’t give it to you, if you think it will help.”

“Why would anyone shoot Colonel Harris?”

Royston’s face darkened. “Mavers might’ve. He’s the kind of man who can’t make anything of himself, so he tries to drag down his betters. He’s run on about the Bolsheviks for nearly a year now, and how they shot the Czar and his family to clear the way for reforms. I wouldn’t put it past the bastard to think that killing the Colonel might be the closest he could come to doing the same.”

“But the Colonel isn’t the primary landholder in Upper Streetham, is he?”

“No, the Haldanes are. The Davenants used to be just about as big, but Hugh Davenant was not the man his father was, and he lost most of his money in wild schemes, then had to sell off land to pay his debts. That’s Mrs. Davenant’s late husband I’m speaking of. She was lucky he died when he did. He hadn’t learned a lesson as far as I could tell, and she’d have been penniless in the end. But he had no head for business, it was as simple as that.”

“Who bought most of the Davenant land? Harris?”

“He bought several fields that ran along his own, but Haldane and Mrs. Crichton’s agent took the lion’s share. She lives in London, she’s ninety now if she’s a day, and hasn’t set foot in Upper Streetham since the turn of the century.”

“Which leaves us with Mavers wanting to shoot the Czar and a choice between Harris and the Haldanes.”

“People like Mavers don’t think the way you and I do. He had a running feud with Harris, and if he wanted to kill anyone, he’d probably choose the Colonel on principle. In fact, he once said as much when the Colonel threatened to put him away if he tried to poison the dogs again. He said, ‘Dog and master, they deserve the same fate.’”

“When did this happen? Before the war or later on?”

“Yes, before, but you haven’t met Mavers, have you?”

“He has witnesses who say he was here in the village on Monday morning, making one of his speeches to people coming in to market.”

Royston shrugged. “What if he was? Nobody pays any heed to his nonsense. He could have slipped away for a time and never be missed.”

Rutledge considered that. It was a very interesting possibility, and Mrs. Davenant had made much the same comment. “Do you think Captain Wilton killed Harris?”

Royston firmly shook his head. “That’s ridiculous! Whatever for?”

“Daniel Hickam claims he saw the Colonel and the Captain having words on Monday morning, shortly before the shooting. As if a quarrel the night before had carried over into the morning and suddenly turned violent.”

“Hickam told you that?” Royston laughed shortly. “I’d as soon believe my cat as a drunken, half-mad coward.”

Prepared for the reaction this time, Rutledge still flinched.

The words seemed to tear at his nerve endings like a physical pain. Through it he asked, “Did you see the body yourself, when word was brought that the Colonel had been found?”

“Yes.” Royston shuddered. “They were babbling that the Colonel had been shot, and that there was blood everywhere, and my first question was, ‘Has any one of you fools checked to see if he’s still breathing?’ And they looked at me as if I’d lost my wits. When I got there I knew why. I tell you, if I’d been the one who’d done it, I couldn’t have gone back there. Not for anything. I couldn’t believe it was Charles at first, even though I recognized his spurs, the jacket, the ring on his hand. It—the body—looked—I don’t know, somehow obscene—like something inhuman.”

When Royston had gone, Rutledge finished his coffee and said gloomily, “We’ve got ourselves a paragon of all virtues, a man no one had any reason to kill. If you don’t count Mavers—who happens to have the best alibi of the lot—you’re left with Wilton and that damned quarrel. Tell me, Sergeant. What was Harris really like?”

“Just that, sir,” the Sergeant replied, addressing the question as if he thought it slightly idiotic. “A very nice man. Not at all the sort you’d expect to end up murdered!”

Very soon after that they found Daniel Hickam standing in the middle of the High Street, intent on directing traffic that no one else could see. Rutledge pulled over in front of a row of small shops and studied the man for a time. Most of the shell shock victims he’d seen in hospital had been docile, sitting with blank faces staring blindly into the abyss of their own terrors or pacing back and forth, hour after hour, as if bent on outdistancing the demons pursuing them.

The violent cases had been locked away, out of sight. But he had heard them raving at night, the corridors echoing with screams and obscenities and cries for help. That had brought back the trenches so vividly he had gone for nights without sleep and spent most of his days in an exhausted stupor that made him seem as docile and unreachable as the others around him.

And then his sister Frances had had him moved to a private clinic, where he had mercifully found peace from those nightmares at any rate, and been given a doctor who was interested enough in his case to find a way through his desolate wall of silence. Or perhaps the doctor had been one of Frances’s lovers—oddly enough, all of them seemed to remain on very good terms with her when the affair ended and were always at her beck and call. But he had been too grateful for help to care.