A test of wills ir-1 Page 14

  Wilton stared at him, wariness behind his eyes. But he said only, "Then I'll speak to you later. At the Inn?"

  Rutledge nodded. Wilton was right; this was neither the time nor the place to discuss what form the Inquest was going to take.

  There was an awkward silence, as if no one quite knew what to say next. Then Wilton went on, speaking to Lettice now, the words stilted, meaningless, even to his own ears. "Sally sends her dearest love. She wanted to come before this, but Dr. Warren insisted you were to have quiet and rest. If there's anything she can do, please tell me. You know how fond she was of Charles."

  Lettice said huskily, "Thank her for me, will you? I don't know what's to be done next-the service, for one thing. I don't think I can face the Vicar." She made a wry face. "Not just now! Or the lawyers. But I ought to send word to someone in the Regiment-"

  "Leave Carfield to me. You needn't see him or anyone else, if you'd rather not. And I'll deal with the Army, if you like. They'll want a memorial service, of course, when you're up to it. But that can wait."

  Rutledge walked away from them, to the still-open door.

  And Lettice said unexpectedly, raising her voice a little as if suddenly afraid he was leaving, "I expect you and I must also give some thought to the wedding, Mark. I can't-the white gown-I'm in mourning. All the arrangements must be canceled, the guests notified."

  Rutledge missed the look on Wilton's face, but the Captain said only, "My love, I'll see to it as well, you needn't worry about any of that now."

  But her eyes were on Rutledge, and as he stopped by the door, he could see that they were nearly the same color.

  "Something must be done," she said insistently. "I can't go through with it. So many people-the formality-"

  "No, of course not! I understand, I promise you," Wilton said quietly. "You can trust me to take care of it." Taking her elbow, he tried to lead her down the passage by the stairs, toward the room where Rutledge had spoken with Mary earlier that morning.

  There was a frown between Lettice's eyes now, as if they weren't focusing properly. "Mary was going to bring me something-some soup. I haven't eaten-I feel wretchedly lightheaded, Mark…"

  "Yes, I'm not surprised. Come and sit down, then I'll see what's keeping her."

  Rutledge quietly let himself out, finally satisfied.

  But Hamish wasn't.

  "She's up to something!" he said uneasily. "Yon Captain, now, he's nobody's fool, is he? But that one will lead him a merry dance before he's finished, wait and see. Aye, you'll find a woman at the bottom of this business, and a terrible hate."

  "Which woman?" Rutledge asked, getting into the car. "Or haven't you made up your mind? The witch? The painter? Or the widow?"

  Hamish growled softly. "Oh, aye, I've made up my mind. It's you that won't see where the wind's blowing. You're the wrong man for this murder, and if you had any wit left, you'd drive straight to London and ask to be relieved!"

  "I can't-if I quit now, you'll have won. I've got to see it through or put a pistol to my head."

  "But you know what will happen if you drag that poor sod, Hickam, into court. They'll crucify him, and you along with him. Because the women will protect yon fine Captain, mark my words! And there's no one left to protect you."

  Turning out of the gates, Rutledge said between his teeth, "When I've finished, there won't be any need to drag Hickam anywhere. I'll have other proof."

  Hamish's derisive laughter followed him the rest of the way back to Upper Streetham. Bowles had called from Scotland Yard.

  When Rutledge rang him back, Bowles said, "You've had two days, what's happened?"

  "We're holding the Inquest tomorrow. And it will be adjourned. I need more time," he answered, trying to keep the tenseness, the uncertainty out of his voice.

  There was an appreciative silence at the other end of the line, and then Bowles asked, "I'm being pushed for results myself, you know; I can't put them off with 'Rutledge needs more time.' What kind of progress have you made?"

  "We've found the shotgun. At least, I think we have. The owner has witnesses that place him elsewhere at the time of the murder, but the general consensus is, he's got the best motive for killing the Colonel. The problem is, I don't see what it achieved-why now? This feud between them is of long standing. Why not twenty years ago, when it all started? But the man's house is unlocked, it's isolated, and anyone who knew about the shotgun could have walked in and taken it. And several people did know. It would have been a simple matter to put it back afterward. I'm presently exploring who had the best opportunity."

  "Not Captain Wilton, I do hope?"

  Rutledge answered reluctantly. "Among others, yes."

  "The Palace will have a collective stroke if word of that leaks out. For God's sake, say nothing until you're absolutely sure!"

  "Which is why I need more time," Rutledge pointed out reasonably. "Can we afford to make a mistake? Either way?"

  "Very well. But keep me informed, will you? I've got people breathing down my neck. I can go out on a limb for you at the moment, but we'll need something soon or heads may start to roll. Mine among them!"

  "Yes, I understand. I'll call you on Monday morning. At the latest."

  He waited, let the silence drag on, but Bowles had finished and cut the connection.

  Rutledge hung up, unable to see the pleased smile at the other end of the line as Bowles replaced the receiver. The situation in Warwickshire, in Bowles's opinion, was progressing exactly as he had planned.

  Still turning their conversation over in his mind, Rut- ledge told himself that the exchange had gone well enough. The Yard wanted answers, yes, but it was also prepared to accept his judgment in the field rather than forcing him into hasty decisions. A sign that nothing had been held back intentionally?

  Badly needed encouragement, then, whether the Yard realized it or not-he should feel only a sense of relief.

  But Hamish, who had a knack for cutting to the heart of Rutledge's moods, asked softly, "Why hasn't he asked about Hickam, then?" Stopping by Warren's surgery as he walked toward the Inn, Rutledge asked the housekeeper for a report on Hickam.

  "He's still alive, if that's any help. But he just lays there, for all the world a dead man. Do you want to know what I think?" She gave him a penetrating look. "He's gone away, so far back into that mad war he came from that he can't find his way home again. While he's there on the bed, not moving, not seeing, not hearing, I keep wondering what's happening inside his head. Where we can't follow him."

  "God only knows," Rutledge answered her, not wanting to think about it.

  She frowned. "Do you suppose he's afraid? I watched him on the street sometimes, and saw the anger in him, and the strangeness that unsettled everybody-well, of course it was unsettling, we didn't know what to do about it, whether to ignore him or shout at him or lock him up! But when he was sober I saw the fear too, and that worried me. I'd not like to think that wherever he's gone, he's taken the fear with him, as well as the horrors of the war. When he can't move, he can't run from it."

  Rutledge considered her. "I don't know," he told her honestly. "You're probably the only person in the town who cares."

  "I've seen too much suffering in my life not to recognize it, even in a drunkard," she said. "And that man suffered. Whatever he did in the war, good or evil, he's paid for it every hour since. You'll remember that, won't you, when and if you can talk to him? I don't suppose you were in the war, but pity is something even a policeman ought to understand. And like him or not, that man deserves pity."

  She grasped the door firmly, ready to shut it, her face suddenly still as if she regretted offering opinions to a stranger. "Call again after dinner, if you want. I don't expect he'll come around before then, if he comes around at all." Her voice was crisp again, businesslike. "It won't do any good to try before that, mind!" She closed the door, leaving him standing there on the pavement.

  Hamish, stirring again, said, "If he dies, and it's proved you gave hi
m the money that brought him to his grave, a man with your past, what do you suppose they'll do to you?"

  "It will be the end of my career. If not worse."

  Hamish chuckled, a cold, bitter sound. "But no firing squad. You remember those, now, don't you? The Army's way of doing things. A cold gray dawn before the sun rises, because no man wants to see a shameful death. That bleak hour of morning when the soul shrivels inside you and the heart has no courage and the body shrinks with terror. You remember those, don't you! A pity. I'd thought to remind you…"

  But Rutledge was striding toward the Inn, head down, nearly blundering into a bicycle, ignoring the woman who hastily moved out of his path and the voice of someone saying his name. The world had narrowed down to the agony that drove him and the memories that devoured him. Back in France, back to the final horror, the disintegration of all he had been and might be, in the face of blazing guns. The machine gunner was still there, and the main assault was set for dawn. He had to be stopped before then. Rut- ledge sent his men across again, calling to them as he ran, and watched them fall, his sergeant the first to go down, watched the remnants turn and stagger back to their lines through the darkness, cursing savagely, eyes wild with pain and fury.

  "It's no' the dying, it's the waste!" Corporal MacLeod screamed at him, leaping back into the trench, faces turning his way. "If they want it taken out so badly, let them shell it!"

  Rutledge, pistol in hand, shouted, "If we don't silence it, hundreds of men will die-it's our lot coming, we can't let them walk into that!"

  "I won't go back-you can shoot me here, I won't go back! I won't take another man across that line, never again, as God's my witness!"

  "I tell you, there's no choice!" He looked at the mutiny in the wild eyes surrounding him, looked at the desolation of spirit in weary, stooped shoulders, and forced himself to ruthless anger: "There's never a choice!"

  "Aye, man, there's a choice." The Corporal turned and pointed to the dead and dying, caught in a no-man's-land between the gunner and the lines. "But that's cold-blooded murder, and I'll no' be a part of it again. Never again!"

  He was tall and thin and very young, burned out by the fighting, battered and torn by too many offenses and too many retreats, by blood and terror and fear, tormented by a strong Calvinistic sense of right and wrong that somehow survived through it all. It wasn't courage he lacked; Rutledge knew him too well to think him a coward. He had quite simply broken-but others had seen it. There was nothing Rut- ledge could do for him now, too many lives were at stake to let one more stand in the way. Grief vied with anger, and neither won.

  He'd had Hamish MacLeod arrested on the spot, and then he'd led the last charge out into the icy, slippery mud, challenging them to let him do it alone, and they'd followed in a straggle, and somehow the gun had been silenced, and there was nothing left afterward but to see to the firing party. Then he'd sat with Hamish throughout what was left of that long night, listening to the wind blowing snow against the huts they'd somehow rigged in the trenches. Listening to Hamish talk.

  A hideously long night. It had left him drained beyond exhaustion, and at the end of it he'd said, "I'll give you a second chance-go out there and tell them you were wrong!"

  And Hamish had shaken his head, eyes dark with fear but steadfast. "No. I haven't got any strength left. End it while I'm still a man. For God's sake, end it now!"

  The shelling had started down the line when Rutledge summoned six men to form the firing party. It rocked the earth, shook men to their souls, pounding through the brain with a storm of sound until there was no thought left. He'd had to shout, had to drag them, reluctant, unwilling, through the falling snow, had to position them, and will them to do his bidding. And then he'd gone to fetch Hamish.

  One last time, he'd said, "It isn't too late, man!"

  And Hamish had smiled. "Is it my death you're fearing, then? I don't see why; they'll all die before this day's out! What's one more bloody corpse on your soul? Or do you worry I'll haunt you? Is it that?"

  "Damn you! Do your duty-rejoin your men. The Sergeant's dead, they'll need you, the push will come in less than an hour!"

  "But without me. I'd rather die now than go out there ever again!" He shivered, shrugging deeper into his greatcoat.

  It was the darkness that blinded them, and the snow. But dawn would come soon enough, and Rutledge had no choice, the example had to be made. One way or another. He took Hamish's arm and led him up the slick, creaking steps and to the narrow, level place where men gathered before an assault.

  "Do you want a blindfold?" He had had to bring his mouth to Hamish's ear to be heard. He was shaking with cold, they both were.

  "No. And for the love of God, untie me!"

  Rutledge hesitated, then did as he asked.

  There was a rumble of voices, strangely audible below the deafness of the shelling. Watchers he couldn't see, somewhere behind the firing party. The six men didn't look around, standing close together for comfort. Rutledge fumbled in his pocket and found an envelope to mark the center of Hamish's breast, moving by rote, not thinking at all. He pinned it to the man's coat, looked into those steady eyes a last time, then stepped away.

  He could hear Hamish praying, breathless words, and then a girl's name. Rutledge raised his hand, dropped it sharply. There was an instant in which he thought the men wouldn't obey him, relief leaping fiercely through him, and then the guns blazed, too bright in the darkness and the snow. He turned, looked for Hamish. For a moment he could see nothing. And then he found the dark, huddled body. He was on the ground.

  Rutledge reached him in two swift strides, barely aware of the shifting of the noises around him. The firing party had melted away quickly, awkward and ashamed. Kneeling, he could see that in spite of the white square on the man's breast, the shots had not entirely found their mark. Hamish was bleeding heavily, and still alive. Blood leaked from his mouth as he tried to speak, eyes dark pools in his white, strained face, agony written in the depths, begging.

  The shelling was coming closer-no, the Germans were responding, rapidly shifting their range, some falling short. But Rutledge knelt there in the dirty snow, trying to find the words to ask forgiveness. Hamish's hand clutched at his arm, a death grip, and the eyes begged, without mercy for either of them.

  Rutledge drew his pistol, placed it at Hamish's temple, and he could have sworn that the grimacing lips tried to smile. The fallen man never spoke, and yet inside Rutledge's skull Hamish was screaming, "End it! For pity's sake!"

  The pistol roared, the smell of the powder and blood enveloping Rutledge. The pleading eyes widened and then went dark, still, empty. Accusing.

  And the next German shell exploded in a torrent of heat and light, searing his sight before the thick, viscous, unspeakable mud rose up like a tidal wave to engulf him. Rutledge's last coherent thought as he was swallowed into black, smothering eternity was, "Direct hit-Oh, God, if only-a little sooner-it would have been over for both of us-" And afterward-afterward, London had given him a bloody medal

  10

  It was an hour or more later that Rutledge walked down the stairs to the dining room for his lunch. He wasn't sure how he had reached the Inn, how he'd made it to his room, whom he might have encountered on the way. It had been the worst flash of memory he'd suffered since he left the hospital, and it had unnerved him, shaken his fragile grip on stability. But as the doctor had promised him, in the end it had passed, leaving him very tired, very empty.

  Bracing himself as he opened the French doors, he was prepared for Redfern to comment, or worse still, for the other diners to stare at him in speculation and disgust. But the room was nearly empty, and Redfern had a tight, inward look about his eyes. The limp was more pronounced as he came to take Rutledge's order, and he leaned against the table.

  "Been on it too much," he said, aware of Rutledge's perception. Then he shrugged. "It's the stairs that are the worst. The doctors say it will pass in time."

  But he sounded
dejected, as if he had stopped believing in them.

  ***

  Rutledge spent what was left of the afternoon talking to Inspector Forrest in his office about the names in his notebook. It was better than being alone, better than letting Hamish reach him again too soon, and it was a way of thinking aloud that might lead to something that the local man knew and he didn't. An idle hope, he realized, when he'd finished and Forrest sat there in silence, reflectively scratching his chin and staring at the ceiling as if half expecting to find an answer written there.

  "What do you think?" Rutledge repeated, trying to keep his impatience out of his voice.

  "None of them is likely to be your murderer," Forrest said, unwittingly emphasizing your as if setting himself apart from the whole business. "Take Miss Wood, for a start. I've never seen a cross word pass between her and the Colonel, no, nor ever heard of one. And he'd have given her whatever she wanted; there'd be no need for trouble over it."

  "What if she wanted what he couldn't give her?"

  Forrest laughed. "And what would that be? I can't think of a thing she didn't already have! She's a lovely girl, nothing mean or selfish or strong-headed about her."

  "Well, then, Wilton?"

  "He was marrying the girl. The surest way to lose her would be doing a harm to the Colonel, much less killing him. Here, just before the wedding? It would be insanity! And what if they did argue the night before the murder? What if it is true? You can't make much out of that-not enough for murder, if you ask me! Not without more evidence than we've got."

  "Then why won't Wilton come straight out with the truth and tell me what caused the quarrel?"

  Forrest shrugged. "It could be something that happened in France, something only the two of them know about. Maybe something that Captain Wilton thinks the Colonel wouldn't want known, even after his death. A personal matter."

  "Yes, that's what he said," Rutledge replied, and got up to pace, unable to sit still while he talked. "But we don't know, do we, and as long as we don't, I intend to keep the quarrel in mind. Mrs. Davenant?"