A test of wills ir-1 Read online

  "A very well respected lady. She wouldn't be very likely to have a hand in murder. And what reason could she have for it anyway?"

  "I don't know. Was she ever in love with the Colonel? Or with Wilton?"

  "There's never been a hint of gossip. If she was in love with anyone but her husband, she kept it to herself. And somehow I can't picture her stalking the Colonel with a loaded shotgun in her hand. If she was jealous of Lettice Wood, killing the Colonel wouldn't help her any."

  "Unless the Captain-or Lettice Wood-was blamed for it."

  "If the Captain's blamed for it, she's going to lose him to the hangman, isn't she? And I can't see how she'd put the blame onto Miss Wood. Besides, if there was any real threat to Miss Wood, I can see Wilton stepping in and saying it was his doing, the Colonel's death-to protect the girl. And Mrs. Davenant ought to know that as well as I do. It would be a risk, wouldn't it? One she'd have to consider."

  "And Catherine Tarrant?"

  Forrest was suddenly wary. "What's she got to do with this, then?"

  "I know about the German. Linden. She wanted to marry him, and she wanted Harris to clear the way for them. Instead, Linden was taken away and he died. Women have killed for less, and what she felt for Linden wasn't a girl's infatuation, it was passionate and real."

  "You're on the wrong track! Miss Tarrant might have wanted somebody else to suffer too, once she found out what had happened to the German-she was that upset. Yes, I'll grant you that much. But you don't bide your time, you don't wait for a year or two, not when you feel the way she did then! You come in a rage for revenge, hot and furious."

  "Then you think she's capable of seeking revenge?"

  Forrest flushed. "Don't put words into my mouth where Catherine Tarrant is concerned! I said she was that hurt, she might have done something foolish straightaway, out of sheer mad grief and shock. But not murder."

  Rutledge studied him. "You like her, don't you? You don't want to think of her as a killer."

  Forrest answered stiffly, "I've always been fond of the girl, there's nothing wrong in that. And you don't know how people in Upper Streetham shunned her when they found out about her and the German. Treated her like dirt, the lot of them. My wife among them. As if she'd done something unforgivable."

  "How did they find out? About Linden?"

  "I never did learn how. But I had my suspicions. She tried to move heaven and earth to find out where they'd sent the German, and people started to talk. Gossip, speculation, but nothing anybody could pin the truth on. So I think Carfield was to blame-he was in Warwick when she came back from London on the train, and he offered to drive her home. She was half sick with grief-she may have blurted out the whole story without thinking. And he's one to pry, he could have gotten around her. At any rate he made some pious remarks on the next Sunday about loving our enemies and healing the wounds of war, just when the reality of the war was coming home to all of us, the cripples and the wounded- and the dead. And the next thing I knew, the story was racing all over Upper Streetham that Catherine had been expecting to marry the prisoner, only he'd died. That there had been something between them. That she'd even slept with him. And the damage was done."

  "I've heard Carfield was courting Lettice Wood."

  "Oh, yes, indeed. He'd have liked to marry the Colonel's ward-but how much he cared for Miss Wood is anybody's guess. There are those would say it was little enough, that he isn't capable of loving anybody but himself. And it's true, I've never seen a man so set on his own comfort." His mouth turned down in distaste. "All right, he's a man of God, but I don't like him, I never have."

  "Royston? What do you know about him?"

  "A good man. Hardworking, reliable. There was a time when he sowed his share of wild oats, his place at Mallows going to his head a bit, and he was one for the girls too. But he settled down and got on with his life soon enough." Forrest smiled. "Well, we're none of us free of that charge."

  "Nothing between him and the Colonel that you know about, which might have led to murder?"

  "I can't think of any reason for Mr. Royston to shoot anybody."

  "He hasn't married?"

  "He's married to Mallows, you might say. There was a girl years back. When he was about twenty-six or -seven. Alice Netherby, a Lower Streetham lass, pretty as they come and sweet with it, but frail. She died of consumption and that was that. He's always gotten on very well with Catherine Tarrant, but he's not her sort, if you know what I mean. A countryman. And she's a lady. A famous artist. I've a cousin, living in London. He says her work's all the rage."

  "Which brings us back to Mavers, doesn't it?"

  "Aye," Forrest answered with regret. "And it doesn't seem very likely that we'll prove anything against him, worst luck!"

  ***

  The interview with Forrest left Rutledge feeling dissatisfied, a mood reinforced by an encounter with Mavers on his way back to the Inn.

  "You don't look like a successful man," Mavers said, his goat's eyes gleaming with maliciousness. "You've got my shotgun, but you haven't got me. And you won't, mark my words. I've got witnesses, as many as you like."

  "So you keep reminding me," Rutledge said, taking his own malicious pleasure in the sight of Mavers's swollen nose. "I wonder why?"

  "Because I enjoy seeing the oppressors of the masses oppressed in their turn. And you might say that I have an interest in this business-a professional interest, you could even call it."

  Rutledge studied him. "You enjoy trouble, that's all."

  "The fact is, I like to think I can take some of the credit for the Colonel's death. That all those hours of standing in the market square speaking out against the landlords and capitalists-while those village fools reviled me-weren't wasted. Who knows, I might have put the idea into some mind, the first glimmer of the Rising to come, and the salvation of the masses from the tyranny of the few." He cocked his head, considering the possibility. "Aye, who knows? It might just have its roots in my words, the Colonel's killing!"

  "Which makes you an accessory, I think?"

  "But it won't stand up in a court of law, will it? I bid you a good day-but I hope you won't be having one!" He started to walk off, pleased with himself.

  Rutledge stopped him. "Mavers. You said something the other day. About your pension. Is that how you live? A pension?"

  Mavers turned around. "Aye. The wages of guilt, that's all it is."

  "And who pays you?"

  The grin widened. "That's for me to know and you to discover. If you can. You're the man from London, sent here to set us all straight." There was a little dogcart standing in the road outside the Inn when Rutledge strode up the steps, and Redfern came to meet him in the hall, hastily wiping his hands on a towel. "Miss Sommers, sir. I've put her in the back parlor. Second door beyond the stairs."

  "Has she been here long?"

  "Not above half an hour, sir. I brought her tea when she said she'd wait awhile."

  Rutledge went down the passage to the small back parlor and opened the door.

  It was a pleasant room, paneled walls and drapes faded to mellow rose at the long windows. There was a writing desk in one corner, several chairs covered in shades of rose and green, and a small tea cart on wheels.

  Helena Sommers stood, back straight, at one of the windows, which overlooked a tiny herb garden busy with bees. She turned at the sound of someone at the door and said, "Hallo. Maggie told me you wanted to see me. Strangers at the house make her uncomfortable, so I thought it best to come into town."

  Rutledge waited until she sat down in one of the chairs and then took another across from her.

  "It's about Captain Wilton. The morning you saw him from the ridge. The morning of the murder."

  "Yes, of course."

  "What was he carrying?"

  "Carrying?" She seemed perplexed.

  "A rucksack. A stick. Anything."

  Helena frowned, thinking back. "He had his walking stick. Well, he always does, and that morning was n
o different from the other times I've glimpsed him."

  "Nothing else. You're quite sure?"

  "Should he have had something else?"

  "We're trying to be thorough, that's all."

  She studied him. "You're asking me, aren't you, if the Captain carried a shotgun. Has your investigation narrowed down to him? Why on earth would he kill Colonel Harris? The Captain was marrying the Colonel's ward!"

  "Wilton was there, not a mile from the meadow, shortly before the murder. We have reason to think he wasn't on the best of terms with Colonel Harris that morning."

  "And so the Captain marched up the hill hoping to run into Charles Harris, carrying a shotgun through the town with him, in the unlikely event he'd have an opportunity to use it? That's absurd!"

  Rutledge was very tired. Hamish was growling restlessly at the back of his mind again.

  "Why is it absurd?" he snapped. "Someone killed the Colonel, I assure you; we've got a body that's quite dead and quite clearly murdered."

  "Yes, I understand that," she said gently, seeming to understand too his frustration. "But why-necessarily-is the murderer someone in Upper Streetham? Colonel Harris served in a regiment on active duty. He was in France for five years, and we've no idea what went on in his life during the war- the people he met, the things that might have happened, the soldiers who died or were crippled because of his orders. If I wanted revenge-and expected to get away with it, of course!-I'd shoot the man on his home ground but not on mine. You can take a train to Warwick from anywhere in Britain, then walk to Upper Streetham."

  "Carrying a shotgun?"

  She was momentarily at a loss, then rallied. "No, certainly not. Not out in the open. But people do have things they carry without arousing suspicion. A workman with his kit of tools. Salesmen with sample cases. Whatever. And you don't wonder what's inside, do you, when you see someone carrying something that belongs with him. You assume, don't you, that it's all aboveboard?"

  Rutledge nodded grudgingly. She was right.

  "I'm not suggesting that it happened this way. I'm merely pointing out that Mark Wilton needed a very powerful reason to kill his fiancee's guardian, practically on the eve of their wedding.

  And he had heard Lettice, only hours ago, putting off the marriage. Because she was in mourning.

  It made sense, what Helena Sommers had said. And it gave him a very sound excuse for ignoring Hickam's statement. But her argument also left him with the whole of England to choose from, and nothing to go on in the way of motive or evidence. Bowles would not be happy over that!

  Helena seemed to appreciate his dilemma. She said ruefully, "I'm sorry. I have no business interjecting my views. I'm an outsider here, I don't know any of these people very well. But I have met them, and I'd hate to think one of them is a murderer. 'Not someone I know, surely!' You must have heard that often enough!"

  He had. But he answered, "I suppose it's human nature."

  As the clock in the other parlor began to chime the hour, she got up quickly. "I've been away longer than I intended. Maggie will be wondering what's become of me. I must go." Hesitating she added, "I've never been to war, of course, and I know nothing about it except what one reads in the news accounts. But Colonel Harris must have had to do many things as an officer that he as a man wouldn't care to talk about-was ashamed of, even. When you find his murderer, you may discover that his death has its roots in the war. Not in the affairs of anyone we know."

  The war.

  But if she was right, the war also brought him full circle to Mark Wilton, who had known Harris in France.

  Or to Catherine Tarrant…

  When he'd seen Helena to the dogcart and watched the Haldane pony trot off down the main street, Rutledge went back to the station to rout out Sergeant Davies. He sent him off to Warwick to find out, if he could, about anyone who had arrived there by train shortly before the murder and come on to Upper Streetham.

  A wild-goose chase, Sergeant Davies thought sourly as he set out. He knew his own ground, and there hadn't been any unexplained strangers in Upper Streetham or even in Lower Streetham for that matter-before, during, or after the killing. Except for that dead lorry driver who'd been accounted for. There were always eyes to see, ears to hear, if anyone passed through. And news of it reached him, directly or indirectly, within a matter of hours. Strangers stood out, nobody liked them, and word was passed on. But going to Warwick, waste of time though it was, kept him out of the Inspector's clutches, and that counted for something. As he was finishing his dinner, Rutledge looked up to see Mark Wilton standing out in the hall of the Inn. The Captain saw him at the same time and crossed the dining room to Rutledge's table.

  "I've come to speak to you about the Inquest. And the release of the body."

  "I was just on my way out to see Dr. Warren. But that can wait. Can I offer you a drink in the bar?"

  "Thanks."

  They went through to the public bar, which was half empty, and found a table in one corner.

  Rutledge ordered two whiskeys and sat down. "The Inquest will be at ten o'clock. I don't expect it will last more than half an hour. After that, you can speak to the undertakers."

  "Have you seen the body?" Wilton asked curiously.

  "Three days after death, I didn't expect it to tell me very much. I wasn't there to see it in place, which is what counts."

  "I was there. Before they moved it. Half the town came to look. I couldn't believe he was dead. Not after going through the war unscathed."

  "Oddly enough, that's what Royston said."

  Wilton nodded. "You sometimes meet people who appear to have charmed lives. There was a pilot in my outfit who was at best a mediocre flier, shouldn't have lasted a month, but he was the damnedest, luckiest devil I've ever known. Invisible in the air, the Germans never could see him for some reason, and he'd find the field in any weather, instinct almost. Crashed five times, and walked away with no more than a few bruises. I'd thought of Charles as having a charmed life too. I knew my own chances for surviving were slim, but we'd plan to meet, Charles and I, in Paris on our next leave, and I always knew he'd be there, waiting. Whatever happened to me." Wilton shrugged. "That was comforting, in a strange way-certainty in the midst of chaos, I suppose."

  Rutledge knew what he meant. There had been a Sergeant in one company who always came back, and brought his men back with him, and men wanted to serve with him because of that. The Sergeant's reputation spread across the Front, and someone would say, "It was a bad night. But Morgan made it. Pass the word along." A talisman-bad as the assault was, it hadn't been bad enough to stop Morgan.

  He'd asked the sergeant once how he'd managed it, when he ran into him on a mud-swallowed road out in the middle of nowhere, moving up for the next offensive. And Morgan had smiled. "Now, then, sir, if you believe anything hard enough," he said, "you can make it happen."

  But by that time, Rutledge had lost his own will to believe in anything, and Morgan's secret wasn't any help to him. He often wondered what had become of the man after the war…

  Wilton looked at the light through his glass, almost as if it held answers as well as liquid amber, then said quietly, "I was as surprised as anybody when I made it through to the end of the war."

  Rutledge nodded in understanding. He himself had gone from being terrified he'd die to not caring either way, and then to the final stage, wishing it would happen, bringing him to a peace that was more desirable than life itself.

  Returning to Charles Harris, as if he found murder an easier subject than war memories, Wilton cleared his throat and went on. "As I said, I had to see for myself. My first thought was, My God, Lettice, and my second was, I still don't believe it's true-"

  He stopped. "Sorry, you can ignore that," he went on, when Rutledge made no comment. "I wasn't trying to sway your judgment."

  "No."

  Wilton took a deep breath. "I hear that Hickam is dead drunk at Dr. Warren's. Or ill. The story varies, depending on which gossip you listen
to."

  "What else does gossip say?"

  "That you haven't found much to go on. That you're floundering in the dark. But that's not true. I know what's in the back of your mind." He smiled wryly.

  "If you didn't kill Harris, who did?"

  "The comfortable answer would be, 'Mavers,' wouldn't it?"

  "Why not Hickam, who claims he saw you speaking to Harris-arguing heatedly with him, in his words-in the lane? Why isn't it possible that he knew where to find a shotgun, and decided, in that confused mind of his, that he was off to shoot the Boche? Or to kill an officer he hated? He wouldn't be the first enlisted man to do that. In fact, he might just as easily have chosen you as his target as Charles Harris. A toss-up, given his drunken state."

  The look of stark surprise on Wilton's face was quickly covered, but it told Rutledge one thing-that Hickam's story might very well be true, that he'd seen the Captain and the Colonel quarreling. For Wilton had taken the bait without even questioning it. He'd immediately recognized the twist that could be put on Hickam's evidence, and his mind had been busily considering that possibility just as alarm bells had gone off reminding him that-in his own statement- Hickam hadn't witnessed any meeting at all, angry or not.

  "I suppose I'd never thought he was capable of such a thing," Mark answered lamely. "Shell-shocked-mad, perhaps-but not particularly dangerous." Feeling his way carefully, he added, "And it probably wouldn't matter whether he actually saw Charles that morning or just thought he did. Well, it does make a certain sense out of this business. I can't imagine anyone in his right mind shooting Charles. It would have to be a Mavers. Or a Hickam."

  Which was all very interesting. Taking another shot in the dark, Rutledge said, "Tell me about Catherine Tarrant."

  Wilton shook his head. "No." It was quiet, firm, irreversible. He emptied his glass and set it down.

  "You knew her well when you were in Upper Streetham before the war. You were, in fact, in love with her."

  "No, I thought I was in love with her. But her father was wise enough to see that it wouldn't do, and he asked us to wait a year or two before we came to any formal understanding." He turned in his chair, easing his stiff knee. "And he was right; a few months apart, a dozen letters on each side, and we soon discovered that they were getting harder and harder to write. I think we both realized what was happening, but there was never any formal ending. The letters got shorter, then further apart. I'm still quite fond of Catherine Tarrant, I admire her, and I like her work."