A test of wills ir-1 Page 8

  Mavers's grin broadened. "And you'd get fat, wouldn't you, without me to keep you from your dinner?"

  "The trouble is," Davies went on, paying no heed to Mav- ers, "they've all been in the war, or had family that was, and the Colonel was looked up to. He tried to tell them the Colonel had squandered the poor sod in the trenches while keeping his own hide safe, but they know better. The Colonel kept up with every man from the village, and visited them in hospital and saw to the families of the ones that didn't come back, and found work for the cripples. People remember that."

  "Money's cheap," Hamish put in suddenly. "Or was he thinking of standing for Parliament? Our fine Colonel?"

  But no one heard him except Rutledge. It was decided to take Mavers home, to give the villagers time to cool off without further provocation, and Rutledge went back to the Shepherd's Crook for his car. He had just reached the walk in front of the door when someone called, "Inspector?"

  He turned to see a young woman astride a bicycle, her cheeks flushed from riding and her dark hair pinned up inside a very becoming gray hat with curling pheasant's feathers that swept down to touch her cheek.

  "I'm Rutledge, yes."

  She dismounted from the bicycle and propped it up against the railing by the horse trough. "I'm Catherine Tarrant, and I'd like to talk to you, if you have the time."

  The name meant nothing to him at first, and then he re- membered-she was the woman Captain Wilton had courted before the war. He led her inside the Inn and found a quiet corner of the old-fashioned parlor where they wouldn't be interrupted. Waiting until she seated herself in one of the faded, chintz-covered chairs, he took the other across from her and then said, "What can I do for you, Miss Tarrant?" Behind him a tall clock ticked loudly, the pendulum catching sunlight from the windows at each end of its swing.

  She had had the kind of face that men often fall in love with in their youth, fresh and sweet and softly feminine. Rut- ledge was suddenly reminded of girls in white gowns with blue sashes around trim waists, broad-brimmed hats pinned to high-piled curls, who had played tennis and strolled on cropped green lawns and laughed lightheartedly in the summer of 1914, then disappeared forever. Catherine Tarrant had changed with them. There was a firmness to her jaw and her mouth now, signs of suffering and emerging character that in the end would make her more attractive if less pretty. Her dark eyes were level, with intelligence clearly visible in their swift appraisal of him.

  "I have nothing to tell you that will help your enquiries," she said at once. "I don't know anything about Colonel Harris's death except what I've heard. But my housekeeper is Mary Satterthwaite's sister, and Mary has told her about the quarrel between the Colonel and Captain Wilton. I know," she added quickly, "Mary shouldn't have. But she did, and Vivian told me. I just want to say to you that I've known Mark-Captain Wilton-for some years, and I can't imagine him killing anyone, least of all Lettice Wood's guardian! Lettice adored Charles, he was her knight in shining armor, a father and brother all in one. And Mark adores Lettice. He'd never let himself be provoked into doing anything so foolish!"

  "You think, then, that the quarrel was serious enough to make us believe that the Captain is under suspicion?"

  That shook her quiet intensity. She had come in defense of Wilton and found herself apparently on the brink of damning him. Then she collected her wits and with a lift of her chin, she said, "I'm not a policeman, Inspector. I don't know what is important in a murder enquiry and what isn't. But I should think that a quarrel between two men the night before one of them is killed will be given your thorough consideration. And you don't know those two as well as I do-did."

  "Then perhaps you should tell me about them."

  "Tell you what? That neither of them had a vile temper, that neither of them would hurt Lettice, that neither of them was the sort of man to resort to murder?"

  "Yet they quarreled. And one of them is dead."

  "Then we've come full circle again, haven't we? And I'm trying to make you understand that however angry Charles might have made him at the moment, Mark wouldn't have harmed him-least of all, killed him so savagely!"

  "How do you know what might drive a man to murder?" he asked.

  She studied him for a moment with those dark, clear eyes, and said, "How do you? Have you ever killed a man? Deliberately and intentionally? Not counting the war, I mean."

  Rutledge smiled grimly. "Point taken." After a moment he added, "If we scratch Wilton from our list of suspects, have you got a name to put in his place?"

  "Mavers," she said instantly. "I wouldn't trust him as far as I could see him!"

  "But he was in the village on Monday morning. In plain view of half a hundred people."

  She shrugged. "That's your problem, not mine. You asked me who might have shot Charles, not how he did it."

  "It appears that Wilton was seen by several witnesses in the vicinity of the meadow where Harris died."

  "I don't care where he was seen. I tell you he wouldn't have touched Charles Harris. He's madly in love with Let- tice. Can't I make you understand that? Why would he risk losing her?"

  "Are you still in love with him?"

  Color rose in her face, a mottled red under the soft, fair skin. The earnestness changed to a clipped tension. "I was infatuated with Mark Wilton five years ago. He came to Upper Streetham one summer, and I fell in love with him the first time I saw him-any girl with eyes in her head must have done the same! Mrs. Davenant's husband had just died, and Mark stayed with her for a while, until the estate was settled and so on. I envied her, you know, having Mark's company every day, from breakfast to dinner. She's only a few years older than he is, and I was sure he'd fall in love with her, and never notice me. Then we met one Sunday after the morning service, he called on me later, and for a time, I thought he was as in love with me as I was with him."

  She stopped suddenly, as if afraid she'd said too much, then went on in spite of herself. "We made quite a handsome pair, everyone said so. He's so fair, and I'm so dark. And I think that was part of my infatuation too. The trouble was, Mark wanted to fly, not to find himself tied down with a wife and family, and at that point in my life I wanted a rose- covered cottage, a fairy-tale ending."

  For a moment there was a flare of pain in her dark eyes, a passing thought that seemed to have no connection with Wilton but was directed at herself-or at her dreams. "At any rate, I had several letters from Mark after he went away, and I answered a few of them, and then we simply didn't have anything more to say to each other. It was over. And it wouldn't have done. For either of us. Does that answer your question?"

  "Not altogether." Her color was still high, but he thought that it was from anger as much as anything else. And that intrigued him. He found himself wondering if Mark Wilton had been having an affair with his widowed cousin-and using Catherine Tarrant as a blind to mislead a village full of gossips. If she'd guessed that, her pride might have suffered more than her heart. And she might defend him now to protect herself, not him. "Are you still in love with him?" he asked again.

  "No," she said after a moment. "But I'm still fond enough of him to care what happens to him. I've got my painting, I've made quite a success of that, and any man in my life now would take second place." He could hear a bleak undercurrent of bitterness behind the proud declaration.

  "Even the fairy-tale prince?"

  She managed a smile. "Even a prince." She had stripped off her soft leather gloves when she came into the Inn, and now she began to draw them on again. "I have the feeling I've only made matters worse. Have I?"

  "For Captain Wilton? Not really. So far you haven't told me anything that would point in his direction-or away from it. Nothing has changed, as far as I can see."

  Frowning, she said, "You must believe this, if nothing else. Mark wouldn't have harmed Charles Harris. Of all people."

  "Not even if Lettice now inherits Mallows?"

  Startled, she laughed. "Mark inherited his own money years ago, quite a lot of it
. That's what made it possible for him to learn to fly, to buy his own aeroplane. He doesn't need hers!"

  As she rose and said good-bye, he considered for a moment whether she had come for Captain Wilton's sake-or for some private motive. And what that motive might be. Not her own guilt, as far as he could see. If she still loved Wilton, killing Charles Harris was not the way to bring the Captain back to her. And jealousy would have been better served by shooting Wilton himself. Or Lettice.

  Then why was it that the bitterness and pain he'd read in Catherine Tarrant's voice seemed far more personal than the altruistic act of coming to a friend's defense?

  "Women," Hamish said unexpectedly. "They always ken the cruelest way to torment a man for what's he's done, witting or no'."

  Rutledge thought of Jean and that day in the hospital when she had abandoned him to his nightmares. She'd intended to be kind-that's what had hurt him most. Outside, picking up her bicycle and leading it away from the railing, Catherine Tarrant paused, biting her lower lip, busy with her own thoughts. Mrs. Crichton's estate agent came out of the Inn and spoke to her as he passed, but she didn't hear him.

  "Oh, damn," she accused herself silently, "you've muddled everything. You should have had the sense to leave well enough alone, to stay out of it. Now he'll start to pry and probe-" If Inspector Forrest had been handling the enquiry, he would have listened to her. He'd known her family for ages, he would have believed her without bringing up what happened in the war. Why on earth had they sent for someone from London instead of leaving this business to the local people!

  But she knew the reason. The finger of suspicion must be strongly pointing toward Mark already, and everyone in Warwickshire was running for cover. There had been a dozen photographs of the King and Mark together, he'd dined with the Prince of Wales, was invited to Scotland to shoot, had even accompanied the Queen to a home for soldiers disabled by mustard gas-and questions were going to be asked when he was arrested for a bloody murder involving another war hero. Buckingham Palace would be icily furious.

  Then where was their case? Not just that stupid quarrel. Surely you wouldn't arrest a man simply because he had a roaring argument with the victim the night before. There had to be more damning evidence against him than that. And who were these people who claimed to have seen Mark near the place where Charles Harris had died? What else had they seen, if someone had the wit to ask them the right questions?…

  For a moment she debated going straight to the Davenant house and asking Mark himself who the witnesses were. But Sally Davenant would be there, smiling and pretending not to notice how badly Catherine wanted to speak to Mark alone. Making the unexpected visit seem more like a ploy, an emotional excuse to come back into his life. And that would be hard to explain away.

  She hadn't told Rutledge the whole truth about Mrs. Dav- enant either. But she didn't care about anyone else if Mark could be protected. She still wasn't certain why she was so determined to help him. In the wild tangle of her emotions, he was the man who had opened her eyes to passion and prepared her for what had come later. And for that alone perhaps she owed him something.

  There must be a better way of getting to the bottom of this. She'd find Inspector Forrest and make him tell her everything she wanted to know. He wouldn't be like the Londoner, stark and unfeeling. A man to watch, that one!

  Steadying the bicycle, she began to pedal, absorbed in the question of how best to handle Forrest. Catherine met him just coming home from Lower Streetham and looking tired. He was middle-aged, thin and stooped, more the university don than a village policeman. He smiled when she hailed him, and waited by the steps of his house.

  "Miss Tarrant. That's a fetching hat you've got on, my dear. Don't let my wife catch a glimpse of it or she'll be pestering me for one just like it."

  Which was kind of him, because his wife, like many of the women in Upper Streetham, cared nothing for Catherine Tarrant, with or without a fetching hat on her head. And it gave her the excuse she needed to say, "Then will you walk along with me a little way? I'd like to speak to you."

  "I've missed my lunch and I've got a headache you could toss the churchyard through. Will it take long, this talking?"

  "No, not really." She gave him her most winning smile, and he said, "All right, then. Ten minutes!"

  She had dismounted and he took the bicycle from her, leading it himself as she strode down the quiet street beside him. "What's this all about then?"

  And Catherine Tarrant began to work her wiles. Mavers and Sergeant Davies were glaring at each other by the time that Rutledge finally drove up in front of the doctor's surgery. They climbed into the car in silence, and Rutledge said, "How do I find your house, Mavers?"

  "Like the birds in the air, you'll have to fly to it. Or walk. I live up behind the churchyard. There's a path to the house that way. Did you buy this car from the wages of wringing the necks of felons, or have you got private means?"

  "Does it matter either way? I'm still an oppressor of the poor."

  Mavers grinned nastily, his goat's eyes alight with the zeal of his favorite subject. "Horses earn their keep. What does this bleeding motorcar do for mankind?"

  "It keeps workmen employed putting it together, and others earn their livings in the factories that supply the materials to those workmen. Have you considered that? Every person driving a motorcar is a benefactor." He turned into the short street leading to the church.

  "And those workmen could be better employed building homes for the poor and growing food for the hungry and making clothes for the naked."

  "Which of course you spend every free moment of your time doing, a shining example to us all?"

  Mavers growled, "You'll have to leave the motor here, by the lych-gate, and get your boots dirty on the path like the rest of us poor devils."

  Which they did, marching behind Mavers up the bare track that Rutledge had seen just that morning. It had begun to dry out in the sun, although a thin coating of mud clung halfheartedly to their shoes. But soon they turned off on a small, rutted path that went over another rise and across an unplowed field to a shabby cottage standing in a clump of straggling beech trees. The yard before it was bare of grass and a dozen equally shabby chickens scratched absently there, paying no heed to their owner or his visitors when the three men arrived at the cottage door.

  From somewhere around back a pig grunted, and Mavers said, "He's not mine, he belongs to one of the farmers over on the Crichton estate. Too ill-tempered an old boar to keep within sight of a sow, but he still breeds fine. And I'm not home long enough to notice the smell." Which was a good thing, all in all. As the breeze shifted, the essence of pig was nearly breathtaking.

  He went inside, and Rutledge followed. The cottage- surprisingly-was not dirty, though it was as shabby inside as the exterior and the chickens. There were four rooms opening off a short central hall, the doors to each standing open. In the first of them on the left side the only windows were overhung by beech boughs, cutting off the sunlight, and Rutledge blinked in the sudden dimness as he crossed the threshold. Papers were scattered everywhere, most of them poorly printed political tracts and handwritten tirades, covering floor and furnishings impartially like grimy snow. Mav- ers walked through and over them, regardless, and flung himself down in a chair by a small mahogany table at the corner of the hearth. There was a lamp on it, its smoke-blackened chimney surrounded by stacks of books, an inkstand of brass, and a much-used blotter.

  "Welcome to Mavers Manor," he said, adding with heavy sarcasm, "Are you planning to stay to dinner? We don't dress here, you'll do as you are." He didn't ask them to sit.

  "Who killed Colonel Harris?" Rutledge asked. "Do you know?"

  "Why should I? Know, I mean?"

  "Somebody knows something. It might be you."

  "If I knew anything I'd more likely shake the fool's hand than turn him in to you."

  Which Rutledge believed. "Why did you feud with the Colonel? All those years?"

  Sudde
nly Mavers's face turned a mottled red, which gave the darkening bruises a garish air, and he snarled, "Because he was an arrogant bastard who thought he was God, and never cared what he did to other people. Send that great lump, Davies, out into the yard with the rest of the dumb animals and I'll tell you all about your fine Colonel Harris!"

  Rutledge glanced over his shoulder and nodded at Davies, who clumped out and slammed the door behind him, as near as he could ever come to insubordination.

  Mavers waited until he could see Davies fuming in the yard, well out of hearing, and then said, "He thought he was lord and master around here, Harris did. Mrs. Crichton never comes to Upper Streetham, she's so old she hardly knows her arse from her elbow, and the Haldanes-well, the Hal- danes were so well bred they've nearly vanished, a bloodless lot you can't even be bothered to hate. But the Colonel, now he was something else."

  There was pent-up venom in the thick voice, and Mavers was having trouble breathing through his nose as his anger mounted, almost panting between words. "He came into his own early, after his father had a stroke and wound up being confined to a chair for the rest of his life-which wasn't all that long-and in his eyes his precious son could do no wrong. Harris had the first motorcar in this part of Warwickshire, did you know that? Drove like a madman, terrified old ladies and horses and half the children. Then he got his commission in the family's Regiment, and he came home swaggering in his fine uniform, telling every man he met that the army life was for them. Had any girl he wanted, paid his way out of trouble, and raised hell whenever he felt like it. My older brother joined the Army to please him, and he died in South Africa with a Boer musket ball in his brain."

  He stopped, but Rutledge said nothing, and after a time, Mavers went on more quietly. "My mother never got over that-he was her favorite. A big strapping lad like her own father. And my sister drowned herself in the pond one day because Harris stopped fancying her. I went to Mallows to horsewhip him and got thrashed by the grooms instead. Ma called me a worthless whelp for daring to blame Harris for Annie's weakness. So I ran off to join the Army myself, and somehow he found out about it, and he had me sent home for lying about my age. But he wouldn't give me my job back in the stables at Mallows-he told that bootlicking fool Royston that they didn't want me there anymore because I was a troublemaker. So that's just what I became, trouble. A thorn in his flesh! And if you believe that one fine morning I'd shoot him down, depriving myself of that lifelong pleasure, you're a greater fool than you look!"