A Cold Treachery

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Rutledge stood rooted to the floor, his mind flying.

“ Janet Ashton?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yes, that's right,” Elizabeth replied, and picking up a nuance in his voice, added quickly, “What is it?”

“She's not in Carlisle now. Or she wasn't last night. She's here, at the Follet farm.”

“I wasn't aware that she knew them, the Follets,” Elizabeth said. “She hasn't been to Urskdale all that often-”

“She didn't know them. At least, not before last night!” Rutledge turned to Jarvis. “I think you ought to come with me, Doctor. Miss Ashton met with an accident on the road. I need your opinion as to whether or not she's fit to travel.”

“My bag is in the carriage. But I should think tomorrow morning-”

Rutledge was already pulling on his coat. “I made it through last night. I can find my way back,” he answered. “It's a police decision and I've already made it. You can sleep in the motorcar, if you wish.”

They were gone in the next five minutes, heading out of Urskdale and taking in reverse the route Rutledge had followed coming in. The verges were even harder to see now than in the snow, churned and rutted as the unmade road was.

Hamish was already reliving the accident, but Rutledge was too busy keeping his eyes on the swath of his headlamps to satisfy Jarvis's curiosity about Janet Ashton except to say, “She was on the road when the storm caught her. The carriage went off at a steep incline and turned over, killing the horse and leaving her stranded.”

“What in God's name was she doing out in such a storm? I doubt we've seen its match since before the century turned!”

“I'd like very much to know the answer myself,” Rutledge told him grimly.

“What about your family? Is there someone I can contact? They must be worried about you.”

She'd shaken her head. “No-there's no one. No-”

“We assumed, Follet and I,” he went on, as he passed under The Claws, no more than a looming shape far above him, “that she was what she appeared to be-a traveler injured and in need of help. The fingerposts had been blown about by the wind. It was hard to follow the road. She might have been heading for Buttermere, and missed her turn.”

“She wouldna' be lost, if she's been to Urskdale before…” Hamish pointed out. “Fingerpost or no'.”

Jarvis said, “If she was found close by the Follet house, she had a long way to go before reaching her sister's farm. It might have saved her life, don't you see? That her trip was held up by the storm. If she'd been there Sunday, she'd have been killed along with the others!”

Hamish said, “If Elcott was expecting his sister-in-law, he'd no' ha' thought twice when a carriage turned into his yard.”

It would explain why Josh had opened the door. After a moment, Rutledge asked the doctor, “If the boy had survived the shooting that Sunday night, he was out in the worst of the storm. Could you be wrong about the timing of the murders? Could they have happened on Monday night? When he might have had a better chance?”

“I'm not wrong about the timing. I'd take my oath on that. As for his chances, people don't often walk off cliffs when the weather comes down here unexpectedly. But that's not to say there aren't places-nasty ones-where a fall results in serious injury, even broken bones. He could have hurt himself badly enough that he died of exposure where he lay. My wife thinks he made it to the village and is hiding out in someone's barn or cellar, but we've searched too thoroughly for that to be true. A patient told me today that we ought to drag Urskwater-that the killer drowned Josh to conceal the body. On the other hand, there are old shielings about that could offer some shelter from the cold. The question then becomes, how did Josh know where to find them? Why didn't the search parties see signs that he'd been there? And if he did manage to survive, why hasn't he shown himself to one of the search parties?”

“What sort of boy is he?”

“Troublesome. Not surprising. He knew damn all about sheep, and I expect his lack of enthusiasm for them tested Gerald's patience more than once. Grace had her hands full with the house and the twins, and her only help was little Hazel. Grace might not have been sympathetic with him if he failed to do his share about the place.” Jarvis grimaced as the tires hit a rut and the motorcar bounced heavily. “Children learn their duty early on. Few of my patients see a great age. Life is inherently hard here, and they begin as soon as they can walk doing what they're told, from feeding the chickens to minding the baby or the bedridden old granny. But Josh came from London and a different life. Look, I've been up for nearly forty hours straight and I've answered your questions. Now I'm making the most of this opportunity to sleep without feeling guilty.” Jarvis buried his chin deeper into the collar of his coat and was soon snoring lightly.

Rutledge drove steadily, covering ground that tonight was not as slick nor as dangerous as it had been only twenty-four hours ago, the snow softer, the visibility better. But it was not any easier, and as the temperatures fell with darkness, the slush on the road would refreeze. The sooner there, the sooner safely back at Urskdale.

Jarvis, rousing unexpectedly, asked, “Did the Follets know about the murders?”

“Yes, a search party had come through that morning. They'd put their dog in the barn, a first line of defense. I damned near lost my foot to it.”

Jarvis chuckled. “Follet is a careful man. The sheepdogs, I can tell you, are good workers. Faithful and dependable and possessed of amazing endurance.” His face sobered. “One or two will turn rogue and kill sheep. It's like a madness setting in on them, without warning. I daresay very like our murderer.”

M aggie Ingerson struggled through the snow in the wake of her dog. It turned its head several times to be certain she was still following. Once she called out, “Damn it, Sybil, I've only got two legs to your four, and one of them's half dead already.”

But Sybil went bounding on ahead, intent on her destination. Maggie, her breath coming in ragged gasps, shouted at the dog again. “I can't make it, I tell you! Dead sheep or no dead sheep!”

All the same, she did make it, reaching the pen some thirty minutes later, her face flushed with exertion, her graying fair hair straggling out of the man's hat she wore. Sybil was already standing there with tongue lolling and tail beating a tattoo in the air, as if in welcome.

The sheep pen was no more than a rough stone wall built up on three sides, the fourth open to allow the animals to go and come at will.

As her mistress leaned heavily against the nearest bit of snow-encrusted wall, chest heaving as she fought to catch her breath, Sybil dived into the banked flock of sheep, sending them flying in every direction.

Maggie swore with masculine proficiency, but the sheep were circling now, and where they had been clustered was something that was distinctly unsheeplike.

Sybil stood over it. The dog's face all but exclaimed her excitement at finding her treasure still in place. She sniffed at it, looking for enough bare skin to lick.

Maggie stared. Finally, driven by curiosity, she turned and moved into the pen, talking softly to the sheep as she made her way through them. Their sneezes marked her progress.

By the far wall, where the sheep had huddled against the wind, lay the curled figure of a human being.

A child…

It was wearing a heavy coat that was quickly turning white as snow blew in on it. And it looked to be dead. Maggie knelt beside it, her face intent, unsure whether or not to touch it.

And then, her gloved hands clumsily moving inside the coat, she felt the steady rise and ebb of the thin chest. The child appeared to have fallen into the deep sleep of sheer exhaustion. Satisfied, she got to her feet with some difficulty.

As if the cold air where the warmth of the sheep had been roused the boy, he moaned a little in his sleep.

Maggie stared down at him. It was no use, trying to wake him.

“I'll have to go back for the bloody sled!” she said aloud to Sybil. “Why in God's name didn't you tell me I needed the bloody sled! ”

Sybil, grinning from ear to ear, faced her mistress and waited. The main task had been accomplished as far as she was concerned. Any further details were of no interest.

Maggie, making her way back through the sheep, shooed them towards the wall again, and then at the entrance to the pen, stopped stock still and looked around her.

There was only fell and cloudy sky and snow. Nothing that would explain the way the hair had suddenly risen on the back of her neck. The dog seemed oblivious to danger, and the sheep were already settling themselves again. But Maggie felt an inexplicable urgency. She turned swifly, in haste to reach the small farmyard and the shed where her sled was stored.

M ore than an hour later Maggie made it back, pushing the sheep aside and staring down again at the unwanted bundle of clothes that had been deposited in her sheep pen. As far as she could tell, it hadn't stirred. With a string of curses to mark the effort it took, she rolled the child onto the sled and began to strap it down. Then she pulled the rope taut and started for the gate of the pen.

Sybil, nosing the sleeping bundle, gave up and trotted beside her mistress, her head looking up for the usual “Well done!” that came with carrying out a task. But Maggie, her back into the rope, paid no heed. The silent lump on the wooden deck was heavier than it had any right to be, and the damned sled, with a mind of its own, wanted to go faster than she herself could manage. She thought, “If I were still young enough, I'd get on it and ride it down.” But that was foolishness and she knew it. The fell were not a sledding hill, and the hidden rocks that scarred its face would damage runners in short order, tumbling both rescued and rescuer into the snow. No doubt breaking her bad leg all over again.

With increasing exhaustion dogging her steps, Maggie worked at bringing the sled down, and as the familiar outline of the farm rose up out of the darkness, taking the shape of roof and lighted windows and barn almost under her feet, she was nearly at the end of her strength. Once she sat in the snow and wept from tiredness, and the dog licked her face, chilling her hot cheeks as the air cooled the wetness. Her knee throbbed from so much effort.

But in the end, she got herself and the boy to the yard door of the house.

It wasn't until she was beginning to untie the knotted ropes that had held the boy in place on the journey down to the farm that he woke up and began to scream, the high-pitched cries of a trapped and terrified animal.