A Test of Wills

A Test of Wills

The First Inspector Ian Rutledge Novel

Charles Todd

1

In this quiet part of Warwickshire death came as frequently as it did anywhere else in England, no stranger to the inhabitants of towns, villages, or countryside. Sons and fathers had died in the Great War; the terrible influenza epidemic had scythed the county—man, woman, and child—just as it had cut down much of Europe; and murder was not unheard of even here in Upper Streetham.

But one fine June morning, as the early mists rose lazily in the warm sunlight like wraiths in no hurry to be gone, Colonel Harris was killed in cold blood in a meadow fringed with buttercups and cowslips, and his last coherent thought was anger. Savage, wild, black fury ripped through him in one stark instant of realization before oblivion swept it all away, and his body, rigid with it, survived the shotgun blast long enough to dig spurs into the mare’s flanks while his hands clenched the reins in a muscular spasm as strong as iron.

He died hard, unwilling, railing at God, and his ragged cry raised echoes in the quiet woods and sent the rooks flying even as the gun roared.

In London, where rain dripped from eaves and ran black in the gutters, a man named Bowles, who had never heard of Colonel Harris, came into possession of a piece of information that was the reward of very determined and quite secret probing into the history of a fellow policeman at Scotland Yard.

He sat at his desk in the grim old brick building and stared at the letter on his blotter. It was written on cheap stationery in heavy ink by a rounded, rather childish hand, but he was almost afraid to touch it. Its value to him was beyond price, and if he had begged whatever gods he believed in to give him the kind of weapon he craved, they couldn’t have managed anything sweeter than this.

He smiled, delight spreading slowly across his fair-skinned face and narrowing the hard, amber-colored eyes.

If this was true—and he had every reason to believe it was—he had been absolutely right about Ian Rutledge. He, Bowles, was vindicated by six lines of unwittingly damaging girlish scrawl.

Reading the letter for the last time, he refolded it carefully and replaced it in its envelope, locking it in his desk drawer.

Now the question was how best to make use of this bit of knowledge without burning himself in the fire he wanted to raise.

If only those same gods had thought to provide a way…

But it seemed, after all, that they had.

Twenty-four hours later, the request for assistance arrived from Warwickshire, and Superintendent Bowles happened, by the merest chance, to be in the right place at the right time to make a simple, apparently constructive suggestion. The gods had been very generous indeed. Bowles was immensely grateful.

The request for Scotland Yard’s help had arrived through the proper channels, couched in the usual terms. What lay behind the formal wording was sheer panic.

The local police force, stunned by Colonel Harris’s vicious murder, had done their best to conduct the investigation quickly and efficiently. But when the statement of one particular witness was taken down and Inspector Forrest understood just where it was going to lead him, the Upper Streetham Constabulary collectively got cold feet.

At a circumspect conference with higher county authority, it was prudently decided to let Scotland Yard handle this situation—and to stay out of the Yard’s way as much as humanly possible. Here was one occasion when metropolitan interference in local police affairs was heartily welcomed. With undisguised relief, Inspector Forrest forwarded his request to London.

The Yard in its turn faced a serious dilemma. Willy-nilly, they were saddled with a case where discretion, background, and experience were essential. At the same time, it was going to be a nasty one either way you looked at it, and someone’s head was bound to roll. Therefore the man sent to Warwickshire must be considered expendable, however good he might be at his job.

And that was when Bowles had made his timely comments.

Inspector Rutledge had just returned to the Yard after covering himself with mud and glory in the trenches of France. Surely choosing him would be popular in Warwickshire, under the circumstances—showed a certain sensitivity for county feelings, as it were…. As for experience, he’d handled a number of serious cases before the war, he’d left a brilliant record behind him, in fact. The word scapegoat wasn’t mentioned, but Bowles delicately pointed out that it might be less disruptive to morale to lose—if indeed it should come to that—a man who’d just rejoined the force. Please God, of course, such a sacrifice wouldn’t be required!

A half-hearted quibble was raised about Rutledge’s state of health. Bowles brushed that aside. The doctors had pronounced him fit to resume his duties, hadn’t they? And although he was still drawn and thin, he appeared to be much the same man who had left in 1914. Older and quieter naturally, but that was to be expected. A pity about the war. It had changed so many lives….

The recommendation was approved, and an elated Bowles was sent to brief Rutledge. After tracking the Inspector to the small, drafty cubicle where he was reading through a stack of reports on current cases, Bowles stood in the passage for several minutes, steadying his breathing, willing himself to composure. Then he opened the door and walked in. The man behind the desk looked up, a smile transforming his thin, pale face, bringing life to the tired eyes.

“The war hasn’t improved human nature, has it?” He flicked a finger across the open file on his blotter and added, “That’s the fifth knifing in a pub brawl I’ve read this morning. But it seems the Army did manage to teach us something—exactly where to place the blade in the ribs for best results. None of the five survived. If we’d done as well in France, bayoneting Germans, we’d have been home by 1916.”

His voice was pleasant, well modulated. It was one of the things that Bowles, with his high-pitched, North Country accent, disliked most about the man. And the fact that his father had been a barrister, not a poor miner. Schooling had come easily to Rutledge. He hadn’t had to plod, dragging each bit of knowledge into his brain by sheer effort of will, dreading examinations, knowing himself a mediocrity. It rubbed a man’s pride to the bone to struggle so hard where others soared on the worldly coattails of London-bred fathers and grandfathers. Blood told. It always had. Bowles passionately resented it. If there’d been any justice, a German bayonet would have finished this soldier along with the rest of them!

“Yes, well, you can put those away, Michaelson’s got something for you,” Bowles announced, busily framing sentences in his mind that would convey the bare facts and leave out the nuances that might put Rutledge on his guard, or give him an opening to refuse to go to Warwickshire. “First month back, and you’ve landed this one. You’ll have your picture in the bloody papers before it’s done, mark my words.” He sat down and began affably to outline the situation.

Rutledge left the outskirts of London behind and headed northwest. It was a dreary morning, rain sweeping in gusts across the windscreen from a morbidly gray sky draped like a dirty curtain from horizon to horizon, the tires throwing up rivers of water on either side of the car like black wings.

Hellish weather for June.

I should have taken the train, he thought as he settled down to a steady pace. But he knew he couldn’t face the train yet. It was one thing to be shut up in a motorcar that you could stop at will and another to be enclosed in a train over which you had no control at all. Jammed in with a half dozen other people. The doors closed for hours on end, the compartment airless and overheated. The press of bodies crowding him, driving him to the brink of panic, voices dinning in his ears, the roar of the wheels like the sound of his own blood pounding through his heart. Just thinking about it sent a wave of terror through him.

Claustrophobia, the doctors had called it, a natural fear in a man who’d been buried alive in a frontline trench, suffocated by the clinging, slippery, unspeakable mud and the stinking corpses pinning him there.

Too soon, his sister Frances had said. It was much too soon to go back to work! But he knew that if he didn’t, he’d lose what was left of his mind. Distraction was what he needed. And this murder in Warwickshire appeared to offer just that. He’d need his wits about him, he’d have to concentrate to recover the long forgotten skills he’d had to put behind him in 1914—and that would keep Hamish at bay.

“You’re to turn right here.”

The voice in his head was as clear as the patter of rain on the car’s roof, a deep voice, with soft Scottish inflections. He was used to hearing it now. The doctors had told him that would happen, that it was not uncommon for the mind to accept something which it had created itself in order to conceal what it couldn’t face any other way. Shell shock was an odd thing, it made its own rules, they’d said. Understand that and you could manage to keep your grip on reality. Fight it, and it would tear you apart. But he had fought it for a very long time—and they were right, it had nearly destroyed him.

He made the turn, glancing at the signs. Yes. The road to Banbury.

And Hamish, strangely enough, was a safer companion than Jean, who haunted him in another way. In God’s blessed name, how did you uproot love? How did you tear it out of your flesh and bone?

He’d learned, in France, to face dying. He could learn, in time, how to face living. It was just getting through the desolation in between that seemed to be beyond him. Frances had shrugged her slim shoulders and said, “Darling, there are other women, in a year you’ll wonder why you cared so much for one. Let go gracefully—after all, it isn’t as if she’s fallen in love with another man!”

He swerved to miss a dray pulling out into the road without warning from a muddy lane running between long, wet fields.

“Keep your mind on the driving, man, or we’ll both be dead!”

“Sometimes I believe we’d both be better off,” he answered aloud, not wanting to think about Jean, not able to think about anything else. Everywhere he turned, something brought her back to him, ten thousand memories waiting like enemies to ambush him. The car…the rain…She’d liked driving in the rain, the glass clouded with their warm breath, their laughter mingling with the swish of the tires, the car a private, intimate world of their own.

“Ah, but that’s the coward’s road, death is! You willna’ escape so easily as that. You’ve got a conscience, man. It won’t let you run out. And neither will I.”

Rutledge laughed harshly. “The day may come when you have no choice.” He kept his eyes pinned to the road, as always refusing to look over his shoulder, though the voice seemed to come from the rear seat, just behind him, almost near enough to touch him with its breath. The temptation to turn around was strong, nearly as strong as the desperate fear of what he might see if he did. He could, he had found, live with Hamish’s voice. What he dreaded—dreaded more than anything—was seeing Hamish’s face. And one day—one day he might. Hollow-eyed, empty of humanity in death. Or accusing, pleading in life—

Rutledge shuddered and forced his mind back to the road ahead. The day he saw Hamish, he’d end it. He had promised himself that….

It was very late when he reached Upper Streetham, the rain still blowing in gusty showers, the streets of the town empty and silent and shiny with puddles as he made his way to the Inn on the High Street.

“Highland towns are like this on Saturday nights,” Hamish said suddenly. “All the good Presbyterians asleep in their beds, mindful of the Sabbath on the morrow. And the Catholics back from Confession and feeling virtuous. Are you mindful of the state of your soul?”

“I haven’t got one,” Rutledge answered tiredly. “You tell me that often enough. I expect it’s true.” The black-and-white facade he was looking for loomed ahead, ghostly in another squall of rain, a rambling, ancient structure with a thatched roof that seemed to frown disparagingly over the faded inn sign swinging from its wrought-iron bar. The Shepherd’s Crook, it read.

He turned in through a wisteria-hung arch, drove past the building into the Inn yard, and pulled the motorcar into an empty space between a small, barred shed and the Inn’s rear door. Beyond the shed was what appeared in his headlamps to be a square lake with pagodas and islands just showing above the black water. No doubt the kitchen garden, with its early onions and cabbages.

Someone had heard him coming into the drive and was watching him from the back steps, a candle in his hand.

“Inspector Rutledge?” the man called.

“Yes, I’m Rutledge.”

“I’m Barton Redfern, the landlord’s nephew. He asked me to wait up for you.” Rain swept through the yard again as he spoke, and he hastily stepped back inside, waiting to hold the door open as Rutledge dashed through the puddles, his bag in one hand, the other holding on to his hat. A minor tempest followed him across the threshold.

“My uncle said you were to have the room over the parlor, where it’s quieter at night. It’s this way. Would you like a cup of tea or something from the bar? You look like you could use a drink!”

“No, thanks.” There was whiskey in his bag if he wanted it—if exhaustion wasn’t enough. “What I need is sleep. It rained all the way, heavy at times. I had to stop beyond Stratford for an hour until the worst had passed. Any messages?”

“Just that Inspector Forrest will see you at breakfast, if you like. At nine?”

“Better make it eight.”

They were climbing a flight of narrow, winding stairs, the back way to the second floor. Barton, who looked to be in his early twenties, was limping heavily. Turning to say something over his shoulder, he caught Rutledge’s glance at his left foot and said instead, “Ypres, a shell fragment. The doctors say it’ll be fine once the muscles have knit themselves back properly. But I don’t know. They aren’t always as smart as they think they are, doctors.”

“No,” Rutledge agreed bitterly. “They just do the best they can. And sometimes that isn’t much.”

Redfern led the way down a dark hall and opened the door to a wide, well-aired room under the eaves, with a lamp burning by the bed and brightly flowered curtains at the windows. Relieved not to find himself in a cramped, narrow chamber where sleep would be nearly impossible, Rutledge nodded his thanks and Redfern shut the door as he left, saying, “Eight it is, then. I’ll see that you’re called half an hour before.”

Fifteen minutes later Rutledge was in the bed and asleep.

He never feared sleep. It was the one place where Hamish could not follow him.

Sergeant Davies was middle-aged, heavyset, with a placidity about him that spoke of even temper, a man at peace within himself. But there were signs of strain in his face also, as if he had been on edge for the past several days. He sat foursquare at Rutledge’s table in the middle of the Inn’s small, cheerful dining room, watching as Redfern poured a cup of black coffee for him and explaining why he was there in place of his superior.

“By rights, Inspector Forrest should be answering your questions, but he won’t be back much before ten. There’s been a runaway lorry in Lower Streetham and the driver was drunk. Two people were killed. A nasty business. So’s this a nasty business. Colonel Harris was well respected, not the sort you’d expect to get himself murdered.” He sighed. “A sorry death for a man who went through two wars unscathed. But London will have gone over that.”

Rutledge had spread homemade jam on his toast. It was wild strawberry and looked as if it had been put up before the war, nearly as dark and thick as treacle. Poised to take a bite, he looked across at the Sergeant. “I’m not in London now. I’m here. Tell me how it happened.”

Davies settled back in his chair, frowning as he marshaled his facts. Inspector Forrest had been very particular about how any account of events was to be given. The Sergeant was a man who took pride in being completely reliable.

“A shotgun. Blew his head to bits—from the chin up, just tatters. He’d gone out for his morning ride at seven sharp, just as he always did whenever he was at home, back by eight-thirty, breakfast waiting for him. That was every day except Sunday, rain or shine. But on Monday, when he wasn’t back by ten, his man of business, Mr. Royston, went looking for him in the stables.”

“Why?” Rutledge had taken out a pen and a small, finely tooled leather notebook. “On this day, particularly?”

“There was a meeting set for nine-thirty, and it wasn’t like the Colonel to forget about it. When he got to the stables, Mr. Royston found the grooms in a blue panic because the Colonel’s horse had just come galloping in without its rider, and there was blood all over the saddle and the horse’s haunches. Men were sent out straightaway to look for him, and he was finally discovered in a meadow alongside the copse of trees at the top of his property.”

Davies paused as the swift pen raced across the ruled page, allowing Rutledge a moment to catch up before continuing. “Mr. Royston sent for Inspector Forrest first thing, but he’d gone looking for the Barlowe child, who’d gotten herself lost. By the time I got the message and reached the scene, the ground was well trampled by stable lads and farmhands, all come to stare. So we aren’t sure he was shot just there. But it couldn’t have happened more than a matter of yards from where we found him.”

“And no indication of who might have done it?”

The Sergeant shifted uneasily in his chair, his eyes straying to the squares of pale sunlight that dappled the polished floor as the last of the rain clouds thinned. “As to that, you must know that Captain Wilton—that’s the Captain Mark Wilton who won the VC—quarreled with the Colonel the night before, shortly after dinner. He’s to marry the Colonel’s ward, you see, and some sort of misunderstanding arose over the wedding, or so the servants claim. In the middle of the quarrel, the Captain stalked out of the house in a temper, and was heard to say he’d see the Colonel in hell, first. The Colonel threw his brandy glass at the door just as the Captain slammed it, and shouted that that could be arranged.”

This was certainly a more colorful version of the bald facts that Rutledge had been given in London. Breakfast forgotten, he continued to write, his mind leaping ahead of Davies’ steady voice. “What does the ward have to say?”

“Miss Wood’s in her room, under the doctor’s care, seeing no one. Not even her fiancé. The Captain is staying with Mrs. Davenant. She’s a second cousin on his mother’s side. Inspector Forrest tried to question him, and he said he wasn’t one to go around shooting people, no matter what he might have done in the war.”

Rutledge put down his pen and finished his toast, then reached for his teacup. He didn’t have to ask what the Captain had done in the war. His photograph had been in all the papers when he was decorated by the King—the Captain had not managed to bring down the Red Baron, but he seemed to have shot down every other German pilot whose path he had crossed in the skies above France. Rutledge had watched a vicious dogfight high in the clouds above his trench one July afternoon and had been told later who the English pilot was. If it was true, then Wilton was nothing short of a gifted flier.

Colonel Harris had been a relatively young man for his rank, serving in the Boer War as well as the Great War and making a name for himself as a skilled infantry tactician. Rutledge had actually met him once—a tall, vigorous, compassionate officer who had known how to handle tired, frightened men asked once too often to do the impossible.

Without warning, Hamish laughed harshly. “Aye, he knew how to stir men. There were those of us who’d have blown his head off there and then if we’d had the chance, after that third assault. It was suicide, and he knew it, and he sent us anyway. I can’t say I’m sorry he’s got his. Late is better than never.”

Rutledge choked as his tea went down the wrong way. He knew—dear God, he knew!—that Hamish couldn’t be heard by anyone else, and yet sometimes the voice was so clear he expected everyone around him to be staring at him in shock.

He waved Davies back to his chair as the Sergeant made to rise and slap him on his back. Still coughing, he managed to ask, “That’s all you’ve done?”

“Yes, sir, then we were told to leave everything for the Yard and so we did just that.”

“What about the shotgun? Have you at least checked on that?”

“The Captain says he used the weapons at the Colonel’s house, if he wanted to go shooting. But none of them has been fired recently. We asked Mrs. Davenant if she had any guns, and she said she sold her late husband’s Italian shotguns before the war.” The Sergeant glanced over his shoulder, and Barton Redfern came across the parlor to refill his cup. When the young man had limped away again, the Sergeant added tentatively, “Because of that quarrel, of course, it looks as if the Captain might be the guilty party, but I’ve learned in this business that looks are deceiving.”

Rutledge nodded. “And the murder was three days ago. After last night’s rain, there’ll be nothing to find in the meadow or anywhere else along the route the Colonel might have taken on his ride. Right, then, do you have a list of people to talk to? Besides the ward—Miss Wood—and Wilton. And this Mrs. Davenant.”

“As to that, there aren’t all that many. The servants and the lads who found the body. Laurence Royston. Miss Tarrant, of course—she was the lady that Captain Wilton had courted before the war, but she turned him down then and doesn’t seem to mind that he’s marrying Miss Wood now. Still, you never know, do you? She might be willing to throw a little light on how the two men got on together. And there’s Mr. Haldane—he’s the Squire’s son. He was one of Miss Wood’s suitors, as was the Vicar.”

Davies grinned suddenly, a wholly unprofessional glint in his eyes. “Some say Mr. Carfield took holy orders because he saw the war coming, but actually had his heart set on the theater. He does preach a better sermon than old Reverend Mott did, I’ll say that for him. We all learned more about the Apostle Paul under Mr. Mott than any of us ever cared to know, and I must admit Mr. Carfield’s a welcomed change!” He recollected himself and went on more soberly, “The two Sommers ladies are new to the district and don’t go about much. I doubt if they’d be helpful, except that they live near where the body was found and might have seen or heard something of use to us.”

Rutledge nodded as Redfern returned with a fresh pot of tea, waiting until his cup had been filled before he commented, “Miss Wood seems to have been very popular.”

“She’s a very—attractive—young lady,” Davies answered, hesitating over the word as if not certain that it was appropriate. “Then of course there’s Mavers. He’s a local man, a rabble-rouser by nature, always putting his nose in where it doesn’t belong, stirring things up, making trouble for the sake of trouble. If anything untoward happens in Upper Streetham, the first person you think of is Mavers.”

“That’s not a likely motive for shooting Harris, in itself.”

“In Mavers’s case, it is. He’s been annoying the Colonel since long before the war, nothing we’ve ever been able to prove, you understand, but there’ve been fires and dead livestock and the like, vindictive acts all of them. The last time, when one of the dogs was poisoned, the Colonel threatened to have Mavers committed if it happened again. He’s got a very sound alibi—Inspector Forrest talked to him straightaway. All the same, I’d not put murder past him.”

Rutledge heard the hope in Davies’ voice, but said only, “I’ll keep that in mind. All right, then, if that’s the lot, we’ll start with Miss Wood. She may be able to give us a better picture of this quarrel, what it was about and whether it might have had anything to do with her guardian’s death. I’ll want you there. Inspector Forrest can spare you?” He capped his pen, stowed the notebook in his pocket, and reached for his cup.

Davies looked stunned. “You didn’t bring a Sergeant with you, then?”

“We’re shorthanded at the Yard at the moment. You’ll do.”

“But—,” Davies began, panic sweeping through him. Then he thought better of what he had been on the verge of saying. The man to speak to was Forrest, not this gaunt-faced stranger from London with his clipped voice and bleak eyes.

Then he bethought himself of the one fact he’d avoided so far, the one bit of evidence no one wanted to accept. He had been told to wait until Rutledge brought it up, but the man hadn’t mentioned it. Because he discounted it? That would be too much to hope for! More than likely, the Inspector intended to rub the Sergeant’s nose in it, now that he had his chance. But Davies knew it had to be dragged into the open, like it or not. You couldn’t just ignore it, pretend it didn’t exist—

He cleared his throat. “There’s more, sir, though I don’t know what it’s worth. Surely they told you in London?” Staring at Rutledge, waiting for some indication that the man knew, that he didn’t need to go into embarrassing detail, Sergeant Davies read only impatience in the face before him as the Inspector folded his napkin and laid it neatly beside his plate.

“A possible witness, sir. He claims he saw the Colonel on Monday morning.” No, the man didn’t know; it was hard to believe, but for some reason he hadn’t been told! Davies hurried on. “In the lane that cuts between Seven Brothers Field and the orchard. And he saw Captain Wilton standing there beside the horse, holding on to the bridle and talking to the Colonel, who was shaking his head as if he didn’t like what he was hearing. This must have been about seven-thirty, maybe even a quarter to eight. Then the Captain suddenly stepped back, his face very red, and the Colonel rode off, leaving the Captain standing there with his fists clenched.”

Rutledge silently cursed London for ineptitude. He pulled out his notebook again and asked curtly, “How far is this place from where the Colonel was found dead? And why didn’t you mention this witness sooner?”

The Sergeant’s face flushed. “As to how far, sir, it’s at most two miles east of the meadow,” he answered stiffly. “And I was sure they’d have told you in London—You see, the problem is that the witness is unreliable, sir. He was drunk. He often is, these days.”

“Even an habitual drunk has been known to tell the truth.” Rutledge added another line, then looked up. “We can’t discount what he says on those grounds alone.”

“No, sir. But there’s more, you see. He’s—well, he’s shell-shocked, sir, doesn’t know where he is half the time, thinks he’s still at the Front, hears voices, that kind of thing. Lost his nerve on the Somme and went to pieces. Lack of moral fiber, that’s what it was. It seems a shame for a fine man like the Captain to be under suspicion of murder on the evidence of an acknowledged coward like Daniel Hickam, doesn’t it? It isn’t right, sir, is it?”

But London had said nothing—Bowles had said nothing.

In the far corners of his mind, behind the spinning turmoil of his own thoughts, Rutledge could hear the wild, derisive echoes of Hamish’s laughter.

2

Misunderstanding the horrified expression on Rutledge’s face, Sergeant Davies nodded sympathetically. “Aye,” he said, “it’s hard to swallow, I know. You were in the war, then? My youngest brother was in the Balkans, lost both arms. Took it like a man. Not a shred of weakness in Tommy!”

He began to fiddle with his cup as he went on, as if to distract himself from the rest of what he had to say. “Of course we didn’t know about Hickam at first, I just came across him that same morning, lying under a tree on the lane, sleeping one off. When I tried to wake him up and send him off home, he swore he was sober as a judge, and told me I could ask the Colonel and the Captain, they’d vouch for him. I thought he meant generally, you see.”

The cup spun out of his fingers, clattering against the sugar bowl and almost tipping over the cream pitcher. Davies caught it, returned it to his saucer, then plowed on, trying to conceal the sense of guilt that was still plaguing him. “I didn’t pay any heed to him at first, I was in a hurry to find Inspector Forrest and tell him about the murder, but Hickam’s place was on my way back to Upper Streetham and he was in no shape to get there on his own. By the time I’d reached his house, listening to him ramble all the way, it was beginning to sound a bit different from what I’d first thought. So Inspector Forrest went to talk to him that afternoon and got a little straighter version, and we couldn’t just shrug it off, could we? Right or wrong, we had to take note of it, didn’t we?”

It was an appeal for forgiveness, an admission of responsibility for what had plunged Warwickshire and London into this present predicament. If he’d left well enough alone, if he hadn’t bothered to stop in the first place, no one would ever have thought to question the likes of Hickam about the Colonel or the Captain. There would have been no reason, no need.

Rutledge, still fighting his own battle for control, managed to keep his voice level, but the words came out harsh and cold, apparently without any sympathy for the Sergeant’s moral dilemma. “What did Captain Wilton have to say about Hickam’s story?”

“Well, nothing. That is, he says he wasn’t in the lane that morning, he was walking in a different direction. He says he’s seen Hickam from time to time in the mornings, reeling home or sleeping wherever he was or having one of his crazy spells, but not on that occasion.”

“Which doesn’t mean that Hickam didn’t see him.”

Sergeant Davies was appalled. “You’re saying the Captain’s lying, sir?”

“People do lie, Sergeant, even those who have earned the Victoria Cross. Besides, Hickam’s description of what he saw is strangely complete, isn’t it? The Captain holding the Colonel’s bridle, the Captain’s face turning red, the Captain stepping back with clenched fists. If it didn’t happen that morning, if Hickam saw the two men together on another occasion, it could mean that their quarrel on the night before the murder had its roots in an earlier confrontation. That there was more animosity between the Colonel and his ward’s fiancé than we know at this point.”

Sergeant Davies was dubious. “Even so, Hickam might have misread what he saw, there might have been a perfectly reasonable explanation. What if the two men were in agreement instead of quarreling? What if they’d been angry at someone else, or about something that neither of them liked?”

“Then why would Wilton deny that he’d met Harris in the lane? If this encounter did have some perfectly innocent explanation? No, I think you’re on the wrong track there.”

“Well, what if Hickam confused what he saw with something that happened at the Front? He doesn’t like officers—he might even have made mischief on purpose. You can’t be really sure, can you? Hickam might be capable of anything!” The disgust in Davies’ face was almost a tangible thing.

“I can’t answer that until I’ve spoken to Hickam and the Captain.” Hamish’s laughter had faded, he was able to think clearly again. But his heart was still pounding hard with the shock.

“Shall we start with them, then? Instead of Miss Wood?”

“No, I want to see the Colonel’s house and his ward first.” The truth was, he wasn’t prepared to face Hickam now. Not until he was certain he could do it without betraying himself.

Had anyone guessed in London? No, surely not! It was sheer coincidence, there were any number of shell-shocked veterans scattered across England…. Rutledge got to his feet. “My car is in the back. I’ll meet you there in five minutes.” He nodded to Barton Redfern as he walked out of the dining room, and the young man watched the two policemen until they were out of sight, then listened to Rutledge’s feet beating a quick tattoo up the carpeted stairs while the Sergeant’s heavy leather heels clicked steadily down the stone passage leading to the Inn yard.

Upstairs in his room, Rutledge stood with his hands flat on the low windowsill, leaning on them and looking down into the busy street below. He was still shaken. Only a half dozen people knew about his condition, and the doctors had promised to say nothing to the Yard, to give him a year to put his life back together first. The question was, had Bowles kept silent about Hickam because he hadn’t thought it was something that mattered? Or because he had known it was and might embarrass Rutledge?

No, that was impossible. It had been an oversight—or at most, Bowles had tried to make this murder investigation sound more attractive than it was. A kindness…? He remembered Bowles from before the war, good at his job, with a reputation for ruthless ambition and a cold detachment. Sergeant Fletcher, who’d died in the first gas attack on Ypres, used to claim that Bowles frightened the guilty into confessing.

“I’ve seen ’em! Shaking in their boots and more afraid of old Bowles than they were of the hangman! Nasty piece of work, I’ve never liked dealing with him. Mind you, he did his job fair and square, I’m not saying he didn’t. But he wasn’t above using any tool that came to hand….”

Not kindness, then, not from a man like Bowles.

Still, what London had done didn’t matter now.

Because here in his own room, away from Davies’ watchful eyes and Redfern’s hovering, Rutledge was able to think more clearly and recognize a very tricky problem. What if Hickam turned out to be right?

If it should come to an arrest—so far there was not enough evidence to look that far ahead, but assuming there was—how could the Crown go into a court of law with a Daniel Hickam as its prime witness against a man wearing the ribbon of the Victoria Cross? It would be ludicrous, the defense would tear the case to shreds. Warwickshire would be screaming for the Yard’s blood, and the Yard for his.

He had wanted an investigation complex enough to distract him from his own dilemmas. Well, now he seemed to have got his wish in spades. The question remained, was he ready for it? Were his skills too rusty to handle something as difficult as the Harris murder successfully? Worse still, was he too personally involved? If so, he should back out now. This instant. Call the Yard and ask for a replacement to be sent at once.

But that would require explanations, excuses—lies. Or the truth.

He straightened, turned from the window, and reached for his coat. If he quit now, he was finished. Professionally and emotionally. It wasn’t a question of choice but of survival. He would do his best, it was all anyone could do, and if in the days to come that wasn’t enough, he must find the courage to admit it. Until then he was going to have to learn exactly where he stood, what he was made of.

The words coward and weakling had stung. But what rankled in his soul was that he had said nothing, not one single word, in Hickam’s defense. In betraying Hickam, he felt he had betrayed himself.

Rutledge and Sergeant Davies arrived at Mallows, the Colonel’s well-run estate on the Warwick road, half an hour later. The sky had cleared to a cerulean blue, the air clean and sweet with spring as the car turned in through the iron gates and went up the drive.

Completely hidden from the main road by banks of old trees, the house didn’t emerge until they rounded the second bend and came out of the shadows into the sun. Then mellowed brick and tall windows, warmed to gold, reflected the early morning light. Setting them off was a wide sweep of lawn mown to crisp perfection, the flower beds sharply edged and the drive smoothly raked. One glance and you could tell that not only had pride gone into the upkeep of this house, but unabashed love as well.

To Rutledge’s appreciative eye, a master’s hand had created this marvelously graceful facade. For the stone cornices, quoins, and moldings around the windows enhanced rather than overwhelmed the effect of elegant simplicity that the designer had been striving for. He found himself wondering who the architect had been, for this was a small jewel. Where had such a gift taken the man after this?

But Davies couldn’t say. “The Colonel, now, he would have told you, and if he wasn’t too busy, he’d have taken out the old plans for you to see. That was the kind of man he was, never a stickler for rank. He knew his place, and trusted you to know yours.”

As Rutledge got out of the car, he found himself looking up at the windows above. One of the heavy drapes had twitched, he thought, the slight movement catching the corner of his eye. In France, where life itself depended on quick reflexes, you learned to see your enemy first or you died. It was as simple as that.

The staff had already placed a heavy black wreath on the broad wooden door, its streamers lifting gently in the light breeze. A butler answered the bell. He was a thin man of middle height, fifty-five or thereabouts, his face heavy with grief as if he mourned the Colonel personally. He informed Rutledge and Sergeant Davies in tones of polished regret that Miss Wood was not receiving anyone today.

Rutledge said only, “What is your name?”

“Johnston, sir.” The words were polite, distant.

“You may tell your mistress, Johnston, that Inspector Rutledge is here on police business. You know Sergeant Davies, I think.”

“Miss Wood is still unwell, Inspector.” He cast an accusing glance at Davies, as if blaming him for Rutledge’s ill-mannered persistence. “Her doctor has already informed Inspector Forrest—”

“Yes, I understand. We won’t disturb her any longer than absolutely necessary.” The voice was firm, that of an army officer giving instructions, brooking no further opposition. Certainly not the voice of a lowly policeman begging entrance.

“I’ll enquire,” the man replied, with a resignation that clearly indicated both personal and professional disapproval but just as clearly made no promises.

He left them standing in the hall before a handsome staircase that divided at the first-floor landing and continued upward in two graceful arcs. These met again on the second story, above the doorway, to form an oval frame for a ceiling painting of nymphs and clouds, with a Venus of great beauty in the center. From the hall she seemed to float in cloud-cushioned luxury, far beyond the reach of mere mortals, staring down at them with a smile that was as tantalizing as it was smug.

Johnston was gone for nearly fifteen minutes.

Hamish, growing restive as the tension of waiting mounted, said, “I’ve never been inside a house like this. Look at the floor, man, it’s squares of marble, enough to pave the streets in my village. And that stair—what holds it up, then? It’s a marvel! And worth a murder or two.”

Rutledge ignored him and the uncomfortable stiffness of Sergeant Davies, who seemed to grow more wooden with every passing minute. The butler returned eventually and said with ill-concealed censure, “Miss Wood will receive you in her sitting room, but she asks that you will make your call brief.”

He led the way up the staircase to the first floor and then turned left down a wide, carpeted corridor to a door near the end of it. The room beyond was quite spacious, uncluttered, and ordinarily, Rutledge thought, full of light from the long windows facing the drive. But the heavy rose velvet drapes had been drawn—was it these he had seen stir?—and only one lamp, on an inlaid table, made a feeble effort to penetrate the gloom.

Lettice Wood was tall and slim, with heavy dark hair that was pinned loosely on the top of her head, smooth wings from a central parting cupping her ears before being drawn up again. She was wearing unrelieved black, her skirts rustling slightly as she turned to watch them come toward her.

“Inspector Rutledge?” she said, as if she couldn’t distinguish between the Upper Streetham sergeant and the representative of Scotland Yard. She did not ask them to be seated, though she herself sat on a brocade couch that faced the fireplace and there were two upholstered chairs on either side of it. A seventeenth-century desk stood between two windows, and against one wall was a rosewood cabinet filled with a collection of old silver, reflecting the single lamp like watching eyes from the jungle’s edge. Sergeant Davies, behind Rutledge, stayed by the door and began to fumble in his pocket for his notebook.

For a moment the man from London and the woman in mourning considered each other in silence, each gauging temperament from the slender evidence of appearance. The lamplight reached Rutledge’s face while hers was shadowed, but her voice when she spoke had been husky and strained, that of someone who had spent many hours crying. Her grief was very real—and yet something about it disturbed him. Something lurked in the dimness that he didn’t want to identify.

“I’m sorry we must intrude, Miss Wood,” he found himself saying with stiff formality. “And I offer our profoundest sympathy. But I’m sure you understand the urgency of finding the person or persons responsible for your guardian’s death.”

“My guardian.” She said it flatly, as if it had no meaning for her. Then she added with painful vehemence, “I can’t imagine how anyone could have done such a terrible thing to him. Or why. It was a senseless, savage—” She stopped, and he could see that she had swallowed hard to hold back angry tears. “It served no purpose,” she added finally in a defeated voice.

“What has served no purpose?” Rutledge asked quietly. “His death? Or the manner of it?”

That jolted her, as if she had been talking to herself and not to him, and was surprised to find he’d read her thoughts.

She leaned forward slightly and he could see her face then, blotched with crying and sleeplessness. But most unusual nevertheless, with a high-bridged nose and a sensitive mouth and heavy-lidded eyes. He couldn’t tell their color, but they were not dark. Sculpted cheekbones, a determined chin, a long, slender throat. And yet somehow she managed to convey an odd impression of warm sensuality. He remembered how the Sergeant had hesitated over the word “attractive,” as if uncertain how to classify her. She was not, in the ordinary sense, beautiful. At the same time, she was far, very far, from plain.

“I don’t see how you can separate them,” she answered after a moment, a black-edged handkerchief twisting in her long, slim fingers. “He wasn’t simply killed, was he? He was destroyed, blotted out. It was deliberate, vengeful. Even Scotland Yard can’t change that. But the man who did this will be hanged. That’s the only comfort I’ve got.” There was a deeper note in her voice as she spoke of hanging, as if she relished the image of it in her mind.

“Then perhaps we ought to begin with last Monday morning. Did you see your guardian before he left the house?”

She hesitated, then said, “I didn’t go riding that morning.”

Before he could take her up on that stark reply, she added, “Charles loved Mallows, loved the land. He said those rides made up, a little, for all the months he spent away. So he usually went out alone, and it was never a fixed route, you see, just wherever his list for that day took him—it might be inspecting a crop or a tenant’s roof or the state of the hedges or livestock, anything. And he came back feeling—fulfilled, I suppose. It was a way of healing after all he’d been through.”

“How many people knew what was on his list each day?”

“It wasn’t written down, it was in his head. Laurence Royston might be aware that Charles was planning to look into a particular problem, if they’d discussed it. But for the most part it was Charles’s own interests that guided him. I don’t suppose you were a soldier, Inspector, but Charles once said that the greatest crime of the war was ruining the French countryside for a generation. Not the slaughter of armies, but the slaughter of the land.” She leaned back, out of the light again, as if realizing that she was running on and had lost his attention.

I didn’t go riding that morning—

Rutledge considered those words, ignoring the rest of what she had said. It was as if that one fact separated her entirely from what had happened. But in what way? He had heard soldiers offer the same excuse to avoid discussing what they had witnessed on the battlefield but had not been a part of: “I wasn’t in that assault.” I don’t know and I don’t want to know….

A denial, then. But was it a washing of hands, or a means of telling the absolute but not the whole truth?

Her face was still, but she was watching him, waiting in the security of the darkness for him to ask his next question. Her grief appeared to be genuine, and yet she was doing nothing whatsoever to help him. He could feel her resistance like a physical barrier, as if they were adversaries, not joined in a mutual hunt for a murderer.

She in her turn was silently counting her heartbeats, willing them to a steady rhythm so that her breathing didn’t betray her. In feeling lay disaster. Not for this London stranger with his chill, impersonal eyes was she going to lay out her most private emotions, and watch them probed and prodded for meaning! Let him do the job he had been sent to do. And why was it taking so bloody long? Charles had been gone for three days!

The silence lengthened. Sergeant Davies cleared his throat, as if made uneasy by undercurrents he couldn’t understand.

For they were there, strong undercurrents, emotions so intense they were like ominous shadows in the room. Even Hamish was silent.

Changing his tactics abruptly, Rutledge asked, “What did your fiancé, Captain Wilton, and your guardian discuss after dinner on Sunday, the night before the Colonel’s death?”

Her attention returned to him with a swift wariness. The heavy-lidded eyes opened wide for an instant, but she answered, “Surely you’ve spoken to Mark about that?”

“I’d prefer to hear what you have to say first. I understand that whatever it was led to a quarrel?”

“A quarrel?” Her voice was sharp now. “I went upstairs after dinner, I—didn’t feel well. Charles and Mark were in the drawing room when I left them, talking about one of the guests invited to the wedding. Neither of them liked the man, but both felt they had to include him. An officer they’d served with, my guardian in the Boer War and Mark in France. I can’t imagine them quarreling over that.”

“Yet the servants told Inspector Forrest that there had been angry words between the two men, that, in fact, Captain Wilton had stormed out of the house in a rage, and that Colonel Harris flung his wineglass at the door the Captain had slammed behind him.”

She was rigid, her attention fixed on him with fierce intensity. Even the handkerchief no longer unconsciously threaded itself through her fingers. He suddenly had the impression that this was news to her, that she had been unaware of what had happened in the hall. But she said only, “If they heard that much, they must have been able to tell you what it was all about.”

“Unfortunately, they witnessed only the end of it.”

“I see.” As if distracted by some thought of her own, she said nothing for a time, and Rutledge waited, wishing he could know what was going on behind those long-lashed eyes. Then she roused herself and repeated, “Yes, that is unfortunate, isn’t it? Still, you must know that neither Charles nor Mark is a hotheaded man.”

“I’d hardly describe slamming a door in anger or breaking a crystal glass against it as coolheaded. But we’ll have the answer to that in good time,” Rutledge responded, noting with interest that she hadn’t rushed to Captain Wilton’s defense when she had been given the perfect opening to do just that. Yet she must have realized where such questions were leading?

Oddly enough, he thought she had. And discounted it. Or ignored it? Accustomed to reaching beyond words into emotional responses, he found her elusiveness puzzling. But he couldn’t be sure whether that was his fault—or hers.

He took another tack, giving her a second opening but in a different direction. “Do you believe this man Mavers might have killed the Colonel? Apparently he’s caused trouble for your guardian for a number of years.”

She blinked, then said, “Mavers? He’s been a troublemaker all his life. He seems to thrive on it. He sows dissent for the sheer, simple pleasure of it.” Glancing at Sergeant Davies, she said, “But turning to murder? Risking the gallows? I can’t see him going that far. Can you?” She frowned. “Unless, of course, it might be just what he wanted,” she added thoughtfully.

“In what way?”

“He’s been everything from a conscientious objector to a roaring Bolshevik—whatever might stir up people, make them angry. But everyone has more or less grown used to his ranting. Sometimes I even forget he’s there. Laurence—Mr. Royston—always said it was the best way to take the wind out of his sails. But Charles felt that it might tip Mavers over the line, that being ignored was the one thing he dreaded. That it was anybody’s guess what he might do then. Charles was a good judge of character, he knew Mavers better than the rest of us did. Still, if I were you I’d be wary of any confession Mavers made, unless it was backed up by indisputable proof.”

Which was a decidedly puzzling remark. She had just been offered a ready-made scapegoat, and she had refused it. In his mind, Rutledge went back over what she’d just said, listening for nuances. Well, if she was trying to shift the direction of the enquiry, she had done it with an odd subtlety that was only just short of brilliant. Davies, out of her range of vision, was nodding as if he agreed with her about Mavers being the killer, and she’d said nothing of the sort.

If it hadn’t occurred to her that the Captain needed defending, why had questions about the quarrel made her so wary? Had Harris been at fault there, and she was trying to preserve his good name, his reputation? Rutledge moved to the mantel, hoping that the change in angles might help him see her more clearly in the shadows. But her face was closed, her thoughts so withdrawn from him that he might as well try to read the engraving on the silver bowl at her elbow. The pallid light reached neither of them.

“Is there anyone else in the village to your knowledge with a reason to wish your guardian dead?”

“Charles had no enemies.” She sighed. “There are those who might wish Mark dead, if you believe the gossips. But Charles? He was never here long enough to make enemies. He was a soldier, and leave was a rare thing, a time of respite, not for stirring up trouble.”

“No land disputes, no boundary quarrels, no toes stepped on in the county?”

“I’ve not heard of them. But ask Laurence Royston, his agent. He can tell you about running the estate and whether there were disputes that might have festered. I can’t help you there. I only came here to live near the end of the war, when I’d finished school. Before that, I was allowed to visit on school holidays when Charles had leave. Otherwise, I went home with one of my classmates.”

Questioning her was like fencing with a will-o’-the-wisp. I don’t know, I can’t help you there, I didn’t go riding that morning—And yet he had believed her when she said that hanging the murderer would bring her comfort. In his experience, the shock of sudden, violent death often aroused anger and a thirst for vengeance. But it seemed to be the only natural, anticipated reaction he’d gotten from her. Why did she keep drifting away from him?

He was reminded by a shifting of feet that Sergeant Davies was in the room, a witness to everything she said. A man who lived in Upper Streetham, who presumably had a wife and friends…was that the problem? He, Rutledge, was a private person himself; he understood the fierce need for privacy in others. And if that was the case, he was wasting his time now.

“How did you spend the morning? Before the news was brought to you?”

She was frowning, trying to remember as if that had been years ago, not a matter of days. “I bathed and dressed, came down to breakfast, the usual. Then I had a number of letters to write, and was just coming out of the library to see if Mr. Royston might take them into Warwick for me, when—” She stopped abruptly, then continued in a harsh voice. “I really don’t recall what happened after that.”

“You didn’t leave the house, go to the stables?”

“Of course not, why on earth should I tell you I did one thing when I’d done another?”

Rutledge took his leave soon afterward. Davies seemed relieved to be on his way downstairs at the butler’s heels, showing an almost indecent haste to be gone.

But Rutledge felt unsatisfied, as if somehow he had been neatly outmaneuvered in that darkened room. Thinking back over what the girl had said, he couldn’t pinpoint any particular reason for disbelieving anything she’d told him, but doubt nagged at him. She couldn’t be more than twenty-one or twenty-two, and yet she had shown a self-possession that was uncommon at that age—or any other. And he hadn’t been able to break through to the person underneath. To the emotions that must be there. To the unspoken words he’d wanted to hear but that she had managed to hold back.

Her detachment, then. That was what disturbed him. As if she didn’t connect the reality of violent death with the questions that the police were asking her. No passionate defense of her fiancé, no rush to push Mavers forward in his place, no speculation about the nature of the killer at all.

It was almost, he thought with one of those leaps of intuition that had served him so well in the past, as if she already knew who the killer was—and was planning her own private retribution…. “I can’t imagine how anyone could have done such a terrible thing to him,” she’d said. Not who—how.

Then as he reached the foot of the stairs he remembered something else. Both Sergeant Davies and the butler had mentioned a doctor. Had the girl been given sedatives that left her in this sleepwalker’s state, detached from grief and from reality too? He’d seen men in hospital talk quietly of unspeakable horrors when they’d been given drugs: stumbling to describe terrors they couldn’t endure to think about until they were so heavily sedated that the pain and the frantic anxiety were finally dulled.

He himself had confessed to Hamish’s presence only under the influence of such drugs. Nothing else would have dragged that out of him, and afterward he had tried to kill the doctor for tricking him. They’d had to pull him off the man, and he’d fought every inch of the way back to his room.

It might be a good idea, then, to speak to the family’s doctor before deciding what to do about Lettice Wood.

Before the butler could see them safely out the door, Rutledge turned to him and asked, “What was your name again? Johnston?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Can you show me the drawing room, please. Where the quarrel between the Captain and the Colonel took place?”

Johnston turned and walked silently across the polished marble to a door on his left. He opened it, showing them into a room of cool greens and gold, reflecting the morning light without absorbing it. “Miss Wood had coffee brought in here after dinner, and when the gentlemen joined her, she dismissed me. Soon afterward she went upstairs, sending for one of the maids and saying that she had a headache and would like a cool cloth for her head. That was around nine o’clock, perhaps a quarter past. At ten-fifteen I came here to take away the coffee tray and to see if anything else was needed before I locked up for the night.”

“And you hadn’t been into or near the drawing room between taking the tray in and coming to remove it?”

“No, sir.”

“What happened then? At ten-fifteen?”

At Rutledge’s prodding, Johnston stepped back into the hall again, pointed to a door in the shadows of the stairs, and went on reluctantly. “I came out of that door—it leads to the back of the house—and started toward the drawing room. At that moment, Mary was coming down the stairs.”

“Who is Mary?”

“There’s seven on the staff here, sir. Myself, the cook, her helper, and four maids. Before the war there were twelve of us, including footmen. Mary is one of the maids and has been here the longest, next to Mrs. Treacher and myself.”

“Go on.”

“Mary was coming down the stairs, and she said when I came into view that she was looking to see if the banisters and the marble floor needed polishing the next morning. If not, she was going to put Nancy to polishing the grates, now that we were no longer making up morning fires.”

“And?”

“And at that moment,” Johnston answered heavily, “the door of the drawing room opened, and the Captain came out. I didn’t see his face—he was looking over his shoulder back into the room—but I heard him say quite distinctly and very loudly, ‘I’ll see you in hell, first!’ Then he slammed the drawing-room door behind him and went out the front door, slamming that as well. I don’t think he saw me here, or Mary on the stairs.” He seemed to run out of words.

“Finish your story, man!” Rutledge said impatiently.

“Before the front door had slammed, I heard the Colonel shout, ‘That can be arranged!’ and the sound of glass shattering against this door.”

His hand drew their eyes to the raw nick in the glossy paint of one panel, where the glass had struck with such force that a piece of it must have wedged in the wood.

“Do you think Captain Wilton heard the Colonel?”

In spite of himself, Johnston smiled. “The Colonel, sir, was accustomed to making himself heard on a parade ground and over the din of the battlefield. I would think that the Captain heard him as clearly as I did, and slammed the front door with added emphasis because of it.”

“It was a glass that shattered, not a cup?”

“The Colonel usually had a glass of brandy with his coffee, and the Captain always joined him.”

“When you cleaned this room the next morning, did you find that two glasses had been used?”

“Yes, sir,” Johnston answered, perplexed. “Of course.”

“Which means that the two men drank together and were still on comfortable terms at that point in the evening.”

“I would venture to say so, yes.”

“Had you ever heard a quarrel between them before this particular evening?”

“No, sir, they seemed to be on the best of terms.”

“Had they drunk enough, do you think, to have become quarrelsome for no reason? Or over some petty issue?”

“With respect, sir,” Johnston said indignantly, “the Colonel was not a man to become argumentative in his cups. He held his liquor like a gentleman, and so, to my knowledge, did the Captain. Besides,” he added, rather spoiling the lofty effect he’d just created, “the level in the decanters showed no more than two drinks had been poured, one each.”

“Do you feel, having witnessed the Captain’s departure, that this was a disagreement that could have been smoothed over comfortably the next day?”

“He was very angry at the time. I can’t say how Captain Wilton might have felt the next morning. But I can tell you that the Colonel seemed in no way unsettled when he came down for his morning ride. Very much himself, as far as I could see.”

“And Miss Wood was in her bedroom throughout the quarrel? She didn’t rejoin the men in the drawing room, to your knowledge?”

“No, sir. Mary looked in on her before she came down the stairs, to see if she needed anything more, and Miss Wood appeared to be asleep. So she didn’t speak to her.”

“What did the Colonel do after the Captain left?”

“I don’t know, sir. I thought it best not to disturb him at that moment, and I came back twenty minutes later. By that time, he had gone up to bed himself, and I went about my nightly duties before turning in at eleven. Would you like to see Mary now, sir?”

“I’ll talk to Mary and the rest of the staff later,” Rutledge said, and walked to the door. There he turned to look back at the drawing room and then at the staircase. Under ordinary circumstances, Wilton would have noticed Johnston and the maid as soon as he came out of the drawing-room door. But if he had been looking back at Charles Harris instead, he might not have been aware of either servant, silent and unobtrusive behind him.

With a nod, Rutledge opened the front door before Johnston could reach it to see him out, and with Sergeant Davies hurrying after him, walked down the broad, shallow stone steps and across the drive to the car.

Hamish, growling irritably, said, “I don’t like yon butler. I don’t hold with the rich anyway, or their toadies.”

“It’s a better job than you ever held,” Rutledge retorted, and then swore under his breath. But Davies had been getting into the car and heard only the sound of his voice, not his words. He looked up to say, “I beg pardon, sir?”

The heavy drapes of the sitting room upstairs parted a little, and Lettice Wood watched Rutledge climb into the car and start the engine. When it had passed out of sight around the first bend of the drive, she let the velvet fall back into place and wandered aimlessly to the table where the lamp still burned. She flicked it off and stood there in the darkness.

If only she could think clearly! He would be back, she was certain of that, prying into everything, wanting to know about Charles, asking about Mark. And he wasn’t like the elderly Forrest; there would be no deference or fatherly concern from him, not with those cold eyes. She must have her wits about her then! The problem was, what would Mark tell them? How was she to know?

She put her hands to her head, pressing cold fingers into her temples. He looked as if he’d been ill, this inspector from Scotland Yard. And such people were often difficult. Why had Forrest sent for him? Why had it been necessary to drag London into this business, awful enough already without strangers trampling about.

Why hadn’t they left it to Inspector Forrest?

“Will we speak to Mavers now, sir?”

“No, Captain Wilton next, I think.”

“He’s staying with his cousin, Mrs. Davenant. She’s a widow, has a house just on the outskirts of town, the other end of Upper Streetham from Mallows.”

He gave Rutledge directions and then began to scan his notebook as if checking to make certain he had put down the salient points of the conversations with Lettice Wood and Johnston.

“I thought,” Rutledge said, “that the servants claimed that the argument between the Colonel and the Captain concerned the wedding. Johnston said nothing about it.”

“It was the maid, Mary Satterthwaite, who mentioned that, sir.”

“Then why didn’t you say so while we were there? I’d have spoken to her straightaway.”

Davies flipped back through his notebook to a page near the beginning. “She said she went up to Miss Wood’s room to bring a cold cloth for her head, and Miss Wood was telling her that she had left the gentlemen to discuss the marriage. But the way Miss Wood said it led Mary to think it wasn’t going to be a friendly discussion.”

“And then, having seen the end of the quarrel, the maid merely jumped to the conclusion that that was what they were still talking about?”

“Apparently so, sir.”

Which was no evidence at all. “When is the wedding?”

Davies flipped several more pages. “On the twenty-second of September, sir. And Miss Wood and the Captain have been engaged for seven months.”

Rutledge considered that. In an hour’s time—from the moment that Lettice Wood left the pair together until Johnston had seen Wilton storming out of the house—the subject of conversation could have ranged far and wide. If there had been a discussion of the wedding at nine-fifteen, surely it would not have lasted an hour, and developed into a quarrel at this stage, the details having been ironed out seven months ago and the arrangements for September already well in hand….

Without warning, he found himself thinking of Jean, of their own engagement in that hot, emotion-torn summer of 1914, a lifetime ago. Of the endless letters passing back and forth to France as they dreamed and planned. Of the acute longing that had kept him alive when nothing else had mattered. Of the wedding that had never taken place—

Of Jean’s white face in his hospital room when he had offered her the chance to break off the engagement. She had smiled nervously and taken it, murmuring something about the war having changed both of them. While he sat there, still aching with love and his need for her, trying with every ounce of his being to hide it from her, she’d said, “I’m not the girl you remember in 1914. I loved you so madly—I think anything would have been possible then. But too much time has passed, too much has happened to both of us—we were apart so long…. I don’t even know myself anymore…. Of course I still care, but—I don’t think I should marry anyone just now—it wouldn’t be fair to marry anyone….”

Yet despite the quiet voice and the scrupulously chosen words that tried desperately to spare both of them pain, he could see the truth in her eyes.

It was fear.

She was deathly afraid of him….

3

Mrs. Davenant lived in a Georgian brick house standing well back from the road. It was surrounded by an ivy-clad wall with ornate iron gates and set in a pleasant garden already bright with early color. Roses and larkspur drooped over the narrow brick walk, so heavy with rain from the night before that they left a speckled pattern of dampness on Rutledge’s trousers as he brushed past them on his way to the door.

Surprisingly, Mrs. Davenant answered the bell herself. She was a slender, graceful woman in her thirties, her fair hair cut becomingly short around her face but drawn into a bun on the back of her neck. Tendrils escaping its rigorous pinning curled delicately against very fine skin, giving her a fragile quality like rare porcelain. Her eyes were dark blue with naturally dark lashes, making them appear deep set and almost violet.

She nodded a greeting to Sergeant Davies and then said to Rutledge, “You must be the man from London.” Her eyes scanned his face and his height and his clothes with cool interest.

“Inspector Rutledge. I’d like to speak to you, if I may. And to Captain Wilton.”

“Mark has gone for a walk. I don’t think he slept well last night, and walking always soothes him. Please, come in.”

She led them not into the drawing room but down a passage beyond the stairs to a comfortable sitting room that still had a masculine ambience, as if it had been her late husband’s favorite part of the house. Paintings of hunting scenes hung above the fireplace and on two of the walls, while a collection of pipes in a low, glass-fronted cabinet stood beneath a small but exquisite Canaletto.

“This is a dreadful business,” she was saying as Rutledge took the chair she offered him. Sergeant Davies went to stand by the hearth, as if her invitation to be seated had not included him. She accepted this without comment. “Simply dreadful! I can’t imagine why anyone would have wanted to kill Charles Harris. He was a thoroughly nice man.” There was a ring of sincerity in the words.

An elderly woman in a black dress and white apron came to the doorway, and after glancing toward her, Mrs. Davenant asked, “Would you care for coffee, Inspector? Sergeant?” When they declined, she nodded to the woman and said, “That will be all, then, Grace. And close the door behind you, please.”

When the woman had gone, Rutledge said, “Do your servants live in, Mrs. Davenant?”

“No, Agnes and Grace come in daily to clean and to prepare meals. Agnes isn’t here just now, her granddaughter is very ill. Ben is my groom-gardener. He lives over the stables.” She lifted her eyebrows in a query, as if expecting Rutledge to explain his interest in her staff.

“Can you tell me what state of mind Captain Wilton was in when he came home from Mallows the evening before the Colonel was killed?”

“His state of mind?” she repeated. “I don’t know, I had already gone to bed. When he dined with Lettice and the Colonel, I didn’t wait up for him.”

“The next morning, then?”

“He seemed a little preoccupied over his breakfast, I suppose. But then I’ve grown used to that. Lettice and Mark are very much in love.” She smiled. “Lettice has been good for him, you know. He was so changed when he came home from France. Dark—bitter. I think he hated flying then, which is sad, because before the war—before the killing—it had been his greatest passion. Now Lettice is everything to him. I don’t think Charles could have stood in the way of this marriage if he’d wanted to!”

Rutledge could see that she was fond of her cousin—and from her unguarded comments he gathered that it hadn’t yet occurred to her that Wilton might have killed Harris. It was interesting, he thought, that she spoke freely, warmly, and yet with an odd—detachment. Was that it? As if her own emotions were locked away and untouched by the ugliness of murder. Or as if she had held them in for so very long that it had become second nature to her. It was a response to widowhood in some women, but there could be many other reasons.

“Did Captain Wilton go for a walk on Monday morning?”

“Of course. He likes the exercise, and since the crash—you knew that he crashed just before the war ended?—since then riding has been difficult for him. His knee was badly smashed, and although it’s hardly noticeable now when he walks, controlling a horse is another matter.”

Rutledge studied her. An attractive woman, with the sort of fair English beauty that men were supposed to dream about in the trenches as they died for King and Country. She was dressed in a soft rose silk that in the light from the long windows gave her skin a warm blush. The same blush it might have when stirred by passion. He found himself wondering if Charles Harris had ever been drawn to her. A man sometimes carried a picture in his mind when he spent long years abroad—a tie with home, whether real or fancied.

“Where does Captain Wilton usually walk?”

She shrugged. “I can’t tell you that. Where the spirit takes him, I daresay. One day as I came home from the village, I saw a farm cart dropping him off at our gate, and he told me he had walked to Lower Streetham and halfway to Bampton beyond! Along the way he’d picked a small posy of wildflowers for Lettice, but it had wilted by then. A pity.”

“I understand that he had a quarrel with Charles Harris on Sunday evening after dinner. Do you have any idea what that was about?”

With a sigh of exasperation, she said, “Inspector Forrest asked me the same question, when he came about the shotguns. I can’t imagine Charles and Mark quarreling. Oh, good-naturedly, about a horse or military tactics or the like, but not a serious argument. They got along famously, the two of them, ever since they met in France, on leave in Paris.”

“I understand that the Captain had spent some time here before 1914. He and Colonel Harris weren’t acquainted then?”

“Charles was in Egypt, I think, the summer my husband died. And Lettice of course was away at school.”

“The wedding arrangements, then. They appeared to be progressing smoothly?”

“As far as I know. Lettice has ordered her gown, and next week she was to go to London for the first fitting. The invitations have been sent to the printer, flowers chosen for the wedding breakfast, plans for the wedding trip made—I doubt if Mark would have objected if Lettice had wished to go to the moon! And Charles doted on her, he wouldn’t have begrudged her anything her heart desired. She only needed to ask. What was there to quarrel about?”

Mrs. Davenant made the marriage sound idyllic, such a piece of high romance that even death couldn’t stand in its way. And yet in the three days since Charles Harris had been found murdered, Lettice had apparently not asked to see Wilton. Nor, as far as he, Rutledge, knew, had Wilton gone to Mallows.

He was about to pursue that line of thought when the sitting-room door opened and Captain Wilton walked across the threshold.

He was wearing country tweeds, and they became him as well as his uniform must have done, fitting his muscular body with an air of easy elegance. The newspaper photographs of him standing before the King had not done him justice. He was as fair as his cousin, his eyes as dark a blue, and he fit the popular conception of “war hero” to perfection.

“Wrap a bluidy bandage around his forehead, gie him a sword in one hand and a flag in the other, and he’d do for a recruitment poster,” Hamish remarked sourly. “Only they bombed poor sods in the trenches, those fine airmen, and shot other pilots down in flames. I wonder now, is burning to death worse than smothering in the mud?”

Rutledge shivered involuntarily.

Wilton greeted Rutledge with a nod, making the same comment that his cousin had made earlier. “You must be the man from London.”

“Inspector Rutledge. I’d like to talk to you, if you don’t mind.” He glanced at Mrs. Davenant. “If you would excuse us?”

She rose with smiling grace and said, “I’ll be in the garden if you want to see me again before you go.” She gave her cousin a comfortable glance, and left the room, shutting the door gently behind her.

“I don’t know what questions you may have,” Wilton said at once, setting his walking stick in a stand by the door and taking the chair she had vacated. “But I can tell you that I wasn’t the person who shot Charles Harris.”

“Why should I think you were?” Rutledge asked.

“Because you aren’t a fool, and I know how Forrest danced around his suspicions, hemming and hawing over my abrupt departure from Mallows on Sunday evening and wanting to know what Charles and I were discussing that next morning when that damned fool Hickam claims to have seen us in the lane.”

“As a point of interest, did you and the Colonel meet on Monday morning? In the lane or anywhere else, for that matter?”

“No.” The single word was unequivocal.

“What was your quarrel about after dinner on the night before the murder?”

“It was a personal matter, nothing to do with this enquiry. You may take my word for it.”

“There are no personal matters when it comes to murder,” Rutledge said. “I’ll ask you again. What were you discussing that Sunday evening after Miss Wood went up to her room?”

“And I’ll tell you again that it’s none of your business.” Wilton was neither angry nor irritated, only impatient.

“Did it have anything to do with your marriage to Miss Wood?”

“We didn’t discuss my marriage.” Rutledge took note, however, of the change in wording. My, not our.

“Then did you discuss the settlement? Where you’d live after the wedding? How you’d live?”

Muscles around his mouth tightened, but he answered readily enough. “That had all been worked out months before. The settlement was never a problem. Lettice has her own money. We’d live in Somerset, where I have a house, and visit here as often as she liked.” He hesitated, then added, “I’d expected, after the war, to go into aircraft design. Next to flying it’s what I wanted most to do. Now—I’m not as sure as I was.”

“Why not?” When Wilton didn’t answer immediately, Rutledge continued, “For reasons of money?”

Wilton shook his head impatiently. “I’m tired of killing. I spent four years proving that the machines I flew were good at it. And that’s all His Majesty’s ministers want to hear about aeroplanes at the moment, how to make them deadlier. My mother’s people are in banking; there are other choices open to me.” But there was a bleakness in his voice.

Rutledge responded to it, recognizing it. He himself had debated the wisdom of returning to the Yard, coming back to the business of murder. Before the war it had been another facet of the law his father had given a lifetime to upholding. Now—he had seen too many dead bodies…. Yet it was what he knew best.

Then, bringing himself up sharply, he said more harshly than he had intended, “Have you seen Miss Wood since her guardian’s death?”

Wilton seemed surprised that it should matter to Rutledge. “No, as a matter of fact, I haven’t.”

“She apparently has no other family. Under the circumstances, it would be natural for you to be at her side.”

“And so I would be, if there was anything I might do for her!” he retorted stiffly. “Look, I went to Mallows as soon as I heard the news. Dr. Warren was already there, and he said she needed rest, that the shock had been severe. I sent up a message by Mary—one of the maids—but Lettice was already asleep. Warren warned me that it could be several days before she recovered sufficiently to see anyone. I’ve made an effort to respect his judgment. Under the circumstances, as you so aptly put it, there isn’t much else I can do, as long as she’s asleep in her bedroom.”

But she hadn’t been asleep when Rutledge called….

“Dr. Warren has been sedating her, then?”

“What do you think? She was wild at first, she insisted that she be taken to Charles at once. Which of course Warren could hardly do! And then she collapsed. She lost both her parents when she was four, and I don’t suppose she remembers them clearly. Charles has been the only family she’s known.”

Rutledge took the opening he’d been given. “Tell me what sort of person Charles Harris was.”

Wilton’s eyes darkened. “A fine officer. A firm friend. A loving guardian. A gentleman.”

It sounded like an epitaph written by a besotted widow, something Queen Victoria might have said about Prince Albert in a fit of high-flown passion.

“Which tells me absolutely nothing.” Rutledge’s voice was quiet, but there was a crackle to it now. “Did he have a temper? Was he a man who carried a grudge? Did he make enemies easily, did he keep his friends? Was he a heavy drinker? Did he have affairs? Was he honest in his business dealings?”

Wilton frowned, his elbows on the chair arm, his fingers steepled before his face, half concealing it. “Yes, he had a temper, but he’d learned long ago to control it. I don’t know if he carried grudges or not, but most of his friends were Army, men he’d served with for many years. I don’t know if he had enemies—I never heard of any, unless you wish to include that idiot Mavers. As for his drinking, I’ve seen Charles drunk—we all got drunk in France, when we could—but he was a moderate drinker as a rule, and affairs with women must have been discreet. I’ve never heard him described as a womanizer. You’ll have to ask Royston about business matters, I’ve no idea how they stand.”

“You met Harris during the war?”

“In France just at the end of 1914. In spite of the differences in age and rank we became friends. A year ago, when he heard I was coming out of hospital, he brought me to Mallows for the weekend. That’s when I met his ward. If he had secrets, he managed to keep them from me. I saw nothing vicious, mean, or unworthy in the man.” The hands had come down, as if the need for them as a shield had passed.

This was a better epitaph, but still no help to Rutledge, who wanted the living flesh and blood and bone of the man.

“And yet he died violently in a quiet English meadow this past Monday morning, and while everyone tells me he was a good man, no one seems to be in any particular haste to find his killer. I find that rather curious.”

“Of course we want the killer found!” Wilton responded, coloring angrily. “Whoever it is deserves to hang, and what I can do, I shall do. But I can’t think of any reason why Charles should have been shot, and you damned well wouldn’t thank me for muddying the waters for you with wild, useless conjectures!”

“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.

Watching, it was easy to see that Hickam was used to vehicles coming from every direction, and he directed his invisible traffic with efficient skill, sorting out the tangle as if he stood at a busy intersection where long convoys were passing.

He sent a few one way, then turned his attention to the left, his hand vigorously signaling that they were to turn and turn now, while he shouted to someone to get those sodding horses moving or called for men to help dig the wheels of an artillery caisson out of the sodding mud. He snapped a smart salute at officers riding past—there was no mistaking his pantomime—then swiftly turned it into a rude gesture that would have pleased tired men slogging their way back from the bloody Front or the frightened men moving forward to take their place.

In France Rutledge had seen dozens of men stationed at junctions in the rain or the hot sun, keeping a moribund army moving in spite of itself, yelling directions, swearing at laggards, indicating with practiced movements exactly what they expected the chaos around them to do. Many had died where they stood, in the shelling or strafing and bombing, trying desperately to keep the flow of badly needed arms and men from bogging down completely.

But the carts, carriages, and handful of cars of Upper Streetham merely swerved a little to miss Hickam, used to him and leaving him standing where he was in the middle of the road as if he were something nasty that a passing horse had left behind. Some of the women on foot hesitated before crossing near him, drawing aside their skirts with nervous distaste and turning their faces in fear. Yet none of the village urchins mocked him, and Rutledge, noticing that, asked why.

“For one thing, he’s been home nearly eleven months now, since the hospital let him go. For another, he took a stick to the ringleader, shouting at him in bastard French. Broke the boy’s collarbone for him.” He kept his eyes on Hickam as he swung around to face another direction, jerking his thumb at a line of convoy traffic, locked in a past that no one else could share.

“The lad’s father told us the boy deserved what he got, but there were others who felt Hickam ought to be shut up before he harmed anyone else. People like Hickam—well, they’re not normal, are they? But the Vicar wouldn’t hear of an asylum, he said Hickam was an accursed soul, in need of prayer.”

“God Almighty,” Hamish said softly. “That’s you in five years—only it won’t be traffic, will it, that you remember? It’ll be the trenches and the men, and the blood and the stink, and the shells falling hour after hour, until the brain splits apart with the din. And you’ll be shouting for us to get over the top or take cover or hold the line while the nurses strap you down to the bed and nobody heeds your frenzied screams when Corporal Hamish—”

“I’ll see us both dead first,” Rutledge said between clenched teeth, “I swear—”

And Davies, startled, looked at him in confusion.

4

You can see he’s half out of his head,” Davies said again uneasily, as Rutledge sat there, rigidly staring at the disheveled figure in the middle of the sunlit, busy High Street. The Sergeant wasn’t sure he’d understood the London man, and wondered if perhaps he had misquoted what the Captain had said to the Colonel: “I’ll see you in hell first.” Should he correct Rutledge then? Or pretend he hadn’t noticed? He wasn’t sure how to take this man—on the other hand, he hadn’t seemed to be in haste to arrest Captain Wilton, and that counted for something.

“Out of his head? No, locked into it. Hickam must have been directing traffic when the shelling started, and stayed with it until one came too close. That’s why he’s behaving this way,” Rutledge said, half to himself. “It’s the last thing he remembers.”

“I don’t know about that, sir—”

“I do,” Rutledge said curtly, recollecting where he was, and with whom.

“Yes, sir,” Davies answered doubtfully. “But I can tell you there’s no talking to him now. He won’t hear you. He’s in his own mad world. We’ll have to come back later.”

“Then we’ll see the meadow where the body was found. But first I want to find the doctor. Dr. Warren.”

“He’s just down there, past the Inn. You can see his house from here.”

It was a narrow stone-faced building that had been turned into a small surgery, and Dr. Warren was just preparing to leave when Rutledge came to his door and introduced himself.

“I want to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

“I do,” Warren said testily. He was elderly, stooped and graying, but his blue eyes were sharp beneath heavy black brows. “I’ve got a very sick child on my hands and a woman in labor. It’ll have to wait.”

“Except for one of the questions. Are you prescribing sedatives for Miss Wood?”

“Of course I am. The girl was beside herself with grief, and I was afraid she’d make herself ill into the bargain. So I left powders with Mary Satterthwaite to be given three times a day and again at night, until she’s able to deal with this business herself. No visitors, and that includes you.”

“I’ve already seen her,” Rutledge answered. “She seemed rather—abstracted. I wanted to know why.”

“You’d be abstracted yourself on what I’ve given her. She wanted to see the Colonel’s body—she thought he’d been shot neatly through the heart or some such. Well, his head had been blown off at nearly point-blank range, leaving a ragged stump of his neck. And I had to tell her that before she’d listen to me. Oh, not that bluntly, don’t be a fool! But enough to deter her. That’s when she fainted, and by the time we got her to bed, she was just coming out of it. So I gave her a powder in some water, and she drank it without knowing what it was. And now there’s a baby that’s going to be born while I stand here discussing sedatives with you. A first baby, and the husband’s worthless, he’ll probably faint too at the first sign of blood. So get out of my way.”

He went brusquely past Rutledge and out toward the Inn, where he apparently left his car during surgery hours. Rutledge watched him go, then ran lightly down the steps to his own car, where Davies was still sitting.

Driving on down the High Street, Rutledge slowed as Davies pointed out the track that began behind the tree-shaded churchyard, the one that Wilton claimed he had taken. It climbed up through a neat quilt of plowed fields, mostly smallholdings according to the Sergeant, that ran to the crest of a low ridge, and then it made its way down the far side to a narrow stone bridge and the ruins of an old mill. A three-mile walk in all, give or take a little.

The church sat not on the High Street itself but just off it, at the end of a small close of magpie houses that faced one another on what Davies called Court Street. Rutledge thought these might be medieval almshouses, for they were of a similar size and design, all fourteen of them. He turned into the close and stopped at the far end, by the lych-gate in front of the church. Leaving the motor running, he walked to the rough wall that encircled the graveyard, hoping for a better look at the track. He wanted a feeling for how it went, and whether there might be places from which a plowman or a farm wife feeding chickens might overlook it. He needed witnesses, people who had seen Wilton out for his morning walk and climbing this hill with nothing in his hand except a walking stick. Or—had not seen him at all, which might be equally important…

The start of the track was empty except for a squabbling pair of ravens. The rest of it ran out of sight of the village for most of its length, for it followed the line of trees that bordered the cultivated fields, and their branches shaded it this time of year. He could see a cow tied out to graze, and that was all.

Returning to the car, he asked, “Can you reach the meadow where the body was found, from this track?”

“Aye, you can’t see it from here, unless you know where to look, but there’s a smaller track that branches off from this one, about two fields away from us. If you follow that, you’ll come to the hedgerow that runs along the boundary of the Colonel’s land. It’s there that the smaller track connects with another one running up from Smithy Lane—I’ll show you that, because it’s where I found Hickam, drunk as a lord. Think of it as a rough H, sir, this track by the church and the other by Smithy Lane forming the legs and climbing to the ridge, whilst the bar of the H is the smaller one cutting across.”

“Yes, I follow you. Once you’ve reached the hedgerow, what then?”

“Find a break in it and you’ll be in the fields where the Colonel raises corn. Above them there’s a patch of rough land that’s put to hay, between the hedgerow and a copse of trees. On the far side of those trees lies the meadow. That’s the scene of the murder.”

Rutledge reversed. Back on the High Street again, he saw Hickam weaving an uncertain path along the pavement. His head down, he was muttering to himself, once or twice flinging out an arm in a gesture of disgust. He looked half drunk now, a man without pride or grace or spirit. Neither Rutledge nor Davies made any comment, but both could see that there was no need to stop.

Still driving in the direction he had taken to Mallows earlier, Rutledge saw Smithy Lane some thirty feet ahead, just as Davies pointed it out to him. An unpaved street, it ran between the busy blacksmith’s shop and a livery stable on the right and the ironmonger’s on the left. Beyond these businesses were six or seven run-down houses straggling up the slope of the hill toward the fields beyond. Where the last house stood, the lane became a cart track and soon the cart track narrowed into a country path of ruts and mud puddles. Rutledge drove gingerly, his attention on tires and axles.

But then the cart track eventually lost its way in a tangle of hawthorns and wild cherry, and here they left the car. As Davies got out, he said, “It’s here I found Hickam—he’d fallen asleep in the leaves yonder. And there,” he said, pointing to the last open ground before the track faded into the path, “is where he claims he saw the Colonel talking to Captain Wilton.”

“Did you look for signs of a horseman here? Or the prints of Wilton’s boots in the dust?”

“Inspector Forrest came to look the next morning, and then said we’d best leave this business to Scotland Yard.”

“But were there signs of the two men?”

“Not that he could see.”

Which probably meant that he hadn’t wanted to find anything. Rutledge nodded and they moved on, soon afterward passing the point where the rather overgrown track from the east met this one.

“And that’s the bar of the H, sir, like I said.”

Skirting a field of marrows, they came at length to the hedgerows. Sergeant Davies quickly found his way through them, into the fields of young wheat beyond.

“We’re on Mallows land now,” he said. The edges of the fields where they walked were still heavy with wet earth, clinging to their boots in great clots. The hayfield higher up was a wall of tall wet stalks rimmed with weeds. Burrs stuck to their trousers and wild roses caught at their coats. Davies swore once with fervent imagination as he was stung by nettles, and then they were in the copse, where walking was easier, almost silent on a cushion of damp leaves. They came out of the stand of trees into a small, sunny meadow, where the sound of bees filled the air.

The rain had washed away any signs of blood, but the grass was still bruised and trampled from the many feet that had milled around the body.

“He lay just about there, chest down, toward the wood, one arm under him and the other out-flung. His legs were straight, slightly bent at the knees but that’s all. I’d say he fell from the horse and never moved, not even a twitch. So his attacker must have come out of the trees, just as we did. Say, just here,” Davies explained, moving a few feet away from where the body had been found. “Not more than ten feet, anyway, from where the body fell, depending on whether the shot knocked him out of the saddle or he fell out of it.”

“If he was knocked out of it, why was he on his face—chest? If he was shot from the front, the force of the blast would have driven him out of the saddle backward. Even if the horse had bolted in terror, his feet would slip out of the stirrups and he’d have come off backward. On his back, Sergeant! Or his side. But not facedown.”

Davies chewed his lip. “I thought about that myself. That Harris must have been shot from the back, to fall forward on his chest. But that doesn’t fit with the horse—I saw it, there was blood all over the saddle and its haunches, but not on its ears or mane. You’d have thought, if Harris’s head had exploded from behind, not the front, that the horse’s mane would have been matted with blood and brains.”

“Then someone turned him over. The search party?”

“They swear they never touched the corpse. And there was no question but that he was dead—they didn’t need to move him.”

“The killer, then?”

Davies shook his head. “Why would he do that? He’d be wanting to get as far away as he could, in case someone heard the shot and came to see what it was.”

Rutledge looked around. “We’ve come two miles, or thereabouts. How far is the other track from this wood?”

“Two miles, a little more than that. Shorter if you don’t mind rougher going than we just had.”

“So Wilton could have reached the meadow either way—from the lane where we came up, if Hickam is right, or from the churchyard path, if Wilton walked that way, as he claims he did.”

“Aye, but it isn’t likely, is it? Somehow I just don’t see the Captain waiting in the trees to shoot the Colonel from ambush! Besides, when Hickam saw him, he wasn’t carrying a shotgun, was he? So where did he get the gun, and where is it now?”

“A good question, that. You’ve scoured the area looking for it?”

“Aye, as soon as possible we had men in the trees there and in the tall grass. But by that time, who knows what might have become of the weapon. The killer’s hidden it somewhere, most likely.”

Looking about him, Rutledge thought, It isn’t where he’s hidden it that’s half as important as where he got it.

Davies pointed and said, “Look, if you go down this hill, over the fields yonder, and across the stile when you come to another line of hedgerows, you soon find yourself in the orchard behind Mallows, and that takes you to the gardens and the house itself. Of course, you can’t see it from here, but the going’s fairly straight if you know your way. The land’s a pie wedge, like. Mallows is out on the Warwick road, and we’ve come up from the High Street. The crust, so to speak, runs from Upper Streetham to Warwick. Up here now, we’re at the point of the wedge, having come up one side. If we followed the other side, that would be the Haldane property over there.”

He turned to point generally in that direction, then faced the way they had just come. “Behind the church are the smallholdings you saw from the churchyard. Beyond them is Crichton land. This meadow then is farther from Mallows—the house, I mean—and the village, than any other part of the Harris property.”

“Which means the killer chose this place because he felt sure the shot might not be heard. There aren’t any other houses in this area?”

“No.”

Rutledge walked around the meadow for a while longer, not knowing what he expected to find and finding nothing. Finally, satisfied, he called to Davies and they started back toward the car.

But he changed his mind when he reached the field of marrows and said, “We’ll walk along the track—the crossbar of the H—as far as that other path coming up from the churchyard. I want to see for myself how these two connect.”

The track meandered, but bore mainly eastward through plowed fields, crops already standing greenly after the rain. It joined the churchyard path in the middle of a stretch of fallow land, more or less out in the open. They were standing there while Davies described how they could continue over the ridge to the mill ruins when they saw a woman in the distance, her skirts blowing in the wind as she crested the ridge, her stride long and competent and graceful.

Sergeant Davies shaded his eyes. “That’s Miss Sommers—Miss Helena Sommers. She and her cousin live in a little cottage that belongs to the Haldanes. They let it for the summer, now and again, when there’s no other tenant.”

“She’s the woman who encountered Wilton on his walk?”

“Aye, she’s the one.”

Rutledge moved in her direction. “Then we’ll see if we can talk to her now.”

Davies hailed her in a baritone that carried clearly, and she turned, acknowledging the shout with a wave.

Miss Sommers was in her late twenties or early thirties, her face strong and her eyes a clear and untroubled gray. She stood waiting for them, calling, “Good morning!”

“This is Inspector Rutledge from London,” Davies said, more than a little short-winded after the fast pace Rutledge had set. “He’s wanting to ask you some questions if you don’t mind.”

“Of course. How can I help you?” She turned toward Rutledge, shielding her eyes from the sun as she looked up at him.

“Did you see or hear anything unusual on Monday morning when Colonel Harris was shot? I understand you were out walking.”

“Yes, I was. But this part of the country is rather hilly, and the echoes do funny things with sound. I didn’t hear a gunshot, but once over the crest of the hill there, I wouldn’t be likely to if it came from this side.” She smiled, indicating the fine pair of field glasses around her neck. “I enjoy watching birds, and when I first came here, I was forever getting confused. I’d hear a song and swear my quarry was in that tree, only to discover he was nothing of the sort, he was in a bush over there. And the next time it would be just the opposite.” The smile faded. “They say Colonel Harris was shot in a meadow—the small one beyond a copse of trees. Is that true?”

“Yes.”

She nodded. “I know where it is then. I followed a pair of nesting robins there one afternoon. I wouldn’t have been very likely to hear any sounds from there, I’m afraid.”

“Did you see anyone?”

“Captain Wilton,” she answered with some reluctance. “I didn’t speak to him, but I did see him, and he waved.”

“At what time was this?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Early, I think. Around eight, I imagine, or a little after. I was engrossed in tracking a cuckoo and was mainly glad that Wilton wasn’t the sort who’d want to stop and chatter.”

“Which way was he going?”

“The same way you are.”

“Toward the old mill, then.”

“Yes, I suppose so. I wasn’t really paying much attention, he was just walking along here. I saw him, realized who it was, waved, and then went on my way.”

“Did you know the Colonel well?”

“Hardly at all. We’ve been here since April, and he very kindly asked us to dinner one evening. But my cousin is shy, almost a recluse, and she didn’t want to go. I did, enjoyed the evening, and that was that. We spoke to each other on the High Street, and I waved if I saw him out riding, but that’s about all I can tell you.”

“And you know the Captain well enough to be certain you did see him and not someone else?”

She smiled, the gray eyes lighting within. “A woman doesn’t forget Mark Wilton, once she’s seen him. He’s very handsome.”

“How would you describe the Colonel?”

She considered his question, as if she hadn’t given much thought to the Colonel before now. “He was younger than I expected. And rather attractive in a quiet way. Widely read for a military man—we had a very interesting discussion over dinner about American poets, and he seemed to know Whitman quite well.” She brushed a strand of windblown hair out of her face. “He seemed a likable man, on short acquaintance. A very gracious host. I can’t tell you much more, because I talked mostly to Lettice Wood after dinner and then to Mrs. Davenant, and shortly after that, the party broke up.”

“How would you describe relations between Wilton and Colonel Harris?”

“Relations? I hardly know.” She thought back to that evening for a moment, then said, “They seemed comfortable with each other, like men who have known each other over a long period of time. That’s all I can remember.”

“Thank you, Miss Sommers. If you should think of anything else that might help us, please get in touch with Sergeant Davies or me.”

“Yes, of course.” She hesitated, then asked, “I’ve gone on with my walks. I suppose that’s all right? My cousin frets and begs me to stay home, but I hate being cooped up. There’s no—well, danger—is there?”

“From the Colonel’s killer?”

She nodded.

“I doubt that you have anything to fear, Miss Sommers. All the same, you might exercise reasonable caution. We still don’t know why the Colonel was killed, or by whom.”

“Well, I wish you luck in finding him,” she said, and went striding off.

“A pleasant lady,” Davies said, watching her go. “Her cousin, now, she’s as timid as a mouse. Never shows her face in the village, but keeps the cottage as clean as a pin. Mrs. Haldane was saying that she thought the poor girl was a half-wit at first, but went over to the cottage one day to ask how they were settling in, and saw that she’s just shy, as Miss Sommers said, and on the plain side.”

Rutledge was not interested in the shy Miss Sommers. He was tired and hungry, and Hamish had been mumbling under his breath for the last half hour, a certain sign of tumult in his own mind. It was time to turn back.

What bothered him most, he thought, striding along in silence, was the Colonel himself. He’d actually seen the man, heard him inspire troops who had no spirit and no strength left to fight. A tall persuasive figure in an officer’s greatcoat, his voice pitched to carry in the darkness before dawn, his own physical force somehow filling the cold, frightened emptiness in the faces before him. Convincing them that they had one more charge left in them, that together they could carry the assault and take the gun emplacement and save a thousand lives the next morning—two thousand—when the main thrust came. And the remnants of a battered force did as he had asked, only to see the main attack fail, and the hill abandoned to the Hun again within twenty-four hours.

Yet here in Upper Streetham Charles Harris seemed to be no more than a faint shadow of that officer, a quiet and “thoroughly nice” man, as Mrs. Davenant had put it. Surely not a man who was likely to be murdered.

How do you put your fingers on the pulse of a dead man and bring him to life? Rutledge had been able to do that at one time, had in the first several cases of his career shown an uncanny knack for seeing the victim from the viewpoint of the murderer and understanding why he or she had had to die. Because the solution to a murder was sometimes just that—finding out why the victim had to die. But here in Warwickshire the Colonel seemed to elude him….

Except to acknowledge the fact that once more he would be dealing with death, he, Rutledge, had never really thought through the problems of resuming his career at the Yard. At least not while he was still at the clinic, locked in despair and his own fears. To be honest about it, he’d seen his return mainly as the answer to his desperate need to stay busy, to shut out Hamish, to shut out Jean, to shut out, indeed, the shambles of his life.

Even back in London, he had never really considered whether or not he was good enough still at his work to return to it. He hadn’t considered whether the skills and the intuitive grasp of often frail threads of information, which had been his greatest asset, had been damaged along with the balance of his mind by the horrors of the war. Whether he could be a good policeman again. He’d simply expected his ability to come back without effort, like remembering how to ride or how to swim, rusty skills that needed only a new honing….

Now, suddenly, he was worried about that. One more worry, one more point of stress, and it was stress that gave Hamish access to his conscious mind. The doctors had told him that.

He sighed, and Sergeant Davies, clumping along through the grass beside him, said, “Aye, it’s been a long morning, and we’ve gotten nowhere.”

“Haven’t we?” Rutledge asked, forcing his attention back to the business in hand. “Miss Sommers said she did see Wilton walking this track. But where was he coming from? The churchyard, as he claims? Or had he walked by way of the lane, as Hickam claims, met the Colonel, and then crossed over this way? Or—did he go after Harris, follow him to the meadow, with murder on his mind?”

“But this way leads to the ruins by the old bridge, just as he told us, and Miss Sommers saw him here around eight, she thought. So we’re no nearer to the truth than we were before.”

“Yes, all right, but since Miss Sommers saw him here, he’d be bound to tell us that he was heading for the mill, wouldn’t he? No matter where he’d actually been—or was actually going.”

“Do you think he’s guilty, then?” Sergeant Davies couldn’t keep the disappointment out of his voice.

“There isn’t enough information at this point to make any decision at all. But it’s possible, yes.” They had reached the car again, and Rutledge opened his door, then stopped to pick the worst of the burrs from his trousers. Davies was standing by the bonnet, fanning himself with his hat, his face red from the exertion.

Still following a train of thought, Rutledge said, “If Miss Sommers is right and Wilton was up there in the high grass early on, say eight o’clock, he might well have been a good distance from the meadow by the time the Colonel was shot. Assuming, as we must, that the horse came straight home and the Colonel died somewhere between nine-thirty and ten o’clock, when Royston went down to the stables looking for him.”

“Aye, he would have reached the ruins and the bridge in that time, it’s true. So you’re saying then that it still hangs on Hickam’s word that Captain Wilton was in the lane, and when that was.”

“It appears that way. Without Hickam, there’s no evidence where the Captain had come from before he ran into Miss Sommers. No evidence of a further quarrel. And no real reason except for what Johnston and Mary overheard in the hall at Mallows for us to believe that the Captain had any cause to shoot Harris.”

Sergeant Davies brightened. “And no jury in this county is going to take a Daniel Hickam’s word over that of a man holding the Victoria Cross.”

“You’re forgetting something, Sergeant,” Rutledge said, climbing into the car.

“What’s that, sir?” Davies asked anxiously, coming around and peering into the car from the passenger side so that he could see Rutledge’s face.

“If Wilton didn’t shoot Harris, then who did? And who turned the corpse over?”

After lunch at the Shepherd’s Crook, Rutledge took out the small leather notebook, made a number of entries, and then considered what he should do next. He had sent Davies home to his wife for lunch, while he lingered over his own coffee in the dining room, enjoying the brief solitude.

What was Harris like? That seemed to be the key. What lay buried somewhere in the man’s life that was to bring him to a bloody death in a sunlit meadow?

Or to turn it another way, why did he have to die that morning? Why not last week—last year—ten years from now?

Something had triggered the chain of events that ended in that meadow. Something said—or left unsaid. Something done—or left undone. Something felt, something glimpsed, something misunderstood, something that had festered into an angry explosion of gunpowder and shot.

Royston, Wilton, Mrs. Davenant, Lettice Wood. Four different people with four vastly different relationships to the dead man. Royston an employee, Wilton a friend, Mrs. Davenant a neighbor, and Lettice Wood his ward. Surely he must have shown a different personality to each of them. It was human nature to color your moods and your conversations and your temperament to suit your company. Surely one of the four must have seen a side to his character that would lead the police to an answer.

It was hard to believe that Charles Harris had no sins heavy on his conscience, no faces haunting his dreams, no shadows on his soul. There was no such thing as a perfect English gentleman—

Hamish had started humming a tune, and Rutledge tried to ignore it, but it was familiar, and in the way of songs that run unbidden through the mind, it dragged his attention away from his own speculations. And then suddenly he realized what it was—a half-forgotten Victorian ballad called “The Proper English Gentleman” written by a less well known contemporary of Kipling’s—less popular perhaps because his sentiments were bitter and lacked Kipling’s fine sense of what the reading public would put up with, and what it would turn from. But the ballad had been popular enough in the trenches during the war:

He’s a proper English gentleman who never spills

his beer.

He dines with all the ladies and never shows his fear

Of picking up the wrong fork or swearing at the soup

When it’s hot enough to burn him, or jumping

through the hoop

Of English society, and all it represents.

But he’s a damned good soldier in front of all the

troops

And marches like a gentleman in his fine leather

boots

And eats in the reg’lar mess and calls the men by

name

And shares the dirty work with ’em, what’s called

the killing game

Of English Imperialism and all it represents.

But by his own hearthside he’s a very different sort

And he beats his tenants quarterly and no one dares

retort,

He takes their wives and daughters, and never stops

to think

That a man might someday shoot him when he’s

had enough to drink!

Of English duplicity, and all it represents,

He’s the finest of examples, and there’s others of his

kind

Who keep their secrets closely and never seem to mind

That the man who sits at table and has their deepest

trust

Might carry in his bosom the foulest kind of lust,

Not English respectability, and all it represents.

So watch your step, my laddies, keep your distance,

ladies dear,

Watch out for English gentlemen and don’t ever let

them near.

Their faces won’t betray them, their deeds are fine

and true,

But put them near temptation and it really will not

do—

For certain English gentlemen and all they represent.

What was the secret behind Charles Harris’s very proper face? What had he done, this apparently “thoroughly nice” man, that had made someone want to obliterate him, and to choose a shotgun at point-blank range to do it?

Barton Redfern was just removing the coffee things and turning to limp back to the kitchen when Dr. Warren came through the dining-room door and, seeing Rutledge at the table by the window, crossed hurriedly to him.

“You’d better come,” he said. “They’re about to lynch that stupid devil Mavers!”

5

Mavers, sprawled in the dust by the worn shaft of the village’s market cross, was bloody and defiant, spitting curses as a dozen men tried to kick and drag him toward the broad oak tree that stood outside a row of shops. There was murder in the angry faces encircling him, and someone had found a length of rope, although Rutledge wasn’t sure whether the initial intent was to hang Mavers or tie him to the tree for a sound thrashing. One man was carrying a horsewhip, and when in the confusion a heavy blow intended for Mavers caught him on the shin instead, he wheeled and lashed out in retaliation. The whip flicked across several heads, and for an instant it looked as if a general battle might ensue, while Mavers called them all every unprintable name he could think of. It was noisy, dangerous chaos on the verge of turning even nastier as other men came running toward the scene, shouting encouragement.

Women had hurried into the safety of the nearest shops, their pale faces peering out of windows in horror, while the shopkeepers stood in their doorways, demanding that this nonsense stop. Children clinging to their mothers’ skirts were crying, and four or five dogs attracted by the din had begun to bark excitedly.

As Hamish growled over the odds in some far corner of his mind, Rutledge reached the melee and began forcing his way through with rough disregard for victim or victimizer. He used his voice with coldly calculated effect, the officer commanding discipline, Authority in the flesh, a man to be reckoned with. “That’s enough! Let him go, or I’ll have the lot of you up before the magistrate for assault! Touch me with that whip, you fool, and you’ll be flat on your back with your arm broken….”

His unexpected onslaught scattered the attackers for an instant, and Rutledge quickly had Mavers by his collar, yanking him to his feet with blistering impatience. “Now what’s this all about?”

Dr. Warren had followed Rutledge as fast as he could, and reaching the market cross, began catching men by the arm and calling them by name. “Matt, don’t be stupid, put that whip down. Tom, George, look at the lot of you! Your wife will take a flatiron to you for ripping that coat, Will, wait and see if she doesn’t!”

Mavers, wiping his bloody nose on the sleeve of his shirt, said to Rutledge, “I don’t need the likes of you to fight my battles for me! A policeman stinks of his masters, and I can smell oppression, London’s bourgeois fist in the backs of the people—”

Rutledge gave a jerk of his collar that silenced Mavers with a choking grunt. Warren had stopped tongue-lashing the disgruntled villagers still milling around the market cross and was already casting a professional eye over cuts and bruises and one swelling lip.

Then the affair was over as quickly as it had begun, and Warren said, “Take Mavers to my surgery. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

Rutledge’s eyes swept the circle of faces, grimness changing slowly to sullen mortification on most of them, and decided that there would be no more trouble here. With one hand still gripping the rumpled collar, he marched Mavers down the street and across to the doctor’s surgery, ignoring the man’s protests and the stares of latecomers. Warren’s housekeeper, prim and neat in starched black, was waiting in the doorway. She looked at Mavers’s condition with disgust and said, “Don’t you dare drip blood on my clean floor!” before going off to fetch cold water and a handful of cloths.

“What the hell were you trying to do out there, take on half the village?” Rutledge asked, standing in the entrance hall waiting for the housekeeper to come back, one eye on the street.

“I told the fools what they didn’t want to hear. I told them the truth.” His voice was thick and muffled from the swelling nose, like a man with a head cold.

“Which was?”

“That they were too blind to see their chance and take it. That their precious war hero had feet of clay. That the Colonel was nothing but an oppressor of the workingman and deserved what he got.” Warming to his theme, he went on, “It’s the fate of all landlords, to be taken out and shot and their lands given to the peasants. And here somebody has already gone and done the peasants’ bloody work for them.”

“I’m sure Matt Wilmore liked being called a peasant,” Dr. Warren said, coming through the door behind Rutledge, “just when he’s bought his own farm and is proud as punch of it.” His housekeeper arrived with a basin of water and wads of lint to use packing Mavers’s nose, but it wasn’t broken, only thoroughly bloodied. “That was Tom Dillingham’s fist, I’ll wager,” Warren said with some satisfaction as he cleaned up Mavers’s truculent face. “He’s something of a legend around here,” he added to Rutledge, “made enough money as a pugilist to buy a bit of land down by the Ware. He’s not likely to take to being called a peasant either. Even those who are tenants—Haldane’s or Mrs. Crichton’s—aren’t going to swallow it. Peasants went out with Wat Tyler in 1340 or whenever the hell it was.”

Rutledge smiled. Mavers said, “Can I go now?”

Warren washed his hands. “Yes, be off with you, I’ve got more important things to do. Ungrateful fool!”

Rutledge led him outside and said, “Don’t be in any hurry, Mavers, I want to talk to you.”

“About the Colonel’s death?” He grinned, the bloodshot eyes as yellow as a goat’s. Mavers was not a big man, and had the wizened look of poor food and bad health in early childhood, his face pointed and sallow, his hair thin and a dusty brown. But his eyes were vivid, their color giving his face its only character. “You can’t accuse me of touching him. I was here in Upper Streetham that morning, lecturing all those busy market goers on the evils of capitalism. Ask anybody, they’ll tell you as much.”

But there was a gloating in the way he said it that made Rutledge wonder what he was hiding. Mavers was very pleased with himself, and not above taunting the police.

A born troublemaker, just as everyone had said. Still, such a man could put that sort of reputation to good use, hiding behind it quite easily. People might shake their heads in disgust, but their perception of Mavers gave him the freedom to make a nuisance of himself without fear of retribution. “What do you expect? That’s Mavers for you!” or “What’s the damned fool going to get up to next?” People ignored him, expecting the worst and getting it. Half the time not seeing him, seeing only their own image of him…

“What do you do for a living?”

Caught off guard, Mavers shot Rutledge a glance out of the corner of those goat’s eyes. “What do you mean?”

“How do you find the money to live?”

Mavers grinned again. “Oh, I manage well enough on my pension.”

“Pension?”

Sergeant Davies came running toward them, a smear of mustard like a yellow mustache across his upper lip. “I’ve taken care of that lot,” he said. “Damned fools! What have you been about this time, Mavers? The Inspector yonder should have let them hang you and be done with it!”

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 Mavers, “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 remembered—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. Rutledge 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 Lettice. 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. Davenant 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. Mavers 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?”

Suddenly 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 Haldanes 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!”

Rutledge heard two things in Mavers’s diatribe—the ring of truth, and the echo of envy. “You’re talking about a boy. Twenty, perhaps? Not much older than that. And you were what? Fourteen? Fifteen?” he said carefully.

The red flush returned to Mavers’s face. “What does age have to do with it? Is there some special dispensation for cruelty if you’re rich and under twenty?”

“You know there isn’t. But a man generally isn’t judged by what he did as a boy, he’s judged by what he did as a man.”

Mavers shrugged. “Boy or man, he’s the same. Besides, the damage is done, isn’t it? And the man at forty may be a saint, but the rest of us are still bleeding from what he did when he was twenty. Who’s to put that right? Who’s to bring Annie back, or Jeff? Or Ma. Tell me!”

Rutledge looked around the room, at the worn, plain furniture and the threadbare carpet on the floor, half hidden by the papers, at the damp-stained walls and the windows streaked with dust, all of it dappled by the tree leaves outside as a passing wind stirred them and let in a little light. He’d met men like Mavers before. Hungry for something they didn’t have, and ignorant of how to go about getting it, hating those who had had life given to them easily. Lost men, angry men, dangerous men…because they had no pride of their own to bolster their self-esteem.

“Hating doesn’t put it right either, does it?”

The goat’s eyes were hard. “It does give life a purpose, all the same.”

Preparing to go, Rutledge said, “As long as it doesn’t lead to murder. There’s never an excuse for murder.”

He was nearly out the door into the hall when Hamish said under his breath, “But who’s a murderer, then? The man who carried that shotgun yonder, or the officer who shoots his own men?”

Startled, Rutledge half turned as if Mavers had spoken, not the voice in his own head. And as he looked back, he saw what had been concealed behind Mavers’s chair and by Mavers’s body and by the books piled on the table—a shotgun, leaning against the wall where it met the jutting corner of the hearth, almost lost in the deep shadow there.

6

Satisfied after her conversation with Inspector Forrest, Catherine Tarrant rode slowly back down the High Street, threading her way through the late-afternoon shoppers and the workmen going about their business. Her eyes quickly scanned their faces, but no one spoke to her and she didn’t stop to ask the whereabouts of the one person she sought. Turning her head to glance down Smithy Lane, she almost ran down a small boy dragging his dog behind him on a rope. The dog was too interested in the smells along their route to pay much heed to its master, and looked up with a wide, sloppy grin when she braked hastily to avoid them.

“George Miller, you’ve got that rope too tight,” she said, but the boy gave her a frightened glance and tugged all the harder. The dog followed him good-naturedly, and she sighed in exasperation. Then she saw Daniel Hickam come out of one of the run-down houses beyond the smithy.

Upper Streetham turned a blind eye to the profession of the two women who occupied this particular house as long as they comported themselves with reasonable dignity elsewhere. It was whispered that they made a very good living at their trade because they could be depended on to pass their best customers on the High Street the next day without a flicker of recognition. Catherine had once tried to hire the older of the two, who had hair black as coal and eyes the color of the sea, to pose for a portrait she was painting of an aging courtesan, but the woman had turned her away in a fury.

“I don’t care what you’re painting, I have my pride, Miss Tarrant, and I’d rather starve than take money from the likes of you.”

The words had hurt. Catherine had gone to London for her model, but within three weeks had abandoned the portrait because her vision of it had somehow gone astray. The face on the canvas had become a mockery, color and lines without a soul, technical skill without depth of expression.

Pretending to inspect her tire to give Hickam a head start, Catherine waited until he was beyond the last house, finally disappearing among the shadows cast by the first of the hawthorns, at the end of the stand of long grass. Then she began to pedal slowly after him, taking her time so that no one would suspect what she was about to do.

“Whose weapon is that?” Rutledge asked, his eyes on Mavers’s face now. “Yours?”

“What weapon?”

“The one just behind you,” Rutledge snapped, in no mood for the man’s agile tongue. Why the hell hadn’t Forrest found this shotgun? If Mavers was a suspect, then he could have obtained a warrant, if necessary.

“What if it is?” Mavers asked belligerently. “I’ve a right to it, if it was left in a Will!”

“In whose Will?”

“Mr. Davenant’s Will, that’s whose.”

Rutledge walked across the room and carefully broke open the gun. It had been fired recently, but when? Three days ago? A week? Like the rest of the cottage, it was worn, neglected, the stock scratched and the barrel showing the first signs of rust, but the breech had been kept well oiled, as if Mavers was not above a bit of quiet poaching.

“Why did he leave the gun to you?”

There was a brief silence; then Mavers said with less than his usual abrasiveness, “I expect it was my father he meant. My father was once his gamekeeper, and Mr. Davenant’s Will said, ‘I leave the old shotgun to Bert Mavers, who is a better birdman than any of us.’ My father was dead by then, but the Will hadn’t been changed, and Mrs. Davenant gave the gun to me, because she said it was what her husband wanted. The lawyer from London wasn’t half pleased, I can tell you, but the Will didn’t say which Bert Mavers, did it? Alive or dead?”

“When was the last time it was fired?”

“How should I know? Or care? The door’s always open, anybody can walk in here. There’s naught to steal, is there, unless you’re after my chickens. Or need a shotgun in a bit of a hurry.” His normal nastiness resurfaced. “You can’t claim I used it, can you? I’ve got witnesses!”

“So everyone keeps telling me. But I’ll take the gun for now, if you don’t mind.”

“First I’ll have a piece of paper saying you’ll bring it back!”

Rutledge took a sheet from his notebook and scribbled a sentence on it, then signed it under the man’s baleful eye. Mavers watched him leave, and then folded the single sheet carefully and put it in a small metal box on the mantel.

Inspector Forrest was waiting for them in the magpie cottage beyond the greengrocer’s shop that served as the Upper Streetham police station. There was a small anteroom, a pair of offices, and another room at the back used as a holding cell. Seldom occupied by more serious felons than drunks and disturbers of the peace, an occasional wife beater or petty thief, this cell still had a heavy, almost medieval lock on its door, with the big iron key hanging nearby on a nail. The furnishings were old, the paint showing wear, the color of the carpet on the floors almost nondescript now, but the rooms were spotless.

Leaning across a battered desk to shake hands, Forrest introduced himself to Rutledge and said, “I’m sorry about this morning. Three dead in Lower Streetham, another in critical condition, two more seriously injured, and half the village in an uproar. I didn’t like to leave until things had settled a bit. I hope Sergeant Davies has told you everything you wanted to know.” He saw the shotgun in Rutledge’s left hand and said, “Hello, what have we here?”

“Bert Mavers says this was left to him in a Will—or rather, left to his father.”

“Good Lord! So it was! I’d forgotten about that. And Mrs. Davenant didn’t mention it either, when I went to see her about her husband’s Italian guns. It’s been years—” His face was a picture of shock and chagrin.

“We probably can’t prove it’s the murder weapon, but I’m ready to wager it was.”

Reaching for the shotgun, Forrest said with sudden enthusiasm, “Used by Mavers, do you think?”

“If so, why didn’t he have the wit to put it out of sight afterward?”

“You never know with Mavers. Nothing he does makes much sense.” Forrest examined it carefully, as if half expecting it to confess. “Yes, it’s been fired, you can see that, but there’s no saying when, is there? Still—”

“Everyone claims he was in the village all morning. Is that true?”

“Unfortunately, it appears to be.” Forrest fished in the center drawer of his desk and said, “Here’s a list of people I’ve talked to. You can see for yourself.”

Rutledge took the neatly written sheet and glanced at the names, nearly two dozen of them. Most were unfamiliar to him, but Mrs. Davenant’s was among them, and Royston’s. And Catherine Tarrant’s.

“Each of these people heard him ranting. That’s clear enough,” Forrest went on. “He was plaguing everyone who came within earshot, and each one will swear to that. Although the shopkeepers were too busy to pay much heed to him, they remember that he was making the usual nuisance of himself, and their customers were commenting on it. Putting it all together, you can see that he arrived in the market square early on and was still there at midmorning.” He rubbed his pounding temples and gestured to the two barrel-backed oak chairs across from the desk. “Sit down, sit down.”

Rutledge shook his head. “I must find Daniel Hickam.”

Inspector Forrest said, “Surely you don’t intend to take his statement seriously? There’s bound to be other evidence more worthy of your time than anything Hickam can say! If we keep looking hard enough?” He could see that the man from London was far from well, and suddenly found himself worrying about that. You don’t have the patience and the energy to give to a thorough investigation, is that it? he thought to himself. You want an easy answer, then back to the comforts of London. That’s why the Yard sent you, then, to sweep it all under the rug for them. And it’s my fault….

“I won’t know that until I’ve spoken to him, will I?”

“He can’t tell you what day of the week it is half the time, much less where he came from before you ran into him or where he might be going next. Mind’s a wasteland. Pity he didn’t die when that shell exploded—no good to himself or anyone else in his condition!”

“You took down his statement,” Rutledge pointed out. Hamish, relishing Forrest’s remark, was repeating it softly, an echo whispering across a void of fear. “…no good to himself or anyone else in his condition….” He turned away abruptly to shield his face from Forrest’s sharp gaze, and unintentionally left the impression that he was putting the blame squarely where it belonged.

“I don’t see what else I could have done. Sergeant Davies reported the conversation, and after that I had to pursue the matter,” Forrest answered defensively, “whether Hickam is mad or not. But that doesn’t mean we have to believe him. I can’t see how Wilton could be guilty of this murder. You’ve met him. It’s just not like the man, is it?”

“From what I can see, it wasn’t like the Colonel to find himself the victim of a murder either.”

“Well, no, not when you get right down to it. But he is dead, isn’t he? Either his death was accidental or it was intentional, and we have to start with murder because no one has come forward to tell us any differently. No one has said, ‘I was standing there talking to him and the horse jostled my arm, and the gun went off, and the next thing I knew the poor devil was dead.”

“Would you believe them if they did?”

Forrest sighed. “No. Only an idiot carries an unbroken shotgun.”

“Which brings us back to Mavers and his weapon. If Wilton was on either of those tracks on the morning of the murder, he could have taken the gun from Mavers’s house, fired it, then put it back before Mavers came home from the village. Hickam’s evidence is still important.”

“And if Captain Wilton could do that, so could anyone else in Upper Streetham for all we know,” Forrest retorted doggedly. “There’s still no proof.”

“There may be,” Rutledge said thoughtfully. “Captain Wilton came to stay with his cousin when her husband died. He undoubtedly knew about the Will, and the provision regarding the old shotgun. It caused some problems at the time, I understand.”

“I knew about it as well, and had forgotten it—so might he have. It’s all circumstantial! Guessing—”

“What if the Colonel was the wrong victim?”

That sent Forrest’s eyebrows up in patent disbelief. “What do you mean, ‘wrong victim’? You don’t shoot a man at point-blank range and get the wrong one! That’s foolery!”

“Yes, so it is,” Rutledge answered. “It’s also foolery that the Colonel was flawless, a man with no sins on his conscience. When people begin to tell me the truth, Captain Wilton will be far safer. Assuming, of course, that you’re right and he’s innocent.”

Leaving Sergeant Davies to check on Royston’s dental appointment in Warwick, Rutledge went searching for Hickam on his own, but the man seemed to have disappeared.

“Drunk somewhere, like enough,” Hamish said. “Yours is a dry business, man. I’d as soon have a bottle myself.”

Which was the only time Rutledge had found himself in agreement with the voice in his mind.

He turned the car toward the Inn and his thoughts toward dinner.

Which turned out to be interesting in its own way. He had hardly cut into his roast mutton when the dining room’s glass doors opened and a man with a clerical collar came in, stood for a moment surveying the room, then made his way across to where Rutledge sat.

He was nearing thirty, of medium height, with fair hair, a polished manner, and a strong sense of his own worth. Stopping by the table, he said in a rich baritone, “Inspector Rutledge? I’m Carfield. The vicar. I’ve just called again at Mallows, and Miss Wood is still unwell. Then I thought perhaps it might be wiser to ask you anyway. Can you tell me when the Colonel’s body will be released for burial?”

“We haven’t held an Inquest yet, Mr. Carfield. Sit down, won’t you? I’d like to talk to you, now that you’re here.”

Carfield accepted the offer of coffee and said, “Such a tragic business, the Colonel’s death.”

“So everyone says. Who might want to kill him?”

“Why, no one that I can think of!”

“Yet someone did.”

Studying Carfield as the man stirred cream but no sugar into his cup, Rutledge could see that he had the kind of face that would show up well on the stage, handsome and very masculine beyond the twentieth row, but too heavily boned to be called more than “strong” at close quarters. The voice too was made to carry, and grated a little in ordinary conversation. The actor was lurking there, behind the clerical collar, Sergeant Davies had been right about that.

“Tell me about Miss Wood.”

“Lettice? Very bright, with a mind of her own. She came to Mallows several years back—1917, after she’d finished school. And she’s been an ornament to the community ever since. We’re all very fond of her.”

Over the rim of his cup, Carfield was quickly assessing the Inspector, noting his thinness, the lines of tiredness about the mouth, the tense muscles around the eyes that betrayed the strain behind his mask of polite interest. But Carfield misunderstood these signs, putting them down to a man out of his depth, one who might prove useful.

“She’s taken her guardian’s death very hard.”

“After all, he was her only family. Girls are often very attached to their fathers, you know.”

“Harris could hardly be termed that,” Rutledge commented dryly.

With a graceful wave of his hand, Carfield dismissed the quibble over ages. “In loco parentis, of course.”

“From all I hear, he may well have walked on water.”

Carfield laughed, but it had an edge to it. “Harris? No, if anyone fits that description it’s Simon Haldane, not the Colonel. He was too good at killing, you know. Some men become soldiers because they’ve no imagination, they don’t know how to be afraid. But Charles Harris had an uncanny aptitude for war. I asked him about that once, and he said that his skills, such as they were, came from reading history and learning its lessons, but I found that hard to believe.”

“Why?”

“The Colonel was the finest chess player I’ve ever met, and I have no mean skills at the game myself. He was born with a talent for strategy that few of us are given, and he made the choice about how to use it. He fully understood that choice, that war meant playing with men’s lives, not with prettily carved pieces on a game board, but battle was an addiction he couldn’t rid himself of.”

Rutledge said nothing. Carfield sipped his coffee, then added as if he couldn’t stop himself, “Men from Warwickshire who served under him worshiped him; they tell me that on the battlefield he was charismatic, but I call it more a gift for manipulation. I don’t suppose you were in the war, Inspector, but I can tell you that sending other men into battle must rest heavily on one’s soul in the end.”

Hamish stirred but made no remark. He had no need to. Rutledge found himself saying, “Then the Kings of Israel must not be sleeping peacefully in Abraham’s bosom. As I remember, they were at war most of the time.”

Carfield nodded graciously to parishioners who had just come in, a man and his wife, then turned back to Rutledge. “Make light of it if you wish. But something deep down in Charles Harris was frightened by the man he was. He was a Gemini, you see, two forces in one body. In my opinion he needed to come home to Mallows from time to time because it brought him peace, a sense of balance, proof that he wasn’t a man who actually enjoyed killing, however good he might be at it. His much-vaunted devotion to the land was perhaps merely a charade for his troubled conscience.”

“And Captain Wilton? What do you think of him?”

“An intelligent man. And a brave one—one would have to be to fly, don’t you think? When Ezekiel saw the wheel, high in the middle of the air, he claimed it was God at work. We’ve come a long way since then, haven’t we? Man has finally set himself on a par with the archangels. The question is, are we morally ready for such heights?”

Hamish made a derisive snort and Rutledge busied himself with the caramel flan. When he had choked down his amusement, Rutledge asked, “But would he kill a friend?”

“Wilton? None of us can see into the souls of others, Inspector, least of all me. I’ve always tried to understand my parishioners, but they still have the power to surprise me. Just the other day—”

“Is that a yes or a no?” Rutledge asked, looking up and catching an expression in Carfield’s eyes that interested him. The man was ably playing the role of wise village priest, enamored by the part, but his eyes were cold and hard as he answered Rutledge’s question.

“I would be lying if I said I liked the man. I don’t. He’s a private person, keeps himself to himself. I think that may be why he enjoys flying—he’s there alone in his aeroplane, out of reach and accountable to no one. And a man who likes his own company more than he ought is sometimes dangerous. Hermits have been known to come out of their isolated cells and lead crusades, haven’t they? But murder?” He shook his head. “I don’t know. Possibly. If he were angry enough and determined enough, or if it was the only possible way to get exactly what he wanted. I think he’s been used to that, getting his own way. People tend to idolize handsome daredevils.”

For “people,” substitute Lettice Wood, Rutledge thought to himself. But discounting the jealousy, Carfield had offered a better evaluation of Harris and Wilton than anyone else.

Sometimes hatred saw more clearly than love.

And it might be a very good idea to add Carfield’s name to the very short list of possible suspects, though what purpose Harris’s death might have served in the Vicar’s eyes was yet to be seen.

He went over his notes after dinner, sitting in his room until the walls seemed to close in on him. No illumination came, no connections. Faces. Voices. Yes. But so far leading nowhere. Except, possibly, to Wilton? He remembered his father saying once, after a tiring day in court, “It isn’t actually a question of guilt or innocence, is it? It’s a matter of what the jury believes, once we’ve told them what evidence there is on either side. Given the proper evidence, we could probably convict God. Without it, Lucifer himself would walk free!”

It was late when he got up to walk off a restlessness that prodded him into activity, useful or not.

Before the war it had been the case that drove him night and day—partly from a gritty determination that murderers must be found and punished. He had believed deeply in that, with the single-minded idealism of youth and a strong sense of moral duty toward the victims, who could no longer speak for themselves. But the war had altered his viewpoint, had shown him that the best of men could kill, given the right circumstances, as he himself had done over and over again. Not only the enemy, but his own men, sending them out to be slaughtered even when he had known beyond any doubt that they would die and that the order to advance was madness.

And partly from his fascination with a bizarre game of wits. Like the Colonel, who was far too good at strategy, he’d had a knack for understanding the minds of some of the killers he had hunted, and he had found the excitement of the hunt itself addictive. Man, he’d read somewhere, was the ultimate prey. And the police officer had the reinforcement of Society to indulge in that chase.

Rutledge had tried to explain his reasons to Jean once, when she had begged him to leave the Yard and take up law instead, like his father before him. But she’d stared at him as if he had spoken to her in Russian or Chinese, then laughed and said, “Oh, Ian, do stop teasing me and be serious!”

Now it was his own uncertainties that left him with no peace, his illusions as shattered as his mind. Why could he feel nothing about this murderer? Why?

He heard something in the shadowy alley to his left, between the baker’s shop and a small bootery, a muffled cough. And then Hickam stumbled out, singing to himself. Drunk again. If anything, worse than before, Rutledge thought with exasperation. But at least he wasn’t back in an imaginary France, and there might still be a chance of getting a little sense out of him.

Overtaking him in five strides, Rutledge put a hand on the man’s shoulder to stop him, speaking his name. Hickam shrugged it off irritably. “I want to talk to you. About Colonel Harris,” Rutledge said firmly, prepared to block his retreat down the alley or a dash across the street. “I’ve come from London—”

“London, is it?” Hickam asked, slurring the words, but Rutledge suddenly had the feeling that he wasn’t as drunk—yet—as he wished he was. “And what does London want now? A pox on sodding London! A pox on sodding everybody!”

“The morning that the Colonel died, you were in the lane, drunk. That’s where Sergeant Davies found you. Do you remember?” He forced the man to face him, could smell the alcohol on his breath, the unwashed body. The fear.

Hickam nodded. His face was ghastly in the moonlight, tired and strained and hopeless. Rutledge looked into eyes like black plums in a pudding, and flinched at what he read there, a torment much like his own. “Did you see the Colonel? Charles Harris. Or anyone else?”

“I didn’t shoot him. I had nothing to do with it!”

“No one claims you did. I’m asking if you saw him. Or saw anyone else that Monday morning.”

“I saw them—the two of them.” He frowned. “I saw them,” he added, with less certainty. “I told Forrest—”

“I know what you told Forrest. Now tell me.”

“He was angry. The Captain. Pleading. They were sending us across to take the guns, and he didn’t like it. You could hear the shells—the bombardment had started.” He was beginning to shake. “‘I won’t give up that easily,’ he said. ‘I’ll fight. Whatever you’ve done, I’ll fight you every step of the way!’ The guns were ours at first, but then the Hun answered, and they were close, I could hear the screaming and I couldn’t find my helmet. And the Colonel said, ‘Don’t be a fool. Whether you like it or not, you’ll have to learn to live with it.’ And I saw the Captain’s face, and knew we were going to die—”

He was crying, tears running down his face like the shiny trails left by garden slugs, his mouth turned down in an agony of terror. “They sent me down the sunken road, to see that the flankers found their way, and the Colonel rode off, leaving the Captain behind, and I knew he’d kill me if he caught me hiding there from the guns—I didn’t want to die—God help me—”

Arms wrapped protectively around his body, he bowed his head and wept with a bottomless grief that silently racked him, his shoulders shaking, all dignity and identity gone.

Rutledge couldn’t take any more. He fished in his pocket for coins and gave them to the man, forcing them into the hand nearest him. Hickam lifted his head, staring at him, bewildered by this interjection of reality into his desolation, feeling the coins with his fingers like a blind man. “Here. Buy yourself something else to drink, and go home. Do you hear me? Go home!”

Hickam continued to stare at him, at a loss. “They’re moving up, I can’t leave—”

“You’re out of it,” Rutledge said. “Go find the aid station and tell them you need something to drink. Tell them I said you could have it. Tell them—for God’s sake, tell them to send you home!”

And without a backward glance, Rutledge wheeled and strode angrily down the walk to the Inn, Hamish hammering at his senses like all the Furies.

Rutledge lay awake for hours, listening to the murmurs of a pair of doves nesting under the eaves. They were restless, as if a prowling cat or an owl worried them. The village was quiet, the public bar had closed, and only the big church clock, striking the quarters, disturbed the stillness of the night. He had himself under control again, and only Redfern had seen him return, taking the stairs three at a time. He’d nearly stopped to tell the man to bring him a bottle of whiskey, but had enough sense left to remember where—and who—he was.

Staring at the ceiling, he decided he would call for an immediate Inquest and have it adjourned.

Hickam had been too befuddled to know what he was saying, and God alone could imagine what sort of witness he would make in court. Yet Rutledge was sure now that there was something locked in his mind, tangled with the war, tangled with his confusion and the fumes of alcohol, and if Dr. Warren could get the man sober—and sane—long enough to question, they might get to the bottom of this business.

For all they knew, it might clear Wilton as easily as it might damn him, in spite of Forrest’s dithering.

The trouble was, there was too much circumstantial evidence and not enough hard fact. The quarrel with Harris at Mallows, the possible—probable—encounter with Harris again in the lane the next morning, the shotgun sitting in Mavers’s unlocked house, the direction Wilton had chosen for his walk, all appeared to point to the Captain. And the time sequence itself fit, all quite neatly.

But this hadn’t been a neat killing. It had been angry, vengeful, passionate, bloody.

Where, except for Mavers’s tired rhetoric, had there been such passion on a quiet June morning?

And where had it disappeared, once Charles Harris had been cut down with such savage fury? That was the mystery he was going to have to solve before he could find the killer. So much passion…it had to be there still, banked like a fire…and aroused, it might kill again….

He fell asleep on that thought, and didn’t hear the bustle in the street at two o’clock in the morning.

7

Although Rutledge went out directly after breakfast in search of him, Hickam was nowhere to be found.

After a fruitless waste of time, Rutledge decided that the man probably didn’t want to be found, and gave up, cursing his own maudlin stupidity for not hauling him directly to the doctor’s surgery last night while he had the chance, and forcibly sobering up the poor devil.

Picking up Sergeant Davies at the station after giving Forrest instructions for the Inquest, Rutledge said as they got into the motorcar, “I’ve been to the cottage, checked every street in town, and the outlying lanes as well, not to mention the churchyard and the livery stables. Is there any place I haven’t thought of?”

Davies scratched his chin. “That about covers it, I’d guess. But there’s high grass, hedgerows, and any number of sheds about, and we could send half the army out looking and still not find him. Drunks have a way of vanishing, but when he’s slept this one off and needs more gin, he’ll surface soon enough.”

He glanced at the Inspector, and decided that he hadn’t slept well. Changing the subject, he said, “I checked with the dentist in Warwick. It’s true, Royston had an appointment on the morning of the murder, but he never came in. Of course that’s not surprising.”

“No. I think I should speak to Helena Sommers again, before she hears about Mavers’s shotgun coming to light. How do we get there?”

Davies had just had a very unpleasant discussion with Inspector Forrest about duty. It was his duty to assist London, and equally his duty to stay out of Scotland Yard’s way as much as possible, which seemed to his mind a simple contradiction of terms. Forrest hadn’t been pleased either that Rutledge failed to bring his own sergeant along, and before the interview had ended, a chastened Davies was beginning to feel that that was his fault as well. But there was no escape. Constable Reardon in Lower Streetham couldn’t be spared, and Warwick wasn’t about to send over one of their men, and Constable Miliken from Upper Streetham was still at home with a leg broken in two places from the kick of a half-wit horse that had accidentally poked its nose into a hornet’s nest and run amok afterward.

Trying to make the best of a bad situation and feeling uncomfortable in the lengthening silence that was beginning to sound very loud in the car, Davies cleared his throat and offered a suggestion that he had been mulling over while shaving that morning.

“I was thinking, sir, about who might have shot Colonel Harris, and it seems to me we’ve overlooked one thing. What if the killer hadn’t come from Upper Streetham at all? I mean, someone from Warwick, or London, or as far as we might know, from Canterbury or Liverpool?”

“It’s possible, of course,” Rutledge answered. “For that reason I don’t rule it out. But we’re short on motives, aren’t we?”

“Well, sir, it seems to me we’re short on motives for everyone else. I mean, the Colonel might have done something in the war, someone might hold him responsible for the loss of a leg or a son’s death or a wrecked career. Somebody we’d never heard of in Upper Streetham. And would have no way of knowing existed.”

“Before we could leave the case as ‘person or persons unknown,’ we’d still have to clear every suspect in Upper Streetham. Including the Captain.”

Davies sighed. “Aye, that’s true.”

Rutledge glanced across at him. “Tell me something. Why is everyone so determined to believe Wilton is innocent?”

Surprised, Davies said, “He’s a war hero, isn’t he? Admired by the King and a friend of the Prince of Wales. He’s visited Sandringham, been received by Queen Mary herself! A man like that doesn’t go around killing people!”

With a wry downturn of his lips, Rutledge silently asked, How did he win his medals, you fool, if not by being so very damned good at killing?

With Davies to guide him, Rutledge found the narrow road cutting into the Haldane property that led to a small, picturesque cottage standing isolated on a hillside, surrounded by fields and trees. Wild roses climbing over low stone walls set off the grounds, their scent filling the air with sweetness. On the north side, the wall was a good two feet higher, a windbreak for the gardens that lay at its foot. Someone had made a valiant effort to rescue them from weeds, and lupines stood like sentinels behind the sweet williams and the irises.

Drawing up in front of the cottage, Rutledge got out and was immediately attacked by an irate gray goose that took instant exception to invasion by unexpected strangers in motorcars.

Fending off the goose, he called, “Miss Sommers?”

No one answered, and after a moment, neatly outdistancing the irate fowl by doubling back the other way around the car, he made it to the steps and knocked on the cottage door.

No one came, and he was on the point of leaving when a sixth sense, that intuitive feeling that someone is there in the stillness on the other side of a door, made him knock again, louder this time. The sound attracted the goose, and she ceased her attack on her reflection in the car’s wing, bearing down on Rutledge with neck arched. But Davies had the presence of mind to blow the car’s horn, and she wheeled in midrun to hurry back to her first victim.

Finally the door was opened a narrow crack and a soft voice said, “Yes?”

“Miss Sommers? Inspector Rutledge. I’m looking for your cousin. Is she in?”

Reluctantly the door opened wider, and a pale face stared out. “She’s not here just now. There was a bird’s nest she wanted to check this morning.”

He noted the strong family resemblance in features, but this cousin was quieter, dowdier, younger. Her hair was a mousy brown, her eyes wide and fearful, her dress a muted gray-green that did nothing for her complexion or her coloring. “Do you know when she’ll be back?” he asked.

Maggie Sommers shook her head quickly, not wanting to encourage him to wait. She peered over his shoulder, saw the goose attacking the front tires of the Inspector’s car, saw Sergeant Davies laughing out of the passenger’s side, and then ducked back almost as if recoiling from any responsibility for what was happening on her lawn.

“She’s Helena’s pet,” she said defensively. “I don’t like her, she terrifies me.”

“Shall I put her in a pen or somewhere?” Rutledge asked, wondering how he was going to manage that feat, but Miss Sommers shook her head again.

“No, she’ll leave me alone if I’m not hanging out the wash. She hates that. Why do you wish to see Helena?”

“I wanted to talk with her about Captain Wilton. She saw him the morning that Colonel Harris was shot.”

Tears filled her eyes, and he thought for a moment she was going to start crying. “That was awful—I was never so terrified in my life as when I heard about it. He seemed like such a nice man.”

“You knew the Colonel?” Rutledge asked in surprise.

“Oh, no. No. But sometimes he rode this way—through the fields there,” Maggie Sommers said, pointing. “That’s his land, just beyond the high wall. The two estates meet there. If I was out in the gardens or something, he’d wave. At first I was afraid he’d want to stop and chat, but he never did, and Helena said I ought to wave back. It was—neighborly. She said he probably thought it was she anyway. She’d met him—at a dinner party.” She smiled timidly, giving her face a little more life and color, the tears forgotten. “I was invited too.”

He could see why she had been called a recluse, why there had even been the suspicion that she was simple. But she was only unimaginably shy, almost childlike. He thought that all he would have to do was shout at her in a harsh voice, and she’d scurry back inside and shut the door and hide under the bed. Torn between sympathy and irritation, he wondered where someone as brisk and active as Helena found the patience to cope with Maggie for an entire summer. Or perhaps she wasn’t quite so timorous when left alone.