A Fearsome Doubt (33 page)

Rutledge, grateful for the blessed darkness of the drive, asked, “Why didn’t you stop her? If you knew what was happening, in God’s name,
why did you let it continue!
”

Raleigh Masters turned to face him across the bonnet of the motorcar. “I didn’t know in the beginning, not until Webber was already dead. The second victim. She came up late to bed that night, smelling of wine—depressed, on the verge of tears. And then—suddenly I didn’t want to know. I didn’t have the courage. I told myself the time might come when I would be glad to drink wine by the fire and go to sleep forever. But the time
has
come, you see. And it’s too late. She was right. I could never kill myself.”

He opened the passenger door. “If there’s any mercy left in you, get me out of here!”

But the lights from the hall seemed to pursue them down the drive until the trees finally blotted them out. And still they blazed brightly behind each man’s eyes.

Also by Charles Todd

A Test of Wills

Wings of Fire

Search the Dark

Watchers of Time

Legacy of the Dead

A FEARSOME DOUBT

A Bantam Book / October 2002

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2002 by Charles Todd.

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Todd, Charles.

A fearsome doubt : an Inspector Ian Rutledge mystery/ Charles Todd.

p. cm.

1. Rutledge, Ian (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Executions and executioners—Fiction.  3. Police—England—Fiction.  4. Kent (England)—Fiction. 5. Widows—Fiction.  I. Title.

PS3570.O37 F43 2002

813'.54—dc21

2002018669

Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

eISBN: 978-0-553-89709-8

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