A Test of Wills (13 page)

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

The war.

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

Or to Catherine Tarrant…

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

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

As he was finishing his dinner, Rutledge looked up to see Mark Wilton standing out in the hall of the Inn. The Captain saw him at the same time and crossed the dining room to Rutledge’s table.

“I’ve come to speak to you about the Inquest. And the release of the body.”

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

“Thanks.”

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

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

“Have you seen the body?” Wilton asked curiously.

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

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

“Oddly enough, that’s what Royston said.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No.”

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

“What else does gossip say?”

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

“If you didn’t kill Harris, who did?”

“The comfortable answer would be, ‘Mavers,’ wouldn’t it?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Was she painting then?” There was a clatter in the kitchens, someone dropping a tray, and then Redfern’s voice, sharply taking whoever it was to task.

“Oddly enough, nobody seemed to recognize how talented she was. Yes, she’d mention something about a painting. But you know how it was before the war, most well-bred girls tried their hand at watercolors or music—it was rather expected of them.”

Rutledge recalled his sister’s lessons, and smiled. Frances could sing beautifully, but her watercolors had generally been a welter of slapdash color sent running over the paper with an enthusiastic and generous hand. Not one, to his certain knowledge, had ever seen a frame. She had studied assiduously, searching for subjects and giving grandiose names to her work, but her teacher had finally written, “Miss Rutledge makes up in spirit what she lacks in talent,” and to everyone’s relief, the lessons had ended there.

Wilton was saying, “And no one thought anything about it when Catherine said, ‘I’m doing a portrait of that old woman who used to milk cows for us, remember her? She’s got a wonderful face.’” He glanced wryly at Rutledge. “Least of all me! I wasn’t interested in anything that didn’t have wings to it! But that one later won a prize in London. When I went to her first exhibit, I was stunned. I wondered where in God’s name Catherine had found such power of expression, such depth of feeling. How she’d come to change so much in such a short time. But she hadn’t changed—it was there all along, and apparently I’d been blind to it. I suppose that’s the difference between infatuation and love, if you come down to it.”

“And Linden? Had he brought any of these changes about? Found the woman somewhere inside the sweet, untouched girl you’d met before the war?”

Wilton’s mouth was grim. “I’ve told you. Ask Miss Tarrant about her personal life.”

“Then you disapproved of the affair?”

“I was in France, trying to stay alive. I couldn’t have approved or disapproved, I didn’t know. Until much later. In fact, it was Charles who told me, the first time he brought me down to Mallows. He thought I should be aware of it, before I ran into her. But Catherine has never spoken of Linden to me.”

“Did she blame Colonel Harris for not handling their case properly with the Army? Or blame Lettice for not making it clear to her guardian that Catherine was serious about this man?”

“I don’t know, I tell you. Except that Charles would have done what he could. If he’d known. For Catherine’s sake if nothing else. He’d been fond of her.”

“But he didn’t know?”

“I can’t answer that. I can tell you his headquarters was swamped with people’s letters, wanting news about their sons, their husbands, their lovers. He said once it was the hardest part of his job, reading such letters. Sometimes they were sent to the wrong place, or lost.”

“Surely not a letter from his ward? That wouldn’t have been shoved in a sack with dozens of others and forgotten?”

This time Wilton stood up. “You’re putting words into my mouth, Rutledge. I don’t know what went wrong over Linden. I don’t suppose anyone does. I’m sure that Charles would have done his best for the pair of them, he would try to help Catherine. My God, he did what he could for anyone in Upper Streetham in one way or another, so why not her? What the War Office did is anybody’s guess. Some ignorant fool sitting at a cluttered desk in Whitehall might have felt it his personal duty to prevent any relationship between prisoners and the home population, whatever the Colonel said about it. Bad for morale and all that. And come to that, it wouldn’t have mattered; the war was nearly over, and if he’d lived, Linden could have spoken for himself. Who could have guessed that Linden would die of influenza. Still, it decimated the country, for God’s sake, no one was immune.”

“But because he was sent from here, he died alone, and no one told Catherine. Not until long afterward.”

Wilton laughed harshly. “In war you can’t keep up with every poor sod you send out to die. I was a squadron leader, I knew the hell of that. A man’s blown to bits in a trench, shot down in flames, chokes on gas and lies rotting in the mud. You do your best, you write letters about his bravery, how much he’d done for his country, how much his comrades looked to him for an example—and you don’t even recall his name, much less his face! Linden took his chances, like any soldier. At least she knows what became of him, where he’s buried!”

Rutledge watched his face, remembering how Catherine Tarrant had looked when she spoke of searching for Linden. And remembering what Sally Davenant had said about Wilton’s love of flying changing to agony in the heat of battle and death and fear.

“That’s cold comfort to a grieving, passionate woman.”

“Is it? After all the killing, I came home to a hero’s welcome. Safe and whole. Invited to the Palace and to Sandringham. Treated like royalty, myself. But I was there in a hospital in Dorset when they brought in a man they’d found wandering in France. Didn’t even know who he was, whether he was British or German—a shell of a man, starving and begging on the roadside for a year or more, more animal than human, worse than Hickam, and I looked at him, and thought, I used to have nightmares about burning to death in a crash, but there are worse things than that! Worse than being blind or without a limb, lungs seared with gas, face shot away, guts rotted. Coming home safe—and not knowing it’s over—that’s the bleakest hell I’m capable of picturing!”

Rutledge felt the blood run cold in his body. Wilton nodded and walked away, unaware of what he’d done.

In the dark recesses of his mind he heard Hamish laughing, and finished his whiskey at a gulp. It burned going down, almost bringing tears to his eyes as he fought to keep from choking. Or were the tears for himself?

Think of anything, he commanded himself roughly. Anything but that! His mind roiled with emotion, then settled into the dull pain of grief and despair. Think, man, for God’s sake!

What was it they’d been talking about? No, who? Catherine Tarrant.

What to do about Catherine Tarrant, then, how to find a key to her? Waving Redfern away and getting to his feet, the whiskey still searing his throat, he walked out of the bar.

The person to answer that question was another woman. Sally Davenant.

11

The next morning just before the Inquest Rutledge had an opportunity to ask Inspector Forrest if he knew the source of Mavers’s pension. But Forrest shook his head.

“I didn’t know he had one. But that explains why he’s never had to lift his hand to a stroke of work if he didn’t feel like it. His father served the Davenants. Ask Mrs. Davenant if she knows anything about it.”

The Inquest, held in one of the Inn’s parlors, was crowded with a cross-section of spectators who settled in early for the best seats and waited with patient expectation for something interesting to happen. They quietly took note of who was—and was not—present, and wondered aloud how the man from London would present his findings, and more importantly, what they would be. No one knew anything about an arrest—never a good sign—but rumor claimed that Sergeant Davies had spent most of the night in Warwick, and this could mean that the killer hadn’t been an Upper Streetham man after all. More than a few had pinned their hopes on Bert Mavers. Such expectations were destined for disappointment.

The Coroner’s Court progressed with smooth timeliness, from the finding of the body to the request for an adjournment while the police pursued their inquiries. Half an hour, and it was finished. The coroner, an elderly man from Warwick, agreed to the police request, stood up with decision, and said, “That’s it, then,” before nodding to Forrest and walking out to find his carriage. A murmur of dissatisfaction trailed him like ghostly robes as he went.

Sergeant Davies had returned from Warwick around six o’clock that morning, since he had to give evidence about finding the Colonel’s body. It had been a long night, he was tired and irritable, and his trip had been for nothing.

“There’s no reason to believe the killer came on the trains,” he said. “All strangers are accounted for, and there aren’t any reports of stragglers along the road from Warwick. That’s not to say someone couldn’t have come from another direction, but I’d give you any odds you like that he didn’t arrive from Warwick.”

Which was more or less what Rutledge had expected. He thanked the Sergeant and then hurried to catch up with Sally Davenant, who was walking along with another woman, dark haired and neatly dressed in gray. They parted just as Rutledge reached them, and Sally turned to him, smiling politely.

“Good morning, Inspector.”

It was a beautiful morning, the sky that particular shade of blue that comes only in June. The air was scented with roses, wild in the hedgerows and blooming in gardens, birds everywhere, children laughing. Not a day to consider the ramifications of a man’s death.

“I’d like to speak with you,” he said. “May I offer you a cup of tea?”

“Yes, I’d like one, after that ordeal.” She turned to walk with him back toward the Shepherd’s Crook. “I only came for Mark’s sake. I’m glad you didn’t require Lettice’s presence. Mark says she’s had a very rough time.”

Refusing to be drawn, Rutledge said, “I wanted to ask you about Mavers. About a pension he may have received from your husband. Or rather, a pension that might have been left to his father, as the shotgun was.”

Sally frowned. “I don’t know anything about a pension, Inspector. Hugh had a very high regard for the man’s father—he was dependable, honest, and knew his job. Quite different from his son. In every respect. I can tell you, Hugh had no such regard for the Mavers you’ve met.”

“Yet he left him a shotgun.”

“He left it to the father, and no one ever thought to change that article in the Will. When the Will was read, I made no objection to letting the shotgun go to the son because it was easier at the time than trying to fight over it. I had many problems with my husband, Inspector. He was a man who could charm anyone, but he wasn’t easy to live with. That doesn’t mean I didn’t love him—I did. But his death was a difficult time for me. Emotionally. I was torn between grief and relief, to be honest. And the problem of dealing with someone like Mavers was beyond me. I’d never have heard the end of it anyway, whatever the lawyers promised, and I wasn’t going to put up with a lifelong vendetta, as Charles did. How that man endured the endless bickering and trouble I’ll never know! Probably because he was never here long enough to be driven crazy. But I was, you see.”

When they were seated in the dining room, where Redfern was trying to keep up with the demand for refreshment, Rutledge ordered tea, then said to Mrs. Davenant, “What can you tell me about Catherine Tarrant?”

Her surprise showed in her face. “Catherine? Whatever does she have to do with Charles’s death?”

“I don’t know. I’d like a woman’s opinion of her.”

Sally Davenant laughed wryly. “Ah yes, the men flock to her defense, don’t they? I don’t know why. Not that they shouldn’t, you understand!” she added quickly. “It’s just that men and women see things quite differently.”

Which still told him very little about Catherine.

When the tea things had been set before them, and Sally had poured, Rutledge tried again. “Did you know the German? Linden?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. He worked on her land, and several times when I went to call he came around to take my horse. Tall, fair, quite strong.” She hesitated, then added, “He was a little like Mark, you know. I don’t know quite how to put my finger on the likeness. I’d never have mistaken one for the other. But a fleeting resemblance—something you felt rather than saw?”

Rutledge said nothing, reaching for one of the little cakes on a gold-rimmed china plate. They were amazingly good, he discovered.

After a moment, she went on, “He was an educated man—a solicitor, I was told later—and in the ordinary way, an acceptable suitor. If he’d been one of the refugees, Belgian or French, there wouldn’t have been any comment at all. Well, very little! But he was German, you see, those horrible monsters who shot Edith Cavell, spitted babies on their bayonets, killed and maimed British soldiers—the casualty lists were awful, and when they came out, you sighed with relief because someone you loved or knew wasn’t on it this time—then felt guilty for feeling relieved! We hated the Germans, and to think of loving one—of marrying one—seemed—unnatural.” A woman coming through the dining room spoke to Sally and walked on.

Rutledge waited until she was out of hearing. “I understood that no one knew of their relationship at the time Linden was taken away.”

“That’s true. But there was no doubt how Catherine felt, after the war. She went a little mad, trying to find him, and then when she learned he was dead, she was hardly herself for months. Carfield made matters worse by trying to make them better, and the town has shunned her ever since. Most of the women, and more than a few of the men, won’t even speak her name.”

“You said that Linden reminded you of Mark. Did he remind Catherine too? Was she, do you think, still in love with Mark?”

Sally Davenant shook her head. “No, that was over long ago. I could have told you at the time that it wouldn’t last. Mark always falls in love with the wrong women—” She stopped, her mouth closing firmly, her eyes defying him.

Rutledge waited. She shrugged after a moment and went on. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounds, of course.”

But he thought she had. “What did you mean?”

“Catherine hadn’t discovered her talent when she met Mark. She painted, yes, but it wasn’t the focus of her life, if you see what I mean. I think it would have come between them, when she did. And she hated his flying. Even if the war hadn’t come along to separate them, what chance would such a marriage have?” Carfield came in, smiled warmly at Mrs. Davenant, then nodded briskly to Rutledge.

“And Lettice?”

She hesitated, then answered carefully. “I don’t think it would have worked. Not in the end. There was Charles, you see, and Lettice was devoted to him. No man enjoys living in the shadow of such a devotion. If he’d been older, yes, Mark could have relegated him to the father’s role. Mark could never bear to be second best. It would have been ‘Charles this’ and ‘Charles that’ every time he turned around.”

“Did Lettice fall in love with Wilton because he was the handsome hero her guardian had brought home for her? An infatuation, like Catherine’s, years ago?”

“No, of course not. She’s rather mature for her years, have you noticed? Probably it has to do with being orphaned so young, she had to learn to be independent early on. Charles more or less cultivated that too. Well, he could have been killed at any time, and he wanted her to be capable of carrying on alone! She wasn’t a dewy-eyed girl, and I think that’s what attracted Mark to her. He’s been through too much to fall in love with a silly twit who thought he was dashing and exciting. And Mark is a very private man, he would have to be, to spend so much time alone in the air. Charles seemed so—open. Where Hugh had devastating charm, shallow though it was, Charles was the most—I don’t know, the most physically compelling man. He could walk into a room and somehow dominate it just by being there. Men deferred to him, women found him sympathetic. That combination of strength and tenderness that’s quite rare.”

“But of the three, Mark Wilton was surely the most attractive?”

She laughed as she poured herself another cup of tea, then refilled his cup. “Oh, by far. If he came in here right now, every woman in the room would be aware of it! And preen. I’ve seen it happen too many times! Hugh had charm, Mark has looks, Charles had charisma. The difference is that Hugh and Charles knew how to wield what they’d been given. Mark isn’t a peacock, and never has been. It’s his greatest failing. People expect too much from beauty.”

“Which is why you feel he couldn’t have lived in Charles Harris’s shadow.”

“Of course. I think that’s why he never fell in love with me—Hugh was one of those men who dominated with charm. To tell you the truth, Hugh used it as a weapon to have his own way. Sending you to the skies one minute, tearing your heart out the next. And although I was close to hating him at the end, it was too late, I’d lost the ability to trust. I’d have made a shrew of a wife for Mark Wilton! And he knew it.”

The words were said lightly, with a smile, but there was pain behind them, in her eyes and in her voice. Rutledge heard it, but his mind was occupied by what she’d told him the first day he’d spoken to her—that Mark Wilton would have been a fool to harm Lettice’s guardian, it was the surest way to lose her.

And yet just now she’d contradicted that.

Whether she had realized it or not, she’d given him a motive for murder—not her own motive, but Mark Wilton’s.

Unless you turned it the other way about—and asked yourself if the most complete revenge was to destroy all three of them, Lettice, Charles, and the Captain, in one single bloody act whose repercussions would leave Lettice as alone and empty as Sally Davenant herself. Could she also have betrayed Catherine and her German lover? Women often sensed such things—his sister Frances always knew before the gossips what the latest scandal was.

Almost as if she heard his thoughts, Sally said quietly, “But you wanted to hear about Catherine, not me. Her father taught her to shoot, you know. If she’d wanted to shoot Charles, she’d have known how to go about it. But why now? Why after all this time? I’d always thought of her as hot-blooded, to paint like that. Not cold-blooded…” She let the thought trail off.

It was a wearing day. Hickam was still too ill to question, and Dr. Warren was testy from lack of sleep. A child he was tending was dying, and he didn’t know why. When Rutledge tried to prod him over Hickam, he said, “Come with me and see this child, and then tell me, damn you, that Hickam’s life is worth hers!”

So Rutledge went back to the meadow, walking up and down it, trying to see the murder, the frightened horse, the falling man. He tried to feel the hatred that had led to murder, worked out angles to see how the horseman and the killer had come together here in this one spot. How long had the killer waited? How sure had he been that Charles Harris would come this way? Had he known, somehow, where the Colonel was riding that morning? Which would bring suspicion back to Royston, surely. Or Lettice. Unless, before the quarrel, something had been said over dinner about his plans, and Wilton had remembered. Or perhaps the killer had simply followed Harris from the lane. Wilton again. Or Hickam? What would bring Catherine Tarrant out so early on that particular June morning, shotgun in hand, murder on her mind? Or Mrs. Davenant?

The damnable thing was, except for Catherine Tarrant’s dead lover and Mark Wilton’s quarrel, and possibly Mrs. Davenant’s jealousy, there was nothing to make Colonel Harris a target. Not if Mavers was out of the running, and Rutledge had to admit there was too little chance there of proving opportunity.

Why couldn’t he get a grip on the emotions of this case?

Because there was something he hadn’t learned? Questions he should have asked and hadn’t? Relationships he hadn’t found?

Or because his own ragged emotions kept getting in his way?

Why had he lost that strong vein of intuition that once had made him particularly good at understanding why the victim had to die? At understanding why one human being had been driven to kill another. Was it lost innocence, the knowledge that he himself was now no better than the killers he hunted? No longer siding with the angels, cut off from what he once had been?

He laughed sourly. Maybe it had only been a trick, a game he was good at when he could stand back dispassionately from the searing flame of emotions. A trick he’d used so often he’d come to believe in it himself. He could hardly bring back an image of the man he’d been in 1914. A realist, he’d told himself then, accustomed to the darkest corners of human experience. Well, he’d discovered in the trenches of France that hell itself was not half so frightening as the darkest corners of the human mind.

Not that it mattered. All they expected of him now was that he do his job. No frills, no flamboyance, no magician’s artifice, just answers.

If he couldn’t do his job, what would he do with his life?

He began to walk, making his way from the meadow down to Mallows, trying to think which way the horse might have come, what path had led Harris here.