Charles Todd - A long shadow

He had spoken to Hillary Timmons at The Oaks. "I saw her not half an hour ago. How long has Towson been lying here?"

"No way of telling, except that the bruises are already showing up on his arms and his cheek, there. He might have been here for an hour or more."

The doctor rocked back on his heels, sighing. "Well, I don't think that hip's broken, thank God. Just badly bruised. With his rheumatism, using crutches would be difficult. But look at his arm. See the knot just there? It could mean a fracture. Time will tell."

"How are we going to move him from here, without hurting him appallingly?"

"That's where the laudanum comes in. Baylor was all for a stiff whiskey, but that's the worst possible solution to shock. We'll ease him a little and then find something to use to shift him to a bed."

"You said there was something wrong with the way he'd fallen?"

"Not so much that. He was awake for a few minutes, when I got here. He said he'd been in the attic searching for something, he couldn't recall what, and someone came to the stairs and called him to come quickly, there'd been an accident. Old fool turned, hurried down the steps, and missed his footing."

"Who was it?"

"That's the problem, Rutledge. There was no one here when Hillary came to clean. You'd have thought, with all the noise of the fall, whoever had been standing in the passage there, calling up for him to come at once, would have looked to see if Towson was alive or dead." When Towson was quieter and in less discomfort, the men in the hall below took a leaf from the long dining room table-fit for a clergyman's large family-and brought it to the attic stairs. Middleton sent Rutledge through the bedchambers to collect blankets to pad it. Then between them, they lifted the rector onto the improvised stretcher and carried him to his own bed.

He lay there, white as his shirt, groaning in pain. Middleton sent the men about their business, with instructions to put the table back together before they left, and drew a chair up to the bedside.

After a moment he said to Rutledge, "That arm's fractured. Now I can feel the bones scraping together. But it isn't compound, and I can brace it. That knot on his head"-he parted the white hair to point out a large lump-"may mean he's concussed, worst luck. I'll have to ask someone to sit with him. And I'm still worried about that hip. It will keep him in bed for a bit. Why it didn't break is a mystery. Unless that arm took the brunt of his fall."

"Very likely," Rutledge agreed.

Hamish was busy asking who would want to kill the rector and supplying his own answers to the question. Rut- ledge ignored him until a word caught his attention.

"The attic windows. Ye ken, they look out toward yon wood."

"Can you spare me a moment?" Rutledge asked. "I'd like to have a look at those stairs again."

"First help me get him out of those trousers, while we can. It will take the two of us."

They removed the rector's black shoes and stockings, and then gently persuaded his trousers to peel away without lifting his body more than was necessary.

Middleton got him under the blankets, wrapped him well against shock, and then began to unbutton Towson's shirt.

Rutledge was surprised at how light the man was. Towson had seemed very vibrant and active, despite his rheumatism.

"Aye, and the fall should ha' kilt him," Hamish reminded Rutledge again.

Free at length to go back to the stairs, Rutledge examined them. The edges of the risers were worn, and the steps were steep, narrow, and not well lighted. It would be easy for a man to come down too quickly and fall.

He went on to the top of the steps and saw that the attic was fairly empty, some luggage, a trunk, and a few oddments of furniture hardly filling the vast space. Two rooms had been built in here for servants, one to the east and one to the west. They had windows, as did the central room. Rutledge pushed aside the iron bedsteads under the casements and stood there, looking out.

To the west he could see the long sweep of pasture, the line of the stream, and in the far, far distance, the tower of another church, barely visible.

"The next village," Hamish pointed out.

The east window looked out on the barns at the Baylor farm. He could see them clearly, and the kitchen door, the windows on this side of the house, and the chimney.

But from the central room the windows, a pair of them, looked out toward Frith's Wood. Only the treetops were visible, and the bend of the main road as it turned toward Letherington. And he could see the fields beyond the wood, rolling down to it.

If there was movement in the wood-a man in a dark coat, for instance-he thought perhaps he could follow it to some extent. It would have to be tested, to be sure, but it was certainly a possibility.

Hamish made the connection nearly as quickly as he had.

"If yon wood is sae clearly visible from here, I expect it can be seen from the house next door. Did you see that yon upper floor is a bit higher still?" Rutledge went back to the east servant's room and looked again. Hamish had been right. The Baylor house, while not precisely turned toward the wood, must have windows that looked out on it, just as the rectory did. It was an interesting point. But whether it would prove useful was another matter. The question now was who had come to the stairs and called to the rector? Rutledge sat with Towson for another hour, spelling Dr. Middleton, who had gone to his surgery for splints. The rector did wake up for a brief period, amazed to find himself in his bed and hurting all through his body, as he put it. Rutledge said, "Don't you recall falling down the attic stairs?" Towson frowned. "Was I in the attic? I seldom go there." "Today you were. And someone called to you, telling you that you were needed directly." Towson lifted his good hand to his forehead, as if to find the memory there somewhere, within reach. But whatever he had told Middleton in the first few moments after the doctor had arrived, he had no recollection of it now.

After Dr. Middleton had found someone to sit with Towson-Grace Letteridge, as it happened-Rutledge was free to return to Hensley's house, and he walked into the parlor office feeling depressed. Hamish said, "You ken, it's likely he'll remember when he's slept." But Dr. Middleton had not been very sanguine. "Well, who knows? It was a shock, that fall, and he lay there afterward, unable to call for help. It would have been trying for a younger man." "Still, he told you when you got there what had happened." "Yes, well, I was salvation arriving on a white steed. Hillary is a sweet girl, but she's not reliable in an emergency. I was, and he must have held on, hoping for someone sensible enough to talk to. Then he could let it go." Middleton had offered Rutledge a sherry, dug out of Towson's private store in the study, before he left the rectory. "God knows I need it, and you might as well have the benefit of it too."

Rutledge didn't argue. And it was good sherry, at that.

"Why should someone call to him, tell him to make haste-and then walk away when he fell? It makes no sense," Middleton asked, sitting down in the best chair and stretching his feet out before him. "Unless of course he'd had some sort of seizure and only imagined he'd been called. That's possible too, you know."

But Rutledge, striding up Church Street, couldn't afford to ignore the alternatives. No policeman would.

Rutledge, taking the chair behind Hensley's desk, found himself thinking aloud out of long habit. "Two incidents of this magnitude in one village in a matter of a single week. The question is, Are they connected? Or only a coincidence?"

Hamish said, "Mysel', I'd ask why sae close together."

And that was a point to be considered. Why had this quiet little village suddenly erupted into violence?