Charles Todd - A test of wills

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."