Charles Todd - A test of wills

"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 Hal- dane 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 Mav- ers-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.