Charles Todd - A test of wills

Rutledge looked around the room, at the worn, plain furniture and the threadbare carpet on the floor, half hidden by the papers, at the damp-stained walls and the windows streaked with dust, all of it dappled by the tree leaves outside as a passing wind stirred them and let in a little light. He'd met men like Mavers before. Hungry for something they didn't have, and ignorant of how to go about getting it, hating those who had had life given to them easily. Lost men, angry men, dangerous men… because they had no pride of their own to bolster their self-esteem.

"Hating doesn't put it right either, does it?"

The goat's eyes were hard. "It does give life a purpose, all the same."

Preparing to go, Rutledge said, "As long as it doesn't lead to murder. There's never an excuse for murder."

He was nearly out the door into the hall when Hamish said under his breath, "But who's a murderer, then? The man who carried that shotgun yonder, or the officer who shoots his own men?"

Startled, Rutledge half turned as if Mavers had spoken, not the voice in his own head. And as he looked back, he saw what had been concealed behind Mavers's chair and by Mav- ers's body and by the books piled on the table-a shotgun, leaning against the wall where it met the jutting corner of the hearth, almost lost in the deep shadow there.

Satisfied after her conversation with Inspector Forrest, Catherine Tarrant rode slowly back down the High Street, threading her way through the late-afternoon shoppers and the workmen going about their business. Her eyes quickly scanned their faces, but no one spoke to her and she didn't stop to ask the whereabouts of the one person she sought. Turning her head to glance down Smithy Lane, she almost ran down a small boy dragging his dog behind him on a rope. The dog was too interested in the smells along their route to pay much heed to its master, and looked up with a wide, sloppy grin when she braked hastily to avoid them.

"George Miller, you've got that rope too tight," she said, but the boy gave her a frightened glance and tugged all the harder. The dog followed him good-naturedly, and she sighed in exasperation. Then she saw Daniel Hickam come out of one of the run-down houses beyond the smithy.

Upper Streetham turned a blind eye to the profession of the two women who occupied this particular house as long as they comported themselves with reasonable dignity elsewhere. It was whispered that they made a very good living at their trade because they could be depended on to pass their best customers on the High Street the next day without a flicker of recognition. Catherine had once tried to hire the older of the two, who had hair black as coal and eyes the color of the sea, to pose for a portrait she was painting of an aging courtesan, but the woman had turned her away in a fury.

"I don't care what you're painting, I have my pride, Miss Tarrant, and I'd rather starve than take money from the likes of you."

The words had hurt. Catherine had gone to London for her model, but within three weeks had abandoned the portrait because her vision of it had somehow gone astray. The face on the canvas had become a mockery, color and lines without a soul, technical skill without depth of expression.

Pretending to inspect her tire to give Hickam a head start, Catherine waited until he was beyond the last house, finally disappearing among the shadows cast by the first of the hawthorns, at the end of the stand of long grass. Then she began to pedal slowly after him, taking her time so that no one would suspect what she was about to do. "Whose weapon is that?" Rutledge asked, his eyes on Mav- ers's face now. "Yours?"

"What weapon?"

"The one just behind you," Rutledge snapped, in no mood for the man's agile tongue. Why the hell hadn't Forrest found this shotgun? If Mavers was a suspect, then he could have obtained a warrant, if necessary.

"What if it is?" Mavers asked belligerently. "I've a right to it, if it was left in a Will!"

"In whose Will?"

"Mr. Davenant's Will, that's whose."

Rutledge walked across the room and carefully broke open the gun. It had been fired recently, but when? Three days ago? A week? Like the rest of the cottage, it was worn, neglected, the stock scratched and the barrel showing the first signs of rust, but the breech had been kept well oiled, as if Mavers was not above a bit of quiet poaching.

"Why did he leave the gun to you?"

There was a brief silence; then Mavers said with less than his usual abrasiveness, "I expect it was my father he meant. My father was once his gamekeeper, and Mr. Davenant's Will said, 'I leave the old shotgun to Bert Mavers, who is a better birdman than any of us.' My father was dead by then, but the Will hadn't been changed, and Mrs. Davenant gave the gun to me, because she said it was what her husband wanted. The lawyer from London wasn't half pleased, I can tell you, but the Will didn't say which Bert Mavers, did it? Alive or dead?"

"When was the last time it was fired?"

"How should I know? Or care? The door's always open, anybody can walk in here. There's naught to steal, is there, unless you're after my chickens. Or need a shotgun in a bit of a hurry." His normal nastiness resurfaced. "You can't claim I used it, can you? I've got witnesses!"

"So everyone keeps telling me. But I'll take the gun for now, if you don't mind."

"First I'll have a piece of paper saying you'll bring it back!"

Rutledge took a sheet from his notebook and scribbled a sentence on it, then signed it under the man's baleful eye. Mavers watched him leave, and then folded the single sheet carefully and put it in a small metal box on the mantel. Inspector Forrest was waiting for them in the magpie cottage beyond the greengrocer's shop that served as the Upper Streetham police station. There was a small anteroom, a pair of offices, and another room at the back used as a holding cell. Seldom occupied by more serious felons than drunks and disturbers of the peace, an occasional wife beater or petty thief, this cell still had a heavy, almost medieval lock on its door, with the big iron key hanging nearby on a nail. The furnishings were old, the paint showing wear, the color of the carpet on the floors almost nondescript now, but the rooms were spotless.

Leaning across a battered desk to shake hands, Forrest introduced himself to Rutledge and said, "I'm sorry about this morning. Three dead in Lower Streetham, another in critical condition, two more seriously injured, and half the village in an uproar. I didn't like to leave until things had settled a bit. I hope Sergeant Davies has told you everything you wanted to know." He saw the shotgun in Rutledge's left hand and said, "Hello, what have we here?"

"Bert Mavers says this was left to him in a Will-or rather, left to his father."

"Good Lord! So it was! I'd forgotten about that. And Mrs. Davenant didn't mention it either, when I went to see her about her husband's Italian guns. It's been years-" His face was a picture of shock and chagrin.

"We probably can't prove it's the murder weapon, but I'm ready to wager it was."

Reaching for the shotgun, Forrest said with sudden enthusiasm, "Used by Mavers, do you think?"

"If so, why didn't he have the wit to put it out of sight afterward?"

"You never know with Mavers. Nothing he does makes much sense." Forrest examined it carefully, as if half expecting it to confess. "Yes, it's been fired, you can see that, but there's no saying when, is there? Still-"

"Everyone claims he was in the village all morning. Is that true?"

"Unfortunately, it appears to be." Forrest fished in the center drawer of his desk and said, "Here's a list of people I've talked to. You can see for yourself."

Rutledge took the neatly written sheet and glanced at the names, nearly two dozen of them. Most were unfamiliar to him, but Mrs. Davenant's was among them, and Royston's. And Catherine Tarrant's.