Charles Todd - A test of wills

Finally the door was opened a narrow crack and a soft voice said, "Yes?"

"Miss Sommers? Inspector Rutledge. I'm looking for your cousin. Is she in?"

Reluctantly the door opened wider, and a pale face stared out. "She's not here just now. There was a bird's nest she wanted to check this morning."

He noted the strong family resemblance in features, but this cousin was quieter, dowdier, younger. Her hair was a mousy brown, her eyes wide and fearful, her dress a muted gray-green that did nothing for her complexion or her coloring. "Do you know when she'll be back?" he asked.

Maggie Sommers shook her head quickly, not wanting to encourage him to wait. She peered over his shoulder, saw the goose attacking the front tires of the Inspector's car, saw Sergeant Davies laughing out of the passenger's side, and then ducked back almost as if recoiling from any responsibility for what was happening on her lawn.

"She's Helena's pet," she said defensively. "I don't like her, she terrifies me."

"Shall I put her in a pen or somewhere?" Rutledge asked, wondering how he was going to manage that feat, but Miss Sommers shook her head again.

"No, she'll leave me alone if I'm not hanging out the wash. She hates that. Why do you wish to see Helena?"

"I wanted to talk with her about Captain Wilton. She saw him the morning that Colonel Harris was shot."

Tears filled her eyes, and he thought for a moment she was going to start crying. "That was awful-I was never so terrified in my life as when I heard about it. He seemed like such a nice man."

"You knew the Colonel?" Rutledge asked in surprise.

"Oh, no. No. But sometimes he rode this way-through the fields there," Maggie Sommers said, pointing. "That's his land, just beyond the high wall. The two estates meet there. If I was out in the gardens or something, he'd wave. At first I was afraid he'd want to stop and chat, but he never did, and Helena said I ought to wave back. It was-neigh- borly. She said he probably thought it was she anyway. She'd met him-at a dinner party." She smiled timidly, giving her face a little more life and color, the tears forgotten. "I was invited too."

He could see why she had been called a recluse, why there had even been the suspicion that she was simple. But she was only unimaginably shy, almost childlike. He thought that all he would have to do was shout at her in a harsh voice, and she'd scurry back inside and shut the door and hide under the bed. Torn between sympathy and irritation, he wondered where someone as brisk and active as Helena found the patience to cope with Maggie for an entire summer. Or perhaps she wasn't quite so timorous when left alone.

She was saying anxiously, "Should I offer you tea or-or coffee? I don't know when Helena's coming back, truly I don't, it would be useless to wait, and there's the cleaning still to be done…"

Taking pity on her, he left, dodging the goose again, but he was sorely tempted to sideswipe it after one last onslaught as he cranked the car. The heavy wings had caught the side of his head a nasty clip as he bent over.

"At least it wasn't a goat," Davies said, enjoying himself. "You'd have sailed over yon wall like one of the Captain's aeroplanes." When they reached Upper Streetham again, they found a message from Dr. Warren saying that he must see them urgently.

He was in his surgery when they arrived and he took them upstairs to a small room with an iron bedstead, a table, a single chair, and a very still form under starched sheets.

"Hickam," Warren said shortly.

"What the devil's happened to him?" Rutledge demanded, drawing up the only chair and sitting down to stare at the closed, gray face. "He looks half dead!"

"He is. Alcoholic poisoning-he drank enough to kill himself. A miracle he didn't. I've never seen a man so full of gin in all my years of practice. Hickam must have the constitution of an ox."

Rutledge felt a surge of guilt. "Where did you find him? How?"

"I was coming home last night from the Pinters' farm-just over the ridge, one of Haldane's tenants, little girl's in rough shape, and I'd stayed until the sedative finally started to work. This was about two in the morning. Hickam was lying in the middle of the road. He'd crawled that far, though God knows from where, and then passed out. I damned near ran over him, to tell you the truth of it, didn't see him until the last minute because he was in the darker shadows cast by the trees along the High Street there, and I didn't have my headlamps on-there's something wrong with the fool things. I was so tired that I thought it was a sleeping dog and swerved to miss it, and damned near rammed the horse trough outside Miss Millard's dress shop. Then I realized it was Hickam, and for a brass farthing would have just left him there in the road to sleep it off. But I got the car started again, managed to haul him into it, and brought him here. And a good thing too, or we'd have lost him for a fact."

Rutledge could see the man's unsteady breathing, the sheet over his chest rising and falling with soft but ragged irregularity, and said, "Are you sure he'll live?" He found himself torn between wishing Hickam dead and keeping him alive. But if he died, and it was Rutledge's doing-he cursed himself savagely.

Warren shrugged. "Nothing is sure in medicine. But at least the odds are on his side now. God knows, there must have been a pint of gin still in his belly when I pumped him out. And that would have killed him for certain before morning."

"Where did he find enough money to drink that much?" Davies demanded, leaning over Rutledge's shoulder for a closer examination of the sunken eyes, the scraggle of beard, the slack mouth.

Without answering him, Rutledge glanced up at Warren. "Did you know I've been looking for him? Most of this morning?"

"Forrest said something about it when I spoke to him about Hickam. That's when I left the message for you. But if you're thinking of questioning him now, you're mad. He's too weak to know what he's saying-even if he could manage to speak."

Rutledge nodded. He could see that much for himself. But he said, "Then I want you to keep him here until I can question him. Use any pretext you can think of, tie him to the bed if you have to, but keep him here, out of harm's way. And no visitors, absolutely none."

"You don't seriously believe he can tell you anything useful!" Warren scoffed. "A man like Hickam? Nonsense!"

Rutledge's eyes were dark with anger as he said, "Why? Because he's a drunk? A coward? Out of his head? You might be the same in his shoes. I've seen more shell shock cases than you'll ever attend, Doctor, and they're tormented people with no way out of the prisons of their minds. You weren't in France or Gallipoli or Palestine, and there's nothing in your medical practice to tell you what it was like."

"And I suppose you know?" Warren snapped.

Rutledge caught himself on the brink, realized in time where his outburst was carrying him, and said only, "I was there."

Still angry when he reached the car, Rutledge said to Da- vies, "Tell Forrest I'm holding Dr. Warren responsible for Hickam, and if for any reason whatsoever he leaves the doctor's care, he's to be arrested on sight. Is that clear?"

"Where'll you be, then?" Davies asked warily.

"I'm going back to Mallows." To see what Lettice Wood might tell him, alone and with no notes being taken.

Glad not to be included in that visit, Davies hurried off to find Forrest. And Rutledge was left with Hamish's company on the drive out to the Colonel's home. This time he was shown directly to Miss Wood's sitting room, and Rutledge found it empty. She came in through a connecting door after a few minutes, still wearing black, but with her face no longer invisible to him. The drapes were drawn back, and the sun's warm reflection filled the room with a softness that was kind to her grief-shadowed eyes.