Charles Todd - A test of wills

"What else does gossip say?"

"That you haven't found much to go on. That you're floundering in the dark. But that's not true. I know what's in the back of your mind." He smiled wryly.

"If you didn't kill Harris, who did?"

"The comfortable answer would be, 'Mavers,' wouldn't it?"

"Why not Hickam, who claims he saw you speaking to Harris-arguing heatedly with him, in his words-in the lane? Why isn't it possible that he knew where to find a shotgun, and decided, in that confused mind of his, that he was off to shoot the Boche? Or to kill an officer he hated? He wouldn't be the first enlisted man to do that. In fact, he might just as easily have chosen you as his target as Charles Harris. A toss-up, given his drunken state."

The look of stark surprise on Wilton's face was quickly covered, but it told Rutledge one thing-that Hickam's story might very well be true, that he'd seen the Captain and the Colonel quarreling. For Wilton had taken the bait without even questioning it. He'd immediately recognized the twist that could be put on Hickam's evidence, and his mind had been busily considering that possibility just as alarm bells had gone off reminding him that-in his own statement- Hickam hadn't witnessed any meeting at all, angry or not.

"I suppose I'd never thought he was capable of such a thing," Mark answered lamely. "Shell-shocked-mad, perhaps-but not particularly dangerous." Feeling his way carefully, he added, "And it probably wouldn't matter whether he actually saw Charles that morning or just thought he did. Well, it does make a certain sense out of this business. I can't imagine anyone in his right mind shooting Charles. It would have to be a Mavers. Or a Hickam."

Which was all very interesting. Taking another shot in the dark, Rutledge said, "Tell me about Catherine Tarrant."

Wilton shook his head. "No." It was quiet, firm, irreversible. He emptied his glass and set it down.

"You knew her well when you were in Upper Streetham before the war. You were, in fact, in love with her."

"No, I thought I was in love with her. But her father was wise enough to see that it wouldn't do, and he asked us to wait a year or two before we came to any formal understanding." He turned in his chair, easing his stiff knee. "And he was right; a few months apart, a dozen letters on each side, and we soon discovered that they were getting harder and harder to write. I think we both realized what was happening, but there was never any formal ending. The letters got shorter, then further apart. I'm still quite fond of Catherine Tarrant, I admire her, and I like her work."

"Was she painting then?" There was a clatter in the kitchens, someone dropping a tray, and then Redfern's voice, sharply taking whoever it was to task.

"Oddly enough, nobody seemed to recognize how talented she was. Yes, she'd mention something about a painting. But you know how it was before the war, most well-bred girls tried their hand at watercolors or music-it was rather expected of them."

Rutledge recalled his sister's lessons, and smiled. Frances could sing beautifully, but her watercolors had generally been a welter of slapdash color sent running over the paper with an enthusiastic and generous hand. Not one, to his certain knowledge, had ever seen a frame. She had studied assiduously, searching for subjects and giving grandiose names to her work, but her teacher had finally written, "Miss Rut- ledge makes up in spirit what she lacks in talent," and to everyone's relief, the lessons had ended there.

Wilton was saying, "And no one thought anything about it when Catherine said, 'I'm doing a portrait of that old woman who used to milk cows for us, remember her? She's got a wonderful face.' " He glanced wryly at Rutledge. "Least of all me! I wasn't interested in anything that didn't have wings to it! But that one later won a prize in London. When I went to her first exhibit, I was stunned. I wondered where in God's name Catherine had found such power of expression, such depth of feeling. How she'd come to change so much in such a short time. But she hadn't changed-it was there all along, and apparently I'd been blind to it. I suppose that's the difference between infatuation and love, if you come down to it."

"And Linden? Had he brought any of these changes about? Found the woman somewhere inside the sweet, untouched girl you'd met before the war?"

Wilton's mouth was grim. "I've told you. Ask Miss Tarrant about her personal life."

"Then you disapproved of the affair?"

"I was in France, trying to stay alive. I couldn't have approved or disapproved, I didn't know. Until much later. In fact, it was Charles who told me, the first time he brought me down to Mallows. He thought I should be aware of it, before I ran into her. But Catherine has never spoken of Linden to me."

"Did she blame Colonel Harris for not handling their case properly with the Army? Or blame Lettice for not making it clear to her guardian that Catherine was serious about this man?"

"I don't know, I tell you. Except that Charles would have done what he could. If he'd known. For Catherine's sake if nothing else. He'd been fond of her."

"But he didn't know?"

"I can't answer that. I can tell you his headquarters was swamped with people's letters, wanting news about their sons, their husbands, their lovers. He said once it was the hardest part of his job, reading such letters. Sometimes they were sent to the wrong place, or lost."

"Surely not a letter from his ward? That wouldn't have been shoved in a sack with dozens of others and forgotten?"

This time Wilton stood up. "You're putting words into my mouth, Rutledge. I don't know what went wrong over Linden. I don't suppose anyone does. I'm sure that Charles would have done his best for the pair of them, he would try to help Catherine. My God, he did what he could for anyone in Upper Streetham in one way or another, so why not her? What the War Office did is anybody's guess. Some ignorant fool sitting at a cluttered desk in Whitehall might have felt it his personal duty to prevent any relationship between prisoners and the home population, whatever the Colonel said about it. Bad for morale and all that. And come to that, it wouldn't have mattered; the war was nearly over, and if he'd lived, Linden could have spoken for himself. Who could have guessed that Linden would die of influenza. Still, it decimated the country, for God's sake, no one was immune."

"But because he was sent from here, he died alone, and no one told Catherine. Not until long afterward."

Wilton laughed harshly. "In war you can't keep up with every poor sod you send out to die. I was a squadron leader, I knew the hell of that. A man's blown to bits in a trench, shot down in flames, chokes on gas and lies rotting in the mud. You do your best, you write letters about his bravery, how much he'd done for his country, how much his comrades looked to him for an example-and you don't even recall his name, much less his face! Linden took his chances, like any soldier. At least she knows what became of him, where he's buried!"

Rutledge watched his face, remembering how Catherine Tarrant had looked when she spoke of searching for Linden. And remembering what Sally Davenant had said about Wilton's love of flying changing to agony in the heat of battle and death and fear.

"That's cold comfort to a grieving, passionate woman."

"Is it? After all the killing, I came home to a hero's welcome. Safe and whole. Invited to the Palace and to Sandring- ham. Treated like royalty, myself. But I was there in a hospital in Dorset when they brought in a man they'd found wandering in France. Didn't even know who he was, whether he was British or German-a shell of a man, starving and begging on the roadside for a year or more, more animal than human, worse than Hickam, and I looked at him, and thought, I used to have nightmares about burning to death in a crash, but there are worse things than that! Worse than being blind or without a limb, lungs seared with gas, face shot away, guts rotted. Coming home safe-and not knowing it's over- that's the bleakest hell I'm capable of picturing!"