Charles Todd - A test of wills

He could feel the fatigue dragging at him, the stress and the loneliness. The fear. Looking around for Redfern, Rut- ledge saw that he was alone in the bar. And then Carfield was coming through the doorway, glancing his way.

"Inspector. I've spoken with Mark Wilton," he said, crossing over to Rutledge's table. "We've settled on Tuesday for the services. I understand that Dr. Warren hasn't lifted his embargo on visits to Lettice. I really feel, as her spiritual adviser, I should go to her, offer her comfort, prepare her for the very difficult task of attending the funeral. Could you use your good offices to persuade him that seclusion is the worst possible thing for a young woman with no family to support her?"

Rutledge smiled. Pompous ass didn't begin to describe the Vicar. "I have no right to overturn a medical decision unless it has a bearing on my duties," he said, remembering Lettice's dread of having to cope with Carfield.

"And there's the matter of the reception after the service. It should be held at Mallows. I sincerely believe Charles would have wished that. Naturally I shall take charge; I know the staff well enough, they'll do my bidding."

"Why not at the Vicarage?" Rutledge asked. "After Miss Wood has greeted the guests, she can go quietly home. Wilton will see to that, or Royston."

Carfield sat down uninvited. "My dear man, one doesn't serve the funeral's cold baked meats at the Vicarage for a man like Charles Harris, who has his own quite fine residence! That's what staff is for, you know, to do the labor. One doesn't expect dear Lettice to shoulder such a burden."

"Have you suggested to Wilton that you wish to arrange the reception at Mallows?"

Carfield's eyebrows rose. "It isn't his home, is it? The decision is for others to make, not for Captain Wilton."

"I see." He considered the Vicar for a moment. "Who told Upper Streetham that Miss Tarrant was in love with a German prisoner of war and wished to marry him?"

The heavily handsome face was closed. "I have no idea. I tried to make the village see that she had done nothing wrong, that loving our enemies is part of God's plan. But people are sometimes narrow-minded about such matters. Why do you ask?"

"Could she have killed Charles Harris?"

Carfield smiled. "Why not ask me if Mrs. Davenant did it?"

"All right. Did she?"

The smile disappeared. "You're quite serious?"

"Murder is a serious business. I want to solve this one."

"Ah, yes, I can understand your dilemma, with Wilton so closely connected to the Royal Family," Carfield answered with a shrewdness that narrowly escaped shrewishness as well. "I shouldn't have thought that a shotgun was a woman's weapon."

"Nor should I. But that doesn't mean it wasn't a woman. Behind it at the very least, even if she never touched the trigger."

With a shake of his head, Carfield replied, "Women are many things, but obliterating a man's face in that fashion is a bloody, horrible business even for a man. Catherine, Mrs. Davenant, Lettice-they are none of them farmwives who can take an ax to a chicken without blinking."

"Catherine Tarrant ran her father's estate throughout the war."

"Ran it, yes, but do you suppose she butchered cattle or dressed a hen?"

"Perhaps she didn't know how bloody the results would be. Perhaps she intended to aim lower, but the kick of the weapon lifted the barrel."

Carfield shrugged. "Then you must take into account the fact that during the last three years of the war, Sally Dav- enant volunteered to nurse the wounded at a friend's house in Gloucestershire, which had been turned into a hospital. She has no formal training, you understand, but Mrs. Davenant did tend her husband through his last illness, and the-er- intimacies of the sickbed were familiar to her. Dressing wounds, taking off bloody bedclothes, watching doctors remove stitches or clean septic flesh-I'm sure you learn to face many things when you have to."

No one, least of all Sally Davenant, had seen fit to mention that. Rutledge swore under his breath.

"But I can't think that it would lead her to commit a murder!" Carfield was saying. "And why should she wish to kill the Colonel, I ask you!"

"Why did anyone want to kill him?" Rutledge countered.

"Ah, now we're back to why. Whatever the reason, I'm willing to wager that it was deeply personal. Deeply. Can you plumb that far into the soul to find it?"

"Are you telling me that as a priest you've heard confessions that give you the answer to this murder?"

"No, people seldom confess their blackest depths to anyone, least of all to a priest. Oh, the small sins, the silly sins, even the guilty sins, where a clean conscience relieves the weight of guilt. Adultery. Envy. Anger. Covetousness. Hate. Jealousy."

He smiled, a rueful smile that belittled himself in a way. "But there's fury, you know. Where someone acts in a blind rage, and only then stops to think and feel. Or fright, where there's no time for second thoughts. Or self-defense, where you must act or be hurt. I hear of those afterward. From the man who hits a neighbor in a rage over a broken cart wheel. From the woman who takes a flatiron to her drunken husband before he beats her senseless. From the child who lashes out, bloodying a bully's nose. And sometimes these things can also lead to murder. Well, you've seen it happen, I needn't tell you about that! But what's deeply burned into the soul, what's buried beneath the civilized layers of the skin, is the more deadly because often there's no warning it even exists. No warning, even to a priest."

Which was more truth than Rutledge had expected to hear from the Vicar.

"However," Carfield went on before Rutledge could answer him, "I'm not here to solve your problems but to attend to my own. Which brings me back again to Mallows."

"I'd speak to Royston or to Wilton, if I were you. I'd leave Miss Wood out of it. If they agree, they can break the news to her."

"I'm her spiritual adviser!"

"And Dr. Warren is her physician. It's his decision, not yours."

Carfield rose, eyes studying Rutledge, the tired face, the lines. "You carry your own heavy burdens, don't you?" he said quietly. "I don't envy you them. My God, I don't! But let me tell you this much, Inspector Rutledge. When you return to London, this will still be my parish, and I must still face its people. The reception will be at Mallows. I promise you that."

He turned and strode through the bar, ignoring Redfern. The younger man came limping across to Rutledge's table. "Now there's a man I'd not want to cross," he said, glancing over his shoulder at the sound of the outer door slamming. "I'd turn Chapel before I'd tell him what was going on in my head!"

Rutledge laughed wryly. He wondered if Redfern had overheard part of the conversation or was simply, unwittingly, confirming the Vicar's words.

Redfern picked up the empty glasses and wiped the table with his cloth. "It isn't easy, is it? Being from London and not knowing what's happening here. But I'll tell you, there's no reason I can think of for any of us to shoot Colonel Harris. Save Mavers, of course. Born troublemaker! There was a private in my company, a sour-faced devil from the stews of Glasgow, who was bloody-minded as they come! Never gave us any peace, until the day the Germans got him. I heard later that the ambulance carrying him to hospital was strafed. Everybody killed. I was sorry about that, but I was relieved that Sammy wasn't coming back. Ever. Tongue as rough as the shelling, by God!"

"I understand that Mrs. Davenant was a nurse during the war. Is that true?"

It was Redfern's turn to laugh, embarrassed. "You could have knocked me over with a feather when she walked into the ward the day I was brought in, still too groggy from what they'd been doing to my foot to know where I was. God, I thought somehow I'd landed back home! The next day she was there again, changing dressings. I told the sister on duty I'd not hear of her touching me! Sister said that was enough nonsense out of me. Still, they must have spoken of it, because she left me alone."