Charles Todd - A test of wills

It wasn't quite the same version of the story Mavers had told, but Rutledge thought that it was very likely that Royston's was closer to the truth.

Some of the color was coming back to Royston's face, and with it, the shuddering acceptance of the immensity of Mav- ers's revenge. "I've never felt quite so deliberately spiteful as I did when I told him that. I was thinking that it was one of the few times in my life when I actually relished causing pain. What I didn't realize was that I would cause so much! God, I feel-filthy!"

Rutledge answered harshly, "Don't be a fool! They're all so horrified they don't know how it began or why. Leave it at that. Let them blame Mavers. Don't give them a scapegoat! It will ruin you, and only a bloody idiot is that self-destructive."

After a moment, Royston nodded. He turned and walked away, joining the others who were now coming, by ones and twos and threes through the lych-gate, heads down, hurrying toward the safety of home. On the church steps, Carfield was alone, staring after his flock with an empty face.

He hadn't come forward in a heaven-sent rage to defy Mavers and protect his parishioners. He'd stood there, missing the opportunity of a lifetime to play the grand role of savior and hero, waiting in the shadows of the church door geared for flight and not for fight. Planning to make a hasty and unseen departure if need be, unwilling to do battle with the powers of darkness in the form of one wiry little loudmouth with amber goat's eyes.

A mountebank, Mavers had called him.

He looked across the churchyard and saw Rutledge watching him. With a swirl of his robes he vanished inside the church, shutting the door firmly but quietly behind him.

Rutledge walked slowly behind the last of the parishioners hurrying down the lane. By the time he reached the High Street, he was alone. That afternoon Dr. Warren allowed him to visit Daniel Hickam. Rutledge stood in the doorway, looking down at the man in the bed, thin, unshaven, but clean and as still as one of the carved Haldanes on the church tombs.

Then as Rutledge stepped into the room, the heavy eyelids opened, and Hickam frowned, knowing someone was there. He moved his head slightly, saw Rutledge, and the frown deepened, with incipient alarm behind it.

Dr. Warren moved out from behind Rutledge's shoulder and said briskly, "Well, then, Daniel, how are you feeling, man?"

Hickam's eyes moved slowly to Warren and then back again to Rutledge. After a moment he said in a croak that would have made a frog shudder, "Who are you?"

"I'm Rutledge. Inspector Rutledge, Scotland Yard. Do you remember why I'm here?"

Alarm widened his eyes. Warren said testily, "Oh, for God's sake, tell the man he's done nothing wrong, that it's information you want!"

"Where am I?" Hickam asked. "Is this France? Hampshire -the hospital?" His glance swept the room, puzzled, afraid.

Rutledge's hopes plummeted. "You're in Upper Streetham. Dr. Warren's surgery. You've been ill. But someone has shot Colonel Harris, he's dead, and we need to ask people who might have seen him on Monday morning where he was riding and who he was with."

Dr. Warren started to interrupt again, and this time Rut- ledge silenced him with a gesture.

"Dead?" Hickam shut his eyes. After a time he opened them again and repeated, "Monday morning?"

"Yes, that's right. Monday morning. You'd been drunk. Do you remember? And you were still hungover when Sergeant Davies found you. You told him what you'd seen. But then you were ill, and we haven't been able to ask you to repeat your statement. We need it badly." Rutledge kept his voice level and firm, as if questioning wounded soldiers about what they'd seen, crossing the line.

Hickam shut his eyes again. "Was the Colonel on a horse?"

Rutledge's spirits began to rise again. "Yes, he was out riding that morning." He heard the echo of Lettice Wood's words in his own, then told himself to keep his mind on Hickam.

"On a horse." Hickam shook his head. "I don't remember Monday morning."

"That's it, then," Warren said quietly, still standing at Rutledge's shoulder. "I warned you."

"But I remember the Colonel. On a horse. In the-in the lane above Georgie's house. I-was that Monday?" The creaking voice steadied a little.

"Go on, tell me what you remember. I'll decide for myself what's important and what isn't."

The eyelids closed once more, as if too heavy. "The Colonel. He'd been to Georgie's-"

"He's lost it," Warren said at that. "Let him be now."

"No, he's right, the Colonel had been to the Grayson house!" Rutledge told him under his breath. "Now keep out of it!"

Hickam was still speaking. "And someone called to him. Another officer." He shook his head. "I don't know his name. He-he wasn't one of our men. A-a captain, that's what he was. The Captain called to Colonel Harris, and Harris stopped. They stood there, Harris on the horse, the Captain by his stirrup."

And then there was silence, heavy and filled only with the sound of Hickam's breathing. "There was a push on, wasn't there? I could hear the guns, they were in my head-but it was quiet in the lane," he began again. "I tried, but I couldn't hear what they were saying. I could see their faces-angry faces, low, angry voices. Clenched fists, the Colonel leaning down, the Captain staring up at him. I-I was frightened they'd find me, send me back." He stirred under the sheet, face agitated. "So angry. I couldn't hear what they were saying."

He started to repeat over and over, "The guns-I couldn't hear-I couldn't hear-I couldn't hear-"

Warren clucked his tongue. "Lie still, man, it's done with, there's nothing to be afraid of now!"

The unsteady voice faded. Then Hickam said, so softly that Rutledge had to lean toward the bed to hear him while Warren cupped his left hand around his ear: "I'll fight you every step of the way…"

Rutledge recognized the words. Hickam had repeated them to him in the dark on the High Street the night he'd given him enough money to kill himself.

"Don't be-fool-like it or not-learn to live with it."

"Live with what?" Rutledge asked.

Hickam didn't answer. Rutledge waited. Nothing. The minutes ticked past.

Finally Dr. Warren jerked his head toward the door and took Rutledge's arm.

Rutledge nodded, turned to go.

They were already in the hall, Rutledge's hand on the door, preparing to close it. He stopped in the act, realizing that Hickam's lips were moving.

The thready voice was saying something. Rutledge crossed the room in two swift strides, put his ear almost to the man's mouth.

"Not the war… it wasn't the war" A sense of amazement crept into the words. "Then what? What was it?" Hickam was silent again. Then he opened his eyes and stared directly into Rutledge's face. "You'll think I'm mad. In the middle of all that fighting-" "No. I'll believe you. I swear it. Tell me." "It wasn't the war. The Colonel-he was going to call off the wedding." Dr. Warren said something from the doorway, harsh and disbelieving. But Rutledge believed. It was, finally, the reason behind the quarrel. It was, as well, the Captain's motive for murder.

The Inn was remarkably quiet, but Rutledge stopped Red- fern in the hall and asked to have sandwiches and coffee brought to his room. He wanted to think, without distraction or interruption, and Redfern must have sensed this, because he nodded and hurried off toward the kitchens without a word.

Rutledge took the stairs two at a time. In the passage near his room, he paused as the first rays of a sultry, overly bright sun broke through the heavy clouds. Storm signs, he thought, watching the light play across the gardens and then flicker out again. They'd had a remarkable run of good weather as it was.

His eyes caught a splash of color in the small private garden, and he looked down. A woman in a broad-brimmed hat was standing there, her back to the Inn, hands on her arms, head bowed. He tried to see who it was, but in the gray light he wasn't sure he recognized her. Searching his mind for someone at the morning church service wearing a hat like that, he drew a blank. He'd been more interested in faces than apparel. And in reactions to Mavers's vicious denunciations. Leaning his palms on the windowsill, he cocked his head to one side for a better line of sight.