Charles Todd - A test of wills

Listening, Rutledge could hear the ring of truth-and the suspicion of a lie. He had to remind himself that Mark Wilton had spent four years in the air over France, surviving on his wits, surviving because he was intelligent, kept his nerve, never let himself be outwitted or outmaneuvered.

"Did she ask you if you'd shot her guardian?"

"No." It was curt, haughty. Pride speaking.

"What will you tell her when she does? When you've been arrested?"

"That you've decided I did shoot Harris. That I'll fight you in court, and with any luck make you look like a fool." He frowned. "I'm not a barrister, but I've got a chance, I think. The evidence against me is circumstantial, no one saw me with a gun, no one saw me actually shoot the Colonel. Calling off the wedding might damn me, but we'll see about that." He caught the fleeting expression in Rutledge's eyes and said, "Oh, yes, I've thought it all through! Most of the night. I've also considered something else. You'll probably win in the long run; the trial will end with 'not proved' rather than an acquittal. And that doubt, that shadow will hang over me for the rest of my life. Did I or didn't I kill Harris? In some respects that's worse than the gallows. I can't possibly expect Lettice to marry me, knowing she might wonder in the middle of the night if I had done it."

"Then you won't come with me now, and give yourself up."

"If I do, it's an admission of guilt. In the view of most people." He rubbed his eyes tiredly. "I can't afford to damn myself. You'll have to arrest me. Without fanfare, I can promise you there will be no trouble over it. But it will have to be a warrant."

"Why did Charles Harris change his mind about you? About the wedding? What had you done to turn him against the marriage?"

To Rutledge's surprise, a smile flickered deep in Wilton's eyes. "Ah. I expect that information did die with Charles Harris!"

Then the smile faded, and he said quite soberly, "I need a favor from you, Rutledge. I don't know if you can grant it, but I'm asking you at least to consider it. I want to go to the funeral with Lettice. She needs someone besides that idiot Carfield. Or Simon Haldane, who's kind enough but damned ineffectual. The Regiment is sending a representative, but Lettice doesn't know him, he's a stranger. It won't be easy for her, with her guardian dead and her fiance in jail. You can lock me in a room in the Inn tonight, if that's any use. I'll agree to any terms you like. Just let me do this one thing, and I'll be very grateful."

"I can't postpone an arrest."

"Why? Do you think I'll shoot myself when you aren't looking? Or run to France? The only hope I have of a normal life is proving I didn't shoot Charles! A trial is as important to me as it is to you. Give me twenty-four hours!"

Rutledge looked at him, trying to read the man. Behind the handsome face was an extraordinary strength. And a gambler's instincts? High in the clouds, pitting his wits against another man, with death as the price of losing, he had come through duel after duel almost unscathed. It was a remarkable record, and his nerve had never broken Hamish, who'd been silent most of the morning, stirred to life. "But yours did! That's why you've lost your skills, man, you've broken. Nerve, mind, spirit. You aren't the hunter anymore, you're the prey!"

He forced himself to think, ignoring the voice in the back of his mind. Wilton was waiting, patient, watchful. He wanted this very badly. And he didn't like begging.

Dredging up his own instincts, Rutledge sorted them out. And made his decision.

"All right, then. Twenty-four hours. But if you trick me, by God I'll crucify you!"

Wilton shook his head. "It isn't for me. It's for Lettice." And driving back to the Inn, Hamish was raging. "The witch again! She's cast a spell on you with those strange eyes, and you've lost your soul-"

"No," Rutledge said, concentrating on the road. "I'm beginning to think"-he dodged a big yellow dog ambling peacefully across his path-"I'm beginning to think I might have found it."

"You've got the man-witnesses-the shotgun-the reason why yon fine Colonel needed to die that morning. You've done your work, man, don't throw it away!"

"On the contrary. I've stumbled around in the dark, letting other people tell me what was happening. I've been terrified that someone might see my own terrors and turn them against me. I've dreaded failure and done very little to prevent it. I was lost-lost!-and couldn't find my way back to 1914. If I can't do any better than this, I deserve to be locked away in that damned clinic with the other wretched dregs of humanity. If I want to survive, I've got to fight for it…" He spent the day organizing his evidence, finishing his report. Before he began he put in a call to Bowles in London and said, "I've got enough proof to ask for a warrant. Tomorrow at noon. The case is as strong as I can make it, but not without some problems. I think a good KC can fill them in, and we'll have our conviction."

Bowles, listening, finally interrupted. "I hope to God you aren't telling me we're going to arrest Wilton! The Palace called this morning; they want to know whether to send a representative to the funeral. Wilton's marrying Harris's ward-"

"Tell them to send someone who knew Harris. He was a good soldier, he served the King well. It doesn't matter about Wilton."

"Rutledge, if you've got this wrong, the Yard will have your head. Do you hear me? Leave the man alone unless you've got such proof that Christ Himself couldn't find a way out of it! I won't be responsible if you humiliate the Palace and disgrace the Yard!"

"I won't," Rutledge said, with more firmness than he felt. "If I do, you'll have my resignation on your desk by Wednesday morning."

"A hell of a lot of good that will be, man! After the damage is done!"

"I know. That's why I'm taking my time." Rutledge hung up. So much for the confidence and support of his superiors. He felt suddenly isolated, alone.

But loneliness was also a strength. When you trusted, you were more vulnerable. You gave yourself away. He would have told someone about Hamish long ago, if he'd trusted. As long as it was his own private hell, he was, in a sense, far safer. No one could reach him. No one could destroy him. Except he himself, in the muddle that was now his life. By late afternoon he'd covered sheet after sheet with notes and a framework for his evidence. Satisfied that he'd been thorough, he reread the pages. It wasn't a clever work of detection, nor was it complete, since there were no eyewitnesses to the death itself.

Except for the child, and the doll. She had been in the meadow. Not surprisingly, the shock of what she'd seen had frightened her into the blankness of withdrawal, the secure world of no feeling, no thought, no memory.

And yet she hadn't responded to Wilton at all when he came to her room. It was her father who terrified her, her father who couldn't come near her without provoking wild and mindless screams.

He got up from the table he'd been using as a desk and moved restlessly around the room. He'd never been a man to enjoy being shut up indoors all day long; he thought that that had, unconsciously, been one of several reasons why he'd failed to follow in his father's footsteps at the bar. But the war, the aftermath of being buried alive in a trench, had turned an ordinary dislike into an almost rabid claustrophobia, and police work at least took him outside much of the time, before the walls began to close in upon him. As they were now.

Picking up his coat, he went out and down the stairs, planning to walk no farther than the lane in front of the church.

Outside the Inn the market was drawing to a close, stalls shut up and ready to load on wagons, the last of the market goers straggling from shop to shop. In front of the milliner's he saw Helena Sommers in earnest conversation with Laurence Royston. She was standing on the sidewalk and he was in one of Charles Harris's cars. And she was wearing the same hat Rutledge had glimpsed in the Inn garden on Sunday after Mavers's malicious attack on everyone in the churchyard.