Charles Todd - A Cold Treachery

Unless she, like Belfors, saw in Paul Elcott the local man being sent to the gallows by outsiders who were glad to let him take the blame…

All of them-Cummins and his wife, Miss Fraser, Miss Ashton, and Hugh Robinson-were not native to Urskdale. They would have had no defenders, if the tables had been turned. Even Follet had put in a word for Elcott and expressed his doubts about Janet Ashton.

An independent-minded woman like Maggie Ingerson might just do her bit to set him free.

But-who could have told her that he'd been taken into custody?

Rutledge looked out at the snow that still lay deep in corners, against northern walls, and wherever traffic hadn't trampled it into mud.

The storm had once covered every footprint. But even in this light he could squat on his heels and see fresh tracks. The hobnails of Drew Taylor's boots. The worn pattern of Cummins's Wellingtons. His own shoes. Miss Ashton's smaller soles. Beyond them the prints made by the search parties climbing the fell.

If the snowfall had been lighter, Greeley might have caught his man simply by tracking him. Case closed.

Rutledge turned to the house and his hand was already on the latch to the yard door.

Hamish was saying something, and he stopped to listen, but under the voice was something else. A memory.

He tried to bring it back. And lost it in Hamish's last words.

“Ye've got til teatime tomorrow. Ye canna' afford to sleep.”

R utledge lay awake another hour, reviewing all he'd seen and done here in Urskdale, raking through his actions and his unconscious observations.

By four in the morning he had drifted into an uneasy sleep, drained by his failure.

And when dreams came, they were mixed and morbid, as if in punishment.

He could see the boy running, dragging his feet, and the Elcotts lying dead in the snow, scattered like soldiers after an attack, limbs bent and bodies trampled by sheep. Overhead an artillery barrage lighted the sky, and he could hear Hamish calling the boy's name, pointing to the mud where Rutledge could see his footprints clearly in bloody snow.

The artillery barrage was louder, the shells exploding in his face, and he came out of deep sleep with a start, his heart pounding in time with the pounding on his door.

W hen Rutledge opened his door, the thin, balding man standing there rocked back on his heels and said in a high, clear tenor, “It was the very devil of a journey, and I'm going to my bed. You've been relieved.”

It was Mickelson. Behind his back his men called him Cassius, for his lean and hungry look. The name fit, for he was notorious for his ingratiating manner towards his superiors while behind their backs he ruthlessly promoted himself. A greengrocer's son, he had climbed high and expected to go higher.

Rutledge was left standing there while Mickelson strode to the door of the room Harry Cummins had assigned him.

Cummins cast an apologetic glance in Rutledge's direction as he asked his latest guest if all was to his liking.

Rutledge shut his door again and stood there. He felt empty. He had fought for six months-seven-to rebuild his career. And it had come down to this.

Hamish said, “You canna' be certain he'll do any better.”

But that didn't take away the stigma of being relieved. Of being seen as failing in his duty. Bowles would take pleasure in seeing that word got around, and he would never let Rutledge live it down.

“He's no' so clever. Only ambitious…” Hamish pointed out softly.

Rutledge took a deep breath. For his own sake, he must somehow find the answer that had eluded him from the start-that had eluded all of them. For his own self-respect.

Standing there, he remembered his dream. There had been something. He tried to recapture the swiftly fading memory of it. Artillery, and bloody snow. But the artillery had just been Mickelson pounding on his door, regardless of his sleeping neighbors.

And then he had it. Not the blood, not the dead lying about. What he had seen were the boy's footprints in the snow.

For he had seen them, those same dragging prints. In life. Not a child fleeing in terror, but a child shuffling in shoes too large. His heels leaving not a crisp mark like a man's but a blurred smudge.

R utledge went back to his bed and slept for two more hours. After packing his belongings, he made his way quietly to the kitchen, where Elizabeth Fraser had already put the kettle on to boil.

“Will you help me?” he asked her. “Nothing quite as dangerous as putting your head into the lion's mouth, but all the same-”

“Yes, of course. I heard that Inspector Mickelson is here. Is it a message for him?”

“No. For Inspector Greeley. I asked him last night to let Paul Elcott go home. Would you tell him for me that I've left for London, and as you were cleaning my room, you found a shirt that I'd forgotten. That you'd like to send it on to me.”

She stared at him. “But where will you be?”

“Don't ask me to tell you. But, as a favor, let Inspector Mickelson sleep as long as he can.”

A smile spread across her face. “Have you found the boy? I always believed that somehow you would!”

His face betrayed nothing. “As far as anyone is concerned, I've left Urskdale.”

Nodding at him, she turned to the kettle. “I understand now.” Her mind was busy, jumping ahead of his. “There's meat left from dinner last night. I can put up some sandwiches. Do you have a Thermos?”

“That's thoughtful of you. I'll take my case out to the motorcar and fetch it.”

When he had cranked the motorcar and come back into the kitchen, she handed him a packet of sandwiches and then filled his Thermos.

“I'm sorry to see you go,” she said simply. “But Godspeed.” She held out her hand and he took it, held it for a moment, and then turned away.

R utledge drove to the Elcott farm and beyond it, to the shearing pens where he had stopped once before with Drew Taylor. The shed was open on one side, and he drove the motorcar into it.

He knew Mickelson. The site of the murders had been cleaned and painted over. The victims had been buried. If he came here at all, he would listen to Greeley explain where and how the bodies had been discovered. And then he would go back to Urskdale and begin to question the people closest to the crime.

Paul Elcott was not likely to go far afield even if he found the courage to go on working at the house. And unless the weather came down again, the Elcott sheep would be left to their own resources.

The motorcar wouldn't be found for a day or two at best.

He took the packet of food with him, and the Thermos, and set out on foot.

There would be a vantage point somewhere where he could watch the Ingerson farm. In his pocket were the field glasses he'd used before at the hotel. And in his mind was the map, with the comments that Drew Taylor had made when they surveyed the terrain together.

It would be uncomfortable and cold where he was going, but in France he had suffered much worse conditions. What had driven him then was a desire to die. What was driving him now was the feeling that he must vindicate himself or lose all he'd achieved in the long, fearsome struggle to heal.

He thought fleetingly of Elizabeth Fraser. But that was far, far down the road.

Hamish demanded, “And if you find the lad, then what?”

Rutledge couldn't answer him.

M aggie walked into the kitchen and said to the boy, “I'm grateful for your willingness to defend me if you could. But that ax is sharp, and if you get hurt, who's to help me then?”

He lowered the ax and sheepishly put it back where he'd found it, by the door.

She went about her work in the kitchen and ignored him for a time. Then she sat down and began to talk to him about the animals he was caring for.