Charles Todd - A Cold Treachery

Rutledge nearly swore, biting off the words.

“Are you sure it was your father, in the kitchen that night? Are you sure you didn't just imagine him, because you wanted him so much?”

Josh shook his head again vigorously, and rolled up the sleeve of his heavy shirt.

Maggie caught her breath in shock.

Deep bruises, only just turning green and yellow, ringed his thin arm in the shape of a man's fingers gripping hard.

“He made me watch. He held on to me and made me watch -”

B y the time Rutledge had stemmed the tide of confession and helped Maggie feed Josh Robinson and put him to bed in her father's room, he was hardly able to keep his own eyes open. He could see in his head the horror that the boy had carried for more than a week, the images raw and frightful. But the last hours had taken their toll. When he came back to the warmth of the kitchen and sat down in Maggie's chair, he said to her, “I'll rest for half an hour. And then I'll go and do what has to be done.”

“Yes. It's for the best. You look like I feel. I'll just lie down a bit myself.” She lowered the flame on the lamp, banked the stove, and then went into her room, shutting the door.

The silence in the room, the ticking of a clock somewhere else in the house, and the warmth finally overwhelmed Rutledge, and he slept.

It was nearly three quarters of an hour later when he woke and couldn't remember where he was.

The room was dark, the lamp blown out. As his eyes adjusted to his surroundings, he got up and held a match to the wick, cupping his hand around the flame until it had caught. Settling the chimney in place again, he stood where he was and looked around the room.

All was as it should be. Maggie Ingerson's door was shut, as was the boy's. Sybil lay by the yard door, head on her paws, but her eyes gleaming in the glow of the lamp. He glanced at his watch. Too late to wake Mickelson or Greeley. He'd have to fetch his car soon and bring it around His eyes swung back to the yard door.

The ax was gone.

He crossed the room in four strides and flung open Maggie's door. Blankets were piled on her bed in the shape of her body, the coverlet drawn over them. In the dark it seemed she was sleeping, but a shaft of lamplight spilled across her pillow from the kitchen. And she wasn't there.

R utledge threw on his coat and headed for the door. Sybil refused to let him pass, growling and baring her teeth at him. Swearing, he turned and saw a door to another part of the house, shut off, cold and dark. But he went down the passage until he came to the front hall and the main door. He let himself out and trudged through the snow there to the lane that led to the main road.

He was a man, longer strides, younger, healthier by far.

But she had already made it to the Urskdale road, dragging the ax behind her.

When he caught up to her, Maggie swung it around in a circle, keeping him off.

“Let me go. He deserves to die, that bloody bastard! It's certain they won't hang him on the boy's word. They'll put the boy into an institution instead, and treat him as if he's mad. None of this would have happened if you'd left us alone! ”

“Miss Ingerson-Maggie-listen to me. You'll never reach Urskdale. You can't make it that far. And if you did, they'd hang you for what you're intending to do.”

She still held him at bay. “What good am I with this leg? Sometimes I think dying is all that's left, and I'm not afraid of it. At least I'll do one deed worthy of the name before I'm done.”

“Maggie. I can see that Robinson hangs. I'll give you my word, I'll swear on anything you ask. Come back to the farm, before the boy wakes up and finds you gone. He needs you now, and he will need you in the days to come. Don't do this! ”

She stood there in the starlight, staring at him.

He never knew what decided her.

She swung the ax in a wide circle, the sharp blade shimmering in the ambient light.

He thought for an instant that she was going to attack and kill him, and then she let the blade go, whirling and singing and gleaming, until it finally buried itself in the snow thirty feet away. And as it flew, she howled like a trapped animal, or a Viking warrior, a sound that sent the hairs on the back of his neck standing stiff and wild as if he'd stumbled onto something pagan, lost in the mists of time.

H e got her to the house, and then went back to retrieve the ax and store it in the barn. It had been a long and painful journey for her, the cold and the strain of going so far telling on her. But she walked with her back upright and her head high, although he could see the streaks of tears down her face. He said nothing about them, and when, exhausted, she finally let him take her arm, he gave her the support he would have offered a comrade on the battlefield.

I t was after four when he made the long journey back up the hill towards the sheep pen, and then over the saddle to the shed where he had left his motorcar.

It was cold and at first refused to crank. But after the third try he got it started and climbed in.

There was something he needed to do before he reached the hotel or spoke to Inspector Greeley.

T he door to the rooms Paul Elcott used on the second floor of the licensed house was unlocked, and Rutledge went in, confident he would find Elcott asleep. He took the dark stairs two at a time, and opened the door to Elcott's bedroom, saying, “It's Rutledge. There's something you need to know-”

There was no light, only a shadow across the window, moving in an erratic pattern. Tired as he was, he stood there for an instant, trying to make sense of that curious motion as it came towards him and then retreated.

Hamish exclaimed, “Too late!”

Rutledge dug his torch out of his pocket and turned it on. The brilliant burst of light blinded him. But behind the flash, he could see Paul Elcott hanging from the ceiling where a lamp had once been.

I t took him no more than a matter of seconds to kick the upended chair out of the way and shove a table under the dangling feet. And then he was on top of the table, his pocketknife sawing at the rope above Elcott's head. As the last strands parted, Elcott's body jackknifed, and hit Rutledge hard, knocking both of them to the floor. Winded, Rutledge lay there fighting for breath, and then he rolled to his knees. The torch, arcing in a half-circle, threw the room into bright relief and then shadow.

Elcott was gagging badly. Rutledge loosened the rope around his throat and turned him over, pushing air into his lungs as if he were a drowned swimmer.

Elcott was still struggling to breathe, and in the glow of the torch, kicked under the bed now, his face seemed suffused with blood.

Rutledge left him there, ran down the stairs, and up the street. He began pounding on Dr. Jarvis's door, calling to the house to wake up.

Jarvis testily put his head out of an upper window. “What now?”

“It's Elcott-get over there now!”

“Rutledge? I thought you'd gone back to London, man!”

“Hurry. Or he'll be dead before you reach him.”

He turned and raced back the way he'd come. Hamish was loud in his mind, reminding him that he hadn't searched The Ram's Head Elcott was breathing, the sound of each rasping inhalation carrying down the stairs as Rutledge came up them.

He lay as he'd been left, on the floor, and his eyes were open. As Rutledge found a lamp and lit it, he blinked and then began to struggle as if fearful of whoever was behind the light.

“It's Rutledge. What the hell were you trying to do, man!”

Some of the tension seeped out of Elcott, and he lay still, concentrating on trying to breathe.

Jarvis was pounding up the stairs, shouting Rutledge's name. He'd put a coat over his pajamas and shoved his bare feet into his shoes. He stopped short in the doorway, staring first at Elcott, and then his eyes traveled up to the dangling rope overhead.