Charles Todd - Wings of Fire

“He might have been there when Nicholas Cheney brought the boat in, and helped drag it above the tide line.” ‘‘Then why didn’t Master Nicholas say so?” “All right. Who would have wanted to kill FitzHugh?” Wilkins sighed. “That were the problem, you see. Not Miss Rosamund-siie were Mrs. FitzHugh- she’d not be likely to send him off. The twins, now, they were little ‘uns, and you’d not see them on the strand or near the headland or in the stables without their nanny in tow. Miss Olivia were a cripple. Mr. FitzHugh were Mr. Cormac’s own father. None of the servants, that I knew of, had any quarrel with him. Mr. FitzHugh had a temper, mind you, but he were fair, and no one held any grudge that I’d heard about. And that left Master Nicholas, whose boat it was. Why would he want to harm his stepfather? It made no sense to me. So I held my tongue and waited to see what happened, and when naught did, I kept on holding of it.”

Nicholas might have no reason to kill his stepfather, but he might well have covered up for Olivia, if he’d had any fear that she was involved.

With the brace on her leg, could she have moved around among the rocks?

He asked that question aloud. Wilkins thought about it. “She weren’t one to plead helplessness. I’d see her struggle to do what she wanted to do. Aye, she could get over them rocks, spider fashion, pulling her leg along. Slowlike and careful. But where she had the will, she got her way.”

Remembering what Constable Dawlish had said, Rutledge asked, “You put the horse down, didn’t you? Was she there, watching?”

“Aye, it were left to me, and a hard job it were. Loved that horse, I did. Mr. Cormac were there, his head buried in the horse’s neck and crying. Miss Olivia came with Dawlish, who were only a boy then, and said, There’s no saving him? Not even if he never races again? Must we put him down?’ And I said, The smith looked at that foreleg, miss, and he said t’were shattered, there were no way to mend it so’s it’d take his weight.’ Fleet as he were, I couldn’t watch him live out his days a cripple, struggling over every step, though I didn’t say that to her face, her being a cripple herself!”

He looked into his cup and swished the ale thoughtfully. “She stayed till it were done. Not a bit squeamish, as you’d think in a young lady like her. Afterward, she told Mr. Cor-mac, if he cared so much for Lucifer, he could help dig the hole to bury him in. And we did it, out on the headland, Mr. Cormac and a few of the lads and me.”

Rutledge walked back to the inn as the church clock struck twelve. The rain had turned into a misty drizzle again, and the street was no longer a river under his feet. More people were about, now, men and women, a few of them nodding to him in recognition. Mrs. Trepol, hurrying past, wished him a good day, and in the distance he glimpsed Rachel moving head down towards the woods that separated the village from the Hall. Hamish, rumbling with suppressed irritation, kept Rutledge from concentrating his thoughts on the morning’s work. Or was it his own reluctance?

At the inn, Mr. Trask took his umbrella and greeted him with the news that he had a visitor waiting in the parlor. Rutledge went through into a long narrow room with a ceiling so low it seemed to brush his head. In the wave of claustrophobia that followed, he saw only the dark furnishings, the empty grate, and a tall man with white hair who rose from a chair and stood where he was, waiting for Rutledge to speak.

After a moment, he managed to say, “I’m Rutledge. I’m afraid I don’t know who you are.”

The man looked him over, then said, “Chambers. Thomas Chambers. I represent the Trevelyan family-”

Rutledge had him pegged. This was the lawyer who had courted Rosamund and almost won her. The family solicitor, handling the wills. Regarding him with new interest, he crossed the room to light the lamps on the chimney piece. Their glow, added to the one lamp already burning on the table, pushed back the darkness and the cavelike atmosphere of the room. Breathing more easily, he could concentrate on what Chambers was saying.

“-and I understand that you’ve come down to reconsider the circumstances of their deaths. I’d like to know why.”

Rutledge stood with his back to the cold hearth and said, “Because the Home Office wished to be sure that all was as it should be. Miss Marlowe-as O. A. Manning-is a person of some prominence.”

Chambers all but snorted in disbelief. “You may tell the locals that, and they’d be impressed. I’m not.”

“Suspicious, are you?” Rutledge asked.

“Of course I’m suspicious when Scotland Yard feels it needs to stick its nose into a death where I’m handling the estate.”

“Is there anything wrong with the wills? Any provisions that make you especially nervous?” He was deliberately misunderstanding the man, stripping him of his authority and aggressively taking charge of the meeting. Not out of personal animosity but as a tool.

Chambers stared at him. At the thinness, the gaunt face, the lines that had prematurely aged a much younger man than he’d guessed at in the beginning. And wasn’t above a little aggression of his own.

“In the war, were you?”

Rutledge nodded.

“Wounded?”

Rutledge hesitated, then said briefly, “Yes.”

“Thought as much! Stephen looked the same way when he came back. Shell of himself. Damned foot killed him in the end, too.”

Over Hamish’s rude comments about that, Rutledge recaptured the salient.

“What did you do in the war?”

“They wouldn’t take me,” Chambers said in disgust. “Too old, they told me. But I knew that part of France better than they did! My mother’s mother was from there. Stupid place to fight infantry battles, for God’s sake! No geographical advantage. No high ground. Prolonged deadlock, that’s what you’ll get, I told them. Enormous loss of life, I told them. No one will come out of it a winner. Americans tipped the balance, of course. And the tank. And still the best they could do was an Armistice!” Chambers realized suddenly that he’d mounted one of his hobby horses, and stopped, watching the advantage slip back to Rutledge. Then he grinned. ‘‘Over to you, I think.”

Rutledge found himself grinning back. He liked Chambers. He could also see what had attracted Rosamund FitzHugh to the man.

“Who sent for you?” Rutledge asked. “Susannah Hargrove?”

“Daniel Hargrove. He was worried, because his wife is in delicate health and this whole business was upsetting her. They tell me now she’s likely to bear twins, but that runs in the family, not surprising.”

They were still standing, Rutledge by the hearth, Chambers at the far end of the room, a position chosen to make Rutledge come to him, not the reverse. Rutledge said, impatiently, “Sit down, man!” He was aware of the smell of wool again, and with resignation ignored it. Hamish, perversely, did not.

After a moment, Chambers moved forward and took one of the chairs near the fireplace. The room was damp, chill, with an old coldness that seemed to come from the walls, seeping up from the earth that waited to consume the stone when it finally sank under its own weight.

Rutledge took the chair across from him, and said, “Actually, I’m glad you’ve come, I was considering traveling to Plymouth to find you.”

Surprised, Chambers said, “Not about the wills, I think?”

“In a way. I know that Olivia Marlowe made her half brother Stephen FitzHugh her literary executor. But then Stephen died soon after. And I haven’t been able to find her papers. Do you have them?”

“No, I understood that Stephen knew what was involved in that bequest and was prepared to deal with the responsibility himself. If Nicholas had survived, he’d have had that duty.”