A Test of Wills

by Charles Todd

  He knew that anguish. And suddenly he was convinced that Lettice Wood knew it also. That that was what he’d responded to in her.

  Catherine was watching his face, unable to hear Hamish but seeing the flicker of fear and recognition and a deep stirring of response, while Hamish—Hamish wept.

  “It’s never been shown—” It was all he could manage to say into the silence.

  “No,” she answered with certainty. “And never will be.”

  A maid brought in the tea, and Catherine quickly covered the painting, putting it carefully back into its vault, like a mausoleum for her love. Turning back to pour a cup for Rutledge and then for herself, she said unsteadily, “You’ve been there, haven’t you?”

  He nodded.

  “The war?”

  “Yes. But she’s still alive. Sometimes that’s worse.”

  She put sugar into her tea and handed him the bowl. He helped himself, finding relief in the ordinary movements of his hands, then accepted the cream.

  “Where were you going when you nearly ran me down?” she asked, finally sitting down, allowing him to do the same. It was an overt change of subject. She had closed the door between them again.

  “Anywhere. Out of Upper Streetham.”

  “Why?”

  He reached for one of the small, iced tea cakes as an excuse not to meet her eyes. “To think.”

  “What about?”

  “Whether or not I have enough evidence to arrest Mark Wilton tomorrow morning. For Harris’s murder.”

  He could hear her suck in her breath, but she didn’t say anything.

  Looking up, he asked, “Why did you track down Daniel Hickam? On the Thursday you spoke to me? No, don’t bother to deny it! I have witnesses. You stopped him, talked to him, and then gave him money.”

  “I felt sorry for him…. Most people have forgotten that before the war he was a very good cabinetmaker. Better than his father ever was. He made the frames for my first paintings. And that easel. Now—he probably shakes too much to drive a nail straight, much less do finer work. I try to keep an eye on him.”

  “No. You wanted to know what he’d said about Wilton. I don’t know yet how you found out about Hickam. Possibly from Forrest.” He watched that guess go home. She wasn’t as good at hiding her thoughts as Lettice Wood.

  “Yes, all right. I was afraid for Mark. I still am. He wouldn’t have killed Charles! You come in here from London, asking questions, making assumptions. You judge people even though you know very well they’re under a great deal of stress. But it isn’t the same as getting under the skin, is it? You can’t do that, you can’t know them. Not in a few days’ time. You haven’t got that skill!”

  He’d had it. Once. Refusing to be sidetracked, Rutledge said only, “He had means. Opportunity. Motive. It’s all there now. Out into the open.”

  “Then why are you telling me this? If you know so much!” She cocked her head to one side, considering him. “Why were you driving out on the Warwick road when you had all the evidence you need? Why are you involving me?”

  “Because I wanted to know what you would say when you heard.”

  She set down her teacup. “And are you satisfied?” He didn’t answer. After a moment she asked, “Have you told London yet?”

  “No. Not yet. I’ll call Superintendent Bowles early tomorrow morning. I’d prefer to have everything finished before the funeral services on Tuesday. Upper Streetham will be full of people then. Harris’s friends, fellow officers, dignitaries. They shouldn’t be distracted from their mourning by police business.”

  “There’ll be a great hue and cry when you do it. It will upset the King, and everyone else, including the Prime Minister. He’s got enough on his plate right now, with the peace talks. It will bring the wrath of Scotland Yard down on your head. It will ruin Mark. It could very well ruin you! I’d be very careful before I did something I couldn’t undo.”

  She was a very perceptive woman. And she knew London.

  “That doesn’t matter. If he shot Charles Harris, why should Mark Wilton go scot-free?”

  “He couldn’t have shot Charles! He’s marrying the man’s ward! You don’t seem to understand the importance of that!”

  “The wedding has been called off.”

  “Of course it has, Lettice is in mourning. But by next spring—or in a quiet ceremony at Christmas, since she’s got no family and needs Mark’s support—”

  “No. Charles himself stopped the wedding. And that’s why he was killed.”

  Catherine shook her head. “Called off the wedding? Before he died? You can’t be serious!”

  “Why would he joke about that? Why should I?”

  “No, Mark was going to marry her! And he will, once this nonsense is finished. I’ll help him find someone in London to take his case if you go through with this. I refuse to believe that Mark could have done anything of the sort! Or Charles, for that matter! Whoever told you such a thing is either crazy or vindictive. Or both. I absolutely refuse to believe it!”

  He left soon afterward, stiffly thanking her for the tea and then finding his own way out. Catherine said good-bye with equal reserve, and added as he reached the solarium doorway, his coat over his arm, “Don’t be hasty, Inspector. You owe that to Mark. You owe it to Charles. Be very sure before you act!”

  Rutledge drove back to Upper Streetham and left the car at the rear of the Inn, going in by the door he’d used on the night of his arrival. The back stairs were empty, the Inn silent.

  He felt bone weary. Emotion was drained out of him, and his body ached with tension.

  I need to find Forrest, he told himself. I need to attend to that warrant, bring Wilton in. The sooner the better.

  “And where’s he going?” Hamish demanded. “He’s no’ the kind of man who’ll run, or he wouldn’t have been so good at killing Germans.”

  “Shut up and keep out of it! I thought you wanted to see the dashing Captain hanged!”

  “Aye,” Hamish said, “I do. But I’m not ready to see you crawl back to yon clinic, and doctors that will stuff your mind full of drugs. Easing you into oblivion where there’s no pain and no memory and no guilt to savage you. I’ve not finished with you yet, Ian Rutledge, and until I have, I won’t let you crawl away and hide!”

  An hour later, Rutledge found himself at Sally Davenant’s door. The maid Grace opened it to his knock and said, “Yes, sir?”

  “I’ve come to see Captain Wilton. Will you tell him Inspector Rutledge is here. On official business.”

  She caught the nuances in his voice and her face lost its trained mask of politeness. Concern filled her eyes, and she said, “Is there anything wrong, sir?”

  “Just tell the Captain I’m here, if you please.”

  “But he’s in Warwick, sir. He and Mrs. Davenant have gone to dine there. She wasn’t herself all afternoon, and the Captain suggested an outing to take her mind off the unpleasantness at the church this morning. I doubt they’ll be back much before eleven o’clock, sir.”

  He swore under his breath. “Very well. Tell him I’ll expect to see him here at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.” He nodded and walked off down the scented path, among the peonies and the roses.

  There was, actually, a certain irony about that appointment, he thought, driving back to the Inn. It was exactly one week from the time Charles Harris died.

  The rain came back in the night, and Rutledge lay there listening to it, unable to sleep, his mind turning over everything he’d learned in the past four days. Thinking about the people, the evidence, the way it was coming out now. One or two loose ends to finish tomorrow, and then he’d be on his way back to London.

  But the funeral was on Tuesday, and he found himself wanting to be there, to watch Lettice walk down the aisle of the church on—on whose arm? To see her one more time, and in the light. To exorcise the witchery Hamish had been so worried about? He could contrive it; there was enough to do, he needn’t hurry back to that tiny cubicle in Londo
n, where his mind was dulled by routine and Hamish had freer rein.

  It wasn’t a night for sleeping, in spite of the rain drumming lightly on house roofs and muffling the normal sounds of the village. Rutledge could hear the gutters running, a soft, ominous rush that echoed in his head, and once, a carriage rattling down the High Street. The church clock tolled the quarter hours, and still his mind moved restlessly in a kaleidoscope of images.

  Of Catherine Tarrant’s paintings, vivid reflections of her inner force. Of Lettice Wood’s unusual eyes, darkening with emotion. Of Royston’s shame as he watched the faces of parishioners outside the church. Of Carfield’s swift retreat from confrontation. Of Wilton’s lonely grief, and a child’s terror. Of a woman hanging out clothes in the sunlight, a goose penned in the yard behind her. Of Sally Davenant’s cool shell, hiding emotions she couldn’t afford to feel. Of Charles Harris, man and monster, alive and bloodily dead…Of Mavers with his amber goat’s eyes…

  At Mallows, Lettice Wood lay on her bed and wished with the fervor of despair that she could turn back the slowly moving hands of the ornate porcelain clock on the table by her pillow. Turn them back to that moment when she had said, with the blitheness of loving, “I’ve never known such happiness—I want it to go on and on forever—I want to feel it in old age, and look back on years full of it, and you, in the center of it.”

  And his warm indulgent voice, laughing at her, promising. “My dear girl, when have I ever been able to deny you anything you wanted? We’ll be together always, as long as the seas run and the stars shine and the earth lasts. Is that pledge enough for you?”

  The seas still ran, the stars still shone, and the earth was there still. But her happiness had poured out with a man’s blood in a field of wildflowers, and there was no way she could put it back again. And there was nothing—nothing—that would turn back time to that single, glorious gift of love.

  Catherine Tarrant sat in her studio, in a darkness lit by heat lightning, the patter of rain on the surrounding glass a counterpoint to her tears. On the easel in front of her was the wrapped portrait of Rolf Linden. She didn’t need to take the cloth off, she knew it by heart. But it was Mark Wilton she was thinking about, and Charles Harris—and how the body ached with longing for a man who would never come back to her. She could forget, sometimes, when she was painting, or in London. Somehow Charles’s death and Mark’s dilemma had stirred her feelings into life again, and left her vulnerable. While memories, like long-buried ghosts, crept around her in the silence, she made herself remember too what she owed Mark.

  He was awake as well, metaphorically setting his house in order, arranging his affairs and steeling himself to meet what was coming. There was no way out for him, he had to accept that. Still, he’d found the courage he needed in France, and it hadn’t deserted him yet. It would be there when he needed it now. From hero to gallows’ bait, a great comedown for a proud man, he thought with heavy irony. If only he could guess what Lettice would do—But there was one final duty to perform, and after a while, he decided that the best way to achieve it was with honesty rather than guile….

  But in a cottage on a hillside above Upper Streetham, a small child slept with the deepness of death, without dreams for the first time in days.

  18

  The rain had drifted away by morning, and a watery sun soon broke through the clouds, strengthening rapidly until there was a misty, apricot light that warmed the church tower and touched the trees with gold.

  Rutledge walked out of the Inn door and stood for a moment watching the early market goers hurrying to set up booths or find a bargain. A low murmur of voices and laughter, the noises of traffic, people coming and going—he’d seen markets like this in a hundred English towns, peaceful and bustling. A week ago a man had died on market day, Mavers had made his way through the crowds shouting, agitating, locked in hatred, and a child had been frightened nearly to death. But a traveler, strolling through Upper Streetham this pleasant summer morning, wouldn’t hear about it, wouldn’t be touched by it. None of the drama, none of the misery, none of the lasting pain showed.

  He turned and moved briskly down the sidewalk, stopping at Dr. Warren’s for a report on Hickam. The man had had rather a restless night, Warren’s housekeeper reported, but he’d eaten a decent enough breakfast and seemed a little stronger.

  “That’s when the craving for gin will return, as he improves,” she added. “The poor soul isn’t out of the woods yet, I can tell you! And what he’ll do with himself when he’s well enough to go home is another worry.”

  “I’m told he was a cabinetmaker before the war,” Rutledge said.

  Surprise spread across her face. “Aye, that’s true. I’d forgotten. And very good he was! But not anymore, not with hands that shake like leaves.” She picked up the broom she’d leaned against the wall while talking to him. “They’ve already started. The tremors. But he’s stronger than he looks, which is a good thing!”

  Rutledge thanked her and turned back to the Inn, walking around past the small gardens to the car. Ten minutes later he was pulling up in front of the Davenant house.

  Grace let him in, and Sally Davenant came to meet him as soon as she heard his voice. She quickly glanced behind him to see if Rutledge had brought Sergeant Davies with him, looking decidedly relieved to discover that he was alone. “Good morning, Inspector! We’ve been sitting on the terrace, having a last cup of coffee. Won’t you join us?”

  He let her lead him to the French doors that opened onto a slate-floored stone terrace overlooking the gardens. There was a wide sweep of lawn, edged by trees and set with beautifully manicured borders, a graceful and pleasing design that someone—he wondered if it had been Mrs. Davenant herself—had chosen to match the architectural grace of the house. An air of peace pervaded it, with birds singing in the trees and a low hum of bees working their way through the blossoms.

  Beyond the balustrade, the flower beds looked rather bedraggled from the storm, but the scent of stock and peonies and lavender drifted softly on the morning air. Someone had swept the rain from the terrace and a set of white chairs cushioned in a pattern of gray, rose, and white encircled a wrought-iron table. The breakfast things had already been taken away, but a coffee tray gleamed brightly in the center.

  Wilton got to his feet as they came out into the sunlight and stood by the table, not speaking, his eyes on Rutledge.

  “Another cup for the Inspector, please, Grace,” Sally was saying over her shoulder. Then, “Do sit down, Inspector. Mark.” They sat, and when the cup came, Sally poured Rutledge’s coffee, passing it to him with a practiced smile.

  “Well, I don’t suppose that half of Upper Streetham will dare to show their faces at market this morning!” she began, hiding her own feelings quite well under a pose of wry humor. “I told you before, that man Bert Mavers is a danger to himself and everyone else! How Charles—” She stopped, then said, “How anyone put up with him for this many years is a mystery to me!”

  “I don’t think the Inspector came to discuss Mavers,” Wilton said. “You wanted to see me last night, Rutledge?”

  He tasted his coffee and then answered, “Yes, as a matter of fact. But it will keep. For the moment. Have you and Royston and Carfield completed the arrangements for tomorrow’s services?”

  Wilton stared out over the lawns. “Yes, everything’s in hand. I—was planning to see Lettice this morning, to show her what we’d done, what was expected of her, who would be here. There has been a great deal of mail, telephone calls, wires. Royston and Johnston have kept up with it between them, but I know most of these people personally. Who they are, what they represent. Sally can help Lettice with the proper acknowledgments afterward. As for the reception, we’ve kept Carfield out of it as much as possible.” Disgust tightened his mouth as he turned to Rutledge. “The man’s a threat to sanity! He told Johnston he’d be there most of today to oversee the preparations, the flowers, and so on. Royston had to tell him to his face that he wasn�
�t needed, that the church was his responsibility and nothing else. And he’ll do that well enough! Writing the funeral oration probably kept him awake most of the night.”

  Sally said generously, “He means well, Mark. He’s been a great comfort to Agnes, worried about poor little Lizzie. And when Mary Thornton’s mother died he took care of everything. But I understand how you feel; he’s had his eye on Lettice since she came here in 1917.”

  Wilton glanced at Rutledge but said nothing. Rutledge finished his coffee and pushed back his chair. “I’d like to speak to you, privately, Wilton. If you don’t mind.”

  Sally rose. “No, no, stay here, I’ve things to see to.”

  But there were too many windows overlooking the gardens and the terrace, voices carried. Wilton put his hand on her arm. “Enjoy the sun, my dear; I won’t be long.”

  He couldn’t see the look she gave him as he got to his feet and courteously waited for Rutledge to follow. It was a mixture of emotions. Dread. Love. And indecision.

  Wilton took Rutledge to the small parlor where they’d talked on his first visit and closed the door, standing there, his back to it, as he said, “I expected you to come with the Sergeant. And a warrant for my arrest.”

  “I had planned to. But it occurred to me that marching you to jail in front of all those people coming in to market would cause Miss Wood and your cousin unnecessary embarrassment. If you go with me now, of your own accord, we’ll see to this business as quietly as possible.”

  “So it’s finished, is it?” He moved away from the door and crossed to a chair, gesturing impatiently for Rutledge to be seated.

  “I know what you and Harris quarreled about. After dinner Sunday evening. In the lane Monday morning. He was calling off the marriage, and you were furious with him.”