A cold treachery - Charles Todd [128]
“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.
Rutledge 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.
Maggie 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.
“Sheep fall into different lots. Can you tell a ewe from a gimmer shearling? Or a tup from a hogg? A wedder from a wedder shearling?” She could read the scorn in his face. “Of course you can,” she answered her own question. “Still, it never hurts to learn the skills of the man you're taking on to work for you.” She asked him a question or two about the wool clip, and saw that he understood her.
Finally, as if it were of no importance, Maggie said, “I don't think he'll be back. I've seen to it. The man from London who keeps coming here. But we'll give it a night or two before we take any chances with bad luck.