A cold treachery - Charles Todd [45]
The meal was well cooked. Miss Fraser said to Rutledge as she served their plates, “It's odd to know the house is full—and to have no one here.” But she seemed tired, as if she was glad she didn't have to make an effort at polite conversation. She had offered to lay a fire in the dining room and make it a proper meal, and he had refused to let her go to so much trouble.
“Do you do all the heavy work here?” Rutledge asked, carving the ham.
Elizabeth Fraser smiled. “Heavens, no! You've met Constable Ward, I think. His sister Shirley usually cooks and cleans for Mrs. Cummins. I'm merely filling in. Ward's daughter-in-law is expecting her first child this week and Shirley is staying with her until she delivers.” The smile deepened. “Harry Cummins suggested that Shirley bring her charge here while the men were searching for Josh. For safety. But Shirley told him roundly that any murderer who shows his face at Grey's Farm will regret the day he was born.”
“She sounds formidable!”
“And yet she's the kindest person!” She gestured towards the hot pad in the center of the table, and he set the platter of ham slices there. “Thank you, that's everything, I think.”
Hamish, a low murmur in the back of Rutledge's mind, was accusing him of letting down his guard. He tried to ignore the voice.
“Tell me about London,” she said as she drew up her chair across from him. “Is it more cheerful now? Are the shops carrying more goods? I've been away so long—” It was the first time she had indicated where she was from.
Rutledge told her what he could, trying to make the city seem better than it was, for her sake. The war was finished but the peace was gloomy, defeated and exhausted.
“I used to go to plays,” she said, “before the war. And to concerts. It was always so exciting, waiting for the moment when the music began or the curtain lifted. Jewels glittering, satins and silks and feathers catching the dim light with a flash here or a gleam there. The men so handsome in black. But the war changed all that. Everyone in uniform, colors more sober and suitable to the long lists of heavy casualties. Styles gone with the wind of change, and even the players and the musicians seemed daunted by it all. One of my favorite actors died early in the war, and a violinist from the symphony lost an arm and never played again. So sad.”
But there was more to the war than that, and she smiled, as if acknowledging his unspoken thought. “I know. But when change comes, you tend to feel the small sacrifices most, because they're more easily borne. The great sacrifices you try to shove out of your mind until there's a better time to grieve. As if there ever will be!”
“In the trenches, we wanted to believe that nothing had changed—that what we were fighting for was still there, just as we'd left it. But men would come back from leave and tell us the truth, and we'd try to absorb it without accepting it. I expect we didn't want to.”
As they finished their meal, she said, “Tell me honestly, if you will. Who do you think could have done this terrible thing? Will it turn out to be someone we know? Someone we've met on the street or dined with or spoken to on the church steps? I have thought about it, you see, and I don't know anyone who could have killed children—most particularly not those babies, who couldn't tell anyone what they'd witnessed! It's so senseless—so cruel.”
Rutledge wasn't ready to tell her about Janet Ashton's accusations against Paul Elcott. Instead he said, “I'm the stranger here, trying to find pieces of information to fit together, trying to look for evidence. You must tell me.”
She stared at him in surprise. “But you're a policeman—”
Rutledge smiled. “That doesn't make me omniscient. Still. We ought to begin by considering people closest to the family. Could Paul Elcott have shot his brother?”
Shocked, she exclaimed, “Of course he couldn't do such a thing! And in heaven's