A cold treachery - Charles Todd [62]
Hamish said, “You were never a man for self-pity.”
“No. Not self-pity. Loneliness.”
Rousing himself, he moved to help Miss Fraser. “I'm sorry dinner was ruined—”
She bit her lip. “Why couldn't it have been a stranger? It wouldn't hurt as much, somehow. You could hate a stranger and what he'd done.”
“If it is a stranger,” Rutledge told her, “then he's still out there. And if it wasn't a grudge against the Elcotts—if it was something else, madness even—he could very well kill again. Don't you ever lock your doors? People come in and out of this house at will!”
“And I'm helpless to defend myself? Or Mrs. Cummins?” she finished for him. “I can't think of anyone with a grudge against us.”
“I expect the Elcotts didn't know of anyone with a grudge against them,” he answered curtly. “Until the door opened and their murderer stepped into the room.” He thought of something. “Did the Elcotts own a dog?”
“In the summer Gerald had had to put down his sheepdog. She was twelve, and failing. A beautiful animal. He named her Miata. Strange name for a dog, isn't it? He said he'd read it somewhere and liked it. I asked if it was Irish, and he said it wasn't—”
“I thought you didn't know the family very well?”
She had the grace to blush. “I knew Gerald to speak to. Everyone did. On market day most people come in to Urskdale for supplies and news. And he was that sort of man, open and friendly. Not just with me, because I was confined to my chair. It was a gift he had. Small wonder that Grace fell in love with him. A woman can judge a man sometimes.”
Paul Elcott had said that even Elizabeth Fraser had been attracted to his brother.
“Then how do you judge Paul?”
Miss Fraser shook her head. “He was the younger son. And not easy to know. Often in his brother's shadow. But that doesn't make him a murderer!” She turned to look up at Rutledge, her blue eyes full of unhappiness. “Do you think Hugh Robinson is right—that Josh could have done such a thing?”
“God knows,” Rutledge answered her. “But Robinson believes it. For now. And it's tearing him apart.”
The boy was never comfortable wherever he sat. His body, tense as a spring, seemed to be unable to rest. He moved from chair to chair, and then to the floor next to Sybil. Up again and around the room, only to huddle once more against the dog's warm body. His eyes darted in the direction of any unexpected sound, galvanizing him to run. Sometimes it drove her to distraction, this constant prowl.
Maggie watched him without appearing to: scanning the face that seemed pared down to skin over bone, the eyes looking inward at something too dark to bring out into the light of day. It was, she thought, like sharing a house with a shadow. Silent, no substance, hardly companionable. A burden rather than a gift from the snowy night.
But she needed him. His body was young and strong, and it didn't matter where his mind was. He could feed the sheep; he could drag bales of hay to the horse and the cow; he could clamber up on the roof with a broom to push the worst of the snow off the eaves. He could carry in the scuttle filled with coal and bring in kindling to lay the fire. She sat in her chair, nursing her leg and cursing the pain, and patted Sybil on the head. Clever girl that she was. “He'll do,” she thought. “I won't make it through the winter without him—”
When the last of the search parties had come in from the fells, Greeley walked to the hotel and summoned Rutledge to the cold sitting room. Standing by the hearth, he said, “Well. I've done all I can. A pity it wasn't more.”
Rutledge, looking out into the street, replied, “Miss Ashton believes Paul Elcott killed his brother and his family.”
Greeley's eyebrows rose. “Does she, by God!”
“He found the bodies.”
“What's that got to say to anything!” the older policeman demanded, irritated. “Who else was likely to have gone out