A cold treachery - Charles Todd [77]
“Henry never wanted to sell it. Why should he? It was Theo's.”
“Then who did offer to sell it to you—”
But the shop door opened and a customer came in. Belfors turned away, and the question hung in the air like a ghost, waiting to be exorcised.
Outside in the street again, Rutledge said to Greeley, “I want to go back to the farm and search before I speak to Paul Elcott. For now, I'd like to get a message to Sergeant Gibson in London. Can you see that it's taken care of?”
“I'll send Constable Ward to Keswick with it.”
“He can drive the motorcar. That should take less time. And ask him to wait for a reply.” Rutledge commandeered a desk and began to write.
He could almost feel Hamish standing just behind him, peering over his shoulder as he worked on a list of names for Sergeant Gibson.
The house was quiet when Rutledge returned to the hotel. He walked through to the kitchen to find himself a glass of water, and sat at the table, where he could see the fell rising beyond the gardens, and the play of light in the dips and hummocks of snow. There were more ribs of stone showing now, as the sun strengthened to warm the hard rock. The slopes seemed less oppressive, more tired, as if they had been waging a battle against the blanket of white.
It was odd, he thought, how in the years he'd come here to walk in season, he hadn't really come to know the people. Or, for that matter, to understand them. The days were spent on the fells, if the weather was good, and the evenings in their lodgings, where he and his father or his friends had talked about the day's experiences, comparing views, the difficulty of the tracks, the plans for the next day. Wastwater had been one of his favorite haunts, wild and beautiful, always a challenge—he could remember where he had walked even now. But he couldn't bring back the name of a single family he'd stayed with—
There was a light tap on the back door, and it opened.
The man coming in was from one of the first of the search parties to report to Rutledge. Henderson . . .
He nodded to Rutledge, and stood there in the doorway as if expecting to find someone else in the kitchen.
Rutledge said, standing up, “Did you want Cummins? Or Miss Fraser?”
“No. I've come to speak to you.” Henderson seemed reluctant to go on with whatever had brought him there. “No word of the lad?” he said finally.
“Sorry, nothing.”
“Umm. And the killer, are you any closer to finding out who it was?”
“We're continuing our inquiries,” Rutledge answered. It was the standard reply when someone prodded the police. And then with honesty, he added, “I'm afraid we haven't found him yet.”
“Umm.”
“Is there something you've come across that might help us?”
Henderson looked down at the hat in his hand. “I don't know. But it was that strange.”
Hamish was speaking in the back of Rutledge's mind, a voice that was a low rumble. “He's troubled . . .”
It was clear that Henderson was of two minds about what he had come to say. Rutledge held his tongue, waiting patiently.
Finally the man said, “I was bringing my youngest in to see Dr. Jarvis last night. He'd fallen—there was a lump on his collarbone.”
“Broken, was it?”
“No. But he'd cried for an hour. It worried my wife.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
“Dr. Jarvis gave him something for the pain. And let him rest half an hour before going home. It was well after eleven o'clock before we were on the road again.”
“Your wife was with you?” Corroborating evidence.
“No, just the boy and me. I had come out of Urskdale, and was just past The Knob, and I looked up to see there was a light, high up.”
The Knob was within view from where Rutledge had been sitting.
“Are you sure?”
“It bobbed, the way it would if a man was walking.”
“And where was it going? Towards Urskdale or away?”
“Away. Towards the Saddle.”
“That's above the Elcott property.”
“Yes, that's right. I didn't see it for very long, the light. It was as if when he heard my team, he shielded the lantern. I looked again soon after that, but there was no more sign of him. Whether he went on