A cold treachery - Charles Todd [95]
“And what was Paul's reaction to that?”
Reluctantly Belfors answered him. “He said—he said he would take it back one day, with everything else that was due him. It was no more than a boy's rash threat! Paul wasn't vengeful. And he was facing his father's death, sooner rather than later. A boy of fifteen isn't able to handle his emotions well. You can't take that as proof he shot his brother!”
But as Hamish was pointing out, it meant that Paul Elcott had known where to find a revolver. If he had wanted to use one.
Rutledge said, “I'll go and speak to Elcott—before I order you released.”
And he left the fuming Belfors there in the cell.
Elcott was at the farmhouse. The kitchen was nearly clean, and a pail of fresh paint was being applied to the walls, a cheerful and sunny pale yellow. The tablecloth with the roses, the chintz covers to the chairs, the hangings at the window had been taken away. A bolt of fabric stood in a corner, a cream background with blue cornflowers in bunches scattered across the cloth.
He glanced up as Rutledge knocked and then entered the house.
Rutledge said, “It looks better.”
“I can still smell the blood. I don't know if I can ever live here. There's a shed out back that I could turn into a reasonable place. I don't know.” He stared at the walls as if he could see through them to the stains he'd been at such pains to hide.
“Who is looking after your brother's sheep?”
“I've been doing that. With help from neighbors. They've been kind. Most of the stock seem to have survived the storm. Thank God for small mercies.” He set down his brush. “You didn't drive all the way out here to ask after the sheep.”
“No. I've come to look for your uncle Theo's revolver.”
A range of emotions swept across Elcott's face. “I was wondering how long it would be before someone remembered that.”
“You should have told me from the start.” Rutledge came into the room and set his coat and hat on the back of a chair. “If you had nothing to hide.”
“I didn't think about it. Not at first. You don't. My God, what I saw in this room wiped everything else out of my head!”
“What became of it?”
“Theo's revolver? It went to Gerry. And Gerry was set on passing it on to his sons.”
“There's only your word for that, of course. Where's the revolver now?”
“I would guess it was upstairs where Gerry kept it. I haven't looked. I feel—uncomfortable—going through his belongings. It's as if he's still here, watching me!”
“Then show me where it should be. I'll do the searching.”
Paul Elcott washed his hands and dried them on a rag he used while painting. “Come with me.”
Hamish commented, “He sounds like a man on his way to his hanging.”
They went through the door to the kitchen passage and to the chilly main rooms of the house. Paul Elcott led the way up the stairs to the bedroom where his brother and his wife, Grace, had slept.
Rutledge made no comment as he watched Paul open a chest that stood against the far wall.
It was made of oak, carved and polished, and the feet that held it up from the floor were round knobs of the same wood. It held blankets, linens, and an assortment of bedclothes.
Elcott stood aside and let Rutledge lift them out and set them on the bed.
At the bottom of the chest was a rectangular box of dark wood, the initials T.A.E. burned into the lid and under them a relief of mountains, one of them long and flat on the top. Table Mountain in Cape Town.
Hamish warned, “It will be there. Cleaned and oiled. He's had time to see to it under cover of the painting.”
Rutledge took the box out and passed it to Paul Elcott. When the lid was opened, Rutledge saw that the box was a small traveling desk. A square of wood was covered in green velvet held by strips of tooled leather, and one end could be raised on brass struts to form a gentle slope, making writing easier when sitting on the ground or in a chair.
Elcott pulled out a hidden knob and took out the board. Underneath was a tray for pens along one