A cold treachery - Charles Todd [98]
He could see, watching her face, the toll life had taken on her. “Were you grateful for Miss Fraser's help while Harry was away in the war?”
“At first I was suspicious. I thought he'd sent her here to kill me.”
“Kill you?” Rutledge asked in astonishment. “Why on earth—”
“Because she'd already killed someone. Didn't you know? I thought a policeman would.”
Elizabeth was quite frank about it, when she came,” Mrs. Cummins went on. “She said it wasn't fair if I didn't know. She'd told Harry, too. Harry's always collected lost sheep. I saw him a time or two talking with Josh Robinson. For all I know, he thought I was one of his lost souls. No, that's not true, not at first. We loved each other very much.” She raised a hand to her forehead as if to clear her mind. “I sometimes forget that.”
“Did you mind that he was a Jew?” Rutledge asked gently.
“How did you know?” she asked in astonishment. “Is it so obvious?”
He smiled, while Hamish called him traitor to his promise. “I'm a policeman, after all.”
“Yes, of course. But you seem too nice to be a policeman. Elizabeth tells me you're such a gentleman. She's quite fond of you.”
“Harry—” he reminded her, embarrassed.
“No, I didn't care if he was a Hottentot! My father cared, though. He told me he would never speak to me again if I married beneath me—that's how he saw it!—and of course I didn't believe him.” Tears came to her eyes. “I didn't even have a trousseau. I wasn't allowed to take anything from the house except the clothes I stood up in.”
“That was cruel of him!”
“Was it? I've wondered if I was the one who was cruel—to disobey him.”
Shifting the conversation, Rutledge asked, “Did you get along well with Miss Fraser, after she came here?”
“Everyone loves Elizabeth. I envy her that. Even Harry loves her, after a fashion.” She sighed. “I think more than anything Egypt changed Harry. I think being so close to Palestine made him realize what he'd lost. He wrote long letters to me about how much he wanted to go to Jerusalem. And I couldn't answer them. I was so terrified that Palestine would take him from me!”
She set the book aside and stood up. “I could fight another woman for him. But I couldn't fight his heritage. I kept hoping that that man Lawrence, the one in all the newspapers, would see to it that the Arabs got all of Palestine and the Jews were thrown out. It was the only way I'd ever win the battle for Harry's soul.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Rutledge got to his feet as Mrs. Cummins walked from the room. He couldn't be sure how much of what she'd told him he could believe. Or whether years of drinking heavily had warped her memories.
Hamish said, “She's to be pitied.”
“People who make great sacrifices for love often live to regret it.” Rutledge was thinking of Jean, but it was Hamish who brought up the name of Fiona MacDonald.
“She didna' regret loving me.”
Rutledge stared into the fire.
He was tired of the grief and pain of others. He hadn't healed sufficiently himself to take on more suffering.
“How do I find this killer?” he asked into the silence. “I can't seem to put a finger on the truth. I can't seem to sort out the people and see them clearly. I can't seem to find the thread that will lead me to the answer.”
The Scot's voice seemed to fill the room. “First you must look at the key . . .”
When Maggie had latched the door on Rutledge, she stood for a moment, resting her leg, her back to the cold wooden panels.
“It's a bloody Picadilly Circus!” she said under her breath. Her eyes fell on the Wellingtons by the door. Then she looked up at the frightened boy waiting tensely across the room.
“Well, we're rid of him. But with so much coming and going, I'd recommend feeding the sheep after dark from now on. There's no use calling attention to ourselves, unless we need to.”
Taking off her coat, she hung it from the hook beside her. Sinking into her chair with relief, she put her head back and considered the ceiling. “If I