A Fearsome Doubt - Charles Todd [105]
“I’ll do what I can. Even if I must take to my bed for a day or two. You look as if you haven’t slept at all. Nobody’s dead, I hope.”
“No.” He thought, watching her expressive face, that he would like nothing more than to stay here himself, and put everything else out of his mind.
Her hand reached up to touch his cheek. It was cool and smooth, like silk. “Ian. Strength is a wonderful thing, you know. But sometimes a man can have too much of it. You can’t save the world from itself. If people are intent on destroying themselves, they will. And sometimes they don’t care if they bring others down with them. That’s selfish but it’s human nature.”
“I’ll remember.” He turned toward the door, and then stopped. “I need cloths, clean but old and lint-free. And some laudanum, if you have it. And whisky. And your promise to say nothing about any of this.”
She asked no questions. “Go see to Elizabeth’s luggage. Take your time over it. I’ll have everything ready.”
He made a great fuss over bringing in the cases, carrying them up the broad stairs himself as Shanta came running, protesting vigorously that he must do no such thing.
By that time, Mrs. Crawford had returned with a small, oddly bulging sack. “I’ve added some soup,” she said breathlessly. “It will do no harm.”
He kissed her hands, and was out the door. But before he had shut it behind him she was already opening the door to the sitting room, saying briskly, “The most stubborn man! He insisted on taking up the luggage himself . . .”
HAMISH GRUMBLED, “YE’RE digging your ain grave deeper. It’s no’ verra’ clever—”
Rutledge had debated his best course of action, driving with a silent Elizabeth huddled in her seat staring out at nothing.
But once he committed Gunter Hauser to the police, saw him taken into custody and charged, it was out of his hands. This whole affair. And right or wrong, solid evidence or not, it was all too likely that the German would go to trial, and the case against him as an imposter in the country on false pretenses would make the murder charges far more believable. It was one thing to bring in the guilty. It was another to doom the innocent.
Like Ben Shaw, for one.
He swore.
Hamish said, “I canna’ find a reason for his killing those men.”
“Nor can I. Yet. If it wasn’t the Friedrichtasse, what was his business with Jimsy Ridger?”
“Something else stolen, that he canna’ name.”
Rutledge turned at the crossroads for Marling, passing a dogcart that held a pretty girl and two younger sisters. Her fair hair was almost hidden by a tam, the long blond tendrils blowing in the wind, her cheeks pink with cold. It could have been 1914, before the annihilation of a generation.
It was dusk when he turned into the drive of the manor house. Hamish complained, “Ye canna’ keep coming here—someone will ken a motorcar’s driven through the gates now.”
Rutledge said, “I’ll deal with that later, when I have the time.”
Hauser had lit the candle on the table, and as Rutledge walked up to the door, he heard the scrape of a chair’s feet on the stone paving of the kitchen floor.
“It’s Rutledge,” he said as he came through to the kitchen.
Hauser, haggard and unshaven, snapped, “You scared the hell out of me. I’d fallen asleep in the chair!”
“I’ve brought soup—a beef broth, I think—in this Thermos. And new dressings, and more whisky. In the boot are bread and pork pies and apples, along with more cheese.”
Hauser sniffed hungrily at the Thermos and exclaimed, “My God, it’s like the broth my grandmother used to make! Where did you find it?”
“Sit down and let me look at the wound.”
Hauser did as he was told, and grimaced as Rutledge peeled the blood-caked dressing away from the skin. Looking down, he said, “It’s not infected, thank God.”
“Not yet. It’s clean enough. There’s a good chance you’ll live.” Rutledge used one of the precious