A Fearsome Doubt - Charles Todd [86]
A farmer passed with a sick calf in the back of his cart, calling to Rutledge with the cautious voice of a man who was worried about strangers on the road, after three murders. Rutledge answered him, saying, “Far to go?”
“My son’s a better cowman than I am. He’s willing to try his hand at saving her.”
“Good luck, then.”
“Thank’ee. I may have need of luck before the night’s done.” The farmer spoke to his horse and, before he was out of sight, turned down a narrow lane toward the distant shapes of a barn and a house.
Rutledge rode on, already beginning to think he was on a wild-goose chase and needed good fortune himself. But now he knew that whoever stopped these men had been considered by each victim to be “safe. . . .”
With Hamish carrying on a conversation in the back of his mind, Rutledge reached Helford and then turned back toward Marling. The muscles in his legs were beginning to complain about the unaccustomed exercise, and he ignored them.
This part of Kent was vast enough that three roads hardly touched the sum of choices that he could have made. Still, Rutledge had passed all three murder scenes, waiting for his senses to be tweaked, for something in the quiet night to speak to him, but there were only the foxes and owls and once a hunting cat, frozen in a tense crouch as he came upon her. With a twitch of her tail, she had jumped into the tall grass and vanished. Dogs barked at his passage, desultory and without ferocity, as if merely doing their duty.
The wind had picked up, cold knives cutting through his sweater.
A motorcar was ahead of him for a short distance, turning off into a side lane that Rutledge hadn’t noticed before. On the map it had appeared to go nowhere, down to a wooded stream and up the hill beyond to a field. He pedaled on, staying with the main roads rather than break off from his triangular sweep.
In the end he came back to Marling empty-handed. Tonight there was nothing in the darkness that wanted to be found. . . .
He would have to try again.
20
RUTLEDGE SECURED THE NIGHT PORTER’S BICYCLE WHERE he had found it, and wearily made his way to the back door of the hotel. It was still unlocked, just as he had left it hours earlier. So much for the night porter’s rounds. The man would most likely be asleep somewhere warm and quiet.
Rutledge was thinking too that somewhere warm and quiet would be inviting, as he moved through the empty kitchens and service quarters to the door that led into the lobby. Letting it shut silently behind him, he strode swiftly down the passage and rounded the stairs with one hand on the newel post.
“’Ware!” Hamish spoke sharply in his mind.
A woman coming down the steps toward Rutledge, her coat open in the warmth of the hotel, gasped in startled disbelief at what seemed to be a dark and sinister figure hurrying toward her.
In the same instant Rutledge recognized Elizabeth Mayhew and stopped stock-still in surprise at finding her here of all places, and at this hour.
“Ian?” she said uncertainly. “Is that you?”
“Elizabeth?”
“Ian, you must come—for the love of God, you must come! I don’t know what else to do—!” she said with breathless intensity. “Oh, please—!”
She reached him where he stood at the bottom of the stairs, her fingers clutching the thick, dew-wet knit of his sweater, pleading with him. Her face was streaked with tears and tight with fear.
“I didn’t know what to do—I knocked and knocked—you weren’t there—I didn’t know where to turn!”
He took her hands in his, holding them firmly. His were cold from the night air, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Elizabeth. Take a deep breath and tell me what’s wrong.”
“There isn’t time—could we go in your motorcar? I ran all the way from the house. I don’t think I have the strength to walk back!”
Indeed, she looked to be at the end of her tether. Rutledge led her to one of the lobby chairs but she refused