A Pale Horse - Charles Todd [26]
6
It was a long drive to Yorkshire, and Rutledge broke the journey in Lincoln, staying in the shadow of the great cathedral there. After a late dinner at the hotel, he walked through the gate into the precincts to view the magnificent west front. It was quiet, shadows giving the carvings depth and reality, and he stayed for some time, letting the peace wash over him.
It was rare that he had time to dwell on something other than murder. Just as in the war, death pursued him as a policeman as well. It was his chosen profession, but he found himself thinking that the men who had built such splendor had left a greater legacy than most. Names long since forgotten, they lived on in what their hands had wrought. Not guns or tanks or deadly gas, but in stone, defining the human spirit’s capacity to create rather than destroy.
Hamish, good Covenanter that he was, preferred unadorned simplicity.
Rutledge said to him, his voice echoing against the towering west front, “Ah, but is man better off without something to stir him and lift him and carry him through the darkness?”
Hamish responded, the deep Scots voice trapped in the narrow space between Rutledge and the massive gate, “It didna’ serve you well in the trenches, no more than plainness served me. Where was your God or mine then?”
It was unanswerable. Rutledge turned and walked back to his hotel, the moment broken.
The next morning, he drove on to Elthorpe, his mind already busy with what he could expect to find.
No one had given him either a description or a photograph of Gaylord Partridge, and he wasn’t certain what it was he was supposed to achieve when he arrived. But accustomed to the mysterious workings of the army, he wasn’t surprised.
He came into Elthorpe after lunch when the streets were relatively quiet and the April sun had vanished behind clouds.
Yorkshire’s landscape was varied—the rolling dales of the North Riding, a long shoreline to the east, and very fertile land along the rivers that flowed through the West Riding. It was small wonder that medieval monks established so many houses here, building abbeys by the handful. Their ruins, dramatic and quite beautiful, were reminders of a distant past. For someone who loved architecture, it was a feast for the mind and the eye.
Fountains stood on the plateau west of the city of York, and it was still sheep country, though on a smaller scale, feeding the looms and the mills nearer the coal deposits.
Elthorpe, small and tidy, stood upright in the sun, as if absorbing as much of its warmth into stone walls as the waning afternoon permitted. A wind had come up, promising a cool night, but the few people on the streets still wore only sweaters or coats against the chill.
Rutledge found a hotel close by the church, though its name, The Castle Arms, was far too elegant for what was on offer—a comfortable lobby, a lounge beyond an arch, and a desk manned by a very attractive woman about his own age.
She smiled at him in a way that offered no familiarity, merely an acknowledgment that he was custom newly arrived.
“I’m looking for a room for several nights,” he said, and she nodded, her eyes flicking to the book in front of her.
“There’s number ten, which should suit you. Would you care to see it, Mr….”
She paused, waiting for him to give her his name.
“Rutledge,” he replied pleasantly. “From London. Thank you, number ten will be fine.”
She nodded, and wrote his name in the hotel register, then handed him an ornate key on a knob that wouldn’t fit comfortably into a pocket. Embossed on the end of the knob was a brass inlay of the Great Tower at Richmond Castle. Behind her on a board were similar keys, and a quick glance showed him that there were three other guests at present.
“Shall I help you carry your luggage up the stairs?” she asked, but it was perfunctory, and she made no move to come round the desk.
“I should manage very well, thank you.”
He went back to his motorcar, smiling to himself. The people of Yorkshire were not unfriendly but their reserve was legendary. A man, he thought, might live