A Pale Horse - Charles Todd [29]
Rutledge was already regretting his request. Benson’s face was pale and strained as they waited for the doctor. He said, “I’m sorry—”
But the doctor was coming out of his consultation room, nodding to Madsen and shaking hands with Rutledge.
Five minutes later, Benson was sitting on a high stool looking down at the body of the man no one knew.
He sketched quickly, using the charcoal with deft strokes, creating the shape of the head, the placement of the ears, the dark hair springing from a high forehead. And then he began to put in the features, the eyes first, getting them right before tackling the straight nose and a surprisingly mobile mouth.
At one point he looked up at Rutledge, his face set as if his mind had withdrawn to somewhere safe. “I—I can’t see the color of his eyes…?”
“Blue,” the doctor told him from where he stood by the wall, watching. “They’re a pale blue.”
Benson nodded and kept working.
He took his time, and when he’d finished, the likeness was so fine that he forgot where he was for a moment and studied the dead face on the pillow.
“It’s first-rate, isn’t it?” he asked. “I’ve got it right.” There was surprise and satisfaction in the words.
Rutledge thought, He’s captured something I hadn’t seen—a subtle sense of the person whose face it was. A man with such talent oughtn’t be running a hotel dining room.
And an instant later Benson came back to the present, where he was and what he’d been doing. He looked as if he might be sick on the spot. He hastily passed the sheet of drawing paper to Rutledge before hurrying out of the room, his footsteps beating a rapid tattoo as he ran down the passage.
Rutledge caught up with Benson just outside the surgery door, where he was standing in the cool air, his face lifted to the watery sun.
Rutledge said briskly, “Thanks sounds insufficient. I’ll make your excuses to Miss Norton while you take your time getting back to work.”
Madsen was behind him, holding out the pencil box and pad of artist’s paper.
But Benson said, his voice rough, “I’m all right. Don’t fuss.” He took his things and walked away, toward the hotel.
Halfway there, he turned to ask, “He’s the man from the abbey?”
“Yes.”
“Pity.”
And he walked on.
Madsen said quietly, “He went through a rough patch on the Somme.”
Hamish said, “He wasna’ one of your men.”
And Rutledge answered silently, “He could have been.”
He nodded to Madsen and followed Benson back to the hotel. He was nowhere in sight when Rutledge stepped through the door.
Miss Norton stopped him. “Would you care for some tea, Mr. Rutledge? You look tired—I don’t know, worried, perhaps.”
He said, not knowing how to answer, “It was a long drive from London.”
“That’s not the kind of tired I meant. Were you in the war?”
“Yes.”
“Yes,” she repeated. “I thought perhaps that was it. If Julian had come home, I think he would have looked the same. Haunted by what he’d done and seen. He sometimes wrote about his life in the trenches. Not the whole truth, I’m certain of that. But enough, I think, to warn me not to expect him to be quite the same. When I look at Mark Benson, I wonder.”
“Your brother?” he hazarded, in an effort to redirect the conversation.
“My fiancé. He died at Ypres. Lingered in hospital for a week, and died. Gassed. He was Albert Crowell’s brother. They were so close.”
“The schoolmaster?”
“Yes. Poor man. Inspector Madsen is certain he’s done murder. That’s what Alice wrote to me yesterday. The gossips haven’t picked up the news yet, but they will.”
“And you? What do you think?”
She sighed. “I don’t think he could. Kill, I mean. Julian once said that Albert is not made up like most men. He should be a Quaker. They’re an odd lot, Quakers. There’s an iron strength to them. A coldness. I think sometimes they must be hard people, to stand aside and watch.”
“Is that how you see Albert Crowell?” Rutledge asked with interest.
She shook her head, confused. “I don’t know. He forgave the man who scarred his wife’s face. It was a terrible ordeal for her. I don’t think I could have done that. My own suffering, yes, but