A Pale Horse - Charles Todd [86]
Slater said nothing, hunched in his seat, willing the motorcar to move faster.
They arrived at the cottages soon enough, and Rutledge left his motorcar beside the smith’s door, rather than destroy any tracks or other evidence nearer Willingham’s.
He reached for his torch, closing his eyes from habit because it was in the rear where Hamish sat. Groping he found nothing, and then suddenly his hand touched the torch, as if Hamish had pushed it nearer. He flinched, then gripped the cold metal, turning toward the cottage.
The windows were dark, the door closed, nothing to mark forced entry, but the question was, did Willingham lock his doors of a night or leave them off the latch?
Rutledge started toward it, and Slater made to follow him. Rutledge held up a hand. “No. Wait until I call you.”
Slater argued, “You may need help. I’m stronger than you.”
Rutledge said, “Then better to be outside than in.”
The door was indeed unlocked. Inside, Rutledge’s torch seemed to pierce the darkness like a spear. He moved it without moving himself, until he had a feeling for the furnishings and the shape of the room. It was very similar to other cottages he’d been in, but the placement of chairs and tables was different.
The sitting room just beyond the door showed no signs of disturbance. A rug before the hearth, a chair to one side, a shelf of books on the other. A small table by the window, with two smaller chairs, and a footstool by the winged chair under the lamp. An empty glass rested on the stand next to it, with a book open beside it.
The kitchen, tiny even by cottage standards, was tidy, but a stack of plates and cups stood waiting to be washed, while pans soaked in the sink. Guests for dinner, or was Willingham in the habit of washing up once a day?
The bedroom lay above the kitchen, and on the threshold Rutledge found splotches of blood, black in his torch’s beam.
He stopped, flicking his light around the room.
Beyond, between the tall chest and the bed, Willingham lay on his side on the bare wood of the floor. His eyes were wide and empty, reflecting the light. Rutledge didn’t need to cross the room to know that he was dead.
The bedroom still held a presence, malice and fear, as if the strength of the emotions that had ended in death still lingered. But there was no one else there.
Rutledge, used to scenes of violent death, quickly surveyed the bedroom, digesting what there was to see.
There had been a struggle—bedclothes pulled free and left trailing across the floor, the lamp broken and the oil spilling into a chair, soaking darkly into the green brocade upholstery. The nightstand was overturned as well.
Angered to find an intruder beside his bed, Willingham had apparently been galvanized to put up an energetic defense.
Walking into the room, Rutledge could see a slash on the left wrist and a knife, of the kind used to joint chickens, deep in Willingham’s chest.
Stubborn and cantankerous to the end, Willingham had not died easily, and the killer must have suffered a shock.
Rutledge went down on one knee by the body. The cut on the wrist wasn’t right, somehow. Not the sort of defensive wound he’d have expected to find. On the hands, perhaps, or on the arms, fending off the final blow, but not straight and deep into the wrist.
With that wrist wound alone, Willingham would have bled to death. The killer could have held him down in bed until it was over. Perhaps that had been the plan, to make this attack look like an old man’s final retreat from a lonely and despairing life. Instead, it had been necessary to end the struggle violently before there was another outcry.
Hamish was saying, “I canna’ see what this has to do with Partridge.”
“I—”
He broke off as a footstep grated on the threshold, and flashed his light in that direction, tensing for an attack. Slater was outside, but the killer might still be within.
Just at that moment, someone said, “Mr. Rutledge? Where are you? Are you all right?”
Slater had followed