A Pale Horse - Charles Todd [9]
He watched her walk down the corridor, and he felt an urge to clap her husband up and throw away the key.
At the door of a classroom a boy stood watching him, wary and uncertain.
“What are you staring at, then?” Madsen snapped, and the child disappeared as if by magic, shutting the door softly behind him.
Hugh Tredworth was waiting for his friends at the end of the school day. One glance at his face made Bill distinctly uneasy as he came up to join Hugh, and Johnnie, trailing him, stopped to study his boots at a little distance, as if uncomfortable in Hugh’s presence. Then Tad came through the door, starting at the sight of them standing together in silence.
“What’s happened?” he asked anxiously.
“Where’s Robbie?” Hugh demanded accusingly. “He wasn’t at school today.”
“Sick,” Tad answered shortly. “Couldn’t keep his breakfast down this morning.”
“He’s not telling, is he?” Bill wanted to know. “We swore an oath!”
“Of course he’s not telling,” Tad replied with more force than he’d intended. But he couldn’t hold their eyes.
“Remind him,” Hugh urged. “Remind him his tongue will turn black if he’s not in school tomorrow.”
“Leave him alone,” Johnnie spoke up, and they all wheeled to stare at him. “You’ll only make it worse,” he said, “trying to frighten him. Why were the police here? What did they want?”
“I couldn’t hear.” But Hugh had seen the book in the constable’s hands, if no one else had, and he had had to swallow hard to keep his own breakfast down, the shock was so great. “It was Mr. Crowell they wanted, wasn’t it? Nothing to do with us.”
“Why did they come for him?” Bill persisted. “All the way from Elthorpe. And then take him away.”
“They brought him back, didn’t they?” Hugh pointed out.
“Someone found the candle we dropped,” Tad said. “It’s a matter of trespass. None of us missed school, so there’s nothing to point at us. Not counting Robbie, but they’re not to know that, are they?”
The four of them had been walking down the road as they argued, earnestly trying to assure themselves that there was nothing to show they’d summoned the Devil and succeeded in raising him.
Then Bill shattered their illusions. “Did he leave scorched grass, where he lay? The Devil? Is that why they’re questioning schoolmasters, they’ve found the grass and want to know if anyone’s different?”
“How different?” Tad asked anxiously. “Nobody else has been sick, just Robbie.”
“He’s possessed,” Bill said. “That’s why he’s sick. He’s possessed.”
Tad shouted at him, “There’s nothing wrong with him. There’s nothing wrong with my brother!” And he marched off down the road, leaving them to look after him, their faces tight with sudden worry.
The doctor’s report was brought in to Madsen. The man hadn’t died where he was found, it was impossible that he could have, considering the cause of death. In fact, he’d been dead at least four-and-twenty hours before he was discovered.
Furthermore, there were no scars or other marks to make it a simple matter to identify him. He could be anyone. From anywhere.
And Madsen, though he didn’t care for unfinished business on his watch, reviewed the evidence and decided that his next step would have to be identifying the corpse before he could make any connection with Albert Crowell stick. If he could prove that Crowell knew the man, it would go a long way toward building his case. If there was anything between them, he could take the schoolmaster into custody.
But that was easier said than done. Where, for instance, should he begin?
He considered bringing Alice Crowell in to Elthorpe to look at the dead man. He even toyed with going back to the school to ask Crowell where he had been every minute of the past three days. But he already knew what Alice Crowell would say. Her husband had been with her—busy at the school—listening to her read. Standing by him even with a possible charge of murder hanging over the man’s head.
Madsen kept the file open on his desk where it could nag him every time he looked at it,