A Test of Wills - Charles Todd [1]
The request for Scotland Yard’s help had arrived through the proper channels, couched in the usual terms. What lay behind the formal wording was sheer panic.
The local police force, stunned by Colonel Harris’s vicious murder, had done their best to conduct the investigation quickly and efficiently. But when the statement of one particular witness was taken down and Inspector Forrest understood just where it was going to lead him, the Upper Streetham Constabulary collectively got cold feet.
At a circumspect conference with higher county authority, it was prudently decided to let Scotland Yard handle this situation—and to stay out of the Yard’s way as much as humanly possible. Here was one occasion when metropolitan interference in local police affairs was heartily welcomed. With undisguised relief, Inspector Forrest forwarded his request to London.
The Yard in its turn faced a serious dilemma. Willy-nilly, they were saddled with a case where discretion, background, and experience were essential. At the same time, it was going to be a nasty one either way you looked at it, and someone’s head was bound to roll. Therefore the man sent to Warwickshire must be considered expendable, however good he might be at his job.
And that was when Bowles had made his timely comments.
Inspector Rutledge had just returned to the Yard after covering himself with mud and glory in the trenches of France. Surely choosing him would be popular in Warwickshire, under the circumstances—showed a certain sensitivity for county feelings, as it were…. As for experience, he’d handled a number of serious cases before the war, he’d left a brilliant record behind him, in fact. The word scapegoat wasn’t mentioned, but Bowles delicately pointed out that it might be less disruptive to morale to lose—if indeed it should come to that—a man who’d just rejoined the force. Please God, of course, such a sacrifice wouldn’t be required!
A half-hearted quibble was raised about Rutledge’s state of health. Bowles brushed that aside. The doctors had pronounced him fit to resume his duties, hadn’t they? And although he was still drawn and thin, he appeared to be much the same man who had left in 1914. Older and quieter naturally, but that was to be expected. A pity about the war. It had changed so many lives….
The recommendation was approved, and an elated Bowles was sent to brief Rutledge. After tracking the Inspector to the small, drafty cubicle where he was reading through a stack of reports on current cases, Bowles stood in the passage for several minutes, steadying his breathing, willing himself to composure. Then he opened the door and walked in. The man behind the desk looked up, a smile transforming his thin, pale face, bringing life to the tired eyes.
“The war hasn’t improved human nature, has it?” He flicked a finger across the open file on his blotter and added, “That’s the fifth knifing in a pub brawl I’ve read this morning. But it seems the Army did manage to teach us something—exactly where to place the blade in the ribs for best results. None of the five survived. If we’d done as well in France, bayoneting Germans, we’d have been home by 1916.”
His voice was pleasant, well modulated. It was one of the things that Bowles, with his high-pitched, North Country accent, disliked most about the man. And the fact that his father had been a barrister, not a poor miner. Schooling had come easily to Rutledge. He hadn’t had to plod, dragging each bit of knowledge into his brain by sheer effort of will, dreading examinations, knowing himself a mediocrity. It rubbed a man’s pride to the bone to struggle so hard where others soared on the worldly coattails of London-bred fathers and grandfathers. Blood told. It always had. Bowles passionately resented it. If there’d been any justice, a German bayonet would have finished this soldier along with the rest of them!
“Yes, well, you can put those away, Michaelson’s got something for you,” Bowles announced, busily framing sentences in his mind that would