A Test of Wills - Charles Todd [108]
And yet she hadn’t responded to Wilton at all when he came to her room. It was her father who terrified her, her father who couldn’t come near her without provoking wild and mindless screams.
He got up from the table he’d been using as a desk and moved restlessly around the room. He’d never been a man to enjoy being shut up indoors all day long; he thought that that had, unconsciously, been one of several reasons why he’d failed to follow in his father’s footsteps at the bar. But the war, the aftermath of being buried alive in a trench, had turned an ordinary dislike into an almost rabid claustrophobia, and police work at least took him outside much of the time, before the walls began to close in upon him. As they were now.
Picking up his coat, he went out and down the stairs, planning to walk no farther than the lane in front of the church.
Outside the Inn the market was drawing to a close, stalls shut up and ready to load on wagons, the last of the market goers straggling from shop to shop. In front of the milliner’s he saw Helena Sommers in earnest conversation with Laurence Royston. She was standing on the sidewalk and he was in one of Charles Harris’s cars. And she was wearing the same hat Rutledge had glimpsed in the Inn garden on Sunday after Mavers’s malicious attack on everyone in the churchyard.
Then she smiled at Royston, stood back, and he drove on. Noticing Rutledge on the sidewalk, he waved.
Charles Harris had been fortunate in his steward, Rutledge thought. Few men worked so devotedly on another man’s property without a stake in it for themselves. He’d probably spent more time and love on Mallows than Harris had ever been able to give. Was that because he’d never had a wife to lavish time and love on? It was an interesting possibility.
Helena crossed the street, saw Rutledge, and paused. “Good afternoon, Inspector.” She indicated a large box in her left hand. “I didn’t bring a black hat with me. And I felt I ought to attend the funeral tomorrow. I didn’t know the Colonel well, but I was a guest in his home. It seems—courteous—to attend. Mr. Royston has been kind enough to promise to send a car for me.”
She looked tired. As if aware of it, she added, “The storm yesterday left us mired in mud. I had to walk into town today, there was no way to take out my bicycle. Maggie is always terrified of thunder, so she didn’t sleep much, and neither did I. But it seems to have cleared the air, in more ways than one.”
“A beautiful day,” he agreed.
“And I’ve spent enough of it indulging myself. I’ll be on my way.”
“Before you go, I wonder—did you notice a child out in the fields, a little girl picking wildflowers, on the morning of Harris’s death? Either before or after you saw Captain Wilton on the path?”
She frowned thoughtfully. “No. But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t there. I was using my field glasses. I could well have missed her. There are often children about, and I try to avoid them—well, they frighten off the birds I’m watching! The Pinter children are usually wandering here and there. The little girl is a charmer, but with any encouragement at all, the boy talks your ear off.” She smiled wryly to take the sting out of her words. “He’ll make his mark as a politician, I’ve no doubt at all about that! Maggie will be looking for me, I must go.”
She walked away with a countrywoman’s clean, swift stride. He watched her, wondering again how much of her interest in birds was real and how much was an excuse to be out of the cottage as often as she could. Or perhaps her cousin preferred to have the house to herself. Safe, familiar ground in a rather frightening world. Make-believe in the place of reality. He felt a sense of pity, knowing how harsh life could be for the Maggies, ill-equipped to cope with anything more demanding than domestic chores and small comforts.
Glancing at his watch, he saw that he’d have time for a drink