A Test of Wills - Charles Todd [11]
“How many people knew what was on his list each day?”
“It wasn’t written down, it was in his head. Laurence Royston might be aware that Charles was planning to look into a particular problem, if they’d discussed it. But for the most part it was Charles’s own interests that guided him. I don’t suppose you were a soldier, Inspector, but Charles once said that the greatest crime of the war was ruining the French countryside for a generation. Not the slaughter of armies, but the slaughter of the land.” She leaned back, out of the light again, as if realizing that she was running on and had lost his attention.
I didn’t go riding that morning—
Rutledge considered those words, ignoring the rest of what she had said. It was as if that one fact separated her entirely from what had happened. But in what way? He had heard soldiers offer the same excuse to avoid discussing what they had witnessed on the battlefield but had not been a part of: “I wasn’t in that assault.” I don’t know and I don’t want to know….
A denial, then. But was it a washing of hands, or a means of telling the absolute but not the whole truth?
Her face was still, but she was watching him, waiting in the security of the darkness for him to ask his next question. Her grief appeared to be genuine, and yet she was doing nothing whatsoever to help him. He could feel her resistance like a physical barrier, as if they were adversaries, not joined in a mutual hunt for a murderer.
She in her turn was silently counting her heartbeats, willing them to a steady rhythm so that her breathing didn’t betray her. In feeling lay disaster. Not for this London stranger with his chill, impersonal eyes was she going to lay out her most private emotions, and watch them probed and prodded for meaning! Let him do the job he had been sent to do. And why was it taking so bloody long? Charles had been gone for three days!
The silence lengthened. Sergeant Davies cleared his throat, as if made uneasy by undercurrents he couldn’t understand.
For they were there, strong undercurrents, emotions so intense they were like ominous shadows in the room. Even Hamish was silent.
Changing his tactics abruptly, Rutledge asked, “What did your fiancé, Captain Wilton, and your guardian discuss after dinner on Sunday, the night before the Colonel’s death?”
Her attention returned to him with a swift wariness. The heavy-lidded eyes opened wide for an instant, but she answered, “Surely you’ve spoken to Mark about that?”
“I’d prefer to hear what you have to say first. I understand that whatever it was led to a quarrel?”
“A quarrel?” Her voice was sharp now. “I went upstairs after dinner, I—didn’t feel well. Charles and Mark were in the drawing room when I left them, talking about one of the guests invited to the wedding. Neither of them liked the man, but both felt they had to include him. An officer they’d served with, my guardian in the Boer War and Mark in France. I can’t imagine them quarreling over that.”
“Yet the servants told Inspector Forrest that there had been angry words between the two men, that, in fact, Captain Wilton had stormed out of the house in a rage, and that Colonel Harris flung his wineglass at the door the Captain had slammed behind him.”
She was rigid, her attention fixed on him with fierce intensity. Even the handkerchief no longer unconsciously threaded itself through her fingers. He suddenly had the impression that this was news to her, that she had been unaware of what had happened in the hall. But she said only, “If they heard that much, they must have been able to tell you what it was all about.”
“Unfortunately, they witnessed only the end of it.”
“I see.” As if distracted by some thought of her own, she said nothing for a time, and Rutledge waited, wishing he could know what was going on behind those long-lashed eyes. Then she roused herself and repeated, “Yes, that is unfortunate, isn’t it? Still, you must know that neither Charles nor Mark is