A Test of Wills - Charles Todd [18]
“Wrap a bluidy bandage around his forehead, gie him a sword in one hand and a flag in the other, and he’d do for a recruitment poster,” Hamish remarked sourly. “Only they bombed poor sods in the trenches, those fine airmen, and shot other pilots down in flames. I wonder now, is burning to death worse than smothering in the mud?”
Rutledge shivered involuntarily.
Wilton greeted Rutledge with a nod, making the same comment that his cousin had made earlier. “You must be the man from London.”
“Inspector Rutledge. I’d like to talk to you, if you don’t mind.” He glanced at Mrs. Davenant. “If you would excuse us?”
She rose with smiling grace and said, “I’ll be in the garden if you want to see me again before you go.” She gave her cousin a comfortable glance, and left the room, shutting the door gently behind her.
“I don’t know what questions you may have,” Wilton said at once, setting his walking stick in a stand by the door and taking the chair she had vacated. “But I can tell you that I wasn’t the person who shot Charles Harris.”
“Why should I think you were?” Rutledge asked.
“Because you aren’t a fool, and I know how Forrest danced around his suspicions, hemming and hawing over my abrupt departure from Mallows on Sunday evening and wanting to know what Charles and I were discussing that next morning when that damned fool Hickam claims to have seen us in the lane.”
“As a point of interest, did you and the Colonel meet on Monday morning? In the lane or anywhere else, for that matter?”
“No.” The single word was unequivocal.
“What was your quarrel about after dinner on the night before the murder?”
“It was a personal matter, nothing to do with this enquiry. You may take my word for it.”
“There are no personal matters when it comes to murder,” Rutledge said. “I’ll ask you again. What were you discussing that Sunday evening after Miss Wood went up to her room?”
“And I’ll tell you again that it’s none of your business.” Wilton was neither angry nor irritated, only impatient.
“Did it have anything to do with your marriage to Miss Wood?”
“We didn’t discuss my marriage.” Rutledge took note, however, of the change in wording. My, not our.
“Then did you discuss the settlement? Where you’d live after the wedding? How you’d live?”
Muscles around his mouth tightened, but he answered readily enough. “That had all been worked out months before. The settlement was never a problem. Lettice has her own money. We’d live in Somerset, where I have a house, and visit here as often as she liked.” He hesitated, then added, “I’d expected, after the war, to go into aircraft design. Next to flying it’s what I wanted most to do. Now—I’m not as sure as I was.”
“Why not?” When Wilton didn’t answer immediately, Rutledge continued, “For reasons of money?”
Wilton shook his head impatiently. “I’m tired of killing. I spent four years proving that the machines I flew were good at it. And that’s all His Majesty’s ministers want to hear about aeroplanes at the moment, how to make them deadlier. My mother’s people are in banking; there are other choices open to me.” But there was a bleakness in his voice.
Rutledge responded to it, recognizing it. He himself had debated the wisdom of returning to the Yard, coming back to the business of murder. Before the war it had been another facet of the law his father had given a lifetime to upholding. Now—he had seen too many dead bodies…. Yet it was what he knew best.
Then, bringing himself up sharply, he said more harshly than he had intended, “Have you seen Miss Wood since her guardian’s death?”
Wilton seemed surprised that it should matter to Rutledge. “No, as a matter of fact, I haven’t.”
“She apparently has no other family. Under the circumstances, it would be natural for you to be at her