A Test of Wills - Charles Todd [45]
With a wry downturn of his lips, Rutledge silently asked, How did he win his medals, you fool, if not by being so very damned good at killing?
With Davies to guide him, Rutledge found the narrow road cutting into the Haldane property that led to a small, picturesque cottage standing isolated on a hillside, surrounded by fields and trees. Wild roses climbing over low stone walls set off the grounds, their scent filling the air with sweetness. On the north side, the wall was a good two feet higher, a windbreak for the gardens that lay at its foot. Someone had made a valiant effort to rescue them from weeds, and lupines stood like sentinels behind the sweet williams and the irises.
Drawing up in front of the cottage, Rutledge got out and was immediately attacked by an irate gray goose that took instant exception to invasion by unexpected strangers in motorcars.
Fending off the goose, he called, “Miss Sommers?”
No one answered, and after a moment, neatly outdistancing the irate fowl by doubling back the other way around the car, he made it to the steps and knocked on the cottage door.
No one came, and he was on the point of leaving when a sixth sense, that intuitive feeling that someone is there in the stillness on the other side of a door, made him knock again, louder this time. The sound attracted the goose, and she ceased her attack on her reflection in the car’s wing, bearing down on Rutledge with neck arched. But Davies had the presence of mind to blow the car’s horn, and she wheeled in midrun to hurry back to her first victim.
Finally the door was opened a narrow crack and a soft voice said, “Yes?”
“Miss Sommers? Inspector Rutledge. I’m looking for your cousin. Is she in?”
Reluctantly the door opened wider, and a pale face stared out. “She’s not here just now. There was a bird’s nest she wanted to check this morning.”
He noted the strong family resemblance in features, but this cousin was quieter, dowdier, younger. Her hair was a mousy brown, her eyes wide and fearful, her dress a muted gray-green that did nothing for her complexion or her coloring. “Do you know when she’ll be back?” he asked.
Maggie Sommers shook her head quickly, not wanting to encourage him to wait. She peered over his shoulder, saw the goose attacking the front tires of the Inspector’s car, saw Sergeant Davies laughing out of the passenger’s side, and then ducked back almost as if recoiling from any responsibility for what was happening on her lawn.
“She’s Helena’s pet,” she said defensively. “I don’t like her, she terrifies me.”
“Shall I put her in a pen or somewhere?” Rutledge asked, wondering how he was going to manage that feat, but Miss Sommers shook her head again.
“No, she’ll leave me alone if I’m not hanging out the wash. She hates that. Why do you wish to see Helena?”
“I wanted to talk with her about Captain Wilton. She saw him the morning that Colonel Harris was shot.”
Tears filled her eyes, and he thought for a moment she was going to start crying. “That was awful—I was never so terrified in my life as when I heard about it. He seemed like such a nice man.”
“You knew the Colonel?” Rutledge asked in surprise.
“Oh, no. No. But sometimes he rode this way—through the fields there,” Maggie Sommers said, pointing. “That’s his land, just beyond the high wall. The two estates meet there. If I was out in the gardens or something, he’d wave. At first I was afraid he’d want to stop and chat, but he never did, and Helena said I ought to wave back. It was—neighborly. She said he probably thought it was she anyway. She’d met him—at a dinner party.” She smiled timidly, giving her face a little more life and color, the tears forgotten. “I was invited too.”
He could see why she had been called a recluse, why there had even been the suspicion that she was simple. But she was only unimaginably shy, almost childlike. He thought that all he would have to do was shout at her in a harsh voice, and she’d scurry back inside and shut the door and hide under the bed. Torn between sympathy