A Test of Wills - Charles Todd [66]
“Because I enjoy seeing the oppressors of the masses oppressed in their turn. And you might say that I have an interest in this business—a professional interest, you could even call it.”
Rutledge studied him. “You enjoy trouble, that’s all.”
“The fact is, I like to think I can take some of the credit for the Colonel’s death. That all those hours of standing in the market square speaking out against the landlords and capitalists—while those village fools reviled me—weren’t wasted. Who knows, I might have put the idea into some mind, the first glimmer of the Rising to come, and the salvation of the masses from the tyranny of the few.” He cocked his head, considering the possibility. “Aye, who knows? It might just have its roots in my words, the Colonel’s killing!”
“Which makes you an accessory, I think?”
“But it won’t stand up in a court of law, will it? I bid you a good day—but I hope you won’t be having one!” He started to walk off, pleased with himself.
Rutledge stopped him. “Mavers. You said something the other day. About your pension. Is that how you live? A pension?”
Mavers turned around. “Aye. The wages of guilt, that’s all it is.”
“And who pays you?”
The grin widened. “That’s for me to know and you to discover. If you can. You’re the man from London, sent here to set us all straight.”
There was a little dogcart standing in the road outside the Inn when Rutledge strode up the steps, and Redfern came to meet him in the hall, hastily wiping his hands on a towel. “Miss Sommers, sir. I’ve put her in the back parlor. Second door beyond the stairs.”
“Has she been here long?”
“Not above half an hour, sir. I brought her tea when she said she’d wait awhile.”
Rutledge went down the passage to the small back parlor and opened the door.
It was a pleasant room, paneled walls and drapes faded to mellow rose at the long windows. There was a writing desk in one corner, several chairs covered in shades of rose and green, and a small tea cart on wheels.
Helena Sommers stood, back straight, at one of the windows, which overlooked a tiny herb garden busy with bees. She turned at the sound of someone at the door and said, “Hallo. Maggie told me you wanted to see me. Strangers at the house make her uncomfortable, so I thought it best to come into town.”
Rutledge waited until she sat down in one of the chairs and then took another across from her.
“It’s about Captain Wilton. The morning you saw him from the ridge. The morning of the murder.”
“Yes, of course.”
“What was he carrying?”
“Carrying?” She seemed perplexed.
“A rucksack. A stick. Anything.”
Helena frowned, thinking back. “He had his walking stick. Well, he always does, and that morning was no different from the other times I’ve glimpsed him.”
“Nothing else. You’re quite sure?”
“Should he have had something else?”
“We’re trying to be thorough, that’s all.”
She studied him. “You’re asking me, aren’t you, if the Captain carried a shotgun. Has your investigation narrowed down to him? Why on earth would he kill Colonel Harris? The Captain was marrying the Colonel’s ward!”
“Wilton was there, not a mile from the meadow, shortly before the murder. We have reason to think he wasn’t on the best of terms with Colonel Harris that morning.”
“And so the Captain marched up the hill hoping to run into Charles Harris, carrying a shotgun through the town with him, in the unlikely event he’d have an opportunity to use it? That’s absurd!”
Rutledge was very tired. Hamish was growling restlessly at the back of his mind again.
“Why is it absurd?” he snapped. “Someone killed the Colonel, I assure you; we’ve got a body that’s quite dead and quite clearly murdered.”
“Yes, I understand that,” she said gently, seeming to understand too his frustration. “But why—necessarily—is the murderer someone in Upper Streetham? Colonel Harris served in a regiment on active duty. He was in France for five years, and we’ve no idea what went on in his life during the war—the people he met, the things that might have happened, the soldiers who died or