A Test of Wills - Charles Todd [83]
“No matter,” he said, but she hastily finished her task, picked up her broom and the pile of dirty linens, and bobbed a curtsy of sorts as she left. Rutledge sat down by the windows, wondering what he would say to Bowles on Monday.
Possibilities weren’t evidence. Possibilities weren’t guilt. Bowles would have a fit if he knew how few facts Rutledge possessed.
He wondered what luck Wilton would have tracking down the child who’d lost the doll. He set it on the windowsill and looked at it. Too bad you couldn’t bring a doll into the courtroom. What could it tell? What had it seen, lying there in the hedgerow? Or heard? Rutledge grimaced. A drunken, shell-shocked man, a small child, and a doll, versus a war hero wearing the ribbon of the Victoria Cross. Every newspaper in the country would have a field day!
He needed a motive…a reason for murder. A reason why the Colonel, riding out that sunny morning, had to die. What had brought about his death? Something now, something in the war, something in a life spent largely out of England? So far such questions had gotten him nowhere.
Rutledge leaned his head against the back of the chair, then closed his eyes. He needed to find a young sergeant at the Yard and train him. Someone he could trust. He’d ask Bowles for names of likely men. Someone who could work with him. Davies was too busy trying to stay out of sight. Davies had his own commitments to Upper Streetham, and like the Vicar, he had to live here long after Rutledge was gone. It was understandable. But he needed someone to talk to about this case. Someone who was impartial, whose only interest was finding the killer and getting on with it. Someone to share the loneliness—
“And what would you tell yon bonny Sergeant about me? Would you be honest with him? I’ll not go away, you can’t shut me out, I’m not your unhappy Jean, who wants to be shut out. I’m your conscience, man, and it wouldn’t be long before yon bonny young Sergeant knows you for what you are!”
Getting quickly to his feet, Rutledge swore. All right, then, he’d do it alone. But do it he would!
Outside the Inn, he met Laurence Royston. Royston nodded, and was about to walk on, when Rutledge said, “Have you spoken with the Vicar?”
Royston turned. “Damned fool! But yes, I have, and yes, he’s right. Charles would have expected to have the reception at Mallows. I’ve told him I’ll take the responsibility, and I’ll see to the arrangements. He needn’t disturb Lettice. Miss Wood.”
“Can you tell me if Sally Davenant worked as a nurse during the war? At a convalescent hospital?”
“Yes, she did. In a friend’s home in Gloucestershire. Charles ran into her there once or twice, visiting one of his wounded staff officers. He felt she was very capable, very good at what she did.”
“Why do you think she volunteered?”
“Actually, she spoke to me about it before she wrote to Mrs. Carlyle.” He grinned. “I told her she’d hate it. Well, I thought she might, you see, and if she expected to hate it, it wouldn’t be quite such a letdown. She said then that she wasn’t cut out to run a farm the way Catherine Tarrant was doing, and she was damned if she’d roll bandages or serve tea to the troop trains leaving London—ladies’ make-work, she called it. But she thought she might be useful with the wounded. And she was worried about her cousin. Pilots didn’t have a long life expectancy; by rights Wilton should have been killed in the first year—eighteen months. She felt that staying busy would make the news easier to bear. When it came.”
There was a commotion in the street as two boys came swooping past, chasing a dog with a bone nearly as large as its head in its mouth. A woman on the other side of the street called, “Jimmy! If you’ve let that animal into the house—”
Royston watched the boys. “Father died on the Somme. They’re growing up wild as hellions. What was I saying? Oh, about Mrs. Davenant. I couldn’t serve,” he went on quietly. “I have only the one kidney, as I told you. The army wouldn’t