A Test of Wills - Charles Todd [87]
The one called Georgie smiled wryly at Rutledge. “Catherine Tarrant.”
“What did she want with Hickam?” Rutledge asked. Thursday was the day she’d come into town to speak to him about Captain Wilton.
Betsy shrugged. “How should I know? Maybe to pose for her—she asked Georgie to do it once, and Georgie told her sharpish what she thought about that! But it was him she did want! She caught up with him where she didn’t think I could see, and stopped him, talking to him, and him shaking his head, over and over. Then she took something from her pocket and held it out to him—money enough to get drunk again, I’ll wager! He turned away from her, but after only a few steps turned back and began speaking to her. She interrupted him a time or two, and then she gave him whatever it was she was holding, and he shambled off into the trees. She walked back down to where she’d left her bicycle, head high as you please, like the cat that got the cream, and then she was gone. She’s a German lover, that one. Maybe she’s got a taste for drunks as well!”
The eyes of hate and jealousy…
Mrs. Grayson said, “Now, then, Betsy, it won’t help the Inspector to do his job if you run on like that. Miss Tarrant’s business is none of ours!”
He left them, the letter in his pocket, his mind on what it represented—the fact that the Colonel had been in the lane on Monday morning, just when Hickam had said he was. And Catherine Tarrant had given Hickam money….
When Rutledge arrived at the Inn, Wilton and Sergeant Davies were waiting. There was a distinctly sulfurous air about them, as if it hadn’t been a pleasant afternoon for either of them. But Sergeant Davies got to his feet as soon as he saw Rutledge, and said, “We think we’ve found the child, sir.”
Turning to Wilton, Rutledge said, “What does he mean? Aren’t you sure?”
Wilton’s temper flashed. “As far as I can be! She’s—different. But yes, I feel she must be the one. None of the others matched as well. The problem is—”
Rutledge cut him short. “I’ll only be a minute, then.” He went up to his room, got the doll, and came down again, saying, “Let’s be on our way!”
“Back there?” Wilton asked, and the Sergeant looked mutinous.
“Back there,” Rutledge said, walking down the rear hallway toward his car. He gave them no choice but to follow. “I want to see this child for myself.”
He said nothing about Georgina Grayson as he drove to the cottage. While it was, as the crow flies, only a little farther from Upper Streetham than the meadow where the Colonel’s body had been found, it was necessary to go out the main road by Mallows, through the Haldanes’ estate, and up the hill, the last hundred yards on rutted road that nearly scraped the underpinnings of the car.
On the way, he asked instead for information about the child’s family.
“She’s Agnes Farrell’s granddaughter,” Davies answered. “Mrs. Davenant’s maid.”
“The one we met at her house on Thursday morning?”
“No sir, that was Grace. Agnes was home with the child. Lizzie’s mother is Agnes’s daughter, and the father is Ted Pinter, one of the grooms at the Haldanes’. They live in a cottage just over the crest of the hill from where the Captain says he was walking when he saw Lizzie and Miss Sommers that Monday morning. When Meg Pinter is busy, the little girl sometimes wanders about on her own, picking wildflowers. But she’s quite ill, now, sir.