Legacy of the Dead - Charles Todd [13]
To his Calvinist soul, the house itself was ostentatious and unwelcoming. For a man used to the crofts of the Highlands, often a heap of stone in the lee of a hillside, there was no room for display in the struggle for survival.
As Rutledge climbed the steps, he found himself wondering what his godfather would think of the effect achieved here. David Trevor felt the power of stone and mortar in his blood, a man whose eye and taste were trained but whose natural response to building had made him one of the most successful architects of his day.
He felt a sudden surge of guilt that he hadn’t replied to the invitation from his godfather, but there was no way to explain why the prospect of leave was anathema. The press of work would have to be his excuse.
Hamish said, “It’s no’ a lie, is it? Though ye’ve chosen it yoursel’. And I’d no’ care to come home now . . .”
The knocker, shaped like a pineapple—the symbol of hospitality—fell back on its plate with a heavy throm that seemed to echo through the house.
Eventually, a majestic butler opened the door, staring at Rutledge with cold disdain. His white hair, brushed to silver, and his height would have done honor to the lord of the manor. Lord Evelyn Gray, however, had been a short, stocky man with dark, curling hair and an iron-gray beard. Rutledge had seen him in London on a number of occasions before the war.
“Inspector Rutledge, Scotland Yard,” he said briskly into the silence. Hamish bristled in the back of his mind, an angry counterpoint to the icy regard. “I wish to see Lady Maude Gray.”
“Her ladyship has no business to conduct with the police,” the man replied, preparing to close the door in Rutledge’s face.
“On the contrary. The police wish to express regret for past misunderstandings, and I have been sent from London to offer this apology in person. It would be rude of her not to hear it.”
The butler looked Rutledge up and down. Rutledge smiled inwardly. If the intent had been to intimidate, it was a signal failure. Haughty the butler might be, but it was a reflection of his mistress’s importance and not his own. Sergeant-Major MacLaren, on the other hand, had been a different matter. A glance could quell an entire battalion. No one dared question his authority; it came direct from God. It was said that even officers walked in fear of him, and most certainly Rutledge himself had deferred to the man’s wisdom and experience on a number of occasions.
What the butler saw was a tall man with a thin face who was clothed in a well-cut suit and a firmness that matched his voice. Something in the dark eyes moved the butler to change his mind and say at last, “Wait here, if you please.”
He returned after nearly ten minutes. “Lady Maude will receive you in the library,” he informed Rutledge, and stepped aside to allow him to enter.
Rutledge walked into a columned hall that reminded him of a Greek temple. The floor, paved in marble, was smooth as cold ice, and the staircases—a pair—flaunted their airy grace as they rose like swans’ necks on either side of a niche where an exquisite Roman copy of a Greek Apollo was subtly lit. The stone face, slightly turned and limned by the light, reminded him all at once of Cormac FitzHugh. He buried the memory as swiftly as it had risen.
Hamish said, “Pagan, this is. Like the mistress, no doubt!”
How had the missing Eleanor Gray seen it? Rutledge wondered. Had she played here as a child, sliding