Legacy of the Dead - Charles Todd [38]
“Aye,” Hamish remarked, “it touched his pride.” Rutledge thought that that was possible and might account for Oliver’s unflagging determination to find answers to the questions raised about the woman.
“I sent out a request for information on any missing persons, and that’s when I heard about the corpse found up the glen. I’d just come back from viewing it, when Menton contacted me with the information they had on the Gray woman. And fool that I was, I set off to England with the feeling that I was bringing the loose ends tidily together, and got my head bitten off instead!”
He regarded Rutledge for several seconds, as if weighing how his view of the situation had been received. Apparently satisfied, he asked, “Can you tell me what you’re considering as the next step?”
“I don’t know,” Rutledge replied with honesty. “You’ve most certainly done all that was required of you, and more. What has the accused told you?”
“Precious little. Only that she’s committed no crime, and she’s worried for the child. I’m not surprised she feels an attachment there. Women have a natural mothering instinct whether they’ve borne a child of their own or not. It’s to her credit that she’s raised him to the best of her ability. Mr. Elliot has closely questioned the lad, and he appears to know his Bible stories. The boy’s particularly fond of Moses and the bulrushes, it seems. And Joseph’s coat of many colors.” He smiled. “Ealasaid MacCallum, the accused’s aunt, made the lad a bathrobe in multicolored stripes, and he’s very fond of it. We let him keep it. And the little stuffed dog the accused made out of one of her greatuncle’s wool socks. There was no harm in that either. It seems to comfort him. He’s cried more than a lad going on three should. But then, he believes the woman to be his mother. It will take some time to convince him otherwise.”
Rutledge found himself thinking of Morag and the expression on her face when he’d said that the child was not the concern of the law. The words had been spoken in another context, that of dealing with a woman charged with murder. But Morag had taken them to heart and let him know it. She’d always had a warm feeling for young things, children and puppies and kittens—even an orphaned lamb that Ross Trevor, age seven, had insisted on hand-rearing. Rutledge wondered what she would have to say about Oliver’s remarks. It will take some time to convince him otherwise. Left unsaid was the corollary: By the time she’s hanged, he’ll not be mourning for her.
Would anyone?
“Why do you think she took on the responsibility of this child in the first place? A single young woman? Surely it would have been simpler to carry him directly to the nearest hospital for foundlings.”
“Who can say? She might have known the father. I’m told that when she wanted to represent herself as a married woman, she took the name of a soldier of her acquaintance, one dead on the Somme. Easy enough to do if he can’t come back and deny he wed her. She might have been jealous of him and wanted the child she couldn’t have by him.”
Changing the subject, Rutledge said, “Is it possible for me to speak to the accused?”
“To what end?” Warily.
“She might—without realizing it—have more to tell us. No one has brought up the name of Eleanor Gray in her hearing?”
“No.” Oliver drained his glass.
“It’s a place to start,” Rutledge told him, his voice reasonable.
“Then finish your pint. I’ll take you there.”
AS HE FOLLOWED Oliver out to his motorcar, Rutledge had an odd sense of foreboding. It was something he couldn’t explain either logically or emotionally, just a sense of—foreboding. For no reason at all, he remembered the dream he’d had in London, and felt cold. Hamish, reacting to the tension in Rutledge’s mind,