Search the Dark - Charles Todd [128]
The Germans, Rutledge thought helplessly, had got him after all.
And Hamish, aware of the grief and the pain and the horror of what had happened, said, “Look well. See yoursel’. If it’s no’ the Germans waiting, it will be me.”
Rutledge stood there for an instant, frozen, seeing in his mind’s eye his own shattered face lying on one arm out-flung across the bare wood.
27
Rutledge made himself walk into the room and look at the sheet of paper under Simon’s arm, although he had guessed what was written on it. It was addressed to Hildebrand. It said only, “You were wrong. I blacked out and killed them both. She didn’t know. It is better this way.” And the signature read, with a flourish, Simon Wyatt.
Rutledge softly swore, the waste of a man’s life shocking him.
Aurore was kneeling beside her husband, her arm across his shoulder, saying “He’s still warm, there must be a pulse, if I can stop the bleeding—”
Elizabeth was clinging to the door frame, sobbing heavily, her eyes unable to look away.
Rutledge bent to Aurore, touched her shining hair briefly, gently, then forced her to let Simon go, lifting her to her feet, turning her to face him. “He’s dead, Aurore. He’s dead, there’s nothing you can do.”
She buried her face against him then, and he thought she was going to cry, like Elizabeth. But she was only searching for strength, her body at the point of breaking, her mind already broken.
She said, “I was so afraid. I was so afraid that one day—And now I’ll never need to be afraid again.”
She let him lead her out of the room but seemed unaware of the chair he seated her on or the handkerchief he thrust into her hands.
Elizabeth refused to go, clinging to the door, her eyes unable to leave the crumpled shoulders, the untidy fair hair, the great black stain of blood.
Rutledge finally got her to move back into the museum, and that was when she straightened, seeming to tower in her anger, and loosed the storm of it at Aurore.
“It’s your fault, you killed him! You took him away from all he knew and all he wanted, and made him into what you believed he ought to be, and in the end, it killed him. He needn’t have died but for you and your damned, selfish blindness! I hope you’re satisfied, I hope his spirit haunts you every day of life and breath left to you and that you never, never, know what happiness is, ever again!”
Rutledge went to her and shook her hard, until she broke into tears again and sank in the chair he quickly shoved toward her. Burying her head in her hands, she began to moan Simon’s name, over and over, like a litany.
Aurore, white and strained, still hadn’t cried. She looked up at Rutledge, her eyes filled with ineffable pain, and said only, “He didn’t do it.”
“You thought he had. He thought you had. He killed himself because he couldn’t face losing you, he couldn’t face the scandal, he couldn’t face another change in his life. He was trying to protect you.”
“Hildebrand came to him today—”
“I don’t know how Simon knew of the suitcase. Whether he put it there—or found it there. If it’s any comfort to you—”
He broke off as the door opened and Joanna Daulton came through the outer rooms toward them. Her hair still pinned up, the white streak like a blazon, but she was wearing a robe over her nightdress. She looked from Aurore to Elizabeth, saying something about the fire, and then seemed to shrink into herself as she took in what their faces told her as they lifted to hers. “Simon?” she asked Rutledge. “Gentle God! Where!”
He nodded toward the back room, then said, “Don’t go.”
She walked past him without a word and into the small office, staying only for a moment. He thought he heard her saying words of prayer from the service for the dead. Then she turned, her face chalk white, and said, “What