Watchers of Time - Charles Todd [70]
“Yes, well, I’ve posted a sizable reward for information leading to an arrest. I hope I’ll have the opportunity to pay it out to someone.”
Rutledge recalled that Blevins had spoken of a reward. “Did you, indeed? Were you a parishioner of Father James’s? Did you know him well?”
“Good lord, no. Anglican. The East Sherham church is on our estate. Still, I keep a friendly eye on my neighbors. Right thing to do! I rather dislike people killing people, and I know that money can jog memories—or tongues. Father James was a conscientious man, from all reports. A considerable force for good. Over the years, I’ve applauded that. We can ill-afford to lose men of his caliber. Osterley’s best and brightest have already been sacrificed to that bloody War. I saw you coming out of the solicitor’s office. Frederick Gifford’s brother, Raymond, was one of the finest men I’ve ever met, and he went down in flames over the German lines. Gifford’s two clerks died at Ypres. Anderson at The Pelican lost his boy at Jutland, and Mrs. Barnett’s nephew was artillery, shells blew up in his face. Sadly, the list goes on.”
They were turning back out of Water Street onto the main road again. On the hill, the flint walls of Holy Trinity seemed to shine with an inner light. “But that’s a morbid line of thought. Tell me, what do you do in London, Rutledge?”
“Much the same sort of thing I do here. Ask questions. Collate information. Consider the evidence and try to draw conclusions from it. Search for motives.”
Hamish, who’d been silent since Rutledge had entered the motorcar, asked, “Hobnobbing wi’ the great willna’ give you the answers either.”
Sedgwick grunted. “What you do requires patience.” Evans had braked to allow a wagon laden with firewood to make the turn into Trinity Lane. Just a few yards beyond it, there was a woman walking along the verge, head down, face hidden by her hat. Rutledge recognized her and apparently so did Sedgwick. Priscilla Connaught, in Wellingtons and a long coat.
Sedgwick spoke to Evans and they slowed. He leaned forward to say, “Good morning, Miss Connaught! I see you are on foot. Anything the matter with your motorcar? I can have Evans take a look this afternoon!”
“Good morning, Lord Sedgwick. No, I’m walking for the exercise. But thank you for your concern.”
Something in her face gave Rutledge the impression she was walking off a dark mood. Her eyes flickered in his direction and then came back to Sedgwick.
Sedgwick touched the brim of his hat and Evans put the car into gear once more. “She’s had the very devil of a time with her brakes,” the former explained to Rutledge. “I told her she’d wind up in the marshes, if someone didn’t fix the problem. Evans believes it’s in the linkage.” Picking up the thread of what Rutledge had been saying earlier, he continued. “I’m not a patient man by nature. Never was. Can’t sit confined for long. But then I wasn’t trained to it!”
“Few of us are.”
They were passing the school now, on Gull Street where it became the Sherham Road. After a time Sedgwick nodded to rolling fields where sheep grazed in the late grass. “I wasn’t born to farming. Anyone will tell you, my father made his fortune in the City. He bought the house in East Sherham when the last of the Chastain family died. I spent my summers here. To keep me out of harm’s way, I was given into the care of an old sheepman who—God forgive him—thought I was entirely spoiled and woefully ignorant. On the other hand, I believed that anything that allowed me to escape from my tutor was daring and rebellious. Before I quite knew what was happening, I’d learned as much about sheep as old Ned could teach me.”
He lifted a hand, deprecatingly. “My father was shocked to discover that I was breeding sheep and had a natural eye for the best rams to improve the flocks. The Chastains hadn’t maintained the land or the pasturage, and I was soon badgering him to buy up acreage and extend our holding. He sent me off to Oxford to cure me of such low habits.” He chuckled. “That finally made a gentleman of