Wings of Fire - Charles Todd [17]
He let her go, watching her slim figure hurry down the drive and turn towards the sea.
So that was Lady Ashford, born Rachel Marlowe, and cousin to the people who lived here. Peter’s wife. Widow. He remembered Peter, tall and fast at games, level-headed and very good at whatever he did. He’d had a gift for languages, he could pick them up with apparently no effort, and speak them like a native. All that wasted in an obscure action on the flanks of a mountain whose one claim to fame was that Queen Victoria had had two mountains in East Africa, and had given Kilimanjaro to the Kaiser, next door in Tanganyika, who’d had none. Bloody silly thing to do in the first place. And Englishmen had died trying to retake it from the Germans under that master strategist, Von Lettow-Vorbeck, who knew how to pin down men who would otherwise have been fighting in France.
Rutledge turned and went back up the stairs to the sitting room, standing there with his eyes roving the furnishings, the books, the wooden ships that Nicholas Cheney carved. He had left more of himself here than the poet, after all ...
Two people who died together for no apparent reason. No expression of regret, no apologies to the living. No explanation of the deed, no excuses, no last confessions, no lines of bitterness meant to hurt the survivors. Just ... silence.
Hamish, uneasy and sensitive to the unsettled atmosphere of Rutledge’s mind, called to him to leave, to wash his hands of this case and go back to London.
Rutledge gave up trying to hear the stillness, and walked out into the gallery again on his way to Olivia’s bedroom.
A voice down in the hall said harshly, “What the hell— who the hell are you?”
Rutledge looked down, not seeing anyone at first, then finding the tall man who stood just in the shadows of a doorway.
“Inspector Rutledge, Scotland Yard,’’ he said. “I’ve a key from Constable Dawlish, and I’m here on official business. Who are you?”
“Official—what’s happened?” the other man demanded sharply.
“The inquiry into the deaths of Miss Marlowe, Mr. Cheney, and Mr. FitzHugh is being reconsidered by the Yard,” Rutledge said, and started down the stairs.
The man in the doorway was handsome in a way that few men are, reminding Rutledge of Greek statues, that same mix of perfect body and face and mind that the Golden Age admired most. And yet there was something about him that was pure Irish. Was this Daniel Hargrove, the husband of Susannah FitzHugh?
Before he could test that, the man said, “I’m Cormac FitzHugh. A member of the family. No one has told me of any renewed inquiry! Neither the local police nor the family’s solicitors. What are you doing here?”
“Surveying the scenes of death,” Rutledge responded, coming to the last step and staying where he was. He’d dealt with officers of this man’s ilk, accustomed to giving orders and expecting instant, unquestioning obedience to them. He’d never liked such men.
Hamish growled, “Bloody, arrogant bastards, the lot!”
“I’m putting a stop to this right now! You’ll hand over your keys, if you please, and leave the grounds at once. There will be no reopening of any affairs to do with my family.”
“I’m afraid, Mr. FitzHugh, that you have no say in this business. It’s a police matter, at the request of the Home Office. You have no option but to cooperate.” He paused. “Unless, of course, you have something to hide in any of these three deaths?”
FitzHugh looked as if Rutledge had struck him. “I wield considerable power in the City—”
“That’s as may be,” Rutledge answered him. “It doesn’t count here, I’m afraid.”
“Yes, I’ve something to hide,” FitzHugh said shortly, changing directions so quickly that Rutledge was nearly caught off guard. “My stepbrother and my stepsister killed themselves.