Wings of Fire - Charles Todd [60]
Rutledge splashed through the puddles on his way back to the inn, heedless of where he put his feet or the dampness spreading through his socks. Wet feet had been the ever-present hell of the trenches; it had cost more men than Stephen FitzHugh their toes or part of a foot. You learned somehow to shut it out, until the smell told you that the rot had begun.
Hamish was fuming at the back of his mind, telling him something, and he ignored the voice, his mind on Olivia Marlowe.
If she knew where Richard was buried, then she’d killed him. And if she knew, then it was a place that could be found. The boy hadn’t been taken by gypsies or thrown into quicksand, he’d been killed and hidden.
“With pansies—for remembrance—”
Had Olivia meant that figuratively? Or literally?
“It doesna’ matter. What if she meant pansies to put near him, flowers that wilted and were gone in a day? Who would see them, who would guess what she was about?”
The angel then, a frailer angel. Herself? Somewhere that Olivia, with her brace, could reach?
She could ride a pony. That widened the circle. He’d been right to order the constable to search the moors again.
Rutledge turned, crossed over to the nearest shop. In the small window fronting the road there was a collection of ribbons and laces behind a spill of colorful embroidery thread, packets of needles, and an array of handkerchiefs that reminded him of those he’d seen in Olivia’s room. As he opened the door, a gust of wind and rain nearly jerked the knob out of his hand.
Startled, a middle-aged woman looked up from a cushion of bobbins and threads and a half-finished lace collar on her lap. “Could I help you, sir?” she asked, trying hastily to get to her feet.
“No, sit down, I’m too wet to come in. I need directions, that’s all.”
She sank back into her chair, somehow preventing the bobbins from roiling to every point of the compass. Then he saw that like the Belgian nuns he’d come across during the war, she had them pinned in place. “To where?”
“I’m looking for the man who did the gardening at the Hall. Wilkins is his name.”
“Oh, you’ve come the wrong way, sir! He’s down towards the river, in a little house you can’t miss. There’s a stone wall and a garden in front, and beehives out back.”
Five minutes later, his shoes squeaking with rain water, Rutledge was knocking on the door of a stone house half hidden under its slate roof.
Wilkins came to answer the summons with his bedroom slippers on his feet. He grinned at Rutledge and said, “I’ve seen drowned men drier than you! Here, wait till I’ve fetched some rags.”
As Rutledge furled his umbrella, Wilkins disappeared down the dark stone-flagged passage towards the back of the house, and soon returned with a handful of old cloths. Rutledge dried his shoes as best he could, and then followed the old man into his kitchen, where something smelled suspiciously like rabbit stew in the pot simmering on the hearth.
“I knew you’d be along before the day was out. They say you’re nosing around the Hall and the village, looking for answers that London wants. About the deaths at the Hall. Aye, I’m not surprised. If you ask me, Inspector Harvey is a fool, and Constable Dawlish too full of himself to know the difference between his nose and his toes! I’ve got some good ale in that jug over there, fresh from The Three Bells. And if you’ll hand it to me, I’ll pour you a cup.”
Rutledge picked up the heavy stone jug and passed it to him. Wilkins filled two cups and sat down with a sigh of satisfaction.
“I never thought Mr. Brian was killed falling from his horse. He was too good a rider. Born on a horse, like as not, and knew what he was about. And you don’t ride a valuable animal through sea-wet rocks, not if you’ve got any sense, with the risk of ruining his legs! It were murder, pure and simple, that happened that day—to man and mount!”
12
Caught off balance, Rutledge stared at the old man. “Did you say