Wings of Fire - Charles Todd [62]
Nicholas might have no reason to kill his stepfather, but he might well have covered up for Olivia, if he’d had any fear that she was involved.
With the brace on her leg, could she have moved around among the rocks?
He asked that question aloud. Wilkins thought about it. “She weren’t one to plead helplessness. I’d see her struggle to do what she wanted to do. Aye, she could get over them rocks, spider fashion, pulling her leg along. Slowlike and careful. But where she had the will, she got her way.”
Remembering what Constable Dawlish had said, Rutledge asked, “You put the horse down, didn’t you? Was she there, watching?”
“Aye, it were left to me, and a hard job it were. Loved that horse, I did. Mr. Cormac were there, his head buried in the horse’s neck and crying. Miss Olivia came with Dawlish, who were only a boy then, and said, There’s no saving him? Not even if he never races again? Must we put him down?’ And I said, The smith looked at that foreleg, miss, and he said t’were shattered, there were no way to mend it so’s it’d take his weight.’ Fleet as he were, I couldn’t watch him live out his days a cripple, struggling over every step, though I didn’t say that to her face, her being a cripple herself!”
He looked into his cup and swished the ale thoughtfully. “She stayed till it were done. Not a bit squeamish, as you’d think in a young lady like her. Afterward, she told Mr. Cor-mac, if he cared so much for Lucifer, he could help dig the hole to bury him in. And we did it, out on the headland, Mr. Cormac and a few of the lads and me.”
Rutledge walked back to the inn as the church clock struck twelve. The rain had turned into a misty drizzle again, and the street was no longer a river under his feet. More people were about, now, men and women, a few of them nodding to him in recognition. Mrs. Trepol, hurrying past, wished him a good day, and in the distance he glimpsed Rachel moving head down towards the woods that separated the village from the Hall. Hamish, rumbling with suppressed irritation, kept Rutledge from concentrating his thoughts on the morning’s work. Or was it his own reluctance?
At the inn, Mr. Trask took his umbrella and greeted him with the news that he had a visitor waiting in the parlor. Rutledge went through into a long narrow room with a ceiling so low it seemed to brush his head. In the wave of claustrophobia that followed, he saw only the dark furnishings, the empty grate, and a tall man with white hair who rose from a chair and stood where he was, waiting for Rutledge to speak.
After a moment, he managed to say, “I’m Rutledge. I’m afraid I don’t know who you are.”
The man looked him over, then said, “Chambers. Thomas Chambers. I represent the Trevelyan family—”
Rutledge had him pegged. This was the lawyer who had courted Rosamund and almost won her. The family solicitor, handling the wills. Regarding him with new interest, he crossed the room to light the lamps on the chimney piece. Their glow, added to the one lamp already burning on the table, pushed back the darkness and the cavelike atmosphere of the room. Breathing more easily, he could concentrate on what Chambers was saying.
“—and I understand that you’ve come down to reconsider the circumstances of their deaths. I’d like to know why.”
Rutledge stood with his back to the cold hearth and said, “Because the Home Office wished to be sure that all was as it should be. Miss Marlowe—as O. A. Manning—is a person of some prominence.”
Chambers all but snorted in disbelief. “You may tell the locals that, and they’d be impressed. I’m not.”
“Suspicious, are you?” Rutledge asked.
“Of course I’m suspicious when Scotland Yard feels it needs to stick its nose into a death where I’m handling the estate.”
“Is there anything wrong with the wills? Any provisions that make you especially nervous?” He was deliberately misunderstanding the man, stripping him of his authority and aggressively taking charge of the meeting. Not out of personal animosity but as a tool.
Chambers stared at him. At the thinness, the