I n this quiet part of Warwickshire death came as frequently as it did anywhere else in England, no stranger to the inhabitants of towns, villages, or countryside. Sons and fathers had died in the Great War; the terrible influenza epidemic had scythed the county-man, woman, and child- just as it had cut down much of Europe; and murder was not unheard of even here in Upper Streetham.
But one fine June morning, as the early mists rose lazily in the warm sunlight like wraiths in no hurry to be gone, Colonel Harris was killed in cold blood in a meadow fringed with buttercups and cowslips, and his last coherent thought was anger. Savage, wild, black fury ripped through him in one stark instant of realization before oblivion swept it all away, and his body, rigid with it, survived the shotgun blast long enough to dig spurs into the mare's flanks while his hands clenched the reins in a muscular spasm as strong as iron.
He died hard, unwilling, railing at God, and his ragged cry raised echoes in the quiet woods and sent the rooks flying even as the gun roared. *** In London, where rain dripped from eaves and ran black in the gutters, a man named Bowles, who had never heard of Colonel Harris, came into possession of a piece of information that was the reward of very determined and quite secret probing into the history of a fellow policeman at Scotland Yard.
He sat at his desk in the grim old brick building and stared at the letter on his blotter. It was written on cheap stationery in heavy ink by a rounded, rather childish hand, but he was almost afraid to touch it. Its value to him was beyond price, and if he had begged whatever gods he believed in to give him the kind of weapon he craved, they couldn't have managed anything sweeter than this.
He smiled, delight spreading slowly across his fair-skinned face and narrowing the hard, amber-colored eyes.
If this was true-and he had every reason to believe it was-he had been absolutely right about Ian Rutledge. He, Bowles, was vindicated by six lines of unwittingly damaging girlish scrawl.
Reading the letter for the last time, he refolded it carefully and replaced it in its envelope, locking it in his desk drawer.
Now the question was how best to make use of this bit of knowledge without burning himself in the fire he wanted to raise.
If only those same gods had thought to provide a way…
But it seemed, after all, that they had.
Twenty-four hours later, the request for assistance arrived from Warwickshire, and Superintendent Bowles happened, by the merest chance, to be in the right place at the right time to make a simple, apparently constructive suggestion. The gods had been very generous indeed. Bowles was immensely grateful.
The request for Scotland Yard's help had arrived through the proper channels, couched in the usual terms. What lay behind the formal wording was sheer panic.
The local police force, stunned by Colonel Harris's vicious murder, had done their best to conduct the investigation quickly and efficiently. But when the statement of one particular witness was taken down and Inspector Forrest understood just where it was going to lead him, the Upper Streetham Constabulary collectively got cold feet.
At a circumspect conference with higher county authority, it was prudently decided to let Scotland Yard handle this situation-and to stay out of the Yard's way as much as humanly possible. Here was one occasion when metropolitan interference in local police affairs was heartily welcomed. With undisguised relief, Inspector Forrest forwarded his request to London.
The Yard in its turn faced a serious dilemma. Willy-nilly, they were saddled with a case where discretion, background, and experience were essential. At the same time, it was going to be a nasty one either way you looked at it, and someone's head was bound to roll. Therefore the man sent to Warwickshire must be considered expendable, however good he might be at his job.
And that was when Bowles had made his timely comments.
Inspector Rutledge had just returned to the Yard after covering himself with mud and glory in the trenches of France. Surely choosing him would be popular in Warwickshire, under the circumstances-showed a certain sensitivity for county feelings, as it were… As for experience, he'd handled a number of serious cases before the war, he'd left a brilliant record behind him, in fact. The word scapegoat wasn't mentioned, but Bowles delicately pointed out that it might be less disruptive to morale to lose-if indeed it should come to that-a man who'd just rejoined the force. Please God, of course, such a sacrifice wouldn't be required!
A half-hearted quibble was raised about Rutledge's state of health. Bowles brushed that aside. The doctors had pronounced him fit to resume his duties, hadn't they? And although he was still drawn and thin, he appeared to be much the same man who had left in 1914. Older and quieter naturally, but that was to be expected. A pity about the war. It had changed so many lives…
The recommendation was approved, and an elated Bowles was sent to brief Rutledge. After tracking the Inspector to the small, drafty cubicle where he was reading through a stack of reports on current cases, Bowles stood in the passage for several minutes, steadying his breathing, willing himself to composure. Then he opened the door and walked in. The man behind the desk looked up, a smile transforming his thin, pale face, bringing life to the tired eyes.
"The war hasn't improved human nature, has it?" He flicked a finger across the open file on his blotter and added, "That's the fifth knifing in a pub brawl I've read this morning. But it seems the Army did manage to teach us something-exactly where to place the blade in the ribs for best results. None of the five survived. If we'd done as well in France, bayoneting Germans, we'd have been home by 1916."
His voice was pleasant, well modulated. It was one of the things that Bowles, with his high-pitched, North Country accent, disliked most about the man. And the fact that his father had been a barrister, not a poor miner. Schooling had come easily to Rutledge. He hadn't had to plod, dragging each bit of knowledge into his brain by sheer effort of will, dreading examinations, knowing himself a mediocrity. It rubbed a man's pride to the bone to struggle so hard where others soared on the worldly coattails of London-bred fathers and grandfathers. Blood told. It always had. Bowles passionately resented it. If there'd been any justice, a German bayonet would have finished this soldier along with the rest of them!
"Yes, well, you can put those away, Michaelson's got something for you," Bowles announced, busily framing sentences in his mind that would convey the bare facts and leave out the nuances that might put Rutledge on his guard, or give him an opening to refuse to go to Warwickshire. "First month back, and you've landed this one. You'll have your picture in the bloody papers before it's done, mark my words." He sat down and began affably to outline the situation. Rutledge left the outskirts of London behind and headed northwest. It was a dreary morning, rain sweeping in gusts across the windscreen from a morbidly gray sky draped like a dirty curtain from horizon to horizon, the tires throwing up rivers of water on either side of the car like black wings.
Hellish weather for June.
I should have taken the train, he thought as he settled down to a steady pace. But he knew he couldn't face the train yet. It was one thing to be shut up in a motorcar that you could stop at will and another to be enclosed in a train over which you had no control at all. Jammed in with a half dozen other people. The doors closed for hours on end, the compartment airless and overheated. The press of bodies crowding him, driving him to the brink of panic, voices dinning in his ears, the roar of the wheels like the sound of his own blood pounding through his heart. Just thinking about it sent a wave of terror through him.
Claustrophobia, the doctors had called it, a natural fear in a man who'd been buried alive in a frontline trench, suffocated by the clinging, slippery, unspeakable mud and the stinking corpses pinning him there.
Too soon, his sister Frances had said. It was much too soon to go back to work! But he knew that if he didn't, he'd lose what was left of his mind. Distraction was what he needed. And this murder in Warwickshire appeared to offer just that. He'd need his wits about him, he'd have to concentrate to recover the long forgotten skills he'd had to put behind him in 1914-and that would keep Hamish at bay.
"You're to turn right here."
The voice in his head was as clear as the patter of rain on the car's roof, a deep voice, with soft Scottish inflections. He was used to hearing it now. The doctors had told him that would happen, that it was not uncommon for the mind to accept something which it had created itself in order to conceal what it couldn't face any other way. Shell shock was an odd thing, it made its own rules, they'd said. Understand that and you could manage to keep your grip on reality. Fight it, and it would tear you apart. But he had fought it for a very long time-and they were right, it had nearly destroyed him.
He made the turn, glancing at the signs. Yes. The road to Banbury.
And Hamish, strangely enough, was a safer companion than Jean, who haunted him in another way. In God's blessed name, how did you uproot love? How did you tear it out of your flesh and bone?
He'd learned, in France, to face dying. He could learn, in time, how to face living. It was just getting through the desolation in between that seemed to be beyond him. Frances had shrugged her slim shoulders and said, "Darling, there are other women, in a year you'll wonder why you cared so much for one. Let go gracefully-after all, it isn't as if she's fallen in love with another man!"
He swerved to miss a dray pulling out into the road without warning from a muddy lane running between long, wet fields.
"Keep your mind on the driving, man, or we'll both be dead!"
"Sometimes I believe we'd both be better off," he answered aloud, not wanting to think about Jean, not able to think about anything else. Everywhere he turned, something brought her back to him, ten thousand memories waiting like enemies to ambush him. The car… the rain… She'd liked driving in the rain, the glass clouded with their warm breath, their laughter mingling with the swish of the tires, the car a private, intimate world of their own.
"Ah, but that's the coward's road, death is! You willna' escape so easily as that. You've got a conscience, man. It won't let you run out. And neither will I."
Rutledge laughed harshly. "The day may come when you have no choice." He kept his eyes pinned to the road, as always refusing to look over his shoulder, though the voice seemed to come from the rear seat, just behind him, almost near enough to touch him with its breath. The temptation to turn around was strong, nearly as strong as the desperate fear of what he might see if he did. He could, he had found, live with Hamish's voice. What he dreaded-dreaded more than anything-was seeing Hamish's face. And one day-one day he might. Hollow-eyed, empty of humanity in death. Or accusing, pleading in life Rutledge shuddered and forced his mind back to the road ahead. The day he saw Hamish, he'd end it. He had promised himself that… It was very late when he reached Upper Streetham, the rain still blowing in gusty showers, the streets of the town empty and silent and shiny with puddles as he made his way to the Inn on the High Street.
"Highland towns are like this on Saturday nights," Hamish said suddenly. "All the good Presbyterians asleep in their beds, mindful of the Sabbath on the morrow. And the Catholics back from Confession and feeling virtuous. Are you mindful of the state of your soul?"
"I haven't got one," Rutledge answered tiredly. "You tell me that often enough. I expect it's true." The black-and-white facade he was looking for loomed ahead, ghostly in another squall of rain, a rambling, ancient structure with a thatched roof that seemed to frown disparagingly over the faded inn sign swinging from its wrought-iron bar. The Shepherd's Crook, it read.
He turned in through a wisteria-hung arch, drove past the building into the Inn yard, and pulled the motorcar into an empty space between a small, barred shed and the Inn's rear door. Beyond the shed was what appeared in his headlamps to be a square lake with pagodas and islands just showing above the black water. No doubt the kitchen garden, with its early onions and cabbages.
Someone had heard him coming into the drive and was watching him from the back steps, a candle in his hand.
"Inspector Rutledge?" the man called.
"Yes, I'm Rutledge."
"I'm Barton Redfern, the landlord's nephew. He asked me to wait up for you." Rain swept through the yard again as he spoke, and he hastily stepped back inside, waiting to hold the door open as Rutledge dashed through the puddles, his bag in one hand, the other holding on to his hat. A minor tempest followed him across the threshold.
"My uncle said you were to have the room over the parlor, where it's quieter at night. It's this way. Would you like a cup of tea or something from the bar? You look like you could use a drink!"
"No, thanks." There was whiskey in his bag if he wanted it-if exhaustion wasn't enough. "What I need is sleep. It rained all the way, heavy at times. I had to stop beyond Stratford for an hour until the worst had passed. Any messages?"
"Just that Inspector Forrest will see you at breakfast, if you like. At nine?"
"Better make it eight."
They were climbing a flight of narrow, winding stairs, the back way to the second floor. Barton, who looked to be in his early twenties, was limping heavily. Turning to say something over his shoulder, he caught Rutledge's glance at his left foot and said instead, "Ypres, a shell fragment. The doctors say it'll be fine once the muscles have knit themselves back properly. But I don't know. They aren't always as smart as they think they are, doctors."
"No," Rutledge agreed bitterly. "They just do the best they can. And sometimes that isn't much."
Redfern led the way down a dark hall and opened the door to a wide, well-aired room under the eaves, with a lamp burning by the bed and brightly flowered curtains at the windows. Relieved not to find himself in a cramped, narrow chamber where sleep would be nearly impossible, Rutledge nodded his thanks and Redfern shut the door as he left, saying, "Eight it is, then. I'll see that you're called half an hour before."
Fifteen minutes later Rutledge was in the bed and asleep.
He never feared sleep. It was the one place where Hamish could not follow him. Sergeant Davies was middle-aged, heavyset, with a placidity about him that spoke of even temper, a man at peace within himself. But there were signs of strain in his face also, as if he had been on edge for the past several days. He sat foursquare at Rutledge's table in the middle of the Inn's small, cheerful dining room, watching as Redfern poured a cup of black coffee for him and explaining why he was there in place of his superior.
"By rights, Inspector Forrest should be answering your questions, but he won't be back much before ten. There's been a runaway lorry in Lower Streetham and the driver was drunk. Two people were killed. A nasty business. So's this a nasty business. Colonel Harris was well respected, not the sort you'd expect to get himself murdered." He sighed. "A sorry death for a man who went through two wars unscathed. But London will have gone over that."
Rutledge had spread homemade jam on his toast. It was wild strawberry and looked as if it had been put up before the war, nearly as dark and thick as treacle. Poised to take a bite, he looked across at the Sergeant. "I'm not in London now. I'm here. Tell me how it happened."
Davies settled back in his chair, frowning as he marshaled his facts. Inspector Forrest had been very particular about how any account of events was to be given. The Sergeant was a man who took pride in being completely reliable.
"A shotgun. Blew his head to bits-from the chin up, just tatters. He'd gone out for his morning ride at seven sharp, just as he always did whenever he was at home, back by eight- thirty, breakfast waiting for him. That was every day except Sunday, rain or shine. But on Monday, when he wasn't back by ten, his man of business, Mr. Royston, went looking for him in the stables."
"Why?" Rutledge had taken out a pen and a small, finely tooled leather notebook. "On this day, particularly?"
"There was a meeting set for nine-thirty, and it wasn't like the Colonel to forget about it. When he got to the stables, Mr. Royston found the grooms in a blue panic because the Colonel's horse had just come galloping in without its rider, and there was blood all over the saddle and the horse's haunches. Men were sent out straightaway to look for him, and he was finally discovered in a meadow alongside the copse of trees at the top of his property."
Davies paused as the swift pen raced across the ruled page, allowing Rutledge a moment to catch up before continuing. "Mr. Royston sent for Inspector Forrest first thing, but he'd gone looking for the Barlowe child, who'd gotten herself lost. By the time I got the message and reached the scene, the ground was well trampled by stable lads and farmhands, all come to stare. So we aren't sure he was shot just there. But it couldn't have happened more than a matter of yards from where we found him."
"And no indication of who might have done it?"
The Sergeant shifted uneasily in his chair, his eyes straying to the squares of pale sunlight that dappled the polished floor as the last of the rain clouds thinned. "As to that, you must know that Captain Wilton-that's the Captain Mark Wilton who won the VC-quarreled with the Colonel the night before, shortly after dinner. He's to marry the Colonel's ward, you see, and some sort of misunderstanding arose over the wedding, or so the servants claim. In the middle of the quarrel, the Captain stalked out of the house in a temper, and was heard to say he'd see the Colonel in hell, first. The Colonel threw his brandy glass at the door just as the Captain slammed it, and shouted that that could be arranged."
This was certainly a more colorful version of the bald facts that Rutledge had been given in London. Breakfast forgotten, he continued to write, his mind leaping ahead of Davies' steady voice. "What does the ward have to say?"
"Miss Wood's in her room, under the doctor's care, seeing no one. Not even her fiance. The Captain is staying with Mrs. Davenant. She's a second cousin on his mother's side. Inspector Forrest tried to question him, and he said he wasn't one to go around shooting people, no matter what he might have done in the war."
Rutledge put down his pen and finished his toast, then reached for his teacup. He didn't have to ask what the Captain had done in the war. His photograph had been in all the papers when he was decorated by the King-the Captain had not managed to bring down the Red Baron, but he seemed to have shot down every other German pilot whose path he had crossed in the skies above France. Rutledge had watched a vicious dogfight high in the clouds above his trench one July afternoon and had been told later who the English pilot was. If it was true, then Wilton was nothing short of a gifted flier.
Colonel Harris had been a relatively young man for his rank, serving in the Boer War as well as the Great War and making a name for himself as a skilled infantry tactician. Rutledge had actually met him once-a tall, vigorous, compassionate officer who had known how to handle tired, frightened men asked once too often to do the impossible.
Without warning, Hamish laughed harshly. "Aye, he knew how to stir men. There were those of us who'd have blown his head off there and then if we'd had the chance, after that third assault. It was suicide, and he knew it, and he sent us anyway. I can't say I'm sorry he's got his. Late is better than never."
Rutledge choked as his tea went down the wrong way. He knew-dear God, he knew!-that Hamish couldn't be heard by anyone else, and yet sometimes the voice was so clear he expected everyone around him to be staring at him in shock.
He waved Davies back to his chair as the Sergeant made to rise and slap him on his back. Still coughing, he managed to ask, "That's all you've done?"
"Yes, sir, then we were told to leave everything for the Yard and so we did just that."
"What about the shotgun? Have you at least checked on that?"
"The Captain says he used the weapons at the Colonel's house, if he wanted to go shooting. But none of them has been fired recently. We asked Mrs. Davenant if she had any guns, and she said she sold her late husband's Italian shotguns before the war." The Sergeant glanced over his shoulder, and Barton Redfern came across the parlor to refill his cup. When the young man had limped away again, the Sergeant added tentatively, "Because of that quarrel, of course, it looks as if the Captain might be the guilty party, but I've learned in this business that looks are deceiving."
Rutledge nodded. "And the murder was three days ago. After last night's rain, there'll be nothing to find in the meadow or anywhere else along the route the Colonel might have taken on his ride. Right, then, do you have a list of people to talk to? Besides the ward-Miss Wood-and Wilton. And this Mrs. Davenant."
"As to that, there aren't all that many. The servants and the lads who found the body. Laurence Royston. Miss Tar- rant, of course-she was the lady that Captain Wilton had courted before the war, but she turned him down then and doesn't seem to mind that he's marrying Miss Wood now. Still, you never know, do you? She might be willing to throw a little light on how the two men got on together. And there's Mr. Haldane-he's the Squire's son. He was one of Miss Wood's suitors, as was the Vicar."
Davies grinned suddenly, a wholly unprofessional glint in his eyes. "Some say Mr. Carfield took holy orders because he saw the war coming, but actually had his heart set on the theater. He does preach a better sermon than old Reverend Mott did, I'll say that for him. We all learned more about the Apostle Paul under Mr. Mott than any of us ever cared to know, and I must admit Mr. Carfield's a welcomed change!" He recollected himself and went on more soberly, "The two Sommers ladies are new to the district and don't go about much. I doubt if they'd be helpful, except that they live near where the body was found and might have seen or heard something of use to us."
Rutledge nodded as Redfern returned with a fresh pot of tea, waiting until his cup had been filled before he commented, "Miss Wood seems to have been very popular."
"She's a very-attractive-young lady," Davies answered, hesitating over the word as if not certain that it was appropriate. "Then of course there's Mavers. He's a local man, a rabble-rouser by nature, always putting his nose in where it doesn't belong, stirring things up, making trouble for the sake of trouble. If anything untoward happens in Upper Streetham, the first person you think of is Mavers."
"That's not a likely motive for shooting Harris, in itself."
"In Mavers's case, it is. He's been annoying the Colonel since long before the war, nothing we've ever been able to prove, you understand, but there've been fires and dead livestock and the like, vindictive acts all of them. The last time, when one of the dogs was poisoned, the Colonel threatened to have Mavers committed if it happened again. He's got a very sound alibi-Inspector Forrest talked to him straightaway. All the same, I'd not put murder past him."
Rutledge heard the hope in Davies' voice, but said only, "I'll keep that in mind. All right, then, if that' s the lot, we'll start with Miss Wood. She may be able to give us a better picture of this quarrel, what it was about and whether it might have had anything to do with her guardian's death. I'll want you there. Inspector Forrest can spare you?" He capped his pen, stowed the notebook in his pocket, and reached for his cup.
Davies looked stunned. "You didn't bring a Sergeant with you, then?"
"We're shorthanded at the Yard at the moment. You'll do."
"But-," Davies began, panic sweeping through him. Then he thought better of what he had been on the verge of saying. The man to speak to was Forrest, not this gaunt- faced stranger from London with his clipped voice and bleak eyes.
Then he bethought himself of the one fact he'd avoided so far, the one bit of evidence no one wanted to accept. He had been told to wait until Rutledge brought it up, but the man hadn't mentioned it. Because he discounted it? That would be too much to hope for! More than likely, the Inspector intended to rub the Sergeant's nose in it, now that he had his chance. But Davies knew it had to be dragged into the open, like it or not. You couldn't just ignore it, pretend it didn't exist He cleared his throat. "There's more, sir, though I don't know what it's worth. Surely they told you in London?" Staring at Rutledge, waiting for some indication that the man knew, that he didn't need to go into embarrassing detail, Sergeant Davies read only impatience in the face before him as the Inspector folded his napkin and laid it neatly beside his plate.
"A possible witness, sir. He claims he saw the Colonel on Monday morning." No, the man didn't know; it was hard to believe, but for some reason he hadn't been told! Davies hurried on. "In the lane that cuts between Seven Brothers Field and the orchard. And he saw Captain Wilton standing there beside the horse, holding on to the bridle and talking to the Colonel, who was shaking his head as if he didn't like what he was hearing. This must have been about seven-thirty, maybe even a quarter to eight. Then the Captain suddenly stepped back, his face very red, and the Colonel rode off, leaving the Captain standing there with his fists clenched."
Rutledge silently cursed London for ineptitude. He pulled out his notebook again and asked curtly, "How far is this place from where the Colonel was found dead? And why didn't you mention this witness sooner?"
The Sergeant's face flushed. "As to how far, sir, it's at most two miles east of the meadow," he answered stiffly. "And I was sure they'd have told you in London-You see, the problem is that the witness is unreliable, sir. He was drunk. He often is, these days."
"Even an habitual drunk has been known to tell the truth." Rutledge added another line, then looked up. "We can't discount what he says on those grounds alone."
"No, sir. But there's more, you see. He's-well, he's shell- shocked, sir, doesn't know where he is half the time, thinks he's still at the Front, hears voices, that kind of thing. Lost his nerve on the Somme and went to pieces. Lack of moral fiber, that's what it was. It seems a shame for a fine man like the Captain to be under suspicion of murder on the evidence of an acknowledged coward like Daniel Hickam, doesn't it? It isn't right, sir, is it?"
But London had said nothing-Bowles had said nothing.
In the far corners of his mind, behind the spinning turmoil of his own thoughts, Rutledge could hear the wild, derisive echoes of Hamish's laughter.