'First I'll have a piece of paper saying you'll bring it back!'
Rutledge took a sheet from his notebook and scribbled a sentence on it, then signed it under the man's baleful eye. Mavers watched him leave, and then folded the single sheet carefully and put it in a small metal box on the mantel. Inspector Forrest was waiting for them in the magpie cottage beyond the greengrocer's shop that served as the Upper Streetham police station. There was a small anteroom, a pair of offices, and another room at the back used as a holding cell. Seldom occupied by more serious felons than drunks and disturbers of the peace, an occasional wife beater or petty thief, this cell still had a heavy, almost medieval lock on its door, with the big iron key hanging nearby on a nail. The furnishings were old, the paint showing wear, the color of the carpet on the floors almost nondescript now, but the rooms were spotless.
Leaning across a battered desk to shake hands, Forrest introduced himself to Rutledge and said, 'I'm sorry about this morning. Three dead in Lower Streetham, another in critical condition, two more seriously injured, and half the village in an uproar. I didn't like to leave until things had settled a bit. I hope Sergeant Davies has told you everything you wanted to know.' He saw the shotgun in Rutledge's left hand and said, 'Hello, what have we here?'
'Bert Mavers says this was left to him in a Will-or rather, left to his father.'
'Good Lord! So it was! I'd forgotten about that. And Mrs. Davenant didn't mention it either, when I went to see her about her husband's Italian guns. It's been years-' His face was a picture of shock and chagrin.
'We probably can't prove it's the murder weapon, but I'm ready to wager it was.'
Reaching for the shotgun, Forrest said with sudden enthusiasm, 'Used by Mavers, do you think?'
'If so, why didn't he have the wit to put it out of sight afterward?'
'You never know with Mavers. Nothing he does makes much sense.' Forrest examined it carefully, as if half expecting it to confess. 'Yes, it's been fired, you can see that, but there's no saying when, is there? Still-'
'Everyone claims he was in the village all morning. Is that true?'
'Unfortunately, it appears to be.' Forrest fished in the center drawer of his desk and said, 'Here's a list of people I've talked to. You can see for yourself.'
Rutledge took the neatly written sheet and glanced at the names, nearly two dozen of them. Most were unfamiliar to him, but Mrs. Davenant's was among them, and Royston's. And Catherine Tarrant's.
'Each of these people heard him ranting. That's clear enough,' Forrest went on. 'He was plaguing everyone who came within earshot, and each one will swear to that. Although the shopkeepers were too busy to pay much heed to him, they remember that he was making the usual nuisance of himself, and their customers were commenting on it. Putting it all together, you can see that he arrived in the market square early on and was still there at midmorning.' He rubbed his pounding temples and gestured to the two barrel-backed oak chairs across from the desk. 'Sit down, sit down.'
Rutledge shook his head. 'I must find Daniel Hickam.'
Inspector Forrest said, 'Surely you don't intend to take his statement seriously? There's bound to be other evidence more worthy of your time than anything Hickam can say! If we keep looking hard enough?' He could see that the man from London was far from well, and suddenly found himself worrying about that. You don't have the patience and the energy to give to a thorough investigation, is that it? he thought to himself. You want an easy answer, then back to the comforts of London. That's why the Yard sent you, then, to sweep it all under the rug for them. And it's my fault…
'I won't know that until I've spoken to him, will I?'
'He can't tell you what day of the week it is half the time, much less where he came from before you ran into him or where he might be going next. Mind's a wasteland. Pity he didn't die when that shell exploded-no good to himself or anyone else in his condition!'
'You took down his statement,' Rutledge pointed out. Hamish, relishing Forrest's remark, was repeating it softly, an echo whispering across a void of fear. '… no good to himself or anyone else in his condition…' He turned away abruptly to shield his face from Forrest's sharp gaze, and unintentionally left the impression that he was putting the blame squarely where it belonged.
'I don't see what else I could have done. Sergeant Davies reported the conversation, and after that I had to pursue the matter,' Forrest answered defensively, 'whether Hickam is mad or not. But that doesn't mean we have to believe him. I can't see how Wilton could be guilty of this murder. You've met him. It's just not like the man, is it?'
'From what I can see, it wasn't like the Colonel to find himself the victim of a murder either.'
'Well, no, not when you get right down to it. But he is dead, isn't he? Either his death was accidental or it was intentional, and we have to start with murder because no one has come forward to tell us any differently. No one has said, 'I was standing there talking to him and the horse jostled my arm, and the gun went off, and the next thing I knew the poor devil was dead.'
'Would you believe them if they did?'
Forrest sighed. 'No. Only an idiot carries an unbroken shotgun.'
'Which brings us back to Mavers and his weapon. If Wilton was on either of those tracks on the morning of the murder, he could have taken the gun from Mavers's house, fired it, then put it back before Mavers came home from the village. Hickam's evidence is still important.'
'And if Captain Wilton could do that, so could anyone else in Upper Streetham for all we know,' Forrest retorted doggedly. 'There's still no proof.'
'There may be,' Rutledge said thoughtfully. 'Captain Wilton came to stay with his cousin when her husband died. He undoubtedly knew about the Will, and the provision regarding the old shotgun. It caused some problems at the time, I understand.'
'I knew about it as well, and had forgotten it-so might he have. It's all circumstantial! Guessing-'
'What if the Colonel was the wrong victim?'
That sent Forrest's eyebrows up in patent disbelief. 'What do you mean, 'wrong victim'? You don't shoot a man at point- blank range and get the wrong one! That's foolery!'
'Yes, so it is,' Rutledge answered. 'It's also foolery that the Colonel was flawless, a man with no sins on his conscience. When people begin to tell me the truth, Captain Wilton will be far safer. Assuming, of course, that you're right and he's innocent.' Leaving Sergeant Davies to check on Royston's dental appointment in Warwick, Rutledge went searching for Hickam on his own, but the man seemed to have disappeared.
'Drunk somewhere, like enough,' Hamish said. 'Yours is a dry business, man. I'd as soon have a bottle myself.'
Which was the only time Rutledge had found himself in agreement with the voice in his mind.
He turned the car toward the Inn and his thoughts toward dinner. Which turned out to be interesting in its own way. He had hardly cut into his roast mutton when the dining room's glass doors opened and a man with a clerical collar came in, stood for a moment surveying the room, then made his way across to where Rutledge sat.
He was nearing thirty, of medium height, with fair hair, a polished manner, and a strong sense of his own worth. Stopping by the table, he said in a rich baritone, 'Inspector Rut- ledge? I'm Carfield. The vicar. I've just called again at Mallows, and Miss Wood is still unwell. Then I thought perhaps it might be wiser to ask you anyway. Can you tell me when the Colonel's body will be released for burial?'
'We haven't held an Inquest yet, Mr. Carfield. Sit down, won't you? I'd like to talk to you, now that you're here.'
Carfield accepted the offer of coffee and said, 'Such a tragic business, the Colonel's death.'
'So everyone says. Who might want to kill him?'
'Why, no one that I can think of!'
'Yet someone did.'
Studying Carfield as the man stirred cream but no sugar into his cup, Rutledge could see that he had the kind of face that would show up well on the stage, handsome and very masculine beyond the twentieth row, but too heavily boned to be called more than 'strong' at close quarters. The voice too was made to carry, and grated a little in ordinary conversation. The actor was lurking there, behind the clerical collar, Sergeant Davies had been right about that.
'Tell me about Miss Wood.'
'Lettice? Very bright, with a mind of her own. She came to Mallows several years back-1917, after she'd
