up quickly and went to close them. From there, she turned to face him again. 'If you want to hang Mark Wilton, you'll have to prove he's a murderer. In a court of law. With evidence and witnesses. If you can do that, if you can show that he was the one who shot Charles Harris, I will come to the hanging. I've lost Charles, and if I truly thought Mark had killed him, and no one could actually prove it, even though that was the way it had happened, I'd go through with the wedding and spend the rest of our lives making him pay for it! I care that much! But I won't betray him. If he's innocent, I'll fight for him. Not because I love him-or don't love him-but because Charles would have expected me to fight.'
'If Mark didn't shoot Harris-who did?'
'Ah!' she said, smiling sadly. 'We're back to where we were, aren't we? Well, I suppose it comes down to one thing, Inspector. What mattered most to Mark? Keeping me? Or killing Charles? Because he knew-he knew!-he couldn't do both. So what did he have to gain?'
The storm broke then, rain coming down with the force of wind behind it, rattling shutters and windows and roaring down the chimney, almost shutting out the flash of the lightning and a clap of thunder that for an instant sounded as if it had broken just overhead.
17
The rain was so intense that he stopped at the end of the drive, in the shelter of overhanging trees. Rutledge's face was wet, his hair was matted to his head, and the shoulders of his coat were dark with water. But he felt better out of that house, away from the strange eyes that told him the truth- but only part of the truth. He didn't need Hamish whispering 'She's lying!' to tell him that whatever Lettice Wood was holding back, he'd find no way of forcing it out of her.
As the storm passed, the rain dwindled to a light drizzle, the ground steaming, the air still humid and unbreathable. He got out and started the car again, then turned away from Upper Streetham toward the Warwick road. He drove aimlessly, no goal in mind except to put as much distance between himself and the problems of Charles Harris's murder as he could for the moment.
'You're drawn to her, the witch,' Hamish said. 'And what will Jean have to say about that?'
'No, not drawn,' Rutledge answered aloud. 'It's something else. I don't know what it is.'
'Do you suppose, then, that she bewitched the Captain and the Colonel as well? That somewhere she had a hand in this murder?'
'I can't see her as a murderess-'
Hamish laughed. 'You ought to know, better than anyone, that people kill for the best of reasons as well as the worst.'
Rutledge shivered. What was it about Lettice Wood that reached out to him in spite of his better judgment?
Reluctantly, bit by bit, she had confirmed Hickam's rambling words. And Wilton's own behavior, his unwillingness to come to Mallows after the quarrel or explain what it had been about, reinforced the picture all too clearly. And it was slowly, inevitably developing. The child's part in it still Rounding the bend, he saw the bicycle almost too late, coming up on it with a suddenness that left decision to reflexes rather than conscious action. He got the brake in time to skid to a stop in the mud, wheels squealing as they locked, sending him almost sideways.
Hamish swore feelingly, as if he'd been thrown across the rear seat.
Standing on the road was Catherine Tarrant, bending over her bicycle. She looked up in startled horror as he came roaring down on her, driving far faster than he'd realized, faster than the conditions of the road dictated. His bumper was not five feet from where she stood as the car came to a jarring halt, killing the engine.
Recovering from her shock, she demanded angrily, 'What do you think you're doing, you damned fool! Driving like that? You could have killed me!'
But he was getting out of the car, and she recognized him then. 'Oh-Inspector Rutledge.'
'What the hell are you doing in the middle of the road? You deserve to be run down!' he responded with a matching anger, marching toward her, fists clenched against his rising temper. The unpleasant drizzle wasn't helping.
'The chain's broken-I don't know if something came loose or if I jammed it when I skidded. Oh, for pity's sake, don't just stand there, put my bicycle in the back of your car before we're both wet to the skin, and take me home!' She was in a foul temper as well, but dry, he noticed, as if she'd found shelter somewhere from the worst of the rain.
They stared at each other, faces tight with self-absorbed emotions; then she managed a wry smile. 'Look, we'd better both get out of the way, or someone else will fly around that bend and finish us off! Take me home and I'll offer you some tea. You look as if you could use it. I know I could.'
He walked past her, lifted the bicycle, and carried it to his car. She helped him put it in the back-he had an instant's sharp sense of the ridiculous, thinking that it would crowd Hamish out-and then came around to the passenger side, not waiting for him to open her door.
He cranked the car, got in, and said, 'Did you miss the rain?'
'I was at the Haldanes' house. They're away, I just went by to pick up a book Simon promised to lend me.' She lifted a large, heavily wrapped parcel out of the basket behind her and set it in her lap. 'He brought it back from Paris and thought I might want to see it. Something on the Impressionists. Do you know them?'
They talked about art as he backed the car and drove to her house, and she left a servant to deal with the bicycle, striding past the handsome staircase and down the hallway toward her studio without looking over her shoulder to see if he followed. Setting the borrowed book on a stool, she took off her hat and coat, then said, 'Get out of that coat, it will dry faster if you aren't in it.'
Rutledge did as he was told, looking about for a chair back to drape it on.
Catherine sighed. 'Well, Mavers most certainly put the wind up everyone in Upper Streetham this morning! What did you think of his little show?'
'Was it a show? Or was he upset?'
She shrugged. 'Who knows? Who cares? The damage is done. I think he rather enjoyed it too. Lashing out. It's the only way he can hurt back, with words. Nobody pays any attention to his ideas.'
'Which is one of the reasons he might have shot Charles Harris.'
'Yes, I suppose it is-to make us sit up and take notice. Well, I wouldn't mind seeing him arrested for murder and taken off to London or wherever! I didn't enjoy having my own life stripped for the delectation of half of Upper Streetham-the whole of it, come to that! Everyone will talk. Not about what he said of them, but about everyone else. Those who weren't there will soon be of the opinion that they were.' Catherine moved about her paintings, touching them, not seeing them, needing only the comfort of knowing they were there.
'That's a very bitter view of human nature.'
'Oh, yes. I've learned that life is never what you expect it will be. Just as you come to the fringes of happiness, touching it, feeling it, tasting it-and desperately hoping for the rest of it-it's jerked away.'
'You have your art.'
'Yes, but that's a compulsion, not happiness. I paint because I must. I love because I want to be loved in return. Wanted to be.'
'Did you ever paint Rolf Linden?'
Startled, she stopped in midstride. 'Once. Only-once.'
'Could I see what you did?'
Hesitating, she finally moved across to a cabinet in one wall, unlocking it with a key she took from her pocket. She reached inside and drew out a large canvas wrapped in cloth. He moved forward to help her with it, but she gestured to him to stay where he was. There was a little light coming in through the glass panes overhead, and she kicked an easel to face it, then set the painting on it. After a moment, she reached up and undid the wrappings.
Rutledge came around to see it better, and felt his breath stop in his throat as his eyes took it in.
There was a scene of storm and light, heavy, dark clouds nearer the viewer, a delicate light fading into the
