He took his time, and when he'd finished, the likeness was so fine that he forgot where he was for a moment and studied the dead face on the pillow.
'It's first-rate, isn't it?' he asked. 'I've got it right.' There was surprise and satisfaction in the words.
Rutledge thought, He's captured something I hadn't seen-a subtle sense of the person whose face it was. A man with such talent oughtn't be running a hotel dining room.
And an instant later Benson came back to the present, where he was and what he'd been doing. He looked as if he might be sick on the spot. He hastily passed the sheet of drawing paper to Rutledge before hurrying out of the room, his footsteps beating a rapid tattoo as he ran down the passage.
Rutledge caught up with Benson just outside the surgery door, where he was standing in the cool air, his face lifted to the watery sun.
Rutledge said briskly, 'Thanks sounds insufficient. I'll make your excuses to Miss Norton while you take your time getting back to work.'
Madsen was behind him, holding out the pencil box and pad of artist's paper.
But Benson said, his voice rough, 'I'm all right. Don't fuss.' He took his things and walked away, toward the hotel.
Halfway there, he turned to ask, 'He's the man from the abbey?'
'Yes.'
'Pity.'
And he walked on.
Madsen said quietly, 'He went through a rough patch on the Somme.'
Hamish said, 'He wasna' one of your men.'
And Rutledge answered silently, 'He could have been.'
He nodded to Madsen and followed Benson back to the hotel. He was nowhere in sight when Rutledge stepped through the door.
Miss Norton stopped him. 'Would you care for some tea, Mr. Rut- ledge? You look tired-I don't know, worried, perhaps.'
He said, not knowing how to answer, 'It was a long drive from London.'
'That's not the kind of tired I meant. Were you in the war?'
'Yes.'
'Yes,' she repeated. 'I thought perhaps that was it. IfJulian had come home, I think he would have looked the same. Haunted by what he'd done and seen. He sometimes wrote about his life in the trenches. Not the whole truth, I'm certain of that. But enough, I think, to warn me not to expect him to be quite the same. When I look at Mark Benson, I wonder.'
'Your brother?' he hazarded, in an effort to redirect the conversation.
'My fiance. He died at Ypres. Lingered in hospital for a week, and died. Gassed. He was Albert Crowell's brother. They were so close.'
'The schoolmaster?'
'Yes. Poor man. Inspector Madsen is certain he's done murder. That's what Alice wrote to me yesterday. The gossips haven't picked up the news yet, but they will.'
'And you? What do you think?'
She sighed. 'I don't think he could. Kill, I mean. Julian once said that Albert is not made up like most men. He should be a Quaker. They're an odd lot, Quakers. There's an iron strength to them. A coldness. I think sometimes they must be hard people, to stand aside and watch.'
'Is that how you see Albert Crowell?' Rutledge asked with interest.
She shook her head, confused. 'I don't know. He forgave the man who scarred his wife's face. It was a terrible ordeal for her. I don't think I could have done that. My own suffering, yes, but not someone else's.'
'I hadn't heard the story. How did it happen?'
'They were at Whitby. On holiday. She went out alone a little while after tea, to shop for Albert's birthday gift. There was a man near the corner. He'd been drinking, and was flinging his arms about, shouting. He was angry or upset, I don't know. And he shoved her out of his path. She fell against a wrought-iron railing, cutting her face badly. Passersby rushed to help her, and two men held on to her assailant. The police came and took him up for public drunkenness. He was quite sober by that time, crying and apologizing. But it was too late, wasn't it? The damage had been done. She was taken to hospital, bleeding profusely, and the doctors feared for her eye. They took her directly to surgery and sent someone to find her husband. Albert called it an accident. Of course it was, but if the man hadn't been drinking-if he'd been in his right senses rather than looking for trouble-nothing would have happened to Alice.'
'And Albert forgave him, you say? In public or private?'
'Both. He was-' She stopped, horrified. 'You aren't thinking-? This man they found dead-it couldn't have been the one in Whitby, could it? Is that why Inspector Madsen has gone back to Dilby so many times?'
Rutledge answered, 'Early days yet, but I'll take the sketch to Mrs. Crowell and ask her. She won't have forgotten what he looked like.'
'But that will just bring it all back again.'
'Did you see the man, could you identify him instead?'
'I wasn't engaged to Julian then. I knew about the incident, of course. It happened just before the war. Early July, I think. Julian and I weren't engaged until August. It wasn't-I wasn't involved. Ask Albert. He'll be able to tell you.'
'He's already told the police that he can't identify the dead man. I have no choice, you see, but to speak to Mrs. Crowell.'
She came out from behind the desk, her face set. 'I'm going with you, Inspector. Let me find someone to mind the desk while I'm gone.'
'No, I think it best-'
'It isn't a question of what you think, Inspector. I won't have Alice upset about this business. I'm coming to be certain she isn't. A woman ought to be there with her.'
7
Ten minutes later Miss Norton climbed into Rutledge's motorcar and settled herself. 'The quickest way is as the crow flies, of course. But as we aren't crows-' She began to direct him, out of Elthorpe, then around the skirts of the estate on whose grounds the great abbey ruins took pride of place, and down an unmade road that wandered for several miles before dividing. The right branch continued to the west, while the left turned more to the south.
'To your right,' Miss Norton said. 'It's only another mile or two.'
They soon came into a small village clinging to the road. 'There's the school,' she said. 'Alice should be upstairs. Alone, I hope.'
He passed the row of shops, a tiny lending library, a church more the size of a chapel, and came to a house a little larger than the others he'd passed, the front fa?ade softened by stonework around the windows and above the door.
'It was a prosperous merchant's home,' Miss Norton was saying, her nervousness showing in the tenseness of her voice. 'And left to the village some sixty years ago to be used as a school. I wish I'd never mentioned Alice,' she went on. 'How did you trick me into saying anything about her?'
'It wasn't a trick,' he replied, drawing up in front of the school. 'You were telling me about your fiance. Julian.'
'Yes, and somehow-'
He got down and went around to her door as she added, 'You won't tell Inspector Madsen about this foolishness, will you? He's already brought Albert in for questioning four times now. It will only make him more anxious to prove something.'
'If Mrs. Crowell identifies this man from the sketch, then I've no choice.'
