“You don’t know what had upset Lettice Wood? Or the Colonel?”
“It mustn’t have been too important,” Redfern answered. “I saw her the next day, looking radiant. Walking down to the churchyard with Mr. Royston. I ought to be back in the dining room—”
Rutledge let him go with a nod of thanks.
He sat there, biting into the thick beef sandwiches, not even aware of the taste or the texture, absently drinking his coffee. There was a slice of sponge cake for dessert.
Wilton had motive, he had opportunity, and he had access to a weapon. All that was left was to clear up loose ends and then make the arrest. And to explain to Bowles on Monday morning the reasons behind the decision.
Was Tuesday the day that the Colonel had told his ward what he was planning to do? To call off the wedding?
But why? It was an excellent marriage from any point of view, as far as an outsider could tell. Wilton and Lettice were well matched in every way—socially, financially, of an age. Unless there were things about Wilton that Charles Harris knew and didn’t like. Then why allow the engagement to take place seven months ago? Because he hadn’t known at the time?
What could he have learned in the last week that would have made him change his mind? Something from Wilton’s past—or present?
The only other person who could answer that question was Lettice herself.
Rutledge drove out to Mallows in sunlight that poured through large cracks in the heavy black clouds, bringing heat in waves with it.
Lettice agreed to see him, and he was taken up to the sitting room by Johnston.
There was a little more color in her face this afternoon, and she seemed stronger. As he came into the room, she turned to him as she’d done before and said at once, “Something’s happened. I can tell.”
“It’s been a rather busy morning. Mavers was on the loose as services ended at the church. He raked most everyone there over the coals, as vicious a display of hate as I’ve ever seen. Royston, the Captain, Mrs. Davenant, Miss Sommers, the Inspector—even people I don’t know.”
Lettice frowned. “Why?”
“Because he’d just discovered that his pension from Charles Harris ended with the Colonel’s death. And he was furious.”
She was genuinely surprised. “Charles paid him a pension?”
“Apparently.”
Lettice gestured to one of the chairs and sat down herself. “It’s the sort of thing Charles might do. Still—Mavers!”
“And a very good reason for Mavers not to kill him.”
“But you said Mavers didn’t know the pension would end.”
“That’s right. He stopped Royston as he came out of the church and asked if the Will had made any provision for the pension to continue. All those months when he agitated for Harris’s death, Mavers doesn’t seem to have considered the fact that he might lose his own golden goose.”
She sighed. “Well. You said there were witnesses who claimed Mavers was haranguing everyone on Monday morning. He wasn’t in the running anyway, was he?”
“I’ve discovered that he could have been. With a little planning. But he isn’t high on my list. Tell me, what did you and Charles Harris argue about on Tuesday at the Inn? Or rather, in the garden there?”
The swift change in subject caught her unprepared, and her eyes widened and darkened as she stared at him.
“You might as well tell me about it,” he said gently. “I already know what Harris and Mark Wilton quarreled about on Sunday evening after dinner. And again on Monday morning in the lane. Harris was planning to call off the wedding. I have a witness.”
Her color went from flushed to pale and back again. “How could you have a witness,” she demanded huskily. “Who is this witness?”
“It doesn’t matter. I know. That’s what’s important. Why didn’t you tell me before? Why did you pretend, when Mark Wilton came to the house, and I was there to overhear, that you were calling the wedding off because you were in mourning? If Charles had already ended your engagement?”
She met his eyes, hers defiant, challenging. “You’re fishing, Inspector. Let me meet this witness face-to-face! Let me hear it from him—or her!”
“You will. In the courtroom. I believe Mark Wilton shot Charles Harris after he was told on Sunday night that the wedding was off and the Colonel refused again on Monday morning to listen to reason. All I need to know now is why. Why your guardian changed his mind. What Wilton had done that made it necessary.”
Lettice shook her head. “You don’t go out and shoot someone because a wedding has been called off! In another year, I’d have been my own mistress. It wasn’t necessary to murder Charles—” She stopped, her voice thick with pain.
“It might have been. If the reason was such that Wilton could never have you. Mrs. Davenant has said she’d never seen him so in love—that you’d given him a measure of peace, something to live for, when he’d lost his earlier love of flying. That he’d have done anything you asked, willingly and without hesitation. A man who loves like that might well believe that in a year’s time, your guardian would have convinced you that he’d made the right decision, breaking it off. Even turned you against Wilton while he wasn’t there to defend himself. When he thought he was in love with Catherine Tarrant, Wilton waited for her because her father felt she wasn’t ready for marriage—and in the end she changed her mind. It came to nothing.”
“That was different!”
“In what way?” When she didn’t answer, he asked instead, “Is that why you didn’t go riding with your guardian Monday morning? Because you were as angry as Wilton over what was happening?”
She winced, closing her eyes against his words. But he inexorably went on. “Is that why you had a headache, and left the two men alone to discuss the wedding? Because you’d already lost the battle?”
Tears rolled silently down her cheeks, silvery in the light from the windows, and she made no attempt to wipe them away.
“I will have to arrest Wilton. You know that. I have enough evidence to do it now. But I’d prefer to spare you as much grief as I can. Tell me the truth, and I’ll try to keep you out of the courtroom.” His voice was gentle again. Behind it, Hamish was restlessly stirring.
After a moment, he took the handkerchief from his pocket and, going to her, pressed it into her hand. She buried her face in it, but didn’t sob. Outside he heard the first roll of thunder, distant and ominous. Rutledge stood by the sofa where she sat, looking down at the top of her dark head. Wondering whether she grieved for Mark Wilton. Her guardian. Herself. Or all three.
“That first day I was here, you thought, didn’t you, that Mark had shot him. I remember your words. You didn’t ask who had done the shooting—instead you were angry about how it was done. I should have guessed then that you were a part of it. That you already knew who it was.”
She looked up at him, such anguish in her face that he stepped back. “I am as guilty as Mark is,” she told him, holding her voice steady by an effort of will. “Charles—I can’t tell you why it was stopped. The wedding. But I can tell you what he said to me on that Tuesday at the Inn. He said I was too young to know my own heart. That he must be the one to decide what was best for me. All that week I begged and pleaded—and cajoled—to have my way. Saturday evening, when Mark had gone home, Charles and I sat up well into the night, thrashing it out.”