A Cold Treachery by Charles Todd Page B

doctor.” He shook his head. “I tried to persuade Robinson not to view—but he's a stubborn man. In the end, I think he regretted it. I had to give him some of my hoarded whiskey before he fell on his face.” The doctor was clearly irritated, his hands moving restlessly around the brim of his black hat.
    “I shouldn't think it was easy for either of you,” Rutledge commented.
    “No.” Jarvis pulled the chair out and sat. “I gather the searchers have come up empty-handed?” He indicated the map, and turned it towards him.
    “So far. Reports haven't been promising.”
    “I can't think where the boy could have got to.” Jarvis sighed as he leaned over the map and with one finger traced several routes from the death scene out into the hilly ground that surrounded it. “There's nothing in any direction for miles.”
    “A sheep pen here,” Rutledge said, leaning across the table, “and what appears to be a ruin here.”
    “Yes, that's the old Braithewaite farmhouse. Long since fallen into ruin. My wife's grandfather knew the family, but they had all died by her father's time. You should have seen the stonework on that house! A marvel of construction, a lost art. My father-in-law took me there to point it out. Couldn't have been comfortable to live in, up at that elevation, but they were hardy Norse stock and never seemed to mind either the isolation or the cold. The old grandmother could weave blankets thick as your finger! Double-sided, they were. My wife's mother had one of them, as I remember. A wedding gift.”
    “You know the people around here better than I do,” Rutledge said. “Any thoughts on who might have killed the Elcotts? Or why?”
    “I heal people, when I can. I don't judge them,” Jarvis said bluntly. “Why should it be someone local?”
    “It's a place to begin,” Rutledge responded mildly. “I was under the impression that Gerald Elcott was shot where he stood, by the stove. He wasn't afraid of the intruder in his wife's kitchen, or he would have been at the door, between his family and the unexpected danger.”
    Jarvis's face changed. “I hadn't considered that. I knew Gerald. He could handle himself. Even before he went into the Army. You're absolutely right, he'd have fought—”
    “I understood he was invalided out of the Army.”
    “Yes, a kidney shot up. Doctors removed it. But he got on well enough, afterward. And he'd have protected his family at any cost to himself.”
    “Tell me about Paul Elcott.”
    “There's not much to tell. He'd broken his left leg when he was young—a severe compound fracture that left the bone weak—and the Army wouldn't take him. He spent the war years working with local farms, trying to increase crop yield. And he ran the Elcott place as well. By the time Gerald was invalided home, Paul had lost thirty pounds. The man was a walking skeleton.”
    “And Robinson? Did he bear a grudge against Elcott for taking away his wife?”
    “For one thing, Gerald hardly took away Hugh Robinson's wife! The Army declared the man missing, then dead, a year before Gerald met Grace. And when he came home, Robinson himself believed that it was for the best to bow out. He hadn't seen his wife in years, and she was carrying Gerald's twins by that time. I hardly think that twelve months later he would slaughter all of them in some sudden craving for revenge. Certainly the man I saw an hour ago, looking at his little daughter's body, was distraught—”
    The door opened and Elizabeth entered. “I think he might be able to sleep a little. Mr. Robinson. If not, I told him he could find us here.”
    Jarvis, rising, nodded. “God knows the powder I gave him ought to do the trick. But after the whiskey, I was afraid to try anything stronger.”
    “He tells me Inspector Greeley never sent him word—” she began.
    “I think Greeley had hoped to offer him a little good news, that his son was safe.” Jarvis sighed. “It was an unfortunate oversight.”
    “I