A Test of Wills by Charles Todd Page B

them on again. “I have the feeling I’ve only made matters worse. Have I?”
    “For Captain Wilton? Not really. So far you haven’t told me anything that would point in his direction—or away from it. Nothing has changed, as far as I can see.”
    Frowning, she said, “You must believe this, if nothing else. Mark wouldn’t have harmed Charles Harris. Of all people.”
    “Not even if Lettice now inherits Mallows?”
    Startled, she laughed. “Mark inherited his own money years ago, quite a lot of it. That’s what made it possible for him to learn to fly, to buy his own aeroplane. He doesn’t need hers!”
    As she rose and said good-bye, he considered for a moment whether she had come for Captain Wilton’s sake—or for some private motive. And what that motive might be. Not her own guilt, as far as he could see. If she still loved Wilton, killing Charles Harris was not the way to bring the Captain back to her. And jealousy would have been better served by shooting Wilton himself. Or Lettice.
    Then why was it that the bitterness and pain he’d read in Catherine Tarrant’s voice seemed far more personal than the altruistic act of coming to a friend’s defense?
    “Women,” Hamish said unexpectedly. “They always ken the cruelest way to torment a man for what’s he’s done, witting or no’.”
    Rutledge thought of Jean and that day in the hospital when she had abandoned him to his nightmares. She’d intended to be kind—that’s what had hurt him most.

    Outside, picking up her bicycle and leading it away from the railing, Catherine Tarrant paused, biting her lower lip, busy with her own thoughts. Mrs. Crichton’s estate agent came out of the Inn and spoke to her as he passed, but she didn’t hear him.
    “Oh, damn,” she accused herself silently, “you’ve muddled everything. You should have had the sense to leave well enough alone, to stay out of it. Now he’ll start to pry and probe—” If Inspector Forrest had been handling the enquiry, he would have listened to her. He’d known her family for ages, he would have believed her without bringing up what happened in the war. Why on earth had they sent for someone from London instead of leaving this business to the local people!
    But she knew the reason. The finger of suspicion must be strongly pointing toward Mark already, and everyone in Warwickshire was running for cover. There had been a dozen photographs of the King and Mark together, he’d dined with the Prince of Wales, was invited to Scotland to shoot, had even accompanied the Queen to a home for soldiers disabled by mustard gas—and questions were going to be asked when he was arrested for a bloody murder involving another war hero. Buckingham Palace would be icily furious.
    Then where was their case? Not just that stupid quarrel. Surely you wouldn’t arrest a man simply because he had a roaring argument with the victim the night before. There had to be more damning evidence against him than that. And who were these people who claimed to have seen Mark near the place where Charles Harris had died? What else had they seen, if someone had the wit to ask them the right questions?…
    For a moment she debated going straight to the Davenant house and asking Mark himself who the witnesses were. But Sally Davenant would be there, smiling and pretending not to notice how badly Catherine wanted to speak to Mark alone. Making the unexpected visit seem more like a ploy, an emotional excuse to come back into his life. And that would be hard to explain away.
    She hadn’t told Rutledge the whole truth about Mrs. Davenant either. But she didn’t care about anyone else if Mark could be protected. She still wasn’t certain why she was so determined to help him. In the wild tangle of her emotions, he was the man who had opened her eyes to passion and prepared her for what had come later. And for that alone perhaps she owed him something.
    There must be a better way of getting to the bottom of this.