Part 27 (1/2)

Rutledge found a chair by the hearth and watched a gray cat rise up from it, yawning with arched back. It blinked at him and then leapt to the floor, tail high, as if reminding him that his use of the chair was at most temporary.

”That's Lucinda. She came with the furniture. Both inherited. But I don't mind, she's company of a sort. Sit down.”

Brereton poured two small whiskies and handed one to Rutledge. ”It's prewar. I inherited that, too. An aunt raised me, and she detested sherry. Like the late Queen Victoria, she preferred the smoky flavor. What brings you here?”

Rutledge sat and stretched his legs out to the fire. ”What do you know about these murders?”

”What do I know?” Brereton sounded surprised. ”Only what I hear. And that's generally what gossip considers worthwhile pa.s.sing on. Are you looking for information?”

”No. Peace.”

Brereton chuckled. ”You'll find that in plenty out here. The only house near Rover's End belongs to Raleigh Masters. And as neighbors go, he's invisible. I can step out into my garden of an evening and hear nothing but birdsong or the cry of an owl. I like it. Most people would find it daunting.”

Most people, Rutledge thought, would find approaching blindness daunting. But as Hamish was pointing out, what was the alternative?

”How is your neighbor, by the way?”

”He just went up to London, to visit his doctor. I drove him. Bella-Mrs. Masters-didn't accompany him. There's no change in his condition. But colder weather won't help his circulation. Six years ago he might have considered the south of France during the winter. Not now, not so soon after the war.” Changing the subject, Brereton added, ”How are Elizabeth's puppies faring? I ought to go see for myself, I suppose.”

Something in his voice, the way he looked away, caught Rutledge's attention. A yearning. Was there an attraction there, carefully concealed?

”Thriving,” Rutledge replied. ”What will Lucinda make of a dog joining the household?”

”She'll whip him into shape, just as she did me.”

A comfortable silence lengthened.

Rutledge toyed with his whisky, watching the firelight in the swirls of amber liquid. He thought, If I gave up the Yard, I could live like this-but for how long? How long would I be content? If I gave up the Yard, I could live like this-but for how long? How long would I be content?

”Of an evening lately, I've been thinking about your murders,” Brereton said after a time. ”And I've come to a possible answer.”

Rutledge set his gla.s.s down on the table at his elbow, and said with interest, ”I'd like to hear it.”

”Yes, well, I'm no policeman. But it was a gentle death, was it not? As murders go, I mean.”

”Suicide? Is that what you're thinking?”

Brereton frowned. ”Not exactly. But an-easing-into what the murderer might see as a better world.”

Unbidden, the image of Melinda Crawford's face rose in Rutledge's mind. ”How does he choose his victims?”

”I don't know. So far his compa.s.sion extends only to ex-soldiers. It may be that he was one himself.”

Hamish was pointing out that Melinda Crawford had nursed wounded men during the Mutiny. Rutledge shut the voice away.

Remembering Mrs. Parker struggling for breath and sleeping upright in her chair by her window, he said, ”Then you're suggesting that he doesn't have a wide circle to choose from. Or that he's wary of approaching people in their houses. For example, Bob Nester, who died of burned-out lungs.”

The logs s.h.i.+fted on the hearth, throwing Brereton's face into the shadows. ”Or your presence in Marling has deterred him before he could widen his net.”

”All right. We'll accept that. Why does he use wine, do you think?”

”The wine doesn't worry me. For all we know, it's what our man prefers anyway. If you'd found an empty bottle, now, that might help narrow the field. You could ask wine merchants in the larger towns who purchased it. No, what intrigues me is the merciful death.”

”It's a chilling idea,” Rutledge agreed. He wondered where Brereton was taking his discussion. At first it had seemed no more than an intellectual exercise. Now . . .

”Is it? Chilling, I mean. We're looking at it from our own viewpoint, aren't we? The murderer may see it entirely differently.”

”Raleigh Masters has lost part of a limb. He's very likely to lose the rest of his leg. He'd have a better understanding than most of what Taylor, Webber, and Bartlett were suffering.”

Brereton laughed. ”Raleigh doesn't have compa.s.sion to spare for his own wife. I doubt he'd give much thought to ex-soldiers struggling to scratch a living.”

”There's your blindness . . .”

”Yes, well, it won't ease my suffering to kill blind men. However much I may sympathize. I'll tell you what started me down this road, though. Mrs. Crawford once remarked that as a child during the Lucknow siege, she learned what deprivation was. For a very long time afterward she felt terribly guilty about wasting even a sc.r.a.p of food or a drop of water. If she couldn't eat a crust of bread, she'd feed it to the birds-the ants-even the monkeys that sometimes came into her mother's garden. Later, she was sure this obsession must have driven her mother to distraction, but the point is, she had to deal with this guilt in her own fas.h.i.+on. What other kinds of guilt are there, and what other ways have people found to work through them?”

”Mrs. Crawford is not a likely suspect,” Rutledge answered.

”No, of course not. But she proves a point, in a way. What if someone can't bear to watch these men hobbling down a road, and finally decides to put an end to it?”

She had given Peter Webber's father a lift home, in her motorcar. . . .

Brereton said, ”For the sake of argument, how do you feel as you stand over a murder victim? You can't be objective; you have to feel something. Pa.s.sion, possibly. Anger? Disgust? Vengefulness?”

”A policeman can't afford to feel,” Rutledge answered slowly. ”He mustn't let emotion cloud his observations. First impressions are important.”

”All right, bad example. Let's take interviewing suspects, then. You pry into the deepest, darkest corners of their lives. And what you learn is disturbing. But it turns out neither they nor their secrets have any bearing on the case you're working on. How do you walk away from that?”

”It isn't always possible,” Rutledge conceded, picking up his gla.s.s and drinking from it.

”And if you've learned something that could could be set right, even though you betrayed a secret, would you do it?” be set right, even though you betrayed a secret, would you do it?”

”No. I'm not G.o.d. I can bring the guilty to justice, or try to. I can't go around righting wrongs.”

Brereton smiled. ”But there must be a great many people who don't have that discipline. It must be tempting after a while, to play G.o.d.”

”And you think someone is doing that, in Marling?”

”I don't know,” Brereton answered. ”But it's an interesting thought. Isn't it?”

AFTER THE CLAUSTROPHOBIC atmosphere of the cottage, Rutledge was glad to drive away. The cold air swept past his face and he felt he could breathe more easily. atmosphere of the cottage, Rutledge was glad to drive away. The cold air swept past his face and he felt he could breathe more easily.

It had been an odd conversation.

Hamish said, ”Ye noted the bicycle leaning against yon garden wall.”

He had. It provided all the transportation that Brereton needed to go where and when he pleased.

It was possible that Brereton was confessing, after a fas.h.i.+on. . . .