A Fearsome Doubt by Charles Todd Page B

wondering if Mrs. Masters was matchmaking.
    But she surprised him by adding, her eyes straying to Brereton, sitting by Elizabeth now, “There’s someone—well, I may be speaking out of turn!”
    “Someone?” Rutledge prompted, curious. Brereton, perhaps? Or was Mrs. Masters warning him—the houseguest—off on general principle?
    “There’s a young man she’s had lunch with. A time or two. I’ve seen them in the window of The Plough.” The hotel on the High Street. “I hope it’s someone suitable—” A worried frown touched her face. He found himself thinking that Bella Masters wasn’t the sort who could prevaricate successfully. Her expressions were too easily read.
    “I’ll bear it in mind,” he said, answering the concern rather than her actual words.
    He spent perhaps another five minutes sitting with Mrs. Masters, and then was commandeered once again by Mrs. Crawford, who wanted to know what Frances, his sister, was thinking of, letting that handsome major slip through her fingers.
    Rutledge laughed. “I rather think it was the other way round. Frances enjoyed his company, but was not in the right frame of mind to accept a proposal.”
    Melinda Crawford said, “I do wish she would settle. She’s a very intelligent young woman, and your father spoiled her. She won’t find his like, and she should stop trying—before the better choices are snapped up.”
    It was, Rutledge thought, a unique way of regarding his sister’s spinsterhood. He suddenly realized that he shared it. Caught up as he had been in his own problems, he had not stopped to consider why Frances was still unmarried. Had there been someone during the war—someone he had never known about, and she had not wanted to speak of?
    A little more than a half an hour later, Rutledge and Elizabeth took their leave. Masters, rested and less belligerent, had departed with Brereton driving. Mrs. Crawford had gone a little before them, her chauffeur summoned from the kitchens where he’d been gossiping with the Hamilton staff. Lydia had carried Elizabeth off for a moment to review the Christmas flower schedule for church services, leaving the two men alone.
    Hamilton said, apropos of nothing, “You said something earlier about the Shaw murders. What brought them to mind?”
    “My chief superintendent,” Rutledge answered mildly. “He was promoted on the coattails of them. We aren’t allowed to forget that.”
    “Our first cook was horribly shocked by the deaths, even though they occurred in London. I remember she refused to let a man into her cottage after that. She was convinced she’d die the same way. Dreadful to be old and fearful. I went myself a time or two to help nail up the back steps or whatever needed doing, and always took care that Lydia was with me.” He shook his head. “The poor woman died in her sleep, and wasn’t found for two days.”
    “Did you know Matthew Sunderland at all?”
    “I knew him to nod to, as we passed each other. I was too provincial and too young to have the courage to sit at the great man’s feet. Although, to do him justice, he was never as lofty as he appeared. But the man had a regalness about him, the white hair and his carriage. Someone, I forget who, compared Sunderland to General Gordon—that same charismatic belief in his own power.” Hamilton smiled. “To tell you the truth, I often wondered how many cases Sunderland carried just striding into the courtroom. And he had a voice to match, deep and impressive enough to read the Old Testament to savages. We won’t see his like again this century!”

8
    A S SHE STEPPED INTO HIS CAR, E LIZABETH M AYHEW SAID TO Rutledge, “Sorry! I didn’t mean to keep you waiting so long. But if Lydia and I don’t settle the flower schedule ourselves, there’s endless confusion. People by nature want to change things, and it takes hours for the committee to draw up a satisfactory list. We’ve learned to circumvent argument by working it out between