A Question of Honor by Charles Todd Page B

did. But by the next morning, I was awake before the sun came up, lying there trying to will my eyes closed again. Finally I got up, put on a dress from the wardrobe rather than my uniform, and walked down to the kitchen, where I found a heel of bread and some honey. With that in hand, I walked through the wood and down the path to Simon’s cottage.
    But I could tell, as I always could, that the cottage was empty. I was tempted to go inside and leave a message, and then I decided against it. Instead I turned back the way I’d come. It was when I was passing the shed where my own motorcar lived when I was in London or France that I was suddenly possessed with the idea of going to call on the Middletons again.
    I hurried to the house, changed again into a fresh uniform, surprised Cook just blowing up the fire to set the kettle on to boil, and made a quick breakfast sitting there at the freshly scrubbed table as I used to do when I was a child and home and looking for a treat.
    It was only seven o’clock when I opened the doors to the shed and pulled out the crank to my motorcar. It turned over easily, for Simon kept the vehicle in good repair. And I was on the road before the heat of the day.
    I realized afterward that I should have asked for a Thermos and a picnic basket to take with me, but traffic was very light and I pressed on. There was the occasional herd of sheep filling the road or dairy cows making their way in single file from the milking barn to the pastures. Once I followed a hay wain, so overladen it seemed to wobble from side to side, for a quarter of a mile before it turned off into a farmyard. There was no military traffic to speak of, and I was grateful.
    And then I was into the Cotswolds, through them, coming into the village where Mrs. Standish and the Middletons lived. I saw no reason to disturb Mrs. Standish, and instead drove on to the Captain’s bungalow.
    They were as surprised to see me as Iris had been, but welcomed me as warmly as they had before, offering me a cool lemonade after my long drive.
    We made conversation about the war as we’d done when I was here with Simon the last time. Captain Middleton was eager for any scrap of news that the papers had not printed, and I told him what I could about the situation in France.
    Mrs. Middleton went off to set the table for lunch, and that was my chance to ask the Captain more about Lieutenant Wade.
    “Something that has stayed with me after my last visit was your comment that he’d killed three other people in England before returning to India. My parents never spoke to me of those deaths. I expect they felt I was too young. Could you tell me a little more about them?”
    “Lass, are you sure you want to know? It’s not pleasant.”
    “It’s more harrowing to imagine than it will be to know,” I told him.
    He got up from his chair and limped to the hearth where there was a small stand of pipes on the mantel shelf. He chose one, filled and tamped it, and finally lit it. When it was pulling well enough to suit him, he came back to sit down.
    “We only heard scraps of the story. I learned later that it was widely covered in Hampshire. Especially the hunt for the killer. The family lived just outside of Petersfield, as I remember. It was the afternoon off for the staff, and they had gone into the town to celebrate the birthday of one of the maids. When they came home again some time after five, they found their master, their mistress, and the daughter of the house shot dead in the sitting room. Someone went for the police, but of course nothing helpful was found. It was thought that the house was being watched, and when the staff left, whoever was out there assumed it was empty and came in to take what he could. And so the hunt was up for anyone who had been passing through the town or who had anything in his past that might explain why he would do such a thing.”
    I sat there, shocked and trying not to show it. “How did they finally come to