A Test of Wills by Charles Todd

Colonel meet on Monday morning? In the lane or anywhere else, for that matter?”
    “No.” The single word was unequivocal.
    “What was your quarrel about after dinner on the night before the murder?”
    “It was a personal matter, nothing to do with this enquiry. You may take my word for it.”
    “There are no personal matters when it comes to murder,” Rutledge said. “I’ll ask you again. What were you discussing that Sunday evening after Miss Wood went up to her room?”
    “And I’ll tell you again that it’s none of your business.” Wilton was neither angry nor irritated, only impatient.
    “Did it have anything to do with your marriage to Miss Wood?”
    “We didn’t discuss my marriage.” Rutledge took note, however, of the change in wording. My, not our.
    “Then did you discuss the settlement? Where you’d live after the wedding? How you’d live?”
    Muscles around his mouth tightened, but he answered readily enough. “That had all been worked out months before. The settlement was never a problem. Lettice has her own money. We’d live in Somerset, where I have a house, and visit here as often as she liked.” He hesitated, then added, “I’d expected, after the war, to go into aircraft design. Next to flying it’s what I wanted most to do. Now—I’m not as sure as I was.”
    “Why not?” When Wilton didn’t answer immediately, Rutledge continued, “For reasons of money?”
    Wilton shook his head impatiently. “I’m tired of killing. I spent four years proving that the machines I flew were good at it. And that’s all His Majesty’s ministers want to hear about aeroplanes at the moment, how to make them deadlier. My mother’s people are in banking; there are other choices open to me.” But there was a bleakness in his voice.
    Rutledge responded to it, recognizing it. He himself had debated the wisdom of returning to the Yard, coming back to the business of murder. Before the war it had been another facet of the law his father had given a lifetime to upholding. Now—he had seen too many dead bodies…. Yet it was what he knew best.
    Then, bringing himself up sharply, he said more harshly than he had intended, “Have you seen Miss Wood since her guardian’s death?”
    Wilton seemed surprised that it should matter to Rutledge. “No, as a matter of fact, I haven’t.”
    “She apparently has no other family. Under the circumstances, it would be natural for you to be at her side.”
    “And so I would be, if there was anything I might do for her!” he retorted stiffly. “Look, I went to Mallows as soon as I heard the news. Dr. Warren was already there, and he said she needed rest, that the shock had been severe. I sent up a message by Mary—one of the maids—but Lettice was already asleep. Warren warned me that it could be several days before she recovered sufficiently to see anyone. I’ve made an effort to respect his judgment. Under the circumstances, as you so aptly put it, there isn’t much else I can do, as long as she’s asleep in her bedroom.”
    But she hadn’t been asleep when Rutledge called….
    “Dr. Warren has been sedating her, then?”
    “What do you think? She was wild at first, she insisted that she be taken to Charles at once. Which of course Warren could hardly do! And then she collapsed. She lost both her parents when she was four, and I don’t suppose she remembers them clearly. Charles has been the only family she’s known.”
    Rutledge took the opening he’d been given. “Tell me what sort of person Charles Harris was.”
    Wilton’s eyes darkened. “A fine officer. A firm friend. A loving guardian. A gentleman.”
    It sounded like an epitaph written by a besotted widow, something Queen Victoria might have said about Prince Albert in a fit of high-flown passion.
    “Which tells me absolutely nothing.” Rutledge’s voice was quiet, but there was a crackle to it now. “Did he have a temper? Was he a man who carried a grudge? Did he make enemies