Proof of Guilt by Charles Todd Page B

abrasions, like little freckles down the ridges of the forehead, cheekbone, and chin, the skin was clear.
    She was clutching her handbag now as if it were a lifeline. Glancing down at her, Rutledge realized that her eyes were closed, probably had been as they had walked across the room. After a moment she opened them, and then she swayed, and he touched her arm to steady her.
    “Oh, dear God,” she said in a voice that was barely audible. “Oh, my God.”
    “Is this your brother, Miss French?”
    She leaned against him for an instant, and then recovered, moving away as if embarrassed by such brief weakness.
    “You must tell me, Miss French. So that the attendant and I can hear your statement clearly,” Rutledge prompted.
    “No. No, it is not my brother Lewis.” Her voice echoed around them, high pitched, as if she couldn’t control it.
    And then she did faint.

Chapter Six
    R utledge carried Miss French into a small waiting room that the attendant pointed out to him, and it was not long before she came to.
    Her statement had taken him completely by surprise. But he didn’t press her for more information until her color had returned and she seemed to be aware of her surroundings again. She wheeled around, as if expecting to see the table with the covered body somewhere just behind her.
    “It’s all right,” he said quietly. “This is a private room. We can stay here as long as you like.”
    She relaxed and closed her eyes again. After a moment she said, “Michael was buried in France. My elder brother. I didn’t— We never saw him.”
    “But you saw Lewis just now?” He wasn’t convinced she knew what she was saying.
    She opened her eyes, a little of her spirit evident again. “I have told you. That was not Lewis. Although at first—the scratches on his face—I saw those first. But it wasn’t my brother.”
    “You are absolutely certain then.”
    “Absolutely.” She saw the glass of water he was holding, took it, then gave it back to him, her hand shaking too much to try to sip it. “Could we leave, please? I seem to smell that odor still. It’s making me quite ill.”
    Other witnesses had said much the same thing. Rutledge himself had become inured to it. But he had never become inured to the dead, even after four years in France, where bodies had been almost as common as the rats underfoot.
    He gave her his arm, and they walked together down the long passage back to the motorcar. Once there she seemed to revive completely, pulling on her gloves and fiddling a little with the buttons at the wrists as if to distract her thoughts.
    When they had left the hospital behind, she said, “I can’t understand why you thought that man might be Lewis.”
    “The watch, of course, which sent me to French, French and Traynor. The clerk there identified it, and he told me Lewis French was in Essex. I went there to find out. And he’s not at the London house. Where, then, is he?”
    “I have no idea. My brother has been his own man since he left for University.”
    “Was he in the war?”
    “No. He’s subject to seizures. The Army wanted no part of him. He might as well have had the plague. It bothered him more than he was willing to admit.”
    Which meant there were no war wounds to use for identification purposes. Rutledge was still not satisfied that the dead man was not French.
    There was also the likeness to the portrait of Howard French.
    As if she sensed his reaction, Miss French said, “My father had a mistress, I think. I was never told, of course, but I remember my mother crying sometimes when he seemed to be too busy to come home. It wasn’t until much later that I understood why his absences upset her. And when he died—he outlived my mother—there was a woman’s photograph in his desk. It had one of those hidden compartments, and I found it quite by accident. Perhaps my mother had found it as well. I can’t say. I did wonder— I’d look sometimes at the village children, searching for