Read Online A Fearsome Doubt by Charles Todd - Free Book Online Page B

beyond the appointed hour. As if it would be unlucky. He wondered if the Germans in their hidden trenches were feeling the same fatalistic acceptance, or if they, too, counted their dead in their thoughts, and wondered why it had all begun anyway.
    He didn’t know why it had begun, this war. He understood the political reasoning, the invoked alliances, the assassination in Sarajevo, where the Austrian archduke had died. He had succumbed to the banners and the enthusiasm and the euphoria as all the others had, he had trained and shipped out for France, and gone into battle with a sense of duty and honor. Then he had watched it metamorphose into the most appalling slaughter in living memory. And still the generals and the political leaders and the press had fought on, safe in their cocoons far from the dying . . .
    Appalling . . .
    Coming back to the present, he watched a wind lift the boughs of the trees and run lightly across the grass.
    Was it barely a year ago that this slaughter had ended, with no banners and no enthusiasm and no posturing, in a last barrage of shells and the cold gray November dawn? He shivered. For too many men, this was not a day of solemn commemoration but a day of agonized remembrance.
    For him, a reminder that Hamish MacLeod had not come home.
     
    W HEN HE WENT down to breakfast, Elizabeth was already there. “Good morning!” she said cheerily, then seeing his face, the tired lines that marked a sleepless night, she went on in a more subdued tone, “Melinda Crawford has asked us to tea. There’s a note that just arrived. I’m to send back an answer.”
    “Yes, why not?” Rutledge answered. “And I’ll take you both to dinner afterward, if you like.”
    “I’d like that,” she agreed. She watched him lift the lids of serving dishes on the handsome buffet, and fill his plate. “I’ll give the staff the day off. They’ll be delighted.”
    Sitting down across from her, he picked up the napkin ring and then reached for the teapot. It was a quiet domestic scene, far removed from the images that had haunted him only a short hour ago, soothing in a way that he hadn’t anticipated. As if it had the power to wipe away the past, simply by being so normal, so undemanding.
    As he looked up, he thought Elizabeth was about to say something to him, and he waited, expecting her to suggest plans for the morning. But she finished her toast instead, eyes dropping to her plate.
    “I’ll just tell the chauffeur we’re coming,” she said after a moment. “He’s waiting in the kitchen for my reply.” Rising, she walked gracefully to the door and left him to his own meal. He knew, none better, that an appearance of hearty appetite was an accepted indication of good health. The knowledge had served him well when he had spent more than a week in his sister’s home, an invalid after being shot in Scotland.
    But Elizabeth had been picking at the food on her plate, and he wondered what was on her mind. The policeman in him was too well trained not to take notice. It would, he thought, come out one way or another in its own good time.
    The door opened and she came back into the room, frowning. “Ian. The most horrid thing. There’s been another murder—closer to us this time. And on the road we took just last night. Mrs. Crawford’s chauffeur, Hadley, was regaling the cook and scullery maid with the gruesome details. He’d come that way this morning—the police stopped him to ask his business—”
    Rutledge stared at her. Had he struck the man in his headlamps? Was this the body that the police were examining even now?
    “Who was killed? Was the driver told?” He kept his voice steady with an effort of will.
    “The police didn’t say. But a farmer who was bringing his horse to the farrier had seen the body and told Hadley that it was a one-legged man. Like the others.”
    “How did he die?”
    “I don’t think they know yet. It wasn’t an accident. Hadley was certain of that. Ought you to do