Read Online A Fine Summer's Day by Charles Todd - Free Book Online Page B

inquiries, he’d have been certain that my father was the man he claimed to be. It wouldn’t surprise me if he himself made it his business to travel to the village where my father had lived.” He passed the list of names back to Rutledge.
    He realized that Clayton’s children, Annie, Peter, and Michael, were young, and the young dwelled in the present. They weren’t of an age yet to ask their parent about his own youth, or for that matter, even think of him as having been young. The possibility that the father might have been an escaped murderer or had enjoyed a dissolute year or two in his twenties was as foreign to them as the West Country.
    He thanked Clayton, and set out to find the men and women whose names were on the list.
    That took him nearly three hours, but he managed to find all but one of them. They had been questioned before by Farraday and knew why he had come to speak to them, but they had nothing to add to what they’d told the local man. Only one of them had been to Moresbybefore, and that was seven years ago. None of them had roots in the West Country. On the whole, Rutledge thought they were telling him the truth, that they’d never heard of a man named Clayton until Farraday had appeared to interview them. Even the elusive artist, a man in his late fifties, was appalled that anyone could consider him guilty of murder. As he was a short, slim man, unlikely to have managed a hanging, Rutledge tended to agree.
    No one seemed to know where to find the name at the top of the list—it wasn’t familiar to anyone Rutledge spoke to, and the man didn’t seem to frequent any of the usual restaurants or tearooms that catered to visitors. And so Rutledge went back to Farraday.
    â€œThat’s the only one of that lot I didn’t like,” the Inspector told him. “This is the man who came to view the ruins. There’s something rather odd about him. Anxious, couldn’t look me in the eye. A writer, he says. Amateur archaeologist. But when I talked to him about the abbey, he only seemed to know what had been drummed into our heads in school. You’d think, wouldn’t you, that he’d have learned something new about the monks or the building, if he was going to write about them? Or how Moresby compared with the other well-known Yorkshire monastic ruins at Ripon or Fountains?”
    â€œI thought you told me earlier that it was possible he was telling the truth? That you were waiting for a response from the magazine that intended to print his article?”
    â€œThe magazine hasn’t got back to me. Look, his story about where he was all evening appeared to check out. But I ran into him a quarter of an hour ago up on the path to the abbey, and we talked again. I hadn’t sought him out, mind you. He’d have stayed in the clear if he’d kept his mouth shut. I’d have believed him if he’d said he couldn’t discuss his work.”
    â€œInteresting. If he isn’t writing for a magazine, then why is he here?”
    â€œA German spy? There’s a good harbor here.”
    â€œYou can’t be serious?” Rutledge asked.
    â€œWho’s to say? Like everyone else in the country, I’ve been following the news. If the Russians attack Austria and the Germans come to Austria’s aid, where will we be? I can’t believe it’s a question of if, but of when. I tell you, if Russia has her wits about her, she’ll leave those assassins to stand trial for what they did. She won’t interfere. But who knows what the Tsar will decide to do? And how steady is the German Kaiser? Then there’s France,” he added darkly. “France has a treaty with Russia, just as Germany has an alliance with Austria.”
    â€œYou’ve been following events very closely.”
    â€œI’m of an age where I might find myself in uniform, if worse comes to worst. But more to the point, my younger brother most