Read Online A Question of Honor by Charles Todd - Free Book Online Page A

I was walking out to my motorcar—still sitting just where I’d left it last night—and there was Simon leaning against the nearside wing.
    He hadn’t come to the house for breakfast. And I couldn’t read his face as he watched me approach.
    “You didn’t tell me you’d come home. I could have met you in London.”
    “I didn’t know just when I’d be arriving. There was no point in keeping you standing around the railway station. They sent me home with another convoy of wounded. It was unexpected—and I was very tired. Amputees.” It was the truth, every bit of it, but I felt guilty, as if I’d lied to him. But he knew something about amputees. He’d nearly lost his own arm.
    When he said nothing, I added, “I went to the cottage yesterday morning. You weren’t there.”
    “No.” He considered me for a moment. Then he asked, “The motorcar performing well enough? It’s been sitting for some time. I hadn’t got around to giving it a run for several weeks.”
    “It ran beautifully. Thank you.” I stood by the driver’s door, uncertain what to say next. “I went back to call on the Middletons, yesterday. I stayed for lunch. And so I was late coming home. That’s why I didn’t return the motorcar to the shed.”
    I felt myself slowly flushing.
    After a space he said, “You could have asked me, Bess. Rather than speak to the Middletons.”
    Exasperated suddenly, I reminded him, “You weren’t here. Simon, I went to the cottage. You could have been away. For a few hours, for a week. And I have only five days. Didn’t you go to the Captain’s funeral service with my parents? I thought you might have done.”
    He straightened. “I was called to London. I just got in.”
    “Then you’ve no right to interrogate me, as if I were a German prisoner,” I retorted.
    Simon smiled then.
    Coming around to open my door for me, he asked, “What did the Middletons tell you?”
    “In fact they knew very little more than we’d learned on our last visit. They did tell me the three murders took place in Petersfield. In Hampshire.”
    “And that’s where you’re intending to go now?”
    I lifted my chin. “Yes, of course.”
    “All right. Let me drive. I haven’t been there myself.”
    And that surprised me. So I got out of the motorcar, went round to the other side, and got in there, leaving him to turn the crank.
    We set out, leaving the village by the road to the south. He said nothing for a time. Finally he asked, “Have you seen this man again? The one who might be Wade?”
    “I have not. I expect I’ve been trying to understand, that’s all. Why someone I thought I knew well was very different from my experiences with him.”
    “We’ve all asked ourselves the same question.”
    “And yet no one pursued it.”
    “We pursued him. And were told he was dead. There was no need for your father to travel to England to go into the matter. He was needed there at the time.”
    “Yes, I expect you’re right.” I fell silent, thinking it through. “I was shocked when the Subedar told me who he’d seen. I would probably have left it there if I hadn’t seen the man for myself. Or believed I did. We could both have been wrong, you know. Still, I remember my father’s face when he got the news. I remember how everyone felt, even though I didn’t know about the other murders. If we did see the Lieutenant in France, then I want to get to the bottom of it for the Colonel Sahib’s sake. I think what bothers me most is that we assumed, the entire regiment, that Lieutenant Wade was dead. If he’s escaped justice, then my father will feel responsible. He called off the search, you see.” I smoothed the fingers of my driving gloves, not looking at Simon. It was the first time I’d really put my feelings into words. Even to myself. “I don’t want him blamed. I don’t want him to feel he should have done more. Because I don’t think he could have done.”
    “Then you’re going the wrong way about it.