[Ian Rutledge 16] Hunting Shadows by Charles Todd

Author:Charles Todd [Todd, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Mystery, Contemporary Fiction, Historical, Contemporary, Thriller & Suspense, United States, British Detectives, Literature & Fiction
Publisher: William Morrow
Published: 2014-01-21T06:00:00+00:00

The Montgomery family, it seemed, had owned one of the larger holdings, and it lay hard by the Swift farm in the direction of Soham. It was run now by the husband of one of the daughters of the house, Randolph Abbot.

The next morning, following Constable McBride’s directions, Rutledge found the drive leading up to the farm and was met there by a large Irish wolfhound who sniffed his boots and followed him up the broad pair of steps.

The house was a little grander than that of the Swifts or the Burrowses, and there was a large bed of flowers where the drive looped in front of the door. Although as Hamish was pointing out, drive was more or less a courtesy term for the hard-packed clay that made up the roads, tracks, and lanes in the Fen country.

A young woman answered his knock and told him that her mother was in. He was led to a sunny room in the back of the house where a new sewing machine had just been set up and was being tested.

Mrs. Abbot was plump, there was no other word for it, and as her daughter brought a stranger through the door, she looked up, her face flushed from attempting to thread the machine’s needle.

“Mama, this is Mr. Rutledge, here to see you. He’s from Scotland Yard,” the younger woman informed her mother.

“Indeed,” she said, straightening up. “Do have a try, Charlotte, your eyes are better than mine. Now then, Mr. Rutledge, how can I help you?”

“I understand Miss Trowbridge’s mother used to come to Wriston in the summer and was a houseguest of yours?”

The pinkness was fading from her face as she gestured to a chair, and she said, “My goodness, that was years ago. However did you discover she’d been here? Did Marcella tell you?”

“It was someone in the village.”

“I wonder who. Well, then, what can Miss Trowbridge’s mother have to do with Scotland Yard?”

“I understand that Mr. Swift and your brother vied for her attention one summer, and it resulted in a quarrel between the two men.”

Mrs. Abbot laughed. “Hardly men. I think they must have been all of seventeen. I was ten, and my sister was nineteen. She had gone to school with Helena in Bury, and in the summer holidays she invited Helena to stay with us for a few weeks. Of course with a new and pretty face about, all the lads were falling over themselves to attract her attention. When Herbert and Ben fell to, it was more a scramble than a fight, and Helena was dying of embarrassment. As I remember, it began with a promise Helena had made to Herbert Swift to come and see the new foal at his father’s farm. The lads didn’t speak for a fortnight or so, and then Helena was gone, back to Bury.”

“But would your brother have told you if that resentment had lasted?”

“They were far too young to be thinking of marriage. It was a summer’s infatuation, nothing more.

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