Free A Test of Wills by Charles Todd Page A

turned into the close and stopped at the far end, by the lych-gate in front of the church. Leaving the motor running, he walked to the rough wall that encircled the graveyard, hoping for a better look at the track. He wanted a feeling for how it went, and whether there might be places from which a plowman or a farm wife feeding chickens might overlook it. He needed witnesses, people who had seen Wilton out for his morning walk and climbing this hill with nothing in his hand except a walking stick. Or—had not seen him at all, which might be equally important…
    The start of the track was empty except for a squabbling pair of ravens. The rest of it ran out of sight of the village for most of its length, for it followed the line of trees that bordered the cultivated fields, and their branches shaded it this time of year. He could see a cow tied out to graze, and that was all.
    Returning to the car, he asked, “Can you reach the meadow where the body was found, from this track?”
    “Aye, you can’t see it from here, unless you know where to look, but there’s a smaller track that branches off from this one, about two fields away from us. If you follow that, you’ll come to the hedgerow that runs along the boundary of the Colonel’s land. It’s there that the smaller track connects with another one running up from Smithy Lane—I’ll show you that, because it’s where I found Hickam, drunk as a lord. Think of it as a rough H, sir, this track by the church and the other by Smithy Lane forming the legs and climbing to the ridge, whilst the bar of the H is the smaller one cutting across.”
    “Yes, I follow you. Once you’ve reached the hedgerow, what then?”
    “Find a break in it and you’ll be in the fields where the Colonel raises corn. Above them there’s a patch of rough land that’s put to hay, between the hedgerow and a copse of trees. On the far side of those trees lies the meadow. That’s the scene of the murder.”
    Rutledge reversed. Back on the High Street again, he saw Hickam weaving an uncertain path along the pavement. His head down, he was muttering to himself, once or twice flinging out an arm in a gesture of disgust. He looked half drunk now, a man without pride or grace or spirit. Neither Rutledge nor Davies made any comment, but both could see that there was no need to stop.
    Still driving in the direction he had taken to Mallows earlier, Rutledge saw Smithy Lane some thirty feet ahead, just as Davies pointed it out to him. An unpaved street, it ran between the busy blacksmith’s shop and a livery stable on the right and the ironmonger’s on the left. Beyond these businesses were six or seven run-down houses straggling up the slope of the hill toward the fields beyond. Where the last house stood, the lane became a cart track and soon the cart track narrowed into a country path of ruts and mud puddles. Rutledge drove gingerly, his attention on tires and axles.
    But then the cart track eventually lost its way in a tangle of hawthorns and wild cherry, and here they left the car. As Davies got out, he said, “It’s here I found Hickam—he’d fallen asleep in the leaves yonder. And there,” he said, pointing to the last open ground before the track faded into the path, “is where he claims he saw the Colonel talking to Captain Wilton.”
    “Did you look for signs of a horseman here? Or the prints of Wilton’s boots in the dust?”
    “Inspector Forrest came to look the next morning, and then said we’d best leave this business to Scotland Yard.”
    “But were there signs of the two men?”
    “Not that he could see.”
    Which probably meant that he hadn’t wanted to find anything. Rutledge nodded and they moved on, soon afterward passing the point where the rather overgrown track from the east met this one.
    “And that’s the bar of the H, sir, like I said.”
    Skirting a field of marrows, they came at length to the hedgerows. Sergeant Davies quickly found his way through them, into