Rutledge smiled at Mrs. Crowell. “Thank you. I’ll let you know when we’re finished.”
That alarmed Hugh, who was clearly not happy with being left alone with the tall man standing there by the window.
“I think I should stay. In lieu of his parents—”
But Rutledge cut her off again. “This is not a police interview, Mrs. Crowell. Merely a conversation.”
She left reluctantly, casting a last glance at Hugh as she closed the door behind her. It could have been interpreted as a warning or as encouragement. Rutledge rather thought that Hugh took it as the former. He seemed to shrink, as if his last protector had betrayed him.
He stood there, waiting for martyrdom, staring at his executioner with a complex mixture of bravura, fright, and a deep-seated worry.
And it was the worry that intrigued Rutledge.
“Hugh, my name is Rutledge. I’ve come from London to help the local police in a matter that perplexes them. You had nothing directly to do with this problem, but I have a feeling that you might know some small piece of the puzzle that will help us sort out what really happened at Fountains Abbey.”
“I don’t know anything. I told you that yesterday, didn’t I?”
“Is that true? Your friend Johnnie was very upset yesterday. Is he the one I ought to be speaking with this morning?”
“No!” It was explosive. As if Hugh were afraid that Johnnie could be persuaded to tell more than he should.
Rutledge gestured to the chairs in the center of the room. “Sit down, Hugh, I’m not here to persecute you or your friend. No, not on the bench. On the other chair. This is man to man.”
Hugh sat gingerly on the chair, as if suspecting a trick. His face was set now, his mind racing. But his stomach was about to betray him, his nerve close to breaking.
“Who are your friends, Hugh?” Rutledge asked, trying to put him at ease.
But it was the wrong question.
“Don’t have any,” he said gruffly. “Nobody likes me.”
“That’s not true. You were very concerned about Johnnie yesterday.”
“He’s not my mate,” Hugh said stubbornly. “He doesn’t like me.”
“Are you protecting someone? Is that why you’re so afraid?”
“I’m not afraid of anything!” It was almost a shout, but one that rang of pain rather than anger.
“Who left the village on Monday night, the evening that someone was killed in the Fountains Abbey church?”
“No one, I didn’t see anyone.”
It was a plea now, and Rutledge heard more than Hugh intended.
Hugh and at least one of his friends had been out that night, bent on some adventure of their own. One that their parents knew nothing about. And that was keeping them tongue-tied. The knowledge that any confession would get them into serious difficulty with their fathers, never mind the law. Rutledge wondered if Hugh had made a habit of late-night forays.
I didn’t see anyone…
No, I was in my bed that night…
He said, while Hamish thundered in his head, “Hugh. You’ll be safer if you tell me what’s been happening. You know, don’t you? You and John Standing, his cousin William, Tad and his brother Robert.”
Rutledge had no way of guessing that in Hugh’s mind, not even a London policeman was a match for the Devil. Probing, listening, he was trying to build a picture of what had so disturbed this distraught, tense child. But he was going about it from an adult’s perspective, knowing the truth and trying to work backward from it. That these boys had actually been in the abbey ruins was the last thing to cross his mind.
Hugh was living in a different reality, one in his mind that was so unforgivable he could find no way back to the safety of his old life. What had begun as a daring escapade had turned into a nightmare. His knowledge of history, scant as it was, included burning witches at the stake for summoning the Devil. It hadn’t even occurred to him on his way to Fountains Abbey that he was going down that path, but it had struck him forcibly later. His concept of the Devil had been a simple one, more like the spirit in a magic lamp than the fiend they’d met. Something to brag about, not something that could destroy him.
Hugh’s brows flicked together, and Rutledge could almost hear the thoughts rushing through his head. Who told? Who spoke out of turn?
“If you won’t tell me, I must ask the other boys. Robert is younger, he might not be as stubborn as you are, or as determined to protect his friends.”
“Robbie has nothing to do with us.” The words were angry, and full of fear as well. “Leave Robbie out of this.”
“I’m afraid I can’t. There are suspicious circumstances surrounding a man’s death, you see, and I’ve come north to find out why he died. If he was killed.”
It was all Hugh could do to stop himself from blurting out, None of us killed him—it was the Devil!
Rutledge tried another direction. “Do you know the book on alchemy that belongs to Mr. Crowell?”
“I’ve seen it,” Hugh said warily. He had nearly forgotten the book by the time the Elthorpe inspector brought it back to the school. That had shaken him. But with a child’s sense of what was important, he could now safely deny all knowledge of it. It was where it ought to be, wasn’t it, and no one knew he’d borrowed it. Now he dredged up his first acquaintance with it. “He shows it when he’s trying to explain how people get things wrong, but in the end, each bit of knowledge helps the next person looking for the truth.”
Even to his own ears that sounded very much like a memorized lesson he was parroting.
“Police work is much the same,” Rutledge told him, seizing his opportunity. “We try this bit of knowledge and that bit, and in the end, we learn the truth. We—the police—found that book in Fountains Abbey the night a man died. And so we came to speak to Mr. Crowell. His name was in it, you see. And the police believe he might have been in the ruins of the cloister talking with the man who was later killed.”
“Mr. Crowell wouldn’t kill anybody. Not even in the war, he couldn’t.”
“Then how did his book come to be in the ruins beside a dead man? Who else could possibly have left it there? That’s our dilemma. That’s why we must know who might have met the man that night. Someone did. We found candle wax in the cloister as well. They must have stood there and talked at some point.”
Hugh was silent, confused, his face working with his thoughts, his body tense as a cornered animal’s.
“We have a body, we have a book with another man’s name in it, Mr. Crowell’s name, and no answers to the puzzle,” Rutledge persisted. “You can see, surely, that we must get to the truth if we’re to show whether Mr. Crowell is to blame for what happened. Otherwise, he’ll be held responsible.”
Hugh said, as if he thought it was all a trick, “There’s no one dead I heard of. Who is it, then? And what was he doing in the abbey late at night?”
Rutledge answered him with honesty. “We don’t know his name. He’s a stranger.” He reached for the file on Mrs. Crowell’s desk and opened it to show the sketched face to Hugh. The boy hesitated, then curiosity got the better of him.
“That’s him, then?” Hugh stared at the face. “He doesn’t look dead.”
“I assure you he is. We don’t know where to find his family.”
After a moment Hugh looked away. “What killed him?”
“He was—er—overcome by gas.” Rutledge had debated what to say, knowing that the question would surely come up. It was important to be honest with the boy, now.
That took Hugh aback. “Like in the war?”
“No. Not like in the war.”
“I never saw him before.” There was a wealth of relief behind the words. “Never.”