Hunting Shadows: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page A

Wriston’s latest and less reputable claim to fame. The murder. He hadn’t intended to come here until he’d spoken to the Ely police. But here he was and he should make the most of his opportunity.
    “And that’s the entire history of Wriston?”
    She was still all at once. “I’m afraid I don’t quite—I don’t understand your question.”
    He let it go. She had taken him in and been kind. “I was wondering if Cromwell had done other damage to the town, perhaps in the church itself.”
    She visibly relaxed. “There’s the usual story, that he stabled his horses in the nave. He was willing to run roughshod over the beliefs of others. In school I always found him a less than sympathetic character. That didn’t sit well with my history mistress, who rather admired him.” Making a face, she added, “It was whispered that the body in Westminster Abbey in London wasn’t his. That it was hidden here in Cambridgeshire from the wrath of the Royalists.”
    Rutledge remembered the tale—that on his Restoration, Charles II had had Cromwell’s body taken from its resting place in the Abbey and hanged, then beheaded, the head left to rot on a pike.
    “Tell me. Was this the mill keeper’s cottage?”
    “That’s on the far side of the mill. I’m not surprised you didn’t see it. It burned down before the war and was never rebuilt. If you’d tripped over the foundations, you could have been seriously hurt. My father bought this cottage for my grandmother after she was widowed. She went away for a time, then decided not to return to Bury. Instead she lived here for many years, and then left it to me.”
    Finishing his tea, he looked up at the windows. There was a difference in the light now, although the fog hadn’t thickened as far as he could tell. “It will be dark soon. Perhaps you should tell me how to find that inn.”
    “Yes. Of course.”
    She rose and led the way to the front of the house and the door. Rutledge had left his hat in the motorcar along with his valise. But it would be impossible to retrieve either of them until this weather broke.
    Miss Trowbridge reached for a shawl on the back of a chair and spread it around her shoulders. “Stay close. Stray and I shan’t be able to find you.”
    “Yes, all right.”
    As she came to the gate, she said over her shoulder, “This could go on for days. It has, sometimes.”
    “I’ll say my prayers tonight.”
    She laughed. It was an odd sound in the mist, as if there were an echo.
    They turned to their left and walked along the road. He could see her, but not very clearly. There was nothing but the soft cotton wool that touched his face with clammy fingers. If anything, he thought, it appeared to be getting chillier.
    Miss Trowbridge stopped. “You’d better take my hand. The road bends just here.”
    He clasped her soft fingers in his, and they set off again. For all he knew, he thought wryly, she could have been leading him down the road to hell. And then she dropped his hand.
    “Here. Do you see the steps?”
    And he did. Just. He wondered if she’d been counting off strides, as the man earlier must have done, to bring him safely here.
    “I’ll wait until you’ve gone inside,” she said. “But I should think Priscilla—Miss Bartram—will be at home.”
    He climbed the steps, but before he lifted the door knocker, he said, “Will you be all right?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    He let the knocker fall.
    A woman a few years older than Miss Trowbridge came to the door. “We’re closed,” she said.
    Miss Trowbridge’s disembodied voice said, “Priscilla? This is Mr. Rutledge. He’s lost his way in the mist. Can you give him a room for the night?”
    “Marcella?”
    “Yes, I discovered him wandering about lost. I brought him to you.” Nothing was said about offering Rutledge tea. He took note of that.
    “A good thing. What brought you out in this?”
    “I was looking for my cat,” she said. “Clarissa. And found Mr. Rutledge