Read A Test of Wills for Free Online Page A

the frantic anxiety were finally dulled.
    He himself had confessed to Hamish’s presence only under the influence of such drugs. Nothing else would have dragged that out of him, and afterward he had tried to kill the doctor for tricking him. They’d had to pull him off the man, and he’d fought every inch of the way back to his room.
    It might be a good idea, then, to speak to the family’s doctor before deciding what to do about Lettice Wood.
    Before the butler could see them safely out the door, Rutledge turned to him and asked, “What was your name again? Johnston?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Can you show me the drawing room, please. Where the quarrel between the Captain and the Colonel took place?”
    Johnston turned and walked silently across the polished marble to a door on his left. He opened it, showing them into a room of cool greens and gold, reflecting the morning light without absorbing it. “Miss Wood had coffee brought in here after dinner, and when the gentlemen joined her, she dismissed me. Soon afterward she went upstairs, sending forone of the maids and saying that she had a headache and would like a cool cloth for her head. That was around nine o’clock, perhaps a quarter past. At ten-fifteen I came here to take away the coffee tray and to see if anything else was needed before I locked up for the night.”
    “And you hadn’t been into or near the drawing room between taking the tray in and coming to remove it?”
    “No, sir.”
    “What happened then? At ten-fifteen?”
    At Rutledge’s prodding, Johnston stepped back into the hall again, pointed to a door in the shadows of the stairs, and went on reluctantly. “I came out of that door—it leads to the back of the house—and started toward the drawing room. At that moment, Mary was coming down the stairs.”
    “Who is Mary?”
    “There’s seven on the staff here, sir. Myself, the cook, her helper, and four maids. Before the war there were twelve of us, including footmen. Mary is one of the maids and has been here the longest, next to Mrs. Treacher and myself.”
    “Go on.”
    “Mary was coming down the stairs, and she said when I came into view that she was looking to see if the banisters and the marble floor needed polishing the next morning. If not, she was going to put Nancy to polishing the grates, now that we were no longer making up morning fires.”
    “And?”
    “And at that moment,” Johnston answered heavily, “the door of the drawing room opened, and the Captain came out. I didn’t see his face—he was looking over his shoulder back into the room—but I heard him say quite distinctly and very loudly, ‘I’ll see you in hell, first!’ Then he slammed the drawing-room door behind him and went out the front door, slamming that as well. I don’t think he saw me here, or Mary on the stairs.” He seemed to run out of words.
    “Finish your story, man!” Rutledge said impatiently.
    “Before the front door had slammed, I heard the Colonel shout, ‘That can be arranged!’ and the sound of glass shattering against this door.”
    His hand drew their eyes to the raw nick in the glossy paint of one panel, where the glass had struck with such force that a piece of it must have wedged in the wood.
    “Do you think Captain Wilton heard the Colonel?”
    In spite of himself, Johnston smiled. “The Colonel, sir, was accustomed to making himself heard on a parade ground and over the din of the battlefield. I would think that the Captain heard him as clearly as I did, and slammed the front door with added emphasis because of it.”
    “It was a glass that shattered, not a cup?”
    “The Colonel usually had a glass of brandy with his coffee, and the Captain always joined him.”
    “When you cleaned this room the next morning, did you find that two glasses had been used?”
    “Yes, sir,” Johnston answered, perplexed. “Of course.”
    “Which means that the two men drank together and were still on comfortable terms at that point in