A Matter of Justice

а Matter

of

Justice

Charles Todd

In remembrance . . .

Samantha June 1995 to September 2007

&

Crystal November 1995 to March 2008

Who gave so much to those who loved them.

1

T H E SCILLY ISLES

May 1920

Ronald Evering was in his study, watching a mechanical toy bank go through its motions, when the idea first came to him.

The bank had been a gift from a friend who knew he collected such things. It had been sent over from America, and with it in a small pouch were American pennies with which to feed the new acquisition, because they fit the coin slot better than the English penny.

A painted cast-iron figure of a fat man sat in a chair, his belly spreading his brown coat so that his yellow waistcoat showed, and one hand was stretched out to receive his bribe from political figures and ordinary citizens seeking his favor. His name was “Boss” Tweed, and he had controlled political patronage in New York City in the aftermath of the American Civil War. Through an alliance between Tammany Hall and the Democratic Party, graft had been his stock-in-trade. Now his image was encouraging children to be thrifty. A penny saved . . .

The note accompanying the gift had ended, “Look on this as a swindler of sorts for the swindled, my dear Ronald, and take your revenge by filling his belly full of pennies, in time to recoup your pounds. . . .”

He hadn’t particularly cared for the tone of the note, and had burned it.

Still, the bank was a clever addition to his collection.

It had been a mistake to confide in anyone, and the only reason he’d done it was to vent his rage at his own impotence. Even then he hadn’t told his friend the whole truth: that he’d invested those pounds in order to look murderers in the face, to see, if such a thing existed, what it was that made a man a killer. In the end all he’d achieved was to make himself known to two people who had no qualms about deliberately cheating him. The explanation was simple—they wanted no part of him, and losing his money was the simplest way to get rid of him without any fuss. He hadn’t foreseen it, and it had become a personal affront.

He had sensed the subtle change in the air when he’d first given his name, and cursed himself for not using his mother’s maiden name instead. But the damage was done, and he’d been afraid to let them see what he suspected.

Yet it had shown him—even though he couldn’t prove it—that he’d been right about them. What he didn’t know was what to do with that knowledge.

Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord . . . But the Lord had been remarkably slow exacting it. If anything, these two men had prospered.

And he had had no experience of vengeance.

There was only his mother, crying in his father’s arms, this quiet, unassuming woman fiercely demanding that whoever had killed her dear boy be punished. A ten-year-old, listening from the shadows of the stairs, shocked and heartbroken, had endured nightmares about that moment for years afterward. And it was his mother’s prodding after his father’s death that had sent him to Cape Town in 1911, to bring her dear boy home from his South African grave.

“Your father couldn’t do it. But you must,” she’d urged him time and again. “It’s your duty to Timothy, to me, to the family. Bring him home, let him lie beside your father in the churchyard, where he belongs. Find a way, if you love me, and let me see him resting there before I die!”

Trying to shake off the memory, Evering took another penny from the pouch and placed it in Boss Tweed’s outstretched hand.

Almost quicker than the eye could follow, the hand slid the penny into the waistcoat pocket as Boss Tweed’s head moved to nod his thanks.

The man smiled. It was no wonder he preferred these toys to people. He had come home from Cape Town with his brother’s body, after two years of forms and long hours in hot, dusty offices in search of the proper signatures. What he hadn’t bargained for was the information he’d collected along the way. Information he had never told his mother, but which had been a burden on his soul ever since. Almost ten years now. Because, like Hamlet, he couldn’t make up his mind what to do about what he knew.

Well, to be fair, not ten years of single-minded effort.

The Great War had begun the year after his return from South Africa, while he was still trying to discover what had become of those two men after they left the army. It wasn’t his fault that he’d been stationed in India, far from home. But that had turned out to be a lucky break, for he discovered quite by accident where they were and what they were doing. In early 1918 he’d been shipped back to London suffering from the bloody flux, almost grateful for that because he was able at last to look into the information he’d come by in Poona.

Only he’d misjudged his quarries and made a fool of himself.

It wouldn’t do to brood on events again. That way lay madness.

On the shelves behind him was an array of mechanical and clock-work toys, many of them for adults, like the golden bird that rose from an enameled snuffbox to sing like a nightingale.

Banks were a particularly fine subject for such mechanical marvels.

A penny tip to the owner sent a performing dog through a hoop. In another example, a grinning bear disappeared down a tree stump as the hunter lifted his rifle to fire. Humor and clever design had gone into the creation of each toy. The shifting weight of the penny set the device concealed in the base into motion, making the action appear to be magical.

He had always found such devices fascinating, even after he’d worked out the mechanism that propelled them. His mind grasped the designer’s plan very quickly, and sometimes he had bettered it in devices of his own. Skill calling to skill. He took quiet pride in that.

He reached for another penny to put into Boss Tweed’s hand, thinking to himself that it would be equally as fascinating to trick human beings into doing whatever one wished, by placing not a coin in a slot but an idea in their minds.

He sat back, stunned at the thought.

Hadn’t he gone to South Africa to please his mother? To earn the love she’d always lavished on his elder brother, hoping in some fashion that when he had accomplished what she asked of him, he’d be loved as much too? She had used him, as surely as if she had slipped a penny in the proper slot.

His mother had died six weeks after they had buried his brother in the churchyard, and it wasn’t his name on her lips as she breathed her last—her final thoughts had been turned toward that glorious reunion in heaven with her dear boy.

It was over her corpse, lying in her coffin in the hall of this very house, that he’d poured out all he’d been told in South Africa. Wanting to hurt her as much as she had hurt him, but well aware that nothing he said could touch her now. Knowing himself for a coward, even as the words drained him.

And in the silence of the empty house, he could almost hear her voice, as clearly as if she spoke from the closed coffin, telling him to do his duty once more.

“Kill them, Ronald. See that they pay. Send them to hell, my boy, and I’ll love you then.”

Easy enough for her to say, but how did one go about finding one murderer, let alone a pair of them? And once found, how did one go about punishing them? Does one conceal a revolver in one’s pocket and shoot the bastards there and then?

Both men were equally guilty—he had no reservations about that.

One for the act itself, the other for never reporting it and seeing that justice was done.

He didn’t want to hang for them or his mother or her dear boy. He had tried to persuade the Army to look into the matter, and they had turned a blind eye. They hadn’t even initiated an inquiry, hadn’t so much as taken down names. His only evidence was the word of an aging, drunken Boer who hated the English ten years later as much as he’d hated them during the fighting. And what was that worth, I ask you, the Army had said, against the word of two Englishmen?

And yet the Afrikaner, who had been left for dead by his comrades, had lain there wounded within sight and hearing of the train until he’d stopped bleeding and could crawl away. He had watched the horror unfold. And it must be true—in God’s name, how could he have made up such a monstrous tale? What he couldn’t tell Evering was why it had been done, except that he had heard two men arguing over money. And Evering hadn’t cared about that, only about the death of his brother.

In the hall, staring down at the coffin, Ronald Evering hadn’t been able to shut out the voice of his mother even after swearing he would see that the devils paid.

For months afterward, it was as if she could see his ambivalence and cursed him for it. Hadn’t he loved his brother? Didn’t he want revenge for what had been done to him? Yes, but how? Dear God, how?

It was a vicious circle, and he’d gone round and round it, looking for a solution until he had learned to shut her out. Even when he’d tried to take a first step, it had been disastrous. He’d crept home with his tail between his legs, like a whipped dog.

Too bad he couldn’t set into motion a little scene of his own, paying one figure a penny to scurry across the cast-iron stage to bury his woodsman’s ax into another figure’s skull while the wolf—himself—leered from behind painted cast-iron bushes.

It could be done in iron, he knew, given the right counterweights and the right penny. It would take less than a day to create a drawing.

Would it work with flesh-and-blood people as well as these mechanical devices?

No reason why it shouldn’t. His mother was proof of that.

He sat back and reviewed everything he’d learned about the two men. Where was the penny, the chink in the armor they had built for themselves? What was the instinct or desire or fear that would send a human being headlong into action, without thinking about consequences? Like the mechanical hunter or the mechanical dog—once set in motion, the outcome was inevitable. Inescapable.

Surely he could work out a revenge that would in no way make him vulnerable, either to the police if he succeeded, or to retribution from those two men, if he failed. A cowardly wish, he was willing to admit that, but hadn’t he already suffered enough on his brother’s behalf?

Perhaps afterward he could get on with his own life. . . .

Engrossed by the idea, he sat there for some time, staring into the painted features of the New York man who had run Tammany Hall for years and grown fat on trickery and power, now reduced to a Victorian concept of thrift and good humor.

No one took this Boss Tweed seriously. A figure of fun, not a figure of fear. And perhaps that was the best trick of all. Those murderers had dismissed him, Ronald Evering, as no danger to them, hadn’t they? They’d even taken his money, as proof that he was harmless, no doubt laughing behind his back at how clever they’d been, making certain that whatever he might tell the world about them, they could claim he was no more than a disgruntled client.

He reached for pen and paper.

After half an hour spent putting together his design, weighing the balances and counterbalances, he rather thought it could be done.

Amazing how simple it was, really. He hadn’t known he was capable of such a scheme.

His mother would have been horrified.

2

SOUTH AFRICA

Twenty Years Earlier: The Boer War

The military train pulled out just after dawn, three carriages guarded by a company under Lieutenant Timothy Evering.

It was carrying weapons and ammunition forward, and bringing wounded back. The Boers were masters at ambush, and three trains had been stopped on this line in the past month alone. Spread out through the carriages, his men were silent for the most part, their nerves on edge as they watched for the danger that was invisible somewhere out there in the bush.

Evering, hunkered by the window in the last carriage, was all too aware that he had been given green men, men who hadn’t faced a bap-tism of fire. He didn’t want to think about how they would respond if the Dutchmen attacked. If they didn’t shoot themselves in the foot in their nervousness, it would be a miracle. And he’d already thanked God for Sergeant Bellman, an old hand at war and steady as a rock.

He turned to say something to the private nearest him when the engine brakes caught with a screech of metal that deafened him. The train lurched and fought against the brakes, and for an instant he thought the engine or the cars would jump the tracks. Then they came to an abrupt stop that nearly threw him across the carriage floor.

The Boers had blocked the bloody right of way.

He could hear Sergeant Bellman yelling orders somewhere ahead and the thud of his boots as he ran back through the train, encouraging his men to hold their fire until he gave the order.

Evering, scrambling to his feet, called to the men in the next carriages to keep a sharp lookout, and then, before the words were out of his mouth, the Orangemen were on them, dead shots all of them, and fearless.

It was a short fight. The British soldiers were outnumbered and outgunned.

Private Quarles, cringing behind a large crate, swore, a steady stream of profanity that was in effect a prayer. His rifle, on the floor beside him, hadn’t been fired.

What ran through his mind at that instant was purely self-centered.

He’d taken the Queen’s shilling to get himself out of the mines his father and his brothers had worked as long as he could remember.

The army was better than breathing in the black dust until he coughed his lungs out, better than hearing the timbers over his head creak and snap as they gave way, better than living without his legs because the coal face collapsed on them before he could get clear.

And now he was going to die anyway. Those bloody men out there would kill them all, and leave their bodies in the harsh southern sun to rot or be picked apart by those bloody great vultures he’d seen digging into carcasses—

Someone was screaming just behind him, jabbing at his back with the butt of a rifle, and Quarles wheeled, ready to lash out from sheer self-preservation. Boer or British soldier, he didn’t care, nothing was going to make him come out and fight.

But it was only Penrith, trying to squeeze his thin body into the space that could hardly conceal one man, much less two. Quarles swung at him, forcing him back, and in that few seconds silence fell across the veldt.

They stayed where they were, two privates so frightened that the sweat soaked their uniforms and ran down their pale faces like rainwater.

Quarles could hear horses now, riding fast. He thought for an instant that they were coming to search the train and shoot the survivors. Someone was groaning in the carriage up ahead, and he could see the sergeant crumpled by a window, his breath bubbling in his throat . If only the damned fools would be quiet, the commando might believe they’d already finished the killing.

The lieutenant was lying in a pool of blood, and after a few seconds, Quarles reached out, dipped his hand in it, and wiped it across his face and through his hair. Another handful went down the front of his tunic. He could pretend to be dead, if he could stop shaking. But it wasn’t him shaking, it was Penrith behind him.

“They’ve gone. Is it a trap to lure us out? For God’s sake, what are we to do?” he was whispering frantically.

Quarles ignored the man, trying to hear.

Nearly a quarter of an hour passed, and nothing happened. Flies were already buzzing loudly in the stillness. Whoever had been groaning up ahead had stopped. But now someone was calling for water. It was a London voice, Cockney.

Quarles shoved the shivering man beside him out of his way and, keeping his head down, crawled to the nearest window, unable to stand the uncertainty.

There was nothing as far as the horizon. Neither man nor animal.

The Boers had vanished as swiftly as they’d appeared. Evering had put up a good fight, but the commando sharpshooters were used to hitting their mark.

He crawled into the next carriage, to be sure, shoving the sergeant aside. The man was dead, his body unwieldy. Quarles carefully lifted his eyes to another window. Nothing to be seen on that side, either.

The Boers had gone.

He stood up, his legs shaky from crouching so long, and wiped his forehead with his hand. He was close to laughing at the sight he must make, bloody enough to be a hero.

It was his first fight, and by God, if he had anything to say to it, it would be his last. Looking around, he grimaced at the amount of blood covering the carriage floors. He hadn’t realized that a man had so much in him. Or that it could sicken the stomach with its stench.

Penrith, peering out from behind the crate in the last carriage, pleaded,

“Is it over? Say something.” His frantic appeal carried in the silence.

Quarles ignored him. He went through the rest of the carriages, to see how many of Evering’s men had survived. Then he came back to the last one, where Evering lay badly wounded. The man’s eyes blazed up at him, and his voice, only a husky whisper, demanded, “Where were you?”

As if one more man might have mattered. As if another rifle could have held them off.

Quarles dragged the lieutenant out of the sun and propped him against a box of shells.

It was only then that he saw what the lieutenant was lying on—two leather bags, one of them torn open, with the edges of pound notes just visible in the white African light spilling through the window.

He knelt over the bags and reached in, unable to believe his eyes.

There was more money in them than he’d seen in his lifetime, more money than God himself had. He wasn’t sure where it was being taken, or why. It was there, and he couldn’t stop looking at it.

Evering was saying something, but Quarles didn’t listen. His mind was enthralled by the sight, and he knew he wanted that money more than he’d ever wanted anything. Ever.

Penrith came stumbling toward him. He said, “Most of them must be dead—”

“I counted four wounded,” Quarles answered, quickly shoving pound notes under the edge of Evering’s tunic, out of sight. “Not including him.” He jerked his head at the lieutenant.

But Penrith had seen the money. “Good God!”

Falling on his knees, he reached out to touch the bag just as Quarles snatched it away. Evering, behind them, said quite clearly, “Put it back!”

But Quarles had no intention of obeying. He picked up the two bags. “Four wounded,” he repeated. “Five counting him.” He got to his feet and reached for his rifle, starting toward the engine. “Wait here.”

“I’m coming.”

“Stay with him, I say!”

Quarles went forward to find three men bleeding profusely but still alive. The fourth was already unconscious, his face gray.

“Water?” one of the men begged, reaching out, his hand shaking like a palsy.

Quarles shot him, and before the others could move, he shot them as well. Then he moved on to the locomotive. Both the engineer and the fireman were dead. Looking out, he could see the Boers had pulled out the tracks and piled the ties in plain view, to force the engineer to stop. There would be no going forward now. And no returning to the depot unless Penrith knew how to manage the damned controls. He went back to the last carriage and knelt beside Evering.

“Is there any more of this?” He held up the bags for the lieutenant to see them.

Evering shook his head.

“What’s it for, then?”

Evering, fighting to stay alert, didn’t answer.

Penrith, crouched in a corner, said, “I heard gunfire! They’re back—”

Quarles was on the point of shooting him as well. And then he thought better of it. “I was afraid there was something out there. Never mind, it was nothing. Nerves. Penrith—can you run the locomotive?

The way ahead is blocked, we have to go back.”

“Me? No. What are we to do, then? We’ve got to get the wounded to cover, and one of us ought to go for help.” Even as he said the words, he read the decision in Quarles’s face, and began shaking his head. “Why does it have to be me?”

Quarles was in no frame of mind to argue. “I’ll see to the men. Go on, then, walk as far as you can before dark, then find somewhere to dig in. I’ll stay here until you come back.”

“I don’t want to go. And what about this money? What are you going to do with it?”

“I’ll see to that as well. Mind you don’t mention it to anyone! Otherwise they’ll take it from us.”

“I’m not leaving it behind. I don’t trust you.”

“You’ve done nothing to earn it, my lad. Not yet. Go for help.

Leave me to clear away here. And when you find that help, mind you act dazed, confused. Just tell them the Boers attacked, and the lieutenant here sent you for help. The less you say to them, the better.”

Without warning, he set aside his rifle and swung his fist as hard as he could, catching Penrith on the cheekbone, and then hit him again.

Blood ran from a torn lip, dripping onto his uniform.

Penrith, angrier than he could ever remember being, lunged at Quarles, but the man had already retrieved his rifle and kept him at bay.

“Don’t be a fool, Penrith! If you arrive after a fight with the Boer looking fresh as a bleeding daisy, they’ll be suspicious.”

Something in his face made Penrith look sharply at him. “I counted four shots. You killed them, didn’t you? The wounded.”

“Yes, and I’ll kill you too, if you don’t listen. You want a share of that money? How are we going to do that, hmmm? Tell the Army we’ve taken a fancy to it? Tell them no one else is alive, so we thought we’d help ourselves? They’ll hunt us like animals. First we must deal with this lot. Go back to the camp. And think about it as you walk. If we’re smart, we’ll let the Army blame the Boers for the money going missing. We know nothing about it, eh? It was the lieutenant’s little secret, and we never laid eyes on it.”

“But he’s alive—”

“Look at him. Do you think he’ll last the day? I’m no doctor, I can’t save him. He’s the only one can talk, if we keep our heads. What’s it to be, then? Do your part or die with the others. It’s all the same to me.”

Penrith, staring at the rifle in the other man’s hands, said with as much bravado as he could muster, “I’ll go. But play any tricks on me, and I’ll see you hang.”

He backed out of the carriage, his gaze on Quarles, and nearly stumbled over a railroad tie as he stepped down. Then he stopped.

Fool that he was, he’d left his own rifle in the train.

As if he’d read Penrith’s mind, Quarles reached down, picked up a rifle, and tossed it to him. “Take the sergeant’s. You won’t get far without it.”

Penrith caught it, retreating, watching those cold eyes watching him and expecting to be shot in the back when he turned. When he was safely out of range, Quarles was still standing there in the carriage door, his face a mask of blood and determination. Penrith turned on his heel and began to walk the tracks back to the depot. He didn’t trust Quarles. On the other hand, he told himself, the man was right. If he didn’t share the money, Penrith could turn him in. And he thought, on the whole, the Army was more likely to believe him, a curate’s son, than Quarles, a less than exemplary soldier. Time would tell what would come of this day’s work.

He could still see those pound notes, thick wads of them.

It was all he could think of as he walked steadily toward the depot.

On the train, Quarles waited until Penrith was out of sight and no threat to him. Then he did three things. He went through the carriages again to be certain there were no more wounded, he scanned the veldt for miles to be certain the Boers had gone away, and then he searched every inch of the last carriage for other bags of money. As he did, he could feel Evering’s eyes on him, baleful and full of pain.

There was no more. He’d found it all.

Quarles took the two bags, ignoring the weak protests of the severely wounded man, and stacked the notes to one side. He remembered an oiled cloth he’d seen near the dead fireman and trotted forward to fetch it. It was thick with coal dust and torn, but it was still large enough for his purpose. Wrapping the money carefully in the cloth, he took it outside and searched for a place to dig. He found that some thirty yards from the tracks, and with his bare hands he worked furiously at creating a hole deep enough to conceal the bundle.

It took him over an hour. But when he was finished, there was nothing to show that he’d been there. A small branch, swept across where he’d worked, erased any signs of digging. He stepped back, considering his handiwork. The question was, how to mark the spot?

Looking around, he saw a flat rock, shaped like a turtle. It was heavy, but he carried it across to where the money was hidden and set it on top. It was the best he could do.

When he got back to the carriage, he was surprised to find Evering still alive. The man was holding on tenaciously, determination in the set of his jaw. His eyes watched Quarles, bright against the flushed skin of his face, as if recording everything he saw for the court-martial to come.

Quarles ignored him, going about his next task with cold efficiency. He placed the empty money bags at Evering’s feet, and then went searching for lanterns.

After pouring all their oil over the last carriage, he took the lanterns back to where he’d found them. Evering was still watching him, but with alarm in his eyes now.

“What are you doing, man?” he managed to say with sufficient force to be heard.

“You’re the only one who knew about the money. And when they come, they’ll want to know where it is. They’re not going to believe that the Boers took it, are they? So I don’t have any choice.”

He had found matches in the sergeant’s kit, and he struck them now and lit the spreading puddles of oil. The old carriages were tender dry. They’d burn in a hurry, they wouldn’t need the oil after a few minutes.

Evering cried, “You can’t do this! It’s inhuman—”

“Watch me,” Quarles said and jumped out of the carriage. He tried to walk far enough away to shut out the cries of the burning man, but he could hear them in his mind if not his ears. They would haunt him for a long time.

But it was so much money. It would set him up for life. Even if he shared it with Penrith. Or not. It would depend on how useful the man was.

He waited until the flames had nearly died down, then went back to the blackened carriages and thrust his hands into the remnants of the fire. He hadn’t known it would hurt that badly, but he forced himself to put his face close enough to singe his hair and his skin.

And then, fighting the pain as best he could, he crawled under what was left of the first carriage, out of the sun.

He hadn’t looked at what was left of Lieutenant Timothy Barton Evering.

When help arrived many hours later, Quarles was half out of his mind with pain and thirst. They dealt with him gently, and the doctor did what he could. He didn’t see Penrith and didn’t ask for him. He lay on the stretcher, calling Evering’s name until someone bent over him and said, “He’s dead. There was nothing you could do.”

After that he shut his eyes and was quiet.

The inquiry into the ambush was not lengthy. Penrith supported the account that a shot could have broken a lantern and set the last carriage on fire. “But I didn’t see it burning when I left. All I could think of was the wounded, and getting help for them as fast as possible.” His face was pale, and his voice tended to shake.

Penrith was the son of a curate. They believed him. Quarles, when interviewed, remembered only beating at the flames to reach the lieutenant. His burns were serious, and his bandages spoke to his courage.

He was sent to Cape Town, where doctors worked on his hands, and Penrith, whose feet had been badly blistered by his walk, was sent to a hospital in Port Elizabeth. They didn’t meet again until the end of the war, in 1902.

It was Penrith who came to find Quarles, and he asked him outright for his share of the money. “I’ve earned it now. And I’ll have it before we’re sent home.”

Quarles smiled. “Oh, yes, and you on a spending spree a private’s pay couldn’t explain? No, we split the money and take it home with us. We wait a year, and then decide how to hide it in plain sight. Do you think we’ve fooled them? Stupidity will get us hanged yet.”

“As long as we split it now,” Penrith said. “I want it in my hand, where you can’t trick me or hide from me. Once we’ve split it, we’re finished with each other.”

“Did you hear they found the Boers that attacked our train and hanged the leader? I wouldn’t press my luck if I were you. A misstep now, and we’ll be decorating the gibbet he kept warm for us.”

But Penrith was not to be put off.

Quarles took five days of leave and found a carriage and horse that he could borrow, though his hands were still stiff and almost useless.

He located the site of the attack after some difficulty, found the flat stone after walking in circles for three hours, and dug up the packet in the oiled cloth. Most of it he split into two black valises he’d brought with him. For the rest, he found a black woman in an isolated hut and asked her to sew the money into pockets in the lining of his tunic.

She thought him a mad Englishman, but he promised to pay her well.

When the tunic was ready, he drowned her in the stream where she washed her clothes, for fear she would gossip. If he’d been a superstitious man, he’d have believed she put a curse on him as she died. As it was, she fought hard, and he was glad he hadn’t put his tunic on before dealing with her.

Penrith was waiting for him at the livery stable when he brought the carriage back, and demanded that he take his pick of the two valises.

“To be sure the split was fair and square.”

“As God is my witness,” Quarles answered him, “you’ll find both hold the same sum. Look for yourself. It’s more than either of us can ever expect to earn. Don’t be greedy.”

Penrith said, his curiosity getting the better of him as he examined both valises, “Does it ever bother you, how we came by this?”

“Does it bother you?” Quarles retorted, picking up the nearest case. He walked off and didn’t look back.

As luck would have it, the two men arrived in London on the same troop ship and were mustered out of the army in the same week. Quarles took Penrith to the nearest pub and made a suggestion: “We’ve got to find work. Until the Army’s forgot us. It wouldn’t look right, would it, for either of us to be rich as a nob, when we joined up with no more than a shilling to our names.”

Penrith was stubborn. “You’ve put me off long enough. I have my share, I’ll spend it as I please.”

“You do that, and I’ll tell them you stole the money while I was trying to save the lieutenant.”

In the end, Quarles put the wind up Penrith, who was afraid of Quarles and would be for years to come. They each took up positions at a merchant bank, Penrith as the doorman because of his fair looks and his air of breeding, and general work for Quarles, with the ugly scars on his hands. His eyebrows had never grown out again properly, giving him a quizzical expression. But he was a big man with pale red hair and a charm that he practiced diligently, turning it on at need.

The account he gave of his burns elicited laughter and sympathy, for he kept the story of rushing into a burning house to save a child droll rather than dramatic. There was no mention of the army or South Africa. And as far as anyone knew, neither Penrith nor Quarles had ever left the country.

Quarles had been good at numbers in school, and that training, together with a clever mind, was put to work. It wasn’t long before he caught the eye of one of the junior partners, and six months later, he was promoted to Mr. James’s clerk.

On that same day Quarles said to Penrith, “I can see that there’s a way to be rich without suspicion,” and outlined his plan.

Penrith, ever slow to see what might be to his own advantage, said,

“But we’ve got money, we don’t need to work. You promised—”

Quarles looked at him. “Have you counted what you’ve got? It’s nothing compared to what comes in and out these doors every day.

It looked like a king’s ransom, there on the veldt, but I know better now. I’ve asked Mr. James if he’d be kind enough to invest what an old aunt left me. I told him I’d run through it in six months, else. And he’s agreed. You’d be smart to do the same. Soon we’ll be twice as rich, and then there’s no stopping us.” He smiled. “Mr. James sees a coal miner’s brat with brains in his head. He’s a snob, he thinks I’m a clever monkey doing tricks to amuse him. But in the end, it’s Mr.

James who’s jumping through hoops of my making. I’m a clerk now, and mark my words, I’ll go higher, as high as I please. And if you’re a wise one, you’ll hang on to my coattails. I didn’t do you a bad turn in the Transvaal, did I? We haven’t hanged yet, have we?”

Penrith said, “You’re a clever monkey, all right. The question is, do I trust you? And how far?”

Quarles laughed harshly. “Suit yourself. But don’t come whining to me when your pittance runs out and there’s no way to replace it. And don’t think you can blackmail me into saving your arse. You’ll hang beside me.”

3

SOMERSET, NEAR EXMOOR

May 1920

There was a stone terrace on the northern side of the house, with a dramatic view down to the sea. The town of Minehead was invisible around the next headland to the east, and to the west, Exmoor rolled to the horizon, empty as far as the eye could see.

Not even a gull’s cry broke the stillness, though they sailed on the wind above the water, wings bright in the morning sun. Rutledge sat in a comfortable chair by the terrace wall, more relaxed than he’d been in some time.

Half an hour later a faint line of gray was making itself known in the far distance, storm clouds building somewhere over Cornwall. A pity, he thought, watching them. The weather had held fair so far. All that was needed was barely another twenty-four hours, for tomorrow’s wedding. After that the rain could fall.

He had taken a few days of leave. Edgar Maitland, a friend from before the war, had asked Rutledge to come to Somerset to meet his bride and to stand up with him at the wedding.

This had been Maitland’s grandfather’s house, and Rutledge could understand why his friend preferred to live here most of the year now, keeping his flat for the occasional visit to London. Edgar had also inherited his grandfather’s law firm in nearby Dunster and appeared to be well on his way to becoming a country solicitor.

Rutledge and Maitland had lost touch after 1917, but when Maitland had come to town in April to buy a ring for his bride, he’d tracked Rutledge down at Scotland Yard. France had changed both men, but they understood that these differences were safest left unspoken. What had drawn them together at university had been an enthusiasm for tennis and cricket; what had made them friends was a feeling for the law, and this each of them, in their own way, had held on to through the nightmare of war, seeing their salvation in returning to it.

Maitland had often good-naturedly berated Rutledge for choosing to join the police. “A waste, old man, you must see that.”

And Rutledge always answered, “I have no ambition to be a K.C.

I’ve left that to you.”

When Rutledge had met Elise on his arrival in Dunster, he’d had reservations about the match. She was young, pretty, and in love.

The question was whether she was up to the task of caring for a man who’d lost his leg in France, and with it, for many months, his self-worth. Unlike the steady, happy man Rutledge had seen in London, now Edgar was by turns moody and excited as the wedding day approached. And that boded ill for the future.

Indeed, last night when they were alone on the terrace, darkness obscuring their faces and only their voices betraying their feelings, Edgar had said morosely, “I can’t dance. She says she doesn’t care for dancing. Or play tennis. She doesn’t care for tennis. She says. But that’s now. What about next year, or the year after, if she’s bored and some other bloke asks her to dance, or to be his partner in a match?

What then? Will she smile at me, and ask permission, and be relieved when I give it?”

Rutledge had grinned. “Cold feet, Lieutenant? Where’s the bane of the sappers, the man who never backed out of anything, even a burning tunnel?”

“Yes, well, I was brave once too often. And it’s cold foot, now. Do you know, I can still feel pain in my missing leg? Phantom pain, they call it, the nerve endings looking for something that isn’t there and worrying themselves into knots.”

“That’s common, I think?”

“Apparently. But it’s damned odd when it’s your foot itching, and there’s nothing there to scratch.”

They had laughed. But Edgar had drunk a little too much last night and was sleeping it off this morning.

Rutledge watched that thin line of gray cloud for a time, decided that it was not growing any larger, and turned his attention to the sea below, tranquil before the turn of the tide. Behind him, the terrace door opened, and he looked up, expecting to see Edgar.

Elise came out to join him. He hadn’t heard her motorcar arriving in the forecourt, but she must have driven over from Dunster, looking for Edgar.

He wished her a good morning as he rose to bring a chair forward for her. She sat down, sighed, and watched the gulls in her turn.

“A penny for your thoughts?” he asked after a time.

“I wish I knew what was worrying Edgar. It’s frustrating, he won’t talk to me. That makes me feel young, useless. And the wedding’s tomorrow.”

He realized that she had come to find him, not Maitland. “You’re several years younger in age,” Rutledge pointed out gently. “And a hundred years younger in experience.”

She shrugged irritably. “I know. The war. I’ve been told that until I’m sick of it. It doesn’t explain everything!”

“In a way it does,” Rutledge replied carefully. “It marked most of us. I expect that it will stay with us until we’re dead.”

“Yes, but that’s looking back, isn’t it? You survived—and so there’s life ahead, marriage, a family, a future. You and Edgar were the lucky ones. You lived. Now get on with it.”

He laughed. “Would that we could.”

“Oh, don’t be silly, Ian, you know what I mean. If you stay bogged down in the trenches, then they’ve won. You went on with your profession. Edgar can go on with his. He’s not the only man in England with one leg. He’s not a freak. He’s not unique. A solicitor can manage with one leg, for heaven’s sake.”

He couldn’t tell her why he’d returned to the Yard last year. At what cost and for what reasons. He answered only, “Have you ever had a terrifying nightmare, Elise?”

“Of course. Everyone has.” She was impatient.

“Think about the worst one you can recall, then try to imagine waking up to find that it was real and would go on for years, not minutes, without respite.”

“That’s not possible—” She stopped. “Oh. I see what you mean.

Trying to shake off a nightmare is harder than having it.” She turned her head, watching the gulls. After a moment she went on. “When I was five, I was frightened by a friend’s little dog. I was creeping up on her to surprise her, and the dog heard me first and attacked me. After that, I was always afraid of dogs. Any dog.”

Rutledge nodded. “Are you still afraid of dogs?”

“Not afraid. Wary, perhaps?”

“Yes. That’s what war does to you. It leaves you wary because you can’t erase what you saw or felt or did. It can’t be safely tucked away in the attic until you’re fifty and decide to bring it out and look it squarely in the face. And Edgar is reminded of his missing leg every time he puts on a shoe or tries to walk across the room or step into a motorcar.

It’s a fact he can’t escape, however hard he tries. And in turn, this is a constant reminder of a day he doesn’t want to remember.”

She turned to look at him. “Where are your scars?”

“They are there. Just a little less visible than missing a leg.” He found it hard to keep the irony out of his voice. Thank God no one could see Hamish. Or hear him. He couldn’t even be explained away logically. A haunting that was no ghost, a memory that was filled with guilt, a presence where there was none. Except to him.

Elise said, “You’re telling me that patience is my cue.”

“I’m telling you that getting on with it will always be easier for you.

And so you must teach Edgar to forget, not only with patience but with the understanding that some memories may never fade. If you can’t accept him as he is, then you must walk away. Now.”

She smiled, a pretty girl barely twenty. He felt like a grandfather in her presence, though he was the same age as her older brother. How on earth would Edgar cope? Or had he deliberately chosen someone so young, someone who had no experience of war, in the hope that it would help him forget?

It was not his business to ask. He was here to support the groom, and that was that.

Elise was saying, “I appreciate your candor. I’ll try to understand.

And when I can’t, I won’t judge.”

“Then you’ll make Edgar an admirable wife.”

Her laughter rang out, fresh and untroubled.

Inside the house, silver rattled against silver.

“Aha. I hear sounds from the dining room. By the way, my matron of honor has arrived. I’ll bring her along to meet you this afternoon.”

She got up and went inside, leaving Rutledge with his thoughts.

4

Ronald Evering stood by his bedroom window that same morning, watching the small mail boat make for the harbor at St.

Anne’s. There was only one passenger on board; he could pick out the blue jacket and white trousers of Davis Penrith, who was standing amidships, his face turned toward the landing, his fair hair blowing in the wind.

The launch came in, tied up, and Davis stepped ashore, looking up the winding hill that led to the only large house on the island.

Evering wondered what he was thinking.

No doubt gauging how many pounds this venture might bring him.

Was he so foolish that he thought he would be trusted again with a small fortune? Did he feel no twinge over cheating a man twice—of his brother and of his money? Apparently not, or he wouldn’t have come.

Evering turned away from the window and went down to await his guest in the hall, but the memory of his mother’s corpse lying there at the foot of the stairs prodded him to move on to the stone steps of the house.

St. Anne’s was one of the smaller of the inhabited Scilly Isles. The Romans had come here, and then the Church, and finally Cornish-men looking to make money any way they could. Cut flowers had become the latest source of wealth, for they bloomed here earlier than anywhere else in England, and so they had been very much in demand for country houses and London weddings. The war had put an end to that, of course. Getting perishable flowers across to the mainland and to their hungry markets had been impossible, what with workmen gone to fight or to factories, the government taking over the trains for troops and the wounded, and the German menace out there waiting to sink whatever vessel sailed into their sights.

He doubted that the market for fresh flowers would be as profitable again, not the way it was before 1914. It would be too costly now, workmen’s wages too high, and no one was entertaining on the scale they once had done. Great vases of flowers in every room, profligate and beautiful, were a luxury now, even for the wealthy.

He was glad his father hadn’t lived to see this day. He had mourned his elder son, then given his only remaining child all that he had dreamed of for Timothy—a fine education, this house, and a love for the Scilly Isles that in the end had come to be the strongest bond between them.

If this day bore fruit, the senior Evering would have lost both sons—one to murder and the other to an unconscionable act that would damn him.

For an instant he was torn. Penrith hadn’t seen him yet. Let him knock at the door, and when no one answered his summons, go back to Cornwall and thence to London, cursing a wild goose chase. Or tell him to his face that it had been a mistake, there was no money left to invest after all.

Evering turned and went back inside.

It would seem too—eager—to be seen waiting by the steps.

Invisible in the quiet parlor, he soon heard shoes crunching in the shell walk that led through the trellis gate up to the door. At the sound of the bell, he counted to ten, then he himself opened the door to Penrith. Welcoming him as his father would have done, with an old-fashioned courtesy Evering was far from feeling.

It’s not too late . . .

Penrith stepped into the cool hall and said plaintively, “I thought perhaps you’d have sent a cart to meet me. The boatman said it was usual.”

“Alas, the horse is lame. But the exercise will have whipped up your appetite. Breakfast is waiting in the dining room.”

“I could do with a cup of tea.” Penrith followed him down the passage to the dining room, its windows looking out to sea, where nothing stood between the stone walls of this house and the great expanse of the Atlantic.

Penrith took his tea standing up, looking out at the cloudless sky.

“Is that a bank of sea mist out there on the horizon? I didn’t notice it from the boat, but of course we’re higher here. I can tell you I wouldn’t care to be caught in one of those. I’ve heard tales of what it would be like—dank and damp, like cotton wool. Worse than a London fog. No wonder the Cornish coast is famous for its shipwrecks. I see the boat has continued on its rounds—I thought it might stay on for a bit. How long before it returns to St. Anne?”

Evering smiled, deliberately misunderstanding him. “I promise you we’ll have more than enough time to discuss our business.”

“It must be quite lonely here. I should think you’d open your London house for the summer,” Penrith went on as he set his cup down on the table and accepted the plate Evering was holding out to him.

“Not in summer. That’s the best season for us. Next winter perhaps.” Evering shrugged. “That is to say, if I am luckier in my investments than I was the last time and can afford to open the London house again. Surprisingly enough, I’ve never found it lonely here.

Perhaps because I was born in this house.”

He searched Penrith’s face for signs of—what? Something, anything—a conscience, a reason to put a stop to what he was about to do.

But all he read there was impatience and greed.

“I brought the papers you asked for. I think, given the state of business these days, that we’ve got something to offer. Something that might well recoup that earlier loss. Something with long-term potential, and an excellent rate of return.”

“That would certainly be desirable. Frankly, I could use the income. But you told me much the same story the last time, and look where it led.”

“Yes, well, we apologized for the Cumberline stocks. No one was more surprised than I when they went down with a crash. I lost money myself.”

Evering raised his eyebrows but said nothing. He had heard rumors that Penrith and his partner had had a miraculous escape. A word of warning in the right ear at the right time . . . But not passed on to clients. Not this client, at least.

Penrith took his filled plate to the foot of the table and sat down, picking up his serviette. “I say, this is a wonderful spread. We’re still trying to get decent food in London. You have a fine cook, as well. My compliments.”

They ate their meal in a drift of light, stilted conversation, touching on events in London, the state of the economy, the worsening situation in Russia.

“No money to be made there,” Penrith said with a sigh. “You’d think, given their way of looking at land reform, that they’d put it to good use. In my view, they’re going to be hard-pressed to feed their own people. And their factories, such as they are, produce only shoddy goods. Europe isn’t going to be back on its feet for another dozen years, if I’m any judge. But there are opportunities in South America. Cattle. Coffee. Mines. That sort of thing. It’s what I intend to talk to you about.”

Thus far Penrith had made no mention of his business partner, and the omission was glaring. Evering brought him up instead.

“And what is Quarles doing, to keep himself out of trouble?”

Penrith grimaced. “I daresay he manages. We no longer handle joint ventures. Which is why you contacted me, I think? You never liked Quarles.”

Nor you, Evering thought, but was silent.

They finished their meal and adjourned to the study. It too looked out across the sea, but there were other islands in this direction, scattered blue smudges. Penrith glanced toward the long bank of mist one more time before sitting down. There was some anxiety in his face, as if he was trying to judge how far it had advanced since last he had measured it.

“Let’s get down to business, shall we?” Evering asked.

“By all means.”

The next two hours were spent in intense exposition of the properties that Penrith had brought for discussion.

Evering listened carefully to everything he was told, then sat back with a frown.

“I don’t know—” He pulled at his lower lip, a study in uncertainty.

Penrith said persuasively, “It’s the best opportunity I can see to improve your position. I like what’s here, and I have a feeling that we’re moving into a decade of handsome rewards for the farsighted investor.”

Evering said, “Yes, yes. You’ve done your work well. Still—would you mind leaving these papers here for a week? I’m to travel to Kent shortly, and I can bring them to you with my decision.” He smiled wryly. “I’ve learned to be careful, you see.”

“Caution is important. There are no guarantees that what I tell you will be right in five or seven years’ time. However, time is something we must consider as well. I suggest you make your decision within the fortnight. Or we stand to lose as the shares go up. They aren’t going to be overlooked for long, I can assure you.”

Evering studied the earnest, handsome face. Penrith, fair and tall and very presentable, gave the impression of coming from old money, and it stood him in good stead, this impression. More than one woman and many a man had fallen for this quality and trusted the advice tripping so lightly from his tongue. In their partnership, Penrith had been the velvet glove, Quarles the iron hand, though Quarles could be very pleasant when it served his purposes. And very coldblooded when it didn’t.

The contrast between the two men was something Evering hadn’t been prepared for when first he met them. One obviously a gentleman, the other a blunt Yorkshire man with unreadable eyes and a tight mouth. In God’s name, what had drawn them together in South Africa, much less kept them together all these years? He couldn’t fathom what it was, unless it was the strength of Quarles’s personality.

Weaker men were often drawn to that. If Quarles had manipulated Penrith, surely he himself could manage it as well. And yet the weak could be as cruel as the strong, he’d had cause to know in his own mother. It was the main reason why Evering had chosen Penrith as his penny. Quarles would not be as easily influenced.

“I assure you, I’m as eager as you to see this under way. But—well, I’d feel better if I had a little time to consider.”

Penrith nodded. “Suit yourself.” Though it was clear that he was not pleased about being put off. He got up and stretched, walking to the window, staring worriedly at the fog bank. Evering swore silently at the distraction, cursing the weather.

Penrith turned to his host. “When did you say the mail boat comes back this way?”

Evering glanced at his watch. “It should be here within a quarter of an hour. It makes the rounds of the inhabited islands before going back to the mainland. Naturally it depends on how much mail and how many passengers there are on a given run, but for the most part, it keeps to its schedule.”

“That’s a small vessel to take on storms in some twenty-eight miles of open water. It’s a wonder anyone has the courage to live this far out.”

“Think of it as our moat. At any rate, the master is a good man.

He can read the weather the way you’d read a book. Many of us have made the crossing on our own in heavy seas, when there’s no other way.”

“All the same, I’ll take my chance on dry land, thank you.”

Evering laughed and got to his feet. Joining Penrith at the window, he said, “Yes, in fact, there the boat is now, pulling around the headland. You’ve got about twenty minutes before you need to be at the harbor. I’ll walk you down. Good exercise. I’ve become quite fond of taking my constitutional earlier this time of year. Before the heat builds. Come along, then. Have everything there, do you?”

Penrith had shoved the remaining papers back into his case, his eagerness to be away getting ahead of his professional manner. “Yes, all here.” He cast a last glance at the spread of unsigned documents on the table and added, “You will let me know, won’t you? What you decide to do?”

“I give you my word,” Evering assured him.

They walked out together, taking the shell path through the flower beds to the ornate garden gate where the island’s only road crossed the track down to the harbor. But as they passed through the gate, Evering paused in the middle of the road. Penrith, a little ahead, turned and said, “Aren’t you coming the rest of the way?”

“Yes. I’ve just been debating with myself.” He had—whether to go on or not. To keep his hands steady, he reached out and caressed the white wooden necks of the swans that curved gracefully to form the top of the gate. “Old man, there’s something else I wish to say to you, and I’m afraid I don’t know quite how to find the words.”

Penrith frowned. “I don’t follow you. I thought I’d answered all your questions.” He was annoyed, standing there with the sunlight glinting on his hair, an eye on the mail boat. “I really must get back to London tonight—”

“You did answer my questions, and admirably. This is—to be truthful, it’s a personal matter. In point of fact, a little gossip that came to my ears recently. I found it rather shocking and brushed it aside as nonsense. But now that I’m face-to-face with you—”

Penrith bristled. “I’ve done nothing to be gossiped about. I assure you. That business with Cumberline—”

“No, no, your reputation is sound. Or you wouldn’t be here. No, this is a personal matter. I told you.”

Penrith gestured toward the harbor. “Can you tell me as we walk?

The boat is coming in.”

“Yes, of course. It’s just that—look, to be honest, I’m uncomfortable mentioning this at all, but you’ve been kind enough to come here and advise me. I can only say that it’s very likely the purest gossip.

Still, I owe you something—”

“What are you trying to say? I don’t follow you at all.” Penrith’s eyes were hostile now, as if expecting accusations he wasn’t prepared to answer. His defensiveness clearly centered on his business, and Evering found that interesting.

“All right, I’ll be blunt, if you’ll forgive me. It’s the stories going round about Quarles. And your—damn it man, about your wife.”

“My wife?” Caught off guard, Penrith stared at his companion. “I don’t—you must be mad! What is this about? Is it your way of—” He broke off, unwilling to say more.

“No. Just rather embarrassed to bring the matter up at all. Forget that I said anything. It was a mistake. A mistake born of friendship.

Nothing more.”

He walked on, but Penrith didn’t move. “No, you brought this matter up, Evering. I demand that you tell me what it is you’re hinting at.”

Evering took a deep breath. “It was at the Middleton house party.

I wasn’t there, of course. But someone—I shan’t say whom—saw Quarles coming out of your wife’s bedroom at some ungodly hour of the morning. Shoes in hand. There was a little talk among the guests, when that got about. But for your sake, nothing was said. Then, two weeks later at the Garrisons’ house—”

“Damn you, you’re a liar!” Penrith’s face was flushed with anger, his fists clinched at his side. “Take it back, Evering! Now, on this spot!

Or we shall do no business together.”

“All right. I apologize. I’m sorry. I thought—I don’t know what I thought. I was wrong to bring it up at all—”

“You’re paying me back for Cumberline by telling me this, aren’t you?”

Evering said, “No, Penrith, on my honor. I—it’s the gossip, man, I didn’t make it up. And I thought you should know, if you didn’t already. It’s vicious and meant to hurt, I’m sure. I was wrong to tell you.

I’m sorry.”

Penrith turned to walk on and then stopped. “I shan’t need your company the rest of the way, Evering. I’m rather disgusted, if you want the truth.”

“I understand. I’m sorry.”

Penrith stalked off, shoulders tightly squared.

Evering watched him go, an angry man with time on his hands to dwell on his anger. And the wife he doted on was in Scotland, visiting her sister, where Penrith couldn’t question her easily. Yes, that journey had been a stroke of unexpected luck, worth the effort he’d expended on perfecting the details of his plan.

When Penrith reached the mail boat and stepped in without looking back, Evering returned to his house, shut the door against the incoming fog, and in the parlor poured himself a large whiskey. Too early in the morning for it, he scolded himself, but it was what he needed.

His hands were shaking. What would come of this day’s work?

Then he went up to his room and was sick in the basin on the table by the window.

5

Elise came back for drinks in the afternoon, bringing with her the rest of her wedding party. Rutledge had gone up to change after walking down to the water’s edge, and the laughter announcing their arrival drifted up the stairs to him.

On his way down to join them, he heard Hamish’s voice in his ear.

“ ’Ware!”

A young woman with dark red hair and freckles was standing in the doorway at the foot of the stairs, listening to the ominous rumble of thunder in the distance. She turned and said, “Hallo, I’m Mary,” as she offered her hand.

Assuming she was the newly arrived matron of honor, Rutledge introduced himself and added that he’d been looking forward to meeting her.

She gestured toward the clouds. “I don’t relish the drive back to Dunster if it storms. Edgar may have to put us up. I’ve never cared for lightning.”

The unmade road from Dunster to Maitland’s house ended in a pair of nasty turns, and driving them in the dark and heavy rain would be tempting fate.

Rutledge said, “I’m sure there’s more than enough room here.”

Mary resolutely turned her back to the storm, and Rutledge kept her busy with questions about her journey until a little of her anxiety had faded. Then they joined the rest of the guests in the dining room, where the wedding party had gathered.

Watching them, Rutledge thought that Edgar and Elise made a striking pair. And she was carrying out her duties as hostess with smiling grace. Edgar’s eyes followed her, and his happiness was reflected in his own smile.

Rutledge had already met Elise’s parents, and he was standing with them at the edge of the crush of people when someone, he thought it was Mary, said, “And Ian, I believe you know Mrs. Channing?”

He spun on his heel, trying to keep the shock out of his face.

Meredith Channing smiled up at him and gave him her hand. “Yes, we’ve met before. Hallo, Ian, how are you?”

She was giving him time to recover.

Managing it somehow, he said, “I’m well. And you?”

“I’m well, thank you. It appears we’ve just made it before the storm.”

“Yes—you were fortunate.”

And then Elise’s cousin was greeting him, and Meredith Channing moved on, her voice drifting back to him as she said something to Edgar about the setting of his house.

When he had a moment to himself, Rutledge turned to watch her crossing the room and helping herself to the refreshments on the drinks table.

He had met her first on New Year’s Eve, at Maryanne Browning’s house, where Meredith had come to conduct a séance for the amusement of Maryanne’s guests. Something about her had struck him then, a certainty that she knew more about his war years than he was willing to tell anyone—he’d even been absurdly afraid that she would find Hamish in his mind. A fear that had been reinforced when he learned that she’d served as a nurse at a forward aid station and remembered seeing him there.

They had been thrown together a number of times since that night, and he’d come to an uneasy truce with her. Meredith Channing had never spoken of his past or her own, keeping their friendship, such as it was, firmly anchored in the present. And yet, an undercurrent was always there, her warm charm and that quiet poise so unusual in a woman only a few years his junior, a snare that drew him and repelled him at the same time.

She came across the room later and stood before him, looking out the windows as the rain pelted down and the thunder echoed wildly across the moor.

Before she could say anything, Mary, the red-haired bridesmaid he’d met earlier, came up to claim his attention. He’d been standing a little apart from the others in the room, his claustrophobia getting the better of him. His back was to the windows that looked out on the terrace, and he suddenly felt cornered.

Glancing uneasily at the swirling rain as a sheet of lightning lit up the sky, Mary said, “Doesn’t it bother you?” She shivered, her hands cupping her elbows, as if to hold warmth in.

“Shall I find a wrap for you?” he asked, dodging the question.

Mary shook her head. “It’s the thunder. It reminds me of the guns in France. We could hear them in Kent, where I lived then. And sometimes even see the flashes.”

Her words were suddenly loud in a brief lull in the conversation, and people stood still, as if not knowing how to break the spell they cast. Then Elise’s father said, “Thank God that’s behind us,” and changed the subject.

Mary turned away from the dark glass. “I think I’ll make some tea, if Elise hasn’t. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. I understand.”

She gave him a grateful smile and left him there.

Meredith Channing said, for Rutledge’s ears alone, “You needn’t worry. The storm will pass soon, and then we’ll be gone.”

He said, “I’m not sure it will be safe, even then. The road is tricky.”

“There’s a moon. When it breaks through the clouds, there will be enough light to see our way.” Against his will, her calm assurance enveloped him.

He said, “Everyone seems quite content to stay until then.”

“Most of us have known one another for some time. It’s like a family gathering, everyone catching up on news. The war years were hard, and we’ve all paid a high price for this peace.”

He wanted to ask her what her price had been but couldn’t bring himself to introduce such a personal note.

Yet he found himself comparing Meredith Channing to Elise.

They were only a few years apart in age, but Elise had been sent to live in the comparative comfort and isolation of Dunster, with no troop trains arriving in the night with the wounded, no outbound trains filled with cheering soldiers marching away to war, shielding her from the cauldron of anguish and suffering Mrs. Channing had seen at the Front. And so age was not a measure of the differences between them.

Only experience could be.

That thought reminded him of an earlier one, that perhaps Edgar had deliberately chosen someone like Elise. As perhaps he himself had held to the memory of his former fiancée, Jean, long after any hope of reconciliation. Were they both so desperate to wipe away the bitter-ness and fear and nightmares they’d brought home with them?

Mrs. Channing smiled, as if she’d read his mind, and he swore to himself as she said, “I believe they’ll be happy, those two. Elise is steadier than she appears. Right now, she’s giddy with happiness, and has a right to be. Edgar wouldn’t propose until he was sure he was well enough. He didn’t want to be a burden, I imagine, but Elise was afraid he’d never work up the courage. He needs her brightness. In a few months he’ll forget he’s lost a limb and agree to one of those artificial ones that are available now.”

Edgar had said nothing to him about replacing his leg with an artificial one.

And again, Meredith said, apropos of that, “He was afraid he’d make a fool of himself tomorrow, falling. He feels safer just now with his crutches.”

“Did Elise tell you that?” he said. Or had you read it in Edgar’s tea leaves?

A twinkle appeared in Meredith’s dark eyes. “Ian. I’ve seen Edgar any number of times when he has come up to London. If he brings Elise, she stays with me. For propriety’s sake. And we’ve talked a time or two.”

He felt himself flush with embarrassment. Managing a laugh, he said, “Sorry. I met you first as a necromancer, remember.”

“Yes. I remember. It was not the best of footings for friendship, was it? I can sometimes guess what someone is thinking—anyone can, if he knows human nature. A policeman employs the same skills, surely.

It isn’t so strange a gift.”

“A policeman,” he responded dryly, “doesn’t care to have those skills used against him.”

She laughed. It was low and husky and somehow intimate.

“Touché.”

As the storm descended on them in earnest, the party moved down to the kitchen and made a spur-of-the-moment tea out of what they found there, carrying it triumphantly to the room overlooking the terrace and sitting on the rugs or in the chairs, conversation flowing smoothly. Rutledge found he was enjoying himself.

Meredith Channing was talking with Neal Hammond, and Rutledge could hear her voice but not what she was saying, though it was clear from the expression on Hammond’s face that he found her attractive. From the way he touched her arm at one point, it was also clear that they had known each other for some time.

Hamish spoke, startling Rutledge. He had been silent since that first sharp “ ’Ware!” as Rutledge had come down the stairs earlier in the evening to join the gathering. “Ye canna’ let your guard down. It would be foolish.”

But the evening had unexpectedly turned into a very pleasant few hours, and when the storm had passed and it was too late to adjourn to The Luttrell Arms for dinner, no one made a move to leave.

Edgar, coming to sit beside Rutledge, was in the best of spirits, all qualms apparently quashed for now, and he smiled at his friend with wry warmth.

“Thank you for coming, Ian. I thought I needed support through this. Now I’m glad I have a friend beside me.”

“A thunderstorm can work wonders,” Rutledge said, grinning at Edgar. “Did you order it up yourself?”

“If I’d thought about it, I’d have tried. I think Elise’s parents are satisfied now that she’s not marrying a cripple with no prospects.

They knew my grandfather, and I’ve heard they told their daughter in the beginning that I wasn’t half the man he was. That, thank God, was on my last leave, before I’d lost my leg. I was greener then. They seem to be enjoying themselves tonight.” He stretched out his leg and said,

“I hadn’t realized that you knew Meredith.”

It was a fishing expedition, transparently so.

“I met her at Maryanne Browning’s,” Rutledge replied.

“She’s been a widow for several years now. I’m glad to see her out and about again.” Edgar Maitland was matchmaking.

Rutledge smothered a smile. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said dryly.

“You could do worse. I’m not one to speak ill of the dead, but Jean wasn’t right for you. I could have told you that in 1914, but you wouldn’t have listened.”

“Probably not.”

Edgar laughed. “You have no idea what happiness is until you’ve found someone to love. Just look at me!”

Elise came over to join them, saving Rutledge from finding an answer to that. He stood up to offer her his chair, but she said, “It’s near the witching hour. And the storm seems to have dwindled to broken clouds. We must leave. I have it on good authority—my mother—that it’s bad luck to see one’s bride on the day of the wedding, until she walks down the aisle.”

“We don’t want to risk that.” Edgar got to his feet with some difficulty, then shoved his crutches under his arms with the ease of habit.

“Let’s start rounding up the guests.”

In a flurry of farewells, Elise collected her family and friends and set out for Dunster. Edgar watched them go, the headlamps of the convoy of cars twisting and turning down the road.

“You didn’t wish Mrs. Channing a good night. Not that I saw.”

“I’ll see her tomorrow and apologize profusely.”

“You’re incorrigible, my friend. Hammond will snap her up if you don’t.”

Laughing, they went up to bed.

The wedding was held in St. George’s, a small gem that had once been part of a long-vanished priory before becoming a parish church. It boasted a magnificent wagon roof and what was said to be the longest rood screen in England, but all eyes were on the bride as she walked down the aisle. Photographs of the wedding party were taken in what had once been the Prior’s Garden, and there was a breakfast, and music, but not for dancing, in The Luttrell Arms, across from the Yarn Market. A quartet played softly in the background, and the cake was a masterpiece of culinary art. On the top sat an elegant sugar swan, wings spread wide and a ribbon in its beak bearing the names of the bride and groom in gold lettering. Rutledge, seated next to Edgar, led the toasts, and then as the conversation grew more general, discovered that Elise’s father was a longtime friend of his godfather, David Trevor, who lived now in Scotland.

“Wonderful architect,” Caldwell said. “It’s a pity that he retired so early. But then I understand—I also lost a son in the war. Elise’s middle brother. Not something you get over, is it?”

“No, sir, it isn’t. Have you also retired?”

“To my sorrow, no. I advise people on how to invest their money.

And they won’t hear of my giving it up.” Caldwell smiled. “The day will come, inevitably. I expect I shall have to ease them into accepting it. My wife is eager for me to grow roses and spend more time with her.” He made a face. “I’d much rather fish, you know. I’m an angler by nature, not a gardener.”

In the early afternoon, the bridal pair set off on their wedding trip.

Edgar drove, waving gaily to guests as he and Elise bounced over the cobbles and turned beyond the castle. The motorcar had been modified so that he could manage. It was, he’d told Rutledge, a matter of pride.

Once out of sight, Elise would take the wheel for the rest of their journey.

The remaining guests left the inn in the next hour, many of them on their way back to London, and Rutledge found himself face-to-face with Meredith Channing as she came to say good-bye. They had been thrown together often during the morning, and Rutledge had to admit that he’d enjoyed her company.

“Safe journey,” he said, and she nodded.

“Same to you. I’m driving with friends. We ought to make good time. That was a lovely toast you proposed to the bride and groom.

You have a way with words.”

“Thank you. It was heartfelt.”

“Yes, Edgar was touched. It was good to see you again, Ian.” She offered her hand, and he took it. They shook briefly, and then she was gone, leaving an unexpected emptiness behind her.

Rutledge told himself it was because everyone else had left, and the day that had begun with such glorious sunshine for the wedding was now changing.

He turned to say good-bye to Elise’s parents as they followed the last of the guests out the door. Caldwell clapped him on the shoulder and said, “If you’re in the City, stop in.”

“I will, sir. Thank you.”

And then he was back at the house on the hill, where the view was magnificent and his footsteps echoed through the rooms. The ghosts of laughter and excitement and happy voices made the silence seem almost ominous, and he shrugged off the sudden upsweep of melancholy.

He spent the next hour clearing away, as Edgar had asked him to do, preparing to close up the house before he left in the morning. And then he sat on the terrace to watch the sun set behind a bank of clouds.

Restless, he was in no mood to sleep, but finally he took himself off to bed, with a small whiskey and the voice of Hamish MacLeod for company.

When someone knocked at Maitland’s door shortly after midnight, Rutledge came awake with a start. He fumbled for his dressing gown and slippers, then went to answer the summons.

At first sight of the grim-faced uniformed constable standing on the doorstep, he thought, Oh, dear God, Edgar insisted on driving all the way—and there’s been a crash. And then the next thought, Pray God they aren’t hurt badly!

He could feel the presence of Hamish, stark and loud in his ears as he said, “Good evening, Constable. Not bad news, I hope!”

And waited to hear the worst.

But the middle-aged man standing there in the quiet night air asked, “Mr. Rutledge, sir?”

“Yes, I’m Rutledge. What is it, man?”

“There’s been a telephone call from London. Chief Superintendent Bowles, sir. He says you’re the nearest man to the scene and would you return his call at the Yard straightaway.”

Relief washed over him.

“Let me find my shoes and a coat.”

He went back up the stairs to the guest room, leaving the constable standing in the hall, waiting for him.

When Chief Superintendent Bowles wanted a man, it paid to be prompt. Throwing his coat on over his pajamas and thrusting his bare feet into the shoes he’d worn for the wedding, he wasted no time wondering about the summons. Closest to the scene generally meant that Bowles had little choice in the matter of which man to send and was putting speed before preference.

He helped the constable lash his bicycle to the boot of the motorcar rather than the rear seat, unwilling in the dark to risk finding Hamish in what always seemed to be his accustomed place, just behind Rutledge’s shoulder. It was a silent drive down to Dunster; the air was warm and heavy, the stars vanished. The only sign of life they saw was a hare bounding off into the high grass by the road.

The constable commented as they reached the town’s outskirts,

“Easier coming down by motorcar than peddling up as I did on that confounded bicycle.”

Dunster’s streets were quiet, the police station’s lights almost blinding as Rutledge stepped through the door. It was five minutes after the connection was made before Bowles’s voice came booming down the line. “In Somerset, are you?”

“Yes, sir. I took several days’ leave,” he reminded the chief superintendent. “For a friend’s wedding. I’ll be back in London on Monday.”

“Indeed. Well, there’s a change in plan. You’re to go at once to Cambury. It’s just south of Glastonbury, I’m told. The local man is on the scene already, and he’s handing the case over to us. You’re the closest inspector I’ve got to Cambury. By my reckoning you can be there in three hours or less.”

“Why is he asking for our help at this early stage?”

“A man’s been killed. Name of Quarles. His place of business is in Leadenhall Street here in London. His country house is in Somerset, and apparently he’d come down for the weekend. Ghastly business, I can’t think why anyone would wish to do such a thing, but there you are. They’re expecting you, see that you don’t dally!”

“No, sir—”

But Bowles had cut the connection and the line was dead.

6

Rutledge closed up Maitland’s house, left a note for Edgar regarding the sheets the laundress wouldn’t be able to collect with the door locked, then took his luggage out to his motorcar. He thought ruefully that evening dress and casual attire would hardly be what Cambury was expecting, but it was all he had with him.

A low-lying mist had crept in on the heels of the warm air, wreathing the night in a soft veil that threw the light from his headlamps back in his face and from time to time made the road seem to vanish into a white void.

He was given directions to Cambury by the police in Dunster and found that the road was fairly good most of the distance. “It’s a village that’s outgrown itself,” the constable had said, “and much like Dunster in its own way. Though we have the castle, don’t we, and there’s none such in Cambury. Still, there are those who claim King Arthur knew it, and might be buried thereabouts. My wife’s sister plumps for Glastonbury, of course. That’s where she lives.”

When he could relax his concentration on the road, Rutledge considered what Bowles had told him. The chief superintendent took a perverse pleasure in giving out as little information as possible to any subordinate he didn’t like. But everyone at the Yard knew that it was one of the methods Bowles used to weed out men he didn’t wish to see climb the ladder of promotion.

The victim, Quarles, had a place of business in Leadenhall Street and thus lived in London. Who then was taking over that part of the inquiry while Rutledge was busy in Somerset? It would be revealing to have the answer to that.

Rutledge drove on through the mist with only Hamish for company, the voice from the rear seat, just behind his ear, keeping up a running commentary. Hamish had been—for him—unusually silent during the weekend, his comments brief enough to be ignored. It was never clear why Hamish sometimes had nothing to say. Like an army that had lost contact with the main body of the enemy, Rutledge was always on his guard at such times, distrustful of the silence, prepared for an attack from any quarter when he least expected it.

Dr. Fleming, who had saved Rutledge’s sanity and his life in the clinic barely twelve months ago, forcing him against his will to acknowledge what was in his head, had promised that his patient would learn to manage his heavy burden of guilt. Instead, Rutledge had become a master at hiding it.

All the same, he answered that voice aloud more often than he liked, both out of habit and because of the compelling presence he could feel and not see. He stood in constant danger of disgracing himself in front of friends or colleagues, drawing comment or questions about the thin edge of self-control that kept him whole. Shell shock was a humiliation, proof of cowardice and a lack of moral fiber, never mind the medals pinned on his breast. And so the tension within himself built sometimes to intolerable levels.

It was the only scar he could show from his four years in the trenches.

Unlike Edgar Maitland. His men had commented on his luck, watched him with misgivings at first, and then with something more like fear.

Many an inexperienced officer gained a reputation for reckless daring and wild courage, believing himself invulnerable. More often than not, he died with most of his men, not so much as an inch of ground gained.

But the young Scots under Rutledge soon realized that their officer put the care of his men above all else, and so they had followed him into whatever hell was out there, across the barbed wire. Knowing he would spare them where he could, and bring them back when he couldn’t.

And that had finally broken him. Aware of the faith put in him, trying to live up to it, and watching men die when it was impossible to save them—even while he himself lived—had taken an incalculable toll of mind and spirit. Hamish’s unnecessary death had been the last straw. Finding a way back had somehow seemed to be a final betrayal of the dead.

In that last dark hour before the spring dawn, the road Rutledge had been following rounded a bend and swept down a low hill into a knot of thatched cottages. Then, like a magician’s trick, the road became Cambury’s High Street, leading him into the sleeping village.

The mist that had kept pace with him most of the way was in tatters now, a patch here and there still lying in wait, and sometimes rising to embrace the trees on the far side of the duck pond. The Perpendicular church tower, to his left, loomed above the clouds like a beacon.

The village’s modest prosperity was visible in the shop fronts and in the houses that lined the street. Typical of Somerset, there was an air of contentment here, as if the inhabitants neither needed nor expected anything from the outside world.

He noted several lanes that crossed the High Street, vanishing into the darkness on either side. Like Dunster, whatever Cambury had been at the height of the wool trade, when it had had the money to build such a church, it was now a quiet byway.

What, he wondered, had brought Quarles here? It wasn’t the sort of village that had much to offer a wealthy Londoner. Unless there were family ties to Somerset . . .

Hamish said, “Ye ken, it’s a long way to London.”

In miles and in pace and outlook.

An interesting point. What reputation did Quarles have here, and was it different from that of the man of business in the City? And could that have led to murder?

He saw the police station just ahead and pulled over.

Inside a constable was waiting for him, yawning in spite of himself as he got up from his chair to greet Rutledge.

“You made good time, sir,” he said. “I’m to take you along to the house straightaway. My name is Daniels, sir. Constable Daniels.”

For the second time that night, Rutledge helped a constable lash his bicycle to the boot, and then the man cranked the motor for him, before getting in and shutting the door.

“Where are we going?” Rutledge asked as Daniels directed him out of the village.

“The house is called Hallowfields. This was mainly monastery land once, and there’s a tithe barn built to hold whatever goods the local tenants owed the monks as rent.”

The High Street had turned back into the main road again, and as they crested a slight rise, walled parkland on their right marked the beginning of an estate.

“The tithe barn is on his property, and so Mr. Quarles set himself up as squire, taking over from the monks, you might say.”

“Was this popular in the village? Surely not?”

“He wasn’t the first owner to claim squire’s rights, but as he was mostly in London, it wasn’t hard to ignore him. Though some of the farmers came to him for help when their crops were bad or their plows broke or their roofs leaked.” Daniels grinned at Rutledge, his face bright in the reflected glow of the headlamps. “A costly business, being squire. There, you can just see the gates coming up ahead. We’ll pass them and turn instead at the entrance to the Home Farm.”

Hamish said, “He doesna’ grieve o’er much for the dead man.”

A pair of handsome iron gates, disembodied in the mist, closed off what could be seen of the drive before it vanished into the night, a gray ribbon that appeared to go nowhere.

They came to a break in the wall, where a small, whitewashed gatehouse marked the way into the working part of the estate. The cottage was very pretty, with roses climbing up the front, framing the windows and the single door.

“Here we are, sir.”

“Does anyone live there?” Rutledge asked, nodding at the gatehouse.

“No, sir. It’s been empty for some time.”

Rutledge turned into the lane that led to the farm, and almost immediately his headlamps picked out a track bearing to the left.

“That way, sir, if you please. We don’t go as far as the farm.”

Rutledge bumped into the rutted track that curled through a copse of trees. Ahead, his lights picked out the rising bulk of a gray stone building that appeared to block his way. The mist lingered here in the trees, as if caught among the branches, and then without warning he drove into a thicker patch, like cotton wool. It swallowed the motorcar, and he felt the sudden shock of claustrophobia as the track seemed to vanish as if by magic, leaving him in an opaque world. Just as suddenly he came out into a small clearing, where a bicycle and two other vehicles were clustered together, as if for comfort.

At the edge of the clearing stood the tithe barn, vast, dark, and hunched, as if it had lurked there for hundreds of years, waiting patiently for the return of its builders.

Judging from the size of it—a good 200 feet long and possibly closer to 250—this part of Somerset had been prosperous under the monks’ rule. The roof soared high above their heads as they got out of the motorcar, and something about the way it loomed in the darkness and shreds of mist was almost evil.

He laughed at himself. A night without sleep played odd games with the imagination.

Where once there had been a roofed entrance on the side of the barn facing him, there was a single door now, dwarfed by the heavy stone walls rising into the night sky.

He turned to ask Daniels a question as the constable gestured toward the door. “That way, sir. They’re expecting you. I’m to fetch the doctor, now that you’re here.” He went around to the back of the motorcar and took down his bicycle, nodding to Rutledge as he mounted the machine and peddled into the mist.

Rutledge walked toward the entrance. The heavy door creaked under his hand as he shoved it open and stepped inside.

It was like stepping into the truncated, unfinished nave of an enormous church. There was no great west front, no transepts or choir or altar or apse, only a forest of huge squared wooden timbers rising like columns into the darkness overhead, where they supported a handsome array of beams. The silence was almost that of a church as well, where a whisper would carry round the bare stone walls.

The only light came not from wax sanctuary candles but from three lanterns that rested on the flagstone floor, picking out three startled men standing staring at him, as if he were an apparition walking through the door.

The taller of them, the one with a square face, cleared his throat.

“Inspector Rutledge, I take it?”

“Yes, I’m Rutledge.”

“We weren’t expecting you for another two hours.” The speaker walked forward, hand outstretched. “Inspector Padgett. And two of my men, Constable Horton and Constable Jenkins. I expect you’ve met Constable Daniels. He was waiting to bring you here.”

Rutledge acknowledged the introductions, and just as he shook hands with Padgett, something in the rafters caught his eye.

He stopped, his head raised, his gaze fixed.

Above them, like an avenging angel high among the beams that held up the roof, was a man with out-flung arms and immense feathered wings springing from his back.

“Gentle God,” Rutledge murmured before he could stop himself.

“Quite,” Padgett replied.

“Is that Quarles? Is he dead?”

“Yes, on both counts. We didn’t touch him. I sent Constable Daniels to call Scotland Yard and then wait for whoever was coming. Of course we recognized him straightaway. It’s Harold Quarles, beyond any doubt. This is his land—his barn.”

“What killed him?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“How in the name of God did anyone get him up there?”

“It’s easy, if you know the trick. Quarles puts on a Christmas pageant here, complete with live sheep and a donkey and even an inflatable camel he brought down from London. The figures are local people, and it’s considered an honor to take part. Wise men, shepherds, and so on. There’s an angel as well, with a rig to hold him or her up there.

Quite comfortably, I’m told, if a little hair-raising. I wouldn’t want to try it myself, I can tell you.” He gestured toward the shadows along the walls. “Trestle tables and benches over there, and on this side the manger and the bits that create the stable and its roof. And along there as well, the apparatus for the angel. It’s kept in a chest, out of sight, along with the wings. It’s very well known, our Christmas pageant.

Even the London papers have written it up. And a gazette featured it one year. My son was the babe in the manger that Christmas.”

“Which tells me a good many people knew the apparatus was here, and that it works.”

“I would say so, yes.”

“Is the door kept locked?”

“It hasn’t been for some years. The hasp rusted through, and no one has replaced it. Where’s the need? We’ve never had any trouble before.”

“Who found him? How long has he been up there?”

“We don’t know how long. We’re hoping the doctor can answer that. I came past here on my way home. It’s a little out of my way, but I’d told Constable Horton here that I’d do his last patrol for him before he went off duty at eleven. We’d had a busy night of it with a pair of quarrelsome drunks, and we were tired. Just by the turning for the Home Farm, I heard a dog barking in an alarmed sort of way, and I stopped to investigate. The noise was coming from the trees here, and I walked in toward the barn. I saw that the door was ajar, and I thought perhaps the dog had cornered a badger inside. I went back to my motorcar for my torch, and by that time the dog had given up and gone away. I was on the point of leaving myself but decided to step inside, since I was already here. And at first I saw nothing. Then something creaked, and I looked up. I can tell you, I got the fright of my life!”

It was a well-rehearsed account, and Rutledge nodded, still staring at the figure over his head.

Into his mind’s eye came the image of the swan on Edgar Maitland’s wedding cake, its wings spread, a ribbon in its mouth. The contrast was appalling.

“Where’s the dog now? What did it look like?”

“I heard him, I didn’t see him. There are several dogs at the Home Farm, and I’m told Mrs. Quarles has two King Charles spaniels.”

Rutledge took out his own torch and shone it on the spectral winged body in the darkness above.

Quarles was dressed in street clothes, a dark suit, waistcoat, and white shirt. His arms were rigidly outstretched in an openwork cage that enclosed his entire body. An angel in a nativity pageant could easily conceal the white cage with a full-length robe and long flowing sleeves worn over it, giving the impression of floating in the shadows overhead. The thickly feathered wings attached somewhere at the back of the shoulders and partially outstretched, as if in flight, were a bizarre counterpoint to the dead man’s ordinary clothing.

“He’s a reasonably heavy man. Could one person pull him up to that height?”

“It’s block and tackle. I’ve seen one man do it, for the pageant.”

“Is there anyone who hated Quarles enough to do this to him?

Because this is not just murder, there’s viciousness at work here. Otherwise he’d have been lying on the floor.”

Padgett sighed. “I shouldn’t wish to speak ill of the dead, but he was a hard man to like. Cold-natured and unbending when he wanted his way. I’d bring my children here for the pageant, like the rest of the village and the surrounding farms, but only because they wanted to come and see the angel and the camel. I’d have stayed away, myself. I’ll tell you straight out, I didn’t have much use for Harold Quarles.”

Padgett turned away, as if ashamed of his honesty. But something in his face told Rutledge that the man’s feelings were too strong to conceal.

Hamish said, “He intended for you to hear it from him first.”

“You’ve described the public man. Why did you dislike him so much?” Rutledge was blunt.

Padgett shrugged. “He could be callous. Almost to the point of cruelty. I don’t like that in anyone.”

Rutledge walked in a circle, trying to judge the body from every viewpoint. But only the man’s front was visible. What else might be there, on the dark side, would have to wait until he was brought down.

“There’s no blood on his shirt,” Padgett offered. “We don’t know if he was shot or stabbed.”

“And no blood here on the floor.”

“I had to leave him long enough to fetch Horton, and the lanterns.

There was nothing else I could do,” Padgett confessed.

“You were certain, before you left, that there was no one else here in the barn? Hiding behind one of the trestle tables?”

“I made sure of that. And besides, he was already dead. What harm could the killer do to him now?”

“He had time to clear away any evidence he’d left behind.”

At that moment the door opened, and they turned as one man to see who was coming in.

Constable Daniels had returned, this time with a thin man wearing gold-rimmed spectacles. He appeared to have thrown his clothes on in some haste, and his hair hadn’t been properly combed. Rutledge put his age at early forties.

“The doctor,” one of the constables said under his breath.

“What’s this about, Padgett? Daniels wouldn’t tell me.” O’Neil came briskly toward them, his gaze on the men staring back at him.

Padgett, almost reflexively, glanced upward, and O’Neil’s eyes followed his.

“Good God!” he said in horror. “You aren’t—that’s Quarles!”

He stood there for a long moment, as if unable to take in what he was seeing. “What the hell is he doing up there?” His gaze swung toward Padgett. “Is he dead? He must be dead!”

“To the best of our knowledge, he is. I didn’t care to move him until you got here.” Padgett crossed the flagstone floor to shake the man’s hand, then presented Rutledge.

“Dr. O’Neil. Inspector Rutledge from London.”

O’Neil looked Rutledge up and down. “Has he been up there that long? For you to be sent for? I should have been called sooner.”

“I was in Dunster, attending a wedding, and word reached me quickly. We think he must have been killed earlier tonight. Last night.

But that’s your province.”

“Indeed.” His attention turned back to the dead man. “Who in God’s name strung him up like that? He couldn’t have done that to himself, could he? And how are we to get him down?”

Padgett nodded to Daniels, who was standing behind the doctor, his jaw fallen in shock. It was the first time he’d been allowed inside the barn. “Constable, you’ve used this apparatus. Let him down.”

Daniels, startled, said, “Me? Sir?”

“Yes, yes, man, get on with it. You’ve done it often enough for the pageant.”

Daniels reluctantly went toward the shadowed west end of the barn and fumbled at something on the wall. As he did, the man above their heads swayed, his hands moving, as if he still lived, and the lamplight picked out the whites of his open eyes as he seemed to stare balefully at his tormentors.

7

Inspector Padgett sucked in his breath and took a long step back.

Dr. O’Neil swore sharply, adding, “Have a care, man!”

The apparatus creaked as Daniels put his weight into it, and a feather, dislodged from one of the wings, drifted down from above, turning and spinning, holding all their eyes as it wafted slowly among them, as if choosing, and then coming to rest finally at Rutledge’s feet.

The other men turned toward him, as if somehow he had been marked by it.

A shock swept through Rutledge, and he couldn’t look away from the white feather. He prayed his face showed nothing of what he felt.

During the war, the women of Britain had handed out white feathers to anyone they felt should have joined the armed forces, challeng-ing the man to do his duty or be branded a coward. It had got out of hand, this white feather business, to the point that the government had issued special uniforms for the discharged wounded, to spare them the mortification of explaining publicly why they were not now fit for active duty.

Every man there knew that story. And Rutledge could feel a slow flush rise in his cheeks, as if the feather had been earned, though in another time or place, by the charge of shell shock. That they recognized him, even without evidence, for what the world believed he was.

Padgett broke the spell, cursing Daniels under his breath. He started forward to help his constable and then thought better of it.

“Horton.”

Constable Horton hurried forward, his face tight, and in short order the two men got the apparatus under control. Bracing themselves against the dead man’s weight, they began gently to lower Quarles into the circle of lamplight.

Rutledge saw, watching them now, that a single man could have manipulated the rope under less stressful circumstances. But Daniels, fearful of dropping Quarles, had found it impossible to work the rope smoothly.

Hamish said, “Ma’ granny wouldna’ care to see this,” in a tone of voice that reflected his own feelings. “Witchcraft, she’d ha’ called it.”

It was as if Quarles flew down, landing easily first on his toes, the taut rope almost invisible against the darkness of the ceiling, the wings moving gently, as if of their own volition. And the watchers could at last see the other side of the body. The back of Quarles’s head was matted with dark blood, staining the pale red of his hair Attempting to tie off the rope, the two constables accidentally lifted the body again, and it seemed to the onlookers to have life in it still.

There was a brief hesitation, as if no one was eager to step closer.

Then O’Neil said tersely, “Get him out of that wretched thing.”

Releasing Quarles from the brace that had held him in the air was difficult. With a living person it would have been different, but the dead weight was awkward. And after that, detaching him from the wings hooked into the cage and the cloth at his shoulders and meant to appear from below as if they belonged where they were fastened, growing out of the man’s own back, took several people. Rigor mortis hadn’t set in, that much was apparent, as O’Neil quietly pointed out as they worked.

When at last Quarles slumped to the flagstone floor of the barn and the harness and cage had been dragged away, the doctor beckoned for the lamps to be brought nearer and knelt to begin his examination.

As O’Neil ran his hands over the body, a frown between his eyes, Rutledge got his first good look at the victim.

Quarles had pale red hair, a freckled complexion, and surprisingly regular features, although one eyebrow had a quizzical twist to it. A vigorous body, with a barrel chest and long legs. Rutledge judged him to be five feet ten inches tall, and put his age at either the late thirties or early forties. Without the force of his personality, he seemed oddly vulnerable, but the strong jaw and chin spoke of a man who knew what he wanted from life.

O’Neil was saying, “Nothing broken, as far as I can judge. No signs of a wound, other than what we can see on the back of his head. And that was the cause of death, if I’m not mistaken.” He moved his fingers through the blood-soaked hair and then wiped them on his handkerchief. “There are several blows here. Lacerations on the scalp in two areas. I’ll know more later, but someone wanted to make sure the first blow had done the job. And judging from the blood you can see in his hair, it hadn’t. The aim was better the second time, because poor Quarles was semiconscious and not resisting.”

“But both were struck from behind?” Rutledge asked. He had been studying the dead man’s hands. They were badly scarred.

The skin was still tight and shiny in places, though the worst of the injury had faded with time.

Hamish said, “Aye, we’ve seen burns before. But look you, they’re no’ on his face.”

Dr. O’Neil was regarding Rutledge, his expression puzzled.

He realized that the doctor hadn’t taken his point. He clarified his question. “That is to say, do the blows indicate whether Quarles had turned away from someone he was talking with? Or was it a surprise attack, something he didn’t see coming?”

“That’s your task to work out, not mine. All I can say is that he might have been turning away. The first laceration is a little behind and to the right of the second. Or at the last minute he could have heard someone coming up behind him and started to turn to confront whoever it was. I can’t tell you what was used to kill him. Or where he was killed. Unless there’s blood on the floor that I haven’t seen in this light?”

“Horton,” Padgett said over his shoulder, “take one of the lanterns and go over the flagstones as carefully as you can. Pay particular attention by the mechanism of that rig.”

The man set off, his light bobbing as he searched.

O’Neil stood, brushing off the knees of his trousers. “It’s my opinion that he hasn’t been dead very long. Hours, rather than days. Any idea who could have done this?”

“None,” Padgett replied shortly.

“How did he come by those burns on his hands?” Rutledge asked.

O’Neil said, “He’s had them as long as I’ve known him. I asked once, professional interest, but he just said it was an accident. It was clear he didn’t want to talk about it. Which reminds me, has anyone thought to let Mrs. Quarles know that her husband is dead?”

“We preferred to keep this quiet until Rutledge got here.” Padgett pulled out his watch. “They’ll be stirring at the Home Farm soon, if they aren’t already. It won’t take long for someone to see the vehicles outside and come to find out what’s happening. I suppose I ought to go to the house directly.”

“If you’ll lend me one of your men, I’ll see to the moving of the body while all’s quiet. Anything else you need from me?”

“Nothing at present—”

He was interrupted by Horton calling from the other end of the barn. “So far, there’s no blood to indicate if he was killed in here, sir.

We might do better in daylight, but I’ll wager it wasn’t in the barn.”

Padgett turned to Rutledge. “Do you want to go to the house with me?”

Breaking bad news was not Rutledge’s favorite duty, but someone had to do it, and it was just as well to meet the family now. Sometimes the way the household reacted to a death could be telling. He nodded.

“All right, Horton, you help the doctor. Daniels, you and Jenkins can see to this apparatus. Put it where it belongs and shut the chest on it. I don’t want to see it again. As it is, I’ll be hard-pressed to attend the pageant this year. Then I want the two of you to stand watch at the barn door. I’ll leave my motorcar for Jenkins. Turn about, every two hours—”

Rutledge said, “Wait, let me examine that cage.”

It was indeed wicker, as he’d thought, reinforced by wires, and the wings, he discovered, were attached as a rule to a brace that locked across the wicker frame, holding the Christmas angel safely in place.

It was all in all a clever device, and must create quite a spectacle. But there was nothing on the harness or the ropes or the pulleys that offered him any clue as to who had used it for a dead man.

“Thanks,” he said, nodding to the two constables, and turning to Dr. O’Neil, he asked, “Do you think Quarles was still alive when he was put into this contraption?”

“If he was attacked here, in the barn, I’d say he was dead before he was hoisted up into the rafters. The second blow rendered him unconscious, if he wasn’t already, and he was dying. Beyond saving, in fact, even if his attacker had changed his mind. It must have taken several minutes to get him into that device. Very likely there was a cloth or coat around his wound, or you’d have seen where his head rested during the process. At a guess, that’s why there’s no blood to be found here. It’s a deep wound, I could feel where fragments of bone have been driven into the brain. If he was brought here from somewhere else, he was dead before he got to the barn. And heavy as he is, he wouldn’t have been easy to manage. But it could be done. I’d look for scuff marks—where he was dragged—outside. If we haven’t obscured them with our own tramping about.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” Rutledge turned to follow Padgett, and O’Neil went with them as far as his own motorcar, to fetch a blanket.

Shielding his torch, Padgett studied the turf around the door.

“He’s right, too many feet have trod here. But there’s no other way in; we had no choice.”

Rutledge cast his light a little to one side, trying to find signs of torn grass. “How did the killer bring Quarles here? Motorcar? On his back?”

“If we knew that, we’d be ahead of the game, wouldn’t we?”

Padgett replied morosely. He climbed into the passenger seat while Rutledge was cranking the motor, and said to no one in particular, “I don’t relish this. Mrs. Quarles is an unusual woman. As you’ll see for yourself.”

“In what way?”

“You’ll see.”

Rutledge turned the motorcar and went back through the trees.

The mist had vanished, as if it had never been there. Where the track to the tithe barn met the farm lane, Padgett said, “We’ll go through the main gates. Set me down as you get there, and I’ll open them.”

The drive ran through parkland, specimen trees and shrubs providing vistas as it curved toward the house. When it came out of the trees and into smooth lawns toward the southeast, it went on to loop a bed of roses in front of the door. In the light breeze of early morning, their scent was heavy and sweet, and dew sparkled like diamonds among the leaves.

The house was tall, perfectly set among gardens, its dormer windows on the eastern approach already touched with the first rays of bright gold as the sun rose. A very handsome property, Rutledge thought as he pulled up, the sort of house that spoke of old money and breeding.

For a long moment Padgett sat there, looking at nothing.

“Well,” he said finally, “we must do our duty, and break their tranquility into shards.”

“I don’t see any dogs. Surely if they were loose, they’d be here to greet us,” Rutledge commented as they mounted the shallow steps and Padgett lifted the brass knocker. “At the very least the one you might have heard.”

Padgett, listening to the sound of the bell ring through the house, said, “I doubt the dog was hers. We’ll ask at the Home Farm.”

For several minutes no one came to the door. Then it swung open, and a housekeeper stood there, glaring at them before she recognized Padgett.

“Inspector,” she said in wary acknowledgment. “What brings you calling so early?”

“I’d like to speak to Mrs. Quarles, if I may. If she isn’t awake—”

“I doubt anyone’s asleep after such a summons at this hour.”

“It’s rather urgent,” Padgett replied, goaded.

“I’ll ask if she’ll receive you now.”

Rutledge said, “I understand Mrs. Quarles has several small dogs.”

The housekeeper stared at him, as if he’d lost his mind. “If it’s the little dogs you’ve come about, they’re asleep in Mrs. Quarles’s bedroom, where they belong.”

She shut the door in their faces, and Padgett repeated sourly, “‘I’ll ask if she’ll receive you.’ As if I’m a bloody tradesman come to settle my accounts.”

“It’s a matter of form,” Rutledge said

“Yes, well, we’ll see who’s unwanted, soon enough.”

When the housekeeper came to the door again, this time she swung it wide, to allow them to enter. “Mrs. Quarles will see you. If you’ll follow me.”

They walked into a spacious foyer. The black and white marble of the floor had been set in a chessboard pattern, and the walls were a pale green trimmed in white. A flight of stairs curved upward, and a small winged Mercury, gleaming in a shaft of sunlight from the fan-light above the door, balanced on his toes atop the newel post. Both men glanced at it, sharply reminded of the winged corpse in the tithe barn.

As he looked around, Padgett’s face mirrored his thoughts: Ostentatious. But the foyer, while handsome enough, was by no means the finest the West Country had to offer. Did Padgett know that? Rutledge wondered, or would it matter if he did? He seemed to resent everything about Harold Quarles.

The housekeeper led them to a door down the passage and tapped lightly.

“Come.” The woman’s voice inside the room was well bred and composed.

The housekeeper opened the door and said, “Inspector Padgett, madam.”

The small sitting room was clearly a woman’s morning room. A French gilt-trimmed white desk stood between the windows, and there was a pretty chintz on the settee and the two side chairs that stood before the hearth, the pattern showing a field of lupines on a cream background. The blue of the lupines had been picked up again in the draperies and the carpet.

Mrs. Quarles was standing with her back to the grate, her fingers pressing the collar of her cream silk dressing gown at her throat, her fair hair neatly pinned into place. She was a very attractive woman, perhaps in her middle thirties.

At her side was a tall man sitting in an invalid’s wheeled chair, a rug over his knees. His dark hair was graying at the temples, and his face was distinguished, with dark eyes beneath heavy lids. He had an air of sophistication about him, despite his infirmity. Mrs. Quarles’s other hand fell to rest on his shoulder as Padgett introduced Rutledge.

“From Scotland Yard?” she repeated in a clear, cool voice, examining Rutledge. “Why are you here at this hour? Is something wrong?

You haven’t come about my son, have you?”

“There’s been a death, Mrs. Quarles,” Padgett said, taking it upon himself to break the news. “I’m afraid it’s your husband—”

“Death?” Her eyebrows rose as if she couldn’t quite understand the word. “Are you sure?”

“Quite sure. We’ve just found his body—that is, a few hours ago—”

Padgett stopped, tangled in his own explanation. It was clear that he felt ill at ease in her presence, and that it annoyed him.

“Are you telling me that my husband killed himself?” she demanded. “I refuse to believe anything of the sort. Where did you find him, and what has happened to him?”

“We found him in the tithe barn—that is, I did, and summoned Mr. Rutledge here because of the unusual circumstances.”

She said testily, “Please get to the point, Inspector.”

Padgett bristled. “He was murdered, Mrs. Quarles.” The words were blunt, his voice cold.

Rutledge silently cursed the man. He was letting Mrs. Quarles set the direction of the interview.

Her hand, resting on the man’s shoulder, gripped hard. Rutledge could see the slender knuckles whiten with the force.

“Murder?”

The man raised a hand to cover hers.

Rutledge thought, they are lovers . . . there was something in that touch that spoke of years of companionship and caring. But here? In Quarles’s house?

Mrs. Quarles recovered herself and said, “By whom, for God’s sake? Are you quite sure it wasn’t an accident of some sort? My husband was forever poking about the estate on his weekends here, and sometimes drove Tom Masters to distraction.”

“We don’t have the answer to that at present. Shall I send Dr.

O’Neil to you directly? Or the rector?” It was noticeable that Padgett failed to offer the formal words of condolence.

“To me? I shan’t need Dr. O’Neil. Or the rector.” Her face showed shock, but no grief.

“We’ll need to speak to the staff. And I should like to see Mr. Quarles’s rooms if I may. I understand he’d come down from London for the weekend. Was he expected?”

The man in the chair answered for her. “Generally he sends word ahead. But not always. It’s his house, after all. This time he arrived in the late afternoon Friday, and spent most of yesterday with Tom Masters, who sees to the Home Farm. He came back around four, I should think, and told the staff that he intended to dine out. This was relayed to me when I came down before dinner.”

Padgett asked, “Mrs. Quarles?” Sharply seeking confirmation.

“Yes, as far as I know, that’s all true.”

“Were you on good terms with Mr. Quarles during this visit?”

“On good terms?”

“Did you quarrel? Have words?”

He watched the first crack in her facade of cool reserve as she snapped, “We never quarrel. Why should we?”

“Most married couples do. Did you see him when he returned from his dinner engagement?”

“I was not waiting up for him, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Rutledge stepped in before Padgett could follow up on that. “Did he dine alone?”

Mrs. Quarles turned to him, almost with relief. “How should I know? We go our separate ways, Harold and I.”

“Then you would have no reason to worry if he didn’t return at the end of the evening?”

“We live in different wings, Mr. Rutledge. By mutual agreement.”

“Is there anyone on the staff who saw to his needs while he was here in Somerset? Someone who might have noticed that he was out later than usual?”

For an instant he thought Mrs. Quarles had misinterpreted his question. Then she answered, “He doesn’t have a valet. My husband wasn’t brought up with staff to look after him. He preferred not to be troubled now.”

Rutledge turned to the man in the wheeled chair. She hadn’t introduced him, by choice.

The man said with something of a smile, “I’m Mrs. Quarles’s cousin. The name is Charles Archer. I live here.”

“Can you shed any light on Mr. Quarles’s movements during the evening? Or did you hear something that worried you? A dog barking, the sound of raised voices, lights near the drive?”

“My rooms overlook the main gardens. I wouldn’t be likely to hear anything from the direction of the drive.”

Mrs. Quarles added, “If he was killed near the road, anyone could have seen him walking there and attacked him.”

“We don’t know yet where your husband was killed. Did he have enemies, that you know of?” Padgett asked.

Mrs. Quarles’s laughter rang out, silvery and amused. “Why ask me?” she demanded. “You yourself never liked him—nor he you, for that matter. And you must know that half the families in Cambury had fallen out with him in one fashion or the other. Stephenson, Jones, Brunswick—the list goes on.”

Rutledge said, “Are you saying that these people felt strongly enough about your husband that they might have killed him?”

Mrs. Quarles shrugged expressively. “Walk down a street and point to any door, and you’re likely to find someone who detested Harold Quarles. As for taking that to the point of murder, you must ask them.”

“Why should they dislike him so intensely?”

“Because he’s—he was—ruthless. He gave no thought to the feelings of others. He was very good at pretending he cared, when it suited his purpose, but the fact is—was—that he used people for his own ends. When people discovered his true nature, they were often furious at being taken in. By then it was too late, he’d got what he wanted and moved on. The wreckage left in his wake was nothing to him. When he couldn’t simply walk away, he paid his way out of trouble. Most people have a price, you know, and he was very clever at finding it.”

“Then why are you so surprised that he was murdered?”

“I suppose I never expected anyone to act on their feelings. Not here—this is Somerset, people don’t kill each other here!”

Padgett, seeing his opportunity, said, “And you, Mrs. Quarles—do you number yourself among his enemies?”

She smiled at him, amused. “I have—had—a very satisfactory arrangement with my husband,” she said. “Why should I spoil it by killing him? It wouldn’t be worth hanging for. Though, mind you, there were times when he exasperated me enough that I might have shot him if I’d held a weapon in my hand. But that was the aggravation of the moment. He could be very aggravating. You should know that as well as I. All the same, I had nothing to gain by killing him.”

“Your freedom, perhaps?” Rutledge asked. “Or a large inheritance?”

She regarded him with distaste. “Mr. Rutledge. I already have my freedom. And money of my own as well. My husband’s death is an inconvenience, if you want the truth. I’ve been patient enough. If you wish to question my staff, Downing, the housekeeper, will see to it.

Otherwise, I must bid you good day.”

Padgett said, in a final attempt to irritate her, “Dr. O’Neil and the rector will confer with you about the services, when the body is released for burial.”

“Thank you.”

At the door, Rutledge paused. “I understand you have dogs, Mrs. Quarles.”

“Yes, two small spaniels.”

“Were they with you during the night?”

She glanced at Archer, almost reflexively, then looked at Rutledge.

“They were with me. They always are.”

But they were not here now . . .

“Are there other dogs on the estate?”

“I believe Tom Masters has several. They aren’t allowed as far as the house or gardens.”

Hamish was clamoring for Rutledge’s attention, pointing out that Mrs. Quarles had not asked either policeman how her husband had died. She had shown almost no interest in the details—except to assume in the beginning that it was an accidental death.

And Padgett, as if he’d overheard Hamish, though it was more likely that he was goaded by a need Rutledge didn’t know him well enough to grasp, said with venom, “Perhaps it would be best if we tell you, before you hear the gossip, Mrs. Quarles. We found your husband beaten to death, hanging in the tithe barn in the straps meant for the Christmas angel.”

Charles Archer winced. Rutledge took a step forward in protest. He had not wanted to make such details public knowledge at this stage.

But Mrs. Quarles said only, “I never liked that contrivance. I told Harold from the start that no good would come of it.”

A flush rose in Padgett’s face, and he opened his mouth to say more, but Rutledge forestalled him.

“Thank you for seeing us, Mrs. Quarles. Padgett—” There was stern command in Rutledge’s voice as he ushered the man through the door.

But before he could shut it, Charles Archer asked, “Is there anything we should do—?”

From the passage, Padgett interjected, “You must ask Dr. O’Neil about that, sir.”

Rutledge felt like kicking him in the shins to silence him. But Padgett had had his say and let the man from London shut the door.

The housekeeper was waiting, and Rutledge wondered if she had been listening at the keyhole. Padgett said to her, “What is said here is not for gossip. Do you understand?”

“Indeed.”

“We’ll be back in the afternoon to speak to the staff. I don’t want them talking amongst themselves before that.”

Rutledge said, “Do you have keys to Mr. Quarles’s rooms? I want you to lock them now, in our presence, and give the keys to me.”

She was about to argue, then thought better of it. The two policemen followed her up the stairs and toward the wing that Quarles used on his visits to Hallowfields. Mrs. Downing made certain that each passage door was locked, and then without a word handed the keys to those rooms to Rutledge.

“These are the only ones?”

“Yes. I don’t think Mr. Quarles wished to have just anyone going through his possessions.” It was a barb intended for Padgett, but he ignored it.

“Who cleans his rooms?”

“That would be Betty, Inspector. But she has no keys. She asks me for them if Mr. Quarles isn’t here. When he’s at home, the rooms aren’t locked.”

“Are there any other rooms in the house that Mr. Quarles used on a regular basis?” Rutledge asked.

“Only the gun room, sir. He had his study moved up here some years ago, in the suite next to his bedroom, and put through a connecting door. For privacy. He said.”

They thanked Mrs. Downing and went down the stairs. She followed, to see them out, as if expecting them to lurk in the shadows and steal the best silver when no one was looking. They could hear the click of the latch as she locked the door behind them.

8

Rutledge turned to Inspector Padgett as they crossed the drive to the motorcar. The anger he’d suppressed during the interview with Mrs. Quarles had roused Hamish, and his voice was loud in Rutledge’s ears.

“What the hell were you thinking about? You were rude to the victim’s widow, and you made no effort to conceal your own feelings.”

“I told you. I hate them all. I wanted to see her show some emotion.

Something to tell me that she cared about the man. Something that made her human.”

“Next time we call on witnesses, you’ll leave your own feelings at the door. Is that understood?”

Padgett said fiercely, “This is my turf. My investigation. I’ll run it as I see fit.”

“Not while the Yard is involved. Another outbreak like that, and I’ll have the Chief Constable remove you from the case.”

“No, you won’t—”

“Try me.” Rutledge walked down to the motorcar and turned the crank. He could hear Hamish faulting him for losing his own temper but shut out the words. Padgett had behaved unprofessionally, intending to hurt, and that kind of emotion would cloud his judgment as he dealt with the evidence in this case.

For an instant Rutledge thought Padgett would turn on his heel and walk to the tithe barn. Instead, sulking, he got into the motorcar without a word.

As they drove toward the gates, Rutledge changed the subject.

“Who is Charles Archer? Besides Mrs. Quarles’s cousin?”

“Gossip is, he’s her lover. I’ve heard he was wounded at Mons.

Shouldn’t have been there at his age, but when the war began, he was researching a book he intended to write on Wellington and Waterloo.

The Hun was in Belgium before anyone knew what was happening, and Archer fled south, into the arms of the British. He stayed—experience in battle and all that, for his book. Well, he got more than he bargained for, didn’t he?”

“And he lives at the house?”

“Not the normal family arrangement, is it? But then rumor has it that there’s not a pretty face within ten miles that Quarles hasn’t tried to seduce. Sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose, I’d say.”

“Any official complaints about his behavior?”

“Not as such.”

“Mrs. Quarles mentioned a son. Are there any other children?”

“Just the one boy. He’s at Rugby.”

They reached the gates and turned into the lane that led to the tithe barn.

Harold Quarles’s body had been taken away, and the barn had been searched again for any evidence or signs of blood, without success.

“Nothing to report, sir,” the constable told Padgett, gesturing to the shadowy corners. “We’ve gone over the ground carefully, twice.

And nothing’s turned up.”

Rutledge, with a final look around the dimly lit, cavernous building, found himself thinking that something must have been left behind by the killer, some small trace of his passage. No crime was perfect. If only the police knew where to look. Surely there must be something, some small thing that was easily overlooked . . .

Another problem. “Where did he dine?” he mused aloud. “And how did he get there?”

“We’ve only Mrs. Quarles’s word that he went out to dine,” Padgett pointed out. “It could be a lie from start to finish.”

“I hardly think she would kill her husband in the house,” Rutledge said to Padgett after dismissing the constable. “And he’s not dressed for a walk on the estate. Let’s have a look at that gatekeeper’s cottage. I recall you told me no one lived there, but that’s not to say it hasn’t been used.” He glanced around the tithe barn. “There’s something about this place—it’s not a likely choice for a meeting, somehow. If I’d been Quarles, I’d have been wary about that. But the gatehouse is another matter. Private but safe, in a way. Is it unlocked, do you think?”

“Let’s find out.”

Picking up a lantern, Padgett followed Rutledge out the barn’s door. They walked in silence through the trees to the small cottage by the Home Farm gate.

There was a single door, and when they lifted the latch, they found it opened easily.

Rutledge took the lantern and held it high. There were only three rooms on the ground floor: a parlor cum dining room, a tiny kitchen, a bathroom hardly big enough to turn around in. Stairs to the upper floor were set into the thickness of one wall. There were two bedrooms, the smaller one possibly intended for a child, though someone had converted it into a workroom.

“When Jesse Morton lived here, he made gloves. He’d been a head gardener until rheumatism attacked his knees. That was before Quarles bought Hallowfields.”

“Gloves?” Rutledge turned to look at Padgett.

“It’s a cottage industry in many parts of the county, and especially here in Cambury. Hides are brought in from Hampshire and distributed to households on the list. Mr. Greer owns the firm here, and there are still a good many people who earn their living sewing gloves.

My grandmother, for one. She raised three fatherless children, sewing for the Greers, father and son.”

The furnishings—well-polished denizens from an attic, judging by their age and quality—weren’t dusty, Rutledge noted, running his fingers over a chair back and along a windowsill. And the bedclothes smelled of lavender, sweet and fresh. Yet when he opened the armoire, there were no clothes hanging there, and nothing in the drawers of the tall chest except for a comb and brush and a single cuff link.

“Did you come here when the man Morton lived here? Has it changed?” he asked Padgett.

“Once, with my grandmother. I remember it as dark, reeking of cigar smoke, and there was a horsehair settee that made me break out in a rash. So I was never brought back.”

“And you’re sure that no one has lived here since then?”

“As sure as may be. What’s this, then? A place of rendezvous?”

“It’s been made to appear comfortable,” Rutledge mused. “To give an air of—”

“—respectability,” Hamish supplied, so clearly that the word seemed to echo around the solid walls.

But Hamish was right. There were lace curtains at the windows, chintz coverings on the chairs, and cabbage roses embroidered on the pil-lowcases. If Quarles had an eye for women, he could bring his conquests here rather than to an hotel or other public place. Or the house . . .

“—respectability,” Rutledge finished. “Let’s have a look at the kitchen.”

It yielded tea and sugar and a packet of biscuits that hadn’t been opened, along with cups and saucers and a teapot ready for filling from the kettle on the cooker.

“Who washes the sheets and sweeps the floor clean?” Padgett asked, looking round. “You can’t tell me Mr. High and Mighty Quarles does that. Not for any woman.”

“An interesting point,” Rutledge answered. “We’ll ask Betty, the maid who does his rooms at the house.”

Both men could see at a glance that this was most certainly not the place where Quarles was killed. No signs of a struggle, no indication on the polished floor that someone had tried to wipe up bloodstains or dragged a body across it.

Rutledge said, “All right, if they met here, Quarles and his killer, then the confrontation was outside. Somewhere between this cottage and the tithe barn.”

Padgett said nothing, following Rutledge out and closing the door behind them.

The sun was up, light striking through the trees in golden shafts, and the side of the cottage was bright, casting heavier shadows across the front steps. The roses running up the wall were dew-wet, today’s blooms just unfurling.

A path of stepping-stones set into the mossy ground led to the shaded garden in the rear of the cottage. Flower beds surrounded a patch of lawn where a bench and a small iron table stood. Setting the grassy area off from the beds was a circle of whitewashed river stones, all nearly the same size, perhaps a little larger than a man’s fist.

In the dark, Rutledge realized, the white stones would stand out in whatever light there was, marking where it was safe to stroll. Otherwise an unwary step might sink into the soft loam of the beds. He moved closer to examine them. None of them appeared to be out of place. Still, he leaned down to touch each stone in turn with the tips of his fingers. One of them, halfway round and half hidden by the bench, moved very slightly, as if not as well seated as its neighbors.

Padgett, watching, said, “You’re barking up the wrong tree. There was a heavy mist last night, remember, hardly the weather for chatting under the light of the moon.”

“And if Quarles was walking here, for whatever reason—coming home from a dinner party—it was a perfect site for an ambush.”

“He’d have walked down the main drive.”

“Who knows? He might have intended to go to the Home Farm.”

“Far-fetched.”

“Early days, that’s all. I think we’ve done all we can here.” Rutledge was ready to go on. But Padgett was staring now toward the house, which he couldn’t see from here.

“If Charles Archer could walk, I’d wager it was him. She may have been content with the status quo, but if the man has any pride—well, it takes nerve to cuckold a man in his own house.”

Padgett turned to walk back through the wood, and Rutledge, getting to his feet, heard Hamish say, “He’s no’ verra eager to help.”

They went back to the tithe barn, where Rutledge’s motorcar was standing. Padgett nodded to the constable guarding the tithe barn’s door as Rutledge turned the crank.

They drove in silence, each man busy with his thoughts. As they reached Cambury, the High Street was empty, and many of the houses were still shuttered. Bells hadn’t rung for the first service, and the doors of the church beyond the distant churchyard were closed.

Sunday morning. A long day stretched ahead of them.

Padgett was rubbing his face. “I’m dog tired, and you must be knackered. We’ll sleep for a few hours then go back to Hallowfields. It’s bound to be someone there. Stands to reason. They knew his movements.”

Rutledge said nothing.

Padgett went on. “I sent Constable Daniels to bespeak a room for you at The Unicorn after he telephoned the Yard. It’s just across the street there.” They had reached the police station. As Rutledge stopped the motorcar in front, Padgett added, “Come in. We’ll make a list of names, persons to consider. It won’t take long.”

With reluctance Rutledge followed him inside.

Padgett’s office was tidy, folders on the shelves behind his desk and a typewriter on a table to one side.

Indicating the machine as he sat down and offered the only other chair to Rutledge, he said, “I’ve learned to use the damned thing.

There’s no money for a typist, but I find that most people can’t read my handwriting. It’s the only answer.” He seemed to be in no hurry to make his list. Collecting several papers from his blotter, he shoved them into a folder and then turned back to Rutledge.

“Perhaps I should tell you a little about Cambury. It’s a peaceful town, as a rule. We’ve had only two murders since the war. Market day is Wednesday, and there’s always a farmer who has had a little too much to drink at The Glover’s Arms. The younger men prefer The Black Pudding. They grew up wild, some of them, with no fathers to keep them in line. An idle lot, living off their mothers’ pensions. But where’s the work to keep them honest? A good many workmen con-gregate there too. It can be a volatile mix.”

In an effort to bring Padgett back to the task at hand, Rutledge said,

“Do you think either of these two murders has a bearing on Quarles’s death?”

“On—? No, of course not. A young soldier killed his wife. We never got to the bottom of that, because he came here straightaway and confessed. Seems he was wild with jealousy over someone she’d been seeing while he was in France. Why he didn’t kill the other man, God knows. And truth be told, I don’t think he intended to kill her, but he knocked her down with his fist, and she struck her head on one of the firedogs. The other murder was family related as well—two brothers angry over the fact that the third brother inherited everything when the mother died. They shouldn’t have been surprised. They’d walked out and left the boy to care for both parents while they were making their way in London. They didn’t come home for the father’s funeral and probably wouldn’t have come for the mother’s if there hadn’t been property involved. There was a quarrel the night after her funeral, and it ended in the murder of the youngest. They claimed they’d already returned to London that morning, but there were witnesses to say otherwise.”

“Who was left to inherit?”

“A cousin from Ireland. She’s living in the house now, as a matter of fact. Her coming here set the cat amongst the pigeons, I can tell you. O’Hara is her name. Harold Quarles was taken with her. She told him what she thought of him, in the middle of the High Street.” He grinned at the memory.

Rutledge was accustomed to dealing with the various temperaments of the local policemen he was sent to work with. Some were single-minded, others were suspicious of his motives as an outsider or protective of their patch. A few were hostile, and others were grateful for another set of eyes, though wary at the same time. Padgett seemed to feel no urgency about finding Quarles’s murderer, and Rutledge wondered if he had already guessed who it might be and was busy throwing dust in the eyes of the man from London. And the next question was, why?

Hamish said, “Ye ken, he’s dragging his feet after yon dressing down.”

Rutledge had already forgotten that, but it wouldn’t be surprising if Padgett was still smarting. There was arrogance behind the man’s affability.

He asked, before Padgett could digress again, “Who might have had a reason to kill Quarles?” He took out his notebook to indicate that he was prepared to write down names.

“Consider half the population,” Padgett replied with a broad gesture. “Mrs. Quarles said as much herself. I told you. I’m only one of many who will rejoice that he’s dead.”

“Hardly the proper attitude for a policeman?” Rutledge asked lightly.

“I’m honest. Take me or leave me.”

“Quite.” Rutledge added, “Did Quarles spend much time here in Cambury? Or was he most often in London?”

“He came down once a month or so. It depended on how busy he was in the City. Last year he came and stayed for nearly three months.

That must have been an unpleasant surprise for the missus. She packed up and left for Essex, where Archer’s sister lives.”

“Speaking of Charles Archer, is it certain that he can’t walk?” It was a possibility that shouldn’t be overlooked.

“You must ask the doctor.”

Rutledge wrote down O’Neil’s name at the top of the page. “Let’s begin with the household. What do you know about them? ”

“Some of them come into Cambury on their day off. Generally they keep themselves to themselves. I daresay that’s what’s expected of them by the family. There’s no butler, just the housekeeper, because they seldom entertain. If you’re looking at the household, I’d put Mrs.

Quarles at the top of that list.”

“What about the townspeople?” When Padgett hesitated, Rutledge added, “The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. The rector. The doctor. The greengrocer.”

“Quarles didn’t get on with the rector. Rumor says he thought Heller was old-fashioned, out of step with the twentieth century. The living belongs to Hallowfields, and Quarles could replace him at will and bring in someone younger or more to his taste. The doctor he treated like a tradesman. The tradesmen he treated with outright contempt. Mr. Greer, owner of the glove firm, crossed swords with Quarles a time or two. According to Quarles, he was pushing up the cost of labor in Cambury, making it difficult for the local gentry to keep staff. The glove makers work at home, you see. It’s not a bad thing for a woman with children or a man who can’t do physical labor.”

Rutledge had stopped taking notes. “The field is wide open, then.

Still, it’s hard to believe that this sort of bickering led to murder.”

“There’s Jones, the Welsh baker, if you want more than bickering.

His daughter’s head was turned by Quarles, and Jones had to send her away to his family in Cardiff. And Mrs. Newell was cook at Hallowfields until Quarles sacked her. Now, there’s a woman who could have hauled Quarles into the rafters without any help. Arms like young oaks. Although in my view, she’d prefer a cleaver to a stone, for the murder weapon.”

“Mrs. Quarles also mentioned the name Stephenson.”

“Stephenson is a collector of rare books. He moved here from Oxford, when his health broke. He was born in Cambury. I never heard what lay between them. Money is my guess. He opened a small bookstore down the street, where his mother had had her millinery shop, and called it Nemesis.”

Hamish said, “Ye ken, he didna’ bring up the name himsel’.”

Which was surprising. Would Padgett have mentioned Stephenson at all?

Still, Rutledge was beginning to form a mental picture of Harold Quarles. It appeared that he hadn’t made an effort to fit into his surroundings. His own wife disliked him, come to that. Was he a contrary Londoner who irritated everyone he came in contact with, or did he feel that Somerset was too provincial to warrant courtesy? Yet Constable Daniels had claimed that Quarles wanted to be squire.

It could also be a sign of rough beginnings, this ability to rub everyone raw.

“What is Quarles’s background? Did he come from money?”

“Lord, no. He worked his way up from scratch. His father went down the Yorkshire mines, but the boy was given a decent education through some charity or other, and rose quickly in the financial world.

He’d tell you that himself, proud of his roots and making no bones about his beginnings. From what I gather, it was his honesty on that score that made him popular in London business circles. A diamond in the rough, as they say. If he hadn’t managed that, they’d have turned their back on him. You know the nobs, they sometimes like brutal honesty. Makes them feel superior.”

“But he must have also had the ability to make money for his clients, or they wouldn’t have kept him very long. Rough diamond or not.”

“I expect that’s true.” Padgett stood up with an air of duty done.

“I’m asleep on my feet. I’m going home. You’ll want at least an hour or two of sleep yourself.”

Rutledge put away his notebook. “I’ll be back here by twelve o’clock.”

“Make that one.”

They walked out together, and Padgett turned the other way, with a wave of the hand.

9

Rutledge could see The Unicorn from where he stood. It was a small hotel graced by a pedimented door and narrow balconies at the windows of the floors above. A drive led to the yard behind. He turned in there and went through the quiet side passage that opened into Reception.

At the large mahogany desk set in one corner, a young man was busy with a sheaf of papers, tallying the figures in the last columns. He put his work aside as he heard Rutledge’s footsteps approaching and greeted him with a smile.

“Are you the guest Constable Daniels told us to expect?”

“I am.”

The clerk turned the book around for his signature. “We’re pleased to have you here, Inspector. The constable mentioned that there’d been a spot of trouble up at Hallowfields.”

“Yes,” Rutledge answered, signing his name and pocketing the key.

The clerk was on the point of asking more questions, but Rutledge cut him short with a pleasant thank-you and turned away, picking up his valise as he crossed to the stairway.

The hotel had probably been a family home at some time, possibly a town house or a dowager house. The curving stairs to one side of Reception were elegant, with beautifully carved balustrades. Giving radiant light from above was an oval skylight set with a stained glass medallion of a unicorn, his head in the lap of a young woman in a blue gown, her long fair hair falling down her back in cascading tendrils.

As romantic as any pre-Raphaelite painting, it must have given the house and subsequently the hotel its name.

His room was down the passage on the first floor and overlooked the High Street. Long windows opened into a pair of those narrow balconies Rutledge had noticed from the police station, the sun already warm on the railings. He was pleased to see that he’d been given such large accommodations, with those two double windows, their starched white curtains ruffled by the early morning breeze. He needn’t fight claustrophobia as well as Padgett.

Hamish said, “Given to the puir policeman no doot to curry favor with them at Hallowfields?”

“Absolutely,” Rutledge returned with a smile. “Which suggests the hotel is where he came to dine last night.”

Hamish chuckled. “Aye, ye’ll be sharing the scullery maid’s quarters when the word is out he’s deid and ye’re no’ likely to drop a good word in his ear about The Unicorn.”

It was true—policemen on the premises more often than not were kept out of sight as far as possible, to prevent disturbing hotel guests.

Which signified that word of the murder had not preceded Rutledge to the hotel, only the news that Quarles had business with him.

He sighed as he considered the comfortable bed, then set his valise inside the armoire and went down to ask about breakfast.

The dining room was nearly empty.

There was an elderly couple in a corner eating in silence, as if missing their morning newspapers here in the wilds of Somerset. There was a distinct air of having said all that needed to be said to each other over the years and a determination not to be the first to break into speech, even to ask for the salt.

And a balding man of perhaps forty-five sat alone by the window, his head in a book.

Rutledge ate his meal and then asked to speak to The Unicorn’s manager. The elderly woman waiting tables inquired bluntly, “Was there anything wrong with your breakfast? If so, you’d do better speaking to the cook than to Mr. Hunter.”

“It’s to do with last evening.”

She raised her brows at that, and without another word disappeared through the door into the lounge.

It was twenty minutes before the manager arrived, freshly shaven and dressed for morning services.

Rutledge introduced himself, and said, “It’s a confidential matter.”

“About one of our guests?” Hunter was a quiet man with weak eyes, peering at Rutledge as if he couldn’t see him clearly. There were scars around them, and Rutledge guessed he’d been gassed in the war.

“I hope there’s nothing amiss.”

“Do you keep a list of those who dine here each evening?”

Hunter said, “Not as such. We have a list of those we’re expecting, and which table they prefer. And of course a copy of the accounts paid by each party. The cook keeps a record of orders.”

“Were you here last evening?”

“Yes, I was. Saturday evenings are generally busy.” He glanced at the elderly couple. “Er—perhaps we should continue this conversation in my office.”

Rutledge followed him there. Hunter kept his quarters Spartan.

There were accounts on a cabinet beside his desk, ledgers on the shelves behind it, and a half dozen letters on his blotter. Nothing personal decorated the desk’s top, the cabinet, or the shelves. The only incongruous piece was the glass figure of a donkey, about three inches high, standing on the square table by the door.

Hunter sat down and reached for a large magnifying glass that he kept in his drawer. With it poised in one hand, he asked, “Who is it you are enquiring about?”

“Harold Quarles.”

Hunter put down the glass. “Ah. I can tell you he didn’t dine with us last evening.” He frowned. “Were you told otherwise?”

“We aren’t sure where he took his dinner. The hotel was the most logical place to begin. ”

“Yes, certainly. Er, perhaps his wife or staff might be more useful than I?”

“They have no idea where he went when he left the house. Except to dine somewhere close by.”

“And you haven’t seen Mr. Quarles to ask him?”

“He’s not at home at present.”

Rutledge got a straight look. “What exactly is it you’re asking me, Mr. Rutledge?”

Rutledge smiled. “It’s no matter. If he wasn’t here, he wasn’t here.”

He rose. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Hunter.”

“I saw Mr. Quarles last evening. But not here. Not at the hotel.”

Rutledge stopped. “At what time?”

“It was close on to ten-thirty. Most of our dinner guests had left, and I stepped outside to take a breath of fresh air. I was looking up the High Street—in the opposite direction from Hallowfields, you see—

and I heard raised voices. That’s not usual in Cambury, but it was a Saturday night, and sometimes the men who frequent The Black Pudding go home in rowdy spirits. I stood there for a moment, in the event there was trouble, but nothing happened. No one else spoke, there was nothing more to disturb the night. As I was about to go inside, I heard footsteps coming briskly from Minton Street, and I saw Harold Quarles turning the corner into the High.”

“Minton Street?”

“It’s just past us, where you see the stationer’s on the corner.”

“Where does Minton Street lead?”

“There are mostly houses in that direction.”

“No other place to dine, except in a private home?”

“That’s right.”

“And Mr. Quarles continued to walk past the hotel, as far as you know?”

Hunter said, “I had shut the door before he reached the hotel. I’m not on good terms with the man.”

“Indeed?”

“He was drunk and disorderly in the dining room last spring.

There was a scene, and I had to ask him to leave. It was embarrassing to me and to the hotel—and should have been to him as well. I haven’t spoken to him since.”

Padgett had said nothing about Hunter’s encounter. He hadn’t named the manager at all.

“Yes, I see that it would be uncomfortable. And so you have no way of knowing where Quarles went from Minton Street?”

“None.” It was firmly spoken, his eyes holding Rutledge’s.

“And he was alone? On foot?”

“Yes, on both counts.”

“Do you know if there’s anyone on Minton Street who might count Mr. Quarles among their acquaintance?”

“I would have no idea.”

Rutledge thanked him and left Hunter sitting in his office, staring at the door.

At least, he thought, it put Quarles alone and on foot in town around half past ten. With perhaps another twenty or at most thirty minutes for his journey homeward. If that was where he was intending to go. Too bad Hunter hadn’t seen which direction Quarles had taken.

Rutledge walked out of the hotel to the corner of Minton Street.

Looking down it, he could see that the nearer houses were large and well kept, the sort of home that Quarles might have visited. It would be necessary to speak to each household, then, to find out.

Or Padgett’s men might be able to narrow that down.

There was a lane at the foot of Minton Street running parallel to the High Street, where cottages backed up to the fields beyond, a line of low hills in the distance. It wasn’t likely that Quarles had dined in one of the cottages. Or was it? Had he chosen to walk into Cambury, to keep his destination private? Or was he to meet his chauffeur or retrieve the motorcar somewhere else?

Hamish said, “If it was the home of a woman?”

That too was possible.

Rutledge continued walking up the High Street, looking in the windows of closed shops as he passed. There were other small streets crossing the High—Church Street and Button Row, James Street and Sedge Lane.

Beyond Sedge Lane stood the workaday world of the smithy-turned-garage and other untidy businesses that clung to the outskirts of a village struggling to become a small town, supplying the inhabitants whilst keeping themselves out of sight. Just beyond these, where the main road became Cambury’s main street, was the cluster of cottages Rutledge had noted in the dark last night.

He turned back the way he’d come, crossing the High Street where a large pub, whitewashed and thatched, stood at the next corner, offering tables in the front garden under small flowering trees. The overhead sign showed a large kettle with steam rising from it, made of wrought iron in a black iron frame. The Black Pudding. It had the air of an old coaching inn and was one of the few buildings in Cambury that wasn’t directly on the road, only a narrow pavement for pedestri-ans separating most of the house walls from the street.

He carried on to The Unicorn and went up to his room. This time he didn’t resist the temptation of his bed, and stretched out as he was, his mind restless, Hamish lurking on the threshold of wakefulness until the ringing of the church bells roused him.

When services had ended, Rutledge retraced his steps to Church Street. Cambury had sprung into life while he slept, people stopping to speak to friends or herding their children toward home. St. Martin’s was set in a broad walled churchyard that abutted a house of the same stone as the church. The rectory, then. A sign board gave the rector’s name as Samuel Heller. The stonework of the church facade was old but well maintained, and the tall, ornate tower rose into a blue, cloudless sky. Last night’s mist might never have been. Crossing the grassy churchyard, Rutledge saw the gate set into the wall and went through, into the front garden of the rectory.

He could hear birds singing in the trees scattered among the weathered gravestones, and a magpie perched on a shrouded marble cross watched him with a black and unreadable eye. Where there was shade the grass was still wet under his feet. On a gentle breeze came the sound of a cow lowing in a field beyond the houses.

The rector was at his breakfast and came to answer Rutledge’s knock with his serviette still tucked under his chin. He seemed surprised to find a stranger on his doorstep, but smiled warmly and invited Rutledge to step into the narrow hall. Holding out his hand, he said, “I don’t believe you’re one of my flock. I’m Samuel Heller, rector of St. Martin’s. How may I help you?”

“The name is Rutledge,” he said, taking the rector’s hand. The man’s grip was firm and warm. “I’m from London, from Scotland Yard, and I need a few minutes of your time to speak to you about one of your parishioners.”

“Oh, dear. That sounds rather serious. I was just finishing my toast,” he said, taking out the serviette and wiping his lips. “Could I interest you in a cup of tea? The kitchen is a pleasant room, and my housekeeper doesn’t come in on a Sunday, to chase us out of it.”

Rutledge followed him back to the kitchen, and it was indeed a pleasant room, giving onto a garden, a small orchard behind it, and several outbuildings that by the look of them, their wood a pale silver, had served the rectory for centuries. The kitchen door stood open to the yard, letting in the warmth and sunlight and a handful of f lies.

“I don’t usually entertain in the kitchen,” the rector went on in apology. “But the vestry meeting is in a quarter of an hour, and I am running a little late today.”

He did look tired. Gesturing to a chair across the table from where he had been sitting, he brought Rutledge a fresh cup, then pushed the teapot over the polished wood toward him. Rutledge helped himself.

It was strong tea, black and bitter, as if it had steeped too long.

“Now then, you were saying . . . ?”

It was hard to judge Heller—he was nearing middle age and thin, with an open face and calm gray eyes. Yet Padgett had included him in the list of Quarles’s enemies.

“I believe Mr. Quarles at Hallowfields is one of your flock?”

There was a brief hesitation in the knife buttering Heller’s toast, but his face showed nothing. “I include him in my flock, yes.”

Which, as Hamish was pointing out, was not precisely a response to what Rutledge had asked him.

“How well do you know him?”

Heller put down his knife and looked at Rutledge. “Has he done something wrong, something that has drawn the attention of the police?”

He had answered a question with a question, almost as if he expected to learn that Quarles was on the point of being taken into custody and was reluctant to add to his troubles.

“Do you know him, Mr. Heller?” Rutledge asked bluntly.

“Sadly, not as well as I should like. I fear he’s not what could charita-bly be called a member in good standing at St. Martin’s. I expect I could count on one hand the number of times he’s attended a service. Or that I have been invited to dine at Hallowfields.” Heller smiled disarmingly.

“But I’m stubborn to the bone, and I refuse to concede defeat. We asked Mr. Quarles to serve on the vestry, but he replied that it was not in anyone’s best interest. I interpreted that to mean he’s not often in Cambury and had no real knowledge of our problems here. But to give him his due, he takes a personal interest in Cambury, if not the church.”

“In what way?”

“I think Mr. Quarles looks upon himself as squire, much to the—er—dismay of people in some quarters. We aren’t strictly agricultural, you see, we’ve had cottage industries here for many years. Weaving, glove making. Even lace at one time. It changes one’s perspective about such things. And there’s the other side of the coin. What does a Londoner know about farming?”

The rector was nearly as good at skirting issues as Padgett. But he had confirmed Constable Daniels’s remarks.

When Rutledge didn’t comment, Heller said, “Now perhaps you’ll be good enough to tell me why you are here. What is your visit in aid of? Why questions about Mr. Quarles on a bright Sunday morning?”

“I’m afraid that Harold Quarles was murdered last night.”

“My dear Lord!” Shock wiped all expression from the rector’s face.

“I—we—don’t often see murder. Surely it wasn’t here—among us? That’s why you’re from the Yard, isn’t it? The poor man died in London.”