A Matter of Justice

The doctor greeted them, and if he saw any stiffness in their manner, he said nothing about it. Taking them to the narrow examination room where he’d put the bookseller, he added, “He’s recovering well enough. Physically, if not emotionally. But that’s not unexpected, given the circumstances. Be brief, if you want to question him.”

“Before we go in,” Rutledge said, “can you tell me if Michael Brunswick’s wife was diagnosed with a tumor? Or was she pregnant at the time of her death?”

O’Neil sighed. “Brunswick has convinced himself that I lied to him. I didn’t. If he killed Quarles, he’ll be coming for me next. He’s one of those men who can picture his wife in another man’s arms if she so much as smiles at a poor devil in the post office or the greengrocer’s. The fact is, I believed it to be ovarian from the start, because she’d had no symptoms until the tumor was well advanced. And I told her as much, warning her to prepare herself. I did prescribe tests, to confirm my diagnosis. Her mother had died of the same condition.

Sadly, she knew what to expect. And if by some miracle of surgery she survived the cancer, there would be no children.”

“How did you do the tests?” From what Rutledge had seen of the small surgery, he was certain Dr. O’Neil didn’t have the facilities for them here.

“I sent her to Bath, to a specialist there. Quarles lent her his motorcar and his chauffeur. She was in her last week of employment at Hallowfields the day she came to me, and when she told Quarles she was glad she was nearly finished, because it appeared that she was ill, he arranged to send her. It was a kind gesture. But Mrs. Brunswick made me promise to say nothing to her husband about that—she said he would disapprove.”

Rutledge thought, It could have been that Brunswick found out—

But that wasn’t the murder he’d come to Cambury to solve.

“Why the interest in Mrs. Brunswick?” O’Neil asked, clearly busy putting two and two together.

“It could offer a reason for her husband to kill Quarles,” Padgett answered, following Rutledge’s thinking. “Early days, no stone un-turned, and all that.”

“I’ve finished with Quarles, by the bye. And he did eat dinner the night he was killed.”

“Then let his wife bury him,” Padgett said. “The sooner the better.”

O’Neil looked at Rutledge for confirmation, and he nodded.

The doctor opened the door to Stephenson’s room. The man looked up, sighed wearily, and visibly braced himself for what was to come.

Rutledge said, “I’m happy to see you feeling a little better.”

“There’s better and better,” Stephenson said without spirit.

“Why kill yourself, if you’ve done nothing wrong?” Rutledge asked. “It’s a waste of life.”

“My reasons seemed to be sound enough at the time—”

He broke off and turned his face toward the wall, tears welling in his eyes.

“Do we clap you in gaol as soon as Dr. O’Neil here gives us leave?”

Padgett demanded irritably. “You as much as confessed that you wanted to kill Harold Quarles. Did you or didn’t you? You can’t have it both ways.”

“But he can,” Rutledge put in quietly. “If he paid someone to do what he couldn’t face himself.”

“That would be betrayal. I wouldn’t stoop to that. By rights,” he went on, “an eye for an eye, I should have killed his son. I couldn’t do that, either.”

“If you didn’t kill Quarles, why were you so certain we were about to take you into custody for this murder? Certain enough to kill yourself before we could.” He added in a level voice, no hint of curiosity or prying, merely trying to clarify, “Just what did Quarles have to do with your son?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. I’m still shaken, hardly able to believe I’m still alive. I expected never to see this world again. I thought I was well out of it.” His face was hidden, his voice rough with tears. “For God’s sake, go away and leave me alone.”

“In the end, you’ll have to clear yourself by telling us the truth.”

“I don’t have to do anything of the sort. You can’t threaten me with hanging. I know how the noose feels about my neck, and what it’s like to plunge into the dark. The next time will be easier, and it won’t be interrupted. I really don’t give a damn. ”

“If you want to die so badly,” Padgett reminded him, “you’d have to convince us first that you deserve to. What you’re feeling now is self-pity, not evidence. Do you think you’re the only man who’s lost a son? I can find you a dozen such fathers without leaving the parish.”

“He was my only child—my wife is dead. I never thought I’d be grateful for that, until the day the news came.”

Rutledge shook his head, warning Padgett to leave it as he was about to reply. Reluctantly Padgett turned and walked away, shutting the door behind him. Rutledge said to Stephenson, “Consider your situation. If you want to claim this crime even though you didn’t commit it, go ahead. That’s not vengeance, it’s martyrdom. And in the final moments before the trapdoor drops, you’ll find martyrdom isn’t a satisfactory substitute for what you’d promised your son to do.”

Not waiting for a reply, Rutledge turned on his heel, leaving Dr.

O’Neil alone with his patient.

As they walked down the passage, he could hear Stephenson’s voice: “I loved him more than anything, anything.”

Outside, Padgett said, “Why did he call that bookstore of his Nemesis, if he wasn’t waiting for his chance to kill Quarles? Whatever lay between them, it must have been a fearsome hate on Stephenson’s part.”

They had just reached the High Street when the boot boy from The Unicorn caught up with them. “You’re wanted, sir, if you’re Inspector Rutledge. There’s a telephone call for you at the hotel. I was told at the station you’d be with Inspector Padgett.”

“And who would be calling the inspector?” Padgett asked, inquisi-tiveness alive in his face.

“London,” Rutledge answered. “Who else?” He handed the flushed boot boy a coin, nodded to Padgett, and walked away toward The Unicorn.

Hunter was waiting for him at Reception, and escorted him to the telephone room. “They promised to call again in fifteen minutes.” He took out his pocket watch. “That’s half a minute from now.”

On the heels of his words, they could hear the telephone bell, and Rutledge went to answer it.

It was Sergeant Gibson, who asked him in a formal tone to wait for Chief Superintendent Bowles to be summoned.

The tone of voice, as always with Gibson, reflected the mood of the Yard.

Bowles, when he took up the receiver, shouted, “You there, Rutledge?”

“Yes, sir, I’m here.”

“What’s this I hear about your questioning Mr. Penrith and speaking to Hurley and Sons?”

Mickelson was back in London and complaining.

“It was in the course of—”

“I don’t give a fig for your excuses. I sent you to Cambury to find a murderer, and I’ve had no report of your progress. Davis Penrith has been on the horn to the Yard, expressing his concern, wanting to know if we’ve taken anyone into custody. Have we?”

“Not yet. I reported the death of his former partner to Penrith, and asked who among the victim’s business connections might have a grievance against the man dead. I asked Hurley and Sons who benefited from the will. It’s the usual procedure. You gave me no instructions not to follow up in London.”

In the background Rutledge could hear Hamish derisively mocking his words.

“This was an important man, Rutledge. Do you understand me?

Inspector Padgett was quite right to call in the Yard, and if you aren’t capable of dealing with this inquiry, I’ll send someone down who can.”

“We’re interviewing—”

“You’re wasting time, Rutledge. I can have you out of there in twenty-four hours, if you don’t give us results. Do you hear me?” The receiver banged into its cradle with a violence that could be heard across the room. Rutledge smiled. Mickelson must have been very put out indeed.

As he turned around to leave, Rutledge saw that Padgett had followed him to the hotel and was standing in the doorway. He must have heard a good part of the conversation. From the look on his face, most assuredly he’d heard the receiver put up with force.

He said blandly, “I was just coming to inquire. Do you want to tell Mrs. Quarles that she can bury her husband, or shall I?”

Rutledge wiped the smile from his lips. “Yes, go ahead. I think she’ll be glad of the news.”

“Yes, sooner in the ground, sooner forgotten. Shall I tell the rector that he’ll be posting the banns for a marriage, as soon as the funeral guests are out of sight?”

“Sorry to disappoint you. I don’t think she’ll marry Archer. Now or ever.”

“Care for a small wager?” Padgett asked as he turned away, not waiting for Rutledge’s answer.

Hamish said, agreeing with Rutledge. “She willna’ marry again.

There’s her son.”

Rutledge went up to his room, surprised at how late in the afternoon it was. He felt fatigue sweeping over him, and knew it for what it was, an admission that Padgett and Chief Superintendent Bowles had got to him.

Hamish said, “You were in great haste to get to London before yon inspector returned from Dover. You canna’ expect to escape unscathed.”

It was nearly four-thirty in the morning when someone knocked at the door of Rutledge’s room.

He was sleeping lightly and heard the knock at once. “I’m coming.”

The only reason he could think of for the summons was another murder, and he was running down a mental list as he pulled on his trousers and opened the door.

It wasn’t Inspector Padgett or one of his constables. Standing on the threshold was Miss O’Hara, her hair tousled, and a shawl thrown over hastily donned clothes.

“You must come at once,” she said. “I’ve got Gwyneth Jones at my house. She just came home, and her father’s at the bakery, firing up the ovens, her sisters asleep in their beds.”

He turned to find his shoes and his coat. “Is she all right?”

“Frightened to death, tired, hungry, and looking as if she’s slept in her clothes. Mrs. Jones told me you knew her story. The question now is, what to do? Gwyneth’s father is going to be furious, and her mother is on the point of having a fit.”

“Have you told the girl that Quarles is dead?” Rutledge asked as they went toward the stairs.

She shook her head. “No, nor has her mother. Gwyneth explained to her mother that she was homesick, but she told me that she missed Cambury and wanted to work in the shop again, rather than dance to her grandmother’s tune.”

They opened and shut The Unicorn’s door as quietly as possible, so as not to disturb the night clerk sleeping in his little cubicle.

“How did you know which room I was in?” he asked as they stepped out into the cool night air and walked briskly toward Church Street.

“How do you think? I looked in the book at Reception.”

Rutledge found himself reflecting that if the story got around Cambury that he was seen escorting a disheveled Irishwoman out of the hotel and back to her house at this hour of the morning, gossip would be rampant. And Padgett would have much to say about it. The one bright point was that Gwyneth had been sent to Miss O’Hara’s house while it was still dark. They could at least keep her arrival quiet for a while.

As if she’d read his mind, Miss O’Hara suppressed a laugh. “We’ll have to avoid the man who brings round the milk. Bertie. He’s the worst rumor monger in Cambury. If you wish to have your business discussed over the world’s breakfast table, confide in him.”

The first hint of dawn was touching the eastern sky, and the cool-ness of evening still lurked in the shadows. It would be light enough soon for anyone looking out a window to see them.

“Why did Mrs. Jones bring her to you?”

“If the other children had seen their sister, there’d be no keeping the news from their father. I was the only woman living alone she could think of.”

“What do you know about the situation?”

“Enough to realize that if she’d fled Wales, and her father got wind of it, he’d kill Harold Quarles.”

“How did the girl get home?”

“Begging lifts from anyone she thought she could trust. She had a little money with her, but not enough to pay for a train or omnibus.”

They had reached the O’Hara cottage and quickly slipped inside.

Gwyneth Jones was sitting dejectedly in the kitchen, her hands wrapped around a mug of hot tea, her face as long as her tangled dark hair.

All the same, he could see that she was a lovely girl, with curling black hair and dark lashes, dark eyes, skin like silk. But whatever spirit she might have possessed was now sunk in gloom and fear.

She started to her feet like a cornered wild thing when she saw that Miss O’Hara had brought someone with her.

Rutledge said quickly, “You needn’t be afraid. Your mother has told me about you. I’m a policeman—from London. Inspector Rutledge, and you can trust me. Miss O’Hara did the right thing, asking me to help you sort out your troubles.”

“A policeman?” She frowned. “My mother says I can’t come home—she wants to send me directly back to Wales, and she refuses to let me see my da. It’s as if I’ve done some terrible thing, and no one wants me anymore.”

She sounded like a terrified and bewildered child.

Miss O’Hara went to her and put a hand on her arm, urging her to sit down again. Instead, Gwyneth threw her arms around the older woman and began to cry wretchedly.

“Miss Jones. Gwyneth,” Rutledge began. “Listen to me. There’s been some trouble here in Cambury, that’s why I’m here. Rather—

um—serious trouble.”

His hesitation as he searched for a less threatening word than murder was enough. The girl broke free of Miss O’Hara’s embrace and turned to stare at him, her tear-streaked face appalled. “My father’s dead. That’s why they won’t let me go to him. ”

“No, its not your father—”

“Then it’s Mr. Quarles who’s dead, and you’ve got my father in custody for it.”

“He’s only one of several suspects, Gywneth. No one has been taken into custody—”

“I tried to tell him, Mr. Quarles isn’t a monster, whatever the gossips say. But he believed them, just like she did.” She pointed to Miss O’Hara, then added, “Mr. Quarles was nice to me, he told me that I could choose my own life. I don’t have to follow my father in the bakery if I don’t want to. I don’t have to be the son my father never had—”

His eyes met Miss O’Hara’s over the girl’s head. “Gwyneth. Did Quarles offer to take you to London, and help you find this new life?”

“Of course he didn’t. He told me I must learn to do something well, to make my living. To cook or to bake or to make hats, it didn’t matter.

He told me not to go into service. His sister did, and she was wretched to the end.”

“Where does his sister live?” Rutledge asked, thinking that she could provide him with more information about Quarles than anyone else.

“She’s dead. All his family is dead. They have been for years. He doesn’t have anyone but his son.”

“You’re certain Mr. Quarles didn’t try to convince you to run away from home? Or encourage you to leave your grandmother’s and come back to Cambury?” Miss O’Hara asked.

“Of course not. My father thought he was flirting with me, but he wasn’t. He said he hated to see such a pretty girl waste her life in Cambury, when she could live in Glastonbury or Bath and marry better than the young men I know here. And he’s right, I don’t like any of them well enough to marry them.”

It was a different story from the one Jones himself had told Rutledge. But taking that with a grain of salt, Rutledge could see that Jones was jealous, wanted his favorite child to stay with him and inherit the bakery, not find work and happiness away from Cambury. He’d seen Quarles as the snake in his Eden, tempting his young daughter with tales that turned her head. And he’d read what he wanted to believe in the older man’s attentions.

Who knew what was in Harold Quarles’s mind—whether he wanted to help her or hoped to lead Gwyneth astray, perhaps take advantage of her when she was older and lonely and far from home.

She was extraordinarily pretty. But would she be any happier in a larger town? Would she find this young man of her dreams—or would she be trapped by someone who had other reasons for befriending her, and in the end, ruin her? Quarles hadn’t troubled himself over Gwyneth’s inexperience.

Rutledge could see and understand a father’s anger. He could also see—if it were true—that Quarles might have discovered in Gwyneth more than Cambury had to offer and tried to show her that she could reach higher than her parents had, her mother with six children, her father content with his fourteen hours a day in his bakery.

It didn’t matter. Quarles was dead, and Hugh Jones had a very good reason for killing this man who was interfering with his family.

Rutledge said, “Did your father know you were running away?”

She looked down, as if ashamed. “I’ve written to him since March, begging to come home. I told him I was wretched and couldn’t bear to be there, away from everyone. He knew I was unhappy. Still, he said I must stay for now. And so I didn’t tell him I had decided to run away—

he’d have come to Wales and stopped me, if he’d had to lock me in my bedroom. And so I slipped away without a word.”

“Didn’t you think your grandmother would be frantic with worry?”

“No. She doesn’t like me. She says God didn’t intend for a woman to be as pretty as I am, and it’s a burden for her to keep an eye on me, and the devil works through a pretty face, and—” She burst into tears again.

Even if Jones had no idea his daughter was going to run away, he knew she was unhappy, and he must have missed her greatly himself.

Tormented by the need to keep her away from Quarles, he could well have decided to take matters into his own hands and rid them both of the man who had caused the family so much grief.

Either way, the baker had much to answer for.

“Did you write to Mr. Quarles, to say you were leaving Wales?”

She looked up, shocked. “Oh, no, if I did that, Da would never let me come home again!”

Rutledge said to Miss O’Hara, “I think you should put her to bed straightaway, and keep her out of sight until I’ve had time to sort this out.” And to Gwyneth, he said, “You must stay here for a day or perhaps two, and keep out of sight. Do you understand?”

“I want to go home to my mother and my sisters.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to pay that price for leaving your grandmother’s house without permission. Miss O’Hara has been put to a good deal of trouble taking you in like this, but she’s done it for your mother’s sake, and for your father’s as well. If you don’t listen to her, and gossips connect your unexpected return with Mr. Quarles’s death, there could be long-lasting suspicion about your father’s guilt even after we’ve found the killer. The bakery could suffer as well. You owe your parents this consideration.”

“I understand,” she answered petulantly. But she was young and, in the end, might not be ruled.

He waited until Miss O’Hara had taken the girl upstairs and put her to bed, then thanked her for her help.

She looked tired, and strained. “I know something about being hunted,” she said. “That’s why I took Gwyneth in. Her mother was at her wits’ end. I think Mrs. Jones must be a little afraid of her husband.”

“Perhaps not afraid, precisely. But she’s feeling guilty about her role in hiding Gwyneth’s return. Did the girl tell you more about how she managed to get this far on her own? She took an enormous chance.”

Miss O’Hara smiled. “She dirtied her face and teeth, to make herself seem less attractive. Now you must go, before the neighbors begin to talk. I can hear Bertie in the next street.” In fact the clink of milk bottles and Bertie’s whistle were ominously close.

He smiled in return. “Thank you. Tell Mrs. Jones that patience will serve her better, and silence.”

“Do you believe that this child’s father killed Quarles?”

“God knows. For Gwyneth’s sake, and her mother’s, I pray he didn’t.”

Bertie had other gossip to carry with the milk that morning. Someone had told him the way in which the body had been found, and the shocking news turned the town on its ear.

It met Rutledge over his breakfast.

Rutledge said, irritated, “Who let slip this information?”

Hamish answered, “I wouldna’ put it past yon inspector, in retaliation.”

That was not only possible, but likely. It served two purposes. It annoyed Rutledge, and it made it more difficult for him to do his job properly. Often what the police held back was a key to tripping up a killer.

Padgett would be satisfied with both outcomes. Whether he himself was guilty of murder or not, he was in no haste to prove that someone on his patch had done such a thing. By the same token, if it could have been laid at Mrs. Quarles’s door, Padgett would have been pleased enough.

Glancing out the window as he drank his tea, Rutledge saw the Quarles motorcar passing down the High Street.

Mrs. Quarles on her way to fetch her son from Rugby?

He pitied the boy. The whole ugly story of the murder was common knowledge now, and there would be no way to protect him. It would have come out in the course of the trial, and the newspapers were bound to make much of the circumstances. But that was months away, not now while the boy’s grief was raw.

Padgett came to find him before he’d finished his tea.

Rutledge swallowed his ire with the last of his toast and waited.

“We’re not slack in our duty in Cambury,” Padgett said, sitting down. “My men have been busy. It appears one Harold Quarles dined with Mr. Greer on Saturday evening. But not until seven o’clock.”

“I’m surprised that he didn’t come to us with that information himself.”

“You’re free to ask him. That brings us to another problem. Where was Quarles between the time he left Hallowfields and his arrival on Minton Street? It doesn’t take that long to walk in from the estate, now, does it?”

Half an hour at most, in a leisurely stroll. Which would mean he could have reached the High Street as early as six o’clock.

Where was Quarles for nearly an hour? At the estate still? Sitting in the gatehouse cottage, waiting for someone? Or had he come into Cambury?

“He met someone on the way,” Rutledge answered Padgett. “It’s the only explanation that makes sense.”

“He was expecting to meet someone on the way. Or he’d have left later than he did.”

“Point taken. Why did he dine with Greer? I thought they disliked each other.”

“They do.”

Rutledge pushed his chair back. “I’ll want to pay a visit to Mr.

Greer.”

“I thought you might.” Padgett, grinning, followed him out of the hotel.

The owner of the glove firm lived in a large house next but one to the High Street, with black iron gates and a handsome hedge setting it off.

Greer was just stepping out his door, on his way to his office, when the two policemen lifted the gate latch and started up the short walk.

Greer said, “We will speak here, at the house,” as if he’d called the meeting, not the reverse.

A man of middle height with graying hair and an air of confidence, he waited for them to pass through the door before him and then shut it behind them. “This way.”

He led them to a study at the back of the house, overlooking the side gardens. A bench in the grassy lawn stood beside a small pool, and a frog perched on the pool’s edge. Set apart by trees, this appeared to be a retreat, and one of the long study windows opened on to it.

Greer took his chair behind the broad maple desk and gestured to the other two placed across from him.

“Well. This is to do with Harold Quarles. What is it you want to know?”

“He dined at your house on Saturday evening. What time did he arrive?”

“We had another guest, a Mr. Nelson. They came in together promptly at seven.” There was something in his tone of voice that told Rutledge he was not pleased about that.

“Did Mr. Nelson bring Quarles in from Hallowfields?”

“As to that, I don’t know.”

“Did they leave at the same time?”

“No, Mr. Nelson remained here for another hour or more. He had a business proposition to put before us. Neither Quarles nor I approved of it. We both preferred to see Cambury stay as it is, rather than bring in new industry to the area. Mr. Nelson believed that the village could support two business enterprises and wanted our backing in present-ing his concept to the town fathers.”

“And so he stayed on to try to convince you?”

“Quarles was adamant in his position. He said what he had to say early on, and then left. I expect Mr. Nelson had already put as much effort into persuading Quarles as he did afterward with me.”

“What sort of new industry?” Padgett wanted to know.

“He felt that gloves had seen their day, and that the up-and-coming field would be leather goods of a different sort. Valises, wallets, dia-ries—a long list of items. I think if Quarles had believed it would benefit me in any way, he’d have been against change on general principles.

But I disliked the idea as well. For once,” he said, smiling wryly, “we were actually in agreement about this matter.”

“You felt that Nelson met Quarles first, possibly driving him here, in order to bring him around to his position?”

“As Quarles left first and on foot, it’s a natural assumption.”

“How did you know he left on foot?”

Greer flushed. “I asked my butler.”

“As he was leaving, did Nelson follow Quarles into the street to finish the conversation between them?”

“No, of course not, I told you he’d stayed. He joined me in a glass of port, and continued to try to persuade me.”

“Do you think Mr. Nelson had any reason to wish Quarles harm?

That he might have followed him back to Hallowfields, talked to him again, and in a fit of anger, attacked him?” It was Padgett’s question now, and Greer turned to him in disgust.

“That’s absurd. Nelson mentioned three villages he’s interested in for his factory. We were the first he spoke to, because of my glove firm.

He still had two others to visit. One of them has nearer access to the railway. It would suit his purpose much better. But there’s less competition in Cambury, and I think that held a great appeal.” He shrugged.

“Labor would be cheaper here, you see, versus the convenience of the railway for shipping.”

“Is it possible that Quarles agreed with Mr. Nelson after all, and you went out as Quarles left and had words with him?” Rutledge asked.

“I don’t pursue my guests into the street to harangue them.”

“But you failed to inform us that you’d seen the victim on the evening he was killed,” Rutledge said.

“I saw no reason to present myself at the police station just to tell them I’d had a dinner guest who later died. You found me soon enough, and as you can see, I was in no way involved with what happened to Harold Quarles.”

“Has your staff told you that not only was Quarles murdered, he was also put into the Christmas angel harness and hauled into the rafters of the tithe barn?”

No one had. They could see the shock in Greer’s eyes, and the graying of the skin on his face.

“My good God!”

Rutledge waited, saying nothing.

After a moment, Greer went on, “You suspect Nelson of having done such a thing? But how could he know the harness existed? He lives in Manchester.” Greer stirred uneasily, as if thinking that should it benefit Nelson to kill one of the objectors to his project, why not make it a clean sweep and kill both?

He reached for the telephone on his desk and asked to be connected to Manchester, and the firm of one R. S. Nelson.

They waited, and in due course, Nelson was brought to the telephone at the other end.

There was a brief conversation, as if Nelson thought Greer was calling to change his position. Then Greer said, “No, I just wanted to ask if you’d spoken to Harold Quarles after you left me on Saturday evening?”

There was a reply at the other end.

Greer said, “No reason in particular. I could see that he was not going to budge. I wondered if you’d felt otherwise.”

After a moment, grimacing, he said, “Well, if you must know, Quarles was murdered that night. And the police are here asking if you or I know anything about that, as apparently we’re the last people to have seen him alive.”

He listened, then said, “I see. I’ll wish you a good day.”

Hanging up the receiver with some force, Greer said, “He informed me he had no need to turn to murder to see his business prosper, and he’d judged Quarles as the sort who resisted change for the sake of resisting. And he accepted that, because, and I quote, ‘I grew up in the north myself, and know a stubborn bastard when I see one.’ ”

He spoke the words with distaste. “I had no desire to work with that man on Saturday evening, and even less desire to do it now. If you will excuse me, I’m late at my office, and I think there’s nothing more I can do to help the police in their inquiry.” He stood up, dismissing them.

Rutledge said, “Thank you for your time. You’ll still be required to make a statement about events of that evening. If you will give Inspector Padgett the direction of Mr. Nelson in Manchester, he’ll ask the police there to take his.”

That seemed to please Greer and make up for the unpleasantness of having to present himself at the police station.

He followed them out, and as he closed the gate behind them, he said, “I never liked Harold Quarles, and I’ve made no pretense of anything else. But I don’t resort to murder to settle my differences. I would not have willingly invited the man to dine, most certainly not on a social occasion. Because he doesn’t entertain at Hallowfields, it was left to me to invite both men here. I can tell you that my wife didn’t join us. It was not that sort of evening.”

He nodded and left them standing there.

“Pompous ass,” said Padgett, watching Greer walk up the street.

“But he filled in that hour for us. What’s left is to find out who argued with Quarles before he reached the corner of the High Street, where Hunter tells us he was alone.”

“You believe him then?” Padgett asked. “And Nelson as well?”

“It doesn’t appear to be a motive strong enough for what happened at the tithe barn. I hardly see this man Nelson killing someone he had never met before just to rid himself of an obstacle to the site for his factory. Do you?”

“No,” Padgett returned grudgingly. “But by God, I’ll see to it we have both statements in our hands.”

They had reached the High Street themselves now, and in the distance Greer was just walking through a door. “His place of business?”

Rutledge asked.

“Yes. Beyond Nemesis, in fact. You know, it could have been Stephenson who spoke to Quarles on the street. Or Brunswick. But probably not the baker, Jones. He would have been home at that hour, not prowling the streets. But my men tell me that sometimes Stephenson is restless and walks about at night.”

“We’ll have to ask him—”

Rutledge broke off. The rector, Samuel Heller, was coming toward them, distress in his face.

When he reached Rutledge he said, “You misled me.”

“In what way, Mr. Heller?”

“You told me that Mr. Quarles was dead. But not the manner in which he was found. My housekeeper informed me this morning. Is it true? And if so, why did you keep it from me?”

“It was a police decision,” Rutledge replied. “I didn’t want that part of Quarles’s death to be public knowledge until I was ready.”

“And so we all have learned such terrible news with our morning tea, and from a servant! It’s not proper.”

“Would it have made any difference in what you told me?” Rutledge asked. “As I remember, you were not eager to judge others.”

Heller had the grace to flush. “And I would still tell you the same thing. But this is—I don’t know—I can hardly find the word for it.

Blasphemous. Yes. Blasphemous suits it best. To use that angel in such a fashion. What drives another human being to that sort of barbarity?”

“If you remember, I warned you to beware of a confession that might mean someone is looking for absolution for what he’d done.”

“Yes, Mr. Rutledge, you warned me, and I have been on my guard.

But no one has come to confess. Though I have heard from Dr. O’Neil that Mr. Stephenson from the bookshop might have need of my coun-seling. Apparently he’s distraught, working himself up into an illness.”

“Any idea why?” Rutledge asked.

“He lost his only child in the war. And he feels that he himself is partly responsible for the boy’s death.”

“In the war?” Padgett asked. “Quarles didn’t have anything to do with it?”

Heller lifted his eyebrows. “Harold Quarles? I should think not. If 188

char les todd

there’s anyone to blame, it’s the Army. Or the Kaiser. What made you suggest Mr. Quarles?”

“Because Stephenson admits to hating him, indeed, he told us he wanted to kill the man. Where’s the connection, if he’s haunted by the son and hates Quarles?” Padgett asked.

“In his own poor imagination, I expect,” Heller said with some asperity. “A man who is in great distress, great agony of spirit, sometimes blames others for his misfortunes, rather than face them himself.”

“I’m a greater believer in connections than in spiritual agony, thank you all the same, Rector,” Padgett said.

Heller smiled grimly. “I would never have guessed that, Mr. Padgett,” and with a nod to Rutledge that was brief and unforgiving, Heller turned away and strode back toward his church.

“I think,” Rutledge said slowly, “we ought to have another chat with Stephenson.”

“What’s the use? He’s not ready to tell us anything. And I have work to do. You might contact the Army, to see if there’s any truth in what the rector was told.”

Changing the subject, Rutledge asked, “Has Mrs. Quarles made any decision about her husband’s burial?”

“Yes, oddly enough. She’s taking him back to Yorkshire.”

“I can understand that she might not want him here, although that might be his son’s choice. But why not London?”

“She said that he deserved to return to his roots,” Padgett answered him. “Whatever that might mean.”

Rutledge considered the matter. “Then whatever turned her against him might also have to do with his roots.”

“She knew what he was when she married him.”

“Yes, she’s honest about that. But what did she learn later that made her judge him differently and demand a separation? Apparently Quarles didn’t fight it, and it’s possible he didn’t want whatever it was to become open knowledge. For that matter, why was she searching his background in the first place? Was she looking for something—or did she stumble over it? And I don’t believe it was Charles Archer wounded in France that upset the marriage.”

“You can’t be sure of that,” Padgett objected.

Rutledge gave him no answer. He was already in a debate with Hamish over the subject, Hamish strongly supporting the need to find out more about Quarles’s past while his own pressing concern at the moment was the bookseller.

Padgett said, “Well, I’ll leave you to your wild goose chase. I’ll be at the station, if you want me.”

Hamish was saying now, “What about yon lass? Ye canna’ leave her much longer.”

“Let her sleep. Then we’ll see what to do about her. I’ll have to tell her father. And that should answer a lot of questions.”

He walked on to the doctor’s surgery, found that Dr. O’Neil was busy with another patient, and asked his nurse if he could speak to Stephenson without disturbing the doctor.

She was willing to allow him to see the patient, she said, if he promised not to upset the man. “We’ve got five people in the waiting room, and I don’t want a scene.”

“Has Stephenson been upsetting the household?”

“Not precisely, but his state of mind is delicate. I was asking him just this morning if there was anyone we might send for, a cousin or something, to help him through his distress, and he began to howl.

I can’t describe it as a cry, and the doctor’s wife came running to see what was the matter.”

Small wonder that O’Neil had sent for the rector.

Rutledge gave her his word and hoped that he could keep it as he was led back to the room where Stephenson was sitting on the edge of his bed, his face buried in his hands.

He looked up as Rutledge came through the door, then dropped his head again, saying, “What is it you want? Can’t you leave me alone?”

“I’m worried about you,” Rutledge said easily. “I think there’s something on your mind that you can’t let go. Is it the fact that Quarles is out of reach now, and there’s no one else to hate? Except yourself?”

His words must have struck a chord. Stephenson lifted his head again, his eyes showing alarm. “What have you found out? What do you know?”

“Very little. You mourn for your son. You hated Harold Quarles.

There has to be a link somewhere. And if you hate yourself, it was because you feel you let your son down in some way, when he needed you most.”

Stephenson began to cry in spite of himself. “Yes, yes, I should have put him on the first ship out of England, and let him go somewhere—anywhere—safe. But I didn’t. He was so young, and I wanted to keep him with me. He was so like his mother, so gentle and sweet-natured. I couldn’t let him go—and so I killed him.”

Alarmed, Rutledge said, “When?”

“Damn you, not literally. I’d never have laid a finger on him.”

“Then how is Quarles involved? I’m tired of playing solve the riddle.”

Stephenson, burdened by his shame, buried his face in his hands again, unable to look anyone in the eye.

Rutledge, considering what Stephenson had just told him, asked,

“Was your son called up in the draft and afraid to go to war?” It was hazarding a guess, but he was surprised at the reaction.

Stephenson rose to his feet to defend his son, gathering himself together to shout Rutledge down. He could see it coming.

And so he added, “Or was the coward you?”

Stephenson gasped, his features changing from pure blazing anger to such self-loathing that Rutledge had to look away.

But he thought Stephenson was lying when he said, “Yes, it was I. I couldn’t bear to see him brutalized by the army, shoved into the battle lines, told to kill or be killed. I couldn’t live with that.”

It was the boy who’d been afraid, who had wanted to take ship. And the father who was determined to keep him in England. The boy, not the man.

“What could you do about it?”

“I went to the only person I could think of important enough to help me. I went to Harold Quarles—I’d grown up in Cambury, my mother was still living here—and I begged him to find a way to get my son out of the army. I told Quarles what would happen if I let him go, and I promised him anything, that I would do anything he asked, however difficult it was, if he would go to the Army and tell them not to send Tommy across to France.”

“And what did Harold Quarles promise you?”

Stephenson’s face twisted in grief. “He wouldn’t even hear me out.

He refused to help. I tried to tell him that they have all sorts of units.

Quartermaster, signals, radio, enlistments—none of them having to do with actual fighting—and I told him Tommy could do those. He was cold, unyielding, and told me that he would not speak to the Army for me or anyone else. And so Tommy went to be trained as a soldier, and he was shipped to France, and on his first day at the Front, he waited until the trench had emptied and bent over his rife and pulled the trigger. The letter from his commanding officer called him a coward and said that he had disgraced the company. All I could think of was that he was dead, and that surely there had been some way for a man as powerful and well thought of as Harold Quarles to stop him from going abroad.”

He was silent in his grief now, and that was all the more telling as he stared into a past he couldn’t change. Rutledge rested a hand on his shoulder.

“I wanted to kill his commanding officer, then I realized those were only words, they didn’t matter. It was Quarles who was to blame, and I wanted to make him suffer as I had done. I came here to haunt him, I wanted him to think about Tommy every time he passed the shop or saw me on the street, and remember his own child. I made a point to find out when he was returning to Cambury, and I put myself in his way as often as I could. And when I had wrought up my determination, I was going to kill him. But like my son, I couldn’t find the courage to do anything. Like my son, I couldn’t bring myself to kill, and yet I wanted it as I’d never wanted anything before or since, save to keep Tommy alive.”

Stephenson saw himself as failing Tommy twice, Rutledge realized. In not saving him in the first place and then in not being able to avenge him in the second. And as long as Harold Quarles was alive, the opportunity to kill him still existed. Once Quarles was dead, it was too late for vengeance. And so the bookseller had punished himself by putting that rope around his neck. It wasn’t so much a fear of the police that had driven him; it was the knowledge that when he was questioned, his shame would be exposed to the whole world. Tommy the coward, son of a coward.

But the story was out now.

As if Stephenson realized that, he lay back on his cot, his arm over his face, and his face to the wall.

Rutledge said, “Thank you for telling me. Whatever you feel about Harold Quarles, the fact remains that we must find out who killed him. It’s a question of justice. As for his failure to help you and your failure to help your son, there are times when no one can help and a man’s life has to take its course. Tommy wasn’t the only one in that battle who was afraid. Most of us in the trenches were terrified. It would have been unnatural not to be.”

Stephenson said, “He was the only one who didn’t go over the top that morning. He was the only one who used his weapon against himself rather than the enemy. He let all the world see his fear and judge him for it. I think of that often, how awful his last hours—minutes—

must have been, with no one to tell him he was loved and must live. I wasn’t there, I wasn’t there.”

The final failure, in the father’s eyes.

“Nor was God,” Rutledge said, and sat with the grieving man for another quarter of an hour, until he was calmer.

16

Rutledge went back to the O’Hara cottage and tapped lightly on the door. He had the distinct feeling that every window overlooking where he stood was filled with people waiting to see how he was received.

Miss O’Hara answered his knock, her finger to her lips. “She’s asleep. I can only hope her mother is resting as well. What are we to do? Have you spoken to her father?”

“Not yet.” He followed her into the pretty room he had hardly had time to notice that morning. There were comfortable needlepoint cushions everywhere, a row of small framed photographs on the mantel, and surprisingly, a pair of revolvers mounted on a polished board. As he glanced at them, she said, “My father’s.”

There was defiance in the words, as if Rutledge might think she had no right to them.

Certainly they were incongruous in this very feminine setting, but he had no intention of rattling her pride.

She offered him tea, but he declined, adding, “You’ve been up most of the night, I think. Sit down. We’ll have to work this out between us.

The rest of the family, Gwyneth included, will be too emotional to choose what’s best.”

“What is best?” she countered.

Rutledge took a deep breath. “I don’t believe Gwyneth could have killed the man. I don’t think her mother, much as she hated what Quarles had done to her family, would have carried the murder to such extremes—”

“Yes,” she interrupted with a little shiver. “I’ve heard the tale of the Christmas angel. It’s barbaric. Mrs. Jones might well have killed him, but not that. I agree.”

“Which leaves us with Gwyneth’s father, and whether or not he knew about the letter from her grandmother.”

“Does it really matter? The child’s complained to him enough. He might have decided to bring her home the only way he could.”

“Coincidence?” Rutledge shook his head. “I don’t know. It will not be easy talking to him. But I don’t think Mrs. Jones will be able to cope when he comes home this evening. It will spill out somehow—

a child asking why Mummy cried all day, a neighbor wanting to know why she was here in your house at such an ungodly hour—and she will break down and tell him the truth.”

“She’s stronger than you realize. But his suspicions will be aroused.”

There was a short silence. He said, “You told me you knew something about murder. And about being hunted.”

“That I did. It’s why I’m in England, the last place on earth I’d like to be. I was caught in the middle of the Easter Rebellion in 1917. I did what I had to do, to save myself and my family. And after that I had to leave. Do you want to take me up for that?” He could feel her anger and resentment.

“It’s not my jurisdiction,” he answered mildly. “If it has no bearing on Quarles’s death, then I have no business interfering.”

“Thank you for being so damned condescending,” she flared, her voice rising a little before she could control it.

“Condescending?” He smiled, and it touched his eyes. “Hardly.

It’s you who is still sensitive. I’m merely putting your mind at ease.”

She had the grace to laugh lightly. “You were in the trenches, I think. You know what war is like. Well, it was war in Dublin. And elsewhere. We were under siege, and we were afraid of what would happen if we lost. What sort of retribution there would be for us and, more urgently, our families. I went to the fighting to bring my father’s body back, and I had to kill someone to do it. I don’t regret it, he doesn’t invade my dreams, and I’d do it again if I had to.”

She would have been an easy target, with that flame red hair. It had been a brave thing to do to go after her father, and it could have ended horribly. Right or wrong, his cause or not, Rutledge could respect her courage.

Returning to what had brought him here, Rutledge said, “May I leave Gwyneth in your care for a little longer? I’ll be gone for some time. Don’t let her leave, for any reason.”

“No, I’ve kept the door locked until l look to see who’s knocking.

I’ve said my prayers for that family. I hope God is listening.”

As he rose to leave, Miss O’Hara said, “She won’t go back to her grandmother’s. I can tell you that. She was wretched, and the old woman used her unmercifully. The tyranny of the weak. And then she had the unmitigated gall to tell the poor lass that she was the devil’s get whenever Gwyneth failed to please her.”

“I don’t think the family knew.”

“They must have. But they closed their eyes because there was no other way to keep her out of the man’s clutches. Quarles had much on his soul when he went to God, and the names of Gwyneth and her family are engraved on it.”

Rutledge went out the door and waited until he’d heard the click of the key locking it before turning toward the Jones’s house.

Hamish was saying, “Ye ken, you were taken in.”

“By what?”

“That one, the Irish lass. Ye absolved her of the killing withoot a single proof that what she said was true.”

“It’s not my jurisdiction,” he said, a second time.

“Oh, aye? She’s done you a guid turn and bought your silence.”

“It doesn’t matter right now. The girl does.”

“She admits to a murder,” Hamish admonished him. “What’s to say that the second killing wasna’ easier? And the lass has a temper.

When he spoke on the street, she gave him short shrift. But who is to say what happened next between them?”

It was true.

“But it will have to wait,” Rutledge said. “Hugh Jones must be sorted out first. Before he learns that Gwyneth is back in Cambury.”

Hamish said, still not satisfied, “She holds on to a guid deal o’

anger, that lass. She would ha’ put him in the rig to be a lesson, even if only for her ain pleasure. Yon murderer felt the same anger. It’s no’ a thing most of the village could ha’ done.”

“I don’t see Stephenson dragging Quarles to the tithe barn and manhandling him into that cage. But then it might explain his strong sense of guilt.”

“Ye ken, ye havena’ delved into yon dead man’s past. Is it to put yon inspector’s nose oot of joint that ye cling to this village? Just as ye went in sich a great hurry to London, to spike the guns of the ither inspector?”

“That’s nonsense!” Rutledge snapped, and then realized he’d spoken aloud.

He wasn’t aware that during his conversation with Hamish he’d been standing outside the Jones house. Going up to the door, he hoped it would be Mrs. Jones who answered, not one of the children. But she was quick, before he’d knocked, as if she’d been watching for him to come.

She could see the O’Hara house from the south window of her parlor.

The little girl wasn’t on her hip today, and she glanced over her shoulder as she opened the door, as if to be sure there was no one about.

“Do come in,” she said softly, and as soon as they were shut into the little parlor, she went on. “How is she? I was that worried—she was in such a state when I opened the door. God alone knows she took an awful risk, all alone on those roads! I knew she was unhappy . . .”

Her voice trailed off.

“She’s sleeping. It’s what she needs. But she won’t go back to Cardiff. You do see that, don’t you? The next time she may not be as lucky.”

“Well, she won’t have to now, will she—” And she broke off, her hand to her mouth, as if to stop the words, but it was too late.

“With Quarles dead?”

“He was an awful man. I can’t wish him alive again. And I want my girl home to stay. Her gran’s getting on. She wasn’t always such a terror. But what choice was there, I ask you!”

Her eyes were pleading with him to tell her that everything would be all right, that this nightmare would resolve itself without trouble for anyone she loved. But he couldn’t, and after a moment, she looked away, sadness pulling her face down. “What are we to do about Gwyneth?

She must come home. I want her here, not at a stranger’s house.”

“Mrs. Jones, I must ask you again. Can you be absolutely certain that no one in the house told your husband about the letter from Wales?”

“I don’t see how anyone could have done. The post came when only the baby was here, and she wouldn’t know. And I kept it safe in my apron pocket, where no one would look.”

But he could read the uncertainty in her face now. The fear that she hadn’t done enough.

“Would you have killed Harold Quarles to keep your daughter safe?” he asked bluntly. “I have to know.”

She looked at him then. “If it was to be Gwynnie or him, I’d choose Gwynnie. But what about the rest of them, what are they to do without me, if I’m gone? Besides, I’ve heard what was done to him. Much as I wanted him away from Gwynnie, I couldn’t have brought myself to touch him . . .”

On the whole, Rutledge thought that was true. She wasn’t the sort of woman to take pleasure in her vengeance. It would be enough for the man to be dead, out of her daughter’s troubled life.

“I must go now and tell your husband. Will you do nothing until I’ve seen him?”

“When he comes home tonight, what will he say? That’s what frightens me. He’ll know I kept secrets. As well, he’ll be angry with me for keeping Gwynnie from him.”

“I can’t promise you he won’t be angry.”

“You think he’s done this thing.”

“I don’t know, Mrs. Jones. And that’s the truth.”

“He could have pulled him up on that rig. He’s done it before for the Christmas angel . . .”

He was shocked that she would admit it. At first he wondered if she was trying to shield herself, the mother, the protector of her children.

And then he realized that she was thinking aloud, that she had forgotten he was there in the agonizing drain of her own worry.

He said good-bye, and she nodded absently, her mind so wrapped up in the question of whether the man she’d married and given six daughters to was capable of murder, that he wasn’t sure she knew when he left.

The walk to the bakery was silent. Hamish had finished what he wanted to say. But Rutledge’s thoughts were heavy. If he took Jones into custody, who would keep the bakery open? Not his wife. And not the girl, despite her training up to fill his shoes. What would become of this family?

It was the duty of a policeman to be objective. He’d told Padgett that. And yet sometimes it was impossible to ignore the different personal tragedies that murder brought in its wake. Few of those touched by violent death walked away unscathed.

Hamish said, startling him, “There’s yon widower, as well.”

“Brunswick. Yes, I know. If indeed he killed his wife, would that have satisfied his jealousy? Or did he bide his time and wait for the opportunity to stalk Quarles? Or—if he didn’t kill his wife, if her death was a suicide—he might well kill Quarles and put him in that contraption, to have the final word. And Stephenson’s case hinges on whether he scraped up the courage to act on behalf of his dead son.”

They were just passing Nemesis, the bookshop. Rutledge wondered if it would ever reopen. The CLOSED notice was still in the window. But then people were surprisingly resilient sometimes. The shop might be all the man knew to do, and the only haven from torment. Books were a great comfort, because they didn’t stand in judgment. He would feel safe among them.

The bakery was just ahead now, Jones bowing a well-dressed woman out, a white box in her hands and a smile on her face. Then he looked up the High Street and saw that Rutledge was coming his way.

As the woman moved on, Jones stood there, and something in his posture told Rutledge that he knew—or guessed—what was coming. He straightened his apron, as if girding his loins for battle, and waited.

When Rutledge reached him, Jones said, “Come inside, then.”

Rutledge followed him into the bakery. It was redolent with cinnamon and baked breads, swept clean, the shelves sparkling like diamonds in the sun coming in the windows. At present the shop was empty. It wasn’t time for the tea trade to come.

“Will you have something?” Jones said, to put off the inevitable.

“Are you a man with a sweet tooth?”

“Thank you, but it’s important for us to talk before someone comes in.”

Jones nodded to two wrought-iron chairs, painted white and the seats covered with a rosebud-patterned fabric. It was where women could wait until their orders were ready. Incongruously now it served as a place of interrogation.

As he sat down, Jones said, “I didn’t kill the man. But you don’t believe me.” There was strength in his voice and certainty. “That’s how it stands now.”

“But there are new extenuating circumstances to answer to, Mr.

Jones.”

The Welshman was wary now, as if half afraid his wife had confessed. Or that Rutledge had discovered something Jones believed hidden too deep to be found.

“Your daughter ran away from her grandmother’s house—”

“When?” His voice was taut with fear.

“Several days ago.”

Jones surged from his chair and started for the door. “Close up behind me, I’m on my way to Wales. This business of Quarles can wait. There’s my daughter to be thought of.”

“Wait— we know where she is.”

Jones stopped in his tracks. “What do you mean, you know?”

“She’s been found. She’s safe.”

But the man was not satisfied. “I’ll see her for myself. If that man talked her into anything rash, I’ll go to the doctor’s surgery and cut out his liver, dead or not, see if I don’t!”

There was such rough menace in his voice that Rutledge could believe he would do just that.

“Sit down, man, and let me finish,” he said curtly.

Jones stood where he was by the door, grim and determined.

“I said, sit down, Jones, or you’ll learn nothing more.” It was the voice of a man accustomed to being obeyed on a battlefield. Jones didn’t move for an instant longer, then grudgingly came to sit down, his body so tense Rutledge could see the cords standing out in his neck.

“She’s safe. And she’s had no dealings with Quarles. She’s said as much, and I believe her. Homesickness made her run away, and a grandmother who berated her for being pretty.”

He growled, like an animal, deep in his throat. “She wrote she was unhappy, but I didn’t want to believe her. I didn’t want to see what the old woman was capable of. I wanted her safe, that’s all.”

“Let go of your hate and think about your daughter. And what this means in terms of your own guilt.”

“My guilt?” There was something in his eyes that Rutledge couldn’t read. But he could see that Jones’s mind was moving swiftly and in a direction that was unexpected. Yet he said nothing, and sat where he was.

“If you knew Gwyneth had run away, it would make the case for your killing Quarles strong enough to bring in a verdict against you.

At least at the inquest. If you found out she’d left Wales and decided to make certain this time that your daughter could remain in Somerset, the next logical step would be confronting Quarles. There would certainly be words between you, and if in his usual callous way he turned his back on you, it would surprise no one if you lost what was left of your temper and killed him. It’s an explanation I’m bound to tell the inquest. But is it right—or wrong? I must make a decision, Jones, and you will have to give me the unvarnished truth in order to make it.”

Jones looked him in the eye. “How did you learn all this about my daughter running away? Who knew, to tell you?”

“At the moment—”

“It was my wife, wasn’t it? It has to be. Did Gwynnie write her a letter?”

Rutledge could answer that. “No.”

“Gwynnie’s mother’s been crying. I could see it when I came home at night. Redness that she said was from soap in her eyes or the baby’s fist striking her while she was nursing. But it was a letter, wasn’t it?

From Gran, then, if not from Gwynnie.”

He had come to the truth in his own fashion. A man with a mind that was as sharp as the knives with which he cut the dough on his board, he had let himself be blinded by his love for his daughter. But now he was thinking clearly and about to protect his wife.

Rutledge cut him short. “Your wife couldn’t have put Quarles in that apparatus—”

“Oh, yes, I heard about that. But I could have come along behind her and done it, couldn’t I? To throw suspicion away from her. That’s how it’ll be seen. Well, I won’t have it. I killed the accursed Harold Quarles, and I ran him up into the rafters like a rat on a string. And if you let me see my daughter one last time, I’ll go with you to the station and sign my statement. I give you my word.”

“And what,” Rutledge demanded, irritated, “will become of the bakery and your family? Had you forgotten?”

Jones blinked, as if he’d been slapped in the face. “I’ve trained my girl, she can run it for us.”

“Damn it, man, she’s still half a child. How is she going to manage?

And at her age, what will this do to her, slaving the hours you do, even if your custom stays with you. Coming home at night tired and dispirited, with nothing to look forward to but another morning baking bread for people who stare at her and remember you were hanged.”

Jones took a deep breath.

It was extraordinary, Rutledge thought, to watch two people trying to protect each other, out of sheer fright. And neither had the courage to ask the other for the truth.

“No, don’t tell me again that you’re guilty. Go home and speak to your wife, man, and between the two of you, try to make sense. We don’t need martyrs, we want to find a killer.”

Jones said staunchly, “I told you, I killed Harold Quarles.”

“And not a quarter of an hour ago, you were prepared to tell me you hadn’t. Talk to your wife. Afterward I’ll take you to Gwyneth.

Your daughter shouldn’t be there until you’ve come to grips with your-selves. In the interim, stay here and think about what you’re asking of your wife and your daughter. Cambury has a long memory, Hugh Jones, and you’ll find if you confess to murder, even the murder of someone as unpopular as Harold Quarles, there will be people who turn against you. It’s how people are.”

He got up to leave. There was no fear of flight in this case, he thought, Jones wouldn’t leave his family to face their nightmare alone.

Jones called to him as Rutledge was reaching for the door. “She couldn’t have done it. It’s not in her nature to kill.”

But Rutledge thought he was trying to convince himself, not the man from London, as he spoke the words. Sometimes doubt was the deadliest of fears. It grew from nothing more than a niggling concern until it overwhelmed trust and shone a new light on small inconsisten-cies, white lies, honest mistakes, and human frailty. And as it distorted perspective, it could also distort the truth. Words taken out of context loomed terrifyingly large, and in the end, doubt could convince a loving husband or wife that their partner was capable of the unthinkable.

Both Hugh Jones and his wife were in the throes of doubting, and they would never quite be the same again.

Outside on the High Street, Rutledge swore. It hadn’t gone well, this business with the baker. But it had been doomed from the start, because the girl had run away. Would Jones persist in his assertion that he’d killed Quarles? Or would his wife persuade him to let the police do their work unhindered.

And in the meantime, what was he, Rutledge, to do if one of that family was a murderer?

Padgett was just coming out of the station.

“You look like a man who wished he hadn’t seen a ghost,” the inspector said in greeting.

Rutledge was in no humor for the man’s badgering. “I want to know what it is you held against Harold Quarles. And I want to hear it now. If not in the station, we can walk on the green.”

“I told you—”

“I know what you told me, and I’m damned well running out of patience. What did Quarles do? Threaten to have you dismissed? It’s the only reason I can think of, other than insulting your wife, for your refusal to give me the truth.”

“It’s none of—”

“—my business. But it is. This is your last chance. Talk to me, or I’ll know the reason why.”

Padgett walked away, as if turning his back on Rutledge. Then he whirled around, his face twisted with fury. “I gave you my word I hadn’t killed him.”

“Other people in Cambury are having to watch their most private affairs being aired in public. Why should you be different? Whether you killed him or not, I want to know what lay between the two of you.

I want to make my own judgment call. I can tell you, if I’m recalled to London, you’ll fare less well with the man who will take my place. At least you know you can rely on my discretion.”

“All right. Let’s be done with it. You won’t be satisfied until you know. There were two occasions when the bastard swore he was going to speak to the Chief Constable and have me dismissed. And he could do it. Rich and powerful as he was, he could do it. The Chief Constable doesn’t like to be disturbed. That’s why I called London myself, instead of going to him. Anything for peace, that’s his belief.”

“What happened with Quarles?”

“One such occasion was when Hunter was having trouble with him at the hotel. It was while Quarles was rusticating here. I stepped in and Quarles told me flat out that he would see the Chief Constable the next day. He did, and I was dragged on the carpet for upsetting an important man. Told to mind my manners and get along with my betters, and stop this nonsense.”

“That must have stung.”

“You have no idea,” Padgett said trenchantly.

“And the other occasion?”

“It was shortly after Quarles moved into Hallowfields. I had to remind him that the two dogs he had at that time—not the spaniels, but two large brutes—couldn’t be allowed to run free and attack the sheep of nearby farms. He told me they’d done no such thing. I replied that I had eyewitnesses and would pursue the matter. He told me he’d have the Chief Constable teach me my manners. And I was called to account. I referred the Chief Constable to the farmers who’d complained. And when he spoke to them, Quarles had paid them off without my knowledge. They denied losing a single sheep. But the dogs were penned at night after that, and I was left to look the fool.”

“Where are they now? The dogs?”

“They were old, they died some time ago. They weren’t eating the sheep, just chasing them and killing them, for sport. I never found out what price he’d paid the farmers, but they blandly lied on his behalf and left me hanging out to dry. Lazy he may be, but the Chief Constable has a long memory, you’ll find. And that’s why I couldn’t have you going to him. It would be the last straw. I’d lose everything.”

It could, Hamish told Rutledge, explain the bark of the dog outside the tithe barn that attracted Padgett to investigate: a well-honed lie that had about it the sweet taste of vengeance.

“You heard a dog the night Quarles was murdered.”

“So I did. You can’t disprove it.”

“Nor do you seem to be able to prove it.”

Padgett said, “I’ve told you. Now the matter is closed. Do you hear me?”

“You still haven’t grasped the fact that by your own admission you’re a suspect. Don’t you see? Whether you like it or not, whether I wish to pursue it or not, you had a very good reason to kill that man.

Don’t expect favors from me. I will treat you as fairly as I do everyone else.”

“Is that why you’ve held information back from me? Do you really think I’ve killed Harold Quarles?” There was something in his eyes, a measuring look, that made Rutledge want to step back, away from Padgett.

“It doesn’t matter what I feel. I’ll want to find your statement ready for me tomorrow morning. About finding the body. Whether I use it or not, I must ask for it. And whether you want to give it or not, personally and professionally, you have no choice.”

“Damn you. ” Padgett turned and went back into the police station, slamming the door behind him.

Rutledge let out a long breath.

But the question now was, how had Brunswick learned of Quarles’s two attempts to have Padgett sacked? Had he been present, that night in the hotel dining room? And had someone—his wife?—told him about the earlier event? There must even have been talk in the village at the time, forgotten though it might be now.

Hamish said, “Ye must ask yon clerk why he didna’ tell ye that the inspector was present when there was trouble.”

That was easily dealt with. Rutledge crossed the street to the hotel and went in search of Hunter.

The manager was working in his office behind Reception. He rose when Rutledge came through the door, wariness in every line.

Rutledge greeted him and got to the point. “You didn’t tell me, when you described the problem you had with Harold Quarles here in the hotel dining room, that you had called the police in.”

“Inspector Padgett was here that night, a diner. He and his wife were celebrating her birthday. He came to my assistance when Quarles turned nasty, and intervened.”

“Did you know that Quarles had spoken of this to the Chief Constable, in an effort to have Padgett dismissed from his post in the police?”

Hunter’s eyes slid away. “Yes. I heard later. It was talked about.

I didn’t wish to bring it up. It wasn’t my place. If you want to know more, you should speak to Inspector Padgett.”

“If you’ve misled me about this, how do I know that you’ve told me the truth about Quarles arguing with someone—Quarles turning the corner out of Minton Street, and the fact that you have no idea where he went from there.”

Hunter said, “I told you the truth. My truth. I thought it was best that Inspector Padgett explain his role and the consequences of his actions.”

“Because this information could involve him in the murder?”

Smiling wryly, Hunter said, “That’s not my problem. It’s yours. It seems he’s told you. Or someone has. Either you’ve leapt to conclusions about the Chief Constable being approached, or you know what transpired there. I don’t. I kept my position and Mr. Padgett kept his.

That was what mattered.”

“Who else was here that night? Do you remember?”

“The dining room was quite busy that evening. I can’t recall everyone who was here. Mr. Brunswick. Mr. Greer. The rector, dining with a curate he knew from another living. Others. It was a matter of face, you see. Mr. Quarles was intent on saving his, and Inspector Padgett was trying to calm a volatile situation. Quarles insisted that I be sacked from the hotel, but fortunately for me, the owner had no intention of being bullied. Hardly, you’d think, a reason to kill a man.”

“In your case, possibly not. But this was relevant to my inquiries.

What else have you neglected to tell me?”

“Nothing. To the very best of my knowledge, I’ve spoken only the truth.”

“A truth with holes in it.”

“There are no other holes. I swear to you.”

Hamish said, “Ye ken, he didna’ need to kill the man. Only lie for someone else.”

Padgett?

Was that who had quarreled with the victim on Minton Street after he’d left the Greer house? And had Hunter shut his eyes—or his ears, in this case, and told the police he hadn’t recognized the voice of the other person?

Murder was a strange business, as Rutledge had learned from years of meticulous detective work and well-honed intuition. The smallest clue could change a case from the most straightforward appearance of truth to a tangled web of lies. Or vice versa. There could be no small mistakes, no withholding of evidence to spare someone—or to condemn someone.

Had Hunter lied for Padgett?

On the whole, Rutledge thought not. There appeared to be no real connection between the two men. No depth of commitment that would make one protect the other. After all, neither had lost their positions, in spite of Quarles. Padgett had been shamed by his superior and in front of his fellow villagers. And so had Hunter. But in a vastly different sense.

Padgett depended on his standing in Cambury for his authority and influence as a policeman.

Rutledge said, “If there are any more omissions you’ll like to mend, you know where to find me.” And he walked out of the office, leaving Hunter chewing his lip.

From the hotel, Rutledge went to Miss O’Hara’s house. Gwyneth was still sleeping, and he told Miss O’Hara about the interview at the bakery.

“Mrs. Jones is afraid he killed Quarles—he’s used that apparatus—

and he’s afraid she has, though he knows she wouldn’t have thought of hanging him in the beams of the tithe barn,” he ended.

“But he’s going to confess to protect her?”

“He’s confused, worried about his wife, worried about his daughter, and in the end, to protect both of them, he’s willing to step forward.”

“Is it a smoke screen, though?” she asked, twisting her long slim fingers into knots. “Is he hoping you’ll refuse to hear his confession and leave him in the clear after all?”

“There’s that. I’ve told him to go home and talk to his wife. She may tell him his daughter is here, and she may not. I want you to be prepared.”

“It will be a tearful reunion.” She sighed. “All right, I’ll do my best to keep them from foolishness, if they come here first. But look at this, Mr. Rutledge. He never swore to you that he didn’t see that letter. If it were kept in her apron pocket, it could have fallen out. He could have seen it. He wouldn’t tell her if he had.”

“True.”

She looked at him thoughtfully. “You don’t want the killer to be one of the Jones family, do you?”

“If the fates are kind . . .” He smiled.

“Did you think he might be afraid that Gwynnie killed Quarles?”

“She couldn’t have put him in that harness.”

“But if she had killed him, her mother, whatever the qualms on her own account, might have gone back to the scene and tried to hide the body. She might have thought of the cage. She might have reasoned that if Quarles could just go missing for a day or two, she could smooth over her family’s anguish regarding Gwyneth’s whereabouts and make it all come out right.”

“Mrs. Jones might have tried to hide the body, but she’d have been in a great hurry to get back to Gwyneth, for fear she’d do something foolish. The rig would have taken too long. No. I saw her after she’d got the letter, and she was frantic, she didn’t know where her daughter was. Besides, the girl reached Cambury after Quarles had been found.”

Miss O’Hara said, “Yes, that’s true. Look, you’ve got me spinning motives in my head. I don’t know what to believe.”

“Do you want me to take the girl away? Is she too much for you?”

“Here she’s safe from talk. Let her stay.”

He thanked her and left. He was almost on the point of going on to the Jones house to tell Mrs. Jones how her husband had reacted to the news of his daughter’s return but decided against it. Let the man and his wife work out their own problems first, and the girl’s next.

After that it was more likely that the truth would come out. One way or another.

Padgett. Jones. Brunswick. Stephenson. Mrs. Quarles.

What was it about this case that he couldn’t put his finger on? Why didn’t he have that instinctive sense of where an inquiry was going?

It all came back to that damned cage. Who knew about it? And why would someone want to put a dead man in it, and leave him to hang among the shadowy beams of a medieval tithe barn?

What was the truth behind not the murder but the hatred that launched it?

17

In the event, Hugh Jones sent for Rutledge almost a quarter of an hour after he’d closed the bakery and come home.

Rutledge had spent some time talking to the War Office on the telephone, asking for the military record of one Thomas Stephenson.

After several delays as he was sent to one desk after another, Stephenson’s description of his son’s death was confirmed. The officer reading it was cold, unsympathetic, and Rutledge wondered if he had ever served in France or merely kept the accounts of those who had and considered himself an expert on trench warfare.

He wasn’t ready to confront the tangle of Hugh Jones and his family. But he walked there, and when no one answered his knock, he let himself in.

“I couldn’t wait,” Jones said as Rutledge came though the parlor door. “I shut the bakery early. My wife’s not here, there’s a neighbor caring for my girls, and nobody knows where Gwynnie is. I asked her sisters. They haven’t seen her.”

“She’s with Miss O’Hara. I expect your wife has gone there against my advice. Your daughter slept most of the day. This will be the first opportunity her mother has had to speak to her.”

Jones heaved himself from the horsehair sofa. “Then we’ll go to the Irish woman’s cottage.”

Rutledge walked a little ahead of him, and when they reached the house, he could hear raised voices inside. Miss O’Hara opened her door, and it was plain that she’d had enough.

Like parents everywhere, Mrs. Jones’s fright and worry had dissolved into anger, and as her daughter stood before her, hangdog and crying, she was berating her for causing the family such grief.

Gwyneth looked up to see her father coming into the room, and she stood poised for flight, like a startled animal knowing it was cornered and had nowhere to go. Mrs. Jones, whirling, gasped and fell silent.

Jones stood where he was, taking in the situation at a glance.

“You did a bad thing,” he scolded his daughter. “You caused us much grief and your mother’s tears.” His voice was stern.

“But you wouldn’t let me come home. You did nothing, ” the girl cried.

“And whose fault is that, and now the man is dead, and we’re being looked at by the police. Because you couldn’t mind your father or listen to your mother. Girl, you’re going to be the death of me.”

His voice broke on the last words, and he stood there, his mouth open, nothing coming out, and his face was filled with all the things he wanted to say and couldn’t.

Gwyneth turned and ran back through the house, to the room where she’d been sleeping. Her mother, with a swift glance at Jones, started after her. But Rutledge stopped her.

“No. She’s better off out of this. Mrs. Jones, I’ve come to take your husband into custody. I’d promised that he could see his daughter first.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” she said, fighting through her emotional turmoil. “I killed that man.”

“Don’t be a fool, woman—” Jones began, but she turned on him next.

“And what have you done but thunder and threaten to kill the devil yourself, and fumed with frustration that your daughter had to be sent away while he still lorded it over the village? I heard you a thousand times and, yes, so have your children and, for all I know, your neighbors. Where there’s the power of words, you are a murderer. And God help me, so am I, because in my heart I wanted to see him dead.”

They stared at each other.

Out of the corner of his eye, Rutledge saw Miss O’Hara step out her own door and move into her garden, her hands clasping her elbows and hugging her arms to her chest.

Jones had turned to Rutledge and was repeating what he’d claimed earlier. “I killed the man. Let it be done with.”

“You’re a stubborn Welshman, Hugh Ioan Jones. Do you hear that?” his wife accused.

He said, for the first time showing gentleness, “What would you have me do, love, let you hang in my place?”

She began to cry. “I just want things to be the way they were. I want to go back to when we were safe and the only worry was how to feed the next mouth.”

He crossed the room and gathered her in his arms. “I’d do anything for you, love. Die for you, even.”

She was not a woman of beauty. Time and childbearing had worn her down, and worry had added lines to her face and drawn the color from it.

“There were times I wondered,” she said, then pushed him away.

“Go to your daughter, Hugh Jones, and then come home to your dinner. I doubt it’s edible now. But we’ll eat it anyway.”

He held her for a moment, then without a word went down the passage to find Gwyneth.

Mrs. Jones looked up at Rutledge. “We’re a sorry lot, bragging of being murderers. And you still aren’t sure, are you?”

Rutledge asked wryly, “Are you?”

She said simply, “If he’d killed Harold Quarles, he wouldn’t have touched me. He’d have gone directly to Gwynnie, for fear he’d break down.”

It was a woman’s reasoning, but Rutledge nodded. Whether or not it cleared Hugh Jones was another matter.

She sighed. “I’ll go fetch the children and set out our dinner. I doubt any of us will swallow more than a spoonful.”

He let her go, and waited. After a time, Hugh walked into the parlor without his daughter.

“She’ll come home in her own time. I’ll ask Miss O’Hara if she minds keeping her a little longer.”

He walked past Rutledge and went out the door.

Rutledge waited, and in ten minutes, her face washed and her hair brushed, Gwyneth Jones stepped shyly into the parlor.

The resilience of youth, he thought.

“The selfishness of the young,” Hamish countered. “She got what she wants, even if no one else did.”

She was indeed a pretty girl, despite the dark circles beneath her eyes and the strain in them only just easing. In a small voice she apologized to Rutledge for being so troublesome, and then looked around for Miss O’Hara.

“She’s in the garden. She wanted to give your family a little privacy.”

Gwyneth nodded and went out.

After a time, Miss O’Hara walked back in her own house and shut the door behind her.

“Well,” she said, hands shoved into the pockets of the short jacket she was wearing, “all this drama has made me hungry. You’ll take me to The Unicorn to dine. I’ll expect you in half an hour, and let the gossips be damned.”

He found himself laughing.

And then realized that she was quite serious.

* * *

The next morning, Padgett met Rutledge at the dining room door as he was leaving after his breakfast.

Padgett followed him into Reception and said, “The rumor mill has been busy. I hear you had dinner with the lovely Miss O’Hara.

Won’t look good in London, will it, if you have to take her into custody for murder.”

“I doubt she killed Quarles because he flirted with her in the street.”

“Oh, ho! She’s already in the clear—” He held up a hand before Rutledge could make the retort that Padgett saw coming. “Never mind. We’ve got a far different problem. The baker, Hugh Jones, is in the station wanting to make a statement.”

Rutledge swore silently. “Let him make whatever statement he cares to write down and sign. But we’ll not take any action on it until I’m satisfied he isn’t lying.”

“His girl’s come home. He thinks that makes him your favorite suspect.”

“And it does. But I haven’t yet been able to show he knew she’d left her grandmother’s. If Jones killed Quarles without knowing she was leaving Wales, it was coincidence.”

“She’d written him that she was unhappy there. He just told me as much. He might have been clearing the way for her to come.”

Rutledge considered Padgett. “Do you really think Hugh Jones is our murderer?”

“Better him than me,” Padgett said tersely. Then he added, “I don’t see him leaving his family destitute. And he would. Still, if Quarles goaded him, who knows what he might have forgotten in the heat of the moment? He’s a strong man, mind you.”

“There’s something else I want to speak to you about. Let’s walk.”

They went outside where they couldn’t be heard. Rutledge said,

“This business with Brunswick leaves me unsatisfied.”

“Whether he killed his wife or she killed herself?”

“In a way. Sunday, when we were discussing past murders here in Cambury, you told me about a young soldier returning from the war who believed his wife had been unfaithful. He knocked her down and killed her.”

“Yes, he claimed it was in a fit of temper.”

“Who was the man he suspected of sleeping with her?”

Padgett frowned. “We never knew. He told me he’d killed his wife, and there was the end of it. Gossip claimed it was a lorry driver who’d been seen about the place from time to time, but he turned out to be her brother. And after killing her, the husband wasn’t about to besmirch her good name. Odd business, but for all I know, the war turned his mind, and it was all in his imagination. There was no talk about her before he came home.”

“Could the other man have been Harold Quarles? There’s a rumor about a mistress. Was she this woman? Or is his mistress just wishful thinking on the part of busybodies?”

Padgett’s eyebrows flew up. “Quarles? Somehow I don’t see it.

And nor did the gossips. But there’s her farm, and this business of him playing squire when he first came to Hallowfields. It could have begun that way. What put you on to that possibility?”

“Thinking last night about Brunswick and his wife.”

Padgett shook his head. “The soldier’s wife was quite pretty. But water over the dam, now. Nothing we can do about it, even if it was Quarles.”

“It might explain why Brunswick was so certain his own wife was unfaithful. There was precedent.”

“I put that down to his naturally jealous nature. But you never know. Dr. O’Neil is releasing Stephenson today. With orders not to open the shop for the rest of the week.”

“I’ve spoken to the Army. Stephenson’s son died in France of a self-inf licted gunshot wound. Has the rector been to see him?”

“Yes, according to O’Neil, Mr. Heller was there for nearly an hour.

And he said that afterward, Stephenson appeared to be in a better frame of mind. We seem to be at a standstill. Do you think we’ll find our man?” He was serious now, and his eyes were on Rutledge’s face, trying to read his thoughts.

“We’ll find him,” Rutledge answered grimly. “Whoever did this went to great lengths to leave behind no evidence we could collect or use against him. But there’s always something. When we have that, we’ll have him.”

Padgett was silent for a moment. Then he said, “You’re the man on the spot. I’ll see to Jones. And I’ll have a brief chat with Brunswick as well.”

He nodded and walked away.

Rutledge stood looking after him with mixed feelings.

Almost without conscious thought, Rutledge went to the hotel yard and got into his motorcar. He hadn’t planned to drive out to Hallowfields, but he found himself drawn again to the tithe barn, restless in his own mind, unable to pinpoint what it was that niggled at the corners of this inquiry, why it was he couldn’t seem to draw all the edges together and make a whole.

He had watched Mrs. Newell do that with her willow strands, the basket taking shape under her deft fingers, the certainty with which she worked demonstrated by the steadily rising levels on the basket sides, the way the willows, whippy and straight, bent and wove to her fingers, and the simple grace with which it all came together.

Would, he thought, driving down the High Street toward Hallowfields, that murder inquiries had the same subtle texture and execution.

He left the motorcar by the main gate and walked from there to the gatehouse at the Home Farm, then stood in its little garden, trying to put himself in the darkness of Saturday near midnight, and the confrontation in this place that must have led to murder. After a moment he went across to the one stone that had been slightly dislodged from its neighbors. No blood or hair would have adhered to it. Whoever had used it would have seen to that. But he hefted it in his hand and felt the smooth weight of it, the neatness with which it filled his palm and the size, which allowed him a firm grip.

It was made for murder, he thought, as perfect a weapon as even an ancient warrior could have found, before he learned how to shape a tool for killing.

Hamish said, “It’s whimsy, this.”

Rutledge smiled and put it back in its place beside its neighbors.

He looked up at the gatehouse, across to the tithe barn, no longer guarded by one of Padgett’s constables, and then down the lane toward the Home Farm.

Was there nothing here to re-create that scene of murder?

Pacing on the grassy verges of the lane, he tried to shut his mind to someone calling somewhere in the distance and the sound of a tractor rumbling into a barn.

At the end of his next turn, he looked up, following the flight of a bird, and realized that the parkland on this side of the road, part of the estate, had a matching stretch of wood on the far side, perhaps thirty feet deep, and overgrown. Whether or not it belonged to the estate, he didn’t know, but seedlings must have escaped from the park over the decades and found fertile soil there, making themselves a poor reflection of their better grown neighbors.

Walking over the road, he stepped into the bushy tangle of wild-flowers and brambles that marked the verge, and went about ten feet into the wood, so that he could look back at Hallowfields from a different perspective.

He realized he had a better view of the Home Farm lane from here than he did from the estate property, and moved another half dozen steps among the trees until he could see both gates—that to the farm, and the drive to the house.

Changing his angle a little, he nearly stumbled over a length of half-rotten wood from a fallen tree.

He turned to look down at it, and what struck him then was how out of place it appeared, even here amidst all the other tangled debris of winter.

Curious, he began to walk in a half circle, and about ten feet away he found the rest of the tree the length had come from. Lichen covered the stump from which the tree had split, and in its fall it had broken into two sections. The longest half was disintegrating where smaller branches lay half covered in last year’s leaves. Just where the shortest length should have been was a mossy depression. That section had been lifted out and moved to a better vantage point.

No animal could have done that.

He walked back to the length he’d seen first and measured it, and then looked once more at the empty space where it had been removed from the rotting trunk. Yes, a perfect fit.

This wood wasn’t dense. Anyone walking here could easily be seen from the road. But in failing light or in the dark, when there was no movement to attract the eye, no light to pick out shapes or brightness of skin, someone could sit on that short length of trunk and wait, with a perfect view of the entrances to Hallowfields.

How had he come here? By foot? Bicycle? Motorcar? Where would he have hidden a motorcar?

Rutledge left the wood and walked on up the main road, just as a lorry came roaring past, leaving him in a cloud of dust.

The wall of the estate ran on for some distance, but there was a rutted track some fifty or sixty yards away from the gates where a team and farm equipment could pull in and turn around. It was used often enough—the grass was matted and torn, muddy in places, deep grooves in others.

In the distance he spied a small farm, the barn’s roof towering over the house, and a team standing in the yard while a man bent over the traces.

Between the track and the farm was plowed land, already a hazy green with its spring crop.

A vehicle sitting here on a Saturday evening would be invisible in the darkness.

Hamish said, “Yon inspector told ye there were no strangers in the village.”

“Yes. But if someone drove through, without stopping, it would make sense.”

“Aye, but why not afoot? Quarles was on foot.”

“That limits where he came from—and where he could go afterward.”

“Ye’re searching for straws. Gie it up.”

“Someone waited there.”

“Sae ye think. But ye canna’ say when. And how did he know what was in the tithe barn?”

Rutledge began to walk back to the wood. “True enough.”

What about the man Nelson? Had he waited here for Quarles? No, Quarles left the Greer house and would have been well home and in his bed before Nelson came this way again. If Greer was telling the truth.

Who argued with Quarles outside the Greer house? Who had known to look for him there? Had the argument not been resolved, and so he had come ahead of Quarles to pursue it again?

Padgett? He admitted to being on this road the same night . . .

It had been some time since the incident in the dining room of The Unicorn—why should Padgett suddenly attack Quarles? Why now?

That was a sticking point.

Was there something that had happened more recently? Tipping the scales, trying a temper that was already on a short leash?

Padgett hadn’t been very forthcoming. It could be true.

No one would notice a policeman passing along this road. It was regularly patrolled, because of Hallowfields. It wouldn’t be reported that Padgett had come this way—if he hadn’t taken over his man’s last run, if he hadn’t found the body, who would have known he was here waiting?

Rutledge reached the log again and sat down carefully, so as not to ruin his trousers. But this bit of wood was dry, and his feet sank comfortably into a slight depression that appeared to be made for them.

It would be possible to sit here for some time . . . hours if need be.

Who? And how many weekend evenings had someone waited here, to catch Harold Quarles unawares?

Standing up, he found a few long twigs and set them up around the log, put his coat over them to resemble a man, his hat on the log itself, and went back across the road.

In the daylight, he might well have seen the coat, looking for it.

But it didn’t strike the eye at once, and if there was no movement, he’d have missed it. Even with the sun out.

Rutledge went back to retrieve his clothing, and cranked the motorcar.

Hamish said, “What does it prove?”

“Nothing. We still have the problem of the apparatus.”

Coming into Cambury, he was reminded of something Hamish had accused him of earlier, that he hadn’t looked into Quarles’s past.

And then one name leapt out at him. The partner, Davis Penrith.

He hadn’t asked how Quarles had been killed.

Rutledge hesitated, nearly pulled into The Unicorn’s yard to make a telephone call to London. And instead he gunned the motor and drove through the village without stopping.

Hamish called him a fool. “It’s no’ what’s wise.”

“I couldn’t think straight Monday morning. I didn’t have any reason then to question him further. It wasn’t until I’d left London that I realized he showed no curiosity about his partner’s death. If they worked together for nearly twenty years, there would have been some interest in the man’s demise. Even if they disliked each other after the breakup of the partnership.”

“Excuses,” Hamish grumbled, and settled into a morose mono-logue for the rest of the journey.

It was late when Rutledge reached the city. Nevertheless, he went straight to Penrith’s house.

The footman who answered the door at this late hour was dubious about disturbing Penrith.

“He’s entertaining a guest,” he informed Rutledge, “and told me he’d ring when the guest was leaving. He didn’t want to be disturbed, meanwhile.”

“Yes, I understand. But this is police business, and it comes first.”

The young footman stood there uncertainly for a moment, then replied, “I’ll go and ask.”

He came back five minutes later. “Can this wait until tomorrow?”

“It cannot.”

The footman went away again, and when he returned, he led Rutledge into a small room at the back of the house that appeared from the way it was decorated to belong to Penrith’s wife. The furnishings were feminine, painted white and gold, the chairs delicate, and the hang-ings at the windows trimmed with tassels.

Penrith was standing there, a frown on his face, when Rutledge walked through the door.

“I hope you’ve come to tell me that you’ve caught Harold’s murderer.”

“In fact, I haven’t,” Rutledge said easily. “I’ve come with questions I should have asked you on Monday.”

“This is not the time—”

“I’m afraid your business with your guest will have to wait.”

It was interesting, Rutledge thought, watching the man, to see that a stern front made him back down. If the partnership was to have succeeded for many years, it would have been Quarles who was the domi-nant force. Penrith couldn’t have controlled the other man.

Hamish said, “But ye didna’ know him alive.”

Rutledge nearly answered aloud but caught himself in time. To Penrith he said, “This may take some time. I suggest we sit down.”

Penrith sat at the small French desk, and as Rutledge took the arm-chair across from him, Penrith said, “I don’t care for your tone.”

“For that I apologize. But the fact is, time is passing and I need to confirm several pieces of information before I can move forward.”

At this Penrith seemed to relax a little, marginally but noticeably.

As if he was more comfortable with a simple request for information.

“In the first place, why did you and the victim sever your business ties?”

“I’ve told you. I wished to spend more time with my family. I’m not a greedy man, I’ve made enough money to live comfortably for the rest of my life. Why spend every hour of my day grubbing for more?”

“Surely you could have stayed within the partnership and simply cut back on your appointments. In fact, you appear to have one this evening.”

Penrith picked up the pen by his wife’s engagement book. “You didn’t know Harold Quarles. There was no such thing as half measures for him.”

“Did your decision to leave have anything to do with the Cumberline debacle?”

The pen snapped in Penrith’s fingers.

“Where did you hear of Cumberline?”

“I saw the box in the victim’s study. And there is some talk in Cambury about his ‘rusticating’ there. I put two and two together. Something went wrong, and you left the firm.”

“I didn’t intend to defraud anyone, if that’s your insinuation.” As an afterthought he added, “And I don’t think Quarles did, either.”

“But he made no attempt to prevent a handful of people from investing in a foolhardy scheme that was bound to fall through.”

“Some people think they know best. There’s nothing you can do to educate them or protect them. Some of those who made a great deal of money during the war were hot to double it. I found that distasteful.

But I didn’t try to trick them.”

“Did you have your own money in Cumberline?”

“A little—” He broke off. “Why am I being questioned like this?”

“Because your partner is dead and there’s no one else I can ask.

Let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, that you disagreed with Quarles’s methods in dealing with Cumberline, and in order not to be tarred by that brush, you decided the time had come to leave James, Quarles and Penrith.”

He didn’t need to hear confirmation of his question. It was written in Penrith’s face.

“And I’d like to suggest to you that you haven’t always seen eye to eye with your partner.”

“Here,” Penrith said, leaning forward, “you aren’t suggesting that I killed the man!”

“I’m trying to get to the bottom of Harold Quarles. If his own partner didn’t care to be associated with him any longer, and if his wife has made her own arrangements to deal with the problems in her marriage, I want to know more about the man and who else might have hated him.”

“I didn’t hate him—”

“I think it more likely that you feared him.”

Penrith got to his feet. “I won’t hear any more of this.”

“We are speaking of Quarles, not of you. If you feared him, why didn’t his wife?”

That caught Penrith off guard. “I—don’t know whether she feared him or not.”

“It seems that a few years into their marriage, she learned something about him, what sort of man he was, that caused her to separate from him legally. Not just a move to another part of the house, but terms drawn up by their solicitors. Just as you did financially.”

There was worry in Penrith’s eyes now that he couldn’t conceal.

“I don’t know what their relationship was—or why. She stopped coming to London, and they stopped entertaining. And Quarles became a different man, in some ways. He never spoke of his wife to me after that. I told myself it might be because of Archer . . .” He stopped. “Does she tell you she feared him? That he might have made her come to regret her decision?”

There was intensity in the question that Penrith couldn’t keep out of his voice.

“Whatever it was that came between them, she appears to feel a deep and abiding emotion of some sort. I think, if you want the truth, that she acted to protect her son.”

Light seemed to dawn behind Penrith’s eyes. “Yes,” he said slowly.

“I begin to see what you are saying.”

“Then what was it that turned Maybelle Quarles against her husband?”

Penrith sat down heavily. “I don’t know what it was.”

“But you must have some suspicion. It wasn’t only Cumberline that turned you away from the firm the two of you had built together. The immediate cause, perhaps, but not the long-standing one.”

That hit its mark, but Penrith said nothing.

“What is there in Harold Quarles’s background that could have brought someone to Cambury to kill him?”

“Considering the reputation he had for being overbearing and dic-tatorial in the village, I should think you would find enough suspects there to satisfy any police inquiry,” he retorted.

“The more I question the villagers, the more I hear one thing: whatever their grievances, people tell me that Harold Quarles wasn’t worth hanging for.”

Hamish said, “He didna’ mention the women . . . It was you.”

But then, not living in Cambury, he might not know, Rutledge answered silently.

When Penrith made no reply, Rutledge said, “You never asked me how he died.”

Surprised, Penrith said, “Didn’t I? Of course I did.”

“He was struck in the head with one of the white stones that ring the iron table in the Home Farm’s gatehouse garden.”

Penrith turned away. “That’s terrible.” But the words lacked feeling.

“Did you know that Quarles provided a Christmas pageant in the tithe barn on his property, for the entertainment of the village?”

“I was the one who went out and found that confounded camel,”

Penrith told him with some force. “It took me the better part of a week.”

“Why were you sent on such an errand? Why not one of the house clerks?”

“Quarles was threatening to sack everyone in sight. God knows why he wanted a camel—I expect it was something his son asked for.”

“We know very little about Quarles’s life before he came to London, only that he’d worked in the mines, came south to make his fortune, and so on. You must know more than that.”

Penrith was suddenly wary. “His background? I don’t think he spoke of it, except for that early story about his mother’s ring. He was an odd sort. He’d dredge up stories about going down for coal, and they rang true. People believed him. And five minutes later, he was a Londoner through and through. The time came when I didn’t really know what to believe. Whether he used the coal face to promote himself, or whether he really did go down. He said once that his parents’

house had been eaten by the coal. That he had nothing to go back to but bad memories.”

“No one came from Yorkshire to visit him? No one stopped him on the street to beg a few pounds from an old friend? No one wrote to him?”

“He told me his family was dead. I had no reason to think that was a lie,” Penrith said defensively “After all, I didn’t really give a damn about his past.”

“You were a curate’s son, I believe?”

“Yes. How did you know that?”

“Someone told me that you gave respectability to the firm, after Quarles took over from the James family.”

Penrith flushed. “If you say so. I had no prospects when I—when I came to London. Like most young men, I was grateful to find a position. I had no expectation of rising in it.”

“Where was your father’s living?”

“In Hampshire. Why?”

“You didn’t know Quarles before you were thrown together in London?”

“That’s right. I don’t see where this is going.”

Neither did Rutledge. He was looking for anything, a crack in Penrith’s armor, a small piece of information that he could move ahead with. But his sixth sense, his intuition, told him that something was not right. Penrith seemed to alternate between fears for his own standing and distancing himself from Quarles.

“Look, I’ve left my guest for long enough. If you will come again at a more convenient time, I’ll be happy to continue this conversation.”

Rutledge stood up. “Thank you. I will.”

Penrith was waiting for Rutledge to precede him through the door.

But as Rutledge came up to him, he stopped and said, “What village was that in Hampshire?”

Penrith stiffened. “I thought perhaps you would prefer to know where in Yorkshire Harold Quarles had come from.”

“I think that door is shut. Quarles himself closed it a long time ago.

Thank you for your time, Mr. Penrith.”

He walked by the man and down the passage the way he had come.

Penrith followed him as far as the entrance to the house, as if to be certain he was gone.

When Rutledge had reached the street, he looked back, and Penrith was still standing there.

Hamish said, “Ye’re a fool if ye drive far again tonight.”

“I’ll go to the flat,” Rutledge answered, cranking the car.

He was caught in London traffic, and on the spur of the moment he turned toward the Yard in the hope of seeing Gibson leaving, but no such luck. He was looping back toward the west end, and as he pulled into the swirl around Trafalgar Square, he saw Mrs. Channing trying to hail a cab. It was late, a busy evening, and she looked tired.

Without thinking he maneuvered the motorcar to the lions, nearest where she was standing, and called, “Can I give you a lift?”

He would have done the same for his sister, Frances, or for Maryanne Browning.

She looked up, smiling in recognition. “Ian. How lovely! Yes, I’d be glad of a lift.”

He waited for her to slip in next to him, and she said, light and dark flitting across her face as he drove on, “I was at St. Martin-in-the-Fields with friends. A memorial service. ”

“At this hour?”

“It was especially arranged for this hour, actually. An evening con-cert in his memory. The music was wonderful. His family arranged it—they do every year, on the Thursday evening closest to his birthday. A rejoicing for his life, short as it was.”

He wanted to ask who the friend was but refrained. “You’re on your way home, then.”

“Yes. I had a letter from Elise. They’re having a lovely time.”

“That’s good to hear.”

The conversation dwindled as he turned toward Chelsea, as if neither of them knew quite what to say next. A few drops of rain spattered on the windscreen. Mrs. Channing saw them and said, “Well, I’m doubly grateful to you now, Ian.” Her last words were lost in a downpour, and she laughed. “It’s quite like Dunster, isn’t it?”

The thunder soon followed, and she moved a little nearer so that her voice would carry, one gloved hand pulling her coat closer against the chill of the sudden storm. “Mrs. Caldwell telephoned me. We’re having lunch together next week. I think she’s planning a little dinner party for the bridal pair when they return.”

He had forgot Elise Caldwell’s father, and his invitation to call.

Caldwell was in the same business as James, Quarles and Penrith.

Meredith Channing was still speaking, and he realized he’d missed half of it. Just ahead was her house, and as he drew up to the walk, he said, “I think there’s an umbrella somewhere—”

“It’s not far, don’t bother. I should ask you to come in for tea or coffee, but I’m tired tonight. Another time?”

“Yes, thank you.”

She got out, shut her door, and with a quick wave dashed to the house. Her maid was there to let her in almost at once.

As the door closed behind her, he sat where he was, the motor ticking over, and wished he’d asked her where the Caldwells lived.

18

It wasn’t difficult to find out where Caldwell & Mainwaring was located in the City, and Rutledge was there as the doors opened the next morning.

He sent in his card, and Caldwell himself came out to greet him.

“This is a pleasant surprise. What brings you to our part of the city?

Not murder, I hope?”

“As a matter of fact, it is,” Rutledge said. “I’m here about the death of Harold Quarles.”

Caldwell frowned. “Yes, I’ve just heard. Disgraceful business. I hope you find whoever did it and quickly. What can I do to help?”

Caldwell led him to a corner office where the heavy Turkey carpet set off the elegant mahogany desk and the suite of chairs arranged in a half circle near the windows. Gesturing to Rutledge to be seated, Caldwell rang and asked for tea to be brought. Then he joined Rutledge. Pointing to the portrait over the mantelpiece, he said, “My father. He was a man you’d have liked. The son I lost was his image. It was like losing my father twice.”

“I can imagine how it must have been.”

It was evident Caldwell was waiting for the tea to be brought, and when they were settled, and his clerk had withdrawn, he said, “Now, to business. You must have come for information. I hope I have it.”

“What do you know about the background of either partner, Quarles or Penrith?”

“Not much more than everyone else. Penrith’s father was a curate in Sussex—”

“Sussex? I thought I was told Hampshire.”

“No, Sussex it was. I’m nearly certain of that.”

Then Penrith had lied.

“Go on . . .”

“Quarles came from somewhere around Newcastle. Coal mining, which he was lucky enough to escape, according to the accounts he gave. I met him several times when he was clerk to Mr. James the younger. There was something about him—and this will sound to you quite discriminat-ing on my part, but it isn’t—that didn’t seem to march well with his story. I had the feeling that there was more to him than met the eye. And that was it, something in his eyes, as if the real person were locked away behind them. I had the feeling that he could be quite ruthless if he chose.”

“An interesting point.”

“Yes, and I said something to my father about it. His reply was that I had no way to measure how rough the man’s life had been, or how he had managed to escape the fate of his brothers. The story was that they’d died in a mining accident and he didn’t want to do the same.”

“There appears to have been some ruthlessness on his part aside from working his way into a prosperous business,” Rutledge said, thinking about Cambury.

“Nevertheless, Quarles quickly changed from the rough diamond he claimed himself to be to a rather polished one. He married well, and he had a reputation for scrupulous honesty—”

“Even when it came to Cumberline?”

“Ah. That was an odd story. I think it was seven men who paid dearly for investing in that disaster. Quarles swore he’d put some of his own money into it, but I find that hard to believe. He was too astute.”

“Do you know who these seven men were?”

“I don’t. But there should be files of transactions somewhere. We’re required to keep track of such things.”

Rutledge saw again in his mind’s eye the box marked CUMBERLINE on the shelf in Quarles’s study at Hallowfields.

“What else can you tell me about him?”

“Nothing, I’m afraid. Oh, there was one thing, rather strange I thought at the time, but I can’t remember why it disturbed me. We were standing outside a restaurant in the Strand, and a young woman came up to us, asking if we’d like to subscribe a sum for the memorial that was being erected to the men missing on the Somme, those who were never found. We all gave her money toward the cause—how could you not? All save Quarles. He turned away from her and said something to the effect that he was not an army man, that he’d sent in his subscription for the navy dead instead.”

“It seems to me the simplest thing was to make a donation and let it go,” Rutledge responded.

“Yes, but the young woman was asking to write our names down on the subscription list, to go into a book they were intending to place in the memorial.”

Rutledge could almost hear Stephenson’s voice, breaking as it re-counted how he’d pled with Quarles to speak to the Army on his son’s behalf. And Quarles refusing to even entertain the idea.

“He was too old for the war,” Hamish said, without warning. “And his son is verra’ young still.”

Both comments were true. But Rutledge had taken up enough of Caldwell’s time, and the teacups were empty. Courtesy required that he leave.

“Is there anything else you can think of?”

“No. I don’t care to speak ill of the dead. If you weren’t a policeman, and someone I trust to use the information wisely, I would never have told you as much as I have.”

“Thank you, sir, for your trust. It isn’t misplaced.”

They shook hands, and Rutledge left.

Outside in the street, he mulled over the fact that Penrith had lied.

Why?

He found a telephone in a hotel and called a friend of his who had been an Anglican priest. Anthony Godalming had lost his faith and retired to his family’s home in Sussex. He rarely went out and seldom spoke to old friends. But Rutledge reached the man’s sister, told her it was urgent, and in time Goldalming came to the telephone.

His voice was neither friendly nor unfriendly—it seemed to hold neither warmth nor coldness. But Rutledge could tell his call was not welcomed, a reminder of too much that still had to be put behind, for sanity’s sake.

“Anthony, thank you for speaking to me. I’m looking for someone, a curate in Sussex some years ago. Twenty perhaps? Longer, even. His name was Penrith. He had one son.”

“Penrith?” The man on the other end of the line seemed to dredge deep in memory and come up short. “I don’t recall anyone of that name down here. Are you sure it was Sussex?”

“Before your time, then?”

“It could be. Does it matter greatly?”

“Yes. I need to find the father, if he’s alive. And the son as well, if anyone knows where he may be. London, possibly.”

There was a long silence. “Very well. Tell me how to reach you.”

Rutledge gave him instructions to call The Unicorn in Cambury.

“Has this to do with the war, Ian? Tell me honestly.” There was strain in Godalming’s voice now.

“No. To my knowledge, neither man was young enough to serve with us. This has to do with a murder inquiry. That’s why I’m searching for information. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have asked you.”

“Surely the police have ways to find these men.”

“I don’t think they do. You have the only fact I’ve been able to dig up, and that’s little enough.”

Rutledge heard a grunt that might have been in disagreement.

“Thank you, Anthony.”

“Not at all.” There was a click at the other end.

Driving fast as he reached the outskirts of London, Rutledge headed for Somerset, his mind sifting through what Penrith and Caldwell had had to say to him.

It had been, for the most part, a very unproductive journey. Penrith’s relationship to Quarles had not been worth pursuing, or so it seemed, and yet that one lie about where his father had been curate still rankled. Why had he felt the need to lie?

“It doesna’ mean,” Hamish said, taking up the thread of Rutledge’s thoughts, “that he’s a murderer.”

“It’s possible he has his own secrets to conceal. His own background. Was it really Penrith who initiated the separation from Quarles? Or the other way around?”

But that didn’t make sense. A man like Quarles would have made it his business to know any secrets that Penrith possessed. It was in his nature, as it was in Penrith’s to bury his head in the sand.

What had broken up Quarles’s marriage? And what had broken up Quarles’s partnership?

This occupied Rutledge’s mind all the way to Somerset, and late as it was when he arrived, he drove straight to Hallowfields and knocked on the door.

It was several minutes before someone answered his summons.

Mrs. Downing, still in her black dress with the housekeeper’s keys on a chain at her waist, the symbol of her office even in this modern age, was not pleased with him.

“It’s late, Mr. Rutledge, and you’ve disturbed the household. Mrs.

Quarles is not here.”

“Yes, I understand she’s gone to Rugby. I need to look at something in Mr. Quarles’s study, and you don’t need her permission to allow me to do that.”

“Can’t this wait until the morning?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Reluctantly she let him into the foyer, and then when the door was securely locked once more, she led him up the stairs.

Charles Archer, in his dressing gown, was rolling down the passage toward them, coming from the other wing as Rutledge reached the first floor.

“Is there trouble?” he asked anxiously, but Rutledge shook his head.

“I’ve something I wish to see in the study Mr. Quarles used here at the house. I’m sorry to call so late, but it’s rather urgent.”

“To do with what? I thought you’d inspected his rooms.”

“To do with his business in London.”

“Ah. Then I can’t help you. Downing will see to it for you.” He turned away but stopped and swung around. “The man who brings the milk and the gossip told the staff you were on the point of taking the baker, Hugh Jones, into custody for Harold’s murder. Is this true?”

“I can’t comment on that tonight.”

“It’s nonsense, Rutledge. The man’s no killer. He has a family to consider.”

“Then who would you put in his place?”

Archer had the grace to look away. “I’m not offering you a sacrifi-cial lamb.”

“What can you tell me about Quarles’s former partner, Davis Penrith?”

“Penrith? I hardly know him. He’s been to the house a time or two, dining here with his wife at least once. He never seemed comfortable in Harold’s company. I always thought that odd, since they’d worked together for years.”

“They didn’t appear to have much in common, other than their business dealings.”

“That’s not unusual, is it? Business seems to attract opposites sometimes. It’s not a requirement to share interests.” Archer turned toward his rooms. “Good night, Rutledge. I hope you find what you’re after.”

Mrs. Downing, standing silently by and listening to the conversation, waited for instructions. Rutledge said, “It’s the study I need to see.”

She led the way, took his keys, and unlocked the door for him.

From a passage table she took up a lamp and lit it for him to use.

It took only a matter of two minutes to locate the first Cumberline box and lift it from the shelf. He took it to the nearest chair, sat down, and opened it.

All that was inside was a thick sheaf of papers, and he thumbed through them quickly, interested not in what they referred to but in names of investors.

He found that there were groups of paperwork, clipped together to keep them separate, and each had a name at the top.

Seven of them. No, eight.

He went to the desk, found paper and pen, and began to jot the names down.

Mrs. Downing, her face disapproving, said, “I’m not sure this is regular, Mr. Rutledge. I’ve had no communication with Mr. Quarles’s solicitors, and Mrs. Quarles is away. I can’t, in good conscience, allow you to remove anything from—”

“I’m not removing these papers, Mrs. Downing. I need the names listed on them.” He continued to work, then double-checked what he had done, to make certain he had all the names down.

Finishing with the file, he put it back where he’d found it and thanked Mrs. Downing.

She followed him out of the rooms and she locked them again, then returned the keys. On the way down the stairs she said, “Young Marcus will be here soon, with his mother. I hope it won’t be necessary for the police to be tramping about, asking questions and disturbing the family at all hours. It won’t be good for the boy.”

“The police have work to do, Mrs. Downing. It can’t be helped.

But I’ll keep in mind that the boy will be in residence.”

They had reached the door, and Mrs. Downing opened it for him.

Then, as he stepped out into the night, she said, “If you want my opinion, it’s Mr. Brunswick who killed Mr. Quarles. I never liked the man, he treated his wife something terrible. Jealous and overbearing and always looking for the worst in people. I saw him a time or two, prowling about, looking to see if he could catch his poor wife in something.

If he didn’t want her here, why didn’t he put his foot down?”

Rutledge stopped. “You didn’t tell me any of this before.”

“No, and for a very good reason,” she said. “Hazel Brunswick confided in me. She took her tea in my rooms, not with Mr. Quarles, and she talked sometimes about her life. I kept her confidences. All he wanted to spend money for was music. The house was bursting at the seams with it, and she was tone-deaf; she couldn’t hear anything he played. That’s why she came to work here, to provide for herself and the children to come. She defied him, if you want the truth, and Mr. Quarles thought it was all a game, but I knew it wasn’t. He struck her once—”

“Quarles?”

“God save us, no, it was Mr. Brunswick struck his wife. And that’s when she decided to find work, because she said he would respect her more if she could stand up to him and didn’t have to beg for whatever she wanted. But once is never the end of it, is it? Once becomes twice, and twice thrice, and it’s on its way to being a habit, isn’t it?”

“Surely the people at St. Martin’s Church knew? The rector?”

“He never hit her in the face, you see.” There was something in her gaze that looked back to another woman and another past. “I was married to one such, I know their ways. He was killed in a mill fire, and I was glad of it.”

Rutledge believed her. “Did you know Mrs. Brunswick was ill?”

“She told me what she thought it might be. It crushed her. All her hopes and plans gone for naught. She said he didn’t care for sick people, that he’d turn away from her and wait for her to die.”

“Do you think Brunswick killed her, or that her death was a suicide?”

“I can’t answer that. But Mr. Brunswick had the nerve to come here. He followed Mr. Quarles home one night, just after she died, and called him a murderer. I’d been to the Home Farm to take a lemon cake to Mrs. Masters, and I heard them down by the gatehouse. He was shouting, you couldn’t help but hear, asking for money to pay for her burial, asking for compensation for turning his wife from him.”

“What did Mr. Quarles say to that charge?”

“He laughed and told Mr. Brunswick not to be tiresome. I thought they’d come to blows, but just then I saw Mr. Quarles striding up the lane, and I went the other way, so as he wouldn’t think I was eavesdropping.”

“I’ve heard Mr. Brunswick play. He’s a very fine organist.”

“He has to work hard at it, he’s not gifted. Hazel told me that was the sorrow of his life, and why she pitied him. He wanted to play in a cathedral, and all he was fit for was St. Martin’s Church, in a small living like Cambury.”

“I wish you’d spoken to me before—” he said again, but she shook her head.

“I had to weigh up what I felt I could say. Mrs. Quarles wants to see this inquiry closed quietly, for the boy’s sake, and if you arrest Mr.

Brunswick, Hazel Brunswick’s unhappiness and her suicide will be dragged up again and talked about, and the gossip about Mr. Quarles and her being lovers as well. It wasn’t true, Hazel Brunswick wasn’t that kind of woman. Now my conscience troubles me. I should have done more to help her than I did. I should have told Mr. Quarles about the beatings, or Rector. And if her husband killed her, and then killed Mr. Quarles, then justice must be done. I hope Mrs. Quarles will understand.”

“Who met Mr. Quarles in the gatehouse, Mrs. Downing? Someone did. You have only to walk through it to guess what its purpose was.”

She gave him a pitying smile. “It was where he would have brought his mother, if she’d lived. Though he’d go and sit there sometimes, brooding.”

Rutledge could hear Hamish’s voice in the darkness as they had walked through the small, tidy rooms. Respectability—

“There was never a mistress who waited for him there?”

“He’d have liked the world to think so.”

“Why wouldn’t his mother have lived here, in the house? If he cared so much for her?”

“He’d have passed her off as his old nanny, no doubt. I ask you,”

she replied spitefully. “He was ashamed of his roots, didn’t you know?

He bragged about them, and he used them, but he didn’t want to be what he was. He’d buried his past so deep even he couldn’t remember the half of it.”

She shut the door in his face, and Rutledge stood there, remembering what someone had told him, that Mrs. Downing was Mrs. Quarles’s creature. She might not have killed for her mistress, but could she be counted on to veil the truth or twist it in a different direction to serve another purpose? He’d have to keep that in mind.

Still, servants were often guilty of snobbery. They took their standing and their self-worth from the man or woman they worked for. And Mr. Quarles had never lived up to Mrs. Downing’s standard—how could he, when she perceived his social level to be so much lower than her own?

He turned back to his motorcar, feeling the miles he’d driven, and the lateness of the hour. But Hamish was saying, “Ye canna’ leave it.”

“Her charges against Brunswick? No. But tomorrow is soon enough.”

“If he followed him once, he followed yon dead man again and again.”

“Very likely that’s why the log was moved.”

“And when Quarles turned away, this time a weapon was to hand.”

Rutledge stopped as he was getting into the motorcar, listening to the silence of the night and the quiet ticking over of the motor.

“I wonder why Brunswick was chosen as her scapegoat? Because he’s guilty? Or because he’s vulnerable?”

Hamish was silent.

Rutledge drove back into Cambury and left his motorcar in the yard behind The Unicorn. The hotel was quiet, and there was no sign of the night clerk. As Rutledge turned to the stairs, he thought he could hear him snoring gently on his cot behind Reception.

As he reached his room, he saw the small message slipped into the brass number on his door.

Anthony Godalming had telephoned and asked that Rutledge return his call at his earliest convenience.

Rutledge glanced at his watch. It was close to midnight.

He would have to wait until tomorrow.

Rutledge was on his way down to breakfast when Constable Daniels met him in the lobby.

“ ’Morning, sir. I think you’d better come . . .”

“What is it?” Rutledge asked.

“I was stopped on the street and told the bakery hasn’t opened this morning,” the constable said. “So I went to have a look for myself, bearing in mind what happened to Mr. Stephenson.”

“Quite right, Constable.” As he followed the man out the door, he said, “Did you look in the windows?”

“The shades are still down, sir. Usually at this hour you can smell the bread baking.” They were walking briskly down the High Street.

“But I don’t think the ovens have been fired up.”

“Under the circumstances, he may have chosen to stay home.”

“He didn’t close the bakery when his girls were born,” Daniels said. “It’s most unusual.”

They had reached the shop now, and Daniels was right, the shades had not been raised and the door was firmly closed. What’s more, there were no trays of fresh baked goods in the window.

Rutledge said, “Go to the Jones house. Don’t alarm his wife, man, just find out if he’s still at home.”

The constable trotted back the way he came, and Rutledge moved forward to knock at the door. But no one answered.

Hamish said, “He’s no’ there.”

Rutledge used his fist now, hammering at the door, and behind him he could feel people on the street stopping to see what he was about. He had just raised his fist again before walking to the back of the shop when the door moved an inch or two and Rutledge could just see Jones’s face in the shadows.

“We’re closed—” Jones began, but recognizing Rutledge, he opened the door wide and said, “Come in. Quickly.”

Rutledge stepped inside and stopped, appalled.

The once tidy bakery was a scene of chaos. Flour and sugar were scattered around the shop, eggs flung everywhere, their broken shells crunching under Jones’s feet as he stepped back. Handfuls of sultanas and spices and other ingredients were smeared on the walls, and a stone jar of lard lay on its side, cracked. The smell of cinnamon and allspice, ginger and nutmeg filled the air, almost overwhelming to the senses. Even the pretty chairs where Rutledge and the baker had sat talking had been caked with water and flour.

“Gentle God,” Rutledge said.

“Someone believes I killed him,” Jones was saying, defeat in his voice. “That’s what it must be.”

“You can’t be sure of that—”

“Oh, yes. In all the years I’ve lived here, I never gave short measure to my neighbors. What’s more, they never repaid me like this. Never.”

He gestured to the destruction of his bakery. In the past twenty-four hours he had been through emotional turmoil, and he had not expected it to touch his livelihood in this way.

“Did you give a statement to Inspector Padgett?”

“I did that. I put down the truth, and I signed it.” He shrugged.

“I talked to my wife. She made me see reason. But the police can still claim I knew Gwyneth was coming home and went to Hallowfields.

My word against theirs. You know that as well as I do.” He was speaking of Padgett but not by name. “I’m not out of the woods, and if they try to bring my wife into it, I’ll do what I have to for her sake. By backing off, I gave her peace of mind for a bit, that’s all. And I daren’t tell her about this, and ask her help clearing away, can I?”

“Who in Cambury would come to Harold Quarles’s defense?”

“I never expected anyone would do that. I thought he was roundly disliked.” He glanced around his shop again. “It’s petty, this. Thank God nothing is broken. The glass, the ovens, the trays.

But my stock . . .”

There was no way to rescue the ruined spices, the flour, the sugar, the sultanas, or the spilled milk and eggs. Even after cleaning up, the bakery would have to close for several days until such things could be replenished. And more than one household would go without bread for its meals and cakes for its tea.

“Let me send for Gwyneth. This is work she can do.”

“No. I’ll see to it myself.”

There was a knock at the door.

“Send them away,” Jones said. “I haven’t the heart to face them.”

But it was only the constable, returned from the Jones house. Rutledge let him in.

“I asked the woman come to help his wife clean the carpets if he was at home—”

Daniels broke off, whistling at his first glimpse of the ruined shop, then glanced at his boots, as if half expecting them to be ruined as well.

Rutledge, righting the stone crock that held lard, said, “The sooner you start, the sooner it will be cleared away. The chairs can be cleaned, the walls and floor as well. It will take longer to see to the shelves and the counters, but it can be done. I don’t believe Miss Ogden would talk, if you asked for her help. The bookshop is closed for now.”

“Clear away? In aid of what?” Jones asked, his voice flat. But he went for a broom and bucket, then set to work, his heart not in it.

“Who did this?” Constable Daniels asked quietly, looking to Rutledge. “And why?”

“We don’t know,” he answered shortly. “Stay here, Constable, keep an eye on the shop and on Mr. Jones. I want to have a chat with Inspector Padgett.”

Daniels, standing aside to let him pass, said, “It’s the sort of damage a child might do. We don’t lock our doors, anyone can come and go.” He hesitated, then added, “The Quarles lad. Marcus. Constable Horton saw the motorcar just after two this morning, bringing him home along with his mother. If he heard the servants gossiping or the tales flying about just now, he’s of an age where this sort of thing might help the hurt a little.”

“Do you know the boy well? Is he like his father?”

“He’s away at school. I haven’t seen him much of late.”

Rutledge nodded and went out the door.

It was still too early to telephone Godalming in Sussex, and Inspector Padgett wasn’t in his office. Rutledge went back to The Unicorn and encountered Padgett just coming out of the hotel’s dining room. He turned around and followed Rutledge to his table. Sitting in the sunny window, Rutledge quietly filled him in.

Padgett shook his head when Rutledge told him what Mrs. Downing had claimed to have seen and heard.

“Much as I’d like to believe it’s Brunswick, you must consider the source. Like you, I wouldn’t put it past Mrs. Quarles to get her housekeeper up to this. Or Archer, for that matter. The family is scrambling to give the man a better reputation in death by seeing this inquiry is over with as soon as possible.”

“If it’s Brunswick, Quarles comes out of the trial as a saint, not a libertine.”

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him . . .

“It would also support your theory that Brunswick killed his wife,”

Rutledge went on. “And if he killed Hazel Brunswick, the odds are good that he killed Quarles. I’ve found a place in the wood opposite the gatehouse where someone waited just out of sight.”

“Yes, well, that could have been anyone. And at any time. We can’t prove it was Saturday night.” Padgett reached over and helped himself to a slice of Rutledge’s toast, heaping a spoonful of marmalade on it. It was intended to irritate, but Rutledge said nothing.

“My wife detests marmalade. I never get it at home.” He wiped his fingers on his handkerchief. “The Chief Constable sent down a message that he’s awaiting word we’d settled on a murderer.”

Rutledge dropped the subject of Brunswick. “Last night someone wrecked the bakery. Jones found it this morning when he came in.

Constable Daniels is there now.”

Padgett swore. “Some months ago, Jones gave me the names of two boys who had stolen tarts when he wasn’t looking. I expect they wanted revenge, and since the town’s gabbling about the man’s guilt, they must have decided this was as good a time as any. I’ll have a word with them.”

Rutledge held his tongue. In another ten minutes he could make the telephone call to Godalming.

But Padgett sensed something in the texture of the silence and said,

“What are we to tell the Chief Constable?”

“Whatever you like,” Rutledge answered and stood up. “I’ve got something to attend to. Then I’m going back to speak to Brunswick.”

“Suit yourself.” Padgett got to his feet. “I’ll be at the station.”

Rutledge waited until he had gone out, then went to the telephone room to make his call.

Godalming himself answered, and Rutledge asked, “Did you find our man?”

“A curate by the name of Penrith had the living for some years in a village northeast of Chichester. He died of typhoid early in 1903. He had one son and no money to educate him. The boy went into the army.

He never came back to see his father. Whether that means he’s dead as well, or that he knew his father was no longer living, I can’t say.”

“And that’s all you’ve turned up?”

“It isn’t enough?” There was a weariness in the voice coming down the line that had nothing to do with fatigue.

“Yes, thank you, it is. I was—hoping for more.”

“Yes. We all do, don’t we?”

And the connection was broken.

A dead end. Whatever reason Penrith might have had for lying about his father, it appeared to have nothing to do with Quarles.

There might be other skeletons that filled that particular closet.

Penrith could be illegitimate, for one, and the curate took him in. Or because their names were the same, Davis Penrith might have tried to provide himself with more respectable antecedents than a serving girl sacked because someone had tired of her.

Hence the lie to Rutledge . . .

He had learned through his years in the police that no detail was so small it could be safely ignored.

And so he put in a call to London, to Sergeant Gibson, who was not on duty at the Yard that day, if he cared to leave a message . . .

Rutledge did. It was brief. “Find out if one Davis Penrith served in the British Army between 1898 and 1905. If so, where, and what became of him.” Let them sort it out. It would take time, and he’d already given two hours to the War Office on behalf of Stephenson’s son.

The voice on the other end of the line, laboriously writing out the message, said, “1898 and 1905?”

“That should be inclusive. If it isn’t, we’ll look again.”

“My father was in the Boer War,” the voice said. “Saw a bit of fighting, and came home with a lion’s head mounted for the wall. Drove my mother mad hanging it where it could be seen, coming down the stairs. We were the only family on our street with a real lion’s head. I used to charge my mates a farthing a look. Very good, sir, I’ll see he gets the message on Monday morning.”

Rutledge fished in his pocket for the list he’d made in Harold Quarles’s study. Then he put in his third and final telephone call, this one to Elise Caldwell’s father.

“Sir, can you tell me anything about these men?” he asked after Caldwell’s greeting. He read the list of eight names.

“I know six of them. They made their fortunes from the war. Butler is dead, of course—an apoplexy. Simpleton went to Canada, as I recall.

Talbot and Morgan live in London, as does Willard. MacDonald is in Glasgow. Hester and Evering are new to me. Here, are these by any chance a list of investors in Cumberline?”

“Yes, they are.”

Caldwell chuckled. “Well, well. I’ve always wondered. If you’re thinking of the six I know in terms of the murder of Harold Quarles, then you’re barking up the wrong tree. While I wouldn’t trust them with my purse, I can tell you they aren’t likely to avenge themselves with a spot of murder. They’d rather lose a second fortune than admit to investing unwisely. And they seldom sue, because there’s the risk that a canny barrister might find that their own coattails are none too clean.”

“Would they be likely to hire someone to do the deed for them?”

“Not likely at all. Of course I can’t speak for this man Hester, or Evering. What can you tell me about them?”

“Hester is from Birmingham. A manufacturer of woolens—I have the name of his firm. Broadsmith and Sons.”

“Ah. He’s Willard’s son-in-law. You can strike him off the list as well.”

“That leaves Evering. He lives in the Scilly Isles. No firm given.”

“Don’t know him at all. You’ll probably find your murderer closer to home,” Caldwell informed him. “I wouldn’t worry about these eight men.”

“Thank you, sir. This has saved a great deal of footwork.”

Caldwell said, “Any time, Ian. Good hunting.”

19

Rutledge decided to walk to Brunswick’s house. The morning was fair. The streets were filled with people doing their marketing, and a farmer was bringing in half a dozen pigs, their pink backs bouncing down the middle of the street as motorcars and lorries pulled to one side.

Brunswick didn’t answer his door, and Rutledge walked on to the church, thinking that the organist might have gone to practice for the Sunday morning services. In fact, as he crossed the churchyard, he could hear music pouring out the open door. He stepped inside.

As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, he saw that there were two women kneeling by the front of the church, arranging flowers in tall vases, and somewhere the rector, Mr. Heller, was deep in conversation with a young man, their voices carrying but not their words.

The church was larger inside than it appeared to be outside, with a wagon roof and no columns. As Rutledge passed by, Heller caught his eye and nodded but continued with his conversation. Brunswick, in the organ loft, paused between hymns, but was playing again by the time Rutledge had climbed the stairs and come to stand by him.

“I’m busy,” Brunswick said over the crash of the music.

Rutledge’s posture was that of a man content to wait through the next five hours if necessary.

After a time, Rutledge said, “My mother was a pianist, quite a fine one in fact. Your interpretation of that last piece was very different from hers.”

With an abrupt gesture of annoyance, Brunswick lifted his fingers and feet, letting the pipes fall silent. Everyone in the church looked up, the two women and the two men, as if after the music, the sudden stillness was deafening.

“If you’ve come to take me into custody, get on with it. Otherwise you’re breaking my concentration.”

“Do you wish to talk to me here, where everyone can hear, or elsewhere?”

Brunswick got to his feet, stretching his shoulders. “We can walk in the churchyard.”

They went down to the door and into the sunlight, warmer outside after the chill trapped within the stone walls of the church.

“The talk of Cambury is that Mr. Jones is your man. Why should you need to speak to me?”

As they walked among the gravestones, Rutledge said, “I’ve often wondered if a guilty man ever spares a thought for the poor bastard who is sacrificed in his stead. If you were the killer, would you speak up to set Jones free?”

“I don’t see that this is something I need to consider. Unless of course you aren’t confident of your ability to judge who is guilty and who isn’t,” Brunswick countered.

Rutledge laughed. “Meanwhile,” he went on, “I’ve learned a great deal more about your relationship with your wife. It appears not to have been a very happy one. At least for her.”

“I thought you’d come to Cambury to find out who killed Quarles, not to chastise someone who has already said everything that can be said to himself. I wasn’t a very good husband.”

“If you killed one,” Rutledge put it to him, “the chances are very good that you killed the other. Or conversely, if you were wrong about one of them, then the odds are you were also wrong about the other.”

“Prove that I killed either one.”

Rutledge was silent for ten yards or more. “I don’t think your quarrel with the dead man has anything to do with jealousy. I believed you at first, and you must have believed it yourself in a way. It can’t explain all the evidence I’m looking at, and I’m beginning to believe there’s more to this than meets the eye. You abused your wife because you were already angry. You accused Quarles because you knew your wife was vulnerable to kindness after your own behavior, and her shocking death made you want to blame her, not yourself. I think you’re relying on the general public’s view of Harold Quarles, to call him a monster and excuse yourself from blaming him for all your ills because that’s easier than facing the truth. I think it’s time you took a long look in your mirror.”

There was an inadvertent movement beside him.

“The police must look at hard fact. What we feel, what we think doesn’t matter. There appears to be enough fact lying about. And Inspector Padgett would like nothing better than to connect one death with the other. If your conscience is clear over your wife’s suicide, then so be it. It’s my responsibility to determine what part you played—if any—in Harold Quarles’s murder. But once that is done, Padgett will search for connections, and see them where there may be nothing at all.”

“All right, I wanted him dead. I make no secret of that. Look at it any way you care to. Why is my own affair.”

Touché, Rutledge thought to himself. “What you wanted isn’t at issue. You can’t be hanged for that. What counts is whether you lifted your hand with a weapon in it, and struck Harold Quarles on the back of his head.”

Brunswick turned to look at Rutledge, his face unreadable. “I would have watched him die. I would have wanted him to see whose hand it was. And I’d have probably throttled him, not struck him.”

Rutledge said, “It doesn’t always work out that way. When the chance arises, sometimes the choice of weapon depends on where you are and why you aren’t prepared.”

“I’ve told you I was in my bed. Either take me into custody or leave me alone. I’m not giving you the satisfaction of a confession of my sins so that you can sort them out and pick the one that will hang me.”

Rutledge said pensively, “I think Quarles pitied your wife. It’s one of the few decent things we’ve learned about him, that he tried to get her to proper medical care.”

Brunswick wheeled to face him, his voice savage, his eyes narrowed with his anger. “You know nothing about my wife. And you know damned little about Harold Quarles. Well, I’ve made a study of the man. Where did he come from? Do you know? I went to Newcastle to see for myself. There’s a Quarles family plot, right enough, but it’s long since been moved to a proper churchyard some twenty miles away. The village where they lived is so black with coal dust it’s almost invisible, roofs fallen in, windows gone. The mine’s closed, the main shaft damaged beyond repair. The owners got as much coal as they could out of it and the miners they employed, and simply abandoned both. The sons followed Quarles’s father into the mines and died young, lung rot and accidents. The father was already dead by that time. The mother was dead by 1903. Nobody remembers Harold. Isn’t that strange? It’s as if he never existed. But one old crone who’d lived in the derelict village told me she thought perhaps there was another boy who ran away to join the army and never came home again. So who is our Harold Quarles, I ask you? And if he doesn’t exist, how can anyone kill him?”

Rutledge took a step back, the vehemence of Brunswick’s attack unexpected.

Hamish, busy at the edges of Rutledge’s mind, was a distraction as he tried to assimilate what Brunswick had told him.

If Penrith hadn’t returned home after he joined the army—and now it appeared that Quarles might have done the same thing—was that where they’d first met? And forged a friendship that took them from lowly beginnings to a very successful partnership? In war men were thrown together in circumstances that brought them closer than brothers, cutting across class lines, age, and experience. In their case, the Boer War?

He and Hamish were examples of that: men who might have passed each other on a London street without a second glance, but in the context of the trenches they had seen each other as comrades in the battle to survive. They had learned from each other, trusted each other, and protected their men in a common bond that in fact hadn’t ended with death.

Rutledge said to Brunswick, “It’s all well and good to make a study of the man’s life. But that still leaves us with his death. There’s no one left in the north who cares if he lived or died. You’ve just pointed that out. So we’re back to Cambury.”

“You aren’t listening, are you? Did it ever occur to you that Harold Quarles is a mystery because he’s got something to hide? There are almost no traces of him, anywhere you look. He has a wife and a son, and I’ll wager you they know less about him than I do. He was a liar, he was secretive, he used people for his own ends. What made him that way? That’s what I wanted to know. He owed me for what happened to my wife, and he didn’t care.”

Rutledge remembered what Heller, the rector, had said to him. He repeated it now. “It’s not our place to judge. The police can only deal with laws that are broken. If he has never broken a law, then we can do nothing.”

Brunswick put a hand to his forehead, as if it ached. “I’ve always tried to live my life as a moral man. And where has it taken me? Into the jaws of despair. If you want to hang someone, hang me and be done with it. Let Harold Quarles, whoever he may be, claim one last victim.”