A Matter of Justice

He turned on his heel and walked back toward the church.

As Brunswick went in through the church door, squaring his shoulders as if shaking off their conversation, Rutledge thought, Stephenson couldn’t bring himself to act. In his eyes, it was an appalling failure. This man is ridden by different demons.

Hamish said, “Aye. He doesna’ know what he wants.”

“On the contrary. I think he may have a taste for martyrdom, and hasn’t discovered it yet. Dreamers often do.”

“He didna’ kill his wife.”

“I’m beginning to believe he didn’t. But that’s neither here nor there. Why was he so obsessed with Harold Quarles’s past? To excuse his murder by claiming the man was evil to start with?”

The rector was coming across the churchyard toward him, a frown on his face.

“What did you say to Michael? He’s sitting there in front of the organ, not touching the keys.”

Rutledge said, “It’s my responsibility to speak to anyone who might have had a reason to kill Quarles.”

“But Michael hasn’t killed anyone, has he? It’s only because he admits how he felt about the man that you believe he might have. Inspector Padgett has convinced you that Michael murdered his wife, and therefore he wanted to kill Quarles as well. But many of us don’t see it that way. It was a tragedy, and he was out of his mind with grief and distress when she died. He didn’t understand her suicide. It was a betrayal to him, an admission of guilt. It was the only reason he could think of for her to leave him, you see. That someone had turned her away from him.”

“Apparently he didn’t behave very well toward her when she was alive.”

“Yes, it could be true, though I never saw evidence of it. I do know they weren’t very happy together long before Hazel went to work for Quarles. So you see, if he’d intended to take matters into his own hands and kill Harold Quarles, he’d have done it then and there, in that confused and bitter state of mind. And he didn’t. That’s to his credit, don’t you see?”

“If he didn’t intend to kill him, why has Brunswick spent a good deal of his spare time of late looking into Quarles’s past? What good is it?”

Heller was surprised. “Has he been doing such a thing? He’s never said anything about it to me. What is he looking for, for heaven’s sake?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know that he himself understands what he’s after.”

“Yes, well, that may be true.” Curiosity got the better of him. “Has he found something?”

“Very little. I don’t think Quarles wanted his history to be found.

Well enough to boast about its simplicity, but not to have the truth about it brought into the open. The poor are not necessarily saints.

And sinners do have some goodness in them. Isn’t that what the church teaches?”

Heller took a deep breath. “Back to Michael. Do give him the benefit of the doubt. There’s much healing left to do.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” Rutledge answered mildly. He turned to walk back toward the church, and Heller followed him. “We aren’t going to solve this dilemma, Mr. Heller, until we have our killer. And to that end, I must go on questioning people, however unpleasant it must be.”

Heller said nothing, keeping pace beside him, his mind elsewhere.

As they parted at the corner of the churchyard, he broke his silence. “I will pray for you to be granted wisdom, Inspector.”

“It might be more beneficial to your flock if you prayed for wisdom for Inspector Padgett as well.”

Heller smiled. “I already do that, my boy.” He glanced upward, where a flight of rooks came to perch on the pinnacles of the church tower. After a moment he said, “I’ve been told that Mrs. Quarles is home again, with her son. They’re to collect her husband’s body and take it north for burial. I did wonder why Mrs. Quarles hadn’t asked me to preside over a brief service here, before her husband was taken north. But that’s her decision to make, of course.”

“Perhaps here in Cambury, you know him better than Mrs.

Quarles wishes.”

Heller sighed. “I can tell you how it will be. Once Mr. Quarles has left the village, it will be as if he never was. We’ll not talk about his irritating qualities, because of course he’s dead. There will be a family bequest to the church, and we’ll name something after him, and forget him. It’s a poor epitaph for a man who was so forceful in life.”

“Did you know that Quarles’s partner, Davis Penrith, was the son of a curate?”

“Actually I believe Mr. Quarles brought that up once in a conversation. He seemed to find it amusing.”

“Because it wasn’t the truth, or because Penrith didn’t live up to his father’s calling?”

“I have no idea. But Mr. Quarles did say that he didn’t have to fear his partner, because the man would never turn against him. Or to be more precise, he said the one person he’d never feared was his partner, because Penrith would never have the courage to turn against him.”

“When was this?” Rutledge asked.

“I don’t remember just when—I think while Mr. Quarles was living here in Cambury for several weeks. I was out walking one afternoon, and he was coming back from one of the outlying farms. He stopped to ask me if he could give me a lift back to town, and I accepted. We got on the subject of enemies, I can’t think how . . .”

“That’s an odd topic for a casual encounter.”

“Nevertheless, he made that remark about Penrith, and I commented that loyalty was something to value very highly. He told me it wasn’t a matter of loyalty but of fact.”

Yet Penrith had walked away from their partnership. And as far as anyone knew, Quarles hadn’t felt betrayed. Had, in fact, done nothing to stop him.

“They were an unlikely pair to be friends, much less partners,”

Rutledge mused.

“Yes, that’s true. I thought as much myself from Mr. Quarles’s remarks. But there’s no accounting for tastes, in business or in marriage, is there? Good day, Mr. Rutledge.”

He watched the rector striding toward the church door, his head down, his mind occupied. As Heller disappeared into the dimness of the doorway, Hamish said, “There’s no’ a solution to this murder.”

“There’s always a solution. Sometimes it’s harder to see, that’s all.”

“Oh, aye,” Hamish answered dryly. “The Chief Constable will ha’

to be satisfied with that.”

Miss O’Hara was just coming out her door with a market basket over her arm as Rutledge passed her house. She hailed him and asked how the Jones family was faring.

“Well enough,” he told her.

“We ought to find whoever killed Quarles and pin a medal on him.

They do it in wars. Why not in peace, for ridding Cambury of its ogre.”

“That’s hardly civilized,” he told her, thinking that Brunswick might agree with her.

“We aren’t talking about civilization.” She drew on her gloves, smiled, and left him standing there.

Rutledge could still see her slender fingers slipping into the soft fabric of her gloves. They had brought to mind the uglier image of Harold Quarles’s burned hands, the lumpy whorls and tight patches of skin so noticeable in the light of Inspector Padgett’s lamps as the body came to rest on the floor of the tithe barn.

Like the coal mines, those hands were a part of the public legend of Harold Quarles. Neither Rutledge nor Padgett had thought twice about them, because they had been scarred in the distant past.

He turned back the way he’d come and went on to Dr. O’Neil’s surgery.

The doctor was trimming a shrubbery in the back garden. Rutledge was directed there by the doctor’s wife, and O’Neil hailed his visitor with relief. Taking out a handkerchief, he wiped his forehead and nodded toward chairs set in the shade of an arbor. “Let’s sit down.

It’s tiresome, trimming that lilac. I swear it waits until my back’s turned, and then grows like Jack’s beanstalk.”

They sat down, and O’Neil stretched his legs out before him.

“What is it you want to know? The undertaker has come for Quarles, and I’ve finished my report. It’s on Padgett’s desk now, I should think.”

“Thank you. I’m curious about those scars on Quarles’s hands.”

“You saw them for yourself. The injuries had healed and were as smooth as they were ever going to be. It must have happened when he was fairly young. I did notice that the burns extended just above the wrist. And the edges were very sharply defined, almost as if someone had held his hands in a fire. You usually see a different pattern, more irregular. Think about a poker that’s fallen into the fire. The flames shoot up just as you reach for it. You might be burned superficially, but not to such an extent as his, because in a split second you realize what you’ve done, drop the poker, and withdraw out of harm’s way.

What I found remarkable was that Quarles hadn’t lost the use of his fingers. That means he must have had very good care straightaway.”

“Were there other burns on his body? His neck, for instance, or his back. I’m thinking of bending over a child, protecting it with his own body as he runs a gantlet of fire.”

“I wasn’t really looking for old wounds.”

“If he’d had other scars like those on his hands, surely you’d have noticed them.”

“Yes, of course. Burns do heal with time, if not too severe. A wet sack over his back might have been just enough to prevent permanent scars. Where, pray, is this going?”

“Curiosity. I’m wondering if there were other enemies besides those we know of in Cambury.”

O’Neil said slowly, “If someone had held his hands to a fire, it would have been Quarles who wanted to avenge himself.”

“Yes, that’s the stumbling point, isn’t it?” Rutledge smiled wryly.

O’Neil said, “Sorry I can’t help you more.”

“Do you by chance know anything about these Cumberline funds that Quarles nearly lost his reputation over?”

O’Neil laughed. “A village doctor doesn’t move in such exalted circles.” The laughter faded. “Sunday night as I was trying to fall asleep, I kept seeing those wings outstretched above the dead man. It oc-curred to me that after someone hit him from behind, they desecrated his body. The only reason I could think of was that Quarles died too easily, that perhaps he was expected to die slowly up there with the wings biting into his back. Terrible thought, isn’t it?”

And that possibility, Rutledge thought, spoke more to Michael Brunswick than it did to Hugh Jones.

Constable Horton spent a wet Saturday evening in The Black Pudding. It was not his first choice, but his friends drank there from time to time, and he went in occasionally for a pint to end his day.

Tom Little was courting a girl in the next village but one, and full of himself. He thought she might say yes, if he proposed, and his friends spent half an hour helping him find the right words, amid a good deal of merriment. The landlord had occasion to speak to them twice for being overloud.

Constable Horton, trying his hand at peacemaking, joined the group and steered the conversation in a different direction. He was finishing his second glass when a half-heard comment caught his attention. He brought his chair’s front legs back to the floorboards with a thump and asked Tommy Little to repeat what he’d just said.

Little, turning toward him, told him it would cost him another round. Constable Horton, resigned, got up to give his order, and when everyone was satisfied, Little told him what he’d seen on the road beyond Hallowfields.

It was too late to rouse Inspector Padgett, but Constable Horton was at his door as early in the morning as he thought was politic.

Padgett went to find Rutledge as soon as he’d finished his breakfast.

“Here’s something we ought to look into. Horton brought me word before I’d had my tea at six. It seems that one Thomas Little and a friend were on their way back to her home last Saturday evening. He’s courting a girl from a village not far up the road, and she’d spent the day with him in Cambury. This was nine-thirty, he thinks, or thereabouts. They’d ridden out of Cambury on their bicycles just as the church clock struck nine. As they were nearing Honeyfold Farm—that’s about two miles beyond Hallowfields, on your left—they saw Michael Brunswick coming toward them on a bicycle. He passed without a word, and they went on their way, laughing because he’d looked like a thundercloud. Unlucky in love, they called him, and made up stories about the sort of woman he was seeing. Then they forgot all about him until Little made a remark about him last night in The Black Pudding.”

Rutledge, standing in Reception, said, “That would put Brunswick at Hallowfields before Quarles left the Greer house. And if he’d been away, he wouldn’t have known that Quarles was dining in Cambury.

There wouldn’t have been any point in waiting for the man.”

“Yes, I’d thought about that. But where did Brunswick go when he reached Cambury? Home? To The Glover’s Arms?”

“He told me he was in bed and asleep.”

“Hard to prove. Hard to disprove.”

“The early service this morning isn’t for another three-quarters of an hour. I should be able to catch Brunswick before he goes to the church.”

Rutledge walked briskly toward Brunwick’s house, and when he knocked, the man opened the door with a sheaf of music in his hand.

He regarded Rutledge with distaste and didn’t invite him inside.

“What is it now?”

“We’ve just learned that you were seen on the road near Honeyfold Farm last Saturday evening at nine-thirty. You said nothing about it when we asked your whereabouts the night that Quarles was killed.”

“Why should I have? It had nothing to do with his murder.”

“Where had you been?”

“To Glastonbury.”

“Can anyone confirm that?”

“I went to dine with a friend who stopped there on his way back to London. He was tired, the dinner didn’t last very long, and I came home.” There was an edge to his voice now. “If you must know, I’d had more to drink than was good for me, and I had spent a wretched two hours listening to this man crowing over his triumphs. He’s a musician; we’d studied together. I wished I’d never gone there. I wasn’t in the best of spirits when I left him.”

Which explained the comment that he’d looked like a thundercloud when he passed Tommy Little and the girl he was courting.

“When you reached Cambury, what did you do?”

“I undressed, when to bed, and tried to sleep. Harold Quarles was the last person on my mind then.”

Rutledge thanked him and left.

“It’s no’ much,” Hamish said.

“I didn’t expect it to be. He would have been too early to see Quarles leaving Minton Street and turning toward Hallowfields. They must have missed each other by a quarter of an hour at the very least.”

“If he didna’ lie.”

“There’s always that, of course. But Little seems to feel very confident of his times.” Rutledge stopped and turned to look over his shoulder. Brunswick was hurrying toward St. Martin’s, his black robe streaming behind him. Rutledge watched him go.

Would a man in Brunswick’s state of mind go meekly to bed in the hope of sleeping, after being humiliated by a more successful friend?

Especially if he’d had a little too much to drink? Of course there was the long ride to Cambury to cool his temper and wear him down. But Tommy Little had seen the man’s face, and it appeared he was still smarting from the visit.

Looking up at the Perpendicular tower of St. Martin’s, Rutledge realized that the rectory overlooked the church on its far side. He went back to The Unicorn and bided his time until the morning services were over.

When he reached the rectory an hour after noon, Rutledge found Heller dozing in a wicker chair in his garden, a floppy hat over his face. He woke up as he heard someone approaching, and sat up, pulling down his vest and smoothing his hair.

“Is this an official call?” he asked, trying for a little humor, but the words were heavy with worry.

Rutledge joined him in the shade, squatting to pick up a twig and twist it through his fingers.

“It’s about Michael Brunswick,” he said after a moment, not looking up at the rector. “I believe it’s customary for him to practice your selections for the Sunday services on Saturday morning. Do you recall if he did that on the Saturday that Quarles died? He was meeting a friend in Glastonbury. There might not have been time for him to play beforehand.”

Heller was caught without an answer. He sat there, studying Rutledge, then said, “He did indeed come into practice that morning.

A little earlier than usual, as I recall. I was there and heard him. We talked about the anthem I’d chosen. It’s a favorite of mine.”

“And so there was no need for him to play the organ that evening, after his return?”

Heller sighed. “No need. But of course he did. The windows were open, I could hear him from my study. He wasn’t playing my selections. It was tortured music. Unhappy music. I did wonder if it was his own composition. And it ended in a horrid clash of notes, followed by silence.” He looked back at the rectory, as if he could find answers there in the stone and glass and mortar. “He’s a wretched man. He wants more than life has chosen to give him. He plays perfectly well for us during services. We are fortunate to have him. Why should he feel that he needs to reach for more? If God had intended for him to be a great organist, he wouldn’t have brought him to us at Cambury, would he have? There is much to be said for contentment. And in contentment there is service.”

Rutledge stood up, without answering the rector.

Heller said, “You mustn’t misunderstand. Michael Brunswick’s music isn’t going to drive him to kill. It’s eating at him, he’s the only victim.”

Rutledge said, “Perhaps his music is the last straw in a life full of disappointments. What time did he finish playing?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps it was twenty past ten. If you remember there was a mist coming in. Hardly noticeable at that time, but an hour later, it was thick enough that strands of it were already wrapping around the trees in my garden. I was worried about Michael, and looked to see if his house was dark. It was, and so I went to bed myself.”

“If there had been lights on?”

“I’d have found an excuse to go and speak to him. To offer comfort if he needed it. Or if not, to assure myself that he was all right.” He took a deep breath and examined his gardening hat to avoid looking at Rutledge. “You mustn’t misconstrue what I’ve told you. It would be wrong.”

“It would be wrong to let someone else take the blame for Quarles’s death. Mr. Jones has already suffered for his daughter’s sake.”

“Yes, I heard what had happened at the bakery. Mr. Padgett believes it was boys acting out of spite, but I think someone is grieving for Quarles. A woman, perhaps, who cared for him and believes the gossip about Mr. Jones. You warned me once, Mr. Rutledge. You told me someone might come to me frightened by what they’d done and I must be careful how I dealt with them. In return I warn you now.

Rumor has always maintained that Harold Quarles had a mistress in Cambury. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but if it is, she’s not one of the women he flirts with in public, she’s someone he visited quietly, I suspect, when no one was looking. If she exists, I say, she’s had no way to grieve openly while everyone in sight is gloating over Quarles’s death. Alone, lonely, she must be desolate, and it will turn her mind in time. Just beware.”

It was an odd speech for a man of the cloth to make to a policeman.

“Surely you can guess—”

“No. I’ve never wanted to know whose wife or sister or daughter she may be. I can do nothing for her until she comes to me. This is just a friendly warning.”

“Thank you, Rector. I’ll bear it in mind.” But he thought that Heller was intending to turn his attention away from Michael Brunswick by using village gossip to his own ends. He was a naïve man in many ways. And he might consider a small white lie in God’s cause no great problem for his conscience.

“Ye ken,” Hamish said, “he doesna’ want to lose his organist. It’s why he defends him sae fiercely.”

He turned to walk away, but Heller stopped him. “I told you that I refused to judge, lest I be judged. It’s good advice, even for a policeman.”

But the fact remained, Rutledge told Hamish in the silence of his mind, that there was proof now that Michael Brunswick could have crossed paths with Harold Quarles.

To test it, he stood on the street just above Michael Brunswick’s door and looked toward the High Street. The angle was right, as he’d thought it might be. Coming home from St. Martin’s, Brunswick would have had a clear view of Minton Street and the corner that Quarles would have turned on his way back to Hallowfields.

The mist hadn’t come down then. And Brunswick, needing someone or something on which to expend his anger and frustration, might have watched Quarles walk up the High Street alone. He could have cut across the green without being noticed, followed at a distance, and let the trees shield him on the straight stretch of road that marched with the wall of the estate.

“Why did the dead man no’ go through the gates and up the drive?”

“Because it must be shorter to come in by the farm gate and cut across the parkland.”

Rutledge went to fetch the motorcar and drove out to Hallowfields, leaving it by the main gate. Then he paced the distances from there to the house, and again from the Home Farm lane to the house. Because of the twists and turns of the drive, allowing for vistas and specimen trees set out to be admired, it was nearly three hundred yards longer.

If he was tired, it would have made sense for Harold Quarles to choose the shorter distance.

Brunswick might have called to him, or challenged him. And if Quarles had turned away in rejection of what he wanted to say, that act could have precipitated the murder.

“Listen to me . . .”

“I’m tired, I want my bed. You have nothing to say to me that I have any interest in hearing . . .”

Those white stones stood out—Brunswick needn’t have thought to bring a weapon—and in a split second, without a word, Quarles would have been knocked down. It was the second blow that mattered. Had Brunswick intended it as the death stroke? Rutledge could see him still caught up in that fierce need to hurt as he’d been hurt, stepping back too late, shocked by the suddenness of death.

It would have been easy to convince himself that Quarles had brought on the attack by his callous indifference. To feel no responsibility for what he’d just done.

And then the slow realization that the man had got off too lightly, a quick death compared to Hazel Brunswick’s drowning, must have triggered his next actions.

The facts fit together neatly.

Then why, Rutledge wondered, was he feeling dissatisfied, standing there on the lawns of Hallowfields, looking for holes in his own case?

He walked on to the house and this time knocked at the door, asking for Mrs. Quarles when Downing opened it.

“She’s with her son. Come back another day.”

“If she could spare me a few minutes, I’d be grateful.” His words were polite, but his voice was uncompromising.

She went away, and in a few minutes conveyed him with clear disapproval to the formal drawing room. Mrs. Quarles came in after him, dressed in deep mourning. She was very pale, as if the ordeal of breaking the news to her son had taken its toll.

Against the backdrop of the drawing room, pale blue and silver, she was almost a formidable figure, and he thought she must have intended to impress him after his impudence in demanding to see her.

“What is it you want to know, Mr. Rutledge? Whether I’ve turned into a grieving widow?”

“There are some questions about your husband’s past—”

“That could have waited. I bid you good day.”

He stood his ground. “I think you’re probably the only person who knew your husband well. With the possible exception of Mr. Penrith.”

“I have no idea what Mr. Penrith thinks or knows about my late husband. I have never asked him. Nor will I.”

“There are some discrepancies that I’d like to clear up. We’ve learned that Mr. Quarles removed the remains of his family from the village where they lived and died to another churchyard. But no one who lived in the old village has any recollection of him as a child.”

“You have been busy, haven’t you? I can’t speak for anyone who does or doesn’t recall his childhood. He did move his family, but that was after our son was born. Or so I was told. He never took me north with him, it was a painful chapter in his life, and I was content to leave it closed.”

“We would also like more information about his enlistment in the Army. Did he see action during the Boer War, or was he posted elsewhere in the empire?”

Her face changed, from irritation to a stillness that was unnatural.

“Was he in that war? He never spoke of it to me.” Her voice was crisp, dismissive, and her eyes were cold.

“Was that when he met Davis Penrith?”

“I have no idea. It was my impression they met at the firm where they were employed.”

“Can you tell me anything about the burns on your husband’s hands? They were quite severe and possibly inflicted by someone else. If so, they may have a bearing on his murder.”

She moved swiftly, reaching for the bell. “Good day, Mr. Rutledge.”

Behind him, Downing opened the door, and Mrs. Quarles nodded to her.

Rutledge turned to the housekeeper. “I don’t believe we’ve finished our conversation. Thank you, Mrs. Downing.”

The housekeeper looked to her mistress for guidance. But Mrs.

Quarles walked past Rutledge without a word or a glance and left him standing there.

He could hear her heels clicking over the marble of the foyer and then the sound of footsteps as she climbed the stairs.

Mrs. Downing was still waiting. He let her show him to the door.

From somewhere in the house, he could hear a boy’s voice, calling to someone, and lighter footsteps approaching.

But the door was shut so swiftly behind him that he didn’t see Marcus Quarles after all.

20

Walking back to where he’d left the motorcar along the road, Rutledge pondered his conversation with Mrs. Quarles.

Most of his questions had been based on a little knowledge and good deal of guesswork. Nevertheless, the dead man’s widow had been disturbed by them.

Oddly enough he was beginning to see a pattern in Harold Quarles’s actions.

The man had removed his family from their original grave site and reburied them in a place where they weren’t known. Only the headstones in the churchyard identified them, and no one in this other village would have any memory of them or the boy who wasn’t—yet—laid to rest among them.

And there was the story to explain his burns, lending an air of heroism to the other tales he’d spun. Of course there had to be an explanation. The scars were obvious to anyone who met him or shook hands over a business agreement. But Rutledge thought that Mrs.

Quarles had a very good idea how he’d come by them, whatever the rest of the world believed.

As for the army, Quarles’s service had been quietly put behind him.

Either because he hadn’t particularly distinguished himself or his service record was dismal. And Davis Penrith had done the same thing.

With any luck, London would have those records for him in another day. And a telephone call to Yorkshire would confirm the removal of the graves.

Harold Quarles had created the face he showed his business associates with great care. What was behind the mask? Brunswick was right, something must be there.

Hamish said, “Ye ken, he’s the victim.”

“That’s true,” Rutledge answered, turning the motorcar back toward Cambury. “But where there are secrets, murder sometimes follows. Or blackmail. Was that what Brunswick had been moving toward? Take the bookseller, Stephenson. Quarles wouldn’t tell him why he refused to contact the Army on the son’s behalf. It must have seemed unbeliev-ably cruel to a desperate father. And Stephenson brooded over it to the point that he wanted to kill the man. Who else is out there nursing a grudge and waiting for the chance to do something about it?”

“A straw in a haystack,” Hamish said.

“Yes, well, the Yard is often very good at finding straws.”

But Hamish laughed without humor. “It doesna’ signify. If the murderer here isna’ the baker nor the bookseller, ye’re left with the man who plays the church organ.”

He hammered on for the next hour as Rutledge sat by the long windows overlooking the High Street and wrote a report covering everything he’d learned so far.

There were loose ends. There were always loose ends. Murder was never closed in a tidy package.

Who had wrecked the bakery? How could anyone prove that Brunswick had indeed seen Quarles leaving the Greer house and turning for home? Who had argued with Quarles there? Brunswick himself? Greer?

Rutledge left the sheets of paper on the table and went out again, crossing the High Street and walking on to knock on Brunswick’s door.

The man was haggard, and short-tempered as well. “What is it this time?”

“I need to find some answers that are eluding me. When you stopped playing the organ that Saturday night a week ago, when Quarles was killed, did you leave the church at once, or sit there for a short period of time?”

Brunswick blinked, as if uncertain where Rutledge had got his information and what it signified. “I—don’t recall.”

“If you travel from the church to this house, for a small part of that journey, particularly when you’re on foot, you have a clear view of Minton Street. At just about the time you might have done that, perhaps ten-thirty, Harold Quarles was coming out of the house where he’d dined. Between there and where Minton meets the High Street, he encountered someone who argued with him. Their voices were loud. They may have carried this far. I need to know the name of that man or woman with him.”

Brunswick stood there, his gaze not leaving Rutledge’s face.

It was a turning point, and the man was well aware of it. If he admitted to seeing Quarles, he was admitting as well that he could have killed the man.

He had only to say: “I must have walked home earlier than that. I didn’t see Quarles at all, much less hear him talking to someone on Minton Street.”

Or “I didn’t leave the church for another quarter of an hour or more. I couldn’t have seen him—the clock in the tower was striking eleven.”

And it would have been impossible, whatever the police suspected, to prove otherwise.

Rutledge waited.

Finally Michael Brunswick said, “I didn’t see Quarles.”

“You must have heard his voice.”

“No.”

Hamish said, “He’s afraid to tell ye.”

After a moment Brunswick went on. “If Quarles was there, he’d already gone.”

“All right, I’ll accept that. The timing wasn’t perfect. Who was still there? Who had been with him only a matter of seconds before?”

“It was Davis Penrith.”

Brunswick had condemned himself with four words.

Davis Penrith had been in Scotland that weekend, staying with his wife.

R utledge was torn between going to London himself and asking the Yard to request a statement from Penrith regarding his weekend in Scotland. In the end, he compromised and telephoned the man at his home.

Penrith was distant when he came to take Rutledge’s call. But as the reason for it was explained, he said, “Here, this is ridiculous. I’ve a letter from my wife. Let me fetch it.”

He came back to the telephone within two minutes.

“It’s dated the Thursday after my return. I’ll read you the pertinent passage: ‘Mama was so pleased you could come, however short the visit. And Mr. and Mrs. Douglas were delighted you were here to dine with them. We have become dear friends. Shall I invite them to stay with us in June, when they’ll be in town?’ ”

“Where does your mother-in-law live?”

“In Annan. That’s just over the border from Carlisle.”

Rutledge knew that part of Scotland. If Penrith had been there for the weekend, he couldn’t have reached Cambury and returned to Annan without losing the better part of two days—the journey was close on three hundred miles each way.

“When did you leave for the weekend?”

“My staff can tell you—I left here Thursday evening and I set out from Annan just after our luncheon on Sunday. As you may remember, you found me at home on Monday morning because I got in so late.”

“Will you go to Sergeant Gibson at the Yard and give him a written statement to that effect? Show him the letter as well.”

“If it will help to find Harold’s killer.”

Rutledge thanked him and broke the connection.

Sitting there by the telephone, he considered his next step. He had sufficient evidence for several inquests. He could show a very good case for Hugh Jones, Stephenson, and now Brunswick. They would undoubtedly be bound over for trial. His duty done?

Why of all people had Brunswick named Penrith?

To shield someone else?

Or to make a point?

Hamish said, “He told ye he didna’ care.”

Rutledge crossed the room and opened the door before he answered Hamish. “Why did Brunswick look into Quarles’s past?”

“Aye. It’s a sticking point.”

“A different kind of revenge? To bring the man down, and make him watch the dissolution of everything that matters to him?”

“It doesna’ suit the man’s temperament.”

Rutledge wasn’t satisfied. “In an odd sort of way, it does. If he thinks there’s no chance for a conviction—despite his pleas to be hanged—his name and photograph will be in every newspaper in England as he talks about his wife and his music and what sort of man Harold Quarles was.”

“He could ha’ tried blackmail. And it didna’ serve.”

Hadn’t Mrs. Downing said Brunswick had come to Quarles for money, after his wife’s death? Was that why he was so angry that his wife wasn’t carrying a child when she died? It would have made a better case . . .

“Yon bookseller also asked to be hanged.”

“Yes, because he had nothing to live for. Brunswick’s wife failed him, his music has failed him, and he would like nothing better than to make someone else pay for his trouble.”

Rutledge was walking through Reception. “If we’d found Brunswick dead, I’d know where to look—at Harold Quarles.”

“The Chief Constable is waiting,” Hamish answered. “And Old Bowels as well.”

There was nothing for it now but to cross the High Street and report his findings to Inspector Padgett.

Padgett was not as pleased as Rutledge had expected him to be.

He was idly making designs on a sheet of paper, frowning as he listened, his gaze on his pen rather than Rutledge’s face.

“I’ll speak to the Chief Constable, of course. But are you sure?

He doesn’t like a muddled case. There’s Jones, the little family not-withstanding. And as far as we know, he could have wrecked his own bakery in an effort to elicit sympathy. You said yourself that nothing of great value was broken. Did I tell you? I did bring in the two most likely vandals, and their parents can account for their whereabouts that night.”

“I saw his face. Jones hadn’t done it.”

“Yes, well. We’ve looked at this before. Who grieves for Harold Quarles? Not his wife. The mistress that everyone would like us to believe in? As far as I’m concerned, if she exists, you were right about it being the little wife killed quite by accident by her soldier husband. I’ve even asked my wife if she knew who the mistress was.

And her answer was telling—that Quarles hadn’t started the rumor, other people had. His son? The boy was home, wasn’t he, when this happened? And fourteen is a wild age, emotions hot and temper hotter, but I daresay his mother never let him out of her sight.”

“If you disagree with my conclusions, tell me so.”

“It’s not that I disagree. I don’t like any murder on my patch, and most particularly not one that attracts the notice of London.”

Padgett had been vacillating since the beginning. Rutledge was losing patience.

“Then I shall speak to the Chief Constable—and leave you out of it.”

“No, I’ll do it. I told you. What’s this business about Penrith?”

“Brunswick named him as the person arguing with Quarles outside the Greer house. I’m not sure it wasn’t for a very good reason.”

“No one saw a strange motorcar in Cambury that night. Nor did they see a strange man wandering about.”

Rutledge had already considered that question.

“Penrith is known to many people in Cambury. He came here from time to time, when he and Quarles were partners. Would they have considered him a stranger?”

“I expect they wouldn’t.”

“Yet the evidence is clear. He was in Scotland.”

Padgett capped his pen and threw it down on the desk. “Brunswick’s a coldblooded chap. That fits the fact that the body was moved and trussed up in that rig. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, touching someone they’ve just killed.”

Rutledge said, “Tell me again why you acted so quickly to summon the Yard while Quarles was still up there in the harness? Before you’d even had time to consider the evidence.”

Inspector Padgett smiled. “I wanted to walk away with clean hands. The man put me in the wrong with the Chief Constable twice over. Third time’s unlucky. No one can say I didn’t follow the rules to the letter. Even his widow. I got my own back there. I’m satisfied.”

21

It was late. The day had worn on to the point that clouds had rolled in and the sunset was lost behind them.

Rutledge walked in the churchyard for a time, unable to bear his room—when he had come back to it, it had felt close, claustrophobic, as if storm clouds were moving in. He had left at once and, without conscious thought, found himself in the grassy paths that wandered among the headstones.

Hamish, reflecting his own mood, was giving Rutledge the rough edge of his tongue. Reminding him that barely a year before he’d been a broken man in the clinic to which his sister, Frances, had removed him. Rutledge couldn’t recall much of that change. The new surroundings had confused him, and Dr. Fleming, looking for a handhold on his new patient’s sanity, was probing into things best left buried deep and covered over with layer upon layer of excuses.

He hadn’t expected to survive. He hadn’t cared much either way, except when he saw his sister’s troubled face, the strain and exhaus-tion almost mirroring his own as she sat with him hour after hour, day after day, seldom sleeping, sometimes taking his hand, or when he couldn’t bear to be touched, talking softly to him about the distant past. About anything but the war. Or Jean, who had walked away and never looked back.

Now he was pacing a Somerset churchyard, debating his own wisdom.

To Rutledge’s surprise, Padgett hadn’t taken Brunswick into custody. Still, he was preparing to present their findings in the case to the Chief Constable in the morning and ask for an inquest to be held. And afterward Rutledge would be free to leave for London.

Rutledge cut across what Hamish was saying, the soft Scots voice, heavy with accusation and condemnation, finally falling silent.

“Who wrecked the bakery? I’d feel better about the case if that had been cleared up.”

There was no answer from Hamish.

“There has to be a reason for it. A hand behind it. But whose?”

Silence.

“No one’s shed a tear for the man—”

But that was wrong. One person had. The maid, Betty, who cleaned Quarles’s rooms and kept the gatehouse tidy. Who had been left a bequest of money when all she wanted from her employer was the promise of a roof over her head when he died.

Rutledge had almost forgot her. She was a pale figure on the fringe of the group of servants, a tired woman folding the sheets, feeling her years, wondering what was to become of her.

Rutledge turned back to The Unicorn’s yard and retrieved his motorcar. As he did, a few drops of rain splashed the windscreen, leaving dusty blotches.

By the time he reached Hallowfields, it was coming down in earnest, and a rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. He dashed through the rain to the door and knocked loudly. The footman who answered seemed not to know what to do about the policeman on the steps, and Rutledge said, “I’m here to see one of the maids. Take me to the servants’ hall, if you please.”

The man stepped back and let him enter. Rutledge walked briskly toward the door leading to the servants’ stairs and found the staff gathered in Mrs. Downing’s sitting room, listening to the Sunday evening reading from the Bible. Heads turned as he stood in the doorway.

Mrs. Downing said, “We’re at prayers.”

“I’ll wait in the passage.”

He shut the door and walked a dozen steps away, listening to the soft murmur of voices. After five minutes or so, Mrs. Downing came out of her sitting room, her face severe.

“What is it this time?”

“I’d like to speak to Betty. The woman who took care of Mr. Quarles’s—”

“Yes. I know who she is. Give me a minute.”

She went back into her parlor and dismissed the staff, keeping Betty with her. When they had gone about their duties, she herself left the room and held the door open for Rutledge to enter.

Betty was waiting, apprehension in her face.

Rutledge asked her to sit down, then told her they had very likely found her employer’s murderer. It would be only a matter of days before it was official.

Her hands clenched in her lap, she said, “Who is it?”

“I’m not at liberty to tell you that. But it isn’t Hugh Jones, the baker.”

He could read her emotions as they flitted across her face. Surprise. Bewilderment. Shame.

“They were talking in the servants’ hall,” she said. “The man who brings the milk told the scullery maid that he’d confessed.”

“Mr. Jones gave the police a statement. It wasn’t a confession. He won’t be arrested.”

“Why are you telling me this? And not the others?”

“Because I think you know. Did you go to the bakery in the middle of the night? Was it you who destroyed everything you could lay hands to?”

Tears filled her eyes but didn’t fall. “He’s been good to me. M—Mr.

Quarles. No one else cared, but I did. I wanted to punish whoever had killed him. I wanted to make him as wretched as I was.”

“You succeeded in making Mr. Jones wretched. He didn’t deserve it.”

“But they talk, the servants. I hear them. His daughter had come home, and he was distraught. Everyone said he was the only one who could have put Mr. Quarles up in that wicker cage. They said he’d done it to show that Mr. Quarles was no angel, that he’d tormented the Jones family until they couldn’t stand it any longer.”

“Yes, I know. The police nearly made that same mistake. But it wasn’t true. You owe him an apology, and restitution.”

“How can I pay for what I’ve done? I only have my wages.” She was gripping her hands together until the knuckles were white.

And then she looked at Rutledge. “He said terrible things about Mr. Quarles when he sent his daughter away. What does he owe for that?”

“You aren’t Mr. Quarles’s defender. He has a wife and a son to protect his good name.”

“His wife hated him as much as the rest did. But the boy, Marcus, is a good child. He would have made his father proud. It’s hard to think of him fatherless. If they hang this man you’ve decided killed Mr. Quarles, I’d like to be there.”

“Why do you think his wife turned against him? It was a happy marriage for some time, or so I was led to believe.”

“And so it was. I was never told what it is she holds against him. But she said once, when she didn’t know I was there, if she knew a way, she’d wash the very blood out of Master Marcus’s veins if it would do any good. Mr. Archer called that a cruel thing to say, but she answered him sharply. ‘You can’t imagine what cruelty is, Charles. I can’t sleep at night for remembering what was done.’ ”

“You’ve known Mr. Quarles for some years. What was his wife talking about?”

“He was a hard man, but not half the things said about him are true. I think she wanted an excuse to live with Mr. Archer, to make it right in her own eyes. I think she believed he’d feel better about living under her roof if he thought she was married to a monster.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “He was good to me. That’s all I know. No one else ever was.”

T he next morning, as Rutledge was packing his valise, he was summoned to the telephone.

It was Sergeant Gibson. “I’ve had a bit of luck, sir. Remember the constable you spoke with on Saturday, when you left me a message?”

“Yes, I do.” The lion’s head and a small boy charging his mates a few farthings to look at it.

“That was Constable Wainwright, sir. Over the weekend he spoke to his father about fighting the Boers. His father saw a good deal of action. And he remembers Private Penrith. Described him as a fair, slender chap, a quiet one keeping to himself for the most part. Said he was reminded of the young Prince of Wales, sir. This was in Cape Town, just before Corporal Wainwright was to sail home. Penrith was quite the hero, according to Wainwright. He walked miles back to a depot for help, after the Boers ambushed the train he was taking north. There was talk of a medal, but Penrith himself quashed that idea. He says he was too late, all the men were dead by the time rescue reached them. He blamed himself.”

“He was the sole survivor?”

“According to Wainwright’s account, yes, sir. He was knocked about when the train came to a screeching halt, and dazed. But his 276

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rifle had been fired, though he couldn’t remember much about the action.”

“Hardly a record to be ashamed of.”

“No, sir. Shall I go on looking at Mr. Penrith’s military career?”

“No. Yes. When did he leave the army? And where else did he serve? Did Corporal Wainwright mention one Harold Quarles?”

“I don’t believe he did, sir.”

“Include him in your search. And, Gibson, I want to be sure who and what this Davis Penrith is. One source has told me his father lived in Hampshire, another that his father lived in Sussex. I want that cleared up.”

“Yes, sir. I believe one Davis Penrith came in this morning to make his statement about a journey to Scotland. Is this the same man, sir?”

“It is.”

“Wouldn’t it be simpler to send a constable around to ask him these questions?”

Rutledge said, “He’s already answered one of them. But not to my satisfaction.”

Sergeant Gibson said neutrally, “Indeed, sir.”

Rutledge broke the connection, absently rubbing his jaw with his fingers.

So Penrith was apparently all he claimed to be. No one, however, had so far explained the confusion between Hampshire and Sussex.

But it might be nothing more mysterious than being born in one county and growing up in the other.

For the moment he put Penrith out of his mind and went in search of Hugh Jones.

The bakery was still closed on this Monday morning, but it was ready for use as soon as fresh supplies arrived. Jones said, as Rutledge came through the door, “I managed to bake bread this morning for my regular customers. Only twenty loaves, but a start. It was all the flour I had.”

“I think I’ve found the person who did this damage. An elderly maid at Hallowfields. She’d served Quarles, seen only his best side, apparently, and she was told that you had killed him. Hence the vandalism.”

Jones sighed. “He still makes trouble for me, even in death. I’m grateful Mrs. Quarles took him away from here to bury him. Else I’d fear to walk through the churchyard of a night.”

“Inspector Padgett is satisfied that we’ve found Quarles’s killer.

He’ll be taken into custody sometime this morning.”

“Who is it?”

“You’ll hear soon enough. The evidence points strongly to Michael Brunswick.”

“Another family Quarles destroyed. Ah well. I’m sorry for him.

He’s a man haunted by disappointment. But I never saw him as a murderer.”

“Inspector Padgett believed Brunswick could have killed his wife.”

“There was a lot of talk at the time. No one paid much attention to it. Thank you for telling me about what happened here.”

Rutledge left the baker and walked on to the police station. Padgett had just returned from his meeting with the Chief Constable.

“He agrees, there’s enough evidence to make an arrest. We’ll see what the lawyers can make of it now. I expect you’re wanted back in London. I’ll deal with Brunswick. He’s at the church, playing the organ. I spoke to Rector on my way in, and he told me. He wants to be present. I think he’s afraid Brunswick will do something foolish. I don’t see it that way.”

Rutledge went there himself and stood in the open door at the side of St. Martin’s, listening to the music for a time. Brunswick was practicing an oratorio, struggling with it, going over and over the more complicated sections until he got it right and locked into his memory.

It was a long and frustrating session. When he’d finished, he launched into a hymn he knew well, and the difference in the two pieces was telling. Brunswick had ability but not the soaring skill that great musi-cians strove for.

Hearing voices approaching, Rutledge went back to the hotel to fetch his valise. Coming down the stairs again, he stopped by Reception.

Hunter was there to bid him farewell and a safe journey.

Half an hour after he’d driven out of Cambury, the telephone in the small parlor beyond the stairs began to ring.

The staff was busy with the noonday meal, and no one heard it.

It was an uneventful drive to the city. Rutledge arrived late and went directly to his flat.

The next morning, he called on Davis Penrith at his home.

“We’ve found your former partner’s murderer. He was taken into custody yesterday and charged. The inquest will find enough evidence to bind him over for trial.”

Penrith’s face was still. “Who is he?”

“The organist at St. Martin’s. He believed his late wife had an affair with Quarles. She killed herself.”

Penrith searched for something to say. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

“There’s one small matter to clear up with you.”

Penrith smiled wryly. “I told you my father was curate in Hampshire. Only for five years, before moving on to Sussex. My mother was alive then, it was a happy time. The living in Sussex was cramped and wretched. I tend not to think of it if I don’t have to. I hope it didn’t cause you any trouble.”

“None at all,” Rutledge answered blandly.

“Well, then, thank you for telling me about this man Brunswick.

I’m glad the matter is cleared up, for the sake of Mrs. Quarles and Marcus.”

Penrith prepared to show Rutledge out, walking to the study door.

“Actually, that wasn’t the matter I wished to bring up.”

Surprised, Penrith stopped, his hand on the knob.

“I can’t think of anything else that needs to be clarified. I made my statement. You’ll find it at the Yard.”

“Thank you. No, what I wanted to clarify are several names I have here on my list. Mr. Butler is dead, I believe. Mr. Willard and Mr.

Hester, Mr. Morgan and Mr. Simpleton, and Mr. MacDonald were investors in the Cumberline fiasco.”

Wary, Penrith said, “Where did you find those names?”

“They were in a box marked CUMBERLINE in Harold Quarles’s study.”

He could see the anger and frustration in Penrith’s face. “Indeed.

And what else of interest did you find in his study?”

“Very little. We’ve managed to look at these seven men and determine that they had no reason to attack and kill Mr. Quarles.”

“No, of course they wouldn’t. They are men of some reputation, they value their privacy, and they aren’t likely to wait almost two years for a paltry revenge.”

“If you consider murder paltry.”

“That’s not what I meant. I’m sure they would have preferred taking the matter to court, ruining us, and making Harold Quarles and myself laughingstocks. They are ruthless businessmen. It’s the way they settle matters such as Cumberline. But they saw that in taking our firm to court, their own business practices might come under scrutiny. I can tell you that these men lost no more than they could afford to lose. They knew from the start that it was a risky investment, but they also had Cecil Rhodes in their sights, and their greed won over their common sense.”

“Was this other investor, a man named Evering—”

Penrith must have been prepared for the question, but it still nearly splintered his carefully preserved calm. “Evering was one of Harold’s clients. He made the decision to include the man.”

“Was Cumberline the reason you broke with Quarles?”

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was. I thought Cumberline was risky from the start. I thought Quarles was taking a direction we’d never taken before with the firm. I thought his judgment was failing him. But he had his reasons for offering Cumberline, he said, and it would do us no harm. Financially, he was right, though it was a close-run thing. I felt that the good name of the firm—and more important, the good will of James, Quarles and Penrith—was tarnished.”

“What was his reason, did he ever tell you?”

“Not in so many words. Most of these men had made their money in the war, cutting corners, shoddy goods, whatever turned a penny.

He said the poor sods in the trenches didn’t count for anything, if a shilling could be made from their suffering. And it was the same greed that made Cumberline so attractive to such men.”

“Was Evering also profiting from the war?”

“I have no idea. You’d have to ask Quarles. And he’s dead.” Penrith took out his watch. “I really must go. I have matters to attend to in my office.”

He held the door for Rutledge, and there was nothing for it but to thank Penrith and leave.

Rutledge drove to the Yard, and reported to Chief Superintendent Bowles, who appeared to be less than happy to hear there was a successful conclusion to the inquiry.

It was two hours later when Sergeant Gibson came to his office and said, “The Penrith in South Africa was born in Hampshire, his father lost his living there and went on to Sussex, where he didn’t prosper.

His son joined the army for lack of funds for a proper education, and served his time without distinction save for one heroic act—”

“—when the train was attacked. What else?”

“That’s the lot. He never went back to Sussex. Instead he made his way in the City, and most recently set up his own investment firm after leaving James, Quarles and Penrith.”

“And Quarles?”

“Almost the same story. Survived the attack, was badly injured, and didn’t go back to his unit until they were ready to sail. He was from Yorkshire, but like Penrith, settled in London. Both men served their time, and that was that.”

“All right, leave your report on my desk. A wild-goose chase.”

“Why,” Hamish wanted to know, “did Penrith deny they’d served atall or knew each ither before London?”

Rutledge reached for the report and went through it again, looking for what injuries had sent Quarles to hospital for such a long recovery.

He found it, a short notation in Gibson’s scrawl: burned in attack, nearly lost hands.

Mrs. Quarles must have discovered this as well, if she hadn’t already known about her husband’s service in South Africa. Hardly sufficient reason to demand a separation. And even if Brunswick had learned of it, few people would care, even if he shouted it from the rooftops.

Hamish said, “It doesna’ signify. Let it rest.”

Rutledge turned to the paperwork on his desk, concentrating on the written pages before him. In his absence there were a number of cases where he would be expected to give testimony, and he marked his calendar accordingly. Then he read reports of ongoing inquiries where the sergeants in charge were collating evidence and passing it on for a superior to inspect. He made comments in the margins and set the files aside for collection. Three hours later, he’d come to the bottom of the stack, and the report that Sergeant Gibson had prepared about the military backgrounds of Quarles and Penrith.

The sergeant had summarized the material in his usual concise style, and his oral report had matched it. Rutledge tossed the folder back on his desk for collection and filing, and sat back in his chair, rubbing his eyes.

Hamish was restless, his voice loud in the small office, rattling the windows with its force. Rutledge warned, “They’ll hear you in the passage,” before he realized he was speaking aloud.

But Hamish was in no mood to be silent.

Rutledge reached for a folder again, realized it was Gibson’s report, 282

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and tried to read it word for word in an effort to shut out Hamish’s tirade. Gibson in his thoroughness had attached a copy of Penrith’s military service record to support his notes.

It was nearly impossible to concentrate, and Rutledge shut his eyes against the thundering noise in his head. The last line on the page seemed to burn into his skull, and he flipped the folder closed, shutting his eyes and trying to concentrate.

It was several minutes before his brain registered anything more than pain.

He wasn’t even certain he’d seen it, but he lifted the report a last time and tried to find it, first in the summation, and then in the military record itself.

And almost missed it again. Lieutenant Timothy Barton Evering.

The name of the officer in charge when the train was attacked.

Gibson, for all his thoroughness, had had no way of knowing that it mattered. Rutledge had been searching for different information, and it was only because the sergeant was not one to leave any fact undocumented that the name was even included.

Rutledge stood up, the sheet of paper still in his hand, and went to find Gibson. But the sergeant had gone out to interview a witness for one of the other inspectors.

Rutledge went back to his desk, took up the file, reached for his hat, and left the building.

He found Davis Penrith in his office. Brushing aside a reluctant clerk, Rutledge opened the door instead and strode in Without waiting for Penrith to take in his abrupt appearance, Rutledge said, “I thought you told me you didn’t know an Evering. That he was Quarles’s client.”

“I don’t—”

“The officer in charge of the train ambushed out on the veldt was Timothy Barton Evering.”

Penrith’s mouth dropped open. It took him several seconds to recover. Then he fell back on anger. “What are you doing, searching through my past? I’m neither the murder victim nor a suspect in his death. You’ll speak to my solicitor, Inspector, and explain yourself.”

“Timothy Barton Evering.”

“He’s dead, man! There were no other survivors.”

“Then who is Ronald Evering? His son?”

“I don’t know any Ronald Evering. I told you, the investors in Cumberline were Quarles’s clients, not mine. Now get out of my office and leave me alone!”

Rutledge turned on his heel and left. Back at the Yard, he left a message for Chief Superintendent Bowles that he would not be in the office for the next three days, went to his flat, and packed his valise.

It was a long drive all the way to Cornwall. Rutledge had sufficient time to wonder why it mattered so much to tie up a loose end that in no way affected the outcome of a case that was already concluded. All the same, action had improved his headache, and that in itself was something.

Penrith had given incomplete answers three times. Once about where his father had been curate, once about Quarles’s background, and again about Evering. Whatever it was that Mrs. Quarles knew and Brunswick had been determined to ferret out, Davis Penrith must know as well.

There was a secret somewhere, and whether it had a bearing on this murder or not, it connected three people who on the surface of things had nothing in common.

Hamish said, “Do ye think the three acted together? If so, ye’re a fool.”

“Why has Penrith felt compelled to lie to me? If I’d gone to Hampshire looking for his past, I’d have found only a five-year-old boy.

If I’d gone to Sussex, I’d have discovered that the grown man had served in the Army. And there was nothing in the legend of Harold Quarles about his military career, short as it was. He’d have used it if it had in any way served his purpose.”

“They were no’ deserters, they didna’ need to hide.”

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“Precisely. Constable Wainwright’s father called Penrith the sole survivor of that massacre on the train. Yet Quarles survived as well.”

“It was Penrith who was pointed oot to him.”

“Yes, the handsome young soldier who reminded Wainwright of the Prince of Wales: slender and fair and a hero. What was Quarles doing while Penrith was being a hero? Why wasn’t he one as well? His wounds were serious enough to keep him in hospital for a long time.

And back in London, why didn’t Penrith’s heroics become as famous as Quarles’s escape from the mines? It would have stood him in good stead in many quarters.” He drove on. “What will one Ronald Evering have to say about his own investment in the Cumberline stocks, and his father’s dealings with Penrith and Quarles?”

22

T he sea was rough, and the mail boat bucketed through the waves like a live thing, fighting the water every foot of the crossing.

Rutledge, shouting to the master over the noise of the sea and the creaking of the boat, asked him to point out St. Anne’s.

“That one, you can barely see the top of it from here. It’s our third port.”

“Do you know the Everings?”

“These many years. Visiting, are you?”

“An unexpected guest,” Rutledge said, watching the little island take shape. But it was another hour and three-quarters before they reached the tiny bay that was St. Anne’s harbor, and their voices were suddenly loud as the wind dropped and the seas smoothed in the lee of the land.

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master said, lighting his pipe. “The house usually sends down a cart for visitors.”

“Are there often visitors?”

“Not often. Ronald Evering’s the last of the family, and not much for entertaining.”

Rutledge watched as the man maneuvered the small craft toward the stone quay and efficiently secured it to the iron rings that held it against the fenders.

“Off you go,” he said to Rutledge, nodding to the path that ran down to the harbor. “Up there, cross the road, and when you see the arbor, follow the path to the house. Would you mind carrying up the mail? It would save me a trip.”

Rutledge took the packet that was held out to him.

“Will you be going back today?”

“Most likely.”

“Then I’ll come for you.”

Rutledge stepped out onto the quay and waved to the departing mail boat as he reached the path. It ran up the sloping hillside in looping curves, as if a goat had been the first to climb here. As he went, the wind reached him again, and he carried his hat in his hand to keep it from flying off. Halfway up he could see the Scilly Isles spread out before him like a map, the four or five larger ones showing signs of habitation, the smaller ones dotting the sea like afterthoughts. On the northern exposures the bare rocky slopes of the nearest islands were covered with what appeared to be heather, while the sunnier southern parts of the islands were green.

It was a very different world from London or indeed from Cornwall.

The sun began to break through the clouds, watery and half-hearted, as Rutledge reached the road and crossed it to the Evering house. It was beautifully situated, facing the south, and protected from the north by a higher slope than the one on which it stood. He came to the arbor, opened the lovely swan-neck gate, and took the shell path up to the door.

The master of the mail boat told him that there had been shipbuild-ing on the largest island in the last century, but here on St. Anne’s were fields of flowering bulbs and perennials. He could see that the daffodils were already dying back, their yellow and green leaves covering long beds.

The brass knocker on the door was shaped like a pair of swans, like the top of the gate in the arbor.

A middle-aged woman came to answer the door. She seemed surprised to see a stranger there, and craned her neck to look beyond him toward the harbor. The mail boat was just rounding the headland.

“Ronald Evering, please. My name is Ian Rutledge.”

She stepped aside to let him come into the foyer, and said doubtfully, “I’ll ask if Mr. Evering will see you.” Disappearing down a passage, she glanced over her shoulder, as if to see if he was real or had vanished when her back was turned.

After several minutes, she led him into a small parlor that overlooked the sea. Which, he thought, every room in this house must, save for the kitchen quarters.

Evering was standing by the cold hearth and regarded Rutledge with some interest. “Do I know you? We seldom have visitors on St.

Anne’s, but sometimes people come to see the seals or watch the birds.

We let them camp near the headland.”

“I’m here to ask you about your father.”

“My father?” Evering was at a loss.

“Yes. Lieutenant Timothy Barton Evering.”

Ronald Evering said without inflection, “My elder brother. He’s dead. Why should you be interested in him?”

“Because he served in South Africa. Can you tell me the circumstances surrounding his death?”

“They are painful to me. I prefer not to discuss them. Why are you 288

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interested in him?” he asked again. “Are you writing a book on that war? If so, my brother’s death was a footnote, no more. There is more interesting material to be found, I’m sure.”

Rutledge changed his ground. “It’s my understanding that you were one of the investors in the Cumberline stock scheme. Is that true?”

Evering was very still. “Who are you? And what do you want here?”

“I’m Inspector Ian Rutledge, from Scotland Yard, Mr. Evering.” He held out his identification. “Harold Quarles has been murdered—”

Evering turned away toward the mantelpiece, his hands gripping the mahogany edge, his head bowed. “I hadn’t heard. I’m sorry. When did this happen? Where?”

“In Somerset, where his country house is located. Some ten days ago.”

Evering took a deep breath. “I hope you’ve found his killer.”

“Yes, he’s already in custody. It was when I was searching Mr.

Quarles’s rooms that I came across your name in connection with Cumberline. In his study he kept a file on the transactions.”

Evering turned to face Rutledge. “And how did you learn about my brother?”

“We were looking up Harold Quarles’s service records, in an effort to find out what role, if any, his past played in his death.”

“I can’t see how South Africa matters? Or the Cumberline stocks.

Surely neither of those could be connected to murder?”

“Not to my knowledge. But it pays to be thorough, Mr. Evering.

How long have you known Mr. Quarles?”

“Not very long. I invested a sum of money with him, and it didn’t prosper.”

“Did you know when you invested your money that Quarles had served under your brother in the Boer War?”

Evering glanced toward the windows, where a shaft of errant sunlight had turned the sea from gray to deep green. “The War Department gave us very little information about my brother’s death. He died on active duty and served his country well. That’s what my father was told in the telegram. I was very young at the time, and if he learned more, he never spoke of it.”

“And so it was quite by chance that you should choose an investment offered by two men who served in your brother’s company.”

“Neither Mr. Quarles nor Mr. Penrith ever mentioned the fact.

If they recognized the name or knew my relationship to Timothy, I didn’t realize it.”

“Did you deal with both partners? Penrith and Quarles?”

“Yes, I talked to Mr. Quarles first, and then he brought in Mr.

Penrith.”

It sounded straightforward, told without hesitation or attempt to conceal.

“Is that all you came to ask me, Mr. Rutledge?”

“I’m informed that Penrith and Quarles were the only survivors of the Boer attack. Do you know if that’s true?”

“I’ve told you—I know very little about how Timothy died. The fact of his death was enough. My parents never recovered from the shock.”

“Yes, I can understand.”

“Were you in the Great War, Mr. Rutledge? If you were, you can appreciate that many details of what happens in a battle are not reported. My brother’s commanding officer wrote a very fine letter to my father, and it said very little beyond the fact that Timothy died bravely and didn’t suffer. That he was an honor to his regiment, showed great promise as an officer, and would have had a fine career in the army if he’d lived. How many such letters does an officer write?

He could say the same thing to a dozen grieving families, and who would be the wiser?”

“It is meant well. Sometimes the details are—distressing.”

“Yes, I’m sure that must be true. For my mother’s sake, I was grateful. She died not knowing whether he suffered or not. Which is what 290

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really mattered, in the end.” Evering gestured to the chairs that stood between them. “Won’t you sit down, Mr. Rutledge? I’ll ring for tea. It will be some time before the boat returns.”

“Thank you.” Rutledge took the chair indicated and waited until Evering had given the order for tea to the woman who’d answered the door.

“One of the reasons I’m following up on the South African cam-paign is that something that happened in Harold Quarles’s service out there—he served nowhere else, you see—disturbed his wife to such a degree that there was a serious breach with her husband. It lasted until his death.”

Evering considered Rutledge for a moment and then said, “I don’t know what to say. I’ve never met Mrs. Quarles or spoken to her. Does she think this—whatever it was—had to do with my brother?”

“I have no way of knowing what it is. I’m here to learn as much as I can about the only serious action Quarles saw during the war.”

“It’s a mystery to me. But if she tells you anything that I ought to know, please send me word. I’d be grateful.”

The tea came, and they drank it in silence. Rutledge’s mind was occupied, and Evering seemed to have little conversation, as if living alone in this empty, silent house had shaped his spirit.

But as he set his teacup down, Rutledge asked, “And so, as the only surviving son, you inherited this house?”

“My father’s family was one of the earliest settlers here. Generations ago. We are as close to ‘native’ here as anyone can be. You either love or hate it. My brother joined the army because he wanted adventure and excitement, both in short supply here on St. Anne’s. My mother called it a need to be a man, and persuaded herself that in due course he’d come home, marry, and settle here for the rest of his life. As the elder son, that’s what was expected of him. Instead he died in a place none of us had ever heard of and couldn’t find on a map. Look, there’s the mail boat. No passengers to hold it up today. You should be there when it comes in, Mr. Rutledge.”

“I almost forgot.” Rutledge reached into his pocket and brought out the packet of mail. “I was to give you this.” He glanced at the return address on the top envelop but said nothing.

Evering thanked him and sent for the maid to bring Rutledge’s coat and hat. “I’m afraid it will be a wet crossing. Those clouds on the horizon spell rain. Thank you for coming, Mr. Rutledge. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.”

But Rutledge, as he went out into the wind, smelling now of rain, thought that on the whole Ronald Evering had not been sorry at all.

By the time the boat reached the mainland, they were caught in a downpour, and in spite of his useless umbrella, Rutledge managed to start his motorcar without drowning.

Cutting across Cornwall in the direction of Dunster, Rutledge spent the night there with the Maitlands, newly returned from their wedding trip and delighted to see him. They would have kept him longer, but he was up before dawn the next morning, and by first light was well on the road again, heading for Cambury.

He drove straight through the village when he reached the High Street, and out to Hallowfields.

Mrs. Quarles was in mourning, he was told, and not seeing anyone.

“Tell her I know about Evering,” he said, and in three minutes, he was face-to-face with Harold Quarles’s widow in the formal drawing room. She was not happy to see him, and the two small dogs at her feet growled as he entered.

“I thought we were fortunate in not having to deal with Scotland Yard any longer,” she told him shortly. “And here you are again.” She didn’t ask him to sit down.

“I’m afraid that I’m rather tenacious when it comes to making certain that the man I hang is indeed the killer I was looking for.”

“You have doubts about Brunswick? But I was told he confessed.”

“For reasons of his own—which may or may not be the right reasons. It’s Evering I’m interested in, and how he died.”

“Who told you about Evering? Was it Penrith? If you tell me it was, I won’t believe you.”

“Penrith would as soon keep the matter quiet. He’s lied to me enough to make me suspicious, and that wasn’t very clever of him.”

“Then you’ll hear nothing from me.”

“Mrs. Quarles, I’m very close to stumbling on the truth. If you know Evering’s name, then you know what it is I’m after. And I warn you, it’s very likely that Michael Brunswick knows more than I do, and that he’ll use what he knows at his trial, to disgrace your husband publicly.”

“There’s no way Brunswick could know anything. I wouldn’t have learned the truth myself if Harold hadn’t been so drunk one night that he talked in his sleep. It was as if he were having a waking nightmare.

I’ve never seen anything before or since to match it. The next morning I confronted him with it, and at first he told me I was imagining things. And then he swore he’d see me dead if I said anything to anyone. I knew then that it was true. And I left him, because I couldn’t stand to be in the same room with him or feel those hands—”

She broke off.

“You might as well tell me, Mrs. Quarles. I won’t walk away until I know the whole truth about your husband. If it has nothing to do with his murder, I will never speak of it. You can trust my word on that.”

She stared at him. “What use to me is your word?”

“It’s better that I find out than someone else trying to pry into the past.”

Walking past him to the door, Maybelle Quarles opened it quickly, as if expecting to find Mrs. Downing there with her ear pressed to the panel. But the passage was empty. She closed it again and went to the window, looking out. When she spoke, she had pitched her voice low, so that it barely reached his ears.

“You are a persistent man, Mr. Rutledge. Very well. I will tell you what you want to know. Not because of the persistence, but because by your digging, it’s possible that other people will get wind of the truth, and we will never have peace in this family again.”

Turning back to him, she said baldly, “My husband burned Lieutenant Evering alive, after shooting the wounded on that train.”

“Gentle God,” Rutledge said softly. “In heaven’s name, why?”

“I don’t know. I wish I did, it would make my own nightmares easier to bear.”

“Does Penrith know? Surely—”

“He must know. The soldiers who reached the train misread what they saw, and Penrith made no move to correct them. They must have thought Harold was burned trying to save the lieutenant. They believed the Boers had come into the train and killed the wounded. My husband was delirious, he couldn’t tell them what had happened after Penrith went for help.”

“It could well be true.”

“In that nightmare, he relived listening to Evering die. He relived shooting the wounded. He lay there, writhing on the bed, and begged God to help him after he’d burned his hands to make it appear he’d done his best. He’d kept that secret so long that it was tormenting him, and that night, he confessed to God or the devil, I don’t know which, and I sat there, afraid to call for help, listening to it all. ”

Rutledge had only to look at the torment in her face to believe her.

To understand why she hated the man she’d married and couldn’t bear to live with him. And yet she’d never divorced him . . .

“Why did you stay with Quarles?”

“I have a son. Harold would have taken him from me if I’d told anyone else. I’m not a fool, Mr. Rutledge, I knew the danger of living under the same roof with a murderer. But I did it for Marcus, and God saw fit on that Saturday night to release me from my prison. And I have thanked him on my knees for it.”

“Why didn’t you consider killing him yourself, if you felt afraid?”

“And leave my child without a father or a mother? I think not.”

He left soon after. There was nothing more he could say to the woman standing by the empty grate staring down into flames that she could see only in her mind. And there was no comfort he could give her. It was beyond any words he could utter, and it would be patron-izing to try.

Hamish said, as Rutledge pointed the bonnet of the motorcar down the drive, “It doesna’ change the murder or who did it.”

“Quarles was a strange man. A killer at heart, ruthless and coldblooded, and yet he could be kind as well. What was it Miss O’Hara said? That someone should be given a medal for ridding Cambury of the ogre?”

All at once he could hear shouting in the distance and stopped the car to listen. It appeared to be coming from the Home Farm. He got out, walked a little way across the lawns, and saw that Masters and one of his men were wading into the pond just beyond the barns and outbuildings. Something was in it, a long blue streak in the middle of water already turning muddy from the hurried thrashing of their feet.

He raced toward the farm, watching the scene play out like a drama on a stage. Masters was close now to what appeared to be a blue gown, and he was reaching out, trying to drag it nearer, then trying to right the figure as it began to lash out wildly.

It was a woman, and she wasn’t trying to cling to her rescuers, she was struggling to free herself. Rutledge, out of breath, got to the water’s edge just as Masters succeeded in dragging the woman to shallower depths.

It was Betty Richards, the elderly woman who had served Quarles, and in his name tried to destroy the bakery.

Her hair was down, gray streaked and straggling, half covering her face, and she was crying, trails of tears spreading into the muddy stream running from her hair and into her eyes.

Masters, his breathing tumultuous, was shaking her, demanding to know in broken sentences what the hell she thought she was doing.

Rutledge said, “She was trying to drown herself, man. Get her inside and fetch some blankets. Tea as well, and towels to dry her hair.”

Masters let her go, turning to Rutledge. “What are you doing here?

I thought you’d found your killer.”

“In more ways than one.” He reached out and put a hand on Betty’s shoulder, comforting her as best he could.

“There was nothing else I could do,” she said, sobbing into the wet skirt she held to her face. “I had nowhere else to go, nothing left.”

Rutledge asked sharply, “Did Mrs. Quarles give you notice?”

She tried to shake her head but her hair was a heavy mass down her back. “It was Mrs. Downing. She said they’d be cutting back staff now, and I’d not be needed any longer. Mr. Archer told her I could take care of his rooms. But she said it would be up to Mrs. Quarles, and I mustn’t hold out any hope.”

Rutledge swore. Hadn’t they read the will? Hadn’t they seen the bequest to this poor wretch?

As if in answer, Betty said, “Mrs. Downing never liked it that I wasn’t under her. But I wasn’t and never was meant to be. She was told that from the start.”

Mrs. Masters had come with blankets and they wrapped Betty in them as water ran from her clothes and she began to shiver. Rutledge let Mrs. Masters take over, guiding Betty toward her kitchen, making soothing noises.

Masters said, “I never liked that woman.”

“Betty?”

“Not Betty, I hardly knew her. No, Mrs. Downing. She creeps around the house, listening at doors and spreading gossip. I don’t know how Mrs. Quarles can stand her.”

“I don’t think she sees that side of her housekeeper. Will Betty be all right with your wife?” He watched Mrs. Masters close the kitchen door behind them.

“She’ll see that Betty is taken care of. I’ve half a mind to take her on myself, to get her out of Mrs. Downing’s clutches. But I don’t need more staff.”

“Then you might spread a little gossip of your own. Harold Quarles left a sizeable bequest to that housemaid. She’ll never want for anything again.”

“Why on earth should he do that?”

“I don’t know. But I think Mrs. Downing might. I’ll have a word with her.”

Rutledge walked back the way he’d come, and leaving the motorcar where it was, he went on to the house and knocked again at the door.

Mrs. Downing opened it to him, and he stepped inside before she could prevent him.

“Has there been a reading of the will?” he asked, and her eyes flickered.

“It was read privately. The staff wasn’t invited to hear. Afterward, we were told by Mrs. Quarles how we were to be provided for.”

“Was nothing said to you about a bequest to the woman who had served Mr. Quarles by taking care of his rooms?”

“Not to me. I wasn’t told anything at all.”

“But you overheard something, didn’t you? When Mrs. Quarles spoke privately to Betty.”

“She never did—”

Rutledge said, “Bring her down here to me. I want to speak to Mrs.

Quarles.”

“I can’t—”

But he ignored her and called Mrs. Quarles’s name. She came to the top of the stairs, her face flushed with her anger. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Come down here, or I’ll come up there.”

Without a word, she came down the stairs and walked past him to the small sitting room. He followed.

“What is it you want?” She stood there, cold and straight, as if nothing more could touch her.

“There was a bequest in your husband’s will. To the housemaid who looked after him. Betty Richards.”

“What business is that of yours?”

“She was never told, after the will was read. I want to know why.”

“I didn’t think it was an appropriate bequest. She’s not capable of handling that much money—”

“Tell me the truth. Or I’ll see to it that you’re taken into Cambury police station for theft.”

“It’s not theft,” she retorted. “It’s my husband’s money—”

“And he left it to that woman.”

“That woman, as you put it, is his widowed sister. He kept her here as a maid, and let the world think he was kind to take her on. But he did it to keep the rest of us out of his rooms and his affairs. He knew he could trust her. She’s not fit to be my son’s aunt, and I won’t have her in this house any longer.”

“Then give her the money he left to her, and let her go.”

“For all I care, she can starve. She’s a Quarles and I hate them all!”

She went past him out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

Any sympathy he’d felt for her had vanished. He pulled open the door and called to Mrs. Downing.

“You’ll pack Betty Richard’s things and send them to Cambury to the house of Miss O’Hara. She’ll be staying there until someone from the solicitor’s office can be summoned. I want them there within the hour, do you hear me?”

Mrs. Downing said, “I’ll see to it—”

But he was out the door. As he looked back at the house on his way to his motorcar, he saw a face staring at him from the window. A boy, he realized, in Harold Quarles’s rooms.

It was Marcus Quarles, a bewildered, frightened expression on his face.

Rutledge drove to the Home Farm and asked Tom Masters and his wife to send Betty Richards to Cambury as soon as she’d recovered.

“She’s sleeping now, poor thing,” Mrs. Masters told him. “Let her rest. It will be soon enough to take her there tomorrow.”

“You may find yourself in trouble if you take her in,” he warned.

“I’ll go ahead and tell Miss O’Hara that she’s to have a guest.”

Miss O’Hara frowned when he told her. “I’m not a boardinghouse.

But if you insist, then I’ll keep her safe.”

“She won’t be staying long. You’ll be hearing from Mr. Hurley. A solicitor. He’ll have instructions for her.”

“Yes, well, that may be. You owe me another dinner, then.”

Rutledge smiled. “I’ll remember.”

He didn’t stop at the police station. He had nothing to say to Inspector Padgett. But on his way to speak to Miss O’Hara, he’d noticed the board outside St. Martin’s Church.

Someone had covered the name of MICHAEL BRUNSWICK, ORGANIST.

In London, Rutledge went directly to the house of Davis Penrith.

He said to the man as he was shown into the study, “You have lied to me more times than I care to count. About your father. About Quarles. About Evering. I know about South Africa now. Almost the entire story.”

“You can’t possibly know.”

“About Evering burning alive? About the wounded who were shot?

About the fact that you never turned Quarles in to the authorities?”

“I had no proof!”

“Of course you did. You knew how many wounded there were, or you’d have never walked across the veldt alone to find help. You and Quarles would have left that train together to find help, because there was nothing the Boers wanted from it then. But he stayed behind. I want to know why.”

“I tell you, I didn’t know.”

“What was it, cowardice? Did you and Quarles get cold feet when the Boers attacked, and hide under the carriages? Was that why you survived? They were dead shots, the Boers. How was it that neither you nor Quarles was wounded, and yet everyone else on that train died?”

“I don’t remember. When the train was stopped, I was knocked down. I don’t remember.”

“How did Quarles burn his hands? If he was in that carriage with Evering, why were only his hands burned?”

“I wasn’t there.”

“But you knew when you walked away and left Quarles there—with no wounds, mind you—that Evering was alive. Wounded, perhaps, but alive. The Boers didn’t burn men to death.”

“It was the lantern in the last carriage. It was hit and broken. I don’t know why it burned, but it did.”

“You surely knew Ronald Evering was the brother of the man Quarles killed. Why did he come to you to invest his money?”

“I can’t answer that. Coincidence—one in a thousand odds—”

“I think he must have learned something, and he came to you to find out the rest.” It was a battering of questions, and Rutledge could tell that Penrith couldn’t sustain it.

“He couldn’t have known anything, no one did. We never told anyone we’d been in the army. Not even Mr. James.”

“What were you trying to hide, if it wasn’t cowardice?”

“We were hiding nothing. Nothing.”

“Why did you write a letter to Ronald Evering, just in the last few days? It arrived on St. Anne’s the same time I did, and I carried it to the house myself.”

“I—he’d said something about wanting to invest with me again. I told him that the opportunities he spoke of had not turned out the way he’d hoped, and I thought he would be wise to look elsewhere.”

“How odd, that after Cumberline, he would wish to trust you again with any sum of money.”

“Yes, I thought the same—” Penrith broke off. “That’s to say, I found it odd myself.”

“You’ve lied to me about many things. Why did you lie to me about Scotland?”

It came out of nowhere, a shot in the dark from Rutledge that shook Penrith to the core. “I was in Scotland. I swear to you I was! There’s the letter from my wife.”

“But not that whole weekend. She says something about it being such a brief visit, and that you’d arrived just in time to dine with the Douglases. I think you reached Scotland on Sunday afternoon, not on Friday. And you’re letting an innocent man hang in your place. You were in Cambury on that Saturday night. You quarreled with your former partner first on Minton Street, where you’d followed him from Hallowfields, and then you went ahead of him, knowing he was on foot. And you killed him, because you were afraid of him, and what he knew about your past. He was doing things that you didn’t approve of, that you feared would ruin both of you. The Cumberline stocks, his outrageous behavior in Cambury, refusing to listen to you—”

“It wasn’t that way, you’ve got it wrong—”

“Why did you strike your partner down, and then carry his body to the tithe barn and hoist him to the ceiling in that angel’s harness, where no one would think to look for him? Did you hope that this would give you time to reach Scotland before anyone could accuse you of killing him?”

“I never put him in that harness—you’re lying—”

“But that’s how he was found. And someone did it. If it wasn’t you, then who would do such an ugly thing?”

“I never put him in anything—”

“An innocent man is going to hang,” Rutledge said again. “And it will be on your conscience. Perhaps you weren’t there when Quarles shot the wounded—or when he burned Evering alive. It may be that you’ve nothing on your conscience but protecting a friend. But this death is on your hands. When Brunswick hangs, it will be you who slides the hood over his head and the rope tight around his neck—”

“Stop it!” Penrith put his hands over his ears, trying to shut out Rutledge’s unrelenting voice. “I am not guilty. I’ve never killed anyone. Harold Quarles was still alive when I left him—”

“You wouldn’t have left Quarles alive. Not if he knew it was you who struck him. He was a bad enemy. A dangerous man. You had proof of that, whatever you want to deny about South Africa.”

“I did. I wasn’t afraid of him. I told him that I knew why he’d tried to make everyone think he’d slept with my wife—it was because I’d left the partnership. He always punishes anyone who gets in his way. And that was my punishment. I hit him when he turned away because he called me a liar. He said he’d never gone near my wife. I told him he was the one lying . . .”

Penrith stopped, appalled. He sank down in the nearest chair, his head in his hands.

“Oh, my God. What have I done?”

Rutledge thought at first that Penrith was horrified that he’d been tricked into confessing, then he realized that the man had stared into something only he could see, and discovered the truth.

“What is it?” Rutledge asked.

Penrith shook his head. “I can’t believe— Look, I never put him in that harness. I was so angry, I couldn’t have touched him. I left him there in his own blood, still breathing. It must have been someone from the house who put him in that barn, it wasn’t me. I swear to you—it wasn’t me!”

“You’ve lied one time too many,” Rutledge said. “It doesn’t serve you anymore.”

“But it’s the truth. He was alive, there on the grass by the gatehouse. I didn’t murder Harold Quarles.”

“If you didn’t, then you must know how Michael Brunswick feels, waiting to be tried. He told me the truth, and I didn’t believe him. I accepted your word that you were in Scotland, and you gave it, knowing it was a lie.”

“No, you must listen to me—all right, I struck him twice. He was walking away, laughing, and I knocked him down to his knees to stop him, and then before I quite knew what I was doing, I hit him a second time because I was so angry with him. But I could hear him breathing—I hadn’t killed him.”

“Weren’t you afraid that leaving him alive was dangerous, that he’d tell the police what you’d done?”

“No—he wouldn’t dare. Besides, I thought—I hoped that if no one found him right away, he might not remember what had happened.”

“You hoped he would die. Davis Penrith, I am arresting you on the charge of willfully murdering your former partner, Harold Quarles.”

“You can’t do this. I haven’t killed anyone. I was tricked—”

Rutledge shook his head. “It’s finished. Will you go with me now, or must I send for constables to bring you in?”

“You don’t understand. I was misled—it was Ronald Evering who told me that Quarles had slept with my wife. And I believed him, because it was the sort of thing Quarles would do. He punished his wife by having affairs with every woman in Cambury he could seduce.

Why not my wife, to punish me? Dear God, don’t you see? It must all have been a lie . . .”

23

It was Inspector Padgett’s nature to gloat. As Rutledge sat in the man’s office and reported the arrest of Davis Penrith and the evidence that supported it, Padgett smiled. It was nearly a sneer.

“Didn’t I tell you from the start that it was someone in London?

And you so certain the killer was among us here in Cambury?”

“It was the way the evidence pointed. Davis Penrith told us half truths about Scotland. He was there—but he’d driven through the night, like a bat out of hell, to make certain he was in time for the dinner his wife and he had been invited to attend.”

“And her letter was equally unenlightening. Yes, one of the problems of not being on the spot, wouldn’t you say?”

Rutledge, heeding the succinct advice Hamish was pouring into his ear, held on to his temper with a firm grip.

“Penrith swears he was tricked. That he’d deliberately left London early in order to discuss a business matter with Ronald Evering, and instead it turned out to be a trap. I’m on my way to the Scilly Isles to look into it.”

“Never been there. Never had a reason to go, and never expect to.

I’m not the best of sailors. Where was Penrith all the while on that Saturday evening?”

“He’d intended to go directly to the house to confront Quarles, but just as he neared the gates, Quarles was getting into the motorcar driven by Mr. Nelson, who was joining Quarles and Mr. Greer at dinner. They sat talking, and so Penrith didn’t stop. He went as far as the next village, waited a decent interval, then drove back. The motorcar was gone, and so was Quarles. He turned in at the main drive, in front of the gates, and waited again, for some time, in fact, not sure what to do. On the chance that Quarles might have taken his visitor into Cambury to dine, Penrith walked into Cambury to look for Nelson’s motorcar. By now, Penrith was impatient and worried about his timetable. But he found the vehicle by Greer’s house and hung about out of sight, angry and frustrated. He didn’t want to return to Hallowfields, he’d have to explain why his business couldn’t wait until morning. Then Quarles obliged him by leaving the dinner early.

Penrith stopped him, they had words, but Quarles was in no mood to entertain Penrith’s suspicions. He walked on home, and Penrith had no choice but to follow—the High Street was hardly the place to discuss his wife’s fidelity. He caught up to Quarles again on the road, and again Quarles gave him short shrift. Penrith thought Quarles was taunting him, and as they went past the gatehouse at the lane turning into the Home Farm, he was so angry he picked up one of those white stones and struck Quarles from behind. Penrith only remembers two blows, and he says Quarles was alive when he got the wind up and ran for his motorcar. He flatly denies carrying the body to the tithe barn.”

“I thought you said you had a full confession.”

“We do. As far as it goes. The question becomes, is Penrith still lying—this time about the apparatus in the tithe barn—or is he finally telling the truth? He doesn’t strike me as a man of courage. But if he didn’t move the body—who did?”

“Mrs. Quarles.”

“How did she know it was lying there? I don’t see her taking nightly strolls around the grounds and stumbling over her husband’s corpse in the course of one of them.”

“Jones? Or even Brunswick for that matter.”

“When you consider the point, it’s rather difficult to beard Quarles in his den—it’s a house full of servants and potential witnesses. Waiting for him to come to you, outside the gates, can be hit or miss. It was sheer luck that Penrith saw him with Nelson, but jealousy that made him persist. Brunswick guessed that Quarles was somewhere about when he saw Penrith come out of Minton Street. He wasn’t likely to follow the two of them. The question now is, who did?”

“Brunswick. Who else?”

“Brunswick had no reason to believe Penrith was about to kill Quarles. And that’s true of Jones. But someone was expecting it. And that’s the man I intend to call on when I leave here. He’s the one who told Penrith that his wife was having an affair, and Penrith must have left him in a fury. Evering might have followed, to see what would happen. Why else would he tell Penrith such a thing? True or not, it led to Quarles’s death.”

Padgett said, “You don’t give up easily, do you?”

“It’s a matter of justice, you see. Even justice for an ogre.”

Rutledge left soon after and drove on to Cornwall, spending the night just across the Tamar, and arriving at his destination in time to meet the mail boat on its return from the first crossing of the day.

The sea was calm, the skies clear. Rutledge had an opportunity to speak to the master as he stood at the wheel.

The man remembered bringing Penrith.

“He was in something of a state when I met him on the quay, ready to return to the mainland. He thought the fog bank on the horizon was going to swallow us and lead to catastrophe on one those skerries out there.”

“Did Evering leave the island that same morning?”

“If you’re asking if I picked him up on the next run, no. Nor the next day, for that matter.”

“Does he have a boat of his own?”

“He does. And he’s handled it in these waters all his life.”

“Where would he leave it, on the mainland?”

“Wherever he chose to put in. There are a dozen coves, not to mention fishing ports, where he could tie up.”

“What about a vehicle, once he did?”

“He keeps his motorcar on the Cornish mainland. It’s no use to him on St. Anne’s.”

Rutledge nodded and changed the subject. They came alongside the quay at St. Anne’s, and Rutledge helped the master tie up. There was no mail for Evering this trip, and Rutledge walked up the hill with his mind on what he was about to say. But before walking through the arbor gates, Rutledge took a brief tour around the small island, following the road until it became a lane and then a path.

The Evering family graves were tucked in a fold in the hillside, protected from the prevailing winds, and covered with flat stone slabs rather than the more conventional stones. When the winter gales washed across the island, they were less likely to erode.

He moved slowly among them, looking at the dates—going back to the seventeen hundreds, weathered but still legible—and took note of one in particular. A small memorial chapel stood just beyond the graves, and inside he found pews, an altar, and a memorial window set in the thick wall high above it. It showed a young soldier in khaki, standing tall and unafraid against the backdrop of the veldt, his rifle across one knee, his gaze on the horizon. The commissioning date on the brass plaque below it was 1903.

Leaving the chapel, Rutledge followed the path down a hillside toward a tiny cove. Here was Evering’s sailboat and a strip of sand beach protected from the wind. The sun touched the emerald green water as it ebbed, and it was shallow enough to see the bottom. There was almost a subtropical climate in these sheltered slopes. Rutledge could easily understand why flowers bloomed here before they did on the mainland. These islands were Britain’s most westward outpost, and as he looked out at the cluster of St. Anne’s neighboring isles, he found himself wondering what lay submerged between here and Cornwall. The south coast was full of tales about vanished lands, swallowed up by the sea.

There were half a dozen small cottages on the island as well as the main house, tucked beneath another fold in the land, and he could see the wash blowing on lines in the back gardens. Staff? Or the families who worked on the estate? From the sea these cottages would be invisible, the ancient protection of island dwellers the world over from the depredations of pirates and raiders. But neither could they see the Evering house from here or the cove or even the docking of the mail boat. Evering could be sure there were no witnesses to his comings and goings.

Satisfied, Rutledge walked back to the house and lifted the knocker on the door.

The middle-aged maid again answered his summons and left him to wait in the parlor for Evering to join him.

“You might be interested to hear,” Rutledge said, as soon as Evering walked into the room, “that it was Davis Penrith who killed his partner, Harold Quarles.”

“I am interested. That was an odd pairing if ever I saw one.” He gestured to a chair. “I can’t imagine that you came all the way out here to tell me that.”

“Penrith told me that on his most recent visit here, you reluctantly informed him that Quarles was having an affair with Penrith’s wife.”

“Did I? I hardly think so. I don’t travel in the same circles. If there has been gossip, I would be the last person to hear it.”

“Or the first person to make it up.”

Evering laughed easily. “Why should I care enough about these two men to make up anything?”

“Because they let your brother burn alive when they could have saved him. Because—according to Penrith—it was even possible that Quarles had engineered his death. I don’t know why. But having spent four years in the trenches, I find myself wondering why the two most inexperienced soldiers in that company survived when no one else did. Unless they were hiding and Evering threatened to have them court-martialed for cowardice. Apparently the army went so far as to make certain Penrith’s rifle had been fired.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know how my brother died.”

“I believe you do. Someone brought his body home. It’s there, among the family graves.”

“The stone was set over an empty grave, to please my grieving mother. You’ll find no bones beneath it.”

“We can order an exhumation to find out. But it would be simpler to wire South Africa and ask the authorities if your brother still lies where he was buried at the time of his death. There will be a paper trail we can follow. Signatures . . .”

“Yes, all right, I was in South Africa for a time, and I made the arrangements for my mother’s sake. It was not an experience I care to remember. But I learned nothing from the military authorities there.

Possibly to spare my feelings.”

“You knew when you first went to James, Quarles and Penrith exactly who these two men were. And they were well aware that you knew. I think that’s why they allowed you to invest in Cumberline. To teach you a lesson.”

He sighed. “That well may be. On their part. I couldn’t say.”

“I think you deliberately told Penrith lies about his wife and Harold Quarles, knowing that would be the one thing that would set them at each other’s throats. I think you didn’t really care which one killed the other. It was revenge you were after.”

“This is a very unlikely story. Not one you can prove, certainly.”

“It’s my belief that you followed Penrith to Hallowfields, and watched him kill Quarles. And then it was you who put Quarles’s body into the rig in the tithe barn. I don’t know how you learned that it was there. But you’ve been planning your revenge for some time. You might have heard the story of the Christmas pageant from anyone. It would be interesting to take you back to Cambury and see how many people there recognize you as an occasional visitor.”

“It would be rather stupid of me to visit Cambury, don’t you think?

Strangers stand out in small villages, people are curious about them.

No, if I went to the mainland, it was only to hear news that never reaches us here on St. Anne’s. But save yourself the trouble. You can ask the master of the mail boat. I didn’t leave the island.”

“You have your own boat. Your staff would know whether you were here or on the mainland.”

“While you’re here, you must ask them.”

Which meant, Rutledge was certain, that they would lie for him.

Or were paid well to do so.

“It’s going to be very difficult, I agree. But I know the truth now.

You’ll be summoned to give evidence at Penrith’s trial. Will you call him a liar, under oath? Will you deny ever telling him about his wife and Quarles?”

Evering walked to the cabinet that stood between the windows.

Opening the glass doors, he reached in to align the small figure of a man seated in a chair, his yellow waistcoat tight across his belly, one hand raised, as if in salute. “I have nothing to fear. I’ll gladly give testimony. Under oath. It’s far more likely that Penrith knew about that contraption you speak of. Not I.” He closed the cabinet door and this time turned the key in the lock.

Evering, unlike Penrith, was not likely to break.

Rutledge said, “Does it bother your conscience that Quarles was murdered and Penrith will hang? And that you are very likely responsible?”

“I hardly know them. I won’t lose sleep over their fates. I’d like to offer you tea, again, Mr. Rutledge, but I think perhaps you’d prefer to await the mail boat down at the quay. It is, as you can see, one of our best days. The water in fact is beautiful. Admiring it will pass the time. There are a number of interesting birds on the islands. You might spot one of them.”

Rutledge picked up his coat and his hat. “Thank you for your time.” He walked past Evering to the door, and there he stopped.

“Quarles has a sister, you know. And he has a son. Penrith has a family as well. You are the last of your line. You may have found a way to destroy your brother’s killers, but revenge is a two-edged sword. Survivors are sometimes determined—as you well know—and somehow may find a way to finish what you began.”

Evering said, “I have no interest in vendettas. Or vengeance. I can tell you that my mother was of a different temperament and would have stood there below the gallows to watch Penrith die. There are many kinds of justice, Mr. Rutledge. As a policeman you are concerned with only one. Do speak to Mariah on your way out. She’ll confirm—in writing if need be—that I never left St. Anne’s.”

Rutledge did speak to the maid. She gave her name as Mariah Pendennis. And she told him, without hesitation or any change of expression, that it was true, Mr. Evering had been on St. Anne’s for a fortnight or more, as was his custom this time of year.

“The man’s guilty,” Rutledge told Hamish as he leaned against a bollard, waiting for the mail boat. “As surely as if he took that stone and killed Quarles himself.”

“But ye canna’ prove it. Guilty or no’.”

Overhead the gulls swooped and soared, curious to see if this stranger intended to offer them scraps or not. Their cries echoed against the hillside behind Rutledge.

He turned and looked back toward the house he’d just left. He could feel Evering’s eyes on him, watching to be certain he left with the boat when it came in.

Where had Evering learned such cunning? And why had it taken so long to wreak havoc among his enemies? He’d been young, yes, when his brother died, but nearly twenty years had passed since tragic news had reached the anxious household at the top of the hill.

Hamish said sourly, “He waited for a way that didna’ compromise him.”

Rutledge watched the mail boat pull around the headland, the bow cleaving the waves and throwing up a white V as it moved toward the quay.

It was a long twenty-eight miles across to Cornwall. Rutledge had time to think, and at the end of the journey, he was no closer to a solution.

But as he turned his motorcar east, he suddenly realized that the answer had been staring him in the face since the beginning, but because it was so simple, it had gone undetected.

24

Inspector Padgett was startled to find Rutledge waiting for him in his office when he returned from a late tea with his family.

“I thought I’d seen the last of you.”

“Yes, well, sometimes wishes are granted and sometimes not. I went to see this man Evering. I think he set in motion the train of events that led to the murder of Harold Quarles, but he knows very well that it can’t be proven. He’s as guilty as Penrith, in my view. More, perhaps, for using a weak man as his tool, and finding the right fear to provoke him. But that’s beside the point.”

“You know as well as I do that policemen often have suspicions they aren’t able to prove. You’ll have to live with this one.”

“Possibly.”

“A bit of news at this end. Mrs. Quarles came to Cambury in person to apologize to Betty Richards. She also brought a bank draft for the sum that Quarles left the woman in his will. I don’t think Betty quite knew what to make of it all. Miss O’Hara tells me that she sat in her room and cried for an hour afterward. Tears, according to Miss O’Hara, of relief rather than grief. I don’t know that she cared for her brother as much as she cared for the money he left her.”

“She was frightened about the future.”

“It’s secure enough now.”

“Which brings me back to something we never resolved. Not with Brunswick and not with Penrith. How the body of Harold Quarles was moved from the scene of his murder to the tithe barn, to be strung up in that cage. I was convinced that Evering must have done it. To humiliate the man in death. But the more I considered the matter, the more impossible it seemed. I know Penrith left his motorcar in the drive, where it wasn’t visible from the house, but what did Evering do with his? We found no tracks to explain what happened—and that’s a long way to carry a dead man.”

“I’ve told you my opinion—Mrs. Quarles borrowed Charles Archer’s wheeled chair.”

“Yes, but what brought her, in the middle of the night, down to the gatehouse just minutes after her husband was murdered?”

“She heard something. The barking dog, remember?”

“She’d have sent one of the staff.”

Padgett said, smiling broadly, “You can’t have it both ways.”

“But I can. The only vehicle that had driven down the tithe barn lane was yours. Whether you heard that dog barking and came in to investigate, or something else caught your eye, you found Quarles dead, and it was your need to make him a laughingstock that gave you the idea of putting him up in the cage. You drove him there, a piece of cloth or chamois around his head, and because you knew where the apparatus was and how it worked, you could strap him in very quickly. A stranger would have had to learn how the buckles and braces worked.

Then you went in to Cambury, alerted your men, sent for me, and waited until I got there to remove Quarles, so that someone else was in charge of the inquiry. You’ve already admitted that much. But it explains why we never found tracks to indicate who else had been there in the lane and driven or dragged Quarles to the barn.”

“You can’t prove it,” Padgett said, his face grim. “Whatever you suspect, you can’t prove it.”

“That’s true. Because you’ve had time to remove any bloodstains from your motorcar and burn that rag. That’s why you left your motorcar with Constable Jenkins, because your evidence was in the boot.”

“I did no such thing—”

“But you did. The tracks were yours, and only yours, until your constables got there. And then the doctor came after I arrived. I shall have to tell the Chief Constable, Padgett. You tampered with the scene of a crime, with the intent to confound the police. And you did just that.”

“I’ll deny it.”

“I think you will. But he’s had other reports against you. This will probably be the last straw.”

“I’m a policeman. I had a right to be in that lane. I had the right to decide if this murder was beyond the abilities of my men.”

“And you spent most of your time trying to derail my investigation.”

“I was no wiser than you when it came to finding out who killed Quarles.”

“Didn’t it occur to you that the killer might still be somewhere there, out of sight? Or that Quarles might still have been alive—

barely—when you got to him? Why didn’t you shout for help or blow your horn? But that’s easier to explain. You hadn’t seen Penrith’s motorcar as it left, so you must have believed that someone from Hallowfields had murdered Quarles. It was safer to let him die and bring down Mrs. Quarles with him.”

“I did nothing of the sort—O’Neil himself said the second blow was fatal, that there was no help for it. He was unconscious and dying as soon as it was struck.” Padgett’s voice was intent, his gaze never leaving Rutledge’s face.

“You couldn’t have known that at the time, could you?”

Padgett swore. “You’ve been after my head since I was rude to Mrs.

Quarles on our first visit. Well, she’s a piece of work, I can tell you that, and neither wanted nor needed our sympathy.”

“It was you who let slip to someone the fact that Quarles had been trussed up like the Christmas angel. It didn’t serve your purpose to keep that quiet. The sooner he became a subject of ridicule, the happier you were.”

“You can’t prove any of this.”

“You also saw to it that I suspected Michael Brunswick, because you believed him guilty of his wife’s death. It was you, manipulating the truth behind the scenes, just as Evering had done. And because you were a policeman, your word was trusted.”

Rutledge stood up, preparing to leave.

“Where are you going?”

“To the Chief Constable. It’s my duty, Padgett. What you did was unconscionable.”

Padgett shouted after him as he went down the passage, “You were a damned poor choice for Scotland Yard to send me. Talking to yourself when no one is looking. I’ll bring you down with me, see if I don’t.”

His voice followed Rutledge out the door and to his motorcar.

“A poor enemy,” Hamish warned him.

“He’d have killed Quarles himself, if he’d dared. I rather think what he did do gave him even more pleasure than he realized in the fe-verishness of the moment. Quarles has become a nine-day’s wonder.”

Rutledge drove to Miss O’Hara’s house and knocked at the door. It was Betty Richards who answered and led him to the parlor. “I didn’t go to the funeral,” she told him, before announcing him. “I wasn’t asked. But it’s just as well. I never wanted to see that village again. I made a bad marriage to escape it. We went into service together, and that was worse. He drank himself to death, finally, leaving me not a penny, and when I was turned out, it was Harold who rescued me and brought me to Hallowfields, though I wasn’t to tell a living soul I was his sister. I paid for my freedom, and now I have money of my own. I still have nowhere to turn. I don’t know how to live, except at someone else’s beck and call.”

“You must find a home of your own, and learn to be your own mistress.”

“Yes, I must, mustn’t I?” she said doubtfully, then announced him to Miss O’Hara.

“You keep turning up, like a bad penny. What’s this visit in aid of now?”

“Tidying away loose ends.”

“That doesn’t sound to me like an invitation to dinner.”

Rutledge smiled. “Another time. I have other calls I must make. I hear Mrs. Quarles has made restitution.”

“Yes, that was the oddest thing. I was never so shocked as I was when I found her at my door. It’s Betty who worries me. I told her I would keep her on here, until she can decide what she wants to do with herself. But she’s been so browbeaten all her life, she doesn’t seem to have tuppence worth of backbone. It’s really quite sad. I shall miss you, Ian, when you’ve gone back to London. Perhaps I can arrange a murder or two to bring you here again.”

“Yes, do that.” He said good-bye and left, while Hamish rumbled in the back of his head, telling him to be careful.

After calling on the Chief Constable at his house in Bath, Rutledge turned back toward London.

He had some explaining to do when he got there. Chief Superintendent Bowles was not pleased about his absence.

“Why couldn’t this inquiry have been wrapped up sooner?”

“Because there was misinformation from the start. And there were people to whom it was advantageous to muddy the waters.”

“This man Padgett. What possessed him? A policeman!”

“Pride.”

“And what about Evering. What are we to do with him?”

“There’s not much we can do. He didn’t touch Harold Quarles. He in no way encouraged Davis Penrith to kill the man. He simply told him a lie.”

Bowles said, “A lie can be as deadly as the truth. See to your desk.

There’s more than enough work on it to keep you busy awhile. I don’t hold with this running about. Leave it to the lawyers now.”

Dismissed, Rutledge went to his office and sat down in his chair, turning it to look out at the spring shower washing the London air clean, his mind far away from the papers in front of him. All he could see was a hot dry morning in the bush and a train burning while a man screamed.

Four days later, he was dispatched to Cornwall. A body had come ashore off Land’s End, and in the dead woman’s pocket was a water-logged letter. They could make out Rutledge’s name, and Scotland Yard. Much of the rest was indecipherable.

He left London as soon as he could and reached Penzance late in the evening. A young constable at the police station greeted him and said, “I’m to take you directly to Inspector Dunne. He lives in that small farmhouse you passed on your way in.”

It was no longer a working farm, where the inspector lived. But the gray stone house, built in the distant past, its slate roof heavy on the beams, had a charm that was very obvious. The outbuildings had for the most part been cleared away, save for the barn and the large medieval dovecote. As they pulled into the yard, Rutledge could hear doves fluttering and calling, unsettled by the brightness of his headlamps.

Dunne was a middle-aged man graying at the temples. He had waited up for Rutledge, but he’d already replaced his boots with slippers, and shuffled ahead of them as he led Rutledge to the room where he worked when at home.

“You don’t often find a victim of drowning with Scotland Yard’s address in her pocket. We thought you might want to have a look.”

“I appreciate that. No idea who she was?”

“None. That’s what we’re hoping you can tell us.”

Rutledge had an odd feeling that it was Mariah Pendennis, who was the only person who could swear that Evering wasn’t in his house on the night that Quarles was murdered. His spirits rose. There might yet be a way to catch Evering.

Even as he thought about it, he had to accept the reality of winds and tides. It would be nearly impossible if she’d drowned off St.

Anne’s for her to be found off Land’s End.

Hamish said, “He would ha’ taken her out to sea. Else she might wash up in the Isles.”

Dunne was telling Rutledge the circumstances of finding the body.

“Fishermen spied her on the rocks. That’s where a good many drowning victims turn up. Know anyone living in this part of Cornwall?

Dealt with a crime in our fair Duchy, have you?”

“Only one, and that was some time ago. Nearly a year. And farther north, above Tintagel.”

“Not my patch, thank the Lord. Want to have a look at her tonight?

Or wait until the morning. I’d be glad to put you up. The house is empty at the moment. My wife’s gone to Exeter, a christening.”

Rutledge accepted his invitation, and the next morning, Dunne took him to see the body of the drowned woman.

Her face had suffered from the waves tumbling her against the rocks, but shocked as he was, Rutledge had no difficulty identifying her. What he couldn’t grasp was why Betty Richards should have drowned herself off Cornwall.

A sad end, he thought, moved by pity. He reached out, gently touching the cold, sheet-clad shoulder nearest him.

Rutledge said to Dunne, “You were right to summon me. Her name is Betty Richards. She was the sister of someone who was killed in Somerset recently. I’d like to see the letter. It may be important.”

They brought him the stiff, almost illegible pages, and he tried to read them, using a glass that someone found for him. Even so, even magnified, the ink had run to such an extent that Rutledge could decipher only one word in three. Something about money, and her duty, and at the end, her gratitude for what he’d done for her.

But it hadn’t been enough.

She’d tried to kill herself before, and this time she’d succeeded.

Why here?

She couldn’t have known. He’d told no one but Padgett—

He turned to Inspector Dunne. “I must find a telephone. It’s urgent.”

Dunne took him across to the hotel, and there, in a cramped room, Rutledge put in a call to The Unicorn.

He recognized Hunter’s quiet voice as the man answered. Rutledge identified himself and said, “Can you find Miss O’Hara, and bring her to the telephone. It’s pressing business.”

“It will take some time. Will you call back in a quarter of an hour?”

Rutledge agreed and hung up the receiver.

Inspector Dunne said, “Mind telling me what this is about?”

“I’m not sure.” He looked at his watch. “Can someone hold the mail boat to the Scilly Isles? We should be on it, but first I’ve got to wait for my call to go through.”

“The Scilly Isles? She wouldn’t have come from there. Trust me, I know the currents in this part of the world.”

“Nevertheless—”

Dunne sent a constable peddling to hold the boat. Rutledge paced Reception, mentally counting the minutes. Where was Miss O’Hara?

Had anything happened to her?

He swore under his breath. The hands on the tall case clock beside the stairs moved like treacle, their tick as loud as his heartbeats, and his patience was running out.

Hamish was there, thundering in his mind, telling him what he already suspected, calling him a fool, reminding him that he had thought it was finished, and reiterating a handful of words until they seemed to engulf him.

“Is this no’ what ye wanted to happen? Is it no’ what would balance the scales?”

“Murder never balances the scales.” He almost spoke aloud, and turned away to keep Dunne from reading the fear in his face.

Ten minutes still to go. Five—

And then it was time. Rutledge put in the call and waited for Hunter to answer. On the fourth ring he did, saying, “Rutledge? Are you there? I have Miss O’Hara with me—”

Thank God, she was safe . . .

And then Miss O’Hara’s voice, strained and tired. “What is it?

Where are you calling from? What’s happened?”

“It’s Betty Richards. She’s killed herself.”

“Oh, no. Oh, God, keep her.” There was a brief silence. Then she said, “She left two days ago, in the night. There was a message—”

He could hear her fumbling with a sheet of paper, and then Hunter’s voice in the background. “Here, let me.”

And Miss O’Hara, again.

Dear Miss,

You’ve been awful kind to me, but there’s something I must do.

It’s about my brother. I don’t know what to do with all this money, so I might as well use it for my own self. What’s left, will you see that it goes to young Marcus?

“Why didn’t you call me?” he demanded when she ended her reading.

“I thought—she’d said something about her brother. I thought she might have decided after all that she wanted to see his grave. That’s all that made sense to me.”

Because she didn’t know what Padgett had known . . .

“Did Betty leave the house the day before she went off?”

“I sent her to market for me. She wasn’t gone very long. But she seemed upset when she came back—silent and distressed. When I asked her what had happened, she said, ‘Someone just walked over my grave.’ ”

Rutledge swore then, with feeling.

Padgett had taken it upon himself to tell Betty Richards that the law couldn’t touch the man behind her brother’s death. Rutledge would have given any odds that Padgett had intentionally done so, just as he’d let the gossips have the information about the way they’d found Quarles in the tithe barn, and half a dozen other bits of troublemaking.

It was the only explanation for Betty Richards being here in Cornwall. Nobody else knew— no one—

“Where’s Inspector Padgett now? Do you know?”

He could hear Miss O’Hara speaking to Hunter, then she was on the line again.

“The Chief Constable sent for him. I don’t think he’s come back.”

“It doesn’t matter. The damage is done.”

“I thought—” Her voice down the line was very disturbed. “It’s my fault, I should have—she never gave me any reason to suspect that she was going somewhere to die. I knew the money overwhelmed her. It sounded as if she didn’t want it after all.”

“There was nothing you could do. It was out of your hands. Someone wanted to hurt her, and he succeeded. Thank you. I must go—”

“Someone? Padgett? I always thought him an unparalleled idiot. I didn’t know he was also a cruel bastard.”

She put up the receiver as he turned to Dunne. “We need to be on that boat to St. Anne’s.”

The two men ran to the harbor, where the mail boat was bobbing on the turning tide. The master had the ropes off before their feet hit the deck.

Rutledge said to him, “Did you take a visitor to St. Anne’s in the last several days? An unremarkable woman wearing a black dress and a black coat?”

“Yes, I did, as it happened. She wasn’t there long—she was waiting for me at the quay when I swung back round to St. Anne’s, to see if she was going back then or later. She said the people she’d come to see weren’t at home.”

“Thank God!” Rutledge felt a wave of relief wash over him. If she had killed herself, it was because she hadn’t succeeded.

But Hamish said, “Ye canna’ be sure it’s suicide. Yon Evering might ha’ killed her, to be rid of her.”

“There’s the letter in her pocket . . .”

He watched as the distant isles grew larger almost incrementally until the smudge divided itself into many parts, and then the indi-vidual isles were visible, spread out before him on the sea.

“I’ve never been out here,” Dunne said. “There’s hardly any crime.

A constable looks in from time to time, as a matter of course, but it’s not really our patch. Pretty, aren’t they, like the ruins of the ancient kingdom of Lyonesse. There are stories along many parts of the English coast about church bells ringing out to sea, where there’s nothing to be seen. Even as far as Essex, I think.”

But Rutledge was urging the boat forward, forcing himself to sit still and wait.

At last they reached the small harbor and touched the quay as the master brought the boat in close.

“Wait here,” Dunne ordered him as he leaped on the quay after Rutledge.

The two men took the track leading up to the road at a forced pace, and finally Dunne said, “Here, slow down. I’m half out of breath.”

Rutledge waited for him to catch him up, and then turned toward the house.

“That’s the Evering place?”

“Yes. See, the road’s just ahead. We cross that, and follow the shell path beyond the arbor.” Rutledge could hear his own heart beating.

The sound was loud in the stillness.

“Peaceful, isn’t it?” Dunne said as he turned back to look at the panorama behind him. “And that view—you’d never tire of it. Beats the farm, I’m afraid. And I thought nothing could.”

Rutledge was ahead of him, moving fast through the open arbor gate without seeing it, his mind already walking through Evering’s front door. By the time Dunne had caught up with him, Rutledge had lifted the knocker and let it fall.

He realized he was holding his breath as he waited.

No one came to answer his summons.

“He’s taken the boat out. He went after her. The housekeeper, Mariah Pendennis, must have family in the village. We’ll try there.”

He led the way again, and as they passed the small burial ground of the Everings, he said to Dunne, “That’s the stone for the son killed in the Boer War.”

“Burned to death, did you say? Horrid way to die. Ah, I spy a rooftop. That must be the village.”

But Rutledge’s gaze had gone to the small cove. He could just see the mouth of it from here. Another fifty feet—and there was Evering’s boat, swinging idly on its anchor.

“You go on to the village, and ask for the woman who works for Evering. Mariah Pendennis. I’m going back to the house.”

“What if she’s not there?”

“Bring back a responsible man. We’ll need him.”

Dunne nodded and set off without another word. Rutledge thought, He’s a good man.

He turned back, past the burial ground and the chapel, down the road to the path to the house. The last hundred yards he was trotting, though he knew it must be too late.

This time as he went through the open gate he stopped to look at it.

The lovely piece that had formed the top of it was missing. The swans with curved necks.

He didn’t bother to knock again. He tried the door, and it was off the latch. For an instant, he hesitated on the threshold, dreading what he knew now must be here.

He walked into the parlor, and it was empty. The dining room too echoed to his footsteps, the bare boards creaking with age as he crossed to the window and looked out.

The study was next, a handsome room with photographs of the various islands hung between the windows, the shelves across the way filled with a variety of mechanical toys. Rutledge barely glanced at them. Evering lay in front of the desk, crumpled awkwardly, the handle of a kitchen knife protruding from his chest. And in his hands, as if shoved there as an afterthought, were the swans from the gate, bloody now.

Rutledge knelt to feel the man’s pulse, but there was no doubt he was dead. He had been for some time.

Hamish said, “When she came, he didna’ think she was sae angry.

A plain woman in a plain bonnet, ye ken. He must ha’ thought she was no match for him. And the knife in the folds of her skirt.”

It could have happened that way. Rutledge thought it very likely had.

He went on to search for the servants’ quarters, and there he found Mariah Pendennis, dead as well, this time the knife in her back as she prepared the tea things. Sugar and tea had spilled on the work table and down her apron, and a cup was smashed on the stone floor beside her, another overturned on the table. The kettle on the hob had boiled dry, blackened now above the cold hearth.

Rutledge went through the rest of the rooms, but Mariah Pendennis had been the unlucky one, unwittingly answering the door to a murderess. He couldn’t find any other servants in the house.

Ronald Evering must have lost more money to the Cumberline fiasco than he could afford. Still, one man didn’t require a houseful of servants. Mariah had been sufficient for his needs, with perhaps someone to help with meals and the heavier cleaning chores, and someone to take his wash and bring it back again. His needs were few, and he had got by.

Rutledge could hear Dunne, calling to him from the foyer. He came down the stairs and said, “There are two dead here. Evering and the woman who took care of him.”

The man standing behind Dunne sharply drew in a breath.

Dunne said, “I wouldn’t have thought—” He left the sentence unfinished.

“She managed it because they didn’t suspect her. Evering had no way of knowing who she was or why she was here. A poor woman, harmless.” He led the way to the study.

“What’s that in his hands?” Dunne asked, crouching down for a closer look.

“It’s from the gate outside,” the man with him said. “Whatever is it doing here?”

The closest she could come to the angel in the tithe barn. Aloud, he said, “A gesture of some sort?”

“What are these?” Dunne gestured to the collection of toys behind Rutledge. “Odd things to have in a study. My grandson has one like that.” He gestured to a small golden bird on an enameled box. “He’s allowed to play with it of a Sunday, with his grandmother watching.”

“Mr. Evering was that fond of all manner of mechanical things,”

the man from the village answered him. “When he got a new one, he was like a child, playing with it by the hour. Where’s Mariah, then?”

Rutledge directed them to the kitchen. He stood where he was, looking down on Evering.

It had come full circle, what this man had set in motion with a few lies. Now he was dead, and Betty Richards with him. She would be buried beside the brother who never acknowledged her. And if Mrs.

Quarles read the brief account in a newspaper of a drowning in Cornwall, she might guess why . . .

There were no more Everings. The cycle would end here, in this house overlooking the sea.

But there was Padgett still to be dealt with.

“Ye can no mair take him in than ye could this one,” Hamish told Rutledge. “Their hands are bloody, but ye canna’ prove it.”

“He sent that poor woman here to confront Evering, as surely as if he brought her to the door.”

Hamish said, “If she wasna’ her brother’s blood, she wouldna’

ha’ come here. She would ha’ stayed with yon Irish lass until she was settled in her own mind what to do with hersel’.”

The seeds of these murders had been sown in the way Betty Richards had gone to the bakery and done as much damage as possible with her bare hands. And the seeds of her death were sown when in despair she threw herself into the pond at the Home Farm.

“I don’t think she was avenging her brother,” Rutledge said slowly.

“I think it was avenging the life she was most comfortable with, that died with him.”

Hamish said grimly, “It’s too bad she didna’ include yon inspector in her vengeance.”

The Scots, who for centuries had raised blood feuds to a fine art, were not as shocked by them as the more civilized English.

“He’ll bring himself down. He won’t need a Betty Richards for that.”

Back in London, Rutledge went to see Davis Penrith in prison, where he was awaiting trial. Fighting against the sense of the walls closing in on him, Rutledge told the man what had become of Evering.

“I can’t say I’m heartbroken,” Penrith told him. “The law couldn’t touch him. And I’m to hang because of him.”

“Hardly that. You needn’t have acted on his information.”

“Yes,” he said bitterly. “It always comes down to that, doesn’t it? A choice. The fact is, no one ever chooses well in the throes of jealousy and anger.”

“Why did Quarles burn Lieutenant Evering alive? It’s the one piece of the puzzle I’ve not uncovered.”

“I won’t burden my wife and children with that. I didn’t kill the man. I just didn’t report what I suspected. I gave Quarles the benefit of the doubt. I wasn’t even there when it was done. I didn’t see his hands until months later, when they were healing. Whatever it was that drove him, he paid for it in pain and suffering. Let there be an end to it.” In spite of his denials, he looked away, as if ashamed.

“Something happened on that train.”

“And whatever it was died with the men on it. Now Quarles is gone. I will be soon.”

It was all that Penrith could be brought to say.

Leaving the prison, walking out through the gates and into the bright air, Rutledge found himself in a mood that he couldn’t shake.

Hamish was railing at him, dragging up the war, unrelenting in his fury. It was a symptom of Rutledge’s own emotional desolation. His head seemed to be close to bursting with the sound of that soft Scots voice, and memories that rose to the surface unbidden, as clear as if he were in France again, and seeing what he had hoped never to see then or now.

He drove aimlessly for a time, only half aware of what he was doing, until he found himself in Chelsea. In the next street was the house where Meredith Channing lived.

Rutledge went there, got out of the motorcar, and walked to the door.

Standing in front of it, his hand raised to the brass knocker, he thought, I should go and find Frances.

But she would ask too many questions. And the blackness coming down wouldn’t wait.

The door opened, and he heard Meredith Channing say, “Why, Ian, what—” She stopped. “Come in. What’s wrong? How can I help?”

“Will you drive with me? Anywhere. Kew. Windsor Great Park.

Richmond. I don’t care. Just—sit there and say nothing. I don’t want to be alone just now.”

“Let me fetch my coat.”

She was gone less than a minute, but he had already decided he’d made a mistake in coming here. He was turning away when she took his arm and said, “I’m here. Shall I drive?”

He couldn’t have said afterward where they had gone or for how long. When the black clouds of despair began, very slowly, to recede, Rutledge found he was embarrassed and turned his head to look at the passing scene, wondering what he could say that could possibly explain what he had done in coming to this woman, of all people.

She seemed to sense a difference in the silence that filled the motorcar, and she took the first step for him. “I should very much like a cup of tea.”

The panacea for everything the English had to face. Grateful to her, he said, “Yes. Not a bad idea.”

It was one of the worst spells he’d had in a very long time. He wasn’t sure whether it was the claustrophobia that had surrounded him in Penrith’s narrow cell, or the blow on the head when his motorcar had missed the bend in the road. But when did Hamish need an excuse?

It was always Rutledge himself who looked for one. Who tried to pretend there had to be a reason for madness.

There was a tearoom in the next village, and they stopped.

Rutledge found he was hungry and ordered a plate of sandwiches as well as their tea.

Taking off her coat and settling it on the third chair at their table, Meredith Channing said, “Elise told me you’d stopped in for one night, on your way to somewhere else in Somerset.”

“Yes, they put me up.”

“Her father was looking for you. Elise didn’t know at the time. He missed you at your hotel.”

Rutledge frowned. “When was this?”

“I don’t know. Apparently no one answered the telephone, and so there was no opportunity to leave a message.”

“I’ll make a point of getting in touch.”

She changed the subject, talking about the weather, pouring the tea when it came, offering nothing more demanding than quiet conversation, never expecting him to say more than he felt like saying. It was a kindness.

When they left the tearoom, he found the courage to say, “I must apologize for what happened today. Sometimes—” He broke off and shook his head, unable to explain. To her, to anyone.

She smiled. “I’m glad I was there. Would you like to drive now?”

He took the wheel, and in another half hour they were back in Chelsea. He had no memory of how he’d got there earlier. Or how, for that matter, he had negotiated the streets of London without hitting something or someone. It was a frightening thought.

When he had seen her to her door, he looked at his watch and decided he just might catch Caldwell at his office. The war had receded, it would be all right.

Caldwell was preparing to leave for the day when Rutledge was shown in. He said, “You look worn out. Is it another case?”

“I suspect you are a better judge of the answer to that. I understand you tried to reach me in Somerset. Was this to do with the Cumberline venture?”

“I was curious about this man Evering. I have a few contacts, here and there. It took some time but I found out more than I felt comfortable knowing. I wasn’t aware that Evering had a brother, nor that both Penrith and Quarles fought off the Boers in an action where the elder Evering was killed. I had no idea either Penrith or Quarles had been in the army, much less South Africa. It was quite a surprise. I couldn’t be sure you’d discovered any of this, that’s why I called Somerset. I felt rather foolish after telling you that you could safely ignore this man Evering!”

“I was able to piece together some of the story,” Rutledge replied carefully. “Sometimes the past has a long reach. Ronald Evering is dead. He was killed by Harold Quarles’s sister, who then took her own life.”

“Dear God. I saw that you’d taken up Penrith for Quarles’s murder.

I would never have expected him to be a killer. It seemed so contrary to his nature. He was always in Quarles’s shadow. Ever since the war, apparently.”

“With the right goad, even people like Penrith can kill,” Rutledge answered neutrally.

“There’s more to this business of Quarles and Penrith. Since my telephone call to you, I was told something by a friend, in strictest confidence. I trust you’ll treat it as such. There was a fair sum of money going up the line the day the Boer attacked. I’m not privy to why it was on the train, just that it was. It was burned when the carriages caught fire after the attack. There was some question in the doctors’ minds whether—judging from the nature of his wounds—Quarles was trying to save the money or Lieutenant Evering. The Army kept an eye on him, but after Quarles got back to London, he was poor as a church mouse. And so after a time, the Army lost interest in him. A man of that sort, they reckoned, would have spent every penny in months, if not weeks, on whatever whims took his fancy. Instead he worked hard in the firm that hired him, rose through their ranks on his own ability, and led an honest life.”

It explained why Penrith wouldn’t talk—he had been given a share of that money. It explained why Lieutenant Evering had to die—he would have told everyone if Quarles had taken the money. It explained why the carriages had to be burned—otherwise the Army would have searched for the missing currency. And still they had been suspicious.

But Quarles had outwaited them, clever man that he was.

It had all begun with greed. With money that could be had for the taking, if one had no qualms about committing murder.

Rutledge said, “Thank you for telling me. It will go no further.”

“Just as well,” Caldwell said. “It will only hurt the survivors. But I thought it might be useful to you.”

Pray God, Rutledge thought, Michael Brunswick never learns the truth. Or if he does, never acts on it. Or the killing will go on.

And Marcus Quarles might prove to have more of his father and his aunt in him than his mother ever imagined . . .

About the Author

Charles Todd is the author of ten Ian Rutledge mysteries— A Pale Horse, A False Mirror, A Long Shadow, A Cold Treachery, A Fearsome Doubt, Watchers of Time, Legacy of the Dead, Search the Dark, Wings of Fire, and A Test of Wills—and one stand-alone novel. They are a mother-andson writing team and live in Delaware and North Carolina, respectively.

www.charlestodd.com

also by charles todd

A Test of Wills

Wings of Fire

Search the Dark

Watchers of Time

Legacy of the Dead

A Fearsome Doubt

The Murder Stone

A Cold Treachery

A Long Shadow

A False Mirror

A Pale Horse