Todd, Charles (13 page)

"My name is Betty, sir." There was strain in her face. Rutledge put her age at forty, her pale hair and pale eyebrows giving her a look of someone drained of life, enduring all the blows that came her way with patient acceptance, as if she knew all too well that she counted for little in the scheme of things. "I look after Mr. Quarles when he's to home." Her accent wasn't Somerset. Rutledge thought it might be East Anglian. A stranger among strangers.

"And no' likely to pry," Hamish put in. "Or gossip with the ithers."

"No one saw him leave?"

Downing said repressively, "We have our duties, Inspector, we don't hang about looking out the windows to see what our betters are up to."

"We was that busy in the kitchens," the cook added, as if excusing the staff. "There was no one in the front of the house just then. Mrs. Quarles had asked for a tray to be brought up, and Mr. Archer was taking his dinner alone in the dining room."

"Did any of you hear anything in the night? Dogs barking, a motorcar on the drive, shouting..."

They hadn't, shuffling a little as they denied any knowledge of what had happened.

Betty said, "Please, sir. I've been told Mr. Quarles is dead. Mrs. Quarles called us all together to say so. No one will tell me anything else."

"I'm afraid it's true," Rutledge answered her. "Someone killed him last night."

He could see the horror reflected in every face, and in Betty's eyes, a welling of tears that were quickly repressed.

"I can't give you any more information at present," he added to forestall questions.

"It would help if you could think of anyone who might wish your master harm." Padgett, speaking for the first time, kept his voice level, without emphasis.

"Mrs. Newell," the footman offered, to an accompanying ripple of nervous laughter. "She was cook here before Mrs. Blount. She was always quarrelling with him over the cost of food, and the proper way to prepare it. In the end he sacked her after a mighty row."

Padgett caught Rutledge's eye,
I told you so,
in his expression.
Nothing of substance...
A wild-goose chase.

Rutledge thanked the staff and nodded to Mrs. Downing to dismiss them, then as Betty was about to follow the others from the room, he spoke quietly to her and asked her to stay.

Mrs. Downing pursed her lips in annoyance, as if in her view he was wasting his time and the staff's. But she made no move to leave. "How long have you been with Mr. Quarles?"

Betty hesitated. "He brought me here at the start of the war."

"And you keep his rooms for him?"

"Yes, sir. I do."

"Did you also keep the gatehouse cottage tidy?"

"When it was asked of me. I was to have that cottage when I retire."

"Do you know if he chose to use that cottage himself?"

"It wasn't my business to ask, was it? He paid me well for my silence."

"Will you tell me where he went to dine last evening? Even if he asked you to keep his confidence, the situation is different now. You see, we must trace his movements from the time he left the house until he returned." Rutledge watched her face as he asked the question.

"I don't know. I asked if he wanted me to lay out his evening clothes, and he said he wasn't changing for dinner, he wasn't in the mood."

"Did any of his business associates come to visit at Hallowfields?"

"He seldom had guests," Mrs. Downing answered for her. "He was often invited elsewhere, but if he entertained it was in London. I don't remember the last real dinner I've served. He doesn't even invite Rector to dine."

Something a squire did with regularity. It was interesting that Quarles hadn't cared to exercise this particular duty. Or perhaps he was embarrassed to ask the rector to sit at table with his wife's cousin?

Rutledge thanked Betty and let her go. Then he said to Mrs. Downing, "Do you know Betty's background? Who employed her before she came to Hallowfields?"

"She was hired in London. I didn't interview her myself. She's a hard worker, though she mainly keeps to herself. We've had no trouble with her."

"We'd like to look at Mr. Quarles's rooms now, if you please."

As she led the two policemen through the passage door into the foyer, she said, "I'm not sure his solicitor would approve of this. It doesn't seem right to me that you should go through his things. I can't think why Mrs. Quarles allowed it."

"Is the solicitor a local man?" Rutledge asked.

"He's in London. Mrs. Quarles can give you his direction."

Rutledge handed her the keys. Mrs. Downing unlocked the door and stepped aside, as if taking no part in this desecration of a dead man's privacy.

The first of the suite of rooms had been converted into a study, as they'd been told, with a door through to a sitting room, and beyond that, the master bedroom.

The suite was handsomely decorated, and Padgett looked around him with patent interest.

The desk, a large mahogany affair, held mainly writing paper, pens, stamps, a map of the estate, and a folder of household accounts and another of farm business, none of it of interest to the police, and nothing personal, nothing indicative of the man.

There were several paintings on the walls, mostly landscapes. Rutledge wondered if they were Quarles's taste or if they had come with the house when he purchased the estate. The furnishings of the room were mid-Victorian and well polished. Betty's work, at a guess. If she cared for his rooms and his possessions, and kept any of his secrets, it was small wonder she'd taken his death personally.

Between the windows—which faced the front of the house—were shelves on which stood gray boxes of business papers, each with a white card identifying the contents. Duplicates of the papers Quarles had kept in London, or were these documents he didn't wish to leave there? Confidential reports, perhaps, for his eyes only. Was that why no one else cleaned these rooms? Betty appeared to be honest, without curiosity, a plain woman grateful for her position and not likely to jeopardize it by risking her employer's wrath. It was even possible that she couldn't read.

The perfect safeguard.

Rutledge ran a finger along the line of cards. He recognized one or two of the names on the outside. Portfolios, then. One box bore the single word cumberline.

They moved on to the sitting room, where there was little of interest—chairs in front of the hearth, more Italian landscapes, a table for tea, and another against the wall. The only personal touch was a blue and white porcelain stand holding a collection of walking sticks with ornate handles of ivory or brass or carved wood. Lifting one of them, Rutledge admired the ivory elephant set into the handle, the trunk providing a delicate grip. The workmanship was quite good, as was the silver figure of a sleeping fox capping another stick.

Padgett had moved on to the bedroom, and Rutledge followed him.

The armoire and chests yielded only the sort of belongings that were usual for a country house: walking clothes, boots, hats, two London suits with a Bond Street tailor's label, and evening dress. Several books on a table by the bed had to do with business law and practices.

One of them was a leather-bound treatise on Africa, touting the wealth and opportunities that would open up when the war ended. Thumbing through it, Rutledge could see that the florid prose offered very little substance. Railroads, mining operations, river navigation, and ports were discussed at great length, along with large farms for the cultivation of coffee and other crops, suggesting that what Rhodes had accomplished in South Africa was possible in other parts of the continent.

Padgett, looking out the window across from Quarles's bed, said, "I can't see the gatehouse or the end of the drive or the tithe barn for the trees in between."

Rutledge came to join him. "You're right. Once Quarles reached that bend of the drive where the trees begin, he'd be out of sight. He might have met a dozen people at the gates, or entertained half of Parliament in the cottage, and no one would be the wiser. By the same token, if someone was waiting for him there, friend for dinner or killer in hiding, Quarles himself would have had no warning."

"Did you ask at The Unicorn if he'd dined there?"

"He hadn't. Hunter, the manager, saw him coming alone out of Minton Street around ten-thirty. But he doesn't know where Quarles went from there—toward home or toward another destination."

"You can't be sure Hunter isn't lying. They had a falling-out, he and Quarles. And it almost cost Hunter his position. Quarles was hellbent on seeing him dismissed. It was Mr. Greer, who was dining there that night, who later smoothed the matter over." He added, "Didn't think to tell you this morning."

"Hunter didn't know that Quarles was dead."

"Or he didn't let on that he knew." Padgett took a deep breath. "But that's neither here nor there." He turned to survey the bedroom and the sitting room beyond. "If there are guilty secrets hidden in this wing, I don't know where to find them."

Rutledge agreed with him. But it was beginning to look like Quarles had no secrets to hide, personal or professional. None at least that might explain murder here in Somerset.

For that matter, if the man had been wise and clever, he'd kept no record of any misdeeds, so that they couldn't be discovered while he was alive or found after his death. An interesting thought...

The heavy dark woods and brocades of the master bedroom were almost melancholy, as if Quarles had spent very little time here, and even when he was in residence, he gathered nothing around him that might characterize the man underneath the successful facade. Was the estate itself all he needed to define himself? A measure of prestige, a visible statement that a man who had come from nothing had achieved everything? Old money, giving panache to the New. For some men it would be the crowning achievement of a lifetime.

Hamish said, "He was no' a countryman."

It appeared to be true, and that would explain why the house was treated as a symbol, not a home.

They locked the door behind them. Mrs. Downing waited for the keys to be passed to her. But Rutledge pocketed them, and her mouth thinned into a disapproving line.

On their way down the main staircase, they found themselves face-to-face with Mrs. Quarles, who was crossing the foyer. She looked up at them and said, "I see you've returned."

"Yes," Rutledge answered for both men. "Thank you for making your staff available to us. And if I may ask you one more question?"

She stopped, waiting.

Rutledge said, "Tomorrow—Monday—it will be necessary to notify your husband's solicitor and his business associates that he's dead."

"His solicitor is in the City. The firm of Hurley and Sons. As for his business associates, Davis Penrith was his partner until a year or so ago. He will be able to tell you who to contact." She hesitated and then asked, "Did Harold suffer?"

"You must ask Dr. O'Neil. But my impression was that he didn't."

"Thank you." She went on her way without another word. And he couldn't tell whether she was pleased or sorry.

From the house they went to the Home Farm, tucked in a fold of land and out of sight of Hallowfields.

It was a large, thatched stone house, and along the ridge of the roof, the thatcher had left his signature—the humorous vignette of a longtailed cat chasing a mouse toward the chimney, while a second mouse peered out of what looked to be a hole in the thatch just behind the cat's heels. They had been created out of the same reeds that formed the roof and were remarkably clever.

Tom Masters opened the door to the two policemen, saying, "It's true, then? The scullery maid from Hallowfields told our cook not more than half an hour ago that Mr. Quarles was dead. I went up to the house, but no one answered the door. What's happened? I'm still in shock."

He was a square man, skin reddened by the sun, his dark hair streaked with gray. Rutledge could see the worry in his eyes.

"May we come in, Mr. Masters?" Padgett asked after explaining Rutledge's presence.

"Yes, yes, to be sure." He stood aside to let them enter and took them to a pretty parlor that overlooked the pond. "Sit down, please," he said, gesturing to the chairs across from the leather one that was clearly his. The worn seat and back had over the years taken his shape, and a pipe stand was to hand.

"Do you keep dogs, Mr. Masters?" Rutledge asked.

"We have two. They're out with my youngest son at the moment. What does this have to do with Mr. Quarles? Tell me what's going on."

"Last night, I was driving past Hallowfields and heard a dog barking," Padgett explained. "It was sharp, alarmed. When I stopped to investigate I found Mr. Quarles's body."

Masters frowned. "My dogs weren't roaming about last night. I know that for a fact. One sleeps with my son, and the other is in my bedroom at night. If they were out, I'd have known when I went up to bed." The frown deepened. "Are you suggesting that Harold Quarles simply dropped dead? No, I refuse to believe it. I'd have said he's fitter than I am."

"He was murdered." Rutledge watched as several expressions flitted across Masters's face.