Todd, Charles (14 page)

"Murder? Dear God. I find that just as difficult to believe. Mrs. Quarles—how is she taking the news?"

"She's bearing up," Padgett said. "Did you see Mr. Quarles yesterday?"

"Yes, several times. The last time was just as my wife was bringing our tea. I saw him walking toward the house. I didn't speak to him then, but earlier we'd discussed several repairs that are needed about the estate. He seemed in the usual spirits at the time." Masters shook his head. "This is unimaginable. I'm having trouble grasping it."

"Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to harm Mr. Quarles?" Padgett asked.

A wary expression crept into Tom Masters's eyes. "I can think of a dozen people who couldn't bear him. That's not to say they could possibly kill him. To what end?" He hesitated. "Are you quite sure this was murder?"

"Quite," Rutledge responded. "How many people are in your household, Mr. Masters?"

"Er, my wife, two sons, and a daughter—the eldest is twelve—and four servants—a cook and two maids and a man of all work. He's married to the cook."

"Do they sleep in the house?"

"Yes."

"Can you hear anything from the direction of the cottage? Or the tithe barn? A dog in distress? A motorcar coming down the farm lane? A loud quarrel?" Rutledge asked.

"Probably not. Unless I was outside and the wind was in the right quarter." Alarm spread across Masters's face. "Are you saying we might have heard—come to his aid in time? My God, that's a terrible thought!"

"I doubt if you'd have been in time, whatever you heard."

They talked for another five minutes, but Masters appeared to have no information that could help the police in their inquiries. All the same, Rutledge had a strong feeling that the man wasn't being completely honest, that behind the pleasant face and forthcoming manner, there was a niggling worry.

Rutledge asked the farm manager again if he could name anyone who'd had a falling-out with Harold Quarles, and again he denied that he could.

"I shouldn't wish to make trouble for anyone. There's a difference between having words with a man and killing him in cold blood." He glanced toward Padgett. "I'm a farmer, not a policeman. The inspector, here, can give you better guidance on that score. I'd only be repeating gossip."

They left soon after that. Padgett said as they returned to the motorcar, "You could see he was hiding something. I might as well tell you what it is. His wife had a disagreement with Quarles. Over a horse, of all things. But she got the better of him, and that was that. All the same, with two policemen staring you in the face, it's hard not to think the worst. The wonder was Quarles didn't sack Masters. But then he's one of the best farm managers in the West Country. It would have been cutting off one's nose to spite one's face."

"Strange," Rutledge said, "how many people who readily tell us how much Quarles was disliked, stop short at making a guess about who could have killed the man. It's almost like a conspiracy of silence: you did what I'd have enjoyed doing, and now I'll thank you by not giving you away."

Padgett laughed. "You had only to know the man to hate him. But I've heard he was highly thought of in London. Imagine that—the nobs taking to him like one of their own. Here there were two problems with Harold Quarles. One was his pursuit of women, the other his belief that most people could be used."

"Or else," Hamish said quietly from the rear seat, "he didna' wish to be treated as one of the villagers."

Which came back to Quarles's simple roots.

I t was late afternoon when they reached Cambury. Padgett stretched his shoulders and said, "Precious little came of interviewing anyone at Hallowfields. I expect you'll want to leave for London tonight and try your luck there."

"What do you know about the church organist? Brunswick."

"How did you come across him?" Padgett turned to stare at him. "Is there something you aren't telling me?"

"I saw him going into the church just before I came to meet you."

"Ah. He was practicing, I expect. He seems to prefer that to going home. Not that I blame him. His wife is dead. A suicide. She just went out and drowned herself, without a word to anyone."

"Why did Mrs. Quarles list him among those who hated her husband?"

"Yes, well, probably to throw you off the scent."

Rutledge stopped the motorcar in front of the police station, but Padgett made no move to step out. "You'd better hear the rest of it," he said after a moment.

"His wife worked for Mr. Quarles for three months, while he was rusticating here in Somerset. He needed someone who could type letters, keep records. When he went back to London, he gave her an extra month's wages and let her go. It wasn't long afterward that she killed herself. Brunswick jumped to the conclusion that something had happened between his wife and Quarles and that she couldn't live with the knowledge."

"Had something happened?"

Padgett shrugged. "I expect the only two people who can answer that question are dead. There was no gossip. There's always gossip where there's scandal. But you can't convince Brunswick otherwise. I kept an eye on him at first, thinking he might do something rash."

"And you didn't think he might wait until your guard was down and then go after Quarles?"

"He's not the kind of man who kills in cold blood."

But Rutledge had seen the look in the organist's eyes. And heard the passionate music pouring through the empty church.

He let the subject drop, and said instead, "We should speak to the doctor."

Padgett brought himself back from whatever place his thoughts had wandered. "Oh. Yes, O'Neil. We can leave the motorcar at The Unicorn and walk."

It was not far to the doctor's surgery, where James Street crossed the High Street. O'Neil lived in a large stone house set back behind a low wall, a walk dividing two borders of flowers. A pear tree stood by the gate to the back garden, and a stone bench had been set beneath it. The other wing of the house was the surgery, with a separate entrance along a flagstone path. The two men knocked at the house door, and after several minutes O'Neil himself answered it and took them through to his office.

In a small examining room beyond it, Harold Quarles lay under a sheet. He seemed diminished by death, as if much of what made him the man he was had been pride and a fierce will.

"I've examined him, and my earlier conclusion about the blows on the head stand. The first was enough to stun him. The second was deliberate, intended to kill. In my view, whoever did this wasn't enraged. Angry enough to kill certainly, but there are only two blows, you see. If the killer had been in a fury, he'd have battered the head and the body indiscriminately. You'd have marks on the face and the shoulders and back, even after the man was dead."

Rutledge asked, "You said the first blow was intended to stun."

"That's how it appears. You can see for yourself that he's a strong man, well able to defend himself. If the purpose of the attack was to kill, it would have been easier to accomplish if Quarles was down. If the murderer had stopped then, Quarles would have survived. Perhaps with a concussion and a devil of a headache, but alive."

"If he'd stopped, Quarles might have been able to identify him. Which could mean they were face-to-face, and then Quarles turned his back."

"What sort of weapon made these wounds?" Rutledge lifted the sheet.

"I couldn't begin to guess. Not angular, but not all together smooth. Solid, I should think. But not large. The edge of a spanner is too narrow. But that sort of thing."

"A river stone?" Rutledge gently restored the sheet.

"Possibly. But not exclusively that. An iron ladle? I'm not sure about a croquet ball. The brass head of a firedog? A paperweight, if it was a heavy one and there was enough force behind it. Surely it depends on whether someone came to do murder, or attacked the man on the spur of the moment. I couldn't find anything in the wound—no bits of grass or rust or fabric to guide us. I've given you all I can."

"Something a woman could wield?" Padgett suggested.

"I can't rule out a woman," O'Neil said skeptically. "But how did she manage to carry Quarles to the tithe barn, and then put him into that harness?"

"She had help. Once she'd done the deed, she went for help." It was Padgett speaking, his back to the room as he looked out the narrow window.

"Possible. But who do you ask to help you do such a thing to a dead man?"

"A good question."

Rutledge asked, "Is Charles Archer capable of walking?"

O'Neil's eyebrows flew up. "Archer? Of course not. I've been his physician for several years. He can stand for a brief time, he can walk a few steps. But if you're suggesting that he helped carry Quarles to the tithe barn, you are mad."

"What if Quarles was put into that invalid's chair of Archer's, and pushed?" Padgett interjected.

"I can't see Archer helping, even so. Of course I can't rule out the use of his chair."

"It's important to eliminate the possibility. We've been told that Quarles went out to dine last night. Did he in fact eat his dinner?" Rutledge asked.

"I haven't looked to see. Is it important?"

"Probably not. He was seen on the High Street around ten-thirty. That would indicate he'd spent the evening in Cambury." He turned to Padgett. "Did Quarles have friends on Minton Street, friends he might have dined with?"

Padgett said, "I'll have one of my men go door to door tomorrow. But offhand I can't think of anyone in particular. He was a queer man, not one to make friends here. Mr. Greer is his equal, that's to say, financially. You'd think they might have got on together. Instead they were often at loggerheads."

O'Neil said, "Are you saying it might be one of us? I can't think of anyone I know who would kill a man and then hang him in that infernal contraption."

"Perhaps the point of that was to make sure he wasn't found for some time. If Padgett here hadn't heard a dog barking and gone to investigate, it might have been a day or two before the barn was searched."

"Which would give the murderer time to get clear of Cambury and see to his alibi," Padgett said.

Soon after, they thanked O'Neil and left.

"I must telephone London," Rutledge commented as the two men walked back the way they'd come. "Someone may already have spoken to the solicitors and the partner."

He'd suspected that Bowles had put someone else in charge of the London side of the inquiry. Now he had an excuse to find out.

"I thought you were in charge," Padgett said.

"Here, yes."

Padgett paused by a bookshop. Rutledge looked up and saw that the name in scrolled gold letters above the door was NEMESIS. The shop was dark, but he could see the shelves of books facing the windows and a small, untidy desk on one side.

Padgett was saying, "You didn't tell me this." There was dissatisfaction in his voice. He'd hoped to be rid of the Yard.

If that was the case, why had he sent for them in the first place? Rutledge wondered.

With a sigh Padgett prepared to take his leave. "See what your London colleague has to say, and perhaps we'll have a better grip on what's to be done here. Tomorrow I'll send Constable Horton to Minton Street to discover where Quarles dined. We'll see if it holds with what Hunter told you at the hotel." He nodded in farewell and went on toward his house.

Rutledge watched him go. Hamish, in the back of his mind, said, "It wouldna' astonish me if yon policeman was the killer."

Surprised, Rutledge said aloud, "Why?"

"I dona' ken why. Only that he muddles the ground at every turn. And there's only his word that he found the body."

It was true. Padgett had offered a number of suspects for consideration, and then changed his mind. Others he'd neglected to mention.

"The invalid chair..."

"Aye, that's verra' clever."

"Such a suggestion would please the K.C. who defends the killer no end—what's more, it could have happened that way. We'd walked about too much to find the chair's tracks. If they were ever there. I wonder why Inspector Padgett dislikes the Quarles family so intensely."

At The Unicorn, Rutledge asked for the telephone and was shown to a small sitting room behind the stairs. He put in the call to London, and after a time, Sergeant Gibson came to the telephone instead of Bowles.

"The Chief Superintendent isn't here, sir. And I don't know that anyone's spoken to the solicitors yet," Gibson responded to Rutledge's questions. He added, "Inspector Mickelson is still in Dover, but he's expected to return tomorrow at one o'clock. He's taking the morning train."

Rutledge smiled to himself. Mickelson was Bowles's protege.

"And what about the former partner? Penrith?"

"I was sent around to his house this morning, sir. Mr. Penrith isn't there. His wife's in Scotland, and the valet says he went to visit her. He should be home tonight."

"Did you tell his valet why you'd come to see Penrith?"

"It seemed best not to say anything, sir," Gibson answered. He was a good man, with good instincts and the soul of a curmudgeon And if there was gossip to be had at the Yard, Gibson generally knew it. "Then I'd rather be the one to interview him."