Todd, Charles (30 page)

He nodded and walked away.

Rutledge stood looking after him with mixed feelings.

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

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

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

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

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

Hamish said, "It's whimsy, this."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No animal could have done that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Ye're searching for straws. Gie it up."

"Someone waited there."

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

Rutledge began to walk back to the wood. "True enough."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It would be possible to sit here for some time... hours if need be. Who? And how many weekend evenings had someone waited here, to catch Harold Quarles unawares?

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

In the daylight, he might well have seen the coat, looking for it. But it didn't strike the eye at once, and if there was no movement, he'd have missed it. Even with the sun out.

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

Hamish said, "What does it prove?"

"Nothing. We still have the problem of the apparatus."

Coming into Cambury, he was reminded of something Hamish had accused him of earlier, that he hadn't looked into Quarles's past. And then one name leapt out at him. The partner, Davis Penrith. He hadn't asked how Quarles had been killed.

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

Hamish called him a fool. "It's no' what's wise."

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

"Excuses," Hamish grumbled, and settled into a morose monologue for the rest of the journey.

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

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

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

"Yes, I understand. But this is police business, and it comes first." The young footman stood there uncertainly for a moment, then replied, "I'll go and ask."

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

"It cannot."

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

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

"I hope you've come to tell me that you've caught Harold's murderer."

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

"This is not the time—"

"I'm afraid your business with your guest will have to wait."

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

Hamish said, "But ye didna' know him alive."

Rutledge nearly answered aloud but caught himself in time. To Penrith he said, "This may take some time. I suggest we sit down." Penrith sat at the small French desk, and as Rutledge took the armchair across from him, Penrith said, "I don't care for your tone."

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

At this Penrith seemed to relax a little, marginally but noticeably. As if he was more comfortable with a simple request for information.

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

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

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

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

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

The pen snapped in Penrith's fingers.

"Where did you hear of Cumberline?"

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

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

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

"Some people think they know best. There's nothing you can do to educate them or protect them. Some of those who made a great deal of money during the war were hot to double it. I found that distasteful. But I didn't try to trick them."

"Did you have your own money in Cumberline?"

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

"Because your partner is dead and there's no one else I can ask. Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that you disagreed with Quarles's methods in dealing with Cumberline, and in order not to be tarred by that brush, you decided the time had come to leave James, Quarles and Penrith."

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

"And I'd like to suggest to you that you haven't always seen eye to eye with your partner."

"Here," Penrith said, leaning forward, "you aren't suggesting that I killed the man!"

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

"I didn't
hate
him—"