Todd, Charles (33 page)

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

"I wonder why Brunswick was chosen as her scapegoat? Because he's guilty? Or because he's vulnerable?"

Hamish was silent.

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

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

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

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

He would have to wait until tomorrow.

Rutledge was on his way down to breakfast when Constable Dan-_ iels met him in the lobby.

" 'Morning, sir. I think you'd better come..."

"What is it?" Rutledge asked.

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

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

"The shades are still down, sir, usually at this hour you can smell the bread baking." They were walking briskly down the High Street. "But I don't think the ovens have been fired up."

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

"He didn't close the bakery when his girls were born," Daniels said. "It's most unusual."

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

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

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

Hamish said, "He's no' there."

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

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

Rutledge stepped inside and stopped, appalled.

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

"Gentle God," Rutledge said.

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

"You can't be sure of that—"

"Oh, yes. In all the years I've lived here, I never gave short measure to my neighbors. What's more, they never repaid me like this. Never." He gestured to the destruction of his bakery. In the past twenty-four hours he had been through emotional turmoil, and he had not expected it to touch his livelihood in this way.

"Did you give a statement to Inspector Padgett?"

"I did that. I put down the truth, and I signed it." He shrugged. "I talked to my wife. She made me see reason. But the police can still claim I knew Gwyneth was coming home and went to Hallowfields. My word against theirs. You know that as well as I do." He was speaking of Padgett but not by name. "I'm not out of the woods, and if they try to bring my wife into it, I'll do what I have to for her sake. By backing off, I gave her peace of mind for a bit, that's all. And I daren't tell her about
this,
and ask her help clearing away, can I?"

"Who in Cambury would come to Harold Quarles's defense?"

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

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

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

"No. I'll see to it myself."

There was a knock at the door.

"Send them away," Jones said. "I haven't the heart to face them." But it was only the constable, returned from the Jones house. Rutledge let him in.

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

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

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

"Clear away? In aid of what?" Jones asked, his voice flat. But he went for a broom and bucket, then set to work, his heart not in it.

"Who did this?" Constable Daniels asked quietly, looking to Rutledge. "And why?"

"We don't know," he answered shortly. "Stay here, Constable, keep an eye on the shop and on Mr. Jones. I want to have a chat with Inspector Padgett."

Daniels, standing aside to let him pass, said, "It's the sort of damage a child might do. We don't lock our doors, anyone can come and go." He hesitated, then added, "The Quarles lad. Marcus. Constable Horton saw the motorcar just after two this morning, bringing him home along with his mother. If he heard the servants gossiping or the tales flying about just now, he's of an age where this sort of thing might help the hurt a little."

"Do you know the boy well? Is he like his father?"

"He's away at school. I haven't seen him much of late."

Rutledge nodded and went out the door.

It was still too early to telephone Godalming in Sussex, and Inspector Padgett wasn't in his office. Rutledge went back to The Unicorn and encountered Padgett just coming out of the hotel's dining room. He turned around and followed Rutledge to his table. Sitting in the sunny window, Rutledge quietly filled him in.

Padgett shook his head when Rutledge told him what Mrs. Downing had claimed to have seen and heard.

"Much as I'd like to believe it's Brunswick, you must consider the source. Like you, I wouldn't put it past Mrs. Quarles to get her housekeeper up to this. Or Archer, for that matter. The family is scrambling to give the man a better reputation in death by seeing this inquiry is over with as soon as possible."

"If it's Brunswick, Quarles comes out of the trial as a saint, not a libertine."

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him...

"It would also support your theory that Brunswick killed his wife," Rutledge went on. "And if he killed Hazel Brunswick, the odds are good that he killed Quarles. I've found a place in the wood opposite the gatehouse where someone waited just out of sight."

"Yes, well, that could have been anyone. And at any time. We can't prove it was Saturday night." Padgett reached over and helped himself to a slice of Rutledge's toast, heaping a spoonful of marmalade on it. It was intended to irritate, but Rutledge said nothing.

"My wife detests marmalade. I never get it at home." He wiped his fingers on his handkerchief. "The Chief Constable sent down a message that he's awaiting word we'd settled on a murderer."

Rutledge dropped the subject of Brunswick. "Last night someone wrecked the bakery. Jones found it this morning when he came in. Constable Daniels is there now."

Padgett swore. "Some months ago, Jones gave me the names of two boys who had stolen tarts when he wasn't looking. I expect they wanted revenge, and since the town's gabbling about the man's guilt, they must have decided this was as good a time as any. I'll have a word with them." Rutledge held his tongue. In another ten minutes he could make the telephone call to Godalming.

But Padgett sensed something in the texture of the silence and said, "What are we to tell the Chief Constable?"

"Whatever you like," Rutledge answered and stood up. "I've got something to attend to. Then I'm going back to speak to Brunswick."

"Suit yourself." Padgett got to his feet. "I'll be at the station." Rutledge waited until he had gone out, then went to the telephone room to make his call.

Godalming himself answered, and Rutledge asked, "Did you find our man?"

"A curate by the name of Penrith had the living for some years in a village northeast of Chichester. He died of typhoid early in 1903. He had one son and no money to educate him. The boy went into the army. He never came back to see his father. Whether that means he's dead as well, or that he knew his father was no longer living, I can't say."

"And that's all you've turned up?"

"It isn't enough?" There was a weariness in the voice coming down the line that had nothing to do with fatigue.

"Yes, thank you, it is. I was—hoping for more."

"Yes. We all do, don't we?"

And the connection was broken.

A dead end. Whatever reason Penrith might have had for lying about his father, it appeared to have nothing to do with Quarles. There might be other skeletons that filled that particular closet. Penrith could be illegitimate, for one, and the curate took him in. Or because their names were the same, Davis Penrith might have tried to provide himself with more respectable antecedents than a serving girl sacked because someone had tired of her.

Hence the lie to Rutledge...

He had learned through his years in the police that no detail was so small it could be safely ignored.

And so he put in a call to London, to Sergeant Gibson, who was not on duty at the Yard that day, if he cared to leave a message...

Rutledge did. It was brief. "Find out if one Davis Penrith served in the British Army between 1898 and 1905. If so, where, and what became of him." Let them sort it out. It would take time, and he'd already given two hours to the War Office on behalf of Stephenson's son.

The voice on the other end of the line, laboriously writing out the message, said, "1898 and 1905?"

"That should be inclusive. If it isn't, we'll look again."

"My father was in the Boer War," the voice said. "Saw a bit of fighting, and came home with a lion's head mounted for the wall. Drove my mother mad hanging it where it could be seen, coming down the stairs. We were the only family on our street with a real lion's head. I used to charge my mates a farthing a look. Very good, sir, I'll see he gets the message on Monday morning."

Rutledge fished in his pocket for the list he'd made in Harold Quarles's study. Then he put in his third and final telephone call, this one to Elise Caldwell's father.

"Sir, can you tell me anything about these men?" he asked after Caldwell's greeting. He read the list of eight names.

"I know six of them. They made their fortunes from the war. Butler is dead, of course—an apoplexy. Simpleton went to Canada, as I recall. Talbot and Morgan live in London, as does Willard. MacDonald is in Glasgow. Hester and Evering are new to me. Here, are these by any chance a list of investors in Cumberline?"

"Yes, they are."

Caldwell chuckled. "Well, well. I've always wondered. If you're thinking of the six I know in terms of the murder of Harold Quarles, then you're barking up the wrong tree. While I wouldn't trust them with my purse, I can tell you they aren't likely to avenge themselves with a spot of murder. They'd rather lose a second fortune than admit to investing unwisely. And they seldom sue, because there's the risk that a canny barrister might find that their own coattails are none too clean."

"Would they be likely to hire someone to do the deed for them?"

"Not likely at all. Of course I can't speak for this man Hester, or Evering. What can you tell me about them?"

"Hester is from Birmingham. A manufacturer of woolens—I have the name of his firm. Broadsmith and Sons."

"Ah. He's Willard's son-in-law. You can strike him off the list as well."

"That leaves Evering. He lives in the Scilly Isles. No firm given."

"Don't know him at all. You'll probably find your murderer closer to home," Caldwell informed him. "I wouldn't worry about these eight men."

"Thank you, sir. This has saved a great deal of footwork."

Caldwell said, "Any time, Ian. Good hunting."