Charles Todd_Ian Rutledge 11

by A Matter of Justice

  For an instant he thought the flood of tears would begin again, but she had cried herself out, and slumped in the chair at the table, so forlorn he felt pity for her.

  What could she do?

  “I’ll speak to London,” he promised her, “and have the police in Wales alerted. We may be able to find her.”

  It was all he could promise, and she was pathetically grateful. Reluctantly he left her there, staring into her teacup, as if the leaves in the bottom held the answer to her worries.

  And for all he knew, they did.

  When Rutledge left the Jones house, he turned toward the church, intent on finding out where the organist, Brunswick, lived.

  Just before he reached his destination, he came to a pretty cottage where masses of apricot roses climbed cheek by jowl with honeysuckle, framing the windows of the south corner and drooping in clusters above the door. The stonework was very much like that of the church and the rectory in style and age, and he thought it might once have served as a churchwarden’s house.

  He was admiring it, unaware at first of the woman kneeling in the front garden, setting out small plants from a nursery tray. She glanced up as Rutledge stopped but didn’t speak. He glimpsed dark, flame red hair, a freckled nose, and intense blue eyes before she bent her head again to her gardening.

  Was this the Miss O’Hara who had come to Cambury and set the cat amongst the pigeons, as Inspector Padgett had claimed?

  Still digging in the pliable earth, she said with a soft Irish accent, “You needn’t stare. You must be the man from London.”

  “As a matter of fact,” he replied, “I was admiring the house and the roses.”

  She looked up again, and this time her smile was derisive. “Of course you were.”

  He could feel himself flush, and she laughed, a low, sultry chuckle.

  “While I’ve interrupted you, Miss O’Hara,” he said, ignoring the embarrassment he’d felt at her accusation, “I might as well ask where you were on Saturday night between ten o’clock and two in the morning?”

  “Because I’ve had words with Harold Quarles? He thought he was a great flirt, but I didn’t care for his attentions, and told him as much. End of story. And if you must know about Saturday evening, my cat and I were in bed asleep. You can ask him if you need corroboration.” She gestured toward the cottage door. “He’s there, in the sitting room, curled on a cushion. You can’t miss him.”

  “A man has been murdered, Miss O’Hara. It’s not a matter of jest.”

  She sobered in a flash. “I know something about murder, Mr. Rutledge, and I never consider it a matter of jest. But Mr. Quarles’s death doesn’t touch me. I didn’t know him except to see him on the street. If you expect me to weep over his passing, I’m afraid I can’t accommodate you.”

  Turning back to her plants she said nothing more, expecting him to walk on.

  But Rutledge was not so easily dismissed. He said, “Why did Quarles single you out for his attentions? Did he have encouragement?”

  “Encouragement?” He had angered her. “Indeed he didn’t. And it’s rude of you to suggest it.”

  “Still, the question remains.”

  She stood up, and he realized she was tall, nearly as tall as he was. “If you want the answer to that, I suggest you speak to Mrs. Quarles.”

  “Why should she have the answer?”

  “Because he flirts with women to embarrass her. She must live here, while he appears to spend most of his time in London now. And he bears no shame for what he does, it’s like a game to him. I don’t know how she deals with it. I don’t care. It’s her business, isn’t it? The people who suffer are the families of the women he’s singled out.”

  “That’s very callous of him,” he said, surprised at her perception. He’d heard much the same suggestion from the elder Hurley.

  “He’s a man who doesn’t care what others think of him. If it had been Mrs. Quarles who was killed, I would believe him capable of it.”

  He quickly reassessed his initial opinion of this woman.

  Hamish said, “Aye, she’ll turn your head if you’re no’ careful.”

  “Do you think he hated her that much?”

  “I don’t think it was hate, precisely. But she walked away from him, and for that perhaps he wanted to punish her.” She smiled. “I’ve had experience of flirtatious men. I can tell the difference between one who is trying to attract my notice and one who is making a show of his interest.”

  “Do you know Mrs. Quarles?”

  “I’ve seen her occasionally in the shops. She strikes me as a strong woman who knows her own mind. What I don’t understand is why she married the man in the first place.”

  A very good question.

  “I’m told he could be very pleasant if he wished.”

  “That may be so, Inspector, but I’m sure most of Cambury would wonder if he knew the meaning of the word. If that’s all you have to ask me? The roots of these nasturtiums are drying.”

  “That’s all for now, Miss O’Hara.” He touched his hat and walked on. But he could feel her gaze following him. The temptation to turn was strong, but he refused to give her that satisfaction.

  He stopped briefly at the church, but it was empty.

  Rutledge went on, past the churchyard to the outskirts of Cambury, where beyond the last of the houses, he could see farms scattered across the fields. They could have been ten years old or two hundred, crouching so low that they seemed to have grown from seed where they were. Splashes of color dotted the view—washing hung out to dry, flowers blooming in gay profusion here and there, the different green of kitchen gardens, the bare earth of barnyards, and the fruit trees in small squares of orchards, like soldiers on parade, all a patchwork laid over the slightly rolling landscape. Somerset at its prettiest.

  Turning around he chose another route to the High Street, not wanting to give Miss O’Hara another reason to taunt him. Hamish chuckled in his mind.

  He was halfway to The Unicorn when Inspector Padgett came out of a shop and stopped short.

  “I thought you’d be in London today.”

  “I was. There’s nothing unusual about Quarles’s will. Except for the bequests to staff, everything is left to his son, to be held in trust until he’s twenty-five. His wife will have a life interest in the house, after which it reverts to the boy. Which tells me that Quarles never really put down roots here. If he had, he’d have made certain Mrs. Quarles was evicted.”

  “Interesting idea. Did you speak to the partner? Penrith?”

  “Former partner. He parted with Quarles more than a year ago and now has his own firm.”

  “Any hard feelings when they parted company?”

  “None that I could see. Penrith told me that Quarles wasn’t pleased, possibly because they’d made so much money as partners. But he didn’t fight the dissolution of the partnership.”

  “That’s disappointing to hear. What about trouble with former clients?”

  “He couldn’t recall any.”

  Padgett had been staring at the lump on Rutledge’s forehead. “What happened to you?”

  “A misstep,” Rutledge answered shortly.

  “It must ache like the devil.”

  It did, but Rutledge wasn’t giving him the satisfaction of admitting to it.

  “All right, you’re back in Cambury. Have you been to question anyone? Or are you just taking the air?”

  “I spoke to Mr. Jones, the baker. And his wife. They both swear Jones never left his house on Saturday night. Miss O’Hara was asleep with her cat. I was just about to call on Mrs. Newell, the former cook at Hallowfields. I went to the police station. Constable Horton told me you weren’t in.”

  Padgett looked down, as if studying the road under his feet. “Yes. Well, I went home. You didn’t tell me you were going to London. I found out quite by chance.”

  “I left in the night. I wanted to be there before Penrith went to his office.” And before Mickelson returned from Dover.


  “Fair enough.” He turned to walk with Rutledge. “I’m on my way to speak to Stephenson at Nemesis. The bookseller. A waste of time—I don’t think he could have managed the cage. But then you never know, if he were angry enough, what he might carry off. Are you certain you found nothing in London to turn the inquiry in that direction?”

  “Not yet,” Rutledge said. “Early days.”

  Padgett grunted. “Come with me, then. We’ll clear Stephenson off our list.”

  Rutledge went on with him, but when they reached the bookshop, the sign on the door read CLOSED.

  “He never closes,” Padgett said, putting up his hand to shade his eyes as he peered into the dark shop. “Celebrating Quarles’s demise, you think?” The sun hadn’t reached the windows, and the shelves for Stephenson’s stock prevented what light there was from traveling too far into the interior. “No sign of him. That’s odd. There’s a girl who comes in when he’s off searching for estate sales.”

  Hamish said something in the back of Rutledge’s mind.

  Padgett was on the point of turning away when a movement caught his eye. “Oh—there he is.” Tapping on the glass, he put his face up against it to attract the man’s attention. Then he said abruptly, “Good God—Rutledge—”

  The tone of his voice was enough. Rutledge wheeled and pressed his face to the glass as well before shoving Padgett aside and kicking open the door. As it flew back, the flimsy lock shattering, Padgett was ahead of him, bursting into the shop.

  Beyond the desk, in a small alcove where Stephenson kept a Thermos for his tea and a stock of wrapping paper, the man was hanging from a rope attached to a hook in the ceiling where he had once run a cord to bring the lamp nearer. The lamp was dangling beside him now, and it was the swaying of the glass shade that Padgett had glimpsed through the window glass as the bookseller jumped.

  The odor of spilled lamp oil filled the small space.

  For a mercy, Stephenson had not broken his neck in his fall, but his face was suffused with blood and his hands were flailing, as if to stop them from rescuing him. The chair he’d used had tipped over almost directly under him, just out of reach.

  Rutledge turned it up, shoved a stack of books on it, and had it under Stephenson’s feet in a matter of seconds, catching first one and then the other and forcing them down to relieve the pressure on his neck. His hands went on thrashing about, in an effort to jerk away.

  Padgett had clambered up the shelves in the alcove, pushing aside the rolls of wrapping paper and tipping over the Thermos in his haste to reach the dangling man. Rutledge spied a knife used to cut the wrapping paper just as it spun to the floor, and releasing one of Stephenson’s ankles, he reached up to hand it to Padgett. Stephenson tried to kick him in the face with his free foot, but Rutledge caught it again, just as a toe grazed the lump on his forehead. He clamped the foot down hard, his grip reflecting his anger.

  The rope was heavy, heavy enough to do the work of killing a man, but Rutledge had Stephenson’s wriggling feet securely pinned while Padgett cursed and sawed at the rope from his precarious perch.

  The strands of hemp parted so suddenly that all three men fell to the floor in a tangle of limbs, the books from the chair clattering around them. Rutledge fought his way out of the knot of hands and feet, stretching across to lift the rope from Stephenson’s neck.

  A ring of red, scraped flesh showed above his collar as Stephenson clawed at it and gasped for breath, the air whistling in his throat before he could actually breathe again.

  “Damn you!” he whispered when he could muster enough breath to speak. And after much effort, gulping in air, struggling to say something, he managed to demand, “Why didn’t you let me finish it—and save the cost of the hangman?”

  “Because, you fool, we want some answers first,” Padgett shouted at him in furious relief. “You can’t go doing the hangman’s work and leave me to wonder if you were the killer or if someone else is still out there.”

  Rutledge turned to the desk, looking to see if there was a note, but he found nothing. His head was thundering again, and Hamish was busy in his mind.

  “Where does he live?” Rutledge asked Padgett as they got to their feet.

  “Above the shop.”

  Leaving Padgett to minister to the distraught man, Rutledge found the stairs and went up to the first floor. It was mostly used for stock, with a clutter of empty boxes, wrapping paper, a ladder, and other odds and ends that had no other home. After one swift glance Rutledge went on to the second floor. There he found modest living quarters, a bedroom and a sitting room, a kitchen to one side. On the walls were framed lithographs, the only touch of color except for a red tablecloth in the kitchen.

  There was no sign of a note.

  So Stephenson wasn’t intending to confess, but to leave doubts in all their minds, just as Padgett had accused him of doing.

  Hamish said, “But it doesna’ prove he’s guilty.”

  Rutledge hurried back down the stairs and found Padgett trying to get Stephenson to drink some tea from the mercifully undamaged Thermos. The man clenched his jaw, his eyes closed, his abrupt return to life leaving him shaken.

  Rutledge squatted beside Padgett and, when he looked up, shook his head.

  Padgett nodded.

  They waited for five minutes before questioning Stephenson.

  Padgett said, “What in God’s name did you think you were doing?”

  As the heavy flush faded from Stephenson’s still-puffy face, Rutledge recognized him as the man he’d seen reading a book in the hotel dining room the morning he’d questioned Hunter about Quarles.

  Stephenson said in a strained voice, “I knew you’d be coming. When Bertie told me about Quarles being murdered, I knew it was only a matter of time. And when I saw you walking down the High Street, I couldn’t face it any longer.”

  A confession? Rutledge waited grimly.

  “Face what?” Padgett demanded testily. “Here, drink this tea. I can hardly hear you.”

  He pushed the cup aside. “I thought everyone knew. It’s why I came back to Cambury. It’s why I named the shop Nemesis.”

  “Well, you’re wrong.”

  “I wanted to kill him, you see, but lacked the courage. I hoped that if I came back here, having to see him, unable to hide, one day I’d be able to do it.” He ran his hand through his thinning hair and went on bitterly, “You can’t imagine what it’s like to want to kill someone. It eats away at you until there’s nothing of you left. It’s like a hunger that can’t be satisfied, and in the end it destroys you too. The shame of it is like a knife in your brain.”

  “What had he done to you, that you hated him?” Rutledge asked.

  Stephenson moved restlessly, his face turned away. “It’s none of your business.”

  “It is now. If you hadn’t tried to hang yourself, we’d have done nothing more than question you. Now you’re a suspect, and a suspect has no secrets,” Padgett said roughly. “Not from the police.”

  His words were met with a stubborn silence.

  Finally Padgett said, “Very well, I’ll see you to Dr. O’Neil’s surgery. Can you walk that far?”

  “I don’t intend to walk that far or anywhere else.”

  “That’s as may be, but you’ll see the good doctor if I have to fetch a motorcar and drive you there myself.”

  “Fetch one,” Rutledge replied. “We don’t want to give the gossips more than needful.”

  With a grunt, Padgett went away to the police station.

  Rutledge could see the man before him sink into himself, his face still red, coughing racking him. He refilled the cup with tea, and Stephenson swallowed it painfully, almost strangling on it.

  They waited in silence, the bookseller looking inward at something he couldn’t face, and Rutledge listening to Hamish in the back of his head.

  When Padgett came back, Stephenson stood up shakily, a martyr ready to face the lions. “Oh, very well, let’s be done with it.”


  “Are you going to try this again?” Rutledge asked, gesturing toward the rope.

  “To what end?” Stephenson replied wearily. “Fear drove me to desperate measures. You’re here now. It serves no purpose to die.”

  13

  Padgett led Stephenson out the door and Rutledge shut it firmly behind them. The broken latch held, just, and Rutledge left the sign reading CLOSED.

  There were a number of people on the street, and they turned to stare as Rutledge assisted Stephenson into the vehicle.

  A young woman rushed up, asking, “What’s wrong? Where are you taking him? Mr. Stephenson, what’s happened? You look so ill.”

  Stephenson, unable to face her, mumbled to Rutledge, “My part-time assistant, Miss Ogden.”

  She was very frightened. Rutledge was suddenly reminded of Elise, for the women were about the same age. Yet the differences between the two were dramatic. Elise with her confidence, her willingness to take on a marriage that would challenge her, had the courage of her convictions if not the patience. Miss Ogden was gripping her handbag so tightly that her knuckles were white, and she was on the verge of tears, looking from one man to the other for guidance. She struck Rutledge as timid, willing to serve, perfectly happy to be buried among the dusty shelves of a bookstore, and helpless in a crisis, expecting others to take the first step and then reassure her.

  “We’re driving Mr. Stephenson to Dr. O’Neil’s surgery,” he told her gently. “He’ll be fine in a day or two. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Could it be his heart?” she asked anxiously. “My grandfather died of problems with his heart. Please, ought I to go with you? Or should I keep the shop open?”

  Others were attracted by the fuss, clustering across the street from the motorcar, trying to hear what was being said. Halting as they came out of shops, several women put their hands to their mouths, their small children staring with round, uncertain eyes as they sensed the apprehension gripping the adults: two policemen appearing to take poor Mr. Stephenson into custody—

  Rutledge could almost feel the rising tide of speculation rushing toward him, on the heels of word that Quarles was dead.