Todd, Charles

by A Matter of Justice

  Rutledge tapped on the door, and after a moment a woman answered it, a sleepy child on her hip.

  She had been crying, her eyes red-rimmed.

  Rutledge introduced himself, showing her his identification. She hesitated before inviting him into the house, as if trying to come up with an excuse to send him away. In the end she realized she had no choice.

  The parlor, with its horsehair furniture and broad mantelpiece, was spotlessly clean. Mrs. Jones settled the child on her lap, and asked quietly, "What brings you here, Mr. Rutledge?"

  Her Welsh accent was stronger than her husband's. Her hands, red from Monday's washing, brushed a wisp of dark hair back from her face, and she seemed to brace herself for his answer.

  "You've heard that Mr. Quarles was killed over the weekend?"

  "The news came with the milk. I was sorry to hear of it."

  But he thought she wasn't. She couldn't spare any thought or emotion for Harold Quarles, when she could see her whole world crumbing into despair if her husband was the murderer.

  "I've spoken to your husband. I need only to verify what he told me, that he spent Saturday evening with you and the children."

  Her eyes flickered. "He did that. It's the only time we have as a family, to tell the truth."

  "And he didn't go out after you'd gone up to bed?"

  "That he didn't. The next youngest, Bridgett, had a little fever, and we were worried about her."

  Her hands shook as she smoothed the dress of the little girl in her lap. "We've six girls," she said, then immediately regretted speaking. "I understand that the oldest daughter is living in Cardiff."

  She was reluctant to answer, as if not certain what her husband might have said. "Gwyneth's with my mother. A real help to her, she is, and there's no denying it."

  "I also understand that it was Harold Quarles's fault that your daughter had to be sent away."

  "The whole town knows of it," she answered, on the verge of tears. "We can't go anywhere without some busybody asking after her, as if she was recovering from the plague. That tone of voice, pitying, you see, but with a hint of hunger about it, hoping we had had bad news. A baby on the way."

  "I'm sure it has been difficult for you—"

  "And if you're thinking that Hugh had anything to do with what happened to that devil," she said fiercely, "you'd be wrong." The child in her lap stirred with her intensity, an intensity in defense of the husband she herself doubted, protecting her family if she must perjure her soul.

  How many wives had done the same, time out of mind? Yet would Mrs. Quarles have protected her husband this fiercely? he wondered. But Hamish reminded him that there was a son, Marcus.

  "How can you be so certain?" Rutledge asked Mrs. Jones. "He must have felt like any father would feel, that the man ought to be horsewhipped."

  "He wanted to use his fists on him, true enough, but there was us to think about. Too high a price, he said. And it wasn't as if the devil had touched Gwyneth, only talking to her in such a way that she believed he would take her away to London. It was foolishness, but her head was turned, wasn't it? And she's so pretty, it makes your heart ache to think what can happen to one so young—" She stopped, something in her face, an anguish that she tried to stifle, alerting him.

  To think what can happen... not what could have happened.

  But before he could question the difference in tenses, she began to cry, a silent weeping that was all the more wrenching to watch, tears rolling down her face, and her arms encircling the sleeping child as if to keep her safe from all harm. He had to look away from the grief in her eyes.

  After a moment Rutledge said, "What's wrong, Mrs. Jones? Shall I bring someone to you—your husband—"

  "Oh, no, please don't let him see me like this!" She tried to wipe her eyes with the dress the little girl was wearing, but the tears wouldn't stop. It was as if he'd opened floodgates, and there was no way to put them right again.

  Hamish said, "It's no' yon dead man she's crying for."

  And not Hugh Jones, either.

  What's more, her husband hadn't appeared to be upset.

  "What's happened? What is it your husband doesn't know?"

  He crossed the room and took the child from her arms, and went down the passage to the kitchen where a crib stood under the windows looking out over the back garden. The child sighed as he lowered her to the mattress, and she put her thumb in her mouth.

  Rutledge went back to the parlor and sat down next to Mrs. Jones, offering her his handkerchief.

  "I couldn't tell him," she said, sobbing. "I didn't know how." Her fingers fumbled in the pocket of her apron and drew out a sheet of paper.

  He saw that it was from a letter.

  The scrawled writing was tear stained and nearly indecipherable, but he managed to read the pertinent sentences.

  —she must have waited until I was asleep, and left then, in the middle of the night, with only the clothes on her back, and I'm at my wits' end what to do or where to look—ungrateful child after all I've done—

  Gwyneth, it appeared, had run away from her grandmother's house.

  And if any man had an excuse for murder, Hugh Jones did now. "Are you certain he doesn't know?" Rutledge asked, folding the letter and putting it back into Mrs. Jones's hand.

  "I can't think how he could—but he loves Gwyneth, she's our firstborn and he's been set on her since she first saw the light of day. He may have felt it in his bones, that she was in trouble. I've been so frightened, with nowhere to turn—for three days it's nearly eaten me alive, and then Bertie this morning spilling out the news as if he knew— knew she had run away and was certain Hugh must know as well."

  Had the girl come to that gatehouse to look for Harold Quarles, and somehow the baker had discovered that she was there?

  But Mrs. Jones was right—how could he have learned she had left Cardiff?

  Yet she herself had answered her own question—He may have felt it in his bones, that she was in trouble—

  True enough, but surely not to the extent of going to the Hallowfields gatehouse to see.

  Hunter had reported that he'd heard voices quarreling, just before Quarles turned the corner.

  Had Jones confronted Quarles, demanding to know where his daughter was? Then followed him home to Hallowfields, to see for himself if she was hiding in the gatehouse? And when he couldn't find her, he lost his temper.

  It was possible. All too possible. Rutledge could understand Mrs. Jones's fears. But that would have meant he knew... it kept coming back to that.

  Unless Jones had found the letter where she'd hidden it from him. One of Gwyneth's sisters might have told him that the post had brought with it a letter that made Mama cry.

  Hamish said, "It's no' likely. Still—"

  Rutledge comforted Mrs. Jones as best he could, then went to make tea for her. The child was still sleeping, face flushed a little with the morning heat of the kitchen, and silky dark eyelashes sweeping her cheeks, her dark hair curling about her neck. She would be a beauty, he thought, when she was grown. Like her sister?

  But now there was no Harold Quarles to tempt her. She was safe.

  He found cups in the Welsh dresser, and before he could carry the tea back to the parlor, Mrs. Jones had come to stand in the door, shame written on her face.

  "I am that sorry to put you to such trouble," she began, but Rutledge cut her short.

  "Drink this, if you will," he said, setting the cup on the table and pulling out a chair for her to sit down.

  "But the cat's out of the bag," she said wretchedly. "Now Hugh will know, and everyone else. And what am I to do about Gwynie? I can't go to Cardiff, and I can't send Hugh, and she's been gone for days—" Her face changed, her eyes suddenly haunted. "Do you think she wrote to him, Mr. Quarles, when she ran off? I'd not have thought it of her, but I haven't seen that much of her since we sent her away. I might not know what's in her heart now."

  A mother's nightmare staring her in the face.r />
  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 tur
n 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.