A matter of Justice ir-11

by Charles Todd

  In an effort to bring Padgett back to the task at hand, Rutledge said, "Do you think either of these two murders has a bearing on Quarles's death?"

  "On-? No, of course not. A young soldier killed his wife. We never got to the bottom of that, because he came here straightaway and confessed. Seems he was wild with jealousy over someone she'd been seeing while he was in France. Why he didn't kill the other man, God knows. And truth be told, I don't think he intended to kill her, but he knocked her down with his fist, and she struck her head on one of the firedogs. The other murder was family related as well-two brothers angry over the fact that the third brother inherited everything when the mother died. They shouldn't have been surprised. They'd walked out and left the boy to care for both parents while they were making their way in London. They didn't come home for the father's funeral and probably wouldn't have come for the mother's if there hadn't been property involved. There was a quarrel the night after her funeral, and it ended in the murder of the youngest. They claimed they'd already returned to London that morning, but there were witnesses to say otherwise."

  "Who was left to inherit?"

  "A cousin from Ireland. She's living in the house now, as a matter of fact. Her coming here set the cat amongst the pigeons, I can tell you. O'Hara is her name. Harold Quarles was taken with her. She told him what she thought of him, in the middle of the High Street." He grinned at the memory.

  Rutledge was accustomed to dealing with the various temperaments of the local policemen he was sent to work with. Some were single- minded, others were suspicious of his motives as an outsider or protective of their patch. A few were hostile, and others were grateful for another set of eyes, though wary at the same time. Padgett seemed to feel no urgency about finding Quarles's murderer, and Rutledge wondered if he had already guessed who it might be and was busy throwing dust in the eyes of the man from London. And the next question was, why?

  Hamish said, "Ye ken, he's dragging his feet after yon dressing down."

  Rutledge had already forgotten that, but it wouldn't be surprising if Padgett was still smarting. There was arrogance behind the man's affability.

  He asked, before Padgett could digress again, "Who might have had a reason to kill Quarles?" He took out his notebook to indicate that he was prepared to write down names.

  "Consider half the population," Padgett replied with a broad gesture. "Mrs. Quarles said as much herself. I told you. I'm only one of many who will rejoice that he's dead."

  "Hardly the proper attitude for a policeman?" Rutledge asked lightly.

  "I'm honest. Take me or leave me."

  "Quite." Rutledge added, "Did Quarles spend much time here in Cambury? Or was he most often in London?"

  "He came down once a month or so. It depended on how busy he was in the City. Last year he came and stayed for nearly three months. That must have been an unpleasant surprise for the missus. She packed up and left for Essex, where Archer's sister lives."

  "Speaking of Charles Archer, is it certain that he can't walk?" It was a possibility that shouldn't be overlooked.

  "You must ask the doctor."

  Rutledge wrote down O'Neil's name at the top of the page. "Let's begin with the household. What do you know about them? "

  "Some of them come into Cambury on their day off. Generally they keep themselves to themselves. I daresay that's what's expected of them by the family. There's no butler, just the housekeeper, because they seldom entertain. If you're looking at the household, I'd put Mrs. Quarles at the top of that list."

  "What about the townspeople?" When Padgett hesitated, Rut- ledge added, "The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. The rector. The doctor. The greengrocer."

  "Quarles didn't get on with the rector. Rumor says he thought Heller was old-fashioned, out of step with the twentieth century. The living belongs to Hallowfields, and Quarles could replace him at will and bring in someone younger or more to his taste. The doctor he treated like a tradesman. The tradesmen he treated with outright contempt. Mr. Greer, owner of the glove firm, crossed swords with Quarles a time or two. According to Quarles, he was pushing up the cost of labor in Cambury, making it difficult for the local gentry to keep staff. The glove makers work at home, you see. It's not a bad thing for a woman with children or a man who can't do physical labor."

  Rutledge had stopped taking notes. "The field is wide open, then. Still, it's hard to believe that this sort of bickering led to murder."

  "There's Jones, the Welsh baker, if you want more than bickering. His daughter's head was turned by Quarles, and Jones had to send her away to his family in Cardiff. And Mrs. Newell was cook at Hallowfields until Quarles sacked her. Now, there's a woman who could have hauled Quarles into the rafters without any help. Arms like young oaks. Although in my view, she'd prefer a cleaver to a stone, for the murder weapon."

  "Mrs. Quarles also mentioned the name Stephenson."

  "Stephenson is a collector of rare books. He moved here from Oxford, when his health broke. He was born in Cambury. I never heard what lay between them. Money is my guess. He opened a small bookstore down the street, where his mother had had her millinery shop, and called it Nemesis."

  Hamish said, "Ye ken, he didna' bring up the name himsel'."

  Which was surprising. Would Padgett have mentioned Stephenson at all?

  Still, Rutledge was beginning to form a mental picture of Harold Quarles. It appeared that he hadn't made an effort to fit into his surroundings. His own wife disliked him, come to that. Was he a contrary Londoner who irritated everyone he came in contact with, or did he feel that Somerset was too provincial to warrant courtesy? Yet Constable Daniels had claimed that Quarles wanted to be squire.

  It could also be a sign of rough beginnings, this ability to rub everyone raw.

  "What is Quarles's background? Did he come from money?"

  "Lord, no. He worked his way up from scratch. His father went down the Yorkshire mines, but the boy was given a decent education through some charity or other, and rose quickly in the financial world. He'd tell you that himself, proud of his roots and making no bones about his beginnings. From what I gather, it was his honesty on that score that made him popular in London business circles. A diamond in the rough, as they say. If he hadn't managed that, they'd have turned their back on him. You know the nobs, they sometimes like brutal honesty. Makes them feel superior."

  "But he must have also had the ability to make money for his clients, or they wouldn't have kept him very long. Rough diamond or not."

  "I expect that's true." Padgett stood up with an air of duty done. "I'm asleep on my feet. I'm going home. You'll want at least an hour or two of sleep yourself."

  Rutledge put away his notebook. "I'll be back here by twelve o'clock."

  "Make that one."

  They walked out together, and Padgett turned the other way, with a wave of the hand.

  9

  Rutledge could see The Unicorn from where he stood. It was a small hotel graced by a pedimented door and narrow balconies at the windows of the floors above. A drive led to the yard behind. He turned in there and went through the quiet side passage that opened into Reception.

  At the large mahogany desk set in one corner, a young man was busy with a sheaf of papers, tallying the figures in the last columns. He put his work aside as he heard Rutledge's footsteps approaching and greeted him with a smile.

  "Are you the guest Constable Daniels told us to expect?"

  "I am."

  The clerk turned the book around for his signature. "We're pleased to have you here, Inspector. The constable mentioned that there'd been a spot of trouble up at Hallowfields."

  "Yes," Rutledge answered, signing his name and pocketing the key. The clerk was on the point of asking more questions, but Rutledge cut him short with a pleasant thank-you and turned away, picking up his valise as he crossed to the stairway.

  The hotel had probably been a family home at some time, possibly a town house or a dowager house. The curving
stairs to one side of Reception were elegant, with beautifully carved balustrades. Giving radiant light from above was an oval skylight set with a stained glass medallion of a unicorn, his head in the lap of a young woman in a blue gown, her long fair hair falling down her back in cascading tendrils. As romantic as any pre-Raphaelite painting, it must have given the house and subsequently the hotel its name.

  His room was down the passage on the first floor and overlooked the High Street. Long windows opened into a pair of those narrow balconies Rutledge had noticed from the police station, the sun already warm on the railings. He was pleased to see that he'd been given such large accommodations, with those two double windows, their starched white curtains ruffled by the early morning breeze. He needn't fight claustrophobia as well as Padgett.

  Hamish said, "Given to the puir policeman no doot to curry favor with them at Hallowfields?"

  "Absolutely," Rutledge returned with a smile. "Which suggests the hotel is where he came to dine last night."

  Hamish chuckled. "Aye, ye'll be sharing the scullery maid's quarters when the word is out he's deid and ye're no' likely to drop a good word in his ear about The Unicorn."

  It was true-policemen on the premises more often than not were kept out of sight as far as possible, to prevent disturbing hotel guests. Which signified that word of the murder had not preceded Rutledge to the hotel, only the news that Quarles had business with him.

  He sighed as he considered the comfortable bed, then set his valise inside the armoire and went down to ask about breakfast.

  The dining room was nearly empty.

  There was an elderly couple in a corner eating in silence, as if missing their morning newspapers here in the wilds of Somerset. There was a distinct air of having said all that needed to be said to each other over the years and a determination not to be the first to break into speech, even to ask for the salt.

  And a balding man of perhaps forty-five sat alone by the window, his head in a book.

  Rutledge ate his meal and then asked to speak to The Unicorn's manager. The elderly woman waiting tables inquired bluntly, "Was there anything wrong with your breakfast? If so, you'd do better speaking to the cook than to Mr. Hunter."

  "It's to do with last evening."

  She raised her brows at that, and without another word disappeared through the door into the lounge.

  It was twenty minutes before the manager arrived, freshly shaven and dressed for morning services.

  Rutledge introduced himself, and said, "It's a confidential matter."

  "About one of our guests?" Hunter was a quiet man with weak eyes, peering at Rutledge as if he couldn't see him clearly. There were scars around them, and Rutledge guessed he'd been gassed in the war. "I hope there's nothing amiss."

  "Do you keep a list of those who dine here each evening?"

  Hunter said, "Not as such. We have a list of those we're expecting, and which table they prefer. And of course a copy of the accounts paid by each party. The cook keeps a record of orders."

  "Were you here last evening?"

  "Yes, I was. Saturday evenings are generally busy." He glanced at the elderly couple. "Er-perhaps we should continue this conversation in my office."

  Rutledge followed him there. Hunter kept his quarters Spartan. There were accounts on a cabinet beside his desk, ledgers on the shelves behind it, and a half dozen letters on his blotter. Nothing personal decorated the desk's top, the cabinet, or the shelves. The only incongruous piece was the glass figure of a donkey, about three inches high, standing on the square table by the door.

  Hunter sat down and reached for a large magnifying glass that he kept in his drawer. With it poised in one hand, he asked, "Who is it you are enquiring about? "

  "Harold Quarles."

  Hunter put down the glass. "Ah. I can tell you he didn't dine with us last evening." He frowned. "Were you told otherwise?"

  "We aren't sure where he took his dinner. The hotel was the most logical place to begin. "

  "Yes, certainly. Er, perhaps his wife or staff might be more useful than I?"

  "They have no idea where he went when he left the house. Except to dine somewhere close by."

  "And you haven't seen Mr. Quarles to ask him?"

  "He's not at home at present."

  Rutledge got a straight look. "What exactly is it you're asking me, Mr. Rutledge?"

  Rutledge smiled. "It's no matter. If he wasn't here, he wasn't here." He rose. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Hunter."

  "I saw Mr. Quarles last evening. But not here. Not at the hotel."

  Rutledge stopped. "At what time?"

  "It was close on to ten-thirty. Most of our dinner guests had left, and I stepped outside to take a breath of fresh air. I was looking up the High Street-in the opposite direction from Hallowfields, you see- and I heard raised voices. That's not usual in Cambury, but it was a Saturday night, and sometimes the men who frequent The Black Pudding go home in rowdy spirits. I stood there for a moment, in the event there was trouble, but nothing happened. No one else spoke, there was nothing more to disturb the night. As I was about to go inside, I heard footsteps coming briskly from Minton Street, and I saw Harold Quarles turning the corner into the High."

  "Minton Street?"

  "It's just past us, where you see the stationer's on the corner."

  "Where does Minton Street lead?"

  "There are mostly houses in that direction."

  "No other place to dine, except in a private home?"

  "That's right."

  "And Mr. Quarles continued to walk past the hotel, as far as you know?"

  Hunter said, "I had shut the door before he reached the hotel. I'm not on good terms with the man."

  "Indeed?"

  "He was drunk and disorderly in the dining room last spring. There was a scene, and I had to ask him to leave. It was embarrassing to me and to the hotel-and should have been to him as well. I haven't spoken to him since."

  Padgett had said nothing about Hunter's encounter. He hadn't named the manager at all.

  "Yes, I see that it would be uncomfortable. And so you have no way of knowing where Quarles went from Minton Street?"

  "None." It was firmly spoken, his eyes holding Rutledge's.

  "And he was alone? On foot?"

  "Yes, on both counts."

  "Do you know if there's anyone on Minton Street who might count Mr. Quarles among their acquaintance?"

  "I would have no idea."

  Rutledge thanked him and left Hunter sitting in his office, staring at the door.

  At least, he thought, it put Quarles alone and on foot in town around half past ten. With perhaps another twenty or at most thirty minutes for his journey homeward. If that was where he was intending to go. Too bad Hunter hadn't seen which direction Quarles had taken.

  Rutledge walked out of the hotel to the corner of Minton Street. Looking down it, he could see that the nearer houses were large and well kept, the sort of home that Quarles might have visited. It would be necessary to speak to each household, then, to find out. Or Padgett's men might be able to narrow that down.

  There was a lane at the foot of Minton Street running parallel to the High Street, where cottages backed up to the fields beyond, a line of low hills in the distance. It wasn't likely that Quarles had dined in one of the cottages. Or was it? Had he chosen to walk into Cambury, to keep his destination private? Or was he to meet his chauffeur or retrieve the motorcar somewhere else?

  Hamish said, "If it was the home of a woman?"

  That too was possible.

  Rutledge continued walking up the High Street, looking in the windows of closed shops as he passed. There were other small streets crossing the High-Church Street and Button Row, James Street and Sedge Lane.

  Beyond Sedge Lane stood the workaday world of the smithy- turned-garage and other untidy businesses that clung to the outskirts of a village struggling to become a small town, supplying the inhabitants whilst keeping themselves out of sight. Just beyond
these, where the main road became Cambury's main street, was the cluster of cottages Rutledge had noted in the dark last night.

  He turned back the way he'd come, crossing the High Street where a large pub, whitewashed and thatched, stood at the next corner, offering tables in the front garden under small flowering trees. The overhead sign showed a large kettle with steam rising from it, made of wrought iron in a black iron frame. The Black Pudding. It had the air of an old coaching inn and was one of the few buildings in Cambury that wasn't directly on the road, only a narrow pavement for pedestrians separating most of the house walls from the street.

  He carried on to The Unicorn and went up to his room. This time he didn't resist the temptation of his bed, and stretched out as he was, his mind restless, Hamish lurking on the threshold of wakefulness until the ringing of the church bells roused him.

  When services had ended, Rutledge retraced his steps to Church Street. Cambury had sprung into life while he slept, people stopping to speak to friends or herding their children toward home. St. Martin's was set in a broad walled churchyard that abutted a house of the same stone as the church. The rectory, then. A sign board gave the rector's name as Samuel Heller. The stonework of the church facade was old but well maintained, and the tall, ornate tower rose into a blue, cloudless sky. Last night's mist might never have been. Crossing the grassy churchyard, Rutledge saw the gate set into the wall and went through, into the front garden of the rectory.

  He could hear birds singing in the trees scattered among the weathered gravestones, and a magpie perched on a shrouded marble cross watched him with a black and unreadable eye. Where there was shade the grass was still wet under his feet. On a gentle breeze came the sound of a cow lowing in a field beyond the houses.

  The rector was at his breakfast and came to answer Rutledge's knock with his serviette still tucked under his chin. He seemed surprised to find a stranger on his doorstep, but smiled warmly and invited Rutledge to step into the narrow hall. Holding out his hand, he said, "I don't believe you're one of my flock. I'm Samuel Heller, rector of St. Martin's. How may I help you?"