Charles Todd_Ian Rutledge 11

by A Matter of Justice

  “What do you know about the church organist? Brunswick.”

  “How did you come across him?” Padgett turned to stare at him. “Is there something you aren’t telling me?”

  “I saw him going into the church just before I came to meet you.”

  “Ah. He was practicing, I expect. He seems to prefer that to going home. Not that I blame him. His wife is dead. A suicide. She just went out and drowned herself, without a word to anyone.”

  “Why did Mrs. Quarles list him among those who hated her husband?”

  “Yes, well, probably to throw you off the scent.”

  Rutledge stopped the motorcar in front of the police station, but Padgett made no move to step out. “You’d better hear the rest of it,” he said after a moment.

  “His wife worked for Mr. Quarles for three months, while he was rusticating here in Somerset. He needed someone who could type letters, keep records. When he went back to London, he gave her an extra month’s wages and let her go. It wasn’t long afterward that she killed herself. Brunswick jumped to the conclusion that something had happened between his wife and Quarles and that she couldn’t live with the knowledge.”

  “Had something happened?”

  Padgett shrugged. “I expect the only two people who can answer that question are dead. There was no gossip. There’s always gossip where there’s scandal. But you can’t convince Brunswick otherwise. I kept an eye on him at first, thinking he might do something rash.”

  “And you didn’t think he might wait until your guard was down and then go after Quarles?”

  “He’s not the kind of man who kills in cold blood.”

  But Rutledge had seen the look in the organist’s eyes. And heard the passionate music pouring through the empty church.

  He let the subject drop, and said instead, “We should speak to the doctor.”

  Padgett brought himself back from whatever place his thoughts had wandered. “Oh. Yes, O’Neil. We can leave the motorcar at The Unicorn and walk.”

  It was not far to the doctor’s surgery, where James Street crossed the High Street. O’Neil lived in a large stone house set back behind a low wall, a walk dividing two borders of flowers. A pear tree stood by the gate to the back garden, and a stone bench had been set beneath it. The other wing of the house was the surgery, with a separate entrance along a flagstone path. The two men knocked at the house door, and after several minutes O’Neil himself answered it and took them through to his office.

  In a small examining room beyond it, Harold Quarles lay under a sheet. He seemed diminished by death, as if much of what made him the man he was had been pride and a fierce will.

  “I’ve examined him, and my earlier conclusion about the blows on the head stand. The first was enough to stun him. The second was deliberate, intended to kill. In my view, whoever did this wasn’t enraged. Angry enough to kill certainly, but there are only two blows, you see. If the killer had been in a fury, he’d have battered the head and the body indiscriminately. You’d have marks on the face and the shoulders and back, even after the man was dead.”

  Rutledge asked, “You said the first blow was intended to stun.”

  “That’s how it appears. You can see for yourself that he’s a strong man, well able to defend himself. If the purpose of the attack was to kill, it would have been easier to accomplish if Quarles was down. If the murderer had stopped then, Quarles would have survived. Perhaps with a concussion and a devil of a headache, but alive.”

  “If he’d stopped, Quarles might have been able to identify him. Which could mean they were face-to-face, and then Quarles turned his back.”

  “What sort of weapon made these wounds?” Rutledge lifted the sheet.

  “I couldn’t begin to guess. Not angular, but not all together smooth. Solid, I should think. But not large. The edge of a spanner is too narrow. But that sort of thing.”

  “A river stone?” Rutledge gently restored the sheet.

  “Possibly. But not exclusively that. An iron ladle? I’m not sure about a croquet ball. The brass head of a firedog? A paperweight, if it was a heavy one and there was enough force behind it. Surely it depends on whether someone came to do murder, or attacked the man on the spur of the moment. I couldn’t find anything in the wound—no bits of grass or rust or fabric to guide us. I’ve given you all I can.”

  “Something a woman could wield?” Padgett suggested.

  “I can’t rule out a woman,” O’Neil said skeptically. “But how did she manage to carry Quarles to the tithe barn, and then put him into that harness?”

  “She had help. Once she’d done the deed, she went for help.” It was Padgett speaking, his back to the room as he looked out the narrow window.

  “Possible. But who do you ask to help you do such a thing to a dead man?”

  “A good question.”

  Rutledge asked, “Is Charles Archer capable of walking?”

  O’Neil’s eyebrows flew up. “Archer? Of course not. I’ve been his physician for several years. He can stand for a brief time, he can walk a few steps. But if you’re suggesting that he helped carry Quarles to the tithe barn, you are mad.”

  “What if Quarles was put into that invalid’s chair of Archer’s, and pushed?” Padgett interjected.

  “I can’t see Archer helping, even so. Of course I can’t rule out the use of his chair.”

  “It’s important to eliminate the possibility. We’ve been told that Quarles went out to dine last night. Did he in fact eat his dinner?” Rutledge asked.

  “I haven’t looked to see. Is it important?”

  “Probably not. He was seen on the High Street around ten-thirty. That would indicate he’d spent the evening in Cambury.” He turned to Padgett. “Did Quarles have friends on Minton Street, friends he might have dined with?”

  Padgett said, “I’ll have one of my men go door to door tomorrow. But offhand I can’t think of anyone in particular. He was a queer man, not one to make friends here. Mr. Greer is his equal, that’s to say, financially. You’d think they might have got on together. Instead they were often at loggerheads.”

  O’Neil said, “Are you saying it might be one of us? I can’t think of anyone I know who would kill a man and then hang him in that infernal contraption.”

  “Perhaps the point of that was to make sure he wasn’t found for some time. If Padgett here hadn’t heard a dog barking and gone to investigate, it might have been a day or two before the barn was searched.”

  “Which would give the murderer time to get clear of Cambury and see to his alibi,” Padgett said.

  Soon after, they thanked O’Neil and left.

  “I must telephone London,” Rutledge commented as the two men walked back the way they’d come. “Someone may already have spoken to the solicitors and the partner.”

  He’d suspected that Bowles had put someone else in charge of the London side of the inquiry. Now he had an excuse to find out.

  “I thought you were in charge,” Padgett said.

  “Here, yes.”

  Padgett paused by a bookshop. Rutledge looked up and saw that the name in scrolled gold letters above the door was NEMESIS. The shop was dark, but he could see the shelves of books facing the windows and a small, untidy desk on one side.

  Padgett was saying, “You didn’t tell me this.” There was dissatisfaction in his voice. He’d hoped to be rid of the Yard.

  If that was the case, why had he sent for them in the first place? Rutledge wondered.

  With a sigh Padgett prepared to take his leave. “See what your London colleague has to say, and perhaps we’ll have a better grip on what’s to be done here. Tomorrow I’ll send Constable Horton to Minton Street to discover where Quarles dined. We’ll see if it holds with what Hunter told you at the hotel.” He nodded in farewell and went on toward his house.

  Rutledge watched him go. Hamish, in the back of his mind, said, “It wouldna’ astonish me if yon policeman was the killer.”

  Surprised, Rutledge s
aid aloud, “Why?”

  “I dona’ ken why. Only that he muddles the ground at every turn. And there’s only his word that he found the body.”

  It was true. Padgett had offered a number of suspects for consideration, and then changed his mind. Others he’d neglected to mention.

  “The invalid chair…”

  “Aye, that’s verra’ clever.”

  “Such a suggestion would please the K.C. who defends the killer no end—what’s more, it could have happened that way. We’d walked about too much to find the chair’s tracks. If they were ever there. I wonder why Inspector Padgett dislikes the Quarles family so intensely.”

  At The Unicorn, Rutledge asked for the telephone and was shown to a small sitting room behind the stairs. He put in the call to London, and after a time, Sergeant Gibson came to the telephone instead of Bowles.

  “The Chief Superintendent isn’t here, sir. And I don’t know that anyone’s spoken to the solicitors yet,” Gibson responded to Rutledge’s questions. He added, “Inspector Mickelson is still in Dover, but he’s expected to return tomorrow at one o’clock. He’s taking the morning train.”

  Rutledge smiled to himself. Mickelson was Bowles’s protégé.

  “And what about the former partner? Penrith?”

  “I was sent around to his house this morning, sir. Mr. Penrith isn’t there. His wife’s in Scotland, and the valet says he went to visit her. He should be home tonight.”

  “Did you tell his valet why you’d come to see Penrith?”

  “It seemed best not to say anything, sir,” Gibson answered. He was a good man, with good instincts and the soul of a curmudgeon And if there was gossip to be had at the Yard, Gibson generally knew it.

  “Then I’d rather be the one to interview him.”

  “As to that, sir, if you’re in Somerset, you won’t be in London before one o’clock. I was present when Chief Superintendent Bowles told the inspector to make haste back to the Yard. Though he didn’t say why, of course.”

  “I understand. Thank you, Sergeant.”

  “I do my best, sir.” And Gibson was gone.

  Hamish said, “Ye canna’ reach London before noon.”

  “I can if I leave now,” Rutledge answered.

  “It’s no’ very wise—”

  “To hell with wise.”

  11

  In a hurry now, Rutledge strode out of the sitting room and went in search of Hunter, making arrangements for a packet of sandwiches and a Thermos of tea to be put up at once.

  “I’ll be away this evening. Hold my room for my return, please.”

  “I’ll be happy to see to it. Er—did you find Mr. Quarles?”

  “Yes, thank you,” Rutledge answered, and went up the stairs two at a time. He took a clean shirt with him and was down again just as Hunter was bringing the packet of food and the Thermos from the kitchen.

  The long May evening stretched ahead, and he made good time as he turned toward London. The soft air and the wafting scents of wild-flowers in the hedgerows accompanied him, and the sunset’s afterglow lit the sky behind the motorcar. When darkness finally overtook him, Rutledge was well on his way. But a second night without sleep caught up with him, and just west of London, he veered hard when a dog walked into the road directly in his path.

  The motorcar spun out of control, and before Hamish could cry a warning, Rutledge had crossed the verge and run into a field. Strong as he was, he couldn’t make the brakes grip in the soft soil, and then suddenly the motorcar slewed in a half circle and came to an abrupt stop as the engine choked.

  His chest hit the wheel and knocked the wind out of him, just as his forehead struck the windscreen hard enough to render him unconscious.

  It was some time later—he didn’t know how long—that he came to his senses, but the blow had been severe enough to muddle his mind. His chest ached, and his head felt as if it were detached from his body.

  He managed to get himself out of his seat and into the grass boundary of the field.

  There he vomited violently, and the darkness came down again.

  The second time he woke, he thought he was back in France. He could hear the guns and the cries of his men, and Hamish was calling to him to get up and lead the way.

  “Ye canna’ lie here, ye canna’ sleep, it’s no’ safe!”

  Rutledge tried to answer him, scrambling to his feet and running forward, though his legs could barely hold him upright. He must have been shot in the chest, it was hard to breathe, and where was his helmet? He’d lost it somewhere. He shouted to his men, but Hamish was still loud in his ear, telling him to beware.

  He could see the Germans now, just at that line of trees, and he thought, They hadn’t told us it was that far—they lied to us—we’ll lose a hundred men before we get there—

  Despair swept him, and Hamish’s accusing voice was telling him he’d killed the lot of them. And the line of trees wasn’t any closer.

  The machine gunners had opened up, and he called to his men to take cover, but this was No Man’s Land, there was no safety except in the stinking shell holes, down in the muddy water with the ugly dead, their bony fingers reaching up as if begging for help, and their empty eye sockets staring at the living, cursing them for leaving the dead to rot.

  Rutledge flung himself into the nearest depression, but his men kept running toward the German line, and he swore at them, his whistle forgotten, his voice ragged with effort.

  “Back, damn you, find cover now. Do you hear me?”

  He dragged himself out of the shell hole and went after them, but they were determined to die, and there was nothing he could do. He watched them fall, one by one, and he tried to lift them and carry them back to his own lines, but his chest was aching and his legs refused to support him. He could hear himself crying at the waste of good men, and swearing at the generals safe in their beds, and pleading with the Germans to stop because they were all dead, all except Hamish, whose voice rose above the sound of the guns—cursing him, reminding him that each soul was on his conscience, because he himself was unscathed.

  “Ye let them die, damn you, ye let them die!”

  It was what Hamish had shouted to him the last time they’d been ordered over the top, and the young Scots corporal, his face set in anger, had accused him of not caring. “Ye canna’ make tired men do any more than they’ve done. Ye canna’ ask them to die for ye, because ye ken they will. I’ll no’ lead them o’er the top again, I’ll die first, mysel’, and ye’ll rot in hell for no’ stopping this carnage.”

  But Rutledge had cared, that was the problem, he’d cared too much, and in the end, like Hamish, he had broken too. He could hear the big guns firing from behind the lines as the Germans prepared for a counterattack, and firing from his own lines to cover that last sortie over the top. The Hun artillery had their range now, and he struggled to get what was left of his men to safety.

  He’d had to shoot Hamish for speaking the truth, and that was the last straw—his mind had shattered. Not from the war, not the fear of death, not even the German guns, but from the deaths he couldn’t prevent and the savage wounds, and the bleeding that wouldn’t stop, and the men who lived on in his head until he couldn’t bear it any longer.

  Hamish’s voice had stopped, and he knew then that he’d killed the best soldier he had, a good man who was more honest than he was—who was willing to die for principles, while he himself obeyed orders he hated and went on for two more years killing soldiers he’d have died to save.

  Someone was grappling with him, and he couldn’t find his revolver. His head was aching, blinding him, and his chest felt as if the caisson mules had trampled him, but instinct was still alive. He swung his fist at the man’s face, and felt it hit something solid, a shoulder, he thought—

  Hamish had come back—

  His breath seemed to stop in his throat. Hamish’s shoulder, hard and living, under his fist. If he opened his eyes—

  A voice said, “Here, there’s no n
eed for that, I’ve come to help.”

  And Rutledge opened his eyes and stared in the face of Death. He slumped back, willing to let go, almost glad that it was over, and longing for silence and rest.

  The farmer grasped his arm. “Where are you hurt, man, can you tell me?”

  Rutledge came back to the present with a shock, blinking his eyes as the light of a lantern sent splinters of pain through his skull.

  They were going to truss him up in that contraption, and hang him in the tithe barn—

  And then the darkness receded completely, and he said, “I’m sorry—”

  The farmer gruffly replied, “There’s a bloody great lump on your forehead. It must have addled your brains, man, you were shouting something fierce about the Germans when I came up.”

  Rutledge shook his head to clear it, and felt sick again. Fighting down the nausea, he said, “Sorry,” again, as if it explained everything.

  “You need a doctor.”

  “No. I must get to London.” He looked behind the farmer’s bulk and saw the motorcar mired in the plowed field. His first thought was for Hamish, and then he realized that Hamish wasn’t there. “Oh, damn, the accident. Is it—will it run now?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with your motorcar that a team can’t cure. But I didn’t want to leave you until I knew you were all right. There’s no one to send back to the house. I saw your headlamps when I went to do the milking. You’re not the first to come to grief in the dark on that bend in the road.”

  Rutledge managed to sit up, his eyes shut against the pain. “There’s no bend—a dog darted in front of me, I swerved to miss him.”

  “A dog? There’s no dog, just that bend. You must have fallen asleep and dreamt it.”

  It was a dog barking that had brought Padgett to the tithe barn…

  “Yes, I expect I did.” He put up a hand and felt the blood drying on his forehead and cheek, crusting on his chin. It was a good thing, he thought wryly, that he’d brought that fresh shirt with him.