A matter of Justice ir-11

by Charles Todd

  "Then you know what I'm here to ask. Where were you Saturday night?"

  "At home, asleep. I don't go out of an evening since my wife's death."

  "I've been told that you're among the people I should speak to in regard to what happened to Harold Quarles." It was not a direct accusation, but close enough, Rutledge hoped, to elicit a response. It wasn't what he'd expected.

  "He's dead. That's all that matters to me."

  "Then I'm forced to include you among my list of suspects. I think you knew that the first time I saw you. What I'd like to know is why? When only a handful of people were aware of why I was here." Rutledge considered him-a tall man, fair hair, circles under the eyes that spoke of sleepless nights. His fingers were long and flexible, trained to play an instrument. And he was strong enough to move a body if he had to.

  Brunswick said, "Include me if you like. It makes no difference to me."

  "Why should you be glad a man's been murdered? Most people are repelled by the thought of that."

  "You know as well as I do that Harold Quarles was a man who made his own fate. He didn't give a damn about anyone as far as I know, and in the end that invites what happened to him Saturday night. You can't walk around oblivious to the pain you cause, and expect no one to retaliate. There's always a line that one crosses at his own risk. Beyond it, ordinary rules don't apply."

  "Whatever most people might feel, whatever they dream about doing in the dark of night when they can't sleep, in the daylight there are obstacles. They fear for their souls, they fear the hangman, they fear for those they love. And Harold Quarles would still be alive."

  Brunswick laughed. "I've lost God, I've lost those I loved. Why should I fear the hangman when he comes to put the rope around my neck? I don't have much to live for."

  "If you didn't kill the man, who did?"

  "Someone who is fool enough to believe he won't be caught. Inspector Padgett brought the Yard in, didn't he? Why do you think he did that?"

  Hamish said, "Aye, it's a guid question."

  "To avoid having to arrest someone he knew," Rutledge replied, and was pleased to see that his answer had taken Brunswick aback.

  "You think so? He's had as much reason to hate as any of the rest of us."

  "If you know what that reason is, you must tell me."

  Brunswick shook his head. "You're the policeman. You'll have to ask him."

  "Then tell me instead about your wife's death."

  Brunswick's color rose into his face. "She's dead. Leave her in peace."

  "I can't." He could hear Hamish objecting, but he pressed on. "I'm told she drowned herself. Did she leave a note, any explanation of why she took her own life?"

  "There was no note. Nothing. Leave it alone, I tell you."

  "Do you think Harold Quarles played any part in her decision?"

  "Why should he have?"

  "Because you hate him. It's the only conclusion I can draw, Mr. Brunswick. And the only reason I can think of for Mrs. Quarles to include your name in her list of those who might have killed her husband."

  That shook him to the core.

  "Did she also tell you that my wife spent weeks at Hallowfields, working for her bastard of a husband?"

  "Perhaps it's time you gave me your side of the story."

  Brunswick was up, pacing the floor. "She went there against my wishes. She said we needed the money. He'd left London, rusticating, he said. Hiding from angry clients, if you want my view. He worked in his study at the house, and after a time, he let it be known he needed someone to type letters for him. She applied, and he took her on, two hours in the morning, and three in the afternoon. One week after she left Hallowfields, she was dead. What would you make of it, if she'd been your wife?"

  "What sort of mood was she in that week?"

  "Mood? How should I know? She wouldn't talk to me. She wouldn't tell me what had happened, nor would she explain why she sat here and cried that first morning she didn't go back to him."

  "And so you suspected the worst."

  "Wouldn't you? She couldn't live here in this cottage after spending her days at Hallowfields. She couldn't accept me, after she'd had her head turned by that bastard. Do you think I didn't guess that something had happened? She'd gone to Dr. O'Neil that morning, first thing. She must have thought she was pregnant. We'd tried, we couldn't have a child. That's why she wanted the money, to go to a specialist in London and find out why. After she was dead, I went to Dr. O'Neil myself and demanded to know what he'd said to her. I asked him straight out if she was pregnant. And he said she wasn't, that he'd wanted her to talk to someone in Glastonbury. It was an ovarian tumor, he said. But the truth was, he didn't want me to know what my wife couldn't tell me-that the child she was carrying wasn't mine. He didn't want me to live with that for the rest of my life. But I knew. I knew."

  He turned to face the wall, his back to Rutledge and his head raised to stare unseeingly at the ceiling. "Get out of here. I've never told anyone, not even Rector, what I just told you. I don't know why I'd confess my shame to a stranger, when I couldn't even confess to God."

  Hamish said, as Rutledge shut the door behind him, "Do ye believe him? "

  Rutledge replied, "More to the point, I think he believes what he told me. And that's the best reason I've heard so far for murdering Harold Quarles and then hanging his body in that infernal contraption. It goes a long way toward explaining why simply killing Quarles wasn't enough."

  He walked back to the hotel, to his motorcar, and drove out to Hallowfields.

  Mrs. Quarles agreed to receive him, though she kept him waiting for nearly a quarter of an hour before Downing came to take him to the same room where he'd met her the first time. And she was alone.

  "Are you here to tell me you've found the man who killed my husband?"

  "Not at present. I've come to ask you if you know what the relationship was between your husband and Mrs. Brunswick."

  "Hazel Brunswick? She came to do clerical work for him. There was no relationship, as you call it."

  "Her husband believes there must have been."

  "Only because of Harold's reputation. I can assure you there was nothing between them."

  "Why should he make an exception of Hazel Brunswick, if he didn't draw the line at seducing a girl of sixteen?"

  "Gwyneth Jones? He wouldn't have touched her, either. He wanted me to believe he would-he wanted me to be torn apart by jealousy and so shamed by his behavior I'd do anything to stop it. And then when I came crawling back, he'd have the satisfaction of rejecting me. But you see, I was married to him all those years. I learned to see through him. Once the scales fell from my eyes, I realized what sort of man he was, and how he punished people who got in his way. Davis Penrith knows that as well, but he blinds-blinded-himself to what Harold's true nature was. He didn't want to see. Or perhaps was afraid to see, afraid to recognize the man he'd worked with for so long."

  "Gwyneth's father was worried enough to send her away to Wales."

  "Believe me, if Harold had been seriously interested in Gwyneth, sending her to Wales wouldn't have stopped him from following her. My husband got what he wanted, most of the time. That too was in his nature."

  "And in the process, he tormented a girl and her father, a woman and her husband, and who knows what other victims. Was there nothing you could do to stop the game?"

  "You haven't understood my husband." She had kept him standing, as if he were a tradesman. "How do you move someone like that? Ask Samuel Heller, not me. Though I doubt very much that Harold had a soul. I know for a fact that he didn't have a conscience."

  "Are you aware that sometimes he entertained someone in the gatehouse by the Home Farm lane?"

  "I've been told that sometimes the lamps burned there late into the night. But no one, so far as I know, had the courage to find out what he did there. It was talked about, you see, there was speculation. And when I went into Cambury, I had no way of knowing whether the girl who waited on me in
a shop or in the hotel dining room was one of his conquests or not. But if you look for the truth, you'll probably discover he never brought anyone there. Betty might tell you, she cleaned those rooms. Still, the gossips of Cambury were agog with curiosity. And so for the most part, I never went into town at all."

  Rutledge wondered if she really knew what her husband was doing-whether she had simply convinced herself of his spite or used it to excuse her relationship with Charles Archer. Physically or emotionally, a tie was there.

  "Why do you hate your husband so much?" he asked. "Is this because of Charles Archer? Did you marry the wrong man? Or were you late in discovering the sort of man your husband was?"

  "I was in love with Charles Archer, and he with me, before he took his mother to Switzerland for treatment of her tuberculosis. They'd told him she was dying, but she lived six more years. I never saw him during those six years. He never left her side. He cared for her, and he stayed with her to the end. While he was away, I met Harold Quarles, and he swept me off my feet. He was attentive, charming, caring, and he was there. There were flowers and gifts, invitations to dinner, invitations to the opera, invitations to go riding. He was just a clerk at the house where he was employed, but already he was making a reputation for himself-a reputation of another sort, as a man who could manage money and was astute in business dealings. And he asked me to believe in him and marry him, and he would see that I continued to live as well as I did then, if not better. I thought I was in love with him, and I knew I was lonely. I could hardly recall what Charles looked like-certainly not the man in the photograph he'd given me before leaving for Switzerland. I told myself he was never coming back, that the doctors had been wrong before, and that his mother would live forever, and I'd be a spinster by that time. And so I married, and the first years were wonderful. Harold kept every promise he'd made me, and I was happy-" She broke off. "Why in God's name am I telling you all this? It's none of your business!"

  "What went wrong?" he asked gently. "What changed your feelings?"

  "I will never tell you that. You can hang me if you like, but I will never tell you. I have a son, and I would rather face death than break his heart. "

  "Have you told him that his father is dead?"

  She turned away and walked to the window. "No. I haven't found the words. I'm leaving tomorrow to bring him home."

  "How did you explain Charles Archer to your son?"

  She wheeled to face him again. "I didn't have to. There's nothing to tell, except that he's an old friend and I have brought him here to heal."

  "You were lovers before Charles Archer was wounded at Mons."

  Her face flamed to the roots of her hair. "How dare you?"

  "It's there in the way you put your hand on his shoulder for strength and for courage," he said, his voice gentle. "Is your child Harold's son or Charles's?"

  "Get out!"

  "I must ask that, you see, because it could explain why you killed your husband. He's old enough, your son, to hear rumors, to make guesses, to read into your look or your touch when you're with Archer more than you expect him to see."

  "Get out!" she said again and reached for the bell pull, almost yanking at it.

  "I'm sorry if I've upset you. But for your own protection, you need to tell me the truth. Your son has lost one parent-"

  She strode to the door, opening it herself.

  Rutledge said "I'm sorry" again, and left the room, passing her so close that he could smell the fear on her.

  But not, he thought, as he went to find Mrs. Downing, fear for herself.

  Betty was in the laundry room sorting sheets, her long face flushed with the work, her eyes red from crying.

  She made a move when she first saw him coming through the door, like a startled child who didn't know where to turn and couldn't find its mother's skirts. And then she straightened, bracing herself, waiting for him to speak to her.

  Rutledge said, "I'm here to ask a few more questions, that's all. Tell me about the cottage at the end of the Home Farm lane. Do you know who came there with Harold Quarles?"

  "I never asked. It was none of my business," she said again.

  "Were there women who stayed there-for an evening, for the night?"

  "I don't know."

  "You must. You kept the rooms clean, and the beds. There would be signs."

  "I made an effort not to pry. I did my duty and saw only what I wanted to see." Pushing at her sleeves, she went back to work. Her arms, though thin, were strong, the bones large.

  "He's dead, Betty."

  "I know he is. And where am I to go now, without him to care for? What's ahead for me, how will I manage? I was safe here, and I was needed. Where will I find that again? "

  He was startled by her vehemence.

  "Mrs. Quarles will keep you on. Or give you a reference if you wish to leave." It was not his place to tell her that Quarles had taken care of her future.

  "You don't understand. I'm tired, I can't go on doing the heavy work a maid of my age is given. Like these sheets. I never had to work this hard when Mr. Quarles was alive. There was only his rooms and the gatehouse. And he wasn't here all that much. Now I'm told to help out generally. Earn my keep. He'd promised me the gatehouse. But they won't let me have it. I know they won't. And I'm at my wits' end for knowing what I'm to do."

  Indeed, she looked tired and ill.

  "If Mr. Quarles promised to look after you, he will have done. And there is no one who can change what he decided to give you."

  She laughed, a dry, hard sound that seemed to carry all her pain with it.

  "I'll believe it when I see it."

  "Do you fear this family so much?"

  She looked surprised. "Fear them? No, of course not. It's just that I have come to trust Mr. Quarles, and he was young-I thought the years ahead would be safe, and I've never been truly safe before, not in my whole life. You don't know what that's like. And there's nothing left now."

  He did understand. Whatever she'd suffered before coming to Hallowfields, she'd been given a taste of a different life. Now she believed that it was being stripped from her, and she couldn't find the strength to cope alone.

  Quarles had used her to keep his secrets, and she still did. The bequest would serve to seal her lips for the remainder of her life. It was a large sum, unexpectedly large for a servant. But it would buy silence. That was what it had been designed to do.

  There was nothing more Rutledge could learn from her. Not now, when her worries went beyond catching a murderer. But he asked one last question.

  "You knew Mr. Quarles better than most of the staff. People tell me he's vicious, he's kind, he's callous, he's cruel, he's respected in London and hated in Cambury-"

  "He came from a hard world. He'd had to make his way where he was treated like the working-class man he was, expected to touch his cap to his betters, step out of their way, and do what he was told. Until you've known that, you don't know what it's like. He knew what they thought about him, what was said behind his back. But he was blessed with a good mind, and he prospered, in spite of the past. And he was proud of that. To keep it, he told me he'd had to fight from the day he left Yorkshire, and he'd had to use whatever tools came to hand, not being born with them to start with. Not six months ago, he said to me, 'There's no one to save the likes of you and me, Betty. Except ourselves. You remember that, and you'll do fine.' "

  But she hadn't gained strength from the man; she'd used his instead.

  Rutledge thanked her and left her to the folding of the heavy sheets, her back bent to the labor, her eyes concentrating on keeping the folds sharp and smooth. Sprinkling lavender among the folds, her rough hands gentle, she looked into a stark future and found it frightening.

  R

  utledge went back to the gatehouse and walked through the wood to the tithe barn, nodding to the constable on duty as he opened the door and went inside.

  It was different in the daylight. Empty, a smoky light spilling in from
the door, the rafters ghostly shapes over his head. The barn was as long and as tall as he remembered, and he could almost see Harold Quarles above him, the outspread arms, the white-feathered wings.

  "It's no' something you forget," Hamish said quietly, but his voice seemed to echo in the vastness.

  Rutledge walked the length of the barn and back again.

  Why go to the trouble to put Quarles in that abominable harness and lift him to the rafters? To hide the body until someone thought to look for him here, not in Cambury, where he'd gone to dine? To make a mockery of the man who seemed to care so little for the feelings of others? Or to show the world that even Harold Quarles was vulnerable?

  If Mrs. Quarles had killed her husband, would she have done this? Not, he thought, if she cared for her son. Murder Quarles, yes, ridding herself of him without the shame of a divorce. Or the truth coming out in a courtroom. But making a spectacle of his death? Rutledge had come to understand her pride, and now he could see that she had nothing to gain by such a step.

  Hamish said, "Yon organist might have wanted to make a spectacle o' him."

  Rutledge could readily believe that.

  Would Inspector Padgett try to cover up Brunswick's guilt? Because the man seemed to know more about the inspector than was good for him. An interesting possibility. Padgett hadn't been eager to interview the man.

  Rutledge walked the length of the barn again, trying to feel something here, to sense an angry mood or a cold hatred. But the barn had nothing to say to him. The silence of the past lay heavily around him, smothering the present. Harold Quarles was only a fragment of this great barn's history, and although his end here was appalling, it would be forgotten long before the roof fell in here and the rafters that had held the angel up cracked with age.

  A sound behind him made him whirl, but there was nothing to be seen. He stood there, without moving, listening with such intensity that he heard the sound again.

  A mouse moved out of the shelter of one of the columns that supported the roof, whiskers twitching as his dark, unfathomable eyes examined the two-legged intruder. He sat up on his hind legs and waited for Rutledge to make the first move. But when the man from London stood his ground without a threatening sound or motion, the mouse ran lightly to the wall of the barn and disappeared into the shadows.