A matter of Justice ir-11

by Charles Todd

  Brunswick turned to look at Rutledge, his face unreadable. "I would have watched him die. I would have wanted him to see whose hand it was. And I'd have probably throttled him, not struck him."

  Rutledge said, "It doesn't always work out that way. When the chance arises, sometimes the choice of weapon depends on where you are and why you aren't prepared."

  "I've told you I was in my bed. Either take me into custody or leave me alone. I'm not giving you the satisfaction of a confession of my sins so that you can sort them out and pick the one that will hang me."

  Rutledge said pensively, "I think Quarles pitied your wife. It's one of the few decent things we've learned about him, that he tried to get her to proper medical care."

  Brunswick wheeled to face him, his voice savage, his eyes narrowed with his anger. "You know nothing about my wife. And you know damned little about Harold Quarles. Well, I've made a study of the man. Where did he come from? Do you know? I went to Newcastle to see for myself. There's a Quarles family plot, right enough, but it's long since been moved to a proper churchyard some twenty miles away. The village where they lived is so black with coal dust it's almost invisible, roofs fallen in, windows gone. The mine's closed, the main shaft damaged beyond repair. The owners got as much coal as they could out of it and the miners they employed, and simply abandoned both. The sons followed Quarles's father into the mines and died young, lung rot and accidents. The father was already dead by that time. The mother was dead by 1903. Nobody remembers Harold. Isn't that strange? It's as if he never existed. But one old crone who'd lived in the derelict village told me she thought perhaps there was another boy who ran away to join the army and never came home again. So who is our Harold Quarles, I ask you? And if he doesn't exist, how can anyone kill him?"

  Rutledge took a step back, the vehemence of Brunswick's attack unexpected.

  Hamish, busy at the edges of Rutledge's mind, was a distraction as he tried to assimilate what Brunswick had told him.

  If Penrith hadn't returned home after he joined the army-and now it appeared that Quarles might have done the same thing-was that where they'd first met? And forged a friendship that took them from lowly beginnings to a very successful partnership? In war men were thrown together in circumstances that brought them closer than brothers, cutting across class lines, age, and experience. In their case, the Boer War?

  He and Hamish were examples of that: men who might have passed each other on a London street without a second glance, but in the context of the trenches they had seen each other as comrades in the battle to survive. They had learned from each other, trusted each other, and protected their men in a common bond that in fact hadn't ended with death.

  Rutledge said to Brunswick, "It's all well and good to make a study of the man's life. But that still leaves us with his death. There's no one left in the north who cares if he lived or died. You've just pointed that out. So we're back to Cambury."

  "You aren't listening, are you? Did it ever occur to you that Harold Quarles is a mystery because he's got something to hide? There are almost no traces of him, anywhere you look. He has a wife and a son, and I'll wager you they know less about him than I do. He was a liar, he was secretive, he used people for his own ends. What made him that way? That's what I wanted to know. He owed me for what happened to my wife, and he didn't care."

  Rutledge remembered what Heller, the rector, had said to him. He repeated it now. "It's not our place to judge. The police can only deal with laws that are broken. If he has never broken a law, then we can do nothing."

  Brunswick put a hand to his forehead, as if it ached. "I've always tried to live my life as a moral man. And where has it taken me? Into the jaws of despair. If you want to hang someone, hang me and be done with it. Let Harold Quarles, whoever he may be, claim one last victim."

  He turned on his heel and walked back toward the church.

  As Brunswick went in through the church door, squaring his shoulders as if shaking off their conversation, Rutledge thought, Stephenson couldn't bring himself to act. In his eyes, it was an appalling failure. This man is ridden by different demons.

  Hamish said, "Aye. He doesna' know what he wants."

  "On the contrary. I think he may have a taste for martyrdom, and hasn't discovered it yet. Dreamers often do."

  "He didna' kill his wife."

  "I'm beginning to believe he didn't. But that's neither here nor there. Why was he so obsessed with Harold Quarles's past? To excuse his murder by claiming the man was evil to start with?"

  The rector was coming across the churchyard toward him, a frown on his face.

  "What did you say to Michael? He's sitting there in front of the organ, not touching the keys."

  Rutledge said, "It's my responsibility to speak to anyone who might have had a reason to kill Quarles."

  "But Michael hasn't killed anyone, has he? It's only because he admits how he felt about the man that you believe he might have. Inspector Padgett has convinced you that Michael murdered his wife, and therefore he wanted to kill Quarles as well. But many of us don't see it that way. It was a tragedy, and he was out of his mind with grief and distress when she died. He didn't understand her suicide. It was a betrayal to him, an admission of guilt. It was the only reason he could think of for her to leave him, you see. That someone had turned her away from him."

  "Apparently he didn't behave very well toward her when she was alive."

  "Yes, it could be true, though I never saw evidence of it. I do know they weren't very happy together long before Hazel went to work for Quarles. So you see, if he'd intended to take matters into his own hands and kill Harold Quarles, he'd have done it then and there, in that confused and bitter state of mind. And he didn't. That's to his credit, don't you see?"

  "If he didn't intend to kill him, why has Brunswick spent a good deal of his spare time of late looking into Quarles's past? What good is it? "

  Heller was surprised. "Has he been doing such a thing? He's never said anything about it to me. What is he looking for, for heaven's sake?"

  "I don't know. I don't know that he himself understands what he's after."

  "Yes, well, that may be true." Curiosity got the better of him. "Has he found something?"

  "Very little. I don't think Quarles wanted his history to be found. Well enough to boast about its simplicity, but not to have the truth about it brought into the open. The poor are not necessarily saints. And sinners do have some goodness in them. Isn't that what the church teaches?"

  Heller took a deep breath. "Back to Michael. Do give him the benefit of the doubt. There's much healing left to do."

  "I'll bear that in mind," Rutledge answered mildly. He turned to walk back toward the church, and Heller followed him. "We aren't going to solve this dilemma, Mr. Heller, until we have our killer. And to that end, I must go on questioning people, however unpleasant it must be."

  Heller said nothing, keeping pace beside him, his mind elsewhere. As they parted at the corner of the churchyard, he broke his silence. "I will pray for you to be granted wisdom, Inspector."

  "It might be more beneficial to your flock if you prayed for wisdom for Inspector Padgett as well."

  Heller smiled. "I already do that, my boy." He glanced upward, where a flight of rooks came to perch on the pinnacles of the church tower. After a moment he said, "I've been told that Mrs. Quarles is home again, with her son. They're to collect her husband's body and take it north for burial. I did wonder why Mrs. Quarles hadn't asked me to preside over a brief service here, before her husband was taken north. But that's her decision to make, of course."

  "Perhaps here in Cambury, you know him better than Mrs. Quarles wishes."

  Heller sighed. "I can tell you how it will be. Once Mr. Quarles has left the village, it will be as if he never was. We'll not talk about his irritating qualities, because of course he's dead. There will be a family bequest to the church, and we'll name something after him, and forget him. It's a poor epitaph for a man who was so
forceful in life."

  "Did you know that Quarles's partner, Davis Penrith, was the son of a curate?"

  "Actually I believe Mr. Quarles brought that up once in a conversation. He seemed to find it amusing."

  "Because it wasn't the truth, or because Penrith didn't live up to his father's calling?"

  "I have no idea. But Mr. Quarles did say that he didn't have to fear his partner, because the man would never turn against him. Or to be more precise, he said the one person he'd never feared was his partner, because Penrith would never have the courage to turn against him."

  "When was this?" Rutledge asked.

  "I don't remember just when-I think while Mr. Quarles was living here in Cambury for several weeks. I was out walking one afternoon, and he was coming back from one of the outlying farms. He stopped to ask me if he could give me a lift back to town, and I accepted. We got on the subject of enemies, I can't think how…"

  "That's an odd topic for a casual encounter."

  "Nevertheless, he made that remark about Penrith, and I commented that loyalty was something to value very highly. He told me it wasn't a matter of loyalty but of fact."

  Yet Penrith had walked away from their partnership. And as far as anyone knew, Quarles hadn't felt betrayed. Had, in fact, done nothing to stop him.

  "They were an unlikely pair to be friends, much less partners," Rutledge mused.

  "Yes, that's true. I thought as much myself from Mr. Quarles's remarks. But there's no accounting for tastes, in business or in marriage, is there? Good day, Mr. Rutledge."

  He watched the rector striding toward the church door, his head down, his mind occupied. As Heller disappeared into the dimness of the doorway, Hamish said, "There's no' a solution to this murder."

  "There's always a solution. Sometimes it's harder to see, that's all."

  "Oh, aye," Hamish answered dryly. "The Chief Constable will ha' to be satisfied with that."

  M

  iss O'Hara was just coming out her door with a market basket over her arm as Rutledge passed her house. She hailed him and asked how the Jones family was faring.

  "Well enough," he told her.

  "We ought to find whoever killed Quarles and pin a medal on him. They do it in wars. Why not in peace, for ridding Cambury of its ogre."

  "That's hardly civilized," he told her, thinking that Brunswick might agree with her.

  "We aren't talking about civilization." She drew on her gloves, smiled, and left him standing there.

  Rutledge could still see her slender fingers slipping into the soft fabric of her gloves. They had brought to mind the uglier image of Harold Quarles's burned hands, the lumpy whorls and tight patches of skin so noticeable in the light of Inspector Padgett's lamps as the body came to rest on the floor of the tithe barn.

  Like the coal mines, those hands were a part of the public legend of Harold Quarles. Neither Rutledge nor Padgett had thought twice about them, because they had been scarred in the distant past.

  He turned back the way he'd come and went on to Dr. O'Neil's surgery.

  The doctor was trimming a shrubbery in the back garden. Rut- ledge was directed there by the doctor's wife, and O'Neil hailed his visitor with relief. Taking out a handkerchief, he wiped his forehead and nodded toward chairs set in the shade of an arbor. "Let's sit down. It's tiresome, trimming that lilac. I swear it waits until my back's turned, and then grows like Jack's beanstalk."

  They sat down, and O'Neil stretched his legs out before him. "What is it you want to know? The undertaker has come for Quarles, and I've finished my report. It's on Padgett's desk now, I should think."

  "Thank you. I'm curious about those scars on Quarles's hands."

  "You saw them for yourself. The injuries had healed and were as smooth as they were ever going to be. It must have happened when he was fairly young. I did notice that the burns extended just above the wrist. And the edges were very sharply defined, almost as if someone had held his hands in a fire. You usually see a different pattern, more irregular. Think about a poker that's fallen into the fire. The flames shoot up just as you reach for it. You might be burned superficially, but not to such an extent as his, because in a split second you realize what you've done, drop the poker, and withdraw out of harm's way. What I found remarkable was that Quarles hadn't lost the use of his fingers. That means he must have had very good care straightaway."

  "Were there other burns on his body? His neck, for instance, or his back. I'm thinking of bending over a child, protecting it with his own body as he runs a gantlet of fire."

  "I wasn't really looking for old wounds."

  "If he'd had other scars like those on his hands, surely you'd have noticed them."

  "Yes, of course. Burns do heal with time, if not too severe. A wet sack over his back might have been just enough to prevent permanent scars. Where, pray, is this going?"

  "Curiosity. I'm wondering if there were other enemies besides those we know of in Cambury."

  O'Neil said slowly, "If someone had held his hands to a fire, it would have been Quarles who wanted to avenge himself."

  "Yes, that's the stumbling point, isn't it?" Rutledge smiled wryly.

  O'Neil said, "Sorry I can't help you more."

  "Do you by chance know anything about these Cumberline funds that Quarles nearly lost his reputation over?"

  O'Neil laughed. "A village doctor doesn't move in such exalted circles." The laughter faded. "Sunday night as I was trying to fall asleep, I kept seeing those wings outstretched above the dead man. It occurred to me that after someone hit him from behind, they desecrated his body. The only reason I could think of was that Quarles died too easily, that perhaps he was expected to die slowly up there with the wings biting into his back. Terrible thought, isn't it?" onstable Horton spent a wet Saturday evening in The Black

  And that possibility, Rutledge thought, spoke more to Michael Brunswick than it did to Hugh Jones. Pudding. It was not his first choice, but his friends drank there from time to time, and he went in occasionally for a pint to end his day.

  Tom Little was courting a girl in the next village but one, and full of himself. He thought she might say yes, if he proposed, and his friends spent half an hour helping him find the right words, amid a good deal of merriment. The landlord had occasion to speak to them twice for being overloud.

  Constable Horton, trying his hand at peacemaking, joined the group and steered the conversation in a different direction. He was finishing his second glass when a half-heard comment caught his attention. He brought his chair's front legs back to the floorboards with a thump and asked Tommy Little to repeat what he'd just said.

  Little, turning toward him, told him it would cost him another round. Constable Horton, resigned, got up to give his order, and when everyone was satisfied, Little told him what he'd seen on the road beyond Hallowfields.

  It was too late to rouse Inspector Padgett, but Constable Horton was at his door as early in the morning as he thought was politic.

  Padgett went to find Rutledge as soon as he'd finished his breakfast.

  "Here's something we ought to look into. Horton brought me word before I'd had my tea at six. It seems that one Thomas Little and a friend were on their way back to her home last Saturday evening. He's courting a girl from a village not far up the road, and she'd spent the day with him in Cambury. This was nine-thirty, he thinks, or thereabouts. They'd ridden out of Cambury on their bicycles just as the church clock struck nine. As they were nearing Honeyfold Farm- that's about two miles beyond Hallowfields, on your left-they saw Michael Brunswick coming toward them on a bicycle. He passed without a word, and they went on their way, laughing because he'd looked like a thundercloud. Unlucky in love, they called him, and made up stories about the sort of woman he was seeing. Then they forgot all about him until Little made a remark about him last night in The Black Pudding."

  Rutledge, standing in Reception, said, "That would put Brunswick at Hallowfields before Quarles left the Greer house. And if he'd
been away, he wouldn't have known that Quarles was dining in Cambury. There wouldn't have been any point in waiting for the man."

  "Yes, I'd thought about that. But where did Brunswick go when he reached Cambury? Home? To The Glover's Arms?"

  "He told me he was in bed and asleep."

  "Hard to prove. Hard to disprove."

  "The early service this morning isn't for another three-quarters of an hour. I should be able to catch Brunswick before he goes to the church."

  Rutledge walked briskly toward Brunwick's house, and when he knocked, the man opened the door with a sheaf of music in his hand. He regarded Rutledge with distaste and didn't invite him inside. "What is it now?"

  "We've just learned that you were seen on the road near Honeyfold Farm last Saturday evening at nine-thirty. You said nothing about it when we asked your whereabouts the night that Quarles was killed."

  "Why should I have? It had nothing to do with his murder."

  "Where had you been?"

  "To Glastonbury."

  "Can anyone confirm that?"

  "I went to dine with a friend who stopped there on his way back to London. He was tired, the dinner didn't last very long, and I came home." There was an edge to his voice now. "If you must know, I'd had more to drink than was good for me, and I had spent a wretched two hours listening to this man crowing over his triumphs. He's a musician; we'd studied together. I wished I'd never gone there. I wasn't in the best of spirits when I left him."

  Which explained the comment that he'd looked like a thundercloud when he passed Tommy Little and the girl he was courting.

  "When you reached Cambury, what did you do?"

  "I undressed, when to bed, and tried to sleep. Harold Quarles was the last person on my mind then."

  Rutledge thanked him and left.

  "It's no' much," Hamish said.

  "I didn't expect it to be. He would have been too early to see Quar- les leaving Minton Street and turning toward Hallowfields. They must have missed each other by a quarter of an hour at the very least."