“He lost his only child in the war. And he feels that he himself is partly responsible for the boy’s death.”
“In the war?” Padgett asked. “Quarles didn’t have anything to do with it?”
Heller lifted his eyebrows. “Harold Quarles? I should think not. If 188
char les todd
there’s anyone to blame, it’s the Army. Or the Kaiser. What made you suggest Mr. Quarles?”
“Because Stephenson admits to hating him, indeed, he told us he wanted to kill the man. Where’s the connection, if he’s haunted by the son and hates Quarles?” Padgett asked.
“In his own poor imagination, I expect,” Heller said with some asperity. “A man who is in great distress, great agony of spirit, sometimes blames others for his misfortunes, rather than face them himself.”
“I’m a greater believer in connections than in spiritual agony, thank you all the same, Rector,” Padgett said.
Heller smiled grimly. “I would never have guessed that, Mr. Padgett,” and with a nod to Rutledge that was brief and unforgiving, Heller turned away and strode back toward his church.
“I think,” Rutledge said slowly, “we ought to have another chat with Stephenson.”
“What’s the use? He’s not ready to tell us anything. And I have work to do. You might contact the Army, to see if there’s any truth in what the rector was told.”
Changing the subject, Rutledge asked, “Has Mrs. Quarles made any decision about her husband’s burial?”
“Yes, oddly enough. She’s taking him back to Yorkshire.”
“I can understand that she might not want him here, although that might be his son’s choice. But why not London?”
“She said that he deserved to return to his roots,” Padgett answered him. “Whatever that might mean.”
Rutledge considered the matter. “Then whatever turned her against him might also have to do with his roots.”
“She knew what he was when she married him.”
“Yes, she’s honest about that. But what did she learn later that made her judge him differently and demand a separation? Apparently Quarles didn’t fight it, and it’s possible he didn’t want whatever it was to become open knowledge. For that matter, why was she searching his background in the first place? Was she looking for something—or did she stumble over it? And I don’t believe it was Charles Archer wounded in France that upset the marriage.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” Padgett objected.
Rutledge gave him no answer. He was already in a debate with Hamish over the subject, Hamish strongly supporting the need to find out more about Quarles’s past while his own pressing concern at the moment was the bookseller.
Padgett said, “Well, I’ll leave you to your wild goose chase. I’ll be at the station, if you want me.”
Hamish was saying now, “What about yon lass? Ye canna’ leave her much longer.”
“Let her sleep. Then we’ll see what to do about her. I’ll have to tell her father. And that should answer a lot of questions.”
He walked on to the doctor’s surgery, found that Dr. O’Neil was busy with another patient, and asked his nurse if he could speak to Stephenson without disturbing the doctor.
She was willing to allow him to see the patient, she said, if he promised not to upset the man. “We’ve got five people in the waiting room, and I don’t want a scene.”
“Has Stephenson been upsetting the household?”
“Not precisely, but his state of mind is delicate. I was asking him just this morning if there was anyone we might send for, a cousin or something, to help him through his distress, and he began to howl.
I can’t describe it as a cry, and the doctor’s wife came running to see what was the matter.”
Small wonder that O’Neil had sent for the rector.
Rutledge gave her his word and hoped that he could keep it as he was led back to the room where Stephenson was sitting on the edge of his bed, his face buried in his hands.
He looked up as Rutledge came through the door, then dropped his head again, saying, “What is it you want? Can’t you leave me alone?”
“I’m worried about you,” Rutledge said easily. “I think there’s something on your mind that you can’t let go. Is it the fact that Quarles is out of reach now, and there’s no one else to hate? Except yourself?”
His words must have struck a chord. Stephenson lifted his head again, his eyes showing alarm. “What have you found out? What do you know?”
“Very little. You mourn for your son. You hated Harold Quarles.
There has to be a link somewhere. And if you hate yourself, it was because you feel you let your son down in some way, when he needed you most.”
Stephenson began to cry in spite of himself. “Yes, yes, I should have put him on the first ship out of England, and let him go somewhere—anywhere—safe. But I didn’t. He was so young, and I wanted to keep him with me. He was so like his mother, so gentle and sweet-natured. I couldn’t let him go—and so I killed him.”
Alarmed, Rutledge said, “When?”
“Damn you, not literally. I’d never have laid a finger on him.”
“Then how is Quarles involved? I’m tired of playing solve the riddle.”
Stephenson, burdened by his shame, buried his face in his hands again, unable to look anyone in the eye.
Rutledge, considering what Stephenson had just told him, asked,
“Was your son called up in the draft and afraid to go to war?” It was hazarding a guess, but he was surprised at the reaction.
Stephenson rose to his feet to defend his son, gathering himself together to shout Rutledge down. He could see it coming.
And so he added, “Or was the coward you?”
Stephenson gasped, his features changing from pure blazing anger to such self-loathing that Rutledge had to look away.
But he thought Stephenson was lying when he said, “Yes, it was I. I couldn’t bear to see him brutalized by the army, shoved into the battle lines, told to kill or be killed. I couldn’t live with that.”
It was the boy who’d been afraid, who had wanted to take ship. And the father who was determined to keep him in England. The boy, not the man.
“What could you do about it?”
“I went to the only person I could think of important enough to help me. I went to Harold Quarles—I’d grown up in Cambury, my mother was still living here—and I begged him to find a way to get my son out of the army. I told Quarles what would happen if I let him go, and I promised him anything, that I would do anything he asked, however difficult it was, if he would go to the Army and tell them not to send Tommy across to France.”
“And what did Harold Quarles promise you?”
Stephenson’s face twisted in grief. “He wouldn’t even hear me out.
He refused to help. I tried to tell him that they have all sorts of units.
Quartermaster, signals, radio, enlistments—none of them having to do with actual fighting—and I told him Tommy could do those. He was cold, unyielding, and told me that he would not speak to the Army for me or anyone else. And so Tommy went to be trained as a soldier, and he was shipped to France, and on his first day at the Front, he waited until the trench had emptied and bent over his rife and pulled the trigger. The letter from his commanding officer called him a coward and said that he had disgraced the company. All I could think of was that he was dead, and that surely there had been some way for a man as powerful and well thought of as Harold Quarles to stop him from going abroad.”
He was silent in his grief now, and that was all the more telling as he stared into a past he couldn’t change. Rutledge rested a hand on his shoulder.
“I wanted to kill his commanding officer, then I realized those were only words, they didn’t matter. It was Quarles who was to blame, and I wanted to make him suffer as I had done. I came here to haunt him, I wanted him to think about Tommy every time he passed the shop or saw me on the street, and remember his own child. I made a point to find out when he was returning to Cambury, and I put myself in his way as often as I could. And when I had wrought up my determination, I was going to kill him. But like my son, I couldn’t find the courage to do anything. Like my son, I couldn’t bring myself to kill, and yet I wanted it as I’d never wanted anything before or since, save to keep Tommy alive.”