“You have been busy, haven’t you? I can’t speak for anyone who does or doesn’t recall his childhood. He did move his family, but that was after our son was born. Or so I was told. He never took me north with him, it was a painful chapter in his life, and I was content to leave it closed.”
“We would also like more information about his enlistment in the Army. Did he see action during the Boer War, or was he posted elsewhere in the empire?”
Her face changed, from irritation to a stillness that was unnatural.
“Was he in that war? He never spoke of it to me.” Her voice was crisp, dismissive, and her eyes were cold.
“Was that when he met Davis Penrith?”
“I have no idea. It was my impression they met at the firm where they were employed.”
“Can you tell me anything about the burns on your husband’s hands? They were quite severe and possibly inflicted by someone else. If so, they may have a bearing on his murder.”
She moved swiftly, reaching for the bell. “Good day, Mr. Rutledge.”
Behind him, Downing opened the door, and Mrs. Quarles nodded to her.
Rutledge turned to the housekeeper. “I don’t believe we’ve finished our conversation. Thank you, Mrs. Downing.”
The housekeeper looked to her mistress for guidance. But Mrs.
Quarles walked past Rutledge without a word or a glance and left him standing there.
He could hear her heels clicking over the marble of the foyer and then the sound of footsteps as she climbed the stairs.
Mrs. Downing was still waiting. He let her show him to the door.
From somewhere in the house, he could hear a boy’s voice, calling to someone, and lighter footsteps approaching.
But the door was shut so swiftly behind him that he didn’t see Marcus Quarles after all.
20
Walking back to where he’d left the motorcar along the road, Rutledge pondered his conversation with Mrs. Quarles.
Most of his questions had been based on a little knowledge and good deal of guesswork. Nevertheless, the dead man’s widow had been disturbed by them.
Oddly enough he was beginning to see a pattern in Harold Quarles’s actions.
The man had removed his family from their original grave site and reburied them in a place where they weren’t known. Only the headstones in the churchyard identified them, and no one in this other village would have any memory of them or the boy who wasn’t—yet—laid to rest among them.
And there was the story to explain his burns, lending an air of heroism to the other tales he’d spun. Of course there had to be an explanation. The scars were obvious to anyone who met him or shook hands over a business agreement. But Rutledge thought that Mrs.
Quarles had a very good idea how he’d come by them, whatever the rest of the world believed.
As for the army, Quarles’s service had been quietly put behind him.
Either because he hadn’t particularly distinguished himself or his service record was dismal. And Davis Penrith had done the same thing.
With any luck, London would have those records for him in another day. And a telephone call to Yorkshire would confirm the removal of the graves.
Harold Quarles had created the face he showed his business associates with great care. What was behind the mask? Brunswick was right, something must be there.
Hamish said, “Ye ken, he’s the victim.”
“That’s true,” Rutledge answered, turning the motorcar back toward Cambury. “But where there are secrets, murder sometimes follows. Or blackmail. Was that what Brunswick had been moving toward? Take the bookseller, Stephenson. Quarles wouldn’t tell him why he refused to contact the Army on the son’s behalf. It must have seemed unbeliev-ably cruel to a desperate father. And Stephenson brooded over it to the point that he wanted to kill the man. Who else is out there nursing a grudge and waiting for the chance to do something about it?”
“A straw in a haystack,” Hamish said.
“Yes, well, the Yard is often very good at finding straws.”
But Hamish laughed without humor. “It doesna’ signify. If the murderer here isna’ the baker nor the bookseller, ye’re left with the man who plays the church organ.”
He hammered on for the next hour as Rutledge sat by the long windows overlooking the High Street and wrote a report covering everything he’d learned so far.
There were loose ends. There were always loose ends. Murder was never closed in a tidy package.
Who had wrecked the bakery? How could anyone prove that Brunswick had indeed seen Quarles leaving the Greer house and turning for home? Who had argued with Quarles there? Brunswick himself? Greer?
Rutledge left the sheets of paper on the table and went out again, crossing the High Street and walking on to knock on Brunswick’s door.
The man was haggard, and short-tempered as well. “What is it this time?”
“I need to find some answers that are eluding me. When you stopped playing the organ that Saturday night a week ago, when Quarles was killed, did you leave the church at once, or sit there for a short period of time?”
Brunswick blinked, as if uncertain where Rutledge had got his information and what it signified. “I—don’t recall.”
“If you travel from the church to this house, for a small part of that journey, particularly when you’re on foot, you have a clear view of Minton Street. At just about the time you might have done that, perhaps ten-thirty, Harold Quarles was coming out of the house where he’d dined. Between there and where Minton meets the High Street, he encountered someone who argued with him. Their voices were loud. They may have carried this far. I need to know the name of that man or woman with him.”
Brunswick stood there, his gaze not leaving Rutledge’s face.
It was a turning point, and the man was well aware of it. If he admitted to seeing Quarles, he was admitting as well that he could have killed the man.
He had only to say: “I must have walked home earlier than that. I didn’t see Quarles at all, much less hear him talking to someone on Minton Street.”
Or “I didn’t leave the church for another quarter of an hour or more. I couldn’t have seen him—the clock in the tower was striking eleven.”
And it would have been impossible, whatever the police suspected, to prove otherwise.
Rutledge waited.
Finally Michael Brunswick said, “I didn’t see Quarles.”
“You must have heard his voice.”
“No.”
Hamish said, “He’s afraid to tell ye.”
After a moment Brunswick went on. “If Quarles was there, he’d already gone.”
“All right, I’ll accept that. The timing wasn’t perfect. Who was still there? Who had been with him only a matter of seconds before?”
“It was Davis Penrith.”
Brunswick had condemned himself with four words.
Davis Penrith had been in Scotland that weekend, staying with his wife.
R utledge was torn between going to London himself and asking the Yard to request a statement from Penrith regarding his weekend in Scotland. In the end, he compromised and telephoned the man at his home.
Penrith was distant when he came to take Rutledge’s call. But as the reason for it was explained, he said, “Here, this is ridiculous. I’ve a letter from my wife. Let me fetch it.”
He came back to the telephone within two minutes.
“It’s dated the Thursday after my return. I’ll read you the pertinent passage: ‘Mama was so pleased you could come, however short the visit. And Mr. and Mrs. Douglas were delighted you were here to dine with them. We have become dear friends. Shall I invite them to stay with us in June, when they’ll be in town?’ ”
“Where does your mother-in-law live?”
“In Annan. That’s just over the border from Carlisle.”