Rutledge decided to walk to Brunswick's house. The morning was fair. The streets were filled with people doing their marketing, and a farmer was bringing in half a dozen pigs, their pink backs bouncing down the middle of the street as motorcars and lorries pulled to one side.
Brunswick didn't answer his door, and Rutledge walked on to the church, thinking that the organist might have gone to practice for the Sunday morning services. In fact, as he crossed the churchyard, he could hear music pouring out the open door. He stepped inside.
As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, he saw that there were two women kneeling by the front of the church, arranging flowers in tall vases, and somewhere the rector, Mr. Heller, was deep in conversation with a young man, their voices carrying but not their words.
The church was larger inside than it appeared to be outside, with a wagon roof and no columns. As Rutledge passed by, Heller caught his eye and nodded but continued with his conversation. Brunswick, in the organ loft, paused between hymns, but was playing again by the time Rutledge had climbed the stairs and come to stand by him.
"I'm busy," Brunswick said over the crash of the music.
Rutledge's posture was that of a man content to wait through the next five hours if necessary.
After a time, Rutledge said, "My mother was a pianist, quite a fine one in fact. Your interpretation of that last piece was very different from hers."
With an abrupt gesture of annoyance, Brunswick lifted his fingers and feet, letting the pipes fall silent. Everyone in the church looked up, the two women and the two men, as if after the music, the sudden stillness was deafening.
"If you've come to take me into custody, get on with it. Otherwise you're breaking my concentration."
"Do you wish to talk to me here, where everyone can hear, or elsewhere?"
Brunswick got to his feet, stretching his shoulders. "We can walk in the churchyard."
They went down to the door and into the sunlight, warmer outside after the chill trapped within the stone walls of the church.
"The talk of Cambury is that Mr. Jones is your man. Why should you need to speak to me?"
As they walked among the gravestones, Rutledge said, "I've often wondered if a guilty man ever spares a thought for the poor bastard who is sacrificed in his stead. If you were the killer, would you speak up to set Jones free?"
"I don't see that this is something I need to consider. Unless of course you aren't confident of your ability to judge who is guilty and who isn't," Brunswick countered.
Rutledge laughed. "Meanwhile," he went on, "I've learned a great deal more about your relationship with your wife. It appears not to have been a very happy one. At least for her."
"I thought you'd come to Cambury to find out who killed Quarles, not to chastise someone who has already said everything that can be said to himself. I wasn't a very good husband."
"If you killed one," Rutledge put it to him, "the chances are very good that you killed the other. Or conversely, if you were wrong about one of them, then the odds are you were also wrong about the other."
"Prove that I killed either one."
Rutledge was silent for ten yards or more. "I don't think your quarrel with the dead man has anything to do with jealousy. I believed you at first, and you must have believed it yourself in a way. It can't explain all the evidence I'm looking at, and I'm beginning to believe there's more to this than meets the eye. You abused your wife because you were already angry. You accused Quarles because you knew your wife was vulnerable to kindness after your own behavior, and her shocking death made you want to blame her, not yourself. I think you're relying on the general public's view of Harold Quarles, to call him a monster and excuse yourself from blaming him for all your ills because that's easier than facing the truth. I think it's time you took a long look in your mirror."
There was an inadvertent movement beside him.
"The police must look at hard fact. What we feel, what we think doesn't matter. There appears to be enough fact lying about. And Inspector Padgett would like nothing better than to connect one death with the other. If your conscience is clear over your wife's suicide, then so be it. It's my responsibility to determine what part you played-if any-in Harold Quarles's murder. But once that is done, Padgett will search for connections, and see them where there may be nothing at all."
"All right, I wanted him dead. I make no secret of that. Look at it any way you care to. Why is my own affair."
Touche, Rutledge thought to himself. "What you wanted isn't at issue. You can't be hanged for that. What counts is whether you lifted your hand with a weapon in it, and struck Harold Quarles on the back of his head."
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."
"If he didna' lie."
"There's always that, of course. But Little seems to feel very confident of his times." Rutledge stopped and turned to look over his shoulder. Brunswick was hurrying toward St. Martin's, his black robe streaming behind him. Rutledge watched him go.
Would a man in Brunswick's state of mind go meekly to bed in the hope of sleeping, after being humiliated by a more successful friend? Especially if he'd had a little too much to drink? Of course there was the long ride to Cambury to cool his temper and wear him down. But Tommy Little had seen the man's face, and it appeared he was still smarting from the visit.
Looking up at the Perpendicular tower of St. Martin's, Rutledge realized that the rectory overlooked the church on its far side. He went back to The Unicorn and bided his time until the morning services were over.
When he reached the rectory an hour after noon, Rutledge found Heller dozing in a wicker chair in his garden, a floppy hat over his face. He woke up as he heard someone approaching, and sat up, pulling down his vest and smoothing his hair.
"Is this an official call?" he asked, trying for a little humor, but the words were heavy with worry.
Rutledge joined him in the shade, squatting to pick up a twig and twist it through his fingers.
"It's about Michael Brunswick," he said after a moment, not looking up at the rector. "I believe it's customary for him to practice your selections for the Sunday services on Saturday morning. Do you recall if he did that on the Saturday that Quarles died? He was meeting a friend in Glastonbury. There might not have been time for him to play beforehand."
Heller was caught without an answer. He sat there, studying Rut- ledge, then said, "He did indeed come into practice that morning. A little earlier than usual, as I recall. I was there and heard him. We talked about the anthem I'd chosen. It's a favorite of mine."
"And so there was no need for him to play the organ that evening, after his return? "
Heller sighed. "No need. But of course he did. The windows were open, I could hear him from my study. He wasn't playing my selections. It was tortured music. Unhappy music. I did wonder if it was his own composition. And it ended in a horrid clash of notes, followed by silence." He looked back at the rectory, as if he could find answers there in the stone and glass and mortar. "He's a wretched man. He wants more than life has chosen to give him. He plays perfectly well for us during services. We are fortunate to have him. Why should he feel that he needs to reach for more? If God had intended for him to be a great organist, he wouldn't have brought him to us at Cambury, would he have? There is much to be said for contentment. And in contentment there is service."
Rutledge stood up, without answering the rector.
Heller said, "You mustn't misunderstand. Michael Brunswick's music isn't going to drive him to kill. It's eating at him, he's the only victim."
Rutledge said, "Perhaps his music is the last straw in a life full of disappointments. What time did he finish playing?"
"I don't know. Perhaps it was twenty past ten. If you remember there was a mist coming in. Hardly noticeable at that time, but an hour later, it was thick enough that strands of it were already wrapping around the trees in my garden. I was worried about Michael, and looked to see if his house was dark. It was, and so I went to bed myself."
"If there had been lights on?"
"I'd have found an excuse to go and speak to him. To offer comfort if he needed it. Or if not, to assure myself that he was all right." He took a deep breath and examined his gardening hat to avoid looking at Rutledge. "You mustn't misconstrue what I've told you. It would be wrong."
"It would be wrong to let someone else take the blame for Quarles's death. Mr. Jones has already suffered for his daughter's sake."
"Yes, I heard what had happened at the bakery. Mr. Padgett believes it was boys acting out of spite, but I think someone is grieving for Quarles. A woman, perhaps, who cared for him and believes the gossip about Mr. Jones. You warned me once, Mr. Rutledge. You told me someone might come to me frightened by what they'd done and I must be careful how I dealt with them. In return I warn you now. Rumor has always maintained that Harold Quarles had a mistress in Cambury. I don't know if it's true or not, but if it is, she's not one of the women he flirts with in public, she's someone he visited quietly, I suspect, when no one was looking. If she exists, I say, she's had no way to grieve openly while everyone in sight is gloating over Quarles's death. Alone, lonely, she must be desolate, and it will turn her mind in time. Just beware."
It was an odd speech for a man of the cloth to make to a policeman.
"Surely you can guess-"
"No. I've never wanted to know whose wife or sister or daughter she may be. I can do nothing for her until she comes to me. This is just a friendly warning."
"Thank you, Rector. I'll bear it in mind." But he thought that Heller was intending to turn his attention away from Michael Brunswick by using village gossip to his own ends. He was a naive man in many ways. And he might consider a small white lie in God's cause no great problem for his conscience.
"Ye ken," Hamish said, "he doesna' want to lose his organist. It's why he defends him sae fiercely."
He turned to walk away, but Heller stopped him. "I told you that I refused to judge, lest I be judged. It's good advice, even for a policeman."
But the fact remained, Rutledge told Hamish in the silence of his mind, that there was proof now that Michael Brunswick could have crossed paths with Harold Quarles.
To test it, he stood on the street just above Michael Brunswick's door and looked toward the High Street. The angle was right, as he'd thought it might be. Coming home from St. Martin's, Brunswick would have had a clear view of Minton Street and the corner that Quarles would have turned on his way back to Hallowfields.
The mist hadn't come down then. And Brunswick, needing someone or something on which to expend his anger and frustration, might have watched Quarles walk up the High Street alone. He could have cut across the green without being noticed, followed at a distance, and let the trees shield him on the straight stretch of road that marched with the wall of the estate.
"Why did the dead man no' go through the gates and up the drive?"
"Because it must be shorter to come in by the farm gate and cut across the parkland."
Rutledge went to fetch the motorcar and drove out to Hallowfields, leaving it by the main gate. Then he paced the distances from there to the house, and again from the Home Farm lane to the house. Because of the twists and turns of the drive, allowing for vistas and specimen trees set out to be admired, it was nearly three hundred yards longer. If he was tired, it would have made sense for Harold Quarles to choose the shorter distance.
Brunswick might have called to him, or challenged him. And if Quarles had turned away in rejection of what he wanted to say, that act could have precipitated the murder.
"Listen to me…"
"I'm tired, I want my bed. You have nothing to say to me that I have any interest in hearing…"
Those white stones stood out-Brunswick needn't have thought to bring a weapon-and in a split second, without a word, Quarles would have been knocked down. It was the second blow that mattered. Had Brunswick intended it as the death stroke? Rutledge could see him still caught up in that fierce need to hurt as he'd been hurt, stepping back too late, shocked by the suddenness of death.
It would have been easy to convince himself that Quarles had brought on the attack by his callous indifference. To feel no responsibility for what he'd just done.
And then the slow realization that the man had got off too lightly, a quick death compared to Hazel Brunswick's drowning, must have triggered his next actions.
The facts fit together neatly.
Then why, Rutledge wondered, was he feeling dissatisfied, standing there on the lawns of Hallowfields, looking for holes in his own case?
He walked on to the house and this time knocked at the door, asking for Mrs. Quarles when Downing opened it.
"She's with her son. Come back another day."
"If she could spare me a few minutes, I'd be grateful." His words were polite, but his voice was uncompromising.
She went away, and in a few minutes conveyed him with clear disapproval to the formal drawing room. Mrs. Quarles came in after him, dressed in deep mourning. She was very pale, as if the ordeal of breaking the news to her son had taken its toll.
Against the backdrop of the drawing room, pale blue and silver, she was almost a formidable figure, and he thought she must have intended to impress him after his impudence in demanding to see her.
"What is it you want to know, Mr. Rutledge? Whether I've turned into a grieving widow? "
"There are some questions about your husband's past-"
"That could have waited. I bid you good day."
He stood his ground. "I think you're probably the only person who knew your husband well. With the possible exception of Mr. Penrith."
"I have no idea what Mr. Penrith thinks or knows about my late husband. I have never asked him. Nor will I."
"There are some discrepancies that I'd like to clear up. We've learned that Mr. Quarles removed the remains of his family from the village where they lived and died to another churchyard. But no one who lived in the old village has any recollection of him as a child."
"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.