Charles Todd - A matter of Justice

"No, you won't-"

"Try me." Rutledge walked down to the motorcar and turned the crank. He could hear Hamish faulting him for losing his own temper but shut out the words. Padgett had behaved unprofessionally, intending to hurt, and that kind of emotion would cloud his judgment as he dealt with the evidence in this case.

For an instant Rutledge thought Padgett would turn on his heel and walk to the tithe barn. Instead, sulking, he got into the motorcar without a word.

As they drove toward the gates, Rutledge changed the subject. "Who is Charles Archer? Besides Mrs. Quarles's cousin?"

"Gossip is, he's her lover. I've heard he was wounded at Mons. Shouldn't have been there at his age, but when the war began, he was researching a book he intended to write on Wellington and Waterloo. The Hun was in Belgium before anyone knew what was happening, and Archer fled south, into the arms of the British. He stayed-experience in battle and all that, for his book. Well, he got more than he bargained for, didn't he?"

"And he lives at the house?"

"Not the normal family arrangement, is it? But then rumor has it that there's not a pretty face within ten miles that Quarles hasn't tried to seduce. Sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose, I'd say."

"Any official complaints about his behavior?"

"Not as such."

"Mrs. Quarles mentioned a son. Are there any other children?"

"Just the one boy. He's at Rugby."

They reached the gates and turned into the lane that led to the tithe barn.

Harold Quarles's body had been taken away, and the barn had been searched again for any evidence or signs of blood, without success.

"Nothing to report, sir," the constable told Padgett, gesturing to the shadowy corners. "We've gone over the ground carefully, twice. And nothing's turned up."

Rutledge, with a final look around the dimly lit, cavernous building, found himself thinking that something must have been left behind by the killer, some small trace of his passage. No crime was perfect. If only the police knew where to look. Surely there must be something, some small thing that was easily overlooked…

Another problem. "Where did he dine?" he mused aloud. "And how did he get there?"

"We've only Mrs. Quarles's word that he went out to dine," Padgett pointed out. "It could be a lie from start to finish."

"I hardly think she would kill her husband in the house," Rutledge said to Padgett after dismissing the constable. "And he's not dressed for a walk on the estate. Let's have a look at that gatekeeper's cottage. I recall you told me no one lived there, but that's not to say it hasn't been used." He glanced around the tithe barn. "There's something about this place-it's not a likely choice for a meeting, somehow. If I'd been Quarles, I'd have been wary about that. But the gatehouse is another matter. Private but safe, in a way. Is it unlocked, do you think?"

"Let's find out."

Picking up a lantern, Padgett followed Rutledge out the barn's door. They walked in silence through the trees to the small cottage by the Home Farm gate.

There was a single door, and when they lifted the latch, they found it opened easily.

Rutledge took the lantern and held it high. There were only three rooms on the ground floor: a parlor cum dining room, a tiny kitchen, a bathroom hardly big enough to turn around in. Stairs to the upper floor were set into the thickness of one wall. There were two bedrooms, the smaller one possibly intended for a child, though someone had converted it into a workroom.

"When Jesse Morton lived here, he made gloves. He'd been a head gardener until rheumatism attacked his knees. That was before Quarles bought Hallowfields."

"Gloves?" Rutledge turned to look at Padgett.

"It's a cottage industry in many parts of the county, and especially here in Cambury. Hides are brought in from Hampshire and distributed to households on the list. Mr. Greer owns the firm here, and there are still a good many people who earn their living sewing gloves. My grandmother, for one. She raised three fatherless children, sewing for the Greers, father and son."

The furnishings-well-polished denizens from an attic, judging by their age and quality-weren't dusty, Rutledge noted, running his fingers over a chair back and along a windowsill. And the bedclothes smelled of lavender, sweet and fresh. Yet when he opened the armoire, there were no clothes hanging there, and nothing in the drawers of the tall chest except for a comb and brush and a single cuff link.

"Did you come here when the man Morton lived here? Has it changed?" he asked Padgett.

"Once, with my grandmother. I remember it as dark, reeking of cigar smoke, and there was a horsehair settee that made me break out in a rash. So I was never brought back."

"And you're sure that no one has lived here since then?"

"As sure as may be. What's this, then? A place of rendezvous?"

"It's been made to appear comfortable," Rutledge mused. "To give an air of-"

"-respectability," Hamish supplied, so clearly that the word seemed to echo around the solid walls.

But Hamish was right. There were lace curtains at the windows, chintz coverings on the chairs, and cabbage roses embroidered on the pillowcases. If Quarles had an eye for women, he could bring his conquests here rather than to an hotel or other public place. Or the house…

"-respectability," Rutledge finished. "Let's have a look at the kitchen."

It yielded tea and sugar and a packet of biscuits that hadn't been opened, along with cups and saucers and a teapot ready for filling from the kettle on the cooker.

"Who washes the sheets and sweeps the floor clean?" Padgett asked, looking round. "You can't tell me Mr. High and Mighty Quar- les does that. Not for any woman."

"An interesting point," Rutledge answered. "We'll ask Betty, the maid who does his rooms at the house."

Both men could see at a glance that this was most certainly not the place where Quarles was killed. No signs of a struggle, no indication on the polished floor that someone had tried to wipe up bloodstains or dragged a body across it.

Rutledge said, "All right, if they met here, Quarles and his killer, then the confrontation was outside. Somewhere between this cottage and the tithe barn."

Padgett said nothing, following Rutledge out and closing the door behind them.

The sun was up, light striking through the trees in golden shafts, and the side of the cottage was bright, casting heavier shadows across the front steps. The roses running up the wall were dew-wet, today's blooms just unfurling.

A path of stepping-stones set into the mossy ground led to the shaded garden in the rear of the cottage. Flower beds surrounded a patch of lawn where a bench and a small iron table stood. Setting the grassy area off from the beds was a circle of whitewashed river stones, all nearly the same size, perhaps a little larger than a man's fist.

In the dark, Rutledge realized, the white stones would stand out in whatever light there was, marking where it was safe to stroll. Otherwise an unwary step might sink into the soft loam of the beds. He moved closer to examine them. None of them appeared to be out of place. Still, he leaned down to touch each stone in turn with the tips of his fingers. One of them, halfway round and half hidden by the bench, moved very slightly, as if not as well seated as its neighbors.

Padgett, watching, said, "You're barking up the wrong tree. There was a heavy mist last night, remember, hardly the weather for chatting under the light of the moon."

"And if Quarles was walking here, for whatever reason-coming home from a dinner party-it was a perfect site for an ambush."

"He'd have walked down the main drive."

"Who knows? He might have intended to go to the Home Farm."

"Far-fetched."