Charles Todd - A matter of Justice

Brunswick said, "Include me if you like. It makes no difference to me."

"Why should you be glad a man's been murdered? Most people are repelled by the thought of that."

"You know as well as I do that Harold Quarles was a man who made his own fate. He didn't give a damn about anyone as far as I know, and in the end that invites what happened to him Saturday night. You can't walk around oblivious to the pain you cause, and expect no one to retaliate. There's always a line that one crosses at his own risk. Beyond it, ordinary rules don't apply."

"Whatever most people might feel, whatever they dream about doing in the dark of night when they can't sleep, in the daylight there are obstacles. They fear for their souls, they fear the hangman, they fear for those they love. And Harold Quarles would still be alive."

Brunswick laughed. "I've lost God, I've lost those I loved. Why should I fear the hangman when he comes to put the rope around my neck? I don't have much to live for."

"If you didn't kill the man, who did?"

"Someone who is fool enough to believe he won't be caught. Inspector Padgett brought the Yard in, didn't he? Why do you think he did that?"

Hamish said, "Aye, it's a guid question."

"To avoid having to arrest someone he knew," Rutledge replied, and was pleased to see that his answer had taken Brunswick aback.

"You think so? He's had as much reason to hate as any of the rest of us."

"If you know what that reason is, you must tell me."

Brunswick shook his head. "You're the policeman. You'll have to ask him."

"Then tell me instead about your wife's death."

Brunswick's color rose into his face. "She's dead. Leave her in peace."

"I can't." He could hear Hamish objecting, but he pressed on. "I'm told she drowned herself. Did she leave a note, any explanation of why she took her own life?"

"There was no note. Nothing. Leave it alone, I tell you."

"Do you think Harold Quarles played any part in her decision?"

"Why should he have?"

"Because you hate him. It's the only conclusion I can draw, Mr. Brunswick. And the only reason I can think of for Mrs. Quarles to include your name in her list of those who might have killed her husband."

That shook him to the core.

"Did she also tell you that my wife spent weeks at Hallowfields, working for her bastard of a husband?"

"Perhaps it's time you gave me your side of the story."

Brunswick was up, pacing the floor. "She went there against my wishes. She said we needed the money. He'd left London, rusticating, he said. Hiding from angry clients, if you want my view. He worked in his study at the house, and after a time, he let it be known he needed someone to type letters for him. She applied, and he took her on, two hours in the morning, and three in the afternoon. One week after she left Hallowfields, she was dead. What would you make of it, if she'd been your wife?"

"What sort of mood was she in that week?"

"Mood? How should I know? She wouldn't talk to me. She wouldn't tell me what had happened, nor would she explain why she sat here and cried that first morning she didn't go back to him."

"And so you suspected the worst."

"Wouldn't you? She couldn't live here in this cottage after spending her days at Hallowfields. She couldn't accept me, after she'd had her head turned by that bastard. Do you think I didn't guess that something had happened? She'd gone to Dr. O'Neil that morning, first thing. She must have thought she was pregnant. We'd tried, we couldn't have a child. That's why she wanted the money, to go to a specialist in London and find out why. After she was dead, I went to Dr. O'Neil myself and demanded to know what he'd said to her. I asked him straight out if she was pregnant. And he said she wasn't, that he'd wanted her to talk to someone in Glastonbury. It was an ovarian tumor, he said. But the truth was, he didn't want me to know what my wife couldn't tell me-that the child she was carrying wasn't mine. He didn't want me to live with that for the rest of my life. But I knew. I knew."

He turned to face the wall, his back to Rutledge and his head raised to stare unseeingly at the ceiling. "Get out of here. I've never told anyone, not even Rector, what I just told you. I don't know why I'd confess my shame to a stranger, when I couldn't even confess to God."

Hamish said, as Rutledge shut the door behind him, "Do ye believe him? "

Rutledge replied, "More to the point, I think he believes what he told me. And that's the best reason I've heard so far for murdering Harold Quarles and then hanging his body in that infernal contraption. It goes a long way toward explaining why simply killing Quarles wasn't enough."

He walked back to the hotel, to his motorcar, and drove out to Hallowfields.

Mrs. Quarles agreed to receive him, though she kept him waiting for nearly a quarter of an hour before Downing came to take him to the same room where he'd met her the first time. And she was alone.

"Are you here to tell me you've found the man who killed my husband?"

"Not at present. I've come to ask you if you know what the relationship was between your husband and Mrs. Brunswick."

"Hazel Brunswick? She came to do clerical work for him. There was no relationship, as you call it."

"Her husband believes there must have been."

"Only because of Harold's reputation. I can assure you there was nothing between them."

"Why should he make an exception of Hazel Brunswick, if he didn't draw the line at seducing a girl of sixteen?"

"Gwyneth Jones? He wouldn't have touched her, either. He wanted me to believe he would-he wanted me to be torn apart by jealousy and so shamed by his behavior I'd do anything to stop it. And then when I came crawling back, he'd have the satisfaction of rejecting me. But you see, I was married to him all those years. I learned to see through him. Once the scales fell from my eyes, I realized what sort of man he was, and how he punished people who got in his way. Davis Penrith knows that as well, but he blinds-blinded-himself to what Harold's true nature was. He didn't want to see. Or perhaps was afraid to see, afraid to recognize the man he'd worked with for so long."

"Gwyneth's father was worried enough to send her away to Wales."

"Believe me, if Harold had been seriously interested in Gwyneth, sending her to Wales wouldn't have stopped him from following her. My husband got what he wanted, most of the time. That too was in his nature."

"And in the process, he tormented a girl and her father, a woman and her husband, and who knows what other victims. Was there nothing you could do to stop the game?"

"You haven't understood my husband." She had kept him standing, as if he were a tradesman. "How do you move someone like that? Ask Samuel Heller, not me. Though I doubt very much that Harold had a soul. I know for a fact that he didn't have a conscience."

"Are you aware that sometimes he entertained someone in the gatehouse by the Home Farm lane?"

"I've been told that sometimes the lamps burned there late into the night. But no one, so far as I know, had the courage to find out what he did there. It was talked about, you see, there was speculation. And when I went into Cambury, I had no way of knowing whether the girl who waited on me in a shop or in the hotel dining room was one of his conquests or not. But if you look for the truth, you'll probably discover he never brought anyone there. Betty might tell you, she cleaned those rooms. Still, the gossips of Cambury were agog with curiosity. And so for the most part, I never went into town at all."

Rutledge wondered if she really knew what her husband was doing-whether she had simply convinced herself of his spite or used it to excuse her relationship with Charles Archer. Physically or emotionally, a tie was there.