Charles Todd - A matter of Justice

"You know as well as I do that policemen often have suspicions they aren't able to prove. You'll have to live with this one."

"Possibly."

"A bit of news at this end. Mrs. Quarles came to Cambury in person to apologize to Betty Richards. She also brought a bank draft for the sum that Quarles left the woman in his will. I don't think Betty quite knew what to make of it all. Miss O'Hara tells me that she sat in her room and cried for an hour afterward. Tears, according to Miss O'Hara, of relief rather than grief. I don't know that she cared for her brother as much as she cared for the money he left her."

"She was frightened about the future."

"It's secure enough now."

"Which brings me back to something we never resolved. Not with Brunswick and not with Penrith. How the body of Harold Quarles was moved from the scene of his murder to the tithe barn, to be strung up in that cage. I was convinced that Evering must have done it. To humiliate the man in death. But the more I considered the matter, the more impossible it seemed. I know Penrith left his motorcar in the drive, where it wasn't visible from the house, but what did Evering do with his? We found no tracks to explain what happened-and that's a long way to carry a dead man."

"I've told you my opinion-Mrs. Quarles borrowed Charles Archer's wheeled chair."

"Yes, but what brought her, in the middle of the night, down to the gatehouse just minutes after her husband was murdered?"

"She heard something. The barking dog, remember?"

"She'd have sent one of the staff."

Padgett said, smiling broadly, "You can't have it both ways."

"But I can. The only vehicle that had driven down the tithe barn lane was yours. Whether you heard that dog barking and came in to investigate, or something else caught your eye, you found Quarles dead, and it was your need to make him a laughingstock that gave you the idea of putting him up in the cage. You drove him there, a piece of cloth or chamois around his head, and because you knew where the apparatus was and how it worked, you could strap him in very quickly. A stranger would have had to learn how the buckles and braces worked. Then you went in to Cambury, alerted your men, sent for me, and waited until I got there to remove Quarles, so that someone else was in charge of the inquiry. You've already admitted that much. But it explains why we never found tracks to indicate who else had been there in the lane and driven or dragged Quarles to the barn."

"You can't prove it," Padgett said, his face grim. "Whatever you suspect, you can't prove it."

"That's true. Because you've had time to remove any bloodstains from your motorcar and burn that rag. That's why you left your motorcar with Constable Jenkins, because your evidence was in the boot."

"I did no such thing-"

"But you did. The tracks were yours, and only yours, until your constables got there. And then the doctor came after I arrived. I shall have to tell the Chief Constable, Padgett. You tampered with the scene of a crime, with the intent to confound the police. And you did just that."

"I'll deny it."

"I think you will. But he's had other reports against you. This will probably be the last straw."

"I'm a policeman. I had a right to be in that lane. I had the right to decide if this murder was beyond the abilities of my men."

"And you spent most of your time trying to derail my investigation."

"I was no wiser than you when it came to finding out who killed Quarles."

"Didn't it occur to you that the killer might still be somewhere there, out of sight? Or that Quarles might still have been alive- barely-when you got to him? Why didn't you shout for help or blow your horn? But that's easier to explain. You hadn't seen Penrith's motorcar as it left, so you must have believed that someone from Hal- lowfields had murdered Quarles. It was safer to let him die and bring down Mrs. Quarles with him."

"I did nothing of the sort-O'Neil himself said the second blow was fatal, that there was no help for it. He was unconscious and dying as soon as it was struck." Padgett's voice was intent, his gaze never leaving Rutledge's face.

"You couldn't have known that at the time, could you?"

Padgett swore. "You've been after my head since I was rude to Mrs. Quarles on our first visit. Well, she's a piece of work, I can tell you that, and neither wanted nor needed our sympathy."

"It was you who let slip to someone the fact that Quarles had been trussed up like the Christmas angel. It didn't serve your purpose to keep that quiet. The sooner he became a subject of ridicule, the happier you were."

"You can't prove any of this."

"You also saw to it that I suspected Michael Brunswick, because you believed him guilty of his wife's death. It was you, manipulating the truth behind the scenes, just as Evering had done. And because you were a policeman, your word was trusted."

Rutledge stood up, preparing to leave.

"Where are you going?"

"To the Chief Constable. It's my duty, Padgett. What you did was unconscionable."

Padgett shouted after him as he went down the passage, "You were a damned poor choice for Scotland Yard to send me. Talking to yourself when no one is looking. I'll bring you down with me, see if I don't."

His voice followed Rutledge out the door and to his motorcar.

"A poor enemy," Hamish warned him.

"He'd have killed Quarles himself, if he'd dared. I rather think what he did do gave him even more pleasure than he realized in the fe- verishness of the moment. Quarles has become a nine-day's wonder."

Rutledge drove to Miss O'Hara's house and knocked at the door. It was Betty Richards who answered and led him to the parlor. "I didn't go to the funeral," she told him, before announcing him. "I wasn't asked. But it's just as well. I never wanted to see that village again. I made a bad marriage to escape it. We went into service together, and that was worse. He drank himself to death, finally, leaving me not a penny, and when I was turned out, it was Harold who rescued me and brought me to Hallowfields, though I wasn't to tell a living soul I was his sister. I paid for my freedom, and now I have money of my own. I still have nowhere to turn. I don't know how to live, except at someone else's beck and call."

"You must find a home of your own, and learn to be your own mistress."

"Yes, I must, mustn't I?" she said doubtfully, then announced him to Miss O'Hara.

"You keep turning up, like a bad penny. What's this visit in aid of now? "

"Tidying away loose ends."

"That doesn't sound to me like an invitation to dinner."

Rutledge smiled. "Another time. I have other calls I must make. I hear Mrs. Quarles has made restitution."

"Yes, that was the oddest thing. I was never so shocked as I was when I found her at my door. It's Betty who worries me. I told her I would keep her on here, until she can decide what she wants to do with herself. But she's been so browbeaten all her life, she doesn't seem to have tuppence worth of backbone. It's really quite sad. I shall miss you, Ian, when you've gone back to London. Perhaps I can arrange a murder or two to bring you here again."

"Yes, do that." He said good-bye and left, while Hamish rumbled in the back of his head, telling him to be careful.

After calling on the Chief Constable at his house in Bath, Rutledge turned back toward London.

He had some explaining to do when he got there. Chief Superintendent Bowles was not pleased about his absence.

"Why couldn't this inquiry have been wrapped up sooner?"

"Because there was misinformation from the start. And there were people to whom it was advantageous to muddy the waters."

"This man Padgett. What possessed him? A policeman!"

"Pride."

"And what about Evering. What are we to do with him?"