Charles Todd - A matter of Justice

It had come full circle, what this man had set in motion with a few lies. Now he was dead, and Betty Richards with him. She would be buried beside the brother who never acknowledged her. And if Mrs. Quarles read the brief account in a newspaper of a drowning in Cornwall, she might guess why…

There were no more Everings. The cycle would end here, in this house overlooking the sea.

But there was Padgett still to be dealt with.

"Ye can no mair take him in than ye could this one," Hamish told Rutledge. "Their hands are bloody, but ye canna' prove it."

"He sent that poor woman here to confront Evering, as surely as if he brought her to the door."

Hamish said, "If she wasna' her brother's blood, she wouldna' ha' come here. She would ha' stayed with yon Irish lass until she was settled in her own mind what to do with hersel'."

The seeds of these murders had been sown in the way Betty Richards had gone to the bakery and done as much damage as possible with her bare hands. And the seeds of her death were sown when in despair she threw herself into the pond at the Home Farm.

"I don't think she was avenging her brother," Rutledge said slowly. "I think it was avenging the life she was most comfortable with, that died with him."

Hamish said grimly, "It's too bad she didna' include yon inspector in her vengeance."

The Scots, who for centuries had raised blood feuds to a fine art, were not as shocked by them as the more civilized English.

"He'll bring himself down. He won't need a Betty Richards for that."

Back in London, Rutledge went to see Davis Penrith in prison, where he was awaiting trial. Fighting against the sense of the walls closing in on him, Rutledge told the man what had become of Evering.

"I can't say I'm heartbroken," Penrith told him. "The law couldn't touch him. And I'm to hang because of him."

"Hardly that. You needn't have acted on his information."

"Yes," he said bitterly. "It always comes down to that, doesn't it? A choice. The fact is, no one ever chooses well in the throes of jealousy and anger."

"Why did Quarles burn Lieutenant Evering alive? It's the one piece of the puzzle I've not uncovered."

"I won't burden my wife and children with that. I didn't kill the man. I just didn't report what I suspected. I gave Quarles the benefit of the doubt. I wasn't even there when it was done. I didn't see his hands until months later, when they were healing. Whatever it was that drove him, he paid for it in pain and suffering. Let there be an end to it." In spite of his denials, he looked away, as if ashamed.

"Something happened on that train."

"And whatever it was died with the men on it. Now Quarles is gone. I will be soon."

It was all that Penrith could be brought to say.

Leaving the prison, walking out through the gates and into the bright air, Rutledge found himself in a mood that he couldn't shake. Hamish was railing at him, dragging up the war, unrelenting in his fury. It was a symptom of Rutledge's own emotional desolation. His head seemed to be close to bursting with the sound of that soft Scots voice, and memories that rose to the surface unbidden, as clear as if he were in France again, and seeing what he had hoped never to see then or now.

He drove aimlessly for a time, only half aware of what he was doing, until he found himself in Chelsea. In the next street was the house where Meredith Channing lived.

Rutledge went there, got out of the motorcar, and walked to the door.

Standing in front of it, his hand raised to the brass knocker, he thought, I should go and find Frances.

But she would ask too many questions. And the blackness coming down wouldn't wait.

The door opened, and he heard Meredith Channing say, "Why, Ian, what-" She stopped. "Come in. What's wrong? How can I help?"

"Will you drive with me? Anywhere. Kew. Windsor Great Park. Richmond. I don't care. Just-sit there and say nothing. I don't want to be alone just now."

"Let me fetch my coat."

She was gone less than a minute, but he had already decided he'd made a mistake in coming here. He was turning away when she took his arm and said, "I'm here. Shall I drive?"

He couldn't have said afterward where they had gone or for how long. When the black clouds of despair began, very slowly, to recede, Rutledge found he was embarrassed and turned his head to look at the passing scene, wondering what he could say that could possibly explain what he had done in coming to this woman, of all people.

She seemed to sense a difference in the silence that filled the motorcar, and she took the first step for him. "I should very much like a cup of tea."

The panacea for everything the English had to face. Grateful to her, he said, "Yes. Not a bad idea."

It was one of the worst spells he'd had in a very long time. He wasn't sure whether it was the claustrophobia that had surrounded him in Penrith's narrow cell, or the blow on the head when his motorcar had missed the bend in the road. But when did Hamish need an excuse? It was always Rutledge himself who looked for one. Who tried to pretend there had to be a reason for madness.

There was a tearoom in the next village, and they stopped.

Rutledge found he was hungry and ordered a plate of sandwiches as well as their tea.

Taking off her coat and settling it on the third chair at their table, Meredith Channing said, "Elise told me you'd stopped in for one night, on your way to somewhere else in Somerset."

"Yes, they put me up."

"Her father was looking for you. Elise didn't know at the time. He missed you at your hotel."

Rutledge frowned. "When was this?"

"I don't know. Apparently no one answered the telephone, and so there was no opportunity to leave a message."

"I'll make a point of getting in touch."

She changed the subject, talking about the weather, pouring the tea when it came, offering nothing more demanding than quiet conversation, never expecting him to say more than he felt like saying. It was a kindness.

When they left the tearoom, he found the courage to say, "I must apologize for what happened today. Sometimes-" He broke off and shook his head, unable to explain. To her, to anyone.

She smiled. "I'm glad I was there. Would you like to drive now?"

He took the wheel, and in another half hour they were back in Chelsea. He had no memory of how he'd got there earlier. Or how, for that matter, he had negotiated the streets of London without hitting something or someone. It was a frightening thought.

When he had seen her to her door, he looked at his watch and decided he just might catch Caldwell at his office. The war had receded, it would be all right.

Caldwell was preparing to leave for the day when Rutledge was shown in. He said, "You look worn out. Is it another case?"

"I suspect you are a better judge of the answer to that. I understand you tried to reach me in Somerset. Was this to do with the Cumber- line venture?"

"I was curious about this man Evering. I have a few contacts, here and there. It took some time but I found out more than I felt comfortable knowing. I wasn't aware that Evering had a brother, nor that both Penrith and Quarles fought off the Boers in an action where the elder Evering was killed. I had no idea either Penrith or Quarles had been in the army, much less South Africa. It was quite a surprise. I couldn't be sure you'd discovered any of this, that's why I called Somerset. I felt rather foolish after telling you that you could safely ignore this man Evering!"

"I was able to piece together some of the story," Rutledge replied carefully. "Sometimes the past has a long reach. Ronald Evering is dead. He was killed by Harold Quarles's sister, who then took her own life."

"Dear God. I saw that you'd taken up Penrith for Quarles's murder. I would never have expected him to be a killer. It seemed so contrary to his nature. He was always in Quarles's shadow. Ever since the war, apparently."