Todd, Charles (11 page)

Rutledge wrote down O'Neil's name at the top of the page. "Let's begin with the household. What do you know about them?"

"Some of them come into Cambury on their day off. Generally they keep themselves to themselves. I daresay that's what's expected of them by the family. There's no butler, just the housekeeper, because they seldom entertain. If you're looking at the household, I'd put Mrs. Quarles at the top of that list."

"What about the townspeople?" When Padgett hesitated, Rutledge added, "The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. The rector. The doctor. The greengrocer."

"Quarles didn't get on with the rector. Rumor says he thought Heller was old-fashioned, out of step with the twentieth century. The living belongs to Hallowfields, and Quarles could replace him at will and bring in someone younger or more to his taste. The doctor he treated like a tradesman. The tradesmen he treated with outright contempt. Mr. Greer, owner of the glove firm, crossed swords with Quarles a time or two. According to Quarles, he was pushing up the cost of labor in Cambury, making it difficult for the local gentry to keep staff. The glove makers work at home, you see. It's not a bad thing for a woman with children or a man who can't do physical labor." Rutledge had stopped taking notes. "The field is wide open, then. Still, it's hard to believe that this sort of bickering led to murder."

"There's Jones, the Welsh baker, if you want more than bickering. His daughter's head was turned by Quarles, and Jones had to send her away to his family in Cardiff. And Mrs. Newell was cook at Hallowfields until Quarles sacked her. Now, there's a woman who could have hauled Quarles into the rafters without any help. Arms like young oaks. Although in my view, she'd prefer a cleaver to a stone, for the murder weapon."

"Mrs. Quarles also mentioned the name Stephenson."

"Stephenson is a collector of rare books. He moved here from Oxford, when his health broke. He was born in Cambury. I never heard what lay between them. Money is my guess. He opened a small bookstore down the street, where his mother had had her millinery shop, and called it Nemesis."

Hamish said, "Ye ken, he didna' bring up the name himsel'." Which was surprising. Would Padgett have mentioned Stephenson at all?

Still, Rutledge was beginning to form a mental picture of Harold Quarles. It appeared that he hadn't made an effort to fit into his surroundings. His own wife disliked him, come to that. Was he a contrary Londoner who irritated everyone he came in contact with, or did he feel that Somerset was too provincial to warrant courtesy? Yet Constable Daniels had claimed that Quarles wanted to be squire.

It could also be a sign of rough beginnings, this ability to rub everyone raw.

"What is Quarles's background? Did he come from money?"

"Lord, no. He worked his way up from scratch. His father went down the Yorkshire mines, but the boy was given a decent education through some charity or other, and rose quickly in the financial world. He'd tell you that himself, proud of his roots and making no bones about his beginnings. From what I gather, it was his honesty on that score that made him popular in London business circles. A diamond in the rough, as they say. If he hadn't managed that, they'd have turned their back on him. You know the nobs, they sometimes like brutal honesty. Makes them feel superior."

"But he must have also had the ability to make money for his clients, or they wouldn't have kept him very long. Rough diamond or not."

"I expect that's true." Padgett stood up with an air of duty done. "I'm asleep on my feet. I'm going home. You'll want at least an hour or two of sleep yourself."

Rutledge put away his notebook. "I'll be back here by twelve o'clock."

"Make that one."

They walked out together, and Padgett turned the other way, with a wave of the hand.

Rutledge could see The Unicorn from where he stood. It was a small hotel graced by a pedimented door and narrow balconies at the windows of the floors above. A drive led to the yard behind. He turned in there and went through the quiet side passage that opened into Reception.

At the large mahogany desk set in one corner, a young man was busy with a sheaf of papers, tallying the figures in the last columns. He put his work aside as he heard Rutledge's footsteps approaching and greeted him with a smile.

"Are you the guest Constable Daniels told us to expect?"

"I am."

The clerk turned the book around for his signature. "We're pleased to have you here, Inspector. The constable mentioned that there'd been a spot of trouble up at Hallowfields."

"Yes," Rutledge answered, signing his name and pocketing the key. The clerk was on the point of asking more questions, but Rutledge cut him short with a pleasant thank-you and turned away, picking up his valise as he crossed to the stairway.

The hotel had probably been a family home at some time, possibly a town house or a dowager house. The curving stairs to one side of Reception were elegant, with beautifully carved balustrades. Giving radiant light from above was an oval skylight set with a stained glass medallion of a unicorn, his head in the lap of a young woman in a blue gown, her long fair hair falling down her back in cascading tendrils. As romantic as any pre-Raphaelite painting, it must have given the house and subsequently the hotel its name.

His room was down the passage on the first floor and overlooked the High Street. Long windows opened into a pair of those narrow balconies Rutledge had noticed from the police station, the sun already warm on the railings. He was pleased to see that he'd been given such large accommodations, with those two double windows, their starched white curtains ruffled by the early morning breeze. He needn't fight claustrophobia as well as Padgett.

Hamish said, "Given to the puir policeman no doot to curry favor with them at Hallowfields?"

"Absolutely," Rutledge returned with a smile. "Which suggests the hotel is where he came to dine last night."

Hamish chuckled. "Aye, ye'll be sharing the scullery maid's quarters when the word is out he's deid and ye're no' likely to drop a good word in his ear about The Unicorn."

It was true—policemen on the premises more often than not were kept out of sight as far as possible, to prevent disturbing hotel guests. Which signified that word of the murder had not preceded Rutledge to the hotel, only the news that Quarles had business with him.

He sighed as he considered the comfortable bed, then set his valise inside the armoire and went down to ask about breakfast.

The dining room was nearly empty.

There was an elderly couple in a corner eating in silence, as if missing their morning newspapers here in the wilds of Somerset. There was a distinct air of having said all that needed to be said to each other over the years and a determination not to be the first to break into speech, even to ask for the salt.

And a balding man of perhaps forty-five sat alone by the window, his head in a book.

Rutledge ate his meal and then asked to speak to The Unicorn's manager. The elderly woman waiting tables inquired bluntly, "Was there anything wrong with your breakfast? If so, you'd do better speaking to the cook than to Mr. Hunter."

"It's to do with last evening."

She raised her brows at that, and without another word disappeared through the door into the lounge.

It was twenty minutes before the manager arrived, freshly shaven and dressed for morning services.

Rutledge introduced himself, and said, "It's a confidential matter."

"About one of our guests?" Hunter was a quiet man with weak eyes, peering at Rutledge as if he couldn't see him clearly. There were scars around them, and Rutledge guessed he'd been gassed in the war. "I hope there's nothing amiss."

"Do you keep a list of those who dine here each evening?"

Hunter said, "Not as such. We have a list of those we're expecting, and which table they prefer. And of course a copy of the accounts paid by each party. The cook keeps a record of orders."

"Were you here last evening?"

"Yes, I was. Saturday evenings are generally busy." He glanced at the elderly couple. "Er—perhaps we should continue this conversation in my office."

Rutledge followed him there. Hunter kept his quarters Spartan. There were accounts on a cabinet beside his desk, ledgers on the shelves behind it, and a half dozen letters on his blotter. Nothing personal decorated the desk's top, the cabinet, or the shelves. The only incongruous piece was the glass figure of a donkey, about three inches high, standing on the square table by the door.

Hunter sat down and reached for a large magnifying glass that he kept in his drawer. With it poised in one hand, he asked, "Who is it you are enquiring about?"

"Harold Quarles."

Hunter put down the glass. "Ah. I can tell you he didn't dine with us last evening." He frowned. "Were you told otherwise?"

"We aren't sure where he took his dinner. The hotel was the most logical place to begin. "

"Yes, certainly. Er, perhaps his wife or staff might be more useful than I?"

"They have no idea where he went when he left the house. Except to dine somewhere close by."

"And you haven't seen Mr. Quarles to ask him?"

"He's not at home at present."

Rutledge got a straight look. "What exactly is it you're asking me, Mr. Rutledge?"

Rutledge smiled. "It's no matter. If he wasn't here, he wasn't here." He rose. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Hunter."

"I saw Mr. Quarles last evening. But not here. Not at the hotel." Rutledge stopped. "At what time?"

"It was close on to ten-thirty. Most of our dinner guests had left, and I stepped outside to take a breath of fresh air. I was looking up the High Street—in the opposite direction from Hallowfields, you see— and I heard raised voices. That's not usual in Cambury, but it
was
a Saturday night, and sometimes the men who frequent The Black Pudding go home in rowdy spirits. I stood there for a moment, in the event there was trouble, but nothing happened. No one else spoke, there was nothing more to disturb the night. As I was about to go inside, I heard footsteps coming briskly from Minton Street, and I saw Harold Quarles turning the corner into the High."

"Minton Street?"

"It's just past us, where you see the stationer's on the corner."

"Where does Minton Street lead?"

"There are mostly houses in that direction."

"No other place to dine, except in a private home?"

"That's right."

"And Mr. Quarles continued to walk past the hotel, as far as you know?"

Hunter said, "I had shut the door before he reached the hotel. I'm not on good terms with the man."

"Indeed?"

"He was drunk and disorderly in the dining room last spring. There was a scene, and I had to ask him to leave. It was embarrassing to me and to the hotel—and should have been to him as well. I haven't spoken to him since."

Padgett had said nothing about Hunter's encounter. He hadn't named the manager at all.

"Yes, I see that it would be uncomfortable. And so you have no way of knowing where Quarles went from Minton Street?"

"None." It was firmly spoken, his eyes holding Rutledge's.

"And he was alone? On foot?"

"Yes, on both counts."

"Do you know if there's anyone on Minton Street who might count Mr. Quarles among their acquaintance?"

"I would have no idea."

Rutledge thanked him and left Hunter sitting in his office, staring at the door.

At least, he thought, it put Quarles alone and on foot in town around half past ten. With perhaps another twenty or at most thirty minutes for his journey homeward. If that was where he was intending to go. Too bad Hunter hadn't seen which direction Quarles had taken.

Rutledge walked out of the hotel to the corner of Minton Street. Looking down it, he could see that the nearer houses were large and well kept, the sort of home that Quarles might have visited. It would be necessary to speak to each household, then, to find out. Or Padgett's men might be able to narrow that down.

There was a lane at the foot of Minton Street running parallel to the High Street, where cottages backed up to the fields beyond, a line of low hills in the distance. It wasn't likely that Quarles had dined in one of the cottages. Or was it? Had he chosen to walk into Cambury, to keep his destination private? Or was he to meet his chauffeur or retrieve the motorcar somewhere else?

Hamish said, "If it was the home of a woman?"

That too was possible.

Rutledge continued walking up the High Street, looking in the windows of closed shops as he passed. There were other small streets crossing the High—Church Street and Button Row, James Street and Sedge Lane.

Beyond Sedge Lane stood the workaday world of the smithy-turned-garage and other untidy businesses that clung to the outskirts of a village struggling to become a small town, supplying the inhabitants whilst keeping themselves out of sight. Just beyond these, where the main road became Cambury's main street, was the cluster of cottages Rutledge had noted in the dark last night.

He turned back the way he'd come, crossing the High Street where a large pub, whitewashed and thatched, stood at the next corner, offering tables in the front garden under small flowering trees. The overhead sign showed a large kettle with steam rising from it, made of wrought iron in a black iron frame. The Black Pudding. It had the air of an old coaching inn and was one of the few buildings in Cambury that wasn't directly on the road, only a narrow pavement for pedestrians separating most of the house walls from the street.