“He had time to clear away any evidence he’d left behind.”
At that moment the door opened, and they turned as one man to see who was coming in.
Constable Daniels had returned, this time with a thin man wearing gold-rimmed spectacles. He appeared to have thrown his clothes on in some haste, and his hair hadn’t been properly combed. Rutledge put his age at early forties.
“The doctor,” one of the constables said under his breath.
“What’s this about, Padgett? Daniels wouldn’t tell me.” O’Neil came briskly toward them, his gaze on the men staring back at him.
Padgett, almost reflexively, glanced upward, and O’Neil’s eyes followed his.
“Good God!” he said in horror. “You aren’t—that’s Quarles!”
He stood there for a long moment, as if unable to take in what he was seeing. “What the hell is he doing up there?” His gaze swung toward Padgett. “Is he dead? He must be dead!”
“To the best of our knowledge, he is. I didn’t care to move him until you got here.” Padgett crossed the flagstone floor to shake the man’s hand, then presented Rutledge.
“Dr. O’Neil. Inspector Rutledge from London.”
O’Neil looked Rutledge up and down. “Has he been up there that long? For you to be sent for? I should have been called sooner.”
“I was in Dunster, attending a wedding, and word reached me quickly. We think he must have been killed earlier tonight. Last night.
But that’s your province.”
“Indeed.” His attention turned back to the dead man. “Who in God’s name strung him up like that? He couldn’t have done that to himself, could he? And how are we to get him down?”
Padgett nodded to Daniels, who was standing behind the doctor, his jaw fallen in shock. It was the first time he’d been allowed inside the barn. “Constable, you’ve used this apparatus. Let him down.”
Daniels, startled, said, “Me? Sir?”
“Yes, yes, man, get on with it. You’ve done it often enough for the pageant.”
Daniels reluctantly went toward the shadowed west end of the barn and fumbled at something on the wall. As he did, the man above their heads swayed, his hands moving, as if he still lived, and the lamplight picked out the whites of his open eyes as he seemed to stare balefully at his tormentors.
7
Inspector Padgett sucked in his breath and took a long step back.
Dr. O’Neil swore sharply, adding, “Have a care, man!”
The apparatus creaked as Daniels put his weight into it, and a feather, dislodged from one of the wings, drifted down from above, turning and spinning, holding all their eyes as it wafted slowly among them, as if choosing, and then coming to rest finally at Rutledge’s feet.
The other men turned toward him, as if somehow he had been marked by it.
A shock swept through Rutledge, and he couldn’t look away from the white feather. He prayed his face showed nothing of what he felt.
During the war, the women of Britain had handed out white feathers to anyone they felt should have joined the armed forces, challeng-ing the man to do his duty or be branded a coward. It had got out of hand, this white feather business, to the point that the government had issued special uniforms for the discharged wounded, to spare them the mortification of explaining publicly why they were not now fit for active duty.
Every man there knew that story. And Rutledge could feel a slow flush rise in his cheeks, as if the feather had been earned, though in another time or place, by the charge of shell shock. That they recognized him, even without evidence, for what the world believed he was.
Padgett broke the spell, cursing Daniels under his breath. He started forward to help his constable and then thought better of it.
“Horton.”
Constable Horton hurried forward, his face tight, and in short order the two men got the apparatus under control. Bracing themselves against the dead man’s weight, they began gently to lower Quarles into the circle of lamplight.
Rutledge saw, watching them now, that a single man could have manipulated the rope under less stressful circumstances. But Daniels, fearful of dropping Quarles, had found it impossible to work the rope smoothly.
Hamish said, “Ma’ granny wouldna’ care to see this,” in a tone of voice that reflected his own feelings. “Witchcraft, she’d ha’ called it.”
It was as if Quarles flew down, landing easily first on his toes, the taut rope almost invisible against the darkness of the ceiling, the wings moving gently, as if of their own volition. And the watchers could at last see the other side of the body. The back of Quarles’s head was matted with dark blood, staining the pale red of his hair Attempting to tie off the rope, the two constables accidentally lifted the body again, and it seemed to the onlookers to have life in it still.
There was a brief hesitation, as if no one was eager to step closer.
Then O’Neil said tersely, “Get him out of that wretched thing.”
Releasing Quarles from the brace that had held him in the air was difficult. With a living person it would have been different, but the dead weight was awkward. And after that, detaching him from the wings hooked into the cage and the cloth at his shoulders and meant to appear from below as if they belonged where they were fastened, growing out of the man’s own back, took several people. Rigor mortis hadn’t set in, that much was apparent, as O’Neil quietly pointed out as they worked.
When at last Quarles slumped to the flagstone floor of the barn and the harness and cage had been dragged away, the doctor beckoned for the lamps to be brought nearer and knelt to begin his examination.
As O’Neil ran his hands over the body, a frown between his eyes, Rutledge got his first good look at the victim.
Quarles had pale red hair, a freckled complexion, and surprisingly regular features, although one eyebrow had a quizzical twist to it. A vigorous body, with a barrel chest and long legs. Rutledge judged him to be five feet ten inches tall, and put his age at either the late thirties or early forties. Without the force of his personality, he seemed oddly vulnerable, but the strong jaw and chin spoke of a man who knew what he wanted from life.
O’Neil was saying, “Nothing broken, as far as I can judge. No signs of a wound, other than what we can see on the back of his head. And that was the cause of death, if I’m not mistaken.” He moved his fingers through the blood-soaked hair and then wiped them on his handkerchief. “There are several blows here. Lacerations on the scalp in two areas. I’ll know more later, but someone wanted to make sure the first blow had done the job. And judging from the blood you can see in his hair, it hadn’t. The aim was better the second time, because poor Quarles was semiconscious and not resisting.”
“But both were struck from behind?” Rutledge asked. He had been studying the dead man’s hands. They were badly scarred.
The skin was still tight and shiny in places, though the worst of the injury had faded with time.
Hamish said, “Aye, we’ve seen burns before. But look you, they’re no’ on his face.”
Dr. O’Neil was regarding Rutledge, his expression puzzled.
He realized that the doctor hadn’t taken his point. He clarified his question. “That is to say, do the blows indicate whether Quarles had turned away from someone he was talking with? Or was it a surprise attack, something he didn’t see coming?”
“That’s your task to work out, not mine. All I can say is that he might have been turning away. The first laceration is a little behind and to the right of the second. Or at the last minute he could have heard someone coming up behind him and started to turn to confront whoever it was. I can’t tell you what was used to kill him. Or where he was killed. Unless there’s blood on the floor that I haven’t seen in this light?”