They left soon after that. Padgett said as they returned to the motorcar, “You could see he was hiding something. I might as well tell you what it is. His wife had a disagreement with Quarles. Over a horse, of all things. But she got the better of him, and that was that.
All the same, with two policemen staring you in the face, it’s hard not to think the worst. The wonder was Quarles didn’t sack Masters. But then he’s one of the best farm managers in the West Country. It would have been cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.”
“Strange,” Rutledge said, “how many people who readily tell us how much Quarles was disliked, stop short at making a guess about who could have killed the man. It’s almost like a conspiracy of silence: you did what I’d have enjoyed doing, and now I’ll thank you by not giving you away.”
Padgett laughed. “You had only to know the man to hate him. But I’ve heard he was highly thought of in London. Imagine that—the nobs taking to him like one of their own. Here there were two problems with Harold Quarles. One was his pursuit of women, the other his belief that most people could be used.”
“Or else,” Hamish said quietly from the rear seat, “he didna’ wish to be treated as one of the villagers.”
Which came back to Quarles’s simple roots.
It was late afternoon when they reached Cambury. Padgett stretched his shoulders and said, “Precious little came of interviewing anyone at Hallowfields. I expect you’ll want to leave for London tonight and try your luck there.”
“What do you know about the church organist? Brunswick.”
“How did you come across him?” Padgett turned to stare at him.
“Is there something you aren’t telling me?”
“I saw him going into the church just before I came to meet you.”
“Ah. He was practicing, I expect. He seems to prefer that to going home. Not that I blame him. His wife is dead. A suicide. She just went out and drowned herself, without a word to anyone.”
“Why did Mrs. Quarles list him among those who hated her husband?”
“Yes, well, probably to throw you off the scent.”
Rutledge stopped the motorcar in front of the police station, but Padgett made no move to step out. “You’d better hear the rest of it,” he said after a moment.
“His wife worked for Mr. Quarles for three months, while he was rusticating here in Somerset. He needed someone who could type letters, keep records. When he went back to London, he gave her an extra month’s wages and let her go. It wasn’t long afterward that she killed herself. Brunswick jumped to the conclusion that something had happened between his wife and Quarles and that she couldn’t live with the knowledge.”
“Had something happened?”
Padgett shrugged. “I expect the only two people who can answer that question are dead. There was no gossip. There’s always gossip where there’s scandal. But you can’t convince Brunswick otherwise. I kept an eye on him at first, thinking he might do something rash.”
“And you didn’t think he might wait until your guard was down and then go after Quarles?”
“He’s not the kind of man who kills in cold blood.”
But Rutledge had seen the look in the organist’s eyes. And heard the passionate music pouring through the empty church.
He let the subject drop, and said instead, “We should speak to the doctor.”
Padgett brought himself back from whatever place his thoughts had wandered. “Oh. Yes, O’Neil. We can leave the motorcar at The Unicorn and walk.”
It was not far to the doctor’s surgery, where James Street crossed the High Street. O’Neil lived in a large stone house set back behind a low wall, a walk dividing two borders of flowers. A pear tree stood by the gate to the back garden, and a stone bench had been set beneath it.
The other wing of the house was the surgery, with a separate entrance along a flagstone path. The two men knocked at the house door, and after several minutes O’Neil himself answered it and took them through to his office.
In a small examining room beyond it, Harold Quarles lay under a sheet. He seemed diminished by death, as if much of what made him the man he was had been pride and a fierce will.
“I’ve examined him, and my earlier conclusion about the blows on the head stand. The first was enough to stun him. The second was deliberate, intended to kill. In my view, whoever did this wasn’t enraged. Angry enough to kill certainly, but there are only two blows, you see. If the killer had been in a fury, he’d have battered the head and the body indiscriminately. You’d have marks on the face and the shoulders and back, even after the man was dead.”
Rutledge asked, “You said the first blow was intended to stun.”
“That’s how it appears. You can see for yourself that he’s a strong man, well able to defend himself. If the purpose of the attack was to kill, it would have been easier to accomplish if Quarles was down. If the murderer had stopped then, Quarles would have survived. Perhaps with a concussion and a devil of a headache, but alive.”
“If he’d stopped, Quarles might have been able to identify him.
Which could mean they were face-to-face, and then Quarles turned his back.”
“What sort of weapon made these wounds?” Rutledge lifted the sheet.
“I couldn’t begin to guess. Not angular, but not all together smooth. Solid, I should think. But not large. The edge of a spanner is too narrow. But that sort of thing.”
“A river stone?” Rutledge gently restored the sheet.
“Possibly. But not exclusively that. An iron ladle? I’m not sure about a croquet ball. The brass head of a firedog? A paperweight, if it was a heavy one and there was enough force behind it. Surely it depends on whether someone came to do murder, or attacked the man on the spur of the moment. I couldn’t find anything in the wound—no bits of grass or rust or fabric to guide us. I’ve given you all I can.”
“Something a woman could wield?” Padgett suggested.
“I can’t rule out a woman,” O’Neil said skeptically. “But how did she manage to carry Quarles to the tithe barn, and then put him into that harness?”
“She had help. Once she’d done the deed, she went for help.” It was Padgett speaking, his back to the room as he looked out the narrow window.
“Possible. But who do you ask to help you do such a thing to a dead man?”
“A good question.”
Rutledge asked, “Is Charles Archer capable of walking?”
O’Neil’s eyebrows flew up. “Archer? Of course not. I’ve been his physician for several years. He can stand for a brief time, he can walk a few steps. But if you’re suggesting that he helped carry Quarles to the tithe barn, you are mad.”
“What if Quarles was put into that invalid’s chair of Archer’s, and pushed?” Padgett interjected.
“I can’t see Archer helping, even so. Of course I can’t rule out the use of his chair.”
“It’s important to eliminate the possibility. We’ve been told that Quarles went out to dine last night. Did he in fact eat his dinner?”
Rutledge asked.
“I haven’t looked to see. Is it important?”
“Probably not. He was seen on the High Street around ten-thirty.
That would indicate he’d spent the evening in Cambury.” He turned to Padgett. “Did Quarles have friends on Minton Street, friends he might have dined with?”
Padgett said, “I’ll have one of my men go door to door tomorrow.
But offhand I can’t think of anyone in particular. He was a queer man, not one to make friends here. Mr. Greer is his equal, that’s to say, financially. You’d think they might have got on together. Instead they were often at loggerheads.”
O’Neil said, “Are you saying it might be one of us? I can’t think of anyone I know who would kill a man and then hang him in that infernal contraption.”