repressed.
'I can't give you any more information at present,' he added to forestall questions.
'It would help if you could think of anyone who might wish your master harm.' Padgett, speaking for the first time, kept his voice level, without emphasis.
'Mrs. Newell,' the footman offered, to an accompanying ripple of nervous laughter. 'She was cook here before Mrs. Blount. She was always quarrelling with him over the cost of food, and the proper way to prepare it. In the end he sacked her after a mighty row.'
Padgett caught Rutledge's eye, I told you so, in his expression. Nothing of substance… A wild-goose chase.
Rutledge thanked the staff and nodded to Mrs. Downing to dismiss them, then as Betty was about to follow the others from the room, he spoke quietly to her and asked her to stay.
Mrs. Downing pursed her lips in annoyance, as if in her view he was wasting his time and the staff's. But she made no move to leave.
'How long have you been with Mr. Quarles?'
Betty hesitated. 'He brought me here at the start of the war.'
'And you keep his rooms for him?'
'Yes, sir. I do.'
'Did you also keep the gatehouse cottage tidy?'
'When it was asked of me. I was to have that cottage when I retire.'
'Do you know if he chose to use that cottage himself?'
'It wasn't my business to ask, was it? He paid me well for my silence.'
'Will you tell me where he went to dine last evening? Even if he asked you to keep his confidence, the situation is different now. You see, we must trace his movements from the time he left the house until he returned.' Rutledge watched her face as he asked the question.
'I don't know. I asked if he wanted me to lay out his evening clothes, and he said he wasn't changing for dinner, he wasn't in the mood.'
'Did any of his business associates come to visit at Hallowfields?'
'He seldom had guests,' Mrs. Downing answered for her. 'He was often invited elsewhere, but if he entertained it was in London. I don't remember the last real dinner I've served. He doesn't even invite Rector to dine.'
Something a squire did with regularity. It was interesting that Quarles hadn't cared to exercise this particular duty. Or perhaps he was embarrassed to ask the rector to sit at table with his wife's cousin?
Rutledge thanked Betty and let her go. Then he said to Mrs. Downing, 'Do you know Betty's background? Who employed her before she came to Hallowfields?'
'She was hired in London. I didn't interview her myself. She's a hard worker, though she mainly keeps to herself. We've had no trouble with her.'
'We'd like to look at Mr. Quarles's rooms now, if you please.'
As she led the two policemen through the passage door into the foyer, she said, 'I'm not sure his solicitor would approve of this. It doesn't seem right to me that you should go through his things. I can't think why Mrs. Quarles allowed it.'
'Is the solicitor a local man?' Rutledge asked.
'He's in London. Mrs. Quarles can give you his direction.'
Rutledge handed her the keys. Mrs. Downing unlocked the door and stepped aside, as if taking no part in this desecration of a dead man's privacy.
The first of the suite of rooms had been converted into a study, as they'd been told, with a door through to a sitting room, and beyond that, the master bedroom.
The suite was handsomely decorated, and Padgett looked around him with patent interest.
The desk, a large mahogany affair, held mainly writing paper, pens, stamps, a map of the estate, and a folder of household accounts and another of farm business, none of it of interest to the police, and nothing personal, nothing indicative of the man.
There were several paintings on the walls, mostly landscapes. Rut- ledge wondered if they were Quarles's taste or if they had come with the house when he purchased the estate. The furnishings of the room were mid- Victorian and well polished. Betty's work, at a guess. If she cared for his rooms and his possessions, and kept any of his secrets, it was small wonder she'd taken his death personally.
Between the windows-which faced the front of the house-were shelves on which stood gray boxes of business papers, each with a white card identifying the contents. Duplicates of the papers Quarles had kept in London, or were these documents he didn't wish to leave there? Confidential reports, perhaps, for his eyes only. Was that why no one else cleaned these rooms? Betty appeared to be honest, without curiosity, a plain woman grateful for her position and not likely to jeopardize it by risking her employer's wrath. It was even possible that she couldn't read.
The perfect safeguard.
Rutledge ran a finger along the line of cards. He recognized one or two of the names on the outside. Portfolios, then. One box bore the single word CUMBERLINE.
They moved on to the sitting room, where there was little of interest-chairs in front of the hearth, more Italian landscapes, a table for tea, and another against the wall. The only personal touch was a blue and white porcelain stand holding a collection of walking sticks with ornate handles of ivory or brass or carved wood. Lifting one of them, Rutledge admired the ivory elephant set into the handle, the trunk providing a delicate grip. The workmanship was quite good, as was the silver figure of a sleeping fox capping another stick.
Padgett had moved on to the bedroom, and Rutledge followed him.
The armoire and chests yielded only the sort of belongings that were usual for a country house: walking clothes, boots, hats, two London suits with a Bond Street tailor's label, and evening dress. Several books on a table by the bed had to do with business law and practices.
One of them was a leather-bound treatise on Africa, touting the wealth and opportunities that would open up when the war ended. Thumbing through it, Rutledge could see that the florid prose offered very little substance. Railroads, mining operations, river navigation, and ports were discussed at great length, along with large farms for the cultivation of coffee and other crops, suggesting that what Rhodes had accomplished in South Africa was possible in other parts of the continent.
Padgett, looking out the window across from Quarles's bed, said, 'I can't see the gatehouse or the end of the drive or the tithe barn for the trees in between.'
Rutledge came to join him. 'You're right. Once Quarles reached that bend of the drive where the trees begin, he'd be out of sight. He might have met a dozen people at the gates, or entertained half of Parliament in the cottage, and no one would be the wiser. By the same token, if someone was waiting for him there, friend for dinner or killer in hiding, Quarles himself would have had no warning.'
'Did you ask at The Unicorn if he'd dined there?'
'He hadn't. Hunter, the manager, saw him coming alone out of Minton Street around ten-thirty. But he doesn't know where Quarles went from there-toward home or toward another destination.'
'You can't be sure Hunter isn't lying. They had a falling-out, he and Quarles. And it almost cost Hunter his position. Quarles was hellbent on seeing him dismissed. It was Mr. Greer, who was dining there that night, who later smoothed the matter over.' He added, 'Didn't think to tell you this morning.'
'Hunter didn't know that Quarles was dead.'
'Or he didn't let on that he knew.' Padgett took a deep breath. 'But that's neither here nor there.' He turned to survey the bedroom and the sitting room beyond. 'If there are guilty secrets hidden in this wing, I don't know where to find them.'
Rutledge agreed with him. But it was beginning to look like Quarles had no secrets to hide, personal or professional. None at least that might explain murder here in Somerset.
For that matter, if the man had been wise and clever, he'd kept no record of any misdeeds, so that they couldn't be discovered while he was alive or found after his death. An interesting thought…
The heavy dark woods and brocades of the master bedroom were almost melancholy, as if Quarles had spent very little time here, and even when he was in residence, he gathered nothing around him that might characterize
