apparatus, wouldn't he? That smacks of someone local.'
Jason Hurley frowned at his son's comments. 'To be honest with you, I can't conceive of anyone. No one in London, certainly. He was respected here.'
Rutledge asked, 'If he was-unhappy-about his wife's situation, how did Mr. Quarles react to what he might have viewed as his partner's defection? Was there retaliation?'
'Even when he and Davis Penrith dissolved their partnership, it appeared to be amicable. Although I couldn't help but think that Mr. Penrith would have been better off financially if he'd continued in the firm. Not that he hasn't done well on his own, you understand, but the firm is an old one and has been quite profitable over the years. It would have been to his advantage to stay on.'
'I understand from Mr. Penrith that he wished to spend more time with his family than the partnership allowed.'
'Ah, that would explain it, of course. Mr. Quarles was most certainly a man who relished his work and devoted himself to it. I sometimes wondered if that had initiated the rift with his wife. His clients loved him for his eye to detail, but it required hours of personal attention.'
'Was there anyone else who might have crossed Mr. Quarles? Who later might have felt that there were reprisals?'
Both father and son were shocked. They insisted that with the exception of his matrimonial troubles, Mr. Quarles had never exhibited a vengeful nature.
'And marriage,' Laurence Hurley added, 'has its own pitfalls. I daresay he could accept the breakup, perhaps in the hope that it would heal in time. When Mr. Archer joined the household, hope vanished. Mr. Quarles wouldn't be the first man to suffer jealousy and look for comfort where he could.'
Hamish said, 'Ye ken, he's speaking of his ain marriage…'
There was nothing more the senior Mr. Hurley could add. Quarles had left no letters to be opened after his death, and no other bequests that, in Hurley's terms, 'could raise eyebrows.'
'Except of course the large bequest to a servant, one Betty Richards,' Laurence Hurley reminded his father.
'Indeed. Mr. Quarles himself explained that she had been faithful and deserved to be financially secure when he was dead. I haven't met her, but I understand there was no personal reason for his thoughtful- ness, except the fact that she was already in her forties and as time passed would find it hard to seek other service. He was often a kind man.'
'In the will is there any mention of the gatehouse at Hallowfields?'
Hurley frowned. 'The gatehouse? No. There's no provision for that. I would assume that it remains with the house and grounds. Were you under the impression that someone was to inherit it?'
Hamish said, 'He's thinking of yon man in the wheelchair.'
Archer…
'The gatehouse came up in a conversation, and I wondered if it held any specific importance to Mr. Quarles.'
Laurence Hurley said, 'None that we are aware of.'
'What do you know of Mr. Quarles's background?'
'He came from the north, coal country, I'm told. He arrived in London intending to better himself, and because of his persistence and his abilities, rose to prominence in financial circles. He made no claim to being other than what he was, a plain Yorkshireman who was lucky enough to have had a fine sponsor, Mr. James, the senior partner of the firm when Quarles was taken on.'
Which meant, Hamish suddenly commented in a lull in Rutledge's headache, Hurley knew little more than anyone else.
'How did he burn his hands so badly?' 'It happened when he was a young man. There was a fire, and he tried to rescue a child. I believe he brought her out alive, though burned as well.'
'In London?'
'No, it happened just before he decided to leave the north.'
'Is there any family to notify?'
'Sadly, no. His brothers died of black lung, and his mother of a broken heart, he said. It was what kept him out of the mines-her wish that he do more with his life than follow his brothers. He said she was his inspiration, and his salvation. Apparently they were quite close. He spoke sometimes of their poverty and her struggle to free him from what she called the family curse. It was she who saw to it that he received an education, and she sold her wedding ring to provide him with the money to travel to London. He was always sad that she died before he'd saved enough to find and buy back her ring.'
It was quite Dickensian. The question was, how much of the story was true? Enough certainly for a man like Hurley to believe it. The old lawyer was not one easily taken in. Or else Quarles had been a very fine spinner of tales…
Rutledge left soon after. The morning sun was so bright it sent a stab of pain through his head, but he had done what he'd come to London to do, and there was nothing for it but to return to Somerset as soon as possible.
Hamish was set against it, but Rutledge shrugged off his objections. He stopped briefly to eat something at a small tea shop in Kensington, then sped west.
It was just after he crossed into Somerset, as the throbbing in his head changed to an intermittent dull ache, that he realized Davis Pen- rith had not asked him how Harold Quarles had died.
12
As Rutledge came into Cambury, he pulled to one side of the High Street to allow a van to complete a turn. The sign on its side read CLARK AND SONS, MILLERS, and it had just made a delivery to the bakery. A man in a white apron was already walking back into the shop after seeing it off. Welsh dark and heavyset, he reached into the shop window as he closed the green door, removing a tray of buns.
Was he the Jones whose daughter had been sent to Cardiff after receiving Harold Quarles's attentions?
Very likely. And to judge from the width and power of his shoulders, he could have managed the device in the tithe barn with ease.
Rutledge went on to the hotel, leaving his motorcar in the yard behind The Unicorn, then walked back to the baker's shop. A liver and white spaniel was sitting patiently outside the door, his stump of a tail wagging happily as Rutledge spoke to him.
Jones was behind the counter, talking to an elderly woman as he wrapped her purchase in white paper. His manner was effusive, and he smiled at a small witticism about her dog and its taste for Jones's wares. Watching her out the door, he sighed, then turned to Rutledge.
'What might I do for you, sir?'
Rutledge introduced himself, and Jones nodded.
'You're here about Mr. Quarles, not for aniseed cake,' he replied dryly. 'Well, if you're thinking I'm delighted to hear he's dead, you're right.' At Rutledge's expression of surprise, Jones added, 'Oh, yes, word arrived with the milk early this morning. Bertie, the dairyman, had heard it at the Home Farm. Great ones for gossip, the staff at the Home Farm. Tell Bertie anything, and he's better than a town crier for spreading rumors. But this time it isn't rumor, is it?'
'No. And you'll understand that I need to know where you were on Saturday evening. Let's say between ten o'clock and two in the morning.'
Jones smiled. 'In the bosom of my family. But I didn't kill him, you know. There was a time when I'd have done it gladly, save for the hanging. I've a wife and six children depending on me for their comfort, and even Harold Quarles dead at my hands wasn't worth dying myself. But I say more power to whoever it was. It was time his ways caught up with him.'
'I understand he paid more attention to your daughter than was proper.'
Jones's laughter boomed around the empty shop, but it wasn't amused laughter. 'You might call it 'more
