Rutledge got down, and as he closed the door, Archer signaled to his driver.
As the motorcar moved on toward Hallowfields, Rutledge stood on the street, looking after him.
Hamish said, 'Do ye believe him?'
'Time will tell. But he made his point that neither Mrs. Quarles nor her lover had any need to murder her husband. Now the question is, why? To help us-or to hinder the investigation?'
A boy came running up, pink with exertion and hope. 'A message for you, sir.'
Surprised, Rutledge put out his hand for it.
The boy snatched the sheet of paper out of reach. 'Mr. Padgett says you'd give me ten pence for it.'
Rutledge found ten pence and dropped it into the boy's hand. The crumpled sheet was given to him and then the boy was off, racing down the High Street.
The message read:
I'm about to speak to Mrs. Newell. Care to join me?
Rutledge swore, turned on his heel, and went back to the police station, where Padgett was on the point of setting out.
'I'm surprised you got my note. I saw you hobnobbing with Archer when you'd been heading for Mrs. Newell's cottage. Anything interesting come of it? The conversation with Archer, I mean?'
The suggestion was that Rutledge had lied to the local inspector.
'He'd gone to the surgery to offer to identify the body. O'Neil put him off.'
'Now, Dr. O'Neil didn't tell me that. Did Archer ask you to arrange for him to see Quarles?'
They were walking down the High Street. At the next corner, Padgett turned left onto Button Row. It was a narrow street, with houses abutting directly onto it.
'Not at all. I don't think he was eager to do his duty, but he wished to spare Mrs. Quarles. He also wanted me to understand his relationship with Mrs. Quarles.'
'And did you?'
'It's unusual, but clearly acceptable to all parties. That's the point, isn't it?'
'He went to the surgery to protect Mrs. Quarles, if you want my view of it. She could have struck her husband from behind, then finished the job when he was out of his senses. It would be like her not to leave the body there, a simple murder, but to make a fool of him in death.'
'Could she have dealt with that apparatus on her own?'
'Given time to get the job done? Yes. If you let the pulleys work for you, you can lift anyone's weight. That's the whole point of it, to make the angel fly without dropping her on top of the creche scene.' He smiled. 'Though I'd have given much to see that a time or two. Depending on who flew as the angel that year. The question is, would she have had the stomach to touch her husband's corpse as she put him into the harness? If she hated him enough, she might have.'
Hamish said, 'He doesna' like yon dead man and he doesna' like yon widow. Ye must ask him why.'
Until Quarles and his wife came to Cambury, there was no one to make him feel inferior, Rutledge answered silently. They weren't born here, he didn't like looking up to them, and at a guess, both of them expected it.
Hamish grunted, as if unsatisfied.
Rutledge changed the subject. 'How is Stephenson?'
'O'Neil says he'll be in pain for several days. The muscles in his neck got an almighty yank when he kicked the chair away. By the time we reached the surgery, he was complaining something fierce. Dr. O'Neil is keeping him for observation, but I don't think Stephenson will be eager to try his luck a second time. At least not with a rope.'
They were coming up to a small whitewashed cottage in a row of similar cottages. This one was distinguished by the thatch that beetled over the entrance, as if trying to overwhelm it. In the sunny doorway sat a plump woman of late middle age, her fair hair streaked with white. She was making a basket from pollarded river willows, weaving the strands with quick, knowing fingers.
She looked up, squinting against the sun. 'Inspector,' she said in greeting when she recognized Padgett.
'Good afternoon, Mrs. Newell. I see you've nearly finished that one.'
'Aye, it's for Rector. For his marketing.'
'You do fine work,' Rutledge said, looking at the rounds of tightly woven willow.
Behind her in the entry he could see another basket ready for work, this one square, the top edge defined and the tall strands of willow that would be the sides almost sweeping the room's low ceiling. The sleeves of Mrs. Newell's dress, rolled up past the elbows, exposed strong arms, and her large hands, handling the whippy willow as if it were fine embroidery thread, never faltered even when she looked away from them.
'Where do you get your materials?'
'I pay old Neville to bring me bundles when he and his son go to fetch the reeds for their thatching over by Sedgemoor. These he brought me a fortnight ago are some of the best I've seen. My mother made baskets. Lovely ones that the ladies liked for bringing cut flowers in from the gardens. It's how I earn my bread these days. And who might you be, sir? The man from London come to find out who killed poor Mr. Quarles?'
Bertie and his milk run had been busy.
'Yes, my name is Rutledge. I'm an inspector at Scotland Yard.'
She studied him, still squinting, and then nodded. 'I've never seen anyone from Scotland Yard before. But then Mr. Quarles was an important man in London. And he let the staff know it, every chance he got.'
A ginger cat came to the door, rubbing against the frame, eyeing them suspiciously. After a moment, he turned back inside and disappeared.
'Can you think of anyone who might have wished to see Mr. Quar- les dead?' Rutledge went on.
She laughed, a grim laugh with no humor in it. 'He could charm the birds out of the trees,' she said, 'if he was of a mind to. But he had a mean streak in him, and he rubbed a good many people the wrong way when he didn't care about them. Sometimes of a purpose. If you wasn't important enough, or rich enough, or powerful enough, you felt the rough side of his tongue.'
'Rubbed them the wrong way enough to make them want to kill him?'
'You'll have to ask them, won't you?'
Padgett took up the questioning. 'You worked at Hallowfields for a good many years. Was there anyone among the staff or at the Home Farm who had a grievance against Mr. Quarles?'
She glanced up from her work, staring at him shrewdly. 'What you want to know is, could I have killed him? Back then when he let me go, yes, I could have taken my cleaver to him for the things he said about me and about my cooking. The tongue on that man would turn a bishop gray. I'm a good cook, Mr. Rutledge, and didn't deserve to be sacked without a reference. Where was I to find new employment? It was a cruel thing to do, for no reason more than his temper. And I've paid for it. For weeks I thought about what I'd like to do to him, from hanging him from the meat hook to drowning him in the washing-up tub. But I never touched him. I didn't relish hanging for the likes of Harold Quarles.'
'Perhaps someone else in the household believed it was worth the risk. How did they get on with the man?'
'I can't see Mrs. Downing touching him neither, however provoked she is. She's all bluster when it comes to trouble. Besides, she's Mrs. Quarles's creature.'
'Would she kill for her mistress?'
Mrs. Newell shook her head. 'She could hardly bear to see me kill a chicken.'
'What about Mr. Masters at the Home Farm?'
'They had words from time to time, no doubt of it, and I've heard Mr. Masters curse Mr. Quarles something fierce, when he thought no one was in hearing. There's many a house like Hallowfields that would like to hire him away from Mr. Quarles. But he stays, in spite of the wrangling.'
'Why?'
'Because nine days out of the ten, he's on his own, with no one looking over his shoulder. And he can do as he pleases.'
'Mrs. Quarles herself?' Padgett asked next.
'I doubt she would dirty her hands with him.'
'I understand there was no love lost between the two of them,' Rutledge put in.
'But it wasn't murderous, if you follow me. It was a cold hate, that. Not a hot one. I'd put my money,' she said, warming to the theme, 'on Mr. Jones, the baker. Quarles was after his daughter. Such a pretty girl, raven dark
