He looked up as Rutledge came through the door, then dropped his head again, saying, 'What is it you want? Can't you leave me alone?'
'I'm worried about you,' Rutledge said easily. 'I think there's something on your mind that you can't let go. Is it the fact that Quarles is out of reach now, and there's no one else to hate? Except yourself?'
His words must have struck a chord. Stephenson lifted his head again, his eyes showing alarm. 'What have you found out? What do you know? '
'Very little. You mourn for your son. You hated Harold Quarles. There has to be a link somewhere. And if you hate yourself, it was because you feel you let your son down in some way, when he needed you most.'
Stephenson began to cry in spite of himself. 'Yes, yes, I should have put him on the first ship out of England, and let him go somewhere-anywhere-safe. But I didn't. He was so young, and I wanted to keep him with me. He was so like his mother, so gentle and sweet- natured. I couldn't let him go-and so I killed him.'
Alarmed, Rutledge said, 'When?'
'Damn you, not literally. I'd never have laid a finger on him.'
'Then how is Quarles involved? I'm tired of playing solve the riddle.'
Stephenson, burdened by his shame, buried his face in his hands again, unable to look anyone in the eye.
Rutledge, considering what Stephenson had just told him, asked, 'Was your son called up in the draft and afraid to go to war?' It was hazarding a guess, but he was surprised at the reaction.
Stephenson rose to his feet to defend his son, gathering himself together to shout Rutledge down. He could see it coming.
And so he added, 'Or was the coward you?'
Stephenson gasped, his features changing from pure blazing anger to such self-loathing that Rutledge had to look away.
But he thought Stephenson was lying when he said, 'Yes, it was I. I couldn't bear to see him brutalized by the army, shoved into the battle lines, told to kill or be killed. I couldn't live with that.'
It was the boy who'd been afraid, who had wanted to take ship. And the father who was determined to keep him in England. The boy, not the man.
'What could you do about it?'
'I went to the only person I could think of important enough to help me. I went to Harold Quarles-I'd grown up in Cambury, my mother was still living here-and I begged him to find a way to get my son out of the army. I told Quarles what would happen if I let him go, and I promised him anything, that I would do anything he asked, however difficult it was, if he would go to the Army and tell them not to send Tommy across to France.'
'And what did Harold Quarles promise you?'
Stephenson's face twisted in grief. 'He wouldn't even hear me out. He refused to help. I tried to tell him that they have all sorts of units. Quartermaster, signals, radio, enlistments-none of them having to do with actual fighting-and I told him Tommy could do those. He was cold, unyielding, and told me that he would not speak to the Army for me or anyone else. And so Tommy went to be trained as a soldier, and he was shipped to France, and on his first day at the Front, he waited until the trench had emptied and bent over his rife and pulled the trigger. The letter from his commanding officer called him a coward and said that he had disgraced the company. All I could think of was that he was dead, and that surely there had been some way for a man as powerful and well thought of as Harold Quarles to stop him from going abroad.'
He was silent in his grief now, and that was all the more telling as he stared into a past he couldn't change. Rutledge rested a hand on his shoulder.
'I wanted to kill his commanding officer, then I realized those were only words, they didn't matter. It was Quarles who was to blame, and I wanted to make him suffer as I had done. I came here to haunt him, I wanted him to think about Tommy every time he passed the shop or saw me on the street, and remember his own child. I made a point to find out when he was returning to Cambury, and I put myself in his way as often as I could. And when I had wrought up my determination, I was going to kill him. But like my son, I couldn't find the courage to do anything. Like my son, I couldn't bring myself to kill, and yet I wanted it as I'd never wanted anything before or since, save to keep Tommy alive.'
Stephenson saw himself as failing Tommy twice, Rutledge realized. In not saving him in the first place and then in not being able to avenge him in the second. And as long as Harold Quarles was alive, the opportunity to kill him still existed. Once Quarles was dead, it was too late for vengeance. And so the bookseller had punished himself by putting that rope around his neck. It wasn't so much a fear of the police that had driven him; it was the knowledge that when he was questioned, his shame would be exposed to the whole world. Tommy the coward, son of a coward.
But the story was out now.
As if Stephenson realized that, he lay back on his cot, his arm over his face, and his face to the wall.
Rutledge said, 'Thank you for telling me. Whatever you feel about Harold Quarles, the fact remains that we must find out who killed him. It's a question ofjustice. As for his failure to help you and your failure to help your son, there are times when no one can help and a man's life has to take its course. Tommy wasn't the only one in that battle who was afraid. Most of us in the trenches were terrified. It would have been unnatural not to be.'
Stephenson said, 'He was the only one who didn't go over the top that morning. He was the only one who used his weapon against himself rather than the enemy. He let all the world see his fear and judge him for it. I think of that often, how awful his last hours-minutes- must have been, with no one to tell him he was loved and must live. I wasn't there, I wasn't there.'
The final failure, in the father's eyes.
'Nor was God,' Rutledge said, and sat with the grieving man for another quarter of an hour, until he was calmer.
16
Rutledge went back to the O'Hara cottage and tapped lightly on the door. He had the distinct feeling that every window overlooking where he stood was filled with people waiting to see how he was received.
Miss O'Hara answered his knock, her finger to her lips. 'She's asleep. I can only hope her mother is resting as well. What are we to do? Have you spoken to her father?'
'Not yet.' He followed her into the pretty room he had hardly had time to notice that morning. There were comfortable needlepoint cushions everywhere, a row of small framed photographs on the mantel, and surprisingly, a pair of revolvers mounted on a polished board. As he glanced at them, she said, 'My father's.'
There was defiance in the words, as if Rutledge might think she had no right to them.
Certainly they were incongruous in this very feminine setting, but he had no intention of rattling her pride.
She offered him tea, but he declined, adding, 'You've been up most of the night, I think. Sit down. We'll have to work this out between us. The rest of the family, Gwyneth included, will be too emotional to choose what's best.'
'What is best?' she countered.
Rutledge took a deep breath. 'I don't believe Gwyneth could have killed the man. I don't think her mother, much as she hated what Quarles had done to her family, would have carried the murder to such extremes-'
'Yes,' she interrupted with a little shiver. 'I've heard the tale of the Christmas angel. It's barbaric. Mrs. Jones might well have killed him, but not that. I agree.'
'Which leaves us with Gwyneth's father, and whether or not he knew about the letter from her grandmother.'
'Does it really matter? The child's complained to him enough. He might have decided to bring her home the only way he could.'
'Coincidence?' Rutledge shook his head. 'I don't know. It will not be easy talking to him. But I don't think Mrs. Jones will be able to cope when he comes home this evening. It will spill out somehow- a child asking why Mummy cried all day, a neighbor wanting to know why she was here in your house at such an ungodly hour-and she will
