'In your case, possibly not. But this was relevant to my inquiries. What else have you neglected to tell me?'
'Nothing. To the very best of my knowledge, I've spoken only the truth.'
'A truth with holes in it.'
'There are no other holes. I swear to you.'
Hamish said, 'Ye ken, he didna' need to kill the man. Only lie for someone else.'
Padgett?
Was that who had quarreled with the victim on Minton Street after he'd left the Greer house? And had Hunter shut his eyes-or his ears, in this case, and told the police he hadn't recognized the voice of the other person?
Murder was a strange business, as Rutledge had learned from years of meticulous detective work and well- honed intuition. The smallest clue could change a case from the most straightforward appearance of truth to a tangled web of lies. Or vice versa. There could be no small mistakes, no withholding of evidence to spare someone-or to condemn someone.
Had Hunter lied for Padgett?
On the whole, Rutledge thought not. There appeared to be no real connection between the two men. No depth of commitment that would make one protect the other. After all, neither had lost their positions, in spite of Quarles. Padgett had been shamed by his superior and in front of his fellow villagers. And so had Hunter. But in a vastly different sense.
Padgett depended on his standing in Cambury for his authority and influence as a policeman.
Rutledge said, 'If there are any more omissions you'll like to mend, you know where to find me.' And he walked out of the office, leaving Hunter chewing his lip.
From the hotel, Rutledge went to Miss O'Hara's house. Gwyneth was still sleeping, and he told Miss O'Hara about the interview at the bakery.
'Mrs. Jones is afraid he killed Quarles-he's used that apparatus- and he's afraid she has, though he knows she wouldn't have thought of hanging him in the beams of the tithe barn,' he ended.
'But he's going to confess to protect her?'
'He's confused, worried about his wife, worried about his daughter, and in the end, to protect both of them, he's willing to step forward.'
'Is it a smoke screen, though?' she asked, twisting her long slim fingers into knots. 'Is he hoping you'll refuse to hear his confession and leave him in the clear after all?'
'There's that. I've told him to go home and talk to his wife. She may tell him his daughter is here, and she may not. I want you to be prepared.'
'It will be a tearful reunion.' She sighed. 'All right, I'll do my best to keep them from foolishness, if they come here first. But look at this, Mr. Rutledge. He never swore to you that he didn't see that letter. If it were kept in her apron pocket, it could have fallen out. He could have seen it. He wouldn't tell her if he had.'
'True.'
She looked at him thoughtfully. 'You don't want the killer to be one of the Jones family, do you?'
'If the fates are kind…' He smiled.
'Did you think he might be afraid that Gwynnie killed Quarles?'
'She couldn't have put him in that harness.'
'But if she had killed him, her mother, whatever the qualms on her own account, might have gone back to the scene and tried to hide the body. She might have thought of the cage. She might have reasoned that if Quarles could just go missing for a day or two, she could smooth over her family's anguish regarding Gwyneth's whereabouts and make it all come out right.'
'Mrs. Jones might have tried to hide the body, but she'd have been in a great hurry to get back to Gwyneth, for fear she'd do something foolish. The rig would have taken too long. No. I saw her after she'd got the letter, and she was frantic, she didn't know where her daughter was. Besides, the girl reached Cambury after Quarles had been found.'
Miss O'Hara said, 'Yes, that's true. Look, you've got me spinning motives in my head. I don't know what to believe.'
'Do you want me to take the girl away? Is she too much for you?'
'Here she's safe from talk. Let her stay.'
He thanked her and left. He was almost on the point of going on to the Jones house to tell Mrs. Jones how her husband had reacted to the news of his daughter's return but decided against it. Let the man and his wife work out their own problems first, and the girl's next. After that it was more likely that the truth would come out. One way or another.
Padgett. Jones. Brunswick. Stephenson. Mrs. Quarles.
What was it about this case that he couldn't put his finger on? Why didn't he have that instinctive sense of where an inquiry was going?
It all came back to that damned cage. Who knew about it? And why would someone want to put a dead man in it, and leave him to hang among the shadowy beams of a medieval tithe barn?
What was the truth behind not the murder but the hatred that launched it?
17
In the event, Hugh Jones sent for Rutledge almost a quarter of an hour after he'd closed the bakery and come home. Rutledge had spent some time talking to the War Office on the telephone, asking for the military record of one Thomas Stephenson. After several delays as he was sent to one desk after another, Stephen- son's description of his son's death was confirmed. The officer reading it was cold, unsympathetic, and Rutledge wondered if he had ever served in France or merely kept the accounts of those who had and considered himself an expert on trench warfare.
He wasn't ready to confront the tangle of Hugh Jones and his family. But he walked there, and when no one answered his knock, he let himself in.
'I couldn't wait,' Jones said as Rutledge came though the parlor door. 'I shut the bakery early. My wife's not here, there's a neighbor caring for my girls, and nobody knows where Gwynnie is. I asked her sisters. They haven't seen her.'
'She's with Miss O'Hara. I expect your wife has gone there against my advice. Your daughter slept most of the day. This will be the first opportunity her mother has had to speak to her.'
Jones heaved himself from the horsehair sofa. 'Then we'll go to the Irish woman's cottage.'
Rutledge walked a little ahead of him, and when they reached the house, he could hear raised voices inside. Miss O'Hara opened her door, and it was plain that she'd had enough.
Like parents everywhere, Mrs. Jones's fright and worry had dissolved into anger, and as her daughter stood before her, hangdog and crying, she was berating her for causing the family such grief.
Gwyneth looked up to see her father coming into the room, and she stood poised for flight, like a startled animal knowing it was cornered and had nowhere to go. Mrs. Jones, whirling, gasped and fell silent.
Jones stood where he was, taking in the situation at a glance.
'You did a bad thing,' he scolded his daughter. 'You caused us much grief and your mother's tears.' His voice was stern.
'But you wouldn't let me come home. You did nothing,' the girl cried.
'And whose fault is that, and now the man is dead, and we're being looked at by the police. Because you couldn't mind your father or listen to your mother. Girl, you're going to be the death of me'
His voice broke on the last words, and he stood there, his mouth open, nothing coming out, and his face was filled with all the things he wanted to say and couldn't.
Gwyneth turned and ran back through the house, to the room where she'd been sleeping. Her mother, with a swift glance at Jones, started after her. But Rutledge stopped her.
'No. She's better off out of this. Mrs. Jones, I've come to take your husband into custody. I'd promised that he could see his daughter first.'
