evidence we could collect or use against him. But there's always something. When we have that, we'll have him.'
Padgett was silent for a moment. Then he said, 'You're the man on the spot. I'll see to Jones. And I'll have a brief chat with Brunswick as well.'
He nodded and walked away. lmost without conscious thought, Rutledge went to the hotel
Rutledge stood looking after him with mixed feelings. yard and got into his motorcar. He hadn't planned to drive out to Hallowfields, but he found himself drawn again to the tithe barn, restless in his own mind, unable to pinpoint what it was that niggled at the corners of this inquiry, why it was he couldn't seem to draw all the edges together and make a whole.
He had watched Mrs. Newell do that with her willow strands, the basket taking shape under her deft fingers, the certainty with which she worked demonstrated by the steadily rising levels on the basket sides, the way the willows, whippy and straight, bent and wove to her fingers, and the simple grace with which it all came together.
Would, he thought, driving down the High Street toward Hallow- fields, that murder inquiries had the same subtle texture and execution.
He left the motorcar by the main gate and walked from there to the gatehouse at the Home Farm, then stood in its little garden, trying to put himself in the darkness of Saturday near midnight, and the confrontation in this place that must have led to murder. After a moment he went across to the one stone that had been slightly dislodged from its neighbors. No blood or hair would have adhered to it. Whoever had used it would have seen to that. But he hefted it in his hand and felt the smooth weight of it, the neatness with which it filled his palm and the size, which allowed him a firm grip.
It was made for murder, he thought, as perfect a weapon as even an ancient warrior could have found, before he learned how to shape a tool for killing.
Hamish said, 'It's whimsy, this.'
Rutledge smiled and put it back in its place beside its neighbors.
He looked up at the gatehouse, across to the tithe barn, no longer guarded by one of Padgett's constables, and then down the lane toward the Home Farm.
Was there nothing here to re-create that scene of murder?
Pacing on the grassy verges of the lane, he tried to shut his mind to someone calling somewhere in the distance and the sound of a tractor rumbling into a barn.
At the end of his next turn, he looked up, following the flight of a bird, and realized that the parkland on this side of the road, part of the estate, had a matching stretch of wood on the far side, perhaps thirty feet deep, and overgrown. Whether or not it belonged to the estate, he didn't know, but seedlings must have escaped from the park over the decades and found fertile soil there, making themselves a poor reflection of their better grown neighbors.
Walking over the road, he stepped into the bushy tangle of wild- flowers and brambles that marked the verge, and went about ten feet into the wood, so that he could look back at Hallowfields from a different perspective.
He realized he had a better view of the Home Farm lane from here than he did from the estate property, and moved another half dozen steps among the trees until he could see both gates-that to the farm, and the drive to the house.
Changing his angle a little, he nearly stumbled over a length of half- rotten wood from a fallen tree.
He turned to look down at it, and what struck him then was how out of place it appeared, even here amidst all the other tangled debris of winter.
Curious, he began to walk in a half circle, and about ten feet away he found the rest of the tree the length had come from. Lichen covered the stump from which the tree had split, and in its fall it had broken into two sections. The longest half was disintegrating where smaller branches lay half covered in last year's leaves. Just where the shortest length should have been was a mossy depression. That section had been lifted out and moved to a better vantage point.
No animal could have done that.
He walked back to the length he'd seen first and measured it, and then looked once more at the empty space where it had been removed from the rotting trunk. Yes, a perfect fit.
This wood wasn't dense. Anyone walking here could easily be seen from the road. But in failing light or in the dark, when there was no movement to attract the eye, no light to pick out shapes or brightness of skin, someone could sit on that short length of trunk and wait, with a perfect view of the entrances to Hallowfields.
How had he come here? By foot? Bicycle? Motorcar? Where would he have hidden a motorcar?
Rutledge left the wood and walked on up the main road, just as a lorry came roaring past, leaving him in a cloud of dust.
The wall of the estate ran on for some distance, but there was a rutted track some fifty or sixty yards away from the gates where a team and farm equipment could pull in and turn around. It was used often enough-the grass was matted and torn, muddy in places, deep grooves in others.
In the distance he spied a small farm, the barn's roof towering over the house, and a team standing in the yard while a man bent over the traces.
Between the track and the farm was plowed land, already a hazy green with its spring crop.
A vehicle sitting here on a Saturday evening would be invisible in the darkness.
Hamish said, 'Yon inspector told ye there were no strangers in the village.'
'Yes. But if someone drove through, without stopping, it would make sense.'
'Aye, but why not afoot? Quarles was on foot.'
'That limits where he came from-and where he could go afterward.'
'Ye're searching for straws. Gie it up.'
'Someone waited there.'
'Sae ye think. But ye canna' say when. And how did he know what was in the tithe barn? '
Rutledge began to walk back to the wood. 'True enough.'
What about the man Nelson? Had he waited here for Quarles? No, Quarles left the Greer house and would have been well home and in his bed before Nelson came this way again. If Greer was telling the truth.
Who argued with Quarles outside the Greer house? Who had known to look for him there? Had the argument not been resolved, and so he had come ahead of Quarles to pursue it again?
Padgett? He admitted to being on this road the same night…
It had been some time since the incident in the dining room of The Unicorn-why should Padgett suddenly attack Quarles? Why now? That was a sticking point.
Was there something that had happened more recently? Tipping the scales, trying a temper that was already on a short leash?
Padgett hadn't been very forthcoming. It could be true.
No one would notice a policeman passing along this road. It was regularly patrolled, because of Hallowfields. It wouldn't be reported that Padgett had come this way-if he hadn't taken over his man's last run, if he hadn't found the body, who would have known he was here waiting?
Rutledge reached the log again and sat down carefully, so as not to ruin his trousers. But this bit of wood was dry, and his feet sank comfortably into a slight depression that appeared to be made for them.
It would be possible to sit here for some time… hours if need be.
Who? And how many weekend evenings had someone waited here, to catch Harold Quarles unawares?
Standing up, he found a few long twigs and set them up around the log, put his coat over them to resemble a man, his hat on the log itself, and went back across the road.
In the daylight, he might well have seen the coat, looking for it. But it didn't strike the eye at once, and if there was no movement, he'd have missed it. Even with the sun out.
Rutledge went back to retrieve his clothing, and cranked the motorcar.
Hamish said, 'What does it prove?'
'Nothing. We still have the problem of the apparatus.'
Coming into Cambury, he was reminded of something Hamish had accused him of earlier, that he hadn't looked into Quarles's past.
And then one name leapt out at him. The partner, Davis Penrith.
