He hadn't asked how Quarles had been killed.
Rutledge hesitated, nearly pulled into The Unicorn's yard to make a telephone call to London. And instead he gunned the motor and drove through the village without stopping.
Hamish called him a fool. 'It's no' what's wise.'
'I couldn't think straight Monday morning. I didn't have any reason then to question him further. It wasn't until I'd left London that I realized he showed no curiosity about his partner's death. If they worked together for nearly twenty years, there would have been some interest in the man's demise. Even if they disliked each other after the breakup of the partnership.'
'Excuses,' Hamish grumbled, and settled into a morose monologue for the rest of the journey.
It was late when Rutledge reached the city. Nevertheless, he went straight to Penrith's house.
The footman who answered the door at this late hour was dubious about disturbing Penrith.
'He's entertaining a guest,' he informed Rutledge, 'and told me he'd ring when the guest was leaving. He didn't want to be disturbed, meanwhile.'
'Yes, I understand. But this is police business, and it comes first.'
The young footman stood there uncertainly for a moment, then replied, 'I'll go and ask.'
He came back five minutes later. 'Can this wait until tomorrow?'
'It cannot.'
The footman went away again, and when he returned, he led Rut- ledge into a small room at the back of the house that appeared from the way it was decorated to belong to Penrith's wife. The furnishings were feminine, painted white and gold, the chairs delicate, and the hangings at the windows trimmed with tassels.
Penrith was standing there, a frown on his face, when Rutledge walked through the door.
'I hope you've come to tell me that you've caught Harold's murderer.'
'In fact, I haven't,' Rutledge said easily. 'I've come with questions I should have asked you on Monday.'
'This is not the time-'
'I'm afraid your business with your guest will have to wait.'
It was interesting, Rutledge thought, watching the man, to see that a stern front made him back down. If the partnership was to have succeeded for many years, it would have been Quarles who was the dominant force. Penrith couldn't have controlled the other man.
Hamish said, 'But ye didna' know him alive.'
Rutledge nearly answered aloud but caught himself in time. To Penrith he said, 'This may take some time. I suggest we sit down.'
Penrith sat at the small French desk, and as Rutledge took the armchair across from him, Penrith said, 'I don't care for your tone.'
'For that I apologize. But the fact is, time is passing and I need to confirm several pieces of information before I can move forward.'
At this Penrith seemed to relax a little, marginally but noticeably. As if he was more comfortable with a simple request for information.
'In the first place, why did you and the victim sever your business ties?'
'I've told you. I wished to spend more time with my family. I'm not a greedy man, I've made enough money to live comfortably for the rest of my life. Why spend every hour of my day grubbing for more?'
'Surely you could have stayed within the partnership and simply cut back on your appointments. In fact, you appear to have one this evening.'
Penrith picked up the pen by his wife's engagement book. 'You didn't know Harold Quarles. There was no such thing as half measures for him.'
'Did your decision to leave have anything to do with the Cumber- line debacle?'
The pen snapped in Penrith's fingers.
'Where did you hear of Cumberline?'
'I saw the box in the victim's study. And there is some talk in Cam- bury about his 'rusticating' there. I put two and two together. Something went wrong, and you left the firm.'
'I didn't intend to defraud anyone, if that's your insinuation.' As an afterthought he added, 'And I don't think Quarles did, either.'
'But he made no attempt to prevent a handful of people from investing in a foolhardy scheme that was bound to fall through.'
'Some people think they know best. There's nothing you can do to educate them or protect them. Some of those who made a great deal of money during the war were hot to double it. I found that distasteful. But I didn't try to trick them.'
'Did you have your own money in Cumberline?'
'A little-' He broke off. 'Why am I being questioned like this?'
'Because your partner is dead and there's no one else I can ask. Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that you disagreed with Quarles's methods in dealing with Cumberline, and in order not to be tarred by that brush, you decided the time had come to leave James, Quarles and Penrith.'
He didn't need to hear confirmation of his question. It was written in Penrith's face.
'And I'd like to suggest to you that you haven't always seen eye to eye with your partner.'
'Here,' Penrith said, leaning forward, 'you aren't suggesting that I killed the man!'
'I'm trying to get to the bottom of Harold Quarles. If his own partner didn't care to be associated with him any longer, and if his wife has made her own arrangements to deal with the problems in her marriage, I want to know more about the man and who else might have hated him.'
'I didn't hate him-'
'I think it more likely that you feared him.'
Penrith got to his feet. 'I won't hear any more of this.'
'We are speaking of Quarles, not of you. If you feared him, why didn't his wife?'
That caught Penrith off guard. 'I-don't know whether she feared him or not.'
'It seems that a few years into their marriage, she learned something about him, what sort of man he was, that caused her to separate from him legally. Not just a move to another part of the house, but terms drawn up by their solicitors. Just as you did financially.'
There was worry in Penrith's eyes now that he couldn't conceal.
'I don't know what their relationship was-or why. She stopped coming to London, and they stopped entertaining. And Quarles became a different man, in some ways. He never spoke of his wife to me after that. I told myself it might be because of Archer…' He stopped. 'Does she tell you she feared him? That he might have made her come to regret her decision?'
There was intensity in the question that Penrith couldn't keep out of his voice.
'Whatever it was that came between them, she appears to feel a deep and abiding emotion of some sort. I think, if you want the truth, that she acted to protect her son.'
Light seemed to dawn behind Penrith's eyes. 'Yes,' he said slowly. 'I begin to see what you are saying.'
'Then what was it that turned Maybelle Quarles against her husband?'
Penrith sat down heavily. 'I don't know what it was.'
'But you must have some suspicion. It wasn't only Cumberline that turned you away from the firm the two of you had built together. The immediate cause, perhaps, but not the long-standing one.'
That hit its mark, but Penrith said nothing.
'What is there in Harold Quarles's background that could have brought someone to Cambury to kill him?'
'Considering the reputation he had for being overbearing and dictatorial in the village, I should think you would find enough suspects there to satisfy any police inquiry,' he retorted.
'The more I question the villagers, the more I hear one thing: whatever their grievances, people tell me that Harold Quarles wasn't worth hanging for.'
Hamish said, 'He didna' mention the women… It was you.'
But then, not living in Cambury, he might not know, Rutledge answered silently.
When Penrith made no reply, Rutledge said, 'You never asked me how he died.'
Surprised, Penrith said, 'Didn't I? Of course I did.'
'He was struck in the head with one of the white stones that ring the iron table in the Home Farm's
