The Confession (8 page)

“Fishing is a hard way to make a living. Furnham didn't hold it against Ben Willet that he'd escaped to a different life? Possibly a better one?”

“Ned wasn't happy.” Barber frowned. “If anyone else felt strongly, I never heard of it.”

The older man who had been sitting alone, eating, spoke from the far end of the room. “When he came back on his last leave before sailing to France, showing off his uniform, everyone was glad to see him. I remember. My daughter fancied him. But nothing came of it.”

“You said he could put on airs. What did you mean by that?”

“He'd hobnobbed with his betters, hadn't he? He could pass himself off as a duke, he said, if he'd half a mind to do it. He had Abigail in tears one night, she laughed so hard, describing the family he worked for, taking all the parts. It was better than a stage play.” As if realizing he was speaking of the dead, Barber added, “Aye, that was Ben.”

Rutledge recalled the man who had come to his office, passing himself off as another person, a gentleman. He had done it so well that he'd even fooled an inspector at Scotland Yard. But then he, Rutledge, had had no reason to doubt him. It was unlikely that such a man would come forward to confess to a murder he hadn't committed.

Or had he?

Pulling out the photograph again, Rutledge said, “And you are absolutely certain that this man is Ben Willet?”

“Ask them,” the barkeep said, gesturing to the other men in the bar.

And so he did, showing the photograph to each of the three men in turn. He met hard eyes staring up at him, but in them Rutledge read recognition and certainty.

Walking back to the center of the room, Rutledge said, “And what about Wyatt Russell? How many of you know him?”

There was a silence. One of the players finally answered, “Not to say
know
him. He lived at River's Edge before the war.”

“How well did Ben Willet know him?”

“I doubt they ever spoke to each other more than a time or two,” Barber said. “The Russells wanted no part of us here in Furnham. The family never has.” He appeared to be on the point of adding more, then thought better of it.

“I was told the men of Furnham helped the family search for Mrs. Russell when she went missing.”

“That was the police set us to scouring the marsh,” one of the older men answered. “It wasn't the Russells.”

“Justin Fowler, then.”

One of the older men stirred in his chair, but when Rutledge turned his way, he said only, “I've heard the name. I doubt I could put a face to it.”

“He never had much to do with Furnham either,” Barber told Rutledge. “From River's Edge it was easier to go west than turn east. There was nothing here the family needed or wanted.”

“Someone sold them fish from time to time,” Rutledge said, remembering what Nancy Brothers had told him.

“Ned would take part of his catch to the cook. Mrs. Broadley. And she was the one who paid for it. I doubt he saw Mrs. Russell five times over the years.”

“She did come once to thank him,” the lone diner put in. “I'll say that for her.”

“Do any of you know what became of Wyatt Russell or Justin Fowler?”

After a moment Barber said, “They went off to fight in the war, didn't they? No one opened the house again afterward. Which says they didn't come home.”

But Rutledge wasn't sure he was telling the truth. When he turned to look at the other men in the pub, they refused to meet his eyes, staring out at the river at their backs.

He said, “I'd like to speak to Mrs. Barber. She should know more about her brother's years here in Furnham, before he went into service. Where will I find her?”

“Here! You aren't showing that dead man's face to my wife, and him her own brother!” Barber was on his feet. “And how is she to keep the news from her father? I ask you!”

“I'll strike a bargain with you. Find a way for me to speak to Mrs. Barber and I will keep her brother's death out of it. For now.”

The barkeep considered him. “I have your word?”

“You do.”

Barber turned on his patrons. “I'm leaving. If one word of what happened just now goes beyond this room, you'll have me to answer to. Am I understood?”

There were hasty nods of agreement, and then Barber said to Rutledge, “Come with me.”

From The Rowing Boat they went left, and Rutledge soon found himself in a muddy lane that led north from the High Street past a row of elderly cottages. The one at the far end was barely larger than its neighbors, and here Barber turned up the walk.

“You'll remember your word,” Barber demanded before reaching out to lift the latch and swing the door wide. Rutledge nodded.

The front room was surprisingly comfortable. The furnishings were old but well polished and upholstered in a faded dark red. A thin carpet with arabesques in deep shades of blue, red, and cream covered the floor. It seemed out of place here, somehow, but gave the room an air of worn elegance, and Rutledge wondered if it had come from River's Edge. Sunlight spilled across it to touch the iron foot of a plant stand where the fronds of a luxuriant fern overhung a dark blue fired clay pot. To Rutledge's eyes, it appeared to be French.

Barber left Rutledge standing there and went to fetch his wife.

After several minutes he returned accompanied by a small, plump woman with a pretty face, although she was pale and there were dark pockets beneath her green eyes, as if she hadn't slept well in a very long time.

“Mr. Rutledge, I've told Abigail that you're trying to find anyone connected with the family that lived at River's Edge.”

“I hardly knew them,” she said apologetically. “I don't know why you should wish to see me.”

“I'm casting at straws,” he told her, smiling, and she appeared to relax a little. “Did you know the family? Mr. Russell or his mother?”

“I knew them if I saw them in the shops, 'course I did. But not to speak to. They didn't come into Furnham all that often.”

“How would you describe them?” he asked. And when she hesitated, he added, “There's no photograph, as far as I know, of the family members.”

“Oh. Not even in River's Edge?” Shyly offering him a seat, she asked, “What is this about, then?”

From behind her shoulder, Sandy Barber sent him a fierce frown.

“Alas, the house is closed.” He fell back on his recollection of his father's methods of dealing with clients. John Rutledge had been a very fine solicitor, and his easy manner had belied his sharp mind. “A legal matter,” he told her. “To do with a certain piece of personal property that has been recovered. We don't seem to know where to return the item.”

Reassured, she said, “Well, then. Mr. Russell was tall and fair. A friendly enough man. He'd touch his hat to us if he encountered my mother and me on the street or in a shop, and say ‘Ladies' as he passed by. My mother always said he had good manners. But he wasn't one to stop and ask after the children if one had been ill, or inquire how my father's boat had fared after a high wind. Mrs. Russell, now, she would speak to my mother if she met her in a shop. She knew my father; he sometimes would take a choice bit of fish out to Mrs. Broadley, the cook at River's Edge. ‘That was a fine bit of sole,' Mrs. Russell would say. ‘Thank Ned for thinking of us.' Sad that she disappeared the way she did.”

Rutledge caught Barber's eye. The barkeep had left the impression that the Willet family had had very little to do with the Russell family. “What did local gossip have to say about her disappearance?”

“We thought she'd drowned herself. Well, it was what you'd naturally wonder about, isn't it? Last seen walking down to the water's edge?”

“People don't drown themselves without a reason,” he responded quietly. “Was Mrs. Russell—unhappy?”

“Not precisely unhappy,” Abigail Barber answered, trying to remember. “I do recall my mother saying that she hadn't seemed like herself in a while, as if something was on her mind. But then the war was coming, wasn't it, and there was her son and Mr. Fowler, of an age to go.”

“I understand you had brothers about the age of Mr. Russell. Did they ever spend time together—go off on the river together?”

She laughed, her face flushing a becoming pink. “God love you, Mr. Rutledge, I don't think I'd live long enough to see that day. But Ben had an eye for whatever Mr. Russell was wearing. He longed to be a footman, and someday a gentleman's gentleman. Once or twice he went up to the house with my father, and he'd come back and say, ‘I wonder how he gets that polish on his shoes,' or ‘He must have dressed in a bit of a hurry today. The back of his coat wasn't properly pressed.' He could mimic their voices too. It came natural to him.”

“Did he indeed? Was he hoping to be taken on as a footman in the Russell household?”

“Oh, no, sir, it wasn't at all likely. Ben said he'd be best off where he wasn't known. But what he learned would help him fit in, he said.” She glanced over her shoulder at her husband. “He was a fisherman's son here. He said he could be anybody somewhere else.”

Ben Willet, so it seemed, was ambitious.

“How did your father take this desire to go into service?”

“He had other sons to go out in the boat with him. That was before the war, of course. Tommy and Joseph never came back from France. But Ben was always his favorite, and I think he was sorry not to have him want to go to sea.”

“Did you know Justin Fowler?”

She shook her head. “He was a cousin or some such, wasn't he? But I never saw him, that I know of. He didn't come to Furnham. We put it down to him being more of a snob.”

“Was there bad blood between Russell and Fowler?”

“I wouldn't know, sir.”

He could hear a weak voice calling from another part of the house.

“My father,” she said, rising quickly. “He's not well.”

Rutledge rose as well. “One more question. Did Miss Farraday come to the village on occasion?”

Her face hardened. “Oh, yes, I knew who she was. If you want to know, she had an eye for the lads, and no time for the rest of us.”

“Any particular lad?” he asked.

“I saw her once or twice speaking to Ben. But he told me later she hadn't.”

And then with a hasty excuse, she hurried back to her bedside watch.

Rutledge said, “Thank you. Mrs. Barber was very helpful.”

“Was she?” Barber was urging him toward the door. He lowered his voice. “To my way of thinking you're no closer to knowing about Ben than you were before. I told you it was no use speaking to my wife.”

“No closer to finding his killer, perhaps.”

Barber said, an edge to his voice, “Then what was that all about?”

“Catching you in several lies.”

“What lies?”

But Rutledge gave him no answer. And they walked in uneasy silence back to where he'd left his motorcar.

R
utledge had stayed longer than he'd intended in Essex. He set out for London, and driving out of Furnham, he felt a sense of relief as the village disappeared in his mirror, reduced to a tiny rectangle of glass.

In the war, he'd been blessed with a strong sixth sense, which had kept him alive far more times than he'd deserved. And unexpectedly that had stayed with him as he'd resumed his career.

There was something wrong in Furnham. Not just Ben Willet's killing, but something else that seemed to reside in the very bricks and mortar of the village. Frances had felt it and had been made uneasy by what she'd called the whispering of the grasses. If there was such a thing as a communal conscience, he thought, it was laden with guilt.

Barber had been defending his wife and her family, and that was understandable. But the easy shift from surly to murderous was not common. The club Rutledge had taken from the man could have been lethal, and the back windows of the pub looked out over the river, offering a swift passage to the sea for an unwanted body. The narrow estuary, with few shallows to trap a corpse, was at a guess not a quarter of a mile away, the current running strong.

What was appalling was Barber's certainty that his patrons would hold their tongues if he'd killed the interloper in the pub.

Hamish said, “If someone there killed yon victim, ye willna' ever ferret him oot.”

And Rutledge believed him.

Whatever had knit that village together so tightly, Ben Willet had escaped it. And Rutledge found it hard to believe that he'd been punished for it so many years later. What then had he done in the past few months that had put him beyond the pale?

But what to make of the fact that the body in Gravesend was not Russell's?

What to make of Ben Willet's passing himself off as another man while confessing to murder?

Was that what had put Willet beyond the pale? Had his conscience driven him to bring a murder to the attention of Scotland Yard in the only way he'd dared?

The next step, then, was to find Major Wyatt Russell and see what he had to say.

Chapter 6

W
hen the gates of River's Edge loomed ahead, the pineapples atop the posts promising a hospitality that was far in the past, late as he was, Rutledge stopped the motorcar and got out.

He had come earlier with a different perspective. The house had belonged to a confessed murderer. Or so he'd been led to believe. And for all he knew—given the reluctance of the man passing himself off as Wyatt Russell to give any details of his crime—the body could still be somewhere here.

With his sister present, he'd been content to look at the house and grounds, noting the marshes across the river and on either side of the acres of once smooth lawn on which the house had been set. And it had seemed all too likely that the house had remained closed because the memories it evoked were disagreeable.

Now as he walked down the long, brush-choked drive and made his way around to the riverfront, he had a clearer picture in his mind of the people who once had lived in this house.

Standing on the terrace, he gazed out over water dancing in the sunlight with an almost macabre gaiety. On a warm August day when the clouds of war were gathering on the horizon and threatening her son, as another war had taken her husband, Mrs. Russell had gone down these shallow steps and walked to the river's edge.

Had worry for her son really taken her there? And had that worry been strong enough to drive the woman to suicide?

Nevertheless, she'd vanished. The police had been satisfied. Still, it was possible that they had heard what they wanted to hear. And when there was no evidence to the contrary, it was easier to accept the unlikely.

Nor had her son questioned the verdict or appealed to the Chief Constable for Scotland Yard to intervene.

It would be easier to accept a confession by the false Wyatt Russell that he had killed his mother, not Justin Fowler.

That brought up another issue. Would Elizabeth Russell have killed herself and left behind the three children that she had once thanked God for giving her?

There seemed to be no good reason to suspect murder.

Unless, of course, Wyatt Russell had learned almost a year later that Fowler had killed his mother and hidden her body.

If that was the case, how did Ben Willet come to have Mrs. Russell's locket?

Standing there watching the river moving silently toward the North Sea, he found himself wondering why, when Mrs. Russell had disappeared, the family had sent for the police in Tilbury, more than an hour away. And it had been Tilbury who had asked for the help of the villagers, not Wyatt Russell.

On both occasions when he'd been in Furnham, Rutledge had seen neither a police constable walking along the street nor a police station. He himself hadn't sought out the local man because he was still in the early stages of the inquiry and Willet's murder had occurred in London, not River's Edge. But there must be a constable in the village. Surely—

A woman's angry voice cut into his reverie, and Hamish was warning him to beware.

“What the devil do you think you're doing? This is private property!” She came striding through the French doors at his back, and he knew her as soon as he turned, although the expression of the living face was very different from the one in the locket he had carried with him to Furnham.

“Miss Farraday, I think?” he asked pleasantly and watched her go as still as if she had been carved from marble.

“Who are you?” Her voice was guarded, cold.

“My name is Rutledge,” he told her. “And I may ask you the same question. What are you doing here? This property, as far as I know, was not left to you by the previous owner.”

It was a shot in the dark, but it struck a spark.

“Are you Wyatt's solicitor?” she snapped.

“At the moment I'm representing him,” Rutledge replied.

She was very attractive, with more spirit than he'd expected from her photograph. She had also changed in other ways. There was a maturity about her that wasn't present six years ago. The girl had grown into a very self-assured young woman.

“I'm looking to buy the property. Is it for sale?” she asked. “Is that why you're here?”

“Even in its present sad condition, I doubt that you could afford to buy it and then keep it up.”

An angry flush flared in her cheeks. “I have come into my inheritance,” she retorted. “You can speak to my own solicitors if you don't believe me.”

“How did you arrive here? I didn't see a motorcar or a carriage in the drive.”

“I came by boat.”

But he hadn't seen a boat by the landing stage either.

“It's a launch, I rented it upriver. It's tied up out of sight.” She read the doubt in his face. “There's another place where a boat can tie up.”

“The tradesman's entrance?”

To his surprise she laughed. “Yes, as a matter of fact. The Russell who built River's Edge didn't wish to see viands and coal and other goods carried across his hard-won lawn. The path leads directly to the kitchen. What do you do, come here once a fortnight to see that all is well? I noticed, when last I came, that someone had walked up the drive. The grasses were bent over, and even broken here and there.”

“How often do you come?”

“When the spirit moves me,” she countered.

“How did you get into the house?”

“When I left, no one thought to ask me for my key.”

“When did you leave?”

“Before the war,” she answered evasively.

“Why did you leave?”

She pondered that, her eyes taking on the expression of someone staring into the long and unforgiving past. “A very good question. I expect it was because I felt it was the right thing to do.”

“Indeed?”

“It's a lovely day. Would you care to bring out two chairs? We could sit here and enjoy the afternoon. Sadly there's no one to bring us our tea. Never mind. And I must warn you I promised to have the launch back no later than five o'clock.”

He did as she asked, walking into the house for the first time.

The room behind the French doors was spacious, with a marble hearth set across from the long windows. The high ceiling was decorated with plaster roses and swags of floral garlands, while trellises of lemon and peach roses climbed the wallpaper. Several chairs and settees, what he could see of them beneath the shrouding dust sheets, were covered in pale green and soft yellows. The effect was tranquil, an indoor garden, created for a woman's pleasure.

He found two chairs that would do, removed the sheets covering them, and carried them out to the terrace.

Cynthia Farraday was standing where he'd left her, staring out over the river.

She turned as he set a chair down near her, with a clear view across the lawns to the water, and she smiled, sitting down and stretching her booted feet out in front of her.

“Heaven,” she said as he took the other chair. “I have always loved this terrace. Aunt Elizabeth—Mrs. Russell—used the garden room more than any other, and I could understand why. The two go together, don't you think? I spent many happy hours there.”

“When did you arrive here today?” he asked.

“I came just after noon. In fact, I've missed my luncheon. I didn't think to bring any sandwiches with me.”

“How long did you intend to stay?”

“Not this long. But then I didn't have the courage to bring out a chair. It felt somehow—wrong—to disturb the furniture. As if it were all sleeping.”

“Did you live here as a child? What do you remember most about it?”

“You're very inquisitive for a solicitor. But since you were gallant enough to bring out our chairs, I'll answer that. I remember being happy, for the most part. Of course in the beginning I missed my parents terribly. Wyatt did his best to amuse me, out of kindness, knowing how I grieved. And not very long afterward, another cousin—Wyatt's, not mine—came here to live, and the three of us passed an agreeable few years together. And then we all grew up, and it was vastly different.” Her voice had taken on a sad note.

“What happened to them?”

“You're the solicitor. You tell me.”

“Justin never came home from the war. And Russell married but lost his wife and his child at the same time. He was a widower. And he still loved you.” That last was a guess, based on what Nancy Brothers had told him, but it clearly found its mark.

Cynthia Farraday stirred uneasily. “You know too much. Have you been prying?”

“Hardly. Just fleshing out the facts. How did you get on with Mrs. Russell?”

“She liked me at first. I was a lost child, in need of mothering, and she treated me like a daughter. I was fond of her, and it was comforting to have a home again. I'd been so frightened when my parents died, and everything changed. They wouldn't let me stay in the London house where I felt safe and everything was familiar. They told me it was for the best to go to strangers.”

“They?”

“My father's solicitors. Very officious old men—well, I thought them old at the time—who kept telling me it was what my parents would have wished. But I was just as certain they'd have wished nothing of the sort.”

“You said earlier, ‘for the most part'?”

“At first the three of us, Wyatt and Justin and I, did everything together. It helped me heal, I think, and I expected it would always be that way. But we grew up, as children tend to do, and Wyatt thought he'd fallen in love with me. Sadly, I wasn't in love with him. Aunt Elizabeth encouraged him. At least so I thought. I was too young at the time to realize that she might truly have liked to keep me in the family. I believed she was pushing us together for his sake, and I'd have none of it. I wasn't a very pleasant child, I expect.”

“It's logical, isn't it? She knew you well, you stood to inherit from your parents when you came of age, which meant you were Russell's equal socially and financially, and you were already friends. I should think she was pleased to see River's Edge in good hands for another generation. Her son could have made a worse choice.”

She took a deep breath. “In fact, he did. The woman he married was hardly what any of us would have chosen as the future mistress here. She hated the marshes, for one thing. Justin told me that when Wyatt brought her down to see River's Edge, she refused to spend the night. Even though her sister was with her. And she felt it was silly to keep a country house, servants and the like, when they could live in London.”

“Then why did Russell marry her?”

“I don't really know. Unless he didn't much care anymore. He wanted an heir, I expect. And she was enthralled with the idea of a military wedding, uniforms and raised swords and a husband going off to fight for King and Country. She told me that it was just too exciting for words. I told Wyatt he could have scoured England and not found anyone quite so selfish.”

“That was rather unkind, don't you think?”

She shrugged. “I told him the truth. That his mother would have been appalled. That was the day before he was to be married, and I haven't seen him since.”

“Then why should you wish to buy River's Edge?”

“Because it stands empty. I can't bear that. I could live here. There are no ghosts here for me.”

But that wasn't what she had told the rector.

“What do you believe happened to Mrs. Russell?”

“I don't know. At the time I thought it was my fault, that I'd disappointed her and she wanted to punish me. I was too young to understand that it probably had nothing to do with me, or Wyatt falling in love with me, or Justin being angry with him for spoiling everything for all three of us. I heard him tell Wyatt that he hated him. But of course he didn't. Not really. I remember telling someone that I'd wished I had been a boy, and then none of this would have ever happened. ”

“Someone? Who did you confide in?”

“That's none of your business,” she snapped, as if already regretting she'd given so much away.

“Was it by any chance someone from Furnham by the name of Ben Willet?” As he spoke, he was watching her eyes, and he thought that once again he'd found his mark.

But she shook her head. And evaded his question. “I didn't know Furnham very well. A few of the shops, where I could purchase things without having to go all the way to London. Or having them sent out to River's Edge without the pleasure of choosing what I liked.”

“Ben Willet went on to become a footman in Thetford. Did you know?”

“Did he? Was he happy there, do you think?”

He smiled inwardly at her answer.
But Willet knew you, my girl, and wore your photograph until the day he died. The question is, how did he come by that locket?

They sat there in silence for a time as Rutledge considered what she had told him so far. Certainly encountering her here had saved searching London for her. But it had brought him no closer to the truth about what had happened to Ben Willet or, for that matter, Wyatt Russell.

“Do you think it will be possible for me to buy River's Edge?” she asked, looking him straight in the eye. “You must know I'll see to the property. I won't let him down.”

“I have no idea how Mr. Russell will feel about that.”

“But you will ask?”

“I think it would probably come better from you.”

She smiled, but it was twisted, as if the admission hurt her. “There you're wrong.”

He rose. She would have to leave soon, and he was overdue in London. “And if he feels that he might wish to sell? How will he find you?”

“Tell him I'll find him.”

“He might prefer to contact you himself.”

“My life is my own. If he wishes to find me, tell him to speak to my solicitors.”

Hamish said into the ensuing silence, “There's the man who let her take the launch.”

“Shall I return the chairs to the house? Or do you wish to sit here a little longer?”