The Confession

by Charles Todd

  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?”

  “I’ll close up,” she said, her gaze once more on the river, as if she saw the past there.

  “I should ask. What’s left in the house that’s worth stealing?”

  This time the smile was amused. “Don’t you trust me?”

  “Still—” He left it unfinished.

  “Anything of value is gone. Pictures on the wall. Jewelry. Silver in the pantry. Stored somewhere in London, I expect. I wouldn’t make my fortune selling what’s left. But it’s lovely and familiar, and I’d want to keep what’s here if I could.”

  “Whatever happened to the locket that Mrs. Russell wore every day of her life?”

  She was very still, her eyes on his. “If they ever find her—or her body—it will be there. I don’t know that I ever saw her without it.”

  He nodded and walked down the broad steps from the terrace to the lawns, making his way around the house to the drive without looking back.

  He had let her believe he was a family solicitor. She hadn’t realized that he was a policeman. He was of half a mind to go back and correct that impression. But then he decided that this wasn’t the time to put her on her guard.

  If she had nothing to hide, then no harm done.

  Chapter 7

  Hamish, who had only spoken once after Miss Farraday had stepped out onto the terrace, was busy now in the back of Rutledge’s mind as instead of taking the main road to London, he drove along the headwaters of the River Hawking, searching for any spot where a launch could be rented. There were only three tiny villages along this narrower section of the road, mainly inhabited by families who made their living from the water, and while there were any number of boats drawn up along the shoreline, they were mainly skiffs, rowing boats, and other small craft, hardly resembling a launch that someone like Cynthia Farraday could manage. He persisted, but everywhere he was met with a shake of the head.

  Nothing to hire here.

  He was ready to concede that she’d lied to him when he followed a rutted lane through high grass and saw his quarry actually stepping out of a sleek launch, greeting a tall man in a white shirt and trousers.

  Realizing that this was a private landing stage used by sportsmen—the half-dozen boats here were a far cry from the rough craft he’d seen until now—he pulled up and waited.

  It was clear that the man knew Miss Farraday well, for they were laughing about something as he helped her secure the launch and then gestured toward the newly built shed to the left of the landing stage. On the far side of that he could see the bonnets of two motorcars, the late afternoon sun reflecting off the gleaming paint.

  He hadn’t been spotted, he was sure of that, and when the opportunity presented itself as Miss Farraday followed the man inside the shed, shutting the door, he reversed until he’d reached the main road, such as it was, and considered his situation.

  He could hardly approach the man after Miss Farraday had gone, and ask who had borrowed the launch for the afternoon. Whoever he was, he would undoubtedly report Scotland Yard’s interest in her as soon as he saw her again.

  But it was just possible that if one of the motorcars was hers, he could follow it back to the city through the evening traffic.

  There had been a tumbledown barn some distance back the way he’d come, and Rutledge decided it would offer some semblance of shelter. He thought it likely that Miss Farraday hadn’t seen his motorcar outside the gates of River’s Edge because it wasn’t visible from the house. And he was fairly sure she hadn’t followed him as far as the gates to make certain he’d left. There was no reason then that she would immediately recognize it, even if he stayed behind her for miles.

  He found the barn with no difficulty and was able to drag one of the doors open wide enough to back his motorcar inside, pulling it nearly shut in front of the bonnet. And he stood there in the narrow opening, keeping watch.

  The rank smell behind him was a mixture of damp, rotted manure, musty hay, mildewed floorboards, and bird droppings. Smothering a sneeze, he listened to Hamish’s voice echoing through the rafters as a startled dove flapped away through a gaping hole in the roof.

  He understood what Hamish was saying, that following Cynthia Farraday’s motorcar was unlikely to work, that the Yard could find her more readily. But could it? And once lost, the opportunity might not arise again.

  It was nearly half an hour before two motorcars came down the road. In the first one he glimpsed Cynthia Farraday’s profile, strands of light brown hair whipping around her face. And in the second, he could make out the white shirt of the man who had greeted her at the landing.

  He gave them a five-minute head start before going after them. They had already made the turning toward London by the time he reached it, and he had to drive faster than the rough road allowed before he sighted both motorcars in the distance.

  It was not easy t
o keep up with the two of them as traffic increased on the road and an overladen lorry pulled out in front of him. At his next sighting, the man was ahead. He thought they were playing tag, one and then the other taking the lead, which kept them occupied but made it more difficult to follow them.

  Hamish said, “It was a foolish notion.” His voice was gloating.

  But Rutledge was patient, overtaking another lorry as soon as he could. On his left, the River Thames flowed in golden glory as the sun moved lower in the western sky. Ahead he could just begin to see the tower of St. Paul’s when the man, with a short blare of his horn, turned off toward the north.

  The motorcar driven by Cynthia Farraday continued through the dingy outskirts of London, where industry belched black smoke above their heads. And then she was threading her way through even dingier streets, where barrows and handcarts were a danger to motorcars and themselves. As he watched she narrowly missed a barrow boy who had ignored the warning tap of her horn. He shouted imprecations in her direction, fist raised, then turned to glare at Rutledge as he passed.

  He nearly lost her in the swirl of traffic around St. Paul’s but then caught up with her again by guessing which direction she might have taken. Finally they were in a maze of streets in the West End, where it was easier to keep her in sight and harder to hide himself behind other vehicles. Houses here were handsome, taller, and grouped around small fenced squares. It was a part of the city Rutledge knew well from his days as a constable with the Metropolitan Police, new to the force and eager to prove himself.

  Cynthia Farraday turned left from the main road, and he recognized the square. Belvedere Place, with its tiny rectangular garden surrounded by tall white houses with dark mansard roofs. Spring bulbs had long since given way to perennials in full summer bloom. It was a fashionable address.

  He paused some thirty yards from the entrance to the square, waited five minutes, and then drove slowly past Belvedere Place, searching for the Farraday motorcar.

  And he saw it, stopped in front of a house at the far end of the square. Number 17, he thought as he kept going.