by Charles Todd
“He got hurt bringing his boat back in a storm. Gear shifted and pinned his foot. It turned septic. They wanted to take his foot off and he wouldn’t hear of it. Stubborn old fool. Now there’s gangrene, and it’s only a matter of time before it takes him. You should see his leg-nearly black it’s that purple, and so swollen it doesn’t look like part of his body.” Gesturing with his chin toward the envelope Rutledge had dropped on the bar, he added, “What happened to Ben, then? You said he came out of the river.”
“Someone shot him in the back of the head. Before putting him in the river.”
There was consternation in the room. The other men, listening, stirred restlessly.
The barkeep shook his head. “Well. They’ll meet on the other side, won’t they?” he said after a moment.
“What’s Willet to you, that you would have stopped me any way you could?”
“My wife Abigail is his only daughter. Who’d want to kill Ben? We never heard of him making enemies. He could put on airs with the best of them, but no one minded.”
“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
When 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 h
is 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.
