The Confession ir-14

by Charles Todd

  “Where did he come from?”

  “He was from Norwich, I believe. You haven’t told me why you are reopening the inquiry into Mrs. Russell’s disappearance. Or why Scotland Yard should take an interest in it.”

  He decided to tell her the truth, about Ben Willet and his visit to the Yard as Wyatt Russell.

  “That’s Ned Willet’s boy, isn’t it? The fisherman. But why should he do such a thing? I can’t believe it.”

  “He was found dead a fortnight later, and he was wearing this.” He handed her the locket.

  After looking at it, she raised her eyes to his. “It’s Mrs. Russell’s. But that’s not the photograph she kept in it.” She was silent, then she said, “He couldn’t have killed her. He was only a boy .”

  “A gold necklace must have been tempting even to a boy, when his family was struggling to keep food on the table.”

  “But he kept it, didn’t he, he didn’t buy bread with it.”

  When Rutledge said nothing, she added, “If he’d killed her, then Mr. Wyatt or Mr. Justin would have killed him, if they discovered it. What I don’t understand is, if it was one of them-Mr. Wyatt or Mr. Justin-why did they leave this locket on his body when they knew how much it meant to her?”

  Hamish spoke for the first time. “Because,” he said, his voice so clear in Rutledge’s mind that it seemed to come from just behind his shoulder, where the young Scot had stood so often during the long watches in the night, “he knew the police would gie it back to him.”

  Chapter 20

  Calling on Mrs. Dunner had been profitable. Rutledge drove to his flat, unpacked his valise, and sat by a window, watching the moths dance futilely around the lamp on the table at his elbow.

  He could feel another storm building, and it suited his mood.

  The housekeeper’s words echoed in his mind.

  What I don’t understand is, if it was one of them-Mr. Wyatt or Mr. Justin-why did they leave this locket on his body when they knew how much it meant to her?

  There was another possibility, that the body had gone into the Thames before the locket could be removed. Someone could have come along just after the killer had emptied the dead man’s pockets, and the only choice was to let the locket go.

  Had Justin Fowler accused Willet of the murder? If so, Willet had had to kill him. And then he had attempted to clear his own name before dying of his cancer by putting the blame squarely on Wyatt Russell.

  That at least would go a long way toward explaining the false confession.

  Cynthia’s pet…

  Wyatt Russell’s words. Was Willet cold-blooded enough to kill Cynthia Farraday’s foster mother as well as the man she had grown up with, and still faced himself in the mirror after all Miss Farraday had done for him?

  Hamish said, his voice almost inaudible in the rumble of distant thunder, “Sandy Barber killed him to spare his father and sister.”

  It could be true, if Willet had changed so very much. Kill him before he could come home to Furnham and reveal his true character.

  That begged the question of who had tried to kill Wyatt Russell.

  Perhaps it wasn’t Sandy Barber who had killed Willet. Jessup was fond enough of Abigail to have done the deed to spare her. He too was in a position to intercept any message from the prodigal son. And he could have known more about the book published in France than he’d told anyone.

  Whichever way he turned what he knew, Rutledge found that one piece always failed to fit into the puzzle.

  Hamish said, “If Willet’s murder was blamed on Wyatt, then someone wanted revenge.”

  And that made sense.

  But Rutledge wasn’t satisfied.

  He watched the storm break over London, watched trees along the street bend before the sudden wind as lightning shattered the darkness and thunder rolled like cannon fire.

  There was enough evidence to make an arrest, and Superintendent Bowles would argue that it was the role of the court to sort it all out.

  Rutledge had always seen justice differently, that it was the policeman whose duty it was to sift the evidence and bring in the guilty party, while the courts judged whether or not the facts as presented supported punishment according to the law or the release of the accused without prejudice. A test, as it were, of truth. The rector hadn’t understood that. Even Mrs. Channing had once questioned why he had chosen the police over following in his father’s footsteps in the firm of solicitors.

  Old standards died hard. Many people still expected a policeman to come to the servants’ entrance where he belonged. But that was the view of a generation ago, and it was changing.

  Hamish said, breaking into his thoughts, “You must decide. Which man took the law into his ain hands?”

  Jessup? Who had always believed that Ben Willet had made the wrong choice when he left his family and his village? Or Sandy Barber, who loved his wife and would protect her at any price?

  There was still no answer.

  The next morning Rutledge set out early, driving through rain-washed streets to stop briefly in the Yard. There he put in a telephone call to Mr. Harrison, the solicitor handling the affairs of the late Mr. and Mrs. Fowler.

  When Mr. Harrison was brought to the telephone, Rutledge asked what charitable school for boys the Fowlers had supported.

  “It’s the Jamison Baldridge School,” he replied. “Before seeing to the disbursement of the bequest, I took the opportunity to inquire about them. Mr. Baldridge was an MP and close friend of William Gladstone, who encouraged the childless Baldridge to donate large sums to a charity school in London. It’s soundly funded and responsibly managed. And so we carried out the elder Mr. Fowler’s wishes.”

  “What was Fowler’s interest in it?”

  “I’m afraid he never told me. He had begun supporting it before he returned to Colchester.”

  “What sort of school is it?”

  “It is for poor boys without reference to religion, only need and ability. It has a high scholastic standard, and most of the boys have gone on to do well in life. Several have served in the Metropolitan Police, a number went to the Army, there’s a clergyman or two, many became teachers, and a few have even gone into service.”

  “Into service?” Rutledge was surprised.

  “One was a valet to a cabinet minister. Another became an estate manager in Scotland.”

  “And their failures?” Rutledge asked.

  “I was led to believe that they did very well too,” Harrison replied dryly.

  “None in prison, then?”

  “If there were, the headmaster never saw fit to mention them.”

  Rutledge thanked Mr. Harrison for his information and went to find the Jamison Baldridge Charity School for Boys.

  It was in a respectable street near St. Paul’s Cathedral and had grown considerably since its founder’s day. The Victorian brick building was several stores high, with an arched stone doorway resembling a bishop’s palace, but rather than saints, the reliefs set into the stone ledge that ran across the front featured classical figures. As he rang the bell, Rutledge recognized Plato and Homer above his head.

  A young man dressed in much the same fashion as a student at Harrow or Eton opened the door to him and politely asked his business.

  “The Headmaster, if you please. My name is Rutledge.”

  He was invited into a wide hall, the floor a checkerboard of white and black marble, and the young man excused himself. After several minutes, an older man with the look of a don greeted him and asked his business with Mr. Letherington.

  “Scotland Yard. I’m here to inquire about a former student.”

  “Indeed, Mr. Rutledge. My name is Waring. I can help you with that. Will you come this way?”

  He was led down a quiet passage to a small office filled with bookshelves and rows of ledgers.

  Waring offered him a chair. “I should like first to ask you why you are inquiring about one of our boys.”

  “As I understand it, his mother
died of consumption and his father died in prison. I don’t know that he was ever at the school, but there is circumstantial evidence that he was. We are attempting to find him because he may have been a witness to a crime some years ago. Whatever information he can provide will help us in our inquiries.”

  Waring gestured to the array of ledgers. “If you will tell me the name of the boy and when he might have been in our school, I’ll be happy to look for him.”

  “I have his mother’s name. Gladys Mitchell. And an approximate date. What leads me to Baldridge School is the fact that a man with a possible association to this boy was also a benefactor of your school. His name was Fowler.”

  Mr. Waring’s face reflected his recognition of the name, but he said only, “And the possible dates?”

  Rutledge had made his calculations.

  There were only two ways that Gladys Mitchell could have claimed that her son had been fathered by Fowler. He had been conceived after a brief affair with Fowler that had been resumed at a later date. Or he had been conceived just after the relationship had ended. There was a space of ten years between Fowler’s relationship with Gladys Mitchell and his marriage to Justin’s mother. The murders occurred when Julian was short of his twelfth birthday. The boy-if it was indeed a male child-could have been as young as twenty-two or as old as twenty-four at the time. Add another twelve years since then, and the killer could be as young as thirty-four today. Which would make him close to Harold Finley’s age. Or even thirty-five or thirty-six. He gave Waring the possible dates.

  “Was he in the war, do you think?”

  If it was Finley, the answer was yes.

  “Possibly.”

  “In our small chapel we have an honor roll of boys who died in the war. His name may be there. But first let’s have a look at”-he ran his finger along the spines of the tall ledgers on the third shelf-“this one, I should think. Mitchell, you said?”

  “Yes.” And then as an afterthought, “It could be Finley.”

  Half an hour later, Waring closed the ledger and shook his head. “I’m afraid you must have been mistaken. I don’t find him at all.”

  “Could it possibly be Fowler?”

  Waring looked up at him sharply. “Are you saying this boy could have been Mr. Fowler’s son?”

  “He was not, to my knowledge. But the boy’s mother could have used the name. Er-to honor him for services to the family.”

  “There wasn’t a Fowler, either, I would have noticed.”

  There was nothing more to say. Rutledge had used every variation he could think of. There was one other, but he didn’t know the woman’s name. She was Gladys Mitchell’s sister. And he would have to return to Somerset House to ferret her out. Or speak again to Mr. Harrison.

  He thanked Waring for his assistance, and he rather thought the man was glad that the search had drawn a blank. For the sake of the school if not his own.

  At the Yard, Rutledge put in a call again to Mr. Harrison, only to be told that the solicitors had no record of Mrs. Mitchell’s sister’s name.

  “I recall that you told me she had arranged the services.”

  “Indeed she did. However, we were billed directly by the undertaker. We had no correspondence with the sister.”

  In short, the solicitors had not thought it advisable to trust Mrs. Mitchell’s sister with any sums, although Harrison had not directly said so.

  “And this was true of care at the sanitarium as well as a headstone for the grave?”

  “Precisely.”

  Rutledge had just put up the receiver when Sergeant Gibson walked by.

  “What news do you have of the Chief Superintendent?”

  “He’s been allowed to sit in a chair for the first time. But it’s a long road ahead for the Chief Superintendent, and he’s not one to be idle.”

  Rutledge agreed with him. But there had been a subtle difference in the Yard since Bowles’s heart attack. A quieter mood, men going about their business with an air of uncertainty about what the future held. Inspector Mickelson, sent to Northumberland to investigate a murder, had made a point of staying out of sight. Rutledge wondered if the man’s head would roll if Bowles was forced to leave for medical reasons. Mickelson had stepped on more toes than he could reasonably count, knowing he was protected by Bowles. The question was, would Bowles see to it that his successor also protected the man?

  As far as Rutledge was concerned, Mickelson’s absence was a respite.

  He went back to his office and made an effort to concentrate on a folder that Gibson had brought up earlier that morning. But his mind kept wandering to his dilemma.

  Mrs. Dunner’s remark about the locket rang true.

  And there was still the riddle of the charity school.

  The elder Fowler’s support of it from such an early age must have some connection with his first disastrous liaison. Had he bought Gladys Mitchell’s silence about their annulled marriage by seeing to it that her son was properly educated? It wouldn’t have done for her to appear in a year or two with blackmail on her mind just as he was preparing to take another wife. The education of her son-but not his-would be the surest way of protecting his future. And a gift to the school, with the promise of more to come, as the boy’s education progressed, would keep him there.

  But what did this have to do with murder?

  It could be the connection that he had so far failed to find.

  A bitter and forgotten child might look for revenge, if it had been fostered in him by a bitter and dying mother. First to kill the Fowlers. And when Justin survived, to look for him and destroy his new family.

  Hamish said derisively, “Willet was no’ a member of the family.”

  Rutledge took a deep breath. “He had the necklace. That somehow brings him into the circle.”

  “They were all there the day Mrs. Russell disappeared. He could ha’ killed them all. And finished wi’ the past then and there.”

  “He would have been hunted down.”

  “He was no’ hunted down when the Fowlers were killed.”

  Unable to sit still, Rutledge left the Yard, walked over the bridge to the far side of the Thames, then turned and walked back again. The exercise didn’t help.

  Rutledge went to his motorcar and drove to the hospital where Major Russell was recovering, and found him propped up in a bed in the men’s ward.

  “You’ve made progress,” Rutledge said, taking the chair beside him. “First, the Casualty ward. Now with the rest of the sufferers.”

  Major Russell grimaced. “They snore like the very devil. I couldn’t sleep last night for it.”

  “You probably wouldn’t have slept well anyway.”

  “No. It’s hard to breathe. That keeps me awake. What do you want? Are you here to ask more questions? If I could answer any of them, the bastard would be in irons by this time.”

  “I’ve come to ask you about Harold Finley. Mrs. Dunner regarded him as the son she never had. Cynthia Farraday cajoled him into taking her to London against your mother’s wishes. Your mother hired him to drive her. It’s how three women saw him. I want to know how he struck you.”

  “Finley? I never gave him much thought. The groom usually drove my mother wherever she needed to go, until she bought the motorcar. She didn’t like it, she called it the contraption. And he couldn’t manage it. She advertised for a chauffeur who could work in the house if needed. The agency sent three or four men to be interviewed. She chose Finley. He worked out very well. Cynthia flirted with him outrageously, but she was a child, and he treated her like one, much to her chagrin. My mother was pleased with that. He dealt with Justin and with me just as easily. I took him for granted, I suppose, the way I took Mrs. Broadly and Mrs. Dunner and Nancy and the others. They were there.”

  “Did he strike you as a man who was angry beneath the politeness of a servant?”

  “I don’t think I ever saw him lose his temper.”

  “Was he different when you were alone with him? When M
rs. Russell wasn’t present and he could be himself?”

  “Not to my knowledge. He knew his place and he kept to it. What is it you want me say?”

  “I don’t. This man came to an isolated household of women and children. Do you think he was hiding anything? His past? His name?”

  “God, you’ve got a twisted imagination. No. Finley was Finley. That was all.”

  “It seems to me that he could have found work anywhere. Why choose the marshes, and only Tilbury for any social interaction on his free afternoons?”

  “He actually seemed to like the marshes. He took me out in the boat once, and we sat for an hour or more watching the marsh birds. I’d never really noticed the birds before. He fashioned a penny whistle for Justin, and none of us could play it, but we tried, and Cynthia laughed until she cried.”

  Rutledge could see that he was getting nowhere, and he said, “Did strangers come to River’s End very often?”

  “If they did, I never saw them. What are you getting at?”

  “I expect I’m chasing ghosts.”

  There was a moment of silence, then Russell said, “I expect there’s no chance Cynthia will take pity on me and visit?”

  “I don’t know. She was shaken by your last encounter.”

  “Yes, I’ve no doubt of that,” he said ruefully. “I always seem to get off on the wrong footing with her. I have a knack for that.”

  “Is there anything you need?”

  “Patience,” he said.

  Rutledge left soon after and returned to the Yard. Constable Henry saw him walking down the corridor and called to him.

  “Sir? There’s a message on your desk. A George Munro returning your call.”

  “Thank you. I’ll take care of it.”

  Ten minutes later, he had reached Munro, and he said, “You have something for me?”

  “Yes, I do. But I don’t think it will help you very much.”