“Where did you find this locket? May I ask?”
“In Gravesend,” Rutledge answered. When the rector said nothing more, his eyes on the photograph, Rutledge added, “The police found it around the neck of a body taken from the Thames.”
“Dear God!” The rector closed the locket with a snap, as if he couldn’t bear to look at it any longer. He turned his gaze toward the altar. “Who-has the body been identified?”
“We have reason to believe that it is, was, one Wyatt Russell.”
The relief filling in the rector’s eyes was almost painful to watch. Rutledge looked away. “Did you know him?” he asked.
“I-yes, I knew him. He lived not far from here.”
“At River’s Edge, in fact.”
“Yes, how did you know?”
“He came to see me shortly before his death. You haven’t told me who the woman is.”
“Was he a suicide?”
“He was murdered,” Rutledge replied shortly. “What is her name, Rector?”
“God rest his soul,” Morrison said fervently, crossing himself. “As to the woman in the photograph, her name is Cynthia Farraday. She came to live at River’s Edge when her parents died of typhoid. Her father and the late Malcolm Russell were cousins, I believe. She was too young to live on her own, and Mrs. Russell, his widow, was made her guardian. She was alive then. Mrs. Russell, I mean. Wyatt’s mother. And then one day in the summer of 1914-August, it was-Mrs. Russell simply disappeared. ”
“Were the police called in?”
“Yes, the police from Tilbury. When it was realized that she was missing, there was a frantic search for her by the family and the staff. And then someone was sent posthaste to Tilbury. Men were brought out from Furnham to help, because they knew the marshes so well. But she was never found. The inquest concluded that she had drowned herself, for fear her son would die in the war. She’d lost her husband in the Boer War. Her son remembered that when she was a girl, a gypsy had read her hand and predicted that war would take all she loved from her. Her husband’s death convinced her that the prediction was true.”
There had been a great deal of speculation that summer, after the Austrian archduke and heir to the Hapsburg throne had been assassinated in Sarajevo. Rutledge remembered it well. Would Austria demand a reckoning with the Serbs? And what would Germany do, if Russia insisted on protecting her fellow Slavs? Would France be drawn in, as an ally of Russia? Governments began to mobilize. And in the end, armies began to march. And Belgium, tiny Belgium with open borders and only a small army, had been overrun by the Kaiser’s forces on their way to France, in spite of Britain’s pledge to protect her. Britain had had no choice then but to declare war on Germany. And all Europe burst into flame.
No one had believed it would happen. And then everyone had believed that it would all be over by Christmas, that the heads of state would come to their senses.
Instead, the war had dragged on for four bloody years. Mrs. Russell had had every reason to be afraid for her son, although no one could have guessed it at the time.
“Was this a strong enough reason for her to kill herself? Surely further inquiry would uncover a better motive for her disappearance? And I should think that if she had drowned, sooner or later her body would have surfaced?”
“You didn’t know her,” Morrison said wearily. “Elizabeth Russell was obsessed with the news, reading everything she could find. She had daily newspapers sent down from London by special messenger. She corresponded with a friend who’d married a Frenchman, and a telegram was sent telling her when the Germans had marched. And in spite of everything, her son joined the Army not a fortnight after she vanished.” He shrugged. “The local people, in their wisdom, were just as glad she hadn’t been found. The stigma of suicide, you see, and where to bury the body. They put up quite a fuss even when Russell wanted to set up a memorial to his mother in the family’s mausoleum. I must say, that surprised me. Furnham is not a very religious parish, as a rule.”
“You said the local people had helped in the search. Could they have seen to it that her body wasn’t discovered?”
“Dear God.” He was shocked. “I never thought of that.”
“Where is this Furnham mausoleum? Is there a churchyard associated with your parish?”
“Ah. The churchyard. The water table is too high, this near the river. It’s the reason there isn’t a crypt in this church. There’s a turning between here and the village. It doesn’t appear to be more than a dusty cart path. It leads to higher ground. The Rectory is there as well.”
“Forgive me, Rector, but isn’t it odd to have a church this far from a village? And the churchyard in another place?”
“It’s a long story,” Morrison answered. “And not a very pleasant one. I don’t know all of it myself. Suffice it to say, this church was built several years before Victoria ascended the throne. It was felt by the Bishop of that day that one was needed in Furnham parish. But over the years very few people in Furnham have availed themselves of it. I have a handful of elderly farmers’ wives, a few young children preparing for their first communion, often a bride and groom, and occasionally those who have nowhere else to turn in their misery but to God. I hadn’t expected to serve in a parish like this. It has tried my spirit, I can tell you.”
And Morrison had very skillfully directed Rutledge away from his questions about Russell and the woman in the locket.
“When was the last time you saw Russell?”
“I don’t believe he came home again once he’d joined the Army. Or if he did, I never saw him. I did learn that he was a major. His name appeared on a list of wounded.”
“And Miss Farraday?”
“Without Mrs. Russell there to act as chaperone, Miss Farraday went to London. A sad state of affairs, that. With Russell off to war, she might have stayed in the house without any criticism. But when she came to see me to say good-bye, she told me that the house was haunted.”
“Literally?”
“I asked her that question myself. She answered that it was filled with the ghosts of what might have been. It was ‘not a happy house,’ to use her words.”
“I understand that Russell was married.”
“Yes, on his last leave before sailing for France. I don’t believe he ever brought his bride to River’s Edge. I’d have liked to meet her. Later I heard she died from complications of childbirth, and the baby with her.”
“Perhaps that was why Miss Farraday chose to leave. Because of the marriage.”
Morrison smiled, a sadness in his eyes. “If anything it was the other way around. Russell would have married her on the instant. It was my understanding that she refused him. I feared that he’d married just to provide an heir for River’s Edge. If he did, it was not given to him, was it? But I understand he survived the war. So much for his mother’s superstitions.”
Rutledge reached for the envelope again and brought out the photograph of the dead man, taken in Gravesend. “I need confirmation that this is, indeed, Wyatt Russell. If you have any reservations, I’ll be happy to take you to Tilbury for the ferry to Gravesend.”
“Let me see the photograph, first.”
Rutledge passed it to him. Morrison took it and held it to the faint rays of sunlight coming through the plain glass windows high up in the sanctuary wall.
“But this isn’t Russell,” he exclaimed. “What led you to believe it was?”
“It’s not Russell? You’re quite sure of that? You haven’t seen him in six years,” Rutledge countered, making an effort to conceal his consternation.
“I’d stake my life on it!”
Chapter 5
“Could this be Justin Fowler?” Rutledge asked.
“I’m afraid not.”
