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 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
