then thought better of it. Pocketing it, he walked out of the building. No one stopped him or asked where he was going.
He found a postbox on a corner just beyond where he’d left his motorcar and then continued to The Marlborough Hotel, where he could use a telephone.
The clinic, he was told by an operator’s disembodied voice, did indeed have a telephone, and he was put through after several minutes.
When Matron came on the line, he knew at once that Russell hadn’t returned.
Giving her a brief account of events, including the whereabouts of the Trusty, he added that he was still searching for the Major.
She listened to him, then said, “A moment, please, Inspector.”
When she returned to the telephone, she said, “I’m so sorry. But a man has just come. He has already spoken to Mr. Hiller, he tells me. I appreciate your message, Inspector.”
“Have you looked for Russell at his house in London?”
“I have. That’s to say, I asked one of our former orderlies who is now at St. John’s to go round and see if anyone was there. That was at ten o’clock this morning. The house appeared to be empty. What’s more, a neighbor confirmed that he hadn’t seen the Major for some time. I think we can safely say he isn’t there. The question is, where do we look now? Should I have Jacobson look at hotels?”
“I’m on my way to Essex,” he told her. “I shan’t be able to reach you, but I have a feeling that Russell is returning to River’s Edge.”
“My understanding is that the house is closed, the staff dismissed,” she said, doubt in her voice.
“That’s true. But given his present state of mind, he may not care.”
“Yes, of course. Thank you, Inspector. I shall look forward to hearing from you again.”
“And should he turn up meanwhile, will you call Sergeant Gibson at the Yard and leave a message for me?”
She promised, and he rang off.
After a brief stop at his flat, he drove out of London. It would be dark well before he reached his destination, and given his lack of sleep the night before, he ought to wait until morning. But in Essex, he would also be out of reach of recall.
“He doesna’ have his revolver with him,” Hamish said some time later. “If he didna’ go to yon house.”
“Not unless he stopped at the London house before he went to see Miss Farraday. But I don’t think he would risk that. Not before he spoke to her. The question is, what weapons are in the Essex house?”
“Ye ken, his father was in the Boer War.”
“He was buried in South Africa. There’s no way of knowing whether his service revolver was sent home in his trunk.”
“Or if he kens where it is.”
“It’s too bad that Willet-when he was confessing to the murder of Justin Fowler in Russell’s place-didn’t tell me how the victim was killed.”
Some miles outside London Rutledge stopped for petrol, and then realizing that he hadn’t eaten for nearly two days, he drove on to a pub overlooking the Thames and ordered his dinner. It was slow in coming.
Darkness was falling by the time he was on the road again, the sun a deep red ball behind him, the last of its rays reflected in the Thames, flickering on the current. Ahead, over the North Sea, the sky was a luminous purple.
Hamish said, “It’s best to wait until daylight.”
“But safer in the dark,” Rutledge answered aloud. “He won’t see me coming.”
He stopped briefly for a cup of strong tea when the food he’d eaten made him drowsy. Then he drove on, the night air warm in the motorcar and adding to his drowsiness. At length he picked up the pitted road that followed the Hawking east toward Furnham, where there was only starlight to guide him, and his headlamps tunneled through the darkness, marking his way. The wheel bucking under his hands was enough to bring him fully awake again.
The gates of River’s Edge were ghostly as the glare of his headlamps picked them up just ahead, alternately white and shadowed.
He drove past them some little distance, and then stopped the motorcar, turning off the headlamps. Taking out his torch but not flicking it on, he walked down the middle of the road as far as the house gates, guarding his night vision.
Reaching the gates, he stood for a moment, listening to the night. The marsh grasses whispered to themselves, and he could hear scurrying as small creatures hunted and were hunted. Insects sang in the warm darkness, or perhaps they were frogs of some sort.
But there was no sound of a man moving on the overgrown drive. It wasn’t likely that Russell was just ahead of him, but there was no way of knowing how successful the Major had been finding transportation. Rutledge knew he couldn’t afford to be careless.
He used the mental map from his previous visits to guide him now. Up the drive, striving to keep to the flattened paths that he’d made before, he took his time. If Russell wasn’t here now, he would surely come at some point, and there was no need to make him unduly nervous.
The night felt empty, like a house where no one was at home-indeed, like Russell’s house in London. But he still took no chances. Alert, slowly feeling his way, keeping to the shadows, he finally came within sight of the house rearing up before him.
No lights, he thought, scanning this front. But he would have to step into the open to reach the house from where he stood. Casting about for a better approach, he heard the soft flutter of feathers, and without warning an owl soared out of the trees directly over his head, swooping downward to scoop up its prey. A sharp squeak, broken off, and then the same flutter of feathers as the owl lifted off again and came back to his roost.
It had had all the earmarks of an ambush, and Rutledge felt the rush of adrenaline through his veins, setting his heart to pounding. He stayed where he was for several minutes until it had slowed.
Staying within the shadows as much as he could, he reached the corner of the house and then, bending low, crept across the open ground, keeping his silhouette short and as inconspicuous as possible. If there were guns in there, would Russell use them? Or had his anger burned out?
Rutledge stayed in the shadow of the house for all of five minutes. But nothing happened, and keeping as close to the walls as he could, he worked his way toward the terrace. He was nearly sure that Cynthia Farraday had either been able to force one of the French doors or had left it unlocked for future visits. She had spoken of a key, but he wasn’t certain he could believe her.
The terrace was empty. He got as far as the doors and waited again for any sign that he’d been spotted. Five minutes later, he tried the French doors and found that one of them was unlocked, as he’d expected.
He stepped inside and stood waiting again, before beginning a silent and methodical search of the house.
He walked from room to room, sometimes caught off guard by a dust sheet that was unexpectedly as tall as a man or a board that squeaked loud enough to echo.
In the study he found the gun case. In the dimness, he used his hands to identify the contents. Standing upright were four shotguns for hunting the ducks and geese that wintered here on the river. They were well oiled and cared for. In the case below were two revolvers, one a service revolver and the other a smaller caliber that could have been a souvenir. They too were clean and oiled. To one side of the case were several daggers mounted on the wall, the sort a military man might collect on his travels.
When he had made a full circuit of the ground floor with no sign of an intruder, Rutledge started up the stairs, careful not to step on the center of the tread but to stay as close to the wall as he could. At the top he waited and listened before going on. It was late enough that a weary Russell might be sleeping in one of the beds.
But the first floor yielded nothing either. Mattresses had been rolled on the beds to discourage mice, most of the drapes had been drawn, and there was nothing to indicate that a man, tired from a long journey, had tried to rest here.
Still, he went from room to room, as a rule standing in the doorway and listening before going inside to search.
He had reached the master bedroom, which faced the river, with long windows overlooking the lawns and the
