“I see.” Robinson shifted papers on his desk, then looked up and said, “Then you may not know that Fowler’s parents were murdered.”
Chapter 17
Robinson had been watching Rutledge’s face as he spoke, judging the impact of his words.
“I see that that’s news.”
“I didn’t think they had died on the same day. I went to Somerset House.”
“They didn’t. Fowler’s father died at the scene, and his mother two days later. Young Fowler himself was in hospital for six months, first with stab wounds, and then with infection. He passed his next birthday there. When he was about to be released, the Fowler family solicitors contacted Mrs. Russell, and she agreed to take him. A number of people were willing to give him a home, he was that well liked, but the doctors believed that it would be best if he left Colchester altogether. Too many reminders, and so on.”
“And you never found the person who was responsible?”
“There was very little evidence to guide us,” Robinson answered, his tone defensive. “Mrs. Fowler died without regaining consciousness. When we could, we questioned Justin, but he was asleep when the murders were committed, and he woke up in the dark to find a figure standing by his bed. And then he himself was stabbed and left for dead. It was the housemaid, bringing up morning tea, who discovered his parents, and she ran down to the kitchen in hysterics. The housekeeper went up to see for herself, sent one of the other maids for the doctor and the police, and only then had the presence of mind to look in on the boy.”
“The staff was cleared of any involvement?”
“Yes, we felt fairly confident that they weren’t to blame. The housekeeper was fifty, the three maids in their early forties, the cook nearing sixty. All of them had been with the family for twenty years or more. And we found a window in the dining room broken, a bloody handprint on the post at the bottom of the drive, and signs that someone had been sick just there. We questioned the staff, but they knew of no one who had a reason to kill Mr. or Mrs. Fowler. He was a solicitor. We spoke to his partner, and we were assured that there was no evidence that the murders were related to his work. Mostly wills, conveyances, and the like. The partner himself had been attending a funeral in Suffolk, and there must be twenty witnesses to that.” It was clear that Robinson was not happy admitting to Scotland Yard that the murders had gone unsolved. And it was just as clear that with two dead and one severely injured, no suspects and no answers, the local constabulary had chosen not to call in the Yard. Why?
“Who was in charge of the inquiry?” he asked Robinson.
“Inspector Eaton. I was a constable at the time. I had no voice in decisions. But I can tell you that I saw the bodies. Repeatedly stabbed. As bloody a sight as I’d ever seen, until the war.”
“Is Eaton still here?”
“He died in the influenza epidemic. Overworked, if you want my opinion. Policeman, confessor, nurse, he tried to do it all.”
“There was no possibility that Justin Fowler killed his parents and then stabbed himself?”
“Good God, no. For one thing, we never found a weapon, even though we searched his room, the ground under his windows, and every inch of the house wall in between. And only his bedding was bloody. There was no blood at all on the floor, and considering his wounds, there most certainly would have been if he’d stabbed himself, thrown away the weapon, and returned to his bed. What’s more, he said he’d been too frightened to move. He thought the killer was still in the room, and soon afterward, he fainted from pain and loss of blood.”
“And neither parent could have committed the crimes?”
“Not from the evidence. We also looked into that very carefully.”
“The inquest?”
“Person or persons unknown. We spent six months investigating every possibility, even a botched housebreaking, and we discovered nothing new in all that time.”
“What became of the staff?”
“They stayed in the house until Justin Fowler’s future was decided. And then the house was sold, the staff pensioned off according to Mrs. Fowler’s will-she survived her husband, you see, but the provisions were very much the same in both cases. There was the usual gift to the church fund, and to a charity school in London that Mr. Fowler had made gifts to over the years. Nothing of a size to suggest that they were killed for what anyone expected to inherit.”
“And no disgruntled servant, client, or other person with a grudge against Fowler or his family?”
“None at all. We looked into that as well.”
“Had the elder Fowler always lived in Colchester?”
“Indeed, except for a brief time in London-three years when he was a very young man. As I recall, he was a junior in a firm of solicitors there, before coming here and setting up his own chambers.”
Rutledge remembered what Nancy Brothers had said, that Mrs. Russell had lost touch with her cousin after she’d married Fowler. That Mrs. Russell hadn’t cared for him.
“Was there anything in Fowler’s background that was in any way irregular?”
“Irregular?”
“Unusual, a source of concern for the family, skeletons in the closet.”
“We never discovered any. He was some years older than his wife, as I remember, a pillar of the church, impeccable reputation here in Colchester. I heard one of the other constables, an older man, say that Fowler was too dull to look for trouble, much less to find it. His wife was a lovely woman. My mother cried when she heard what had happened.”
“Perhaps a case of mistaken identity? The wrong people singled out and killed?”
“We considered that as well. And nothing pointed to that possibility.”
Then why had someone come into a house in the night, stabbed three people in two different rooms without disturbing the servants in their beds, leaving the victims for dead and disappearing as quietly as he’d come?
What’s more, neither Cynthia Farraday nor Wyatt Russell appeared to have had any inkling of Justin Fowler’s past. Nor had Nancy Brothers. Whatever Mrs. Russell had been told by the Fowler family solicitor had not been passed on to anyone else. And Justin himself had kept his secret. Small wonder everyone felt he was quiet and preferred his own company. He’d suffered a shocking end to his childhood.
But what connection did this have with Ben Willet’s confession, that Wyatt Russell had killed Fowler? Even when Rutledge had questioned him, Willet had refused to say why or how the murder had been committed. Because he didn’t know any other details?
He thanked Robinson for the information he’d been given. The Inspector rose to see Rutledge out and said as they reached the door to the station, “You’ll be sure to let me know if you find anything that might shed light on our case?”
“I shall. I don’t see any chance of that at present, but then inquiries have a way of moving in directions we haven’t foreseen.”
“Yes. I’ve had my own experiences of that. Good hunting.”
And then Rutledge was out in the street, walking back to where he’d left his motorcar.
Hamish said, “Ye ken, the lad was only eleven. He couldna’ overpower both parents, even if they were asleep when he came into the room.”
“That’s very likely. No, I think we can absolve Justin of any blame.”
But it was important to consider one other possibility. That during the war, Major Russell learned about Justin Fowler’s past and blamed him for Mrs. Russell’s disappearance. He could have jumped to the conclusion that if Fowler had already killed twice, and his own parents at that, he would likely kill again. And how could Ben Willet have discovered that?
Halfway to the Rose and Crown, he stopped, retraced his steps to the police station, and asked the name of the Fowler solicitor. Robinson was reluctant to give it to him, unwilling to hand the Yard his own pet case, but Rutledge said blandly, “It’s possible there are other family members I could speak to.”
“We asked. There are none.”
“Still-”
