Robinson hadn’t needed to look it up.
With that information in hand, he tracked down the firm of Biddle, Harrison and Bailey.
Their chambers were in a Victorian building with a view of the castle, and the senior clerk informed Rutledge that it was Mr. Harrison who had dealt with the affairs of the Fowler family.
Harrison’s hair was white, but his face was smooth, as if age had treated him well. His grip was firm when the two men shook hands, and then Harrison said, “I understand from my clerk that you’ve come about the Fowler murders. Is there any new information?”
“Sadly, no. But I have been searching for Justin Fowler. I understand he survived the war. Did you handle his affairs as well?”
“He wrote to us when he was about to go into the Army. He wished to draw up his will-as so many young men did at that time. It was the first correspondence we’d had from him since he went to live with Mrs. Russell. As he was underage, she had handled his affairs for him. The trust fund that his father had set up for the boy had paid him an allowance, but the principal wasn’t his until he reached the age of twenty-five. He left everything to Miss Cynthia Farraday. In 1917, when he should have reached his majority, we heard nothing from him. But the war was still on, and we thought perhaps he wished to wait until that was over before taking charge of his inheritance. It was quite sizable, in fact, but as one of our junior partners said at the time, there was very little need for great sums of money in the trenches.”
“And did he contact you when the war was over?”
“We wrote to him at River’s Edge, but the letter was returned. We made an effort to contact Major Russell, to discover if Justin Fowler had survived the war, but he could tell us nothing. Their paths hadn’t crossed in the years of fighting. And the War Office listed him as missing in action.”
That was news.
“And so Miss Farraday inherited the Fowler estate?”
Mr. Harrison’s dark brows, in such sharp contrast to his white hair, rose. “I’m afraid we’re a rather conventional firm, Mr. Rutledge. Missing does not necessarily mean dead. We chose not to act precipitously, but to wait and see if any new information might help us to learn Mr. Fowler’s fate. We were left in charge of his estate, and it’s our duty to be certain that he is dead before disbursing such sums.”
“Yes, I quite understand. Did you contact Miss Farraday?”
“No. Not directly. We did make inquiries, and we discovered that she was living in London and was still unmarried. That is to say, her name hadn’t changed with marriage. As she made no attempt to contact us, we felt it best not to contact her prematurely, as it were.”
“You said that Fowler was missing in action. When was this?”
“It was early in 1915. There was a later report that he was wounded and sent home to England to recover. We tried to verify it and were unable to do so.”
“I’d like to know more about the elder Fowler. I was told by one of the maids who was in service at River’s Edge that Mrs. Russell had not cared for her cousin’s choice of husband. Do you know why that may have been?”
“He was some ten years Mrs. Fowler’s senior, but it was a love match, I can tell you that. I saw them a number of times socially, and it was very clear that they were a happy couple.”
“Perhaps there was something in Mr. Fowler’s background that Mrs. Russell disapproved of?”
“I understood that he was married when he was very young. He’d just come down from university and he was-gullible, shall I say? She was someone he met in London and married without his parents’ knowledge or consent. When this woman discovered that he was to be cut off without a farthing, she told him that she already had a husband and walked out the door. That was the last he saw of her, and the marriage was quietly annulled on those grounds. Fowler left London and returned to Colchester. He admitted this freely to his fiancee before he married Mrs. Fowler. At our urging.”
“And what became of the first Mrs. Fowler?”
“She died some years later of consumption. She wrote to Mr. Fowler before she died-this was even before he’d met the second Mrs. Fowler-but he refused to meet her. She wanted forgiveness, and he couldn’t find it in himself to forgive.”
So much, Rutledge thought, for the man who was too dull to know what trouble was, and who wouldn’t know what to do with it if he did find it. Small wonder he had led a staid life in his second marriage.
“He paid for her care, through our good offices, and we received notification from the sanitarium when she died. He paid for her burial. It was generous of him. And we never spoke of this matter again.”
“Nor did you tell the police about his first disastrous marriage.”
“We considered speaking to them. But the woman was dead, and we had actually verified that fact. There was no reason to resurrect the past.”
“But she had a husband somewhere, didn’t she? Or was he a lie as well?”
“He was in prison. He died there. Before the murders.”
“And that also is certain?”
“Yes. His Majesty’s Prisons don’t make mistakes of that sort.”
A dead end.
Which led him back to the River Hawking.
He thanked Mr. Harrison for his time, then asked one more question.
“This woman. What was her name?”
“She’s dead. Let her rest in peace.”
“I intend to. But I should like to know her name. For completeness.”
That was something the solicitor understood.
“Indeed. Her name was Gladys Mitchell. She’s buried in the cemetery of St. Agnes, the church associated with the nursing clinic where she died. At the end, she told the sanitarium staff that her father had been a clergyman. They felt that this was an attempt to gloss over her-somewhat irregular-past. She had initially told one of the staff that he was a solicitor.”
“What was he?”
“I don’t know. We weren’t her solicitors. The truth was not something we had need of.”
“She had no children?”
“According to Mr. Fowler, she was not pregnant when she left him.”
“And no family?”
“A sister. I’m afraid I don’t know her name. She was with Gladys Mitchell when she died. It was she who arranged the burial.”
“Do you know where she is now?”
“If I’m not mistaken, she died in 1910.”
“Thank you.”
The senior clerk appeared like magic to escort Rutledge to the street door, deferentially bidding him farewell.
Hamish said, “Yon sister couldna’ ha’ murdered the family.”
“We’ve come to a dead end. Just as the original inquiry into the Fowlers’ deaths had done.”
He collected his valise from The Rose and Crown, settled his account, and drove out of Colchester for the road south.
T he first call Rutledge made when he reached Furnham was on Nancy Brothers.
She was preparing dinner when he knocked at her door. Wiping her hands on her apron, she hesitated, then let him into the house.
“My husband will be coming in from the pasture where he was repairing a broken fence, and he’ll be wanting his dinner,” she told him anxiously.
“I just have two questions for you,” he told her. “I won’t keep you from your work. I’d like to know if Mrs. Russell ever told you what had happened to Justin Fowler’s parents?”
“She told me he’d lost his just as Miss Cynthia had lost hers. I took that to mean they died of an illness. I thought Mr. Justin consumptive, for that matter, he was so pale and thin when he first came to River’s Edge. I said something to Mrs. Russell, but she told me he was grieving. And it must have been true because he filled out that summer.”
