“People like you who come here generally are. Possibilities, that’s what they said at the end of the war. Turn Furnham into a holiday town for the East End of London looking to enjoy the seaside. Well, you can see for yourself there’s not much in the way of seaside, is there? The river’s swift and the marshes run down to it, save for here in Furnham, where we’ve had boats as long as anyone can remember. We make our living from the river, it’s true, but there’s not much on offer for strangers wanting to amuse themselves.”
“A friend,” Rutledge said slowly, “was here during the war. He told me that Furnham was a very unfriendly village. That’s not likely to bring holidaymakers rushing to visit here, is it?”
“Yet you came, didn’t you?” the man retorted. “In spite of our being unfriendly.”
“Yes, well, I thought he might have been mistaken. I was-curious, you see.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “Just why did you come, then?” He glanced at Frances, standing to one side, then turned back to Rutledge. “We’re at the end of a long road. It wasn’t happenstance brought you here.”
“I told you. Curiosity.”
“Was it the house with the gates? The ones with pineapples on the posts? It’s not for sale. Whatever you may have heard. Someone saw you walking there.”
“A fine view to the river,” Rutledge said, as if agreeing with him. “But I prefer neighbors whose rooftops I can see.”
“Then you’ll be on your way back to wherever it is you came from. I’ll bid you and your lady good day.”
And he walked on, leaving them standing there.
Frances said, “Ian, it’s not amusing any longer. I’d like to go.”
As he walked with her to the motorcar, she added, “What are they hiding? For surely it must be that.”
“A murder,” he said. “At a guess. But whose and when and why, I don’t know.”
“Then I was right, there in the shop. It was Yard business that brought you here.”
He shut her door and went to turn the crank. “I’m not quite sure what made me come here,” he said, joining her in the motorcar. “A man walked into my office recently and confessed to a murder. I’m not sure I believe him.”
“But why would he confess, if there was no truth to it?”
“A good question. To protect someone else? To cover up another crime? To settle a property dispute? Or just to see what we knew-or didn’t know-about someone’s death?”
“We’re back to curiosity, again. His-and yours.”
“Exactly. But the Yard can’t investigate a crime just because someone tells us it happened. There’s no body, for one thing. Nor proof that it ever existed.”
The rain arrived at last with steady lightning and heavy thunder, explosive drops striking the windscreen and blinding him as he concentrated on following the nearly invisible road. They ran out of the storm into a wind-driven downpour that pounded the motorcar, ending any conversation. Eventually that passed as well, leaving behind a steady drizzle that was more manageable. He was glad to be out of the marshes now, low lying and no bulwark against a rising river.
Frances said, replying to what Rutledge had been explaining just as the storm broke, “And yet you drove all the way out here. There must have been something about him that made you wonder.”
“He told me he was dying. From the look of him, that part may well be true.”
“You think, once he’s dead, the thread will be lost? Is that why you are looking into this on your own?”
“I expect I didn’t care to be made a fool of. With the truth-or with lies.”
“But what have you learned? How did this jaunt help you?”
“I now have a feeling for this part of Essex that I didn’t have before. And I was grateful for your company. A man on his own would have drawn far more attention, and the last thing I wanted to suggest was Scotland Yard’s interest.”
His reply satisfied her. But as he drove on, he wasn’t sure he’d satisfied himself.
Chapter 4
Ten days later, Rutledge was in his office finishing reports when Sergeant Gibson knocked at the open door and came in.
Looking up, Rutledge said, “I’ll have these ready in another half an hour.”
Gibson answered, “It’s not the reports, sir. There’s a dead man found in the Thames and brought into Gravesend. He didn’t drown, and no one’s claimed the body. They’ve sent along a photograph, in the hope that the Yard can help out. It’s likely he went into the Thames in London. He’s not known in Gravesend, at any rate.”
He took a photograph from the folder he was carrying and set it down on Rutledge’s desk.
Rutledge’s first glance was cursory; he didn’t expect to recognize the thin face staring back at him from the photograph. His gaze sharpened. Looking at it a second time, he said, “Is this the man who came to the Yard a fortnight ago? Surely not.” He hadn’t expected Russell to end his suffering quite so soon.
“It was twelve days, sir. As I remember. Sergeant Hampton spotted the likeness-he was the one brought the man up to see you-and in my view he’s usually right about such things. A good memory for faces, has the sergeant. That’s why I brought the photograph up to show you. I thought you might want to know. There’s a strong resemblance, Sergeant Hampton says, although the water hasn’t been kind to him.”
“No. What did the postmortem show?”
“He hadn’t long to live. An abdominal cancer, inoperable. It could well have been a suicide, given that. Except for the fact that someone shot him in the back of the head.”
“Did they indeed?” He studied the photograph. “The man who came to the Yard was dying of cancer. Given this photograph, I should think the body must be his. Who is handling the inquiry in Gravesend?”
“Inspector Adams, sir.”
“I’ve heard of him. A good man. Very thorough.” He shuffled the papers in front of him into a folder and set it aside. “These can wait. And it’s as well to see the body for myself. To be sure.”
Gibson said, “Will you be asking the Chief Superintendent? He’s having lunch with the Lord Mayor.”
“I’ll leave a message. It will be late afternoon before he’s back at the Yard.” Rutledge took out a sheet of paper, and after a moment’s thought, wrote a few lines on it. Capping his pen, he passed the sheet to Sergeant Gibson. Glancing at his watch, he said, “I should be back before they’ve reached the last course.”
As the sergeant left, Rutledge collected his hat and notebook and walked out of his office. Five minutes later he was in his motorcar and threading his way through the busy London traffic as he headed east.
Gravesend was an old town on the south bank of the Thames, settled where a break in a long stretch of marshes provided the only landing stage. For centuries, ferrymen here held the charter to transport passengers to and from London. If anyone knew the river it was the people of Gravesend. On the outskirts of the town, Rutledge stopped for directions at a coaching inn that had been refurbished, then followed the omnipresent Windmill Hill into town, where he found the police station.
Inspector Adams, a slender man with horn-rimmed glasses perched on the top of his head, looked up as Rutledge was ushered into his office.
“Scotland Yard?” he said as Rutledge gave his name. “You’re here about our corpse, I think. It was an educated guess, sending that photograph to London. He’s not one of ours, we’re fairly certain of that. And the most likely place he came from was somewhere south of the Tower.”
Rutledge asked, “Any idea how long he’d been in the water?”
“At a guess, a good four and twenty hours.”
“And there was nothing in his pockets to help with identification? A hotel key, medicine bottle, even a handkerchief?” There should at least have been a key from The Marlborough Hotel.
“Nothing.” Adams pulled his glasses down and searched for a paper in the clutter on his desk. “Here we are. White male, approximately thirty years of age, fair, five feet eleven inches tall,” he said, reading from the sheet he finally located under a stack of books. “No distinguishing marks, suffering from terminal stomach tumor that has metastasized. Pockets empty, shot at close range, most likely with a service revolver, judging from the caliber. Clothes those of a gentleman. In the water for a day, day and a half.” He looked up over the rims of his glasses. “If his killer had waited a few months more, Nature would have dispatched our victim for him. Hasty, I should
