From there he drove to Abigail Barber’s house. She came to the door, and as soon as she recognized him, she said, “My father and my brothers are dead. There’s no more bad news to bring to me.”
“My apologies, Mrs. Barber. I need to ask you again. You had no word from your brother for months?”
“That’s true. I expect he didn’t want to tell us he was dying.” Her eyes filled at the memory. “He was so thin, lying there under that sheet. It broke my heart to see him.”
“Someone paid him a visit in London. The night before he died. He’d written a letter, and the visit must have been prompted by that.”
“He couldn’t have written. Sandy would have told me. Nor would he have gone to London without me. Not if it was Ben he was seeing. He wouldn’t have gone to London without me!”
“Your father was ill,” he reminded her.
“He would have taken me to see Ben. I’d have found someone to sit with my father. It would have been all right.”
He reminded her of the date again. “Was your husband away at that time?”
“No, of course he wasn’t. Besides, there’s the pub. He doesn’t trust anyone else to manage it.”
“Your uncle, then.” When she hesitated, he added, “I know about France. It’s not important.”
Her face wasn’t good at hiding what was going through her mind. He had his answer. Jessup had been away. But where?
Mind reading couldn’t put Jessup in London, and it was clear that Abigail Barber had no idea where her uncle had gone.
“He was in France,” she said finally. “He goes, sometimes.”
He thanked her and left.
“Now ye must ask the man himsel’,” Hamish warned him. “Before yon lass asks him.”
“I’d have preferred not to. He’s spoiling for a fight, and I’m not.”
“Aye, he is that.”
This time Rutledge walked up the path to Jessup’s door. Before he could knock, Jessup opened it in his face.
“I saw you before, trying to gather your courage. I won’t ask you in. It’s my house, and I’m rather particular about who I invite to step across my threshold.”
“Yes, I rather thought you might be,” Rutledge said easily. “Where would you prefer to go instead? The strand there, where everyone in Furnham can watch you being taken into custody for obstructing the police in the course of their duties? Or shall we retire to the churchyard, where only the dead will be disturbed by your humiliation?”
Jessup measured his chances. They were nearly of a height, Rutledge slightly taller, while he himself was running to fat around the middle and could give Rutledge at least a stone.
Rutledge said, “You’re wasting my time, Jessup.”
“Talk.”
“What did Ben Willet tell you in his last letter? That he was writing a book about The Dragonfly? About the plague and the burning of the church with a hundred souls inside? Is that why you went to London and killed him?”
Rutledge had prepared for any reaction. What he got was a frowning stare.
“What last letter? What do you mean, he was writing a book about The Dragonfly? God, if I’d known that I’d have killed him myself. Bloody coward. Are you sure? Damn it, he swore to me and to his father. He swore he would say nothing.” He was furiously angry, striking the frame of the door hard with the edge of his fist. “Is that why he was afraid to come home before Ned died? Did Abigail know this?”
“She did not. I don’t know why he never told her about his books.”
“He’s the one they were talking about in France,” Jessup said suddenly. “Not Ned. I thought they were putting us on. Georges and his son. They’re bastards, but they get what we want. How did they know when we didn’t? Besides, I thought they said the book was about smuggling.”
“They knew because the books were published in France under the name Edward Willet. Smuggling was in his second work. Dragonfly would have been his third.”
“If you’re lying to me, I’ll kill you.”
“Someone knew. Someone met him in London. There’s a witness to the fact that he wrote that letter. The same witness can swear to the fact he met someone the night before he died.”
“I got no letter. He’d write to Sandy, not me. Or to Abigail.” His gaze moved toward the pub.
Looking up the street Rutledge saw Sandy Barber in the doorway of The Rowing Boat, watching them. He said, “Who found Mrs. Russell’s body?”
“Found-she was never found.”
“But the locket was, wasn’t it. Her locket.” He watched the man’s eyes, and they gave Jessup away. “And who found Justin Fowler floating in the river and never reported it?”
Jessup looked toward Barber again. “Nobody.”
“You didn’t want the police asking questions. That’s why you didn’t report the locket. Or Fowler’s body. Who killed them, Jessup? Your merry band of smugglers? Or someone else?”
“Get the hell out of Furnham,” Jessup said through clenched teeth. “I’m warning you.”
“You’ve intimidated Constable Nelson, but you can’t intimidate Scotland Yard. I will have a dozen men here to search every house and question every person in this village. We’ll drag the river as well and tear every boat apart. The London newspapers will be kept abreast of our efforts, and when we’re finished, Furnham will be changed forever. And your name will be synonymous with the evil your ancestor did. I read the manuscript, Jessup. ”
He knew that he’d pushed too far. If the shotgun had been to hand, Jessup would have used it.
Hamish warned him, and he realized that while he’d been speaking, Sandy Barber had come up behind him. He moved slightly so that he could watch both men, waiting for whatever would happen next. But he’d been angry with the intransigence of these men, the obstruction at every turn. And it was time to end it.
Into the hostile silence, Barber said, “If we tell you, will you leave us in peace?”
“No!” Jessup said explosively.
“We’re making a spectacle of ourselves.” Barber shouted at him in his turn. “There’s no one in The Boat. We’ll settle it there.”
Barber waited, and Rutledge held his tongue.
Jessup was struggling to get himself under control. He seemed to realize through the haze of fury that villagers going in and out of the shops were staring at the confrontation on his doorstep.
Rutledge could almost read the thoughts passing though the man’s mind, that this was too public a place to do murder.
Finally he nodded curtly, shoved Rutledge to one side, and walked off toward the pub. He didn’t look to see if anyone was following him.
When he was out of earshot, Barber snapped, “Why did you make him so angry? He could have killed you.”
“He could have tried,” Rutledge said, and strode to the pub in his turn, with Barber hastily falling in beside him.
“Was the book that explicit?” he asked. “God, I never-he went to be a footman. That’s all Ben wanted. What happened?”
“I expect it was going to France that changed him. The war. He must have kept a diary. He wrote a memoir after it was over, and someone in Paris published it.”
“Damn the war,” Barber said as Rutledge opened the door into the pub. “And damn the French while we’re about it.”
Jessup was waiting. He said to Barber, “What are we going to do with him? He has to be stopped.”
“You fool, do you want to hang? They know where he is. The Yard does. If he goes missing, he’s right, they’ll come down on us and tear Furnham apart. Tell him what he wants to know. Tell him, or I will. Then make him promise.”
The flush on Jessup’s face was a measure of his rage. “They won’t know what he knows. They can’t.”
“There are the boxes Willet left behind. The manuscripts are in them,” Rutledge said. “You’ll be taken up for the murder of Benjamin Willet when they come to light. What’s more, the murder of Justin Fowler and the attack on
