The Confession ir-14

by Charles Todd

  “I sent it along to the Chief Superintendent. Look there. If it isn’t in his box, it may have been given to someone else.”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll do that. And the Weatherly case?”

  Rutledge felt a twinge of conscience. “On my desk. The constable who discovered the body hasn’t finished his report.”

  “I’ll get on that, then.” Gibson paused, then added quietly, “There’s been some question about what to do. One rumor says Chief Inspector Cummins might be called back.”

  That meant that there had been some discussion in the upper echelons after all, and no one’s view had prevailed. In point of fact, the Chief Superintendent would be hard to replace for the simple reason that he had never groomed a successor for fear of being overshadowed-or shown lacking.

  Rutledge rang off and stood there for a moment in the telephone closet. He ought to go back to the Yard. But the last thing he wished to do was enter into the speculation and carping that must be going on, much less the ruthless undercurrents as some tried to benefit from Bowles’s crisis. He’d become a policeman for very sound reasons, and political intrigue was not one of them. He’d been pleased when Cummins, who had retired earlier in the summer, had suggested that he be promoted as his replacement. It had been a measure of Cummins’s respect for a junior officer.

  But subsequent events had left a bitter taste in Rutledge’s mouth. He’d realized that promotion would leave him vulnerable to attack where he could least afford to tell the real truth about the war. He’d been decorated for bravery, but the stigma of shell shock-regarded as cowardice-would negate that.

  He realized that someone was standing outside the door, waiting to use the telephone, and he left the hotel with every intention of going back to Essex. But he actually went to his flat and paced the floor for over an hour, Hamish loud in the back of his mind, his temporary exile from the Yard and the inquiry at hand driving him to physical action.

  There was something missing in the case, and he didn’t know what it was. Yet.

  Why had Ben Willet, facing his own death, come to Scotland Yard to accuse Wyatt Russell of a murder committed during the war? The only connection between Willet and Russell, besides the river that connected River’s Edge and the village of Furnham, had been Cynthia Farraday. Had Willet known how she felt about Fowler and as a last gift tried to end her uncertainty over what had become of the man?

  He could just as easily have been trying to protect her from the police by pointing them elsewhere. But if the police knew nothing about Fowler’s death to start with, why bring it to their attention?

  And who had found it necessary to kill Ben Willet when he was already dying? Or had the killer known that? Major Russell had said that Willet wanted to be killed rather than face the indignity and excruciating pain of waiting for the end. But this didn’t smack of a mercy killing. Shooting him hadn’t been enough-his body had been stripped of identification and shoved into the Thames for good measure. It should have disappeared for good or else have been so badly disfigured by the water, the fish, and the passing ships that any identification would be impossible. But luck had not been on the killer’s side.

  A third possibility was that someone had discovered that Willet had come to the Yard-or he had actually told someone what he’d done. But why bring up Justin Fowler’s death in the first place? What had driven Willet to make such a claim? He had seemed to have no place in either the village or River’s Edge, no one but a sister to mourn his loss, no one but that same sister waiting eagerly for news of him or for the closure that finding his killer could bring to those who had survived him.

  And what about Willet’s writing? What role had that played?

  Waiting for Gibson to find out what he needed to know could take days. It was better to drive to Colchester and see what he could discover for himself. That had been where Fowler’s parents had lived and died.

  Hamish said, “There’s the room in Furnham.”

  “They’ll be relieved when I don’t return,” Rutledge retorted, packing a valise.

  But before he left London, Rutledge went to call on Dr. Baker.

  He was an older man, his hair nearly white, his eyes a sharp gray.

  “Murdered, you say? Willet? That’s startling news, indeed.” He regarded Rutledge for a moment. “But you’re here about his illness, not his murder. There was nothing I could do. We could have tried surgery, of course, but the cancer had spread too far, and Willet knew that.”

  “What did he take for the pain?”

  “I gave him morphine, but I don’t believe he took it very often. He said he had something to do before he died, and he wanted a clear mind.”

  “Why should he come to Scotland Yard, give another man’s name, and in that man’s name, confess to a murder?”

  “Willet did that? I’ll be damned. Medically, I can’t account for it.”

  “How did he receive his diagnosis?”

  “Quietly. He didn’t appear to be particularly religious, but I overheard him comment as he was dressing again that God was punishing him. He didn’t tell me how he’d incurred the Almighty’s displeasure. Perhaps I should have asked, but he wasn’t speaking to me, and I respected his privacy. Have you considered that his charade was intended to push the Yard into action? As he appears to have done?”

  “It’s possible,” Rutledge answered neutrally. “Would Willet have paid someone to cut short his suffering? Rather than contemplate suicide?”

  “I think not. Unless he’d finished whatever it was that drove him to eschew taking something for his pain, and it was growing unbearable. As it would have done. I’m sorry I can’t give you a more satisfying answer. I knew very little about his personal life, except for the fact that he’d recently lived in Paris and had come home to be seen by a doctor.”

  Hamish reminded him of a last question.

  Rutledge said, “You examined him, of course. Was he by any chance wearing a gold locket?” He took it from his pocket, holding it out to Dr. Baker.

  “Quite pretty, isn’t it? And quite old, as well. But no, I’ve never seen it before.”

  Rutledge thanked him and was about to walk out the door when Baker said suddenly, “I just remembered. He asked if I had any information on the plague. I gave him a book to read, and he brought it back on his last visit. He said he had found it very interesting. I asked him why he should want to study the subject, and he said that it was a hobby of his.”

  “A hobby?”

  “He must have seen my reaction-very much like yours, I’m sure-and he smiled and said, ‘The Spanish flu was a plague, was it not, killing thousands?’ I told him the effects might have been the same, the way it ravaged country after country, but that the pathology was quite different. It wasn’t spread by rats or fleas. And he said, ‘Yes, but you see, it’s the only comparison I can make.’ ”

  C olchester had once been a Roman camp, the capital of Roman Britain until Queen Boudicca burned it to the ground during the Iceni revolt. It had also been a prosperous woolen center in the Middle Ages. It was very late when Rutledge reached his destination. The town was dark, quiet, only a few vehicles and fewer pedestrians on the streets as he made his way to the Town Hall with its handsome tower and then found the police station. Lights were on inside, but he knew that only a small night staff would be there. Tomorrow morning would suffice. There was a room available at the ancient hostelry, The Rose and Crown, and he fell asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow. Hamish had been busy in the back of his mind from the time he’d left London, and he was glad to shut out the soft Scots voice.

  After breakfast the next morning in one of the small half-timbered rooms off the main dining room, Rutledge left his motorcar in the inn’s yard and walked to the police station. The streets were busy, men hurrying to their work, women walking small children to school while older boys laughed as they took turns kicking a stone down the road. Shopkeepers were only just opening their doors, and the greengrocer was setting boxes o
f vegetables on racks in front of his window. He nodded as Rutledge passed, and then spoke to a woman just behind him, calling her by name and wishing her a good day. Rutledge could feel the warmth of the sun on his back and smell the summer dust stirred up by passing motorcars, the motes gleaming in the sunlight.

  Not a day to speak of murder, he thought as he opened the door to the police station and stepped into the dim interior.

  The sergeant at the desk looked up as he entered, and asked his business. Rutledge explained what he was after-any information that the local constabulary had on the family of one Justin Fowler, formerly of Colchester before moving to Essex.

  He saw the expression in the man’s eyes change, although he gave nothing away.

  “Scotland Yard?” he repeated. “It might be best, sir, if you speak to Inspector Robinson. I’ll find out if he can see you now.”

  Robinson could, taking Rutledge back to his office and offering him a chair. The man’s desk was piled high with paperwork, but the room was tidy otherwise and Robinson himself was spare, neatly dressed, and curious to know why Rutledge had come.

  He explained himself as well as he could, given the sparseness of information at his disposal, beginning with a report that had come to the attention of the Yard claiming that one Justin Fowler had been murdered during the war. His body had never been found, but because of another murder closely associated with that case, the Yard was interested in learning more about Fowler’s background.

  Robinson considered him as he spoke.

  “Fowler is dead, you say?”

  “We can’t be sure. The man who told us about the murder has since died violently. We find ourselves wondering if the two events are connected.”

  “Hmmm. Yes. What do you know about Fowler’s family?”

  “Only that his parents died when he was eleven or twelve, and shortly afterward he was given into the guardianship of Mrs. Elizabeth Russell, of River’s Edge. Mrs. Russell is dead as well, and her son was gravely injured in the war. We’ve had no other information.”

  “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 n
or 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.”