The Confession ir-14

by Charles Todd

A title had been written by hand above the first paragraph: The Sinners.

  He began to read, sitting in a chair by the open window, his sister leaning her elbow on the back beside his head.

  After half an hour she turned away.

  “It’s Furnham he’s talking about, isn’t it? And it must be true. The inn is called The Dragonfly.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “I wish you’d never taken me there,” she said, crossing the room, as if to put as much space as possible between herself and the pages in his hand. Rearranging a bowl of flowers, she said, “It was done, wasn’t it? Luring ships into rocks and the like, bringing them aground so that they could be plundered. In Cornwall, they were called the wreckers.”

  “I expect the people along the shore had done well when ships wrecked themselves in a storm or on a foggy night. And then someone had a clever suggestion. ‘If we could bring in more wrecks, not waiting on natural causes, we could prosper.”

  They had had to kill the survivors, or else what had happened would quickly reach the ears of the authorities.

  Furnham had no rocks on which to beach ships. Only a sandbar at the outer edge of the estuary’s mouth that sometimes shifted in storms and caught an unwary pilot by surprise. As a rule ships were able to refloat with the next tide.

  And so Furnham’s story was very different from Cornwall’s. They hadn’t lured The Dragonfly ashore. It had struck the sandbar in the night and was still there at first light. One of the fishermen had noticed something odd about her, and several men decided to board her and ask what was wrong.

  They found the ship empty. No crew. No passengers. It was decided to take whatever was useful on board, and then refloat her, jam the rudder, and let her break up elsewhere.

  There were chests of goods in the hold, trunks of clothing, and barrels of provisions, leaving the impression that the passengers had been traveling as far as the New World. There was a box of Bibles, another of hymnals, and the log indicated that she had sailed out of Newcastle-on-Tyne, stopped briefly in Holland, and was expecting to put a few passengers ashore in Plymouth and then take on another half dozen for the remainder of their journey. Their destination was New England.

  The man who discovered the log had read the final pages, and he quietly tossed it overboard through a stern window in the captain’s small cabin.

  It required close to four days to empty the ship of all that was useful. Men had stayed aboard, guarding the goods, and others came and went with the fishing boats and rowing boats from the village.

  This was the background of a plot revolving around the rector, who told the fishermen and their cohorts from the village that the ship had been sailing on God’s business and that everything taken from her belonged to the men who had funded the voyage.

  He had railed against their greed and their covetousness, but no one listened. Every household had benefited from The Dragonfly, and no one wanted to return his share.

  There was salt, flour, pork, tea, a cage of live chickens, and even a cow for milking. They’d had to build a sling to get her ashore. Boxes of nails and hammers and other tools, bolts of cloth, chests of bedding, wood for construction of huts until houses could be built-the list went on. It could all be put to good use.

  The rector, in frustration, told his parishioners that they were doing the devil’s work, and that the devil would exact his price.

  Hear me. There is a curse on these comforts that have come to you.

  And not even a fortnight had passed before the first of the men who had stayed on board for four days came down with the plague.

  Rutledge put the pages aside. He’d asked about the mass burials, assuming that they must be plague victims, and no one had answered his question.

  “Why is he writing such a story? This Edward Willet?” Frances asked.

  “I don’t know. His first two books were personal. One of them his war memoirs, and the other an account of a girl he’d seen once when his father took him to France and that he’d searched for during the war. It’s not surprising that his third effort would be something in the past of his village. How much is true I don’t know. But so far the facts are there. The name of the inn, the barrows I’d seen in the churchyard that were mass graves for plague victims. It takes place in the mid-1700s. Almost two hundred years ago.”

  “I wish you would take it away,” she said, gesturing to the box. “I feel uncomfortable even knowing it’s here.”

  He smiled apologetically. “I’d forgot. I shall have to stay here for several days. Would you mind terribly?”

  R utledge spent the day at the Yard, then stopped by the flat to be sure that all was well. The nursing sister welcomed him, and he saw that she had been reading to Russell from one of the books on the shelf across from the bed.

  The Major had more color this afternoon but no fever. Sister Grey told Rutledge he was a difficult patient, and Russell had smiled.

  Rutledge said, “What do you know about a ship named The Dragonfly ?”

  “It’s on a sign above the inn in Furnham.”

  “Nothing more? No one from the village ever told you the story?”

  “I didn’t know anyone from the village well enough to talk about legends and the like,” Russell replied. “I don’t believe Mother did. She never mentioned it.”

  “It went aground on a sandbar by the mouth of the river. When the village men went out to see why there was no activity on board, they found the ship abandoned. The cargo was rich enough to salve their consciences. One of the villagers who could read saw what was written in the ship’s log, then deliberately tossed it overboard. Then plague erupted in the village, and it must have run through it fairly quickly. I’ve seen the mounds in the back of the churchyard.”

  “I’ve seen those as well. Many villages lost three-quarters of their population to some of the plagues. I don’t think it’s that unusual. ”

  “Here it was considered a curse from God for taking the ship’s goods.”

  “Where did you discover all this? In Furnham?”

  “Willet was writing a novel about what happened. I collected those boxes of his from his lodgings. They were filled with manuscripts. I expect that’s why they were intended for Cynthia Farraday.”

  “Good God. That history will set the cats among the pigeons, if it ever comes to light.”

  “He told Miss Farraday that his next book would be a story of pure evil. I expect he was right. Tell me, how are you faring? Do you have everything you need?”

  “I’m well enough. Sister Grey tells me I’m healing. It doesn’t feel like it. My chest still hurts like the very devil.”

  “I expect it does.”

  “Does Cynthia know where I am? It’s not all that far to Chelsea,” he said hopefully.

  “Only Dr. Wade, Matron, and Sister Grey know you’re alive. Only Dr. Wade was told where I was taking you.”

  “Foolishness. I’d have been safe in the hospital.”

  “I’m sure you would have been. On the other hand, are you willing to risk another attempt on your life? I’m using you as bait to draw out a murderer. The Yard would take a dim view of your dying while in our charge.”

  “Yes, all right.” He closed his eyes. “Good hunting.”

  Rutledge left him to rest and went to Frances’s house. She had gone for the day with friends, and so he shut himself in the study and took out the manuscript.

  It was close to eleven o’clock when she came through the door.

  “Here you are. I saw your motorcar, but when I called you didn’t hear me. Have you had dinner? I think there’s a bit of cold chicken in the pantry. Shall I make you a sandwich?”

  “I’d forgot the time,” he told her. “I’ll come with you.”

  “I see you’ve been reading more of that manuscript. I hope it’s better than the part I saw.”

  “It’s not as interesting as I’d hoped,” he answered her. “I’m continuing from a sense of duty rather than pleasure.”


  It was a lie. He didn’t want his sister to know the truth about Furnham.

  “I’m sorry. You’d said he appeared to be a talented writer.” And she began to tell him about her evening as she went to find a plate for him and bring in the cold chicken.

  After he’d eaten, he went to bed so that Frances would also go up. And then when he was certain she was asleep, he quietly returned to the study and finished the manuscript.

  Setting it aside, he considered what Ben Willet had done.

  Was he exorcising ghosts-first the war, the French girl he looked for but couldn’t find, and the past that still hung over the village where he’d lived most of his life? Was it what had made him want to leave Furnham in the first place?

  Would his next work have been the story of Wyatt Russell’s murder of Justin Fowler, out of jealousy?

  Rutledge understood now why Jessup and Barber and others had not wanted the airfield to be brought to Furnham, for fear someone-bored, or clever, or simply looking to annoy the villagers in his turn-would stumble on a history no one wished to remember. It wasn’t so much change they feared, but that the more people who came, the more likely it would be for Furnham, now only a backwater village of no importance, to find itself famous for the wrong reasons. What had Barber said? That Jessup didn’t want Furnham to become notorious.

  Did Jessup want that badly enough to kill Willet before the book could be published? Or had he thought he’d been in time? For all anyone knew, judging from these typed sheets, The Sinners was ready for publication, barring a final revision before it went to the printer’s. Willet’s arrival in France was all that was needed to carry on.

  In light of what he’d been reading, Rutledge suddenly realized that the manuscript explained the missing luggage.

  Whoever had come to see Willet at the lodging house must have known-or guessed-what Willet was carrying to France with him. The finished work. The man had to die so that he couldn’t re-create what he’d written, and the manuscript couldn’t survive him to be sent to Paris posthumously.

  Was that what had happened?

  Gathering up the pages he’d read, Rutledge set them carefully back into the box they’d come from, and rummaging in what had been his father’s desk, he found a roll of twine with which to bind it shut. That done, he carried the two boxes into the attic and left them there until he could decide whether they were evidence or Willet’s personal property, to be handed over to Cynthia Farraday as the man had wished.

  Back in his room, he lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

  Most of the facts had been there, and he’d failed to see them. Still, the few that had been missing made a whole of the story, and without them he had been unable to understand what was wrong with the village of Furnham-on-Hawking.

  It was a fisherman named Jessup who had tossed the logbook overboard so that no one else would realize that this was a plague ship. The last survivor on board had written there, All dead but me. I still don’t know who brought the plague aboard. I do fear we stayed too long in Rotterdam. I watched them die, and now I find I can’t face such an end alone and without comfort. If you find this, whoever you are, know that I chose self-destruction. I pray God will forgive me. But if I’m damned for it, then the devil must look for me in the sea.

  So many more dying in Furnham all because of one man’s greed. But it was what the villagers did next that was unthinkable.

  The rector had gathered all the plague victims in the tiny church and was nursing them there, setting the dead outside on the porch, trying to contain the sickness as best he could, dependent on food and fresh water brought to him by villagers and left in the churchyard. The man had worked day and night to save as many souls as possible.

  And outside, by the harbor, the man who had destroyed the logbook harangued the remaining people of the village, telling them that the only way to stop the spread of the plague was to burn it out. In the end, they collected wood and torches, blocked the exits from the church, and set it afire. The rector and the victims inside had screamed for mercy, but there was none. The church burned to the ground.

  No one knew whether it was God or the devil who answered their prayers as the church burned, prayers that the plague would end and everyone else would be spared.

  There were no more victims.

  But Jessup, watching his own wife burn alive, hanged himself within a year on a tree near the harbor, in plain sight of the villagers. A pact was made then never again to speak of what had happened. It was Jessup’s defiant son who had renamed the inn for the doomed ship. No one had dared to change it again.

  Chapter 22

  After breakfast with his sister, Rutledge went to the Yard.

  She had commented as she poured his tea that he looked tired and asked if he’d slept well.

  He had lain awake most of the night for fear he would have a nightmare and start up screaming, frightening Frances. But he smiled and said, “Chief Superintendent Bowles has had a heart attack. The Yard is tense, waiting to see if he’ll return when he’s stronger or if we’ll have a new Chief Superintendent. We all feel it.”

  “I’m sure that’s true. You and he never got on, did you? Well, I hope the new man, if there is going to be one, is more sympathetic.”

  When he walked into his office there was a message on his desk from Gibson, and attached to it was a cutting of the request for information from the Times.

  Rutledge read it again, then set it aside. He wasn’t sure now what sort of response there would be. He doubted that anyone in Furnham read the Times, and he would have to take a copy to them. With what he knew now, he hoped he could finally clear up the murder of Ben Willet. He had a motive now and clear suspects. As for the attack on Russell, it would most certainly no longer be an inquiry for the Yard. It would be turned over to the Tilbury police, now that the Major had survived. The other deaths-if there were others-would have to remain unsolved.

  Hamish said, “It willna’ be resolved.”

  True enough, Rutledge thought. Tilbury had never solved the disappearance of Mrs. Russell, just as Colchester had never solved the murders of Justin Fowler’s parents.

  Still, even though he couldn’t quarrel with the evidence before him, he was not satisfied.

  Another question was what Cynthia Farraday would do when Willet’s new novel failed to arrive, even though he’d promised her a copy. Would she raise the matter with his Paris publishers?

  He had no more than formulated the thought when there was a tap at his door and Constable Henry stuck his head in.

  “A Miss Farraday to see you, sir. And she appears to be very upset.”

  He wasn’t surprised. He hadn’t told her about the fabricated article, just in case Fowler tried to contact her.

  She came in, her face flushed with anger, and he thought too that she had been crying.

  “You didn’t have the courtesy to come and tell me,” she said at once. “I was left to read the news in the Times. I would have gone to him, I would have been with him when he died.”

  “I’m sorry. There has been no opportunity to tell you.”

  “Did he suffer? Who shot him? When? Where? I don’t know anything!”

  He had been standing when she came in, and he offered her a chair. “Sit down. Let me tell you what I know.”

  She did as he asked, but her eyes were still blazing with her fury, and he felt a surge of regret for what he was about to do.

  He told her how he had finally learned that Russell had gone to Essex. “And I left the church before they could find me there listening. I went on to River’s Edge and waited for him to come. But he didn’t, and I believed that Morrison had relented and let him spend the night at the Rectory. The next morning I spoke to Nancy Brothers, who told me he hadn’t come back to the church ruins, and I went myself to be sure. From there I drove to the Rectory. But neither Morrison nor Russell came to the door. I was just turning toward River’s Edge when I saw Morrison coming from that direction. He’d been looki
ng for Russell as well, and together we went back to the house to search more carefully.”

  He glossed over discovering what he’d thought was Russell’s dead body and the difficulty of carrying the wounded man to the motorcar. He said only, “We found him on one of the marsh tracks. We managed to get him to a London hospital, Morrison and I. I don’t believe he ever regained consciousness.”

  “And you don’t know who shot him-or why?”

  “We’ve had very little luck. That’s why we asked the public for assistance.”

  “And you think anyone in Furnham has even seen this article?” She shook her head in disbelief. “First Ben. And now Wyatt.” She angrily brushed away a tear. “And so far you’ve done nothing to stop it. Nothing at all. Scotland Yard, for heaven’s sake! And no better than that poor drunken constable in Furnham. Do you realize that I’m alone now? They’re all gone. Aunt Elizabeth. Justin. Ben. My parents. It’s a frightening feeling, I can tell you. And you didn’t have the courage or the decency to come to me and break the news yourself.”

  She began to cry then. He handed her his handkerchief as she fumbled for her own. She rejected it, as if to take it would be to forgive him.

  “I can only say how sorry I am.”

  “Would you have come at all?” she asked finally.

  “I was hoping to reach you before you’d seen the Times.”

  “I don’t believe you.” She rose to go. “Where do I find the undertaker who took Wyatt’s body? I shall deal with the arrangements myself.”

  It was the one thing he hadn’t planned for.

  “The hospital is sending that information to us. I’ll see that you get it.”

  “Just as you saw to it that I was informed before the Times arrived this morning?”

  “No, Miss Farraday. I’ll see that you know in good time. If I must send Constable Henry to you with the information.”

  Turning toward the door, she said, “You’ve brought me only unhappiness. When I thought you were Wyatt’s solicitor, I liked you. And then you tried to follow me home, and I was frightened. Since then, nothing has gone the way it should. I hold you accountable.”