The Confession

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 nor 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.”

“Still-”

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.”

“And did Mrs. Russell ever tell you why she didn’t approve of her cousin marrying Mr. Fowler?”

“She never said, not directly, but I heard her tell Mr. Wyatt that he was too old.”

All of which corroborated what he’d learned in Colchester.

He thanked her and left the farm just as Brothers was walking in from the pasture, his shoulders stooped with fatigue and his face red with sweat and smeared with dust. He saw Rutledge turning out of the gate and lifted a hand in greeting.

Nancy Brothers had done well for herself.

He was just turning around to go back to the farmhouse, a thought tickling at the back of his mind, when he saw Constable Nelson coming toward him on his bicycle.

“Found the missing mare?” he asked.

“We did. T’other side of River’s Edge, some five miles down the road. I notified the owners. No, I’ve come to find you. Abigail Barber is that upset. She wrote to her brother in care of that family in Thetford, to tell Ben that his father was ill. And then again to tell Ben that his father died. Now a letter’s come from them saying they haven’t seen Ben since the start of the war. Sandy Barber is beside himself, trying to think what to say to her.”

“The truth would be best,” Rutledge said. “It wouldn’t have been possible to keep the news from her for very much longer. Others have seen the photograph I brought with me.”

“Yes, well, Barber wants you to come and tell her.”

And explain as well why no one had told her before this.

He followed Nelson into Furnham and went alone to the Barber house.

Abigail was sitting in the front room when he knocked and then opened the door.

“Mrs. Barber?” he called from the entry, and when she replied, he joined her. Constable Nelson had been right. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her face blotched by tears. There was a crumpled handkerchief in one hand.

“They’ve sent Scotland Yard to me?” she asked, looking at him as he took the chair she offered. “He said you were an Inspector. Sandy. It can’t be good news.” Her voice was thick, husky.

“I’m afraid not. But first I think it best to tell you what I know about your brother. He didn’t go back to Thetford after the war. He was afraid to tell his father what he really wanted to do. And apparently, from what I’ve learned from Miss Farraday-”

“Oh, Miss Farraday is it?” She looked up at him, anger in her eyes. “It was Miss Farraday that put ideas into his head about going into service. He never would have left Furnham if she hadn’t. He would have gone to sea like his father and grandfather, and never got notions about leaving his family. She and that driver of hers, sweeping into Furnham like the Queen come to call, was like a thorn in my side every time I saw her. As if she was gloating over taking Ben from us. What did she persuade my brother to do this time?”

“You didn’t like her driver?” He was surprised. Nancy Brothers had left the impression that Finley was dependable and helpful. Indeed, he’d been left in charge of River’s Edge until he himself had been called up.

“He was a servant, wasn’t he? No better than Ben was. But you’d have thought he was the Lord High Somebody. Standing stiff as a poker by that motorcar and not a word to say to anyone.”

“I don’t believe Miss Farraday was responsible for your brother’s decision,” he said, thinking of the copybooks he’d seen in Thetford. Still, she’d made it financially possible for him to return to France. “He was trying to establish himself as a writer.”

“He never showed any interest in such a thing when he was growing up.”

“Nevertheless, he was actively trying to write while he was a footman. I don’t know what he did during the war, but it must have shown him a different sort of life, and he decided to stay in Paris and work.”

“He’s still there? In Paris? Is that what Sandy wanted you to tell me? I’ve been so worried, thinking something must have happened to him. I’m glad my father never knew. He wouldn’t have cared for that. He never liked the French very much. Boastful people, he said, and thinking they know more than anyone else.”

“Ben wrote two books that were published in France. They were quite well written, by the way. He used the name Edward Willet. His father’s name as well as his own. And then this spring he came back to England to see a doctor. He was diagnosed with stomach cancer. There was not much the doctors could do.”

She said slowly, as if she found it difficult to hear what must be coming, “He was dying of it?”

“I’m sorry. Yes.”

“But why doesn’t he come home then, and let us take care of him?”

“We don’t know the answer to that, Mrs. Barber. It’s one of the questions we’re still asking.”

“Where is he? I’ll ask Sandy to take me to him. In hospital?”

“I’m afraid he’s dead.”

She stared at him, and then her face crumpled. “And nobody was there with him? None of his family around him?”

Rutledge took a deep breath. This was the part of his duty that he found the most difficult. “He was found in the Thames, Mrs. Barber. Someone had shot him.”

“He-did he kill himself? Because of the cancer?

“No. He couldn’t have taken his own life.”

Nodding, she said, “Then you’re saying that this was murder?”

“Yes. If it’s any consolation, he was intending to come home to see his family before returning to France to die. But he was killed before he could.” There was nothing else he could say. A silence fell, and he gave her time to recover from the blow.

Finally she said, “I want to see him. Will you take me to see him?”

“I-don’t believe it would be wise, Mrs. Barber. I don’t know that he would wish you to see him like this.”

“I’m his sister. There’s no one else. I want to see my brother.”

He considered offering to show her the photograph and then thought better of it. “Will you let your husband take you? I’ll see to the arrangements.”

“Not Sandy. I don’t want to go with him. But I’ll go with you, if you’ll be so kind.”

“Now?”

“Yes, please. I’ll just fetch my shawl.” And she rose, leaving him there in the room. Five minutes later she was back. He thought she’d splashed cool water on her face, for it seemed less flushed. But her jaw was tightly clenched, and he could tell that she was trying to steel herself for the ordeal to come.

“Is there anyone you’d care to take with you? Another woman, perhaps? Molly?”

“No. I’ll go alone. He’d have wanted it that way.”

And so he led her out to the motorcar, settling her into the seat. His mind busy planning his route, he chose to take the lane that led past the churchyard rather than to go through Furnham. She looked up as they were approaching it, and he cursed himself for his thoughtlessness, because both of them could see the raw hump of a grave near the east wall.

But she said only, “I’m glad my father didn’t know. It’s for the best. And if there’s any truth to what Rector was telling me, they’ve already met, haven’t they?”

He said, “I’m sure they have.” Remembering his conversation with Dr. Baker, he asked, “I saw those barrow-like graves in the back. They’re unusual. Plague victims?”

She stared at him, her eyes wide, then said, “I wouldn’t know.”

But he thought she did.

I t was a long and silent drive to Tilbury, where they took the ferry across to Gravesend. He found a cab to convey them to the hospital and sent a message to Inspector Adams as well.

By the time they had found someone to escort them down to the cellar, Inspector Adams came in, frowning as he saw Rutledge with Abigail Barber.

“Your note asked me to meet you here?”

“Thank you for coming. Mrs. Barber, this is Inspector Adams. He had made every effort to learn the identity of the man brought in by the Thames boatmen. Otherwise we would have had no way of knowing that he was your brother.”

“Mrs. Barber,” Adams said in acknowledgment, then added, “Are you sure you wish to go through with this? It can be an unsettling experience.”

“Did he suffer?” It was a question she hadn’t asked Rutledge.

“According to the doctor who examined the-your brother, he did not. He wouldn’t have known what had happened.”

“Well, then, I expect it was better than dying of that tumor.”

They took her back then. Rutledge had already asked an orderly to see that the body was presentable and that no other corpses were in the room.

As the door opened, he watched as Abigail Barber squared her shoulders, as if bracing herself as she followed Inspector Adams into the morgue. It was chilly and the light was glaring pools in the dimness, but she walked resolutely to the table where a body lay under a freshly ironed sheet.

Inspector Adams asked, “Are you ready, Mrs. Barber?”

“Yes,” she answered stoically. But Rutledge put a hand on her shoulder, as comfort.

Adams pulled back the sheet. She flinched. “It’s Ben,” she said, and then tentatively reached out to touch her brother’s face, drawing back quickly at the coldness of the flesh. “He’s a man, isn’t he? He was a boy when he left us to go to Thetford. Now he looks very much like Joseph.” After a moment, she leaned down, as if to whisper in his ear. Adams turned aside to offer her a little privacy. And then she straightened.

“I want to take him home,” she said.

Adams glanced over her head at Rutledge, who nodded once.

“Yes, all right, I shall see that the paperwork is completed. There’s a good man here in Gravesend. The-undertaker. He’ll take care of the rest.”

“Thank you.” Before they could move, she reached out and drew the sheet back over her brother’s face, her hands gentle. And then she was walking quickly out of the room, as if she couldn’t bear it any longer.

Rutledge thanked Adams and followed her out of the hospital and half a block down the street. She stopped there suddenly, as if she couldn’t go any farther, and broke down, crying inconsolably. He put a hand again on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off.

When she lifted her head finally, to his shock her eyes were blazing with anger.

“If you know where Cynthia Farraday lives, you tell her for me. If she ever shows her face in Furnham again-if she even thinks of coming to the service for my brother-I’ll kill her myself.”

He summoned a cab, and without a word she got into it.

It was very late when he delivered Mrs. Barber to her home in Furnham. Her husband, peering anxiously out the window, saw them arrive and hurried out to open the motorcar door for her. He was about to demand where she had been when he caught the look that Rutledge gave him. Instead he said, as if it had been what he intended in the first place, “Come in, love, there’s tea waiting.”

Rutledge didn’t get out. But he waited until the Barbers had walked into their house and shut the door.

Driving on, he cursed whoever had killed Ben Willet.

“And it willna’ do you any guid to damn him.”

Still, he went to the Rectory to find Mr. Morrison, to tell him what had transpired, and to ask him to call on Abigail Willet. But the Rectory was dark and silent. No one answered his knock. At the church then? At this hour?

He came to the junction in the road and soon after saw the church just ahead. It was dark except for a dim light in the nave, just visible through the plain glass of the high windows.

Stopping the motorcar at the verge of the road but leaving it running, he crossed to the church door and quietly began to open it so as not to disturb the rector if he was at his prayers.

He had not swung it more than two inches wide when the sound of voices came to him, echoing in the empty church. He couldn’t see anything but the opposite wall without pushing the door wider. But he knew the voices and could put a name to both of them.

That was the rector, saying, “What is it you wish to confess, my son?”

And the response came from Major Russell.