The Confession

Chapter 6

When the gates of River’s Edge loomed ahead, the pineapples atop the posts promising a hospitality that was far in the past, late as he was, Rutledge stopped the motorcar and got out.

He had come earlier with a different perspective. The house had belonged to a confessed murderer. Or so he’d been led to believe. And for all he knew-given the reluctance of the man passing himself off as Wyatt Russell to give any details of his crime-the body could still be somewhere here.

With his sister present, he’d been content to look at the house and grounds, noting the marshes across the river and on either side of the acres of once smooth lawn on which the house had been set. And it had seemed all too likely that the house had remained closed because the memories it evoked were disagreeable.

Now as he walked down the long, brush-choked drive and made his way around to the riverfront, he had a clearer picture in his mind of the people who once had lived in this house.

Standing on the terrace, he gazed out over water dancing in the sunlight with an almost macabre gaiety. On a warm August day when the clouds of war were gathering on the horizon and threatening her son, as another war had taken her husband, Mrs. Russell had gone down these shallow steps and walked to the river’s edge.

Had worry for her son really taken her there? And had that worry been strong enough to drive the woman to suicide?

Nevertheless, she’d vanished. The police had been satisfied. Still, it was possible that they had heard what they wanted to hear. And when there was no evidence to the contrary, it was easier to accept the unlikely.

Nor had her son questioned the verdict or appealed to the Chief Constable for Scotland Yard to intervene.

It would be easier to accept a confession by the false Wyatt Russell that he had killed his mother, not Justin Fowler.

That brought up another issue. Would Elizabeth Russell have killed herself and left behind the three children that she had once thanked God for giving her?

There seemed to be no good reason to suspect murder.

Unless, of course, Wyatt Russell had learned almost a year later that Fowler had killed his mother and hidden her body.

If that was the case, how did Ben Willet come to have Mrs. Russell’s locket?

Standing there watching the river moving silently toward the North Sea, he found himself wondering why, when Mrs. Russell had disappeared, the family had sent for the police in Tilbury, more than an hour away. And it had been Tilbury who had asked for the help of the villagers, not Wyatt Russell.

On both occasions when he’d been in Furnham, Rutledge had seen neither a police constable walking along the street nor a police station. He himself hadn’t sought out the local man because he was still in the early stages of the inquiry and Willet’s murder had occurred in London, not River’s Edge. But there must be a constable in the village. Surely-

A woman’s angry voice cut into his reverie, and Hamish was warning him to beware.

“What the devil do you think you’re doing? This is private property!” She came striding through the French doors at his back, and he knew her as soon as he turned, although the expression of the living face was very different from the one in the locket he had carried with him to Furnham.

“Miss Farraday, I think?” he asked pleasantly and watched her go as still as if she had been carved from marble.

“Who are you?” Her voice was guarded, cold.

“My name is Rutledge,” he told her. “And I may ask you the same question. What are you doing here? This property, as far as I know, was not left to you by the previous owner.”

It was a shot in the dark, but it struck a spark.

“Are you Wyatt’s solicitor?” she snapped.

“At the moment I’m representing him,” Rutledge replied.

She was very attractive, with more spirit than he’d expected from her photograph. She had also changed in other ways. There was a maturity about her that wasn’t present six years ago. The girl had grown into a very self-assured young woman.

“I’m looking to buy the property. Is it for sale?” she asked. “Is that why you’re here?”

“Even in its present sad condition, I doubt that you could afford to buy it and then keep it up.”

An angry flush flared in her cheeks. “I have come into my inheritance,” she retorted. “You can speak to my own solicitors if you don’t believe me.”

“How did you arrive here? I didn’t see a motorcar or a carriage in the drive.”

“I came by boat.”

But he hadn’t seen a boat by the landing stage either.

“It’s a launch, I rented it upriver. It’s tied up out of sight.” She read the doubt in his face. “There’s another place where a boat can tie up.”

“The tradesman’s entrance?”

To his surprise she laughed. “Yes, as a matter of fact. The Russell who built River’s Edge didn’t wish to see viands and coal and other goods carried across his hard-won lawn. The path leads directly to the kitchen. What do you do, come here once a fortnight to see that all is well? I noticed, when last I came, that someone had walked up the drive. The grasses were bent over, and even broken here and there.”

“How often do you come?”

“When the spirit moves me,” she countered.

“How did you get into the house?”

“When I left, no one thought to ask me for my key.”

“When did you leave?”

“Before the war,” she answered evasively.

“Why did you leave?”

She pondered that, her eyes taking on the expression of someone staring into the long and unforgiving past. “A very good question. I expect it was because I felt it was the right thing to do.”

“Indeed?”

“It’s a lovely day. Would you care to bring out two chairs? We could sit here and enjoy the afternoon. Sadly there’s no one to bring us our tea. Never mind. And I must warn you I promised to have the launch back no later than five o’clock.”

He did as she asked, walking into the house for the first time.

The room behind the French doors was spacious, with a marble hearth set across from the long windows. The high ceiling was decorated with plaster roses and swags of floral garlands, while trellises of lemon and peach roses climbed the wallpaper. Several chairs and settees, what he could see of them beneath the shrouding dust sheets, were covered in pale green and soft yellows. The effect was tranquil, an indoor garden, created for a woman’s pleasure.

He found two chairs that would do, removed the sheets covering them, and carried them out to the terrace.

Cynthia Farraday was standing where he’d left her, staring out over the river.

She turned as he set a chair down near her, with a clear view across the lawns to the water, and she smiled, sitting down and stretching her booted feet out in front of her.

“Heaven,” she said as he took the other chair. “I have always loved this terrace. Aunt Elizabeth-Mrs. Russell-used the garden room more than any other, and I could understand why. The two go together, don’t you think? I spent many happy hours there.”

“When did you arrive here today?” he asked.

“I came just after noon. In fact, I’ve missed my luncheon. I didn’t think to bring any sandwiches with me.”

“How long did you intend to stay?”

“Not this long. But then I didn’t have the courage to bring out a chair. It felt somehow-wrong-to disturb the furniture. As if it were all sleeping.”

“Did you live here as a child? What do you remember most about it?”

“You’re very inquisitive for a solicitor. But since you were gallant enough to bring out our chairs, I’ll answer that. I remember being happy, for the most part. Of course in the beginning I missed my parents terribly. Wyatt did his best to amuse me, out of kindness, knowing how I grieved. And not very long afterward, another cousin-Wyatt’s, not mine-came here to live, and the three of us passed an agreeable few years together. And then we all grew up, and it was vastly different.” Her voice had taken on a sad note.

“What happened to them?”

“You’re the solicitor. You tell me.”

“Justin never came home from the war. And Russell married but lost his wife and his child at the same time. He was a widower. And he still loved you.” That last was a guess, based on what Nancy Brothers had told him, but it clearly found its mark.

Cynthia Farraday stirred uneasily. “You know too much. Have you been prying?”

“Hardly. Just fleshing out the facts. How did you get on with Mrs. Russell?”

“She liked me at first. I was a lost child, in need of mothering, and she treated me like a daughter. I was fond of her, and it was comforting to have a home again. I’d been so frightened when my parents died, and everything changed. They wouldn’t let me stay in the London house where I felt safe and everything was familiar. They told me it was for the best to go to strangers.”

“They?”

“My father’s solicitors. Very officious old men-well, I thought them old at the time-who kept telling me it was what my parents would have wished. But I was just as certain they’d have wished nothing of the sort.”

“You said earlier, ‘for the most part’?”

“At first the three of us, Wyatt and Justin and I, did everything together. It helped me heal, I think, and I expected it would always be that way. But we grew up, as children tend to do, and Wyatt thought he’d fallen in love with me. Sadly, I wasn’t in love with him. Aunt Elizabeth encouraged him. At least so I thought. I was too young at the time to realize that she might truly have liked to keep me in the family. I believed she was pushing us together for his sake, and I’d have none of it. I wasn’t a very pleasant child, I expect.”

“It’s logical, isn’t it? She knew you well, you stood to inherit from your parents when you came of age, which meant you were Russell’s equal socially and financially, and you were already friends. I should think she was pleased to see River’s Edge in good hands for another generation. Her son could have made a worse choice.”

She took a deep breath. “In fact, he did. The woman he married was hardly what any of us would have chosen as the future mistress here. She hated the marshes, for one thing. Justin told me that when Wyatt brought her down to see River’s Edge, she refused to spend the night. Even though her sister was with her. And she felt it was silly to keep a country house, servants and the like, when they could live in London.”

“Then why did Russell marry her?”

“I don’t really know. Unless he didn’t much care anymore. He wanted an heir, I expect. And she was enthralled with the idea of a military wedding, uniforms and raised swords and a husband going off to fight for King and Country. She told me that it was just too exciting for words. I told Wyatt he could have scoured England and not found anyone quite so selfish.”

“That was rather unkind, don’t you think?”

She shrugged. “I told him the truth. That his mother would have been appalled. That was the day before he was to be married, and I haven’t seen him since.”

“Then why should you wish to buy River’s Edge?”

“Because it stands empty. I can’t bear that. I could live here. There are no ghosts here for me.”

But that wasn’t what she had told the rector.

“What do you believe happened to Mrs. Russell?”

“I don’t know. At the time I thought it was my fault, that I’d disappointed her and she wanted to punish me. I was too young to understand that it probably had nothing to do with me, or Wyatt falling in love with me, or Justin being angry with him for spoiling everything for all three of us. I heard him tell Wyatt that he hated him. But of course he didn’t. Not really. I remember telling someone that I’d wished I had been a boy, and then none of this would have ever happened. ”

“Someone? Who did you confide in?”

“That’s none of your business,” she snapped, as if already regretting she’d given so much away.

“Was it by any chance someone from Furnham by the name of Ben Willet?” As he spoke, he was watching her eyes, and he thought that once again he’d found his mark.

But she shook her head. And evaded his question. “I didn’t know Furnham very well. A few of the shops, where I could purchase things without having to go all the way to London. Or having them sent out to River’s Edge without the pleasure of choosing what I liked.”

“Ben Willet went on to become a footman in Thetford. Did you know?”

“Did he? Was he happy there, do you think?”

He smiled inwardly at her answer. But Willet knew you, my girl, and wore your photograph until the day he died. The question is, how did he come by that locket?

They sat there in silence for a time as Rutledge considered what she had told him so far. Certainly encountering her here had saved searching London for her. But it had brought him no closer to the truth about what had happened to Ben Willet or, for that matter, Wyatt Russell.

“Do you think it will be possible for me to buy River’s Edge?” she asked, looking him straight in the eye. “You must know I’ll see to the property. I won’t let him down.”

“I have no idea how Mr. Russell will feel about that.”

“But you will ask?”

“I think it would probably come better from you.”

She smiled, but it was twisted, as if the admission hurt her. “There you’re wrong.”

He rose. She would have to leave soon, and he was overdue in London. “And if he feels that he might wish to sell? How will he find you?”

“Tell him I’ll find him.”

“He might prefer to contact you himself.”

“My life is my own. If he wishes to find me, tell him to speak to my solicitors.”

Hamish said into the ensuing silence, “There’s the man who let her take the launch.”

“Shall I return the chairs to the house? Or do you wish to sit here a little longer?”

“I’ll close up,” she said, her gaze once more on the river, as if she saw the past there.

“I should ask. What’s left in the house that’s worth stealing?”

This time the smile was amused. “Don’t you trust me?”

“Still-” He left it unfinished.

“Anything of value is gone. Pictures on the wall. Jewelry. Silver in the pantry. Stored somewhere in London, I expect. I wouldn’t make my fortune selling what’s left. But it’s lovely and familiar, and I’d want to keep what’s here if I could.”

“Whatever happened to the locket that Mrs. Russell wore every day of her life?”

She was very still, her eyes on his. “If they ever find her-or her body-it will be there. I don’t know that I ever saw her without it.”

He nodded and walked down the broad steps from the terrace to the lawns, making his way around the house to the drive without looking back.

He had let her believe he was a family solicitor. She hadn’t realized that he was a policeman. He was of half a mind to go back and correct that impression. But then he decided that this wasn’t the time to put her on her guard.

If she had nothing to hide, then no harm done.