Charles Todd - The Confession

While the tea steeped, Rutledge said, “I have a photograph to show you. It isn’t a pleasant photograph, but perhaps you will be able to identify the man in it.” He took out the envelope from Gravesend, opened the flap, and passed it to her.

She reached inside tentatively and pulled out the photograph. He saw her grimace as she looked down at it.

“He’s dead, isn’t he? This man.”

“Yes. He was found in the river.”

“The Hawking?” She glanced from the photograph to Rutledge’s face. “My husband never said anything to me about a body being found.”

“It was the Thames. Do you know him?”

“He’s changed so much I hardly recognized him at first. He was just a lad when last I saw him, all arms and legs, and polite enough,” she said slowly. “I didn’t go into Furnham that often, but he came to River’s Edge a time or two. From the village. As I remember, his father was a fisherman. I’m sorry I can’t put a name to him after all this time.” She turned away from the photograph, and Rutledge put it back in the envelope.

“Do you remember anything else about him?” When she hesitated, he added, “Was he a troublemaker? Was there gossip about him?”

“If there was, I don’t remember it now,” she answered. “But of course we didn’t mix all that much with the villagers. The staff at River’s Edge.” She smiled wryly. “We thought ourselves above them. And here I wound up marrying one of them. You never know, do you? But at the time, Mrs. Russell encouraged us not to go into Furnham. On our days off, every other week, she’d let us go into Tilbury for the day. Let us have the use of the cart, even, as long as Harold Finley drove it. And she cautioned us to stay well away from the docks.”

“You are sure this man isn’t Major Russell?”

“Oh, no, I’d know Mr. Russell anywhere. Even after all this time. I was a maid in that house for fifteen years, until Mr. Brothers come along. Yes, I’d recognize him even today, for certain.”

Throughout the questioning, Hamish had been silent. Now he interjected a comment, catching Rutledge off guard as he was setting the envelope down by the leg of his chair, out of sight. Mrs. Brothers was bringing the teapot to the table, and he glanced up quickly, certain she must have heard the voice as well. But she had turned away to pick up two cups and saucers.

“Ye ken, yon dead man knew the people at River’s Edge well enough to accuse the one of killing the ither.”

It was an excellent point.

“What was the relationship between Fowler and Russell? Did they get on?”

“They did, well enough, except where Miss Cynthia was concerned. Then it wasn’t so friendly, was it? And some of it was her doing, flirting with first one and then the other. It wasn’t serious, I’ll say that for her. Mind you, I know the difference. She didn’t fancy either of them, but she was the sort to like their attentions.”

“You didn’t care for her?”

“Not to say didn’t care for her,” Mrs. Brothers replied. “That’s too harsh a word, isn’t it? But I was not taken in by her ways. She even flirted with Harold Finley. Not in quite the same fashion, but enough to turn his head. That wasn’t fair, was it? To lead him on? But he was a fine figure of a man, tall and strong and clever as well. She couldn’t resist proving he was under her spell too.”

Harold Finley. The driver-cum-butler, when the need arose.

“How did she flirt with him?”

“She’d invent little errands where he was to drive her here and everywhere. To Tilbury to return a book to the lending library in the bookshop. To Furnham, to find a ribbon that matched her hat. Once to London to see a friend. But Mrs. Russell put a stop to London visits. A young girl like that. It wasn’t wise, was it?”

London, the den of iniquity? “No, it must not have been,” he answered.

“I don’t suppose you know how that man came by Mrs. Russell’s locket or had Miss Cynthia’s photograph in it?”

“No. But when I find Miss Farraday, perhaps she can tell me.”

“Yes, and she’ll lead you up the garden path, if I know her, unless she’s changed.” As if she’d said more than she intended, Mrs. Brothers added, “But to be fair, she wasn’t wicked, just lively and sometimes trying.”

“Did you by any chance keep in touch with her after she left River’s Edge?”

“There I can’t help you, and I’m that sorry. I never knew just where it was she went to in London. But she could have told me ten times over, and it wouldn’t have made any difference. I was never in London, you see. I did hear that the house had belonged to her parents, which isn’t much help, as she’s likely married by now and living somewhere else.”

He finished his tea, retrieved the locket from the table along with the envelope, and prepared to take his leave, thanking her.

“You never told me how you came to have Mrs. Russell’s locket.”

He owed her the truth.

“The dead man was wearing it when he was pulled from the river.”

“If this man,” she said after digesting what Rutledge had told her, “had the locket-where did he get it? Did he know what became of Mrs. Russell?”

“I wish I could answer that,” Rutledge said. “But he told the police at one time that Russell had killed Fowler.”

She shook her head vehemently. “I don’t believe a word of that. Now I could see maybe Mr. Russell taking his fists to Mr. Fowler. He had a black temper on him, Mr. Wyatt did. But murder? No.”

“But you said that they were jealous of Cynthia Farraday’s attentions.”

“If every jealous man took to killing his rival, you’d be busier than a beaver in a rainstorm!” she retorted. “What’s more, in your shoes, I wouldn’t believe someone wearing a dead woman’s locket.”

F rom the Brothers farm, Rutledge drove back to Furnham and left his motorcar by The Dragonfly Inn. It was small and for Furnham, rather picturesque, with a cottage garden in front where hollyhocks bloomed among other summer flowers.

The streets were busier now, women going about their marketing, fishermen coming up from the water, workmen standing in front of the ironmonger’s, passing the time of day. Beyond the High Street, the river was dappled with sunlight, and the boats riding at anchor were turning with the tide.

Rutledge stopped the first man he encountered. From his rough clothing, he appeared to be a laborer, and there was cement crusted in the cuticles of his fingers.

“My name is Rutledge,” he began, already drawing the photograph out of its envelope. “I’m trying to locate the family of this man.” He held it out.

The man barely glanced at it. From his flat expression it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. “Don’t know him,” he said, and brushing the extended photograph aside, he walked on.

Rutledge continued down the street, found another man just coming out of the ironmonger’s, a bolt in his hand, staring down at it as if he weren’t satisfied with the choice he’d made. He looked up when a shadow fell over his hand.

“Who are you?” he demanded, as if Rutledge had dropped from the moon.

Rutledge recognized him, the man in corduroy trousers and a workman’s shirt who had challenged him earlier as he drove along the street with Frances. He wasn’t sure, however, that the man remembered him. He repeated his earlier approach.

The man pushed his extended arm aside. “Never saw him before,” he said brusquely as he walked on.

Rutledge tried three more times, and met with the same unfriendly refusal to admit to recognizing the dead man. And there was no way to tell whether they were speaking the truth or whether the man was their long-lost brother or son.