Charles Todd - The Confession

“You’ve made progress,” Rutledge said, taking the chair beside him. “First, the Casualty ward. Now with the rest of the sufferers.”

Major Russell grimaced. “They snore like the very devil. I couldn’t sleep last night for it.”

“You probably wouldn’t have slept well anyway.”

“No. It’s hard to breathe. That keeps me awake. What do you want? Are you here to ask more questions? If I could answer any of them, the bastard would be in irons by this time.”

“I’ve come to ask you about Harold Finley. Mrs. Dunner regarded him as the son she never had. Cynthia Farraday cajoled him into taking her to London against your mother’s wishes. Your mother hired him to drive her. It’s how three women saw him. I want to know how he struck you.”

“Finley? I never gave him much thought. The groom usually drove my mother wherever she needed to go, until she bought the motorcar. She didn’t like it, she called it the contraption. And he couldn’t manage it. She advertised for a chauffeur who could work in the house if needed. The agency sent three or four men to be interviewed. She chose Finley. He worked out very well. Cynthia flirted with him outrageously, but she was a child, and he treated her like one, much to her chagrin. My mother was pleased with that. He dealt with Justin and with me just as easily. I took him for granted, I suppose, the way I took Mrs. Broadly and Mrs. Dunner and Nancy and the others. They were there.”

“Did he strike you as a man who was angry beneath the politeness of a servant?”

“I don’t think I ever saw him lose his temper.”

“Was he different when you were alone with him? When Mrs. Russell wasn’t present and he could be himself?”

“Not to my knowledge. He knew his place and he kept to it. What is it you want me say?”

“I don’t. This man came to an isolated household of women and children. Do you think he was hiding anything? His past? His name?”

“God, you’ve got a twisted imagination. No. Finley was Finley. That was all.”

“It seems to me that he could have found work anywhere. Why choose the marshes, and only Tilbury for any social interaction on his free afternoons?”

“He actually seemed to like the marshes. He took me out in the boat once, and we sat for an hour or more watching the marsh birds. I’d never really noticed the birds before. He fashioned a penny whistle for Justin, and none of us could play it, but we tried, and Cynthia laughed until she cried.”

Rutledge could see that he was getting nowhere, and he said, “Did strangers come to River’s End very often?”

“If they did, I never saw them. What are you getting at?”

“I expect I’m chasing ghosts.”

There was a moment of silence, then Russell said, “I expect there’s no chance Cynthia will take pity on me and visit?”

“I don’t know. She was shaken by your last encounter.”

“Yes, I’ve no doubt of that,” he said ruefully. “I always seem to get off on the wrong footing with her. I have a knack for that.”

“Is there anything you need?”

“Patience,” he said.

Rutledge left soon after and returned to the Yard. Constable Henry saw him walking down the corridor and called to him.

“Sir? There’s a message on your desk. A George Munro returning your call.”

“Thank you. I’ll take care of it.”

Ten minutes later, he had reached Munro, and he said, “You have something for me?”

“Yes, I do. But I don’t think it will help you very much.”

“You found the information about Justin Fowler and Harold Finley?”

“Mind you, it took me hours, because I was looking in the wrong place. Finally, as a last resort, I tried another direction, and that’s when I found both of them.”

“Let me take out my notebook.”

“You won’t need it, Ian. It’s very straightforward.”

“All right. Go ahead.”

“I looked at the rolls of the dead and then searched the missing. They weren’t there. I went to the list of deserters. And I found both their names on it. The Army would very much like to find both of them. The war is over, but the Army is still of a mind to shoot them.”

“When did they desert?”

“In the summer of 1915.”

Rutledge sat there with the receiver to his ear.

After a time Munro said, “Are you there, Rutledge?”

“I’m still here.”

“How did you come across these names? I should very much like to know.”

“They came up in a murder inquiry I’ve been conducting. Neither man had contacted anyone since the Armistice. What month did they desert?”

“Both men had been wounded but at different times and neither wound was self-inflicted for a free ticket home. Finley failed to report to France in July. Fowler’s wound was more serious, but he didn’t return to duty in September. What’s more, he missed a medical examination to update his recovery. That was in August. From my end, the two cases don’t appear to be related. I’d like to hear what you see at your end.”

“It shoots my own theory full of holes.”

“Yes, I expect it does. All right, the shoe is on the other foot now. You owe me, rather than the other way around. Give my love to Frances, will you? Joan was asking about her just the other day.”

“I’ll be sure to.”

With that Munro was gone, and the line went dead. Rutledge realized he was still holding the receiver when the operator asked if he cared to place another call.

It was late when Rutledge got home, having had to interview a possible suspect in someone else’s case. The air in the flat was hot and oppressive, and he opened several windows to let in what little breeze there was. London had had a particularly long spell of warm dry weather, punctuated by a few storms that hadn’t seemed to bring in cooler temperatures.

He was all too aware that he was back at the beginning in the Willet case. And the more he learned, the more unlikely it was that the disappearance of Mrs. Russell had anything to do with Willet’s murder. If he’d found the locket in the marshes while searching for her, then put a photograph of Cynthia Farraday in the place of the wedding pair, Willet was guilty of theft, not murder. And it was more and more likely now that he had posed as Wyatt Russell because his mind was confused by the drugs he’d been taking.

Yet he had carried that imposture off flawlessly.

Which brought Rutledge back to the likelihood that Major Russell had been shot because coming through the reeds along the riverbed, he’d been mistaken for the man from Scotland Yard. It would be easy to rid themselves of him in the middle of the night with no witnesses, and the reason why Ben Willet had had to die would be safe.

Even if the Yard knew to look for him here, a dozen inspectors sent out in his place would have no better luck finding a body than earlier searchers had had looking for Mrs. Russell.

“He didna’ come to see if you were dead.”

“No, that would have left footprints. If I hadn’t been found in a few days, whoever it was could safely put me in the river.”

Hamish said, “The house is his.”

“He must come there often enough to feel it is. And if he isn’t Jessup, I’ll wager Jessup knows who he is.”

“Aye, it’s verra’ likely true.”

Which meant a confrontation with Jessup was looming. He didn’t altogether regret it.

Rutledge left the window and went to bed shortly after that, but he lay there for a time, thinking about Cynthia Farraday and trying to decide what it was that made her so attractive to so many men.

No great wisdom arrived with the morning.

On the way to the Yard, he considered placing a request in the Personals of the Times, asking either Justin Fowler or Harold Finley to contact Scotland Yard. Both men were considered deserters by the Army, and the risk for them was too great to expect them to yield to curiosity. That avenue was effectively closed to him.