The Confession - Charles Todd [135]
To Cynthia Farraday? Would it have saved three lives if he had? Or would Ben Willet have been hanged for a murder he hadn’t committed? Rutledge shook his head.
Jessup mistook the shake to mean he wasn’t believed. “He couldn’t give it to Abigail. I can see now it would have got all of us into trouble if he had. But what would a girl in Thetford know about Mrs. Russell? Ben could tell her the locket was his mother’s, and who would think otherwise?”
They were scoundrels, all of them. Living by their wits, doing what they had to in order to survive.
“Do ye believe him?” Hamish asked.
Rutledge found he did. It was probably not the whole truth, but when did the whole truth ever exist?
“Which brings me back to Willet’s letter. He wrote it. He posted it. That much we know. He was leaving for France, he wanted to die there, and at a guess, it told whoever it was to break the news gently to Abigail and her father. What else did it say? And who came to London that last night of his life?”
“It wasn’t me,” Jessup said. “I was in Tilbury, getting a part for my boat.”
“He didn’t write to me,” Barber said. “It must have been to Ned.”
“Ned was too ill to travel to London.” But Rutledge had found his connection now. It was the last piece of the puzzle. “How would he have managed to keep such a letter from his daughter?”
“He was a sly old fox,” Barber said. “He’d have burned it in the cooker. He wouldn’t have wanted Abigail to learn any more bad news.”
And Ned Willet was dead. No one could ask him. Or prove what he’d done.
Jessup said, “He’d have told the priest. By God, he’d have sent the priest to London to persuade Ben to come home to his father.”
“Make sense, Jessup. The priest wouldn’t have killed him,” Barber retorted.
“Why not? They were all of them in love with that Farraday woman. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out the priest loved her too.”
“No. He saw the locket,” Rutledge said. “Morrison killed Mrs. Russell. He believed that Ben Willet knew what had happened to her. And a dying man often wants to unburden his soul. Morrison couldn’t take that risk.”
“Have you run mad?” Barber asked. “The priest? He’s like Constable Nelson, he’s afraid of his shadow.”
“Is he? He came into a house in Colchester one night and butchered Justin Fowler’s mother and father, and stabbed Fowler himself so severely he spent six months in hospital.”
“Morrison?” Barber exclaimed. “I sent for him to comfort my wife.”
“You look at the evil your ancestors did, but here is an equal evil right under your nose, and you thought because you could bully the man that he was nothing.”
“Did he have a reason for killing them?” Jessup demanded.
“He believed lies he’d been told by his mother. He thought he was owed a different sort of life. His real father was in prison, but he’d been led to look upon Justin Fowler’s father as his. He saw himself as the rejected son.”
“And you’re sure he killed Ben?”
“It was either you or Morrison. I thought you were angry enough with him that you’d killed him.”
Without warning, Jessup came straight for him as Barber shouted, “Here!” But Jessup shoved Rutledge aside and was out the door before either man could stop him.
“He’ll tell Abigail, she dotes on Rector,” Barber said, and was through the door before Rutledge could reach it.
But Jessup wasn’t heading in the direction of the Barber house. With long, determined, angry strides he went toward his own house.
Rutledge was halfway there when he realized what Jessup was intending to do. It wasn’t the shotgun in his house that he was after, it was the motorcar sitting in front of it.
He turned the crank with the vigor of his anger, got in, and was already gunning the motor before Rutledge reached him. As his hand gripped the door, Jessup used his fist to pound it, and when he couldn’t break Rutledge’s hold, he drove off, throwing Rutledge backward, twisting his