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By Root 1150 0

she’d lost touch with his mother after she married Mr. Fowler. I had the feeling that Mrs. Russell didn’t approve of him. That’s to say, of the husband. This was just after the solicitor had come to ask her to take the boy in. She said that God in his wisdom had seen fit to give her only one child. But to make up for it, God had sent her the daughter she’d never have and now a second son. I wondered later if she was as happy as she’d expected to be. They weren’t that easy to mother. They weren’t hers, after all. Then she was gone, and the boys—they were young men by that time—left to join the Army. I don’t know if Justin Fowler survived or not. I drove him in Mrs. Russell’s motorcar to meet the train to London, and that was the last time I saw him. A quiet boy, kept to himself. I didn’t know him well. But he was afraid of something. I never knew what it was.”

“Then who is the man in this photograph?”

Morrison frowned as he considered the face again. “I’m sorry. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen him before. But you said he’d come to call on you at the Yard? The man in this photograph? How did you come to believe he was Major Russell?”

“It was the name he gave me,” Rutledge said trenchantly.

“How very odd! And you tell me he was wearing the locket with Miss Farraday’s likeness in it when his body was pulled from the river?”

“According to those who found him.”

“Then I should think you ought to find her and ask her if she knows this man.”

“Before I do, what else can you tell me about the Russell household? Are there any of the staff still living in the vicinity? Perhaps in Furnham.”

“There was only a small staff. A housekeeper, of course, and several maids. A cook. An elderly groom. And I believe there was a man who acted as butler when there were guests, but generally drove Mrs. Russell when she went out. The household didn’t get on well with the local people and kept to themselves more often than not. The groom died soon after Mrs. Russell disappeared. And the cook went to live with a member of her family, when the house was closed. Mrs. Broadley. I remember how apt her name was. An excellent cook! I don’t know what became of the housekeeper, Mrs. Dunner. I was told she found employment in the Midlands. Harold—the chauffeur—stayed on as caretaker in the first few weeks of the war, then was called up. There was no one at River’s Edge after that.”

“The maids?”

“I’d nearly forgot. Nancy married a farmer’s son on the other side of Furnham. Samuel Brothers. The others went their ways.”

“Tell me how to find this farm?”

“You must drive through Furnham, and when the road curves to the left, just continue along it. The second farm you come to belongs to Brothers.”

Rutledge thanked him and took his leave. Morrison walked with him up the single aisle of the church and to the door, like a good host seeing a guest on his way.

He said as they reached the door, “I hope you can identify that poor man in the photograph. I shall pray for him.”

“Thank you, Rector.”

And then the door was closed behind him, and the rector’s footsteps seemed to echo in the emptiness of the sanctuary as he walked back down the aisle.

“He was in love with the lass. In yon locket,” Hamish said as Rutledge crossed the narrow strip of lawn to his motorcar.

“Morrison?”

“Aye, the priest.”

Rutledge remembered the sadness in the rector’s eyes as he said that Russell would have married Cynthia Farraday. Russell was more her equal than a country parson. It could explain why Morrison had found it difficult to discuss her.

He paused as he reached for the crank, and in the silence he could hear the whispers in the grass. It was easy to imagine people hidden among the reeds, some of them taller than a man. For that matter, it would be hard to find someone even twenty feet away from where one stood. It explained the difficulty in searching for Mrs. Russell.

He left the church, turning toward Furnham.

Who the hell was the man who had come into his office, claiming to be Wyatt Russell and swearing he’d murdered Justin Fowler? More to the point, who had killed