The Confession - Charles Todd [48]
Rutledge didn’t stop. With a single wave of his hand, he went on to the crossroads and turned back toward Furnham.
“Hardly a proper house for yon priest,” Hamish said.
“At a guess he preferred the cottage to living in Furnham.”
Here in the open, the motorcar was being whipped by a rising wind, and looking ahead of him, out over the North Sea, he could see the storm clouds gathering. The rain had held off when he’d come here with Frances, but this time the clouds kept their dark promise. Just as he pulled into the yard of The Dragonfly, the creaking of the inn’s sign on its post was drowned out as the rain came down in earnest. At first a few large drops hitting the dust of the street and his bonnet as he got out of the motorcar, and then with a flash of lightning, a deluge swept across Furnham like a gray curtain as he made a dash for the door.
Shaking the rain off his hat, he took the stairs two at a time and went into his room.
He knew at once that someone had searched it.
The photograph of the body of Ben Willet was safely in his motorcar, and the locket that had belonged to Mrs. Russell was still in his pocket.
What else could the intruder have been looking for?
He debated confronting the inn’s owner, and decided against it. Standing by one of the windows in the passage, he watched the lightning move up the river, coming from the sea, the thunder loud enough to rattle the sash in front of him. At one point the very air seemed to turn blue around him, and a tree shattered, then went down with a roar he could hear above the thunder that followed. Someone shouted, but he couldn’t tell just where the lightning had struck.
Even after the worst of the storm had subsided, rain continued to fall. But toward the east the clouds broke and a faint rainbow arced above the river to the west. Someone began using an axe to clear away the tree, strong, rhythmic blows, and shortly afterward Rutledge could hear the ring of a second axe as well.
It was nearly time for lunch, and he decided not to dine in the inn but to go up the High Street to the same tearoom where he and Frances had stopped.
He could see as he left the inn that a tree had fallen across the road where the bend led toward the outlying farms. Jessup was one of the men with an axe.
The welcome in the shop was no warmer than before, but he was served a sandwich, a cup of tea, and a Banbury bun. There were several women at two of the other tables, and the topic of conversation appeared to be the death of Ned Willet. One of the women was saying, “Do you suppose Ben will come for the funeral? Sandy told me that Abigail had written to him when her father took ill. But there’s been no word.”
There was a silence, filled only with the strokes of the axe. And then one of her companions said, “Haven’t you heard? He was murdered. In London.”
“No—oh, no, I hadn’t.” The woman shook her head. “What a terrible blow. Do they know who killed him? And what’s Abigail to do? First Ned, and now Ben. He was the last of those Willet boys. How is she holding up?”
“Sandy hasn’t told her yet. She was fond of Ben,” the first woman said.
“He didn’t return the feeling,” the third woman put in. “How many times has he shown his face here? Too good for the likes of us.”
“Yes, well, when you’re in service, I daresay you do as you’re told,” the second woman retorted, hurrying to his defense.
“He came home when his mother was so ill,” the third woman reminded her companions. “Just goes to show, I say.”
Rutledge finished his meal, paid for it, and then walked over to the table where the three women sat.
“You knew Ben Willet?” he asked. “Do you recall where he was in service? The house is in Thetford.”
They stared at him, shocked that he would approach them.
“I had intended to ask Abigail Barber but didn’t wish to intrude on her grief,” he carried on.
The third woman said, “You’re the man from London.”
“Yes. Scotland Yard.”
They glanced at one another, apparently of two minds about helping him. But Rutledge had the feeling