The Confession - Charles Todd [67]
“Of course I do. It’s Aunt Elizabeth’s. I don’t think she ever took it off. Where did you find it?” she asked again, and then, her lips trembling, she said, “You’ve found her, haven’t you?”
“No. But someone must have done. Ben Willet was wearing it when he was taken out of the river. The locket was given to me by Inspector Adams in Gravesend.”
He thought she was going to faint. The color went out of her face, and she leaned back in her chair.
“No. No, Ben would never have done such a thing. He was one of the searchers.”
“It’s possible he found it when he was searching. It’s gold, quite valuable.”
“But he kept it, didn’t he—I mean to say, if that’s true, he never returned it to the family or sold it.”
As if, Hamish was pointing out, keeping the locket made any difference.
“He put it to another use.” Rutledge took the locket between his fingers and opened it. “This is what was inside.”
Cynthia leaned forward reluctantly, as if half afraid of what she might see.
“Oh,” she said, drawing back. “My photograph. I thought—she told me that her wedding photographs were inside.”
“According to Nancy Brothers, they were. She was surprised to see that they’d been removed.”
“This is what Wyatt saw yesterday? Before he came here? This is the photograph he claimed I’d given you? How could you be so heartless as to let him believe such a thing?”
“I didn’t. He jumped to conclusions and told me that a policeman was not good enough for you. He left the clinic, and while we were wasting time hunting him, he got a head start. I had the devil’s own time catching him up. And then he slipped away again. I was afraid he might be coming here.”
“But was there an accident? As he’d claimed? He was so bloody, one of his hands badly bruised, and I couldn’t be sure, but it appeared he was limping. You—the two of you didn’t come to blows? I thought that was why he was so angry.”
He told her about the stolen Trusty, and that Russell had refused treatment at St. Anne’s.
“I expect I should have been grateful he only slapped me. I was so frightened. I couldn’t know, could I, what had set it off or why.”
“He has a temper?”
“That was the problem. I’d never seen him so livid. At least not before the war. I’ve had very little contact with him since then. He hasn’t encouraged visitors at the clinic.”
“It would seem that he’s still in love with you.”
“He has an odd way of showing it,” she retorted with a semblance of her old spirit. “And for all I know, he could have believed that I’d killed his mother.”
Rutledge had intended to leave as soon as possible and go after Major Russell, but Cynthia Farraday was still uneasy. He went down to the kitchen and made tea for her, then waited with her until Mary, her maid, and the cook returned later in the morning.
He saw the alarm in her eyes when she heard someone coming through the servants’ door into the hall, and then as she recognized Mary’s footsteps, the alarm faded.
When Mary reached the sitting room, Miss Farraday said, “Ah. Mary. Mr. Rutledge is just leaving.” And turning to Rutledge, she said coolly, “Thank you so much for coming to my rescue.”
And then as he was about to follow Mary out, she added quickly, “Will you try to find Wyatt?”
“I have no choice,” he answered her.
“And you’ll keep me informed? I should like very much to know more about that locket.”
He thought, as he left her house, that she had been embarrassed by her own weakness. The danger passed, no longer alone, her natural resilience had returned, and she was determined to show him that it had.
Driving to Scotland Yard he reviewed part of a conversation he and Cynthia Farraday had had earlier. She hadn’t wanted to be left alone, and so she had gone with him to make the tea. To distract her as they sat together in the tidy kitchen, he had said, “Tell me about coming to live at River’s Edge.”
She made a face. “It was River’s Edge or a boarding school for girls. Young as I was, I told our solicitors that I would run away if sent to one. I couldn’t bear it. I wanted so badly to stay at home. Instead they wrote to