The Confession - Charles Todd [68]
“Did he listen to you?”
“I thought he had. But when he came down from Cambridge, he informed me that while he would say no more about it, I must understand that his feelings hadn’t changed. You have no idea how that confused my comfortable and safe world. When I went to Aunt Elizabeth and asked her what to do, she told me that I was far too young to think about love, and she didn’t expect to see me married until I was past my twentieth birthday. It was such a relief. But I could tell she was pleased that Wyatt cared, and as I told you once, I didn’t know how to interpret that. When she disappeared, I wasn’t eager to live under Wyatt’s roof without her. Still, I told everyone that I longed for the excitement of London and convinced my solicitors to open the house here. It made leaving easier for all of us.”
He said, “You had no feelings for him?”
“As a cousin and a friend, of course I did. I just wasn’t in love with him. Yes, he was handsome, he wasn’t a dancing master, and he was great fun. I wanted everything to stay the way it had always been.”
He smiled at her reference to the dancing master. “How did you feel later when he announced his engagement to be married?”
“Happy for him. Relieved, as well. And perhaps just a tiny bit jealous.” She made a face. “So much for his vows of undying love.”
“He needed an heir for River’s Edge, in the event he was killed.”
“I wondered once or twice if he was happy. Content, perhaps, but not outrageously, gloriously happy.”
Rutledge couldn’t help but think how that had described his engagement to Jean. Only he hadn’t recognized it then or even later. Only with time.
“And what about Justin Fowler?”
Her face didn’t change, but there was something in her stillness that was different. And then in spite of herself, she said, “I think I could have loved him. I knew he liked me. But he was so—so remote. I never knew why.”
And by her admission, she had just unwittingly given Wyatt Russell a motive for murdering Fowler, and possibly even Ben Willet as well.
It was too late to overtake Major Russell before he reached Essex. If that was where he was going. Rutledge made a detour to drive by the house Russell had inherited from his late wife, and even knocked at the door. As he listened to the sound echoing in the hall beyond, he knew that the house was empty.
It was possible too that after his encounter with Cynthia Farraday, Russell had realized what he had done and returned to the clinic of his own volition.
Given George Hiller’s affection for the Trusty, the man would be out for his blood. If word of the accident had even reached him by now. Russell would have to face his anger as well as Matron’s.
He decided to make a telephone call to the clinic from the Yard and establish whether or not Russell was there, before making the long drive to the River Hawking.
Rutledge found a place to leave the motorcar and walked the short distance to the Yard, his mind still on Russell.
Stepping through the door, he felt the change in atmosphere almost as a physical blow.
The sergeant at the desk was grim-faced, his greeting a curt nod. And as Rutledge climbed the stairs, he heard the silence.
The Yard was never quiet, with men going in and out of offices, doors opening and closing, telephones ringing, typewriters clicking, footsteps loud on the bare floorboards, voices in the corridors. Sounds that Rutledge had become so accustomed to that he hardly noticed them. Except now, when they were missing.
He was on the point of entering his own office when he saw Sergeant Gibson step out of another room down the passage, closing the door quietly behind him.
Rutledge stopped, his hand on the knob, waiting for Gibson. He couldn’t