The Confession - Charles Todd [75]
He loved his wife, Rutledge thought, and was angry for her sake. But this was a new intensity.
What did he know?
And as if he knew he’d already said too much, Barber turned on his heel and walked away without a word.
Tales of the wild bohemian ways of Paris, painted in lurid detail, had come home from France with returning soldiers. Most of them had never seen Paris, but most knew someone who had, and those who had were not above embellishing for greater effect. For Ned Willet’s son to prefer that world to the staid life of service in a respectable household was unimaginable to someone who had rarely left this backwater of Essex.
Rutledge turned to follow him. “Will you let me speak to your wife?”
Barber shook his head. “She can’t help you. And besides, she’s still cut up about her father’s death and Ben not making it back here in time. She told me this morning that she couldn’t understand why he hadn’t written. What am I to do? Tell her that he’s dead as well? She even asked me to go to Thetford and see if he’s all right. What’s more, the whispers have already started. Someone talked to his wife, despite my warning. And when I find out who, I’ll kill him myself.”
Rutledge said, “She’ll have to know the truth sometime.”
“Let her heal a little first. When will they release his body?”
“I can give the order tomorrow.”
“That’s too soon.”
With a nod Barber turned and walked away again. Rutledge let him go this time.
Hamish said, “There’s more to him than meets the eye.”
“I agree.” Then Rutledge added thoughtfully, “He would kill Ben Willet himself, if he thought Willet was going to hurt Abigail. But there’s nothing he can do. The man is already dead. And that’s grief he has to carry.”
“It’s verra’ possible that he did kill him. Gie him a little rope . . .”
“Meanwhile, I have to find Major Russell.”
And that meant returning to River’s Edge.
Halfway to his motorcar in the inn yard, Rutledge saw Nancy Brothers coming toward him, a market basket over one arm. She hesitated, and he thought perhaps she didn’t wish it to be known that he had come to the farm to interview her. But after that brief moment she walked on, ducked her head in a diffident nod, and passed him without a word. He touched his hat, but didn’t speak, in accordance with her unexpressed wish.
It was a measure, he thought, of the village attitude toward him. Indeed, he’d been surprised that Sandy Barber had sought him out. Hamish reminded him that Barber was a force to be reckoned with in Furnham and made up his own rules. But Rutledge had a feeling that the encounter had gone beyond curiosity. A fishing expedition, then?
He was just stepping into the motorcar when the inn’s clerk came to the door.
“Are you leaving, then?” he asked hopefully. “I’ll fetch your valise for you.”
Rutledge shook his head and drove off toward River’s Edge, leaving the clerk looking after him with frustration writ large on his face.
As far as he could tell, after he’d left the motorcar and walked up to the gate, nothing had changed there. The chain was still looped between the pillars, and the high grass showed his passage but not, he thought, that of someone else.
Unless someone had walked in his tracks.
He made his way up the drive to the house, remembering last night and his care not to be seen until he was ready to show himself. And that had been wise, given the weapons he’d found in the study. Now he went boldly toward the house across the open ground, and around to the terrace. It was one thing to shoot an intruder in the dark, and quite another to fire on him in the light of day.
Instead of mounting the steps, he scanned