The Confession - Charles Todd [84]
And what about Willet’s writing? What role had that played?
Waiting for Gibson to find out what he needed to know could take days. It was better to drive to Colchester and see what he could discover for himself. That had been where Fowler’s parents had lived and died.
Hamish said, “There’s the room in Furnham.”
“They’ll be relieved when I don’t return,” Rutledge retorted, packing a valise.
But before he left London, Rutledge went to call on Dr. Baker.
He was an older man, his hair nearly white, his eyes a sharp gray.
“Murdered, you say? Willet? That’s startling news, indeed.” He regarded Rutledge for a moment. “But you’re here about his illness, not his murder. There was nothing I could do. We could have tried surgery, of course, but the cancer had spread too far, and Willet knew that.”
“What did he take for the pain?”
“I gave him morphine, but I don’t believe he took it very often. He said he had something to do before he died, and he wanted a clear mind.”
“Why should he come to Scotland Yard, give another man’s name, and in that man’s name, confess to a murder?”
“Willet did that? I’ll be damned. Medically, I can’t account for it.”
“How did he receive his diagnosis?”
“Quietly. He didn’t appear to be particularly religious, but I overheard him comment as he was dressing again that God was punishing him. He didn’t tell me how he’d incurred the Almighty’s displeasure. Perhaps I should have asked, but he wasn’t speaking to me, and I respected his privacy. Have you considered that his charade was intended to push the Yard into action? As he appears to have done?”
“It’s possible,” Rutledge answered neutrally. “Would Willet have paid someone to cut short his suffering? Rather than contemplate suicide?”
“I think not. Unless he’d finished whatever it was that drove him to eschew taking something for his pain, and it was growing unbearable. As it would have done. I’m sorry I can’t give you a more satisfying answer. I knew very little about his personal life, except for the fact that he’d recently lived in Paris and had come home to be seen by a doctor.”
Hamish reminded him of a last question.
Rutledge said, “You examined him, of course. Was he by any chance wearing a gold locket?” He took it from his pocket, holding it out to Dr. Baker.
“Quite pretty, isn’t it? And quite old, as well. But no, I’ve never seen it before.”
Rutledge thanked him and was about to walk out the door when Baker said suddenly, “I just remembered. He asked if I had any information on the plague. I gave him a book to read, and he brought it back on his last visit. He said he had found it very interesting. I asked him why he should want to study the subject, and he said that it was a hobby of his.”
“A hobby?”
“He must have seen my reaction—very much like yours, I’m sure—and he smiled and said, ‘The Spanish flu was a plague, was it not, killing thousands?’ I told him the effects might have been the same, the way it ravaged country after country, but that the pathology was quite different. It wasn’t spread by rats or fleas. And he said, ‘Yes, but you see, it’s the only comparison I can make.’ ”
Colchester had once been a Roman camp, the capital of Roman Britain until Queen Boudicca burned it to the ground during the Iceni revolt. It had also been a prosperous woolen center in the Middle Ages. It was very late when Rutledge reached his destination. The town was dark, quiet, only a few vehicles and fewer pedestrians on the streets as he made his way to the Town Hall with its handsome tower and then found the police station. Lights were on inside, but he knew that only a small night staff would be there. Tomorrow morning