The Confession - Charles Todd [88]
“We wrote to him at River’s Edge, but the letter was returned. We made an effort to contact Major Russell, to discover if Justin Fowler had survived the war, but he could tell us nothing. Their paths hadn’t crossed in the years of fighting. And the War Office listed him as missing in action.”
That was news.
“And so Miss Farraday inherited the Fowler estate?”
Mr. Harrison’s dark brows, in such sharp contrast to his white hair, rose. “I’m afraid we’re a rather conventional firm, Mr. Rutledge. Missing does not necessarily mean dead. We chose not to act precipitously, but to wait and see if any new information might help us to learn Mr. Fowler’s fate. We were left in charge of his estate, and it’s our duty to be certain that he is dead before disbursing such sums.”
“Yes, I quite understand. Did you contact Miss Farraday?”
“No. Not directly. We did make inquiries, and we discovered that she was living in London and was still unmarried. That is to say, her name hadn’t changed with marriage. As she made no attempt to contact us, we felt it best not to contact her prematurely, as it were.”
“You said that Fowler was missing in action. When was this?”
“It was early in 1915. There was a later report that he was wounded and sent home to England to recover. We tried to verify it and were unable to do so.”
“I’d like to know more about the elder Fowler. I was told by one of the maids who was in service at River’s Edge that Mrs. Russell had not cared for her cousin’s choice of husband. Do you know why that may have been?”
“He was some ten years Mrs. Fowler’s senior, but it was a love match, I can tell you that. I saw them a number of times socially, and it was very clear that they were a happy couple.”
“Perhaps there was something in Mr. Fowler’s background that Mrs. Russell disapproved of ?”
“I understood that he was married when he was very young. He’d just come down from university and he was—gullible, shall I say? She was someone he met in London and married without his parents’ knowledge or consent. When this woman discovered that he was to be cut off without a farthing, she told him that she already had a husband and walked out the door. That was the last he saw of her, and the marriage was quietly annulled on those grounds. Fowler left London and returned to Colchester. He admitted this freely to his fiancée before he married Mrs. Fowler. At our urging.”
“And what became of the first Mrs. Fowler?”
“She died some years later of consumption. She wrote to Mr. Fowler before she died—this was even before he’d met the second Mrs. Fowler—but he refused to meet her. She wanted forgiveness, and he couldn’t find it in himself to forgive.”
So much, Rutledge thought, for the man who was too dull to know what trouble was, and who wouldn’t know what to do with it if he did find it. Small wonder he had led a staid life in his second marriage.
“He paid for her care, through our good offices, and we received notification from the sanitarium when she died. He paid for her burial. It was generous of him. And we never spoke of this matter again.”
“Nor did you tell the police about his first disastrous marriage.”
“We considered speaking to them. But the woman was dead, and we had actually verified that fact. There was no reason to resurrect the past.”
“But she had a husband somewhere, didn’t she? Or was he a lie as well?”
“He was in prison. He died there. Before the murders.”
“And that also is certain?”
“Yes. His Majesty’s Prisons don’t make mistakes of that sort.”
A dead end.
Which led him back to the River Hawking.
He thanked Mr. Harrison for his time, then asked one more question.
“This woman. What was her name?”
“She’s dead. Let her rest in peace.”
“I intend to. But I should like to know her name. For completeness.”
That was something the solicitor understood.
“Indeed. Her name was Gladys Mitchell. She’s buried in the cemetery of St. Agnes, the church associated with the nursing clinic where she died. At the end, she told the sanitarium staff that her father had been a clergyman. They felt that this