Death by the Book (21 page)

Drew glanced at the framed picture on the desk. It showed Russ seated beside a stylish-looking dark-haired woman and flanked by a tall girl in her early teens and a little boy holding a stuffed duck.

“Your family?”

“Yes.”

Drew smiled. “Very handsome group.”

“Thank you.”

Drew said nothing more for the time being. He was comfortable with the silence, but would Russ be?

Russ fumbled with his cigarette case, tapping the edge of it on the desk before at last opening it. “Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Farthering?” He selected a cigarette and then lit it, discarding the match afterward with a practiced flick of the wrist. “I presume it’s more about Montford.”

“Yes, if it’s not too much of an imposition, I have just a few more questions.”

“If you like, though I really don’t have much else to say about the matter. I’ve told the police and I’ve told you everything that’s pertinent to the case.”

“Oh, quite. Quite. I was hoping, though, that between the two of us, we could make some headway on it.”

“I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have, but I doubt I know anything that would be of use to you. Cigarette?”

Drew waved away the proffered silver case. “Perhaps there’s something you haven’t thought to mention.”

“For example?”

“Oh, I don’t know. For example, what you know about Miss Allen?”

Russ half choked on his cigarette smoke. “What?”

“Miss Allen. Margaret. Meggie, I believe she’s called. The one from the investigation. Do you know her?”

“Oh. Oh, yes, the girl Montford was seeing. That was a terrible thing to get into the newspapers, especially for Mrs. Montford. Shocking business, that. Does she claim to know me?”

Drew smiled. “I asked first.”

Russ studied him for a long moment, his eyes narrowed and piercing. “All right. I don’t suppose there’s any use in denying it. Yes, I knew Miss Allen. Knew of her, at any rate.”

“She was seen at Montford’s hotel. Had been seen there several times before over the past few months. But you knew why he went to Winchester all along, didn’t you, Mr. Russ?”

Russ crushed out his cigarette in the green marble ashtray. “He was going there to break it off. I don’t know what he told the girl beforehand, but that’s what he was planning to do.”

“And why did he tell you this? You said the two of you were never really personal friends.”

“I . . .” Russ ground his already extinguished cigarette into ash. “I had found out about her. Quite by accident, but found out all the same. I told him, man to man, that it was madness, utter madness, to ruin himself and perhaps the firm over a tawdry passion such as this one. He had a fine wife and a son to be proud of. No need to ruin them, as well.”

“And he agreed?”

“He did. He said he would break with the girl at once. That’s the last I knew of it.”

“I see.”

“Frankly I don’t know how he could face her after everything, poor child as she was. I don’t think I could have looked her in the eye. Seems she was quite smitten.”

“Do you think so? A girl like that and a man his age?” Drew chuckled, watching the other man’s eyes. “I suppose he liked to think so, anyway.”

Russ looked him up and down, smiling more to himself than at Drew. “You young pups. You think that’s all women want, do you? Empty-headed, vulgar little boys who think they’re God’s gift wrapped in gold foil? Perhaps some girls do, quite likely most of them do, but no doubt some prefer a man with poise and experience, a distinguished man who knows how to treat them properly.”

“And this Miss Allen was like that?”

“Oh, yes.” Russ stopped and again smiled faintly. “From what Montford told me, yes, she was.”

Drew smiled back at him and then picked up the photograph of his family. “Your little boy, how old is he?”

“He turned eight this spring.”

“I suppose he likes you to bring him things? Toys and games and such.”

Russ relaxed a little. “Oh, yes. He’s a lively child, to say the least.”

“And what did you bring him for his birthday in March? Something from Hirsch’s, wasn’t it? Toy soldiers perhaps?”

Russ swore. He didn’t raise his voice, but he repeated the oath a number of times before dropping into his chair and closing his eyes. “How long have you known?”

Drew shrugged. “I’ve wondered. Haven’t known.”

“This will ruin me. Good heavens, this will ruin me.”

“Perhaps I should be going.”

Drew started to get up, but Russ held him there, a look of desperation on his face.

“No. Wait. Hear me out.” He took a couple of unsteady breaths. “You have to understand. Someone has to understand. I can’t hold it in any longer.”

Drew waited, but Russ didn’t say anything more. He only sat puffing his cigarette and blinking hard.

“How did Montford figure into it?” Drew asked finally.

Russ passed one trembling hand over his brow. “He accidentally opened a letter of mine. From her. It was put in his box at the office by mistake.” He smiled, his thin mustache twitching fitfully. “He was quite understanding about it. Said he’d help me if I wanted out. Before Edith found out. Before I’d spoilt everything. I knew he was right. Meggie—Miss Allen—she’s a fine girl. I won’t hear a word said against her, but the whole tawdry affair was already beginning to pall. The last few times, well, I met her because I didn’t know how to break off with her.”

“So Montford agreed to tell her for you?” What a coward the man was. “That’s why the room was in his name only that once.”

“Yes.”

“Did you kill him?”

Russ’s pale eyes widened, and then the color rushed back into his face. “No.” He shoved his chair back, making it screech against the polished floor as he got to his feet again. “No, I absolutely did not kill him. I did not.”

“Did she?”

“God forgive me.” Russ’s voice dropped to a bare whisper. “I don’t know.”

“Would you have thought she could? I mean, was she the type?”

“Heavens, no. I take it you’ve met her. She’s just an ordinary
little shopgirl. Tears are likely the only weapon she has at hand, and I daresay she would have bravely held those in check.”

“And whose idea was it? Saying she’d been involved with Montford instead of you?”

Russ had the grace to look ashamed. “Mine. He was dead. I didn’t think it would matter at that point.”

The wretched coward.

“No. I can see that. How could it matter to anyone?” Drew smiled. “I mean, anyone but Mrs. Montford and young Daniel. No doubt the firm is tainted either way.”

Russ glared at him, his eyes red-rimmed. “Must you twist the knife? I didn’t set out to hurt anyone. It just . . . just happened.”

“Oh, certainly. One day you’re walking down the street, and the next you’re blaming your unfaithfulness on an innocent dead man.” One side of Drew’s mouth twitched into a smirk. “Happens all the time.”

“All right! All right! Must you torment me? I hope to God you never take a false step!”

Drew looked away, the brittle smugness inside him crumbling just slightly. Even Christ himself hadn’t condemned the woman discovered in the act of adultery. Who was Drew Farthering to be casting stones? Certainly he’d taken his own share of false steps.

His expression softened. “All right, fair enough,” Drew said. “There’s none of us without fault. Sounds as if you at least tried to make things right. Before Montford was killed, anyway.”

Russ sat down again, his head in his hands. “I swear I hadn’t thought it all through. I didn’t think of his family. I couldn’t think of anything but keeping what I’d done out of the papers.” The words were half choked. “Away from my wife.”

Drew was silent for a moment, waiting for the man to pull the shreds of his dignity back around himself.

“Anything else of importance you haven’t yet mentioned?” he asked finally.

Looking drained but calmer, Russ took another cigarette from his case and lit it. “Not that I can think of at the moment, no. I suppose this will all have to come out?”

“Perhaps it needn’t be as bad as you think, so long as we can clear Montford of any scandal. His family deserves as much, don’t you think?”

“Yes. Of course. I suppose this . . . this part of it will have to come out.”

“I don’t know. If it does, it won’t be from me. Not so long as that’s the end of your involvement with it. You should probably tell the chief inspector what you told me. As you advised Daniel.”

“I didn’t kill Montford, I tell you. I may be a coward and an adulterer, but I’m no murderer.”

“Did you know she was pregnant? Miss Allen?”

Russ gaped at him, unable to do more than blink stupidly. “I . . . Pregnant?”

“The Dr. Corneau who was murdered, she went to see him about it. She never told you?”

“No, never. I would have . . . I mean, naturally, I would have seen to everything for her.”

“Corneau wasn’t that sort of doctor.”

Russ glared at him, and then he looked up at the ceiling and took a deep, steadying puff on his cigarette. “I suppose we can arrange a quiet adoption. If she’s determined to keep it, I’ll see they’re both cared for. I can’t be personally involved, of course.”

“That’s terribly gracious of you, but you needn’t trouble yourself. It seems likely she’s already seen to things on her own.”

Russ eyed him suspiciously. “How do you know that?”

Drew gave him only a vague shrug. There was no reason to
tell him about the confessions of Dr. Corneau’s nurse or his conversation with Miss Allen.

“Well, then there’s nothing more to be done.” Russ tapped the ash from the end of his cigarette. “Bad business, but there’s no changing it now. It would have been absolute ruin for me if she had kept it. Surely you can see that. My wife . . .” He looked up at Drew and then dropped his gaze to some spot near his shoes. “I’m not concerned for myself, you understand.”

“No, obviously.”

“But my wife, she’d never get over it. My children . . .” He glanced at Drew again, looking as though he was about to be sick. “You do understand how it is. These things happen, really no one’s fault, and sometimes they go bad. I’ll send some money along to the girl. No doubt a new start will do her a world of good.”

Drew let him finish and then stood and took his hat from the corner of the desk. “I’d best be going. If you have anything else to say concerning the case, I’d be obliged if you’d let me know. You have my card.”

“Yes. Yes, certainly.”

Drew was glad for the long drive home and the clean wind in his face.

T
he lights of Farthering Place were a welcome sight that evening. Drew had spent the drive from London trying to concentrate on the facts of the case and mostly ending up thinking uncharitable thoughts about Charles Russ and then reminding himself of his own failings. It would be good to get away from the tawdriness of Russ’s affairs, from the whole case in general, for an hour or two. He pulled up to the house with just enough time to dress for dinner.

Once he was properly groomed and attired, he headed down the stairs. Coming from his own quarters, Nick caught up to him.

“You look rather done in. Anything wrong?”

Drew shrugged. “Not really. The world’s not a fit place to live in, but unfortunately there just aren’t any other viable options.”

“Cheery as always.” Nick grinned. “I understand you’ve been up to London again. Presumably it wasn’t to see the queen.”

“No, I believe Tuesdays she does the ironing and isn’t at home to visitors.”

“Pity. All that way for nothing.”

Drew stopped halfway down, turning to face his friend. “I had a rather unpleasant conversation with Mr. Russ of Whyland, Montford, Clifton and Russ, in which I learned that Russ and not Montford was involved with Miss Allen and that he did not know of her pregnancy and its subsequent termination.”

Nick blinked. “Angels and ministers of grace, defend us.”

“Amen.” Drew dredged up a smile. “Sorry to be so grim, old man. This one’s a poser, that’s for certain, and more puzzling if Montford wasn’t seeing the girl. Russ said Montford did arrange for a meeting with her, to end the thing on Russ’s behalf, but that was the only time he ever met her.”

“Perhaps she lost her temper when he said what he’d come to say. Perhaps she blamed him for convincing Russ that he shouldn’t see her again.”

Drew nodded. “Or perhaps it was Russ himself. Montford opened a letter from Miss Allen by mistake. Possibly he realized what was going on and threatened to tell Mrs. Russ if Russ didn’t end the affair immediately. Russ didn’t want to do that, couldn’t have Montford telling tales out of school, and made away with him. As good a reason as any, I’d say.”

“But he was in court in London that afternoon. Can’t get a much better alibi than a courtroom full of people sworn to speak nothing but the truth.”

Drew exhaled audibly. “Then we’re back to the girl.”

“I just don’t see it being her. She’s not the type for one thing, though she is rather tall for a girl. Whoever bashed in Montford’s skull was fairly near his height. But even if it was the girl or Russ himself, why would either of them have killed Dr. Corneau or Clarice Deschner?”

“Don’t think I haven’t clawed through every little gray cell I
possess trying to figure that one out. I suppose there’s always the possibility it was neither of them.”

“Person or persons unknown?” Nick gave him a friendly swat on the shoulder and headed downstairs once more. “Well, you’ll have to do better than that.”

“You needn’t remind me.” Drew padded down the steps behind him. “If the killer is moving closer and closer to me, then the only place left is here at Farthering. That means Madeline or you or Denny or even Aunt Ruth may be targeted next.”

“Or you, don’t forget.”

“No,” Drew said, “I’d hardly forget myself, though I still have to wonder. If I am the objective in this little game, why didn’t the killer come for me directly? I’m still missing something. Something important.”

Nick stopped and turned to him. “Something as important as
why
?”

“Precisely. I was meeting with Montford the day he was killed so I could make arrangements to change my will in Madeline’s favor. Most of it anyway. Yes, I realize we aren’t married yet, perhaps we’ll never be, but I’d rather she have it than anyone else. At least I’d know she would never want for anything.”

“She’s rather well off from her uncle’s estate already, isn’t she?”

“True enough. Doesn’t matter. I’d want her to have it, in any case. And you and Denny and Mrs. D would be seen to either way, of course.”

“That’s good to know. I’d hate to have to go out and find a proper job.”

“Old Padgett keeps you busy enough managing the estate. Just wait till he’s retired and you have it all to do yourself. You’ll wish for a proper job, I expect.”

“At least, if your will is as you say, it proves definitively that I couldn’t be the murderer.” Nick put on an exaggerated expression of relief. “I was beginning to worry.”

“I’m happy to set your mind at ease, Nick, old boy, but I must admit I’ve long held you above suspicion in this case.”

“Really?”

“Oh, by all means. Obviously our murderer is of superior intelligence and nerve. I ruled you out from the start.”

The two of them had reached the door to the parlor by then, and Drew could hear Madeline and her aunt making small talk inside. But before he could join them, Nick tugged his arm, abruptly serious again.

“Perhaps someone didn’t like the idea of a change. Have you considered that?”

“I have. As it stands now, besides bequests to you and Denny and Mrs. D and a couple of charitable institutions, bequests I wasn’t planning to alter anyway, everything I have would go to Constance. Needless to say, since she is gone, I needed to make a change. I suppose the next to inherit, if my current will stands, are my heirs at law, whoever they may be. Some cousin four times removed or a great-aunt or someone of that ilk. Far enough off, at any rate, to know nothing about me and care even less. And if this mysterious heir did kill Montford because he didn’t want me changing my will, he’d have little reason for disposing of Dr. Corneau and even less for murdering Clarice or Bell.”

Nick looked down at his shoes and then back at Drew. “You don’t suppose your mother, I mean your real mother . . . ?”

Drew shook his head. The French shopgirl who had been his father’s mistress for a brief week? Drew didn’t even know her name. Everyone he might have asked about her was dead now. In the eyes of the world, Constance, his father’s wife, was Drew’s
mother. Even now, he thought of Constance as his mother. And the French girl?

“It would be rather a roundabout way to go about things, wouldn’t it? Perhaps she’s kept up with any news about me over the years, I mean, supposing she’s still alive. But she’d have rather a rough go of it if, upon my death, she tried to claim any inheritance.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“I’d rather imagine she’d try touching me for a few bob before she’d resort to out and out murder. And my fortune as a motive, it’s rather imaginative to think someone would kill poor Montford just to keep me from changing my will. Even more so to connect that to Corneau or Clarice.”

“Then I suppose there’s nothing in that quarter to worry about.”

“I doubt it, Nick. Besides that, no one’s made any sort of threat against me.”

“Not yet.”

Drew laughed. “Now, how about we let all this sit for the evening and enjoy our dinner with the ladies.” He straightened his tie. “Everything shipshape?”

“Dazzling.”

They went in to the parlor, and a few minutes later Denny announced dinner. Nick escorted Aunt Ruth out of the room, while Drew merely stood there lounging against the mantel, the firelight painting shifting shapes and shadows across the hearth as he stared into the flames.

Madeline went over to him and stood a moment in companionable silence.

“They’ll be waiting for us.” She slipped her arm around his waist and nestled close. “What is it, Drew? The case?”

He sighed and told her briefly about his interview with Charles Russ. “I don’t know. I can’t help but think of poor Meggie Allen. You wouldn’t have believed old Russ even if you had witnessed the entire conversation.” He squeezed her a little closer. “I know it’s not my place to judge him or anyone, but I had to leave his office before I outright thrashed him. He fathered a child by her. Now it’s gone, and all I could see in him was relief that his own reputation wouldn’t be in jeopardy and that his wife needn’t find out anything. A colder, more callous attitude I hope I never see.”

“I suppose it’s easy, if you don’t actually see the child, not to consider what you’re really doing. But God sees his heart even if we can’t. It may grieve him more than he let on. After all, she was the one who made the decision about the baby, not he. From what they both say, he didn’t even know about it.”

“I couldn’t help thinking . . .” He looked away, knowing she could hear the pain in his voice, even if she couldn’t read it there in his eyes.

“Drew?”

“I couldn’t help wondering if my own mother, my real mother, had thought about doing something like that with me.”

“Surely not.”

“There’s no way of knowing, I suppose. Not now. Your uncle Mason told me she was young, that she had no family. She had to have been desperate. Frightened. And I suppose it could have crossed my father’s mind just as easily. Finance ‘the procedure’ and there’s the end of it.” He gave her a brittle smile. “Nothing like paying one’s way out of an embarrassment.”

“But he didn’t, Drew. He brought you home. And from what I’ve been told, he was prouder of you than anything else in his life.”

He wrapped her in both arms, holding her close enough to feel her warmth and the steady comfort of her breathing. Close enough to feel the beating of her heart. “Bless you, darling.”

There was so much more he wanted to say, more he would have said, but he knew somehow that it wasn’t necessary.

He turned her face up to him, smiling into her eyes, knowing his smile was none too steady. “We’d better go in now. Too much treacle and I won’t want my dinner.”

“And that’s all Russ told you last night, was it?”

The chief inspector looked more world-weary than ever in his office’s harsh, unshaded electric light. It was an expression that Drew had come to realize did not always indicate suspicion.

“I didn’t press him for details, if that’s what you’re after, Inspector. But yes, that’s all he said on the matter. I am glad to know that he took his own advice and told you everything this morning.”

Birdsong frowned. “At least he told me everything he told you.”

“Looks as though Mrs. Montford was right about her husband after all. No reason you couldn’t discreetly inform the press that someone else who shall remain nameless was involved with the Allen girl, not Montford as was first suspected. That ought to clear Montford’s name without putting Russ directly in harm’s way, eh?”

“I suppose that would be all right,” Birdsong said. “Of course, what the press dig up in consequence is not something for which we at the police can be held responsible.”

Drew gave the chief inspector a nod. “That seems more than
fair, given Russ’s involvement in the situation. And so that’s the end of that.”

Birdsong studied Drew, his eyes narrowing. “I’ve a feeling there is something brewing in that inquisitive head of yours. Am I right?”

Drew smiled. “If I happen to settle on any particular theory, I promise you’ll know it at once.”

“Mind you do, Mr. Farthering. Don’t let your meddling end you up alongside your mate Bell there, eh?”

“No, no,” Drew assured him, his smile tightening a bit. “We certainly wouldn’t want that.”

On his way back home, Drew stopped in Farthering St. John and parked across the street from the chemist’s. As he got out of his car, he saw Mrs. Harkness standing in front of The Running Brooks, talking to Mrs. Webster from the antique shop next door. He raised his hat. “Good morning, ladies.”

Mrs. Harkness waved. “Hello, Mr. Farthering. You’re out early this morning.”

Drew crossed the street to them. It wasn’t until he got closer that he saw the fresh scrape on Mrs. Harkness’s cheek.

“Why, Mrs. Harkness, what happened to you?”

Mrs. Harkness smiled, coloring. “It looks worse than it really is. I should have paid better attention.”

Mrs. Webster scowled. “That Mr. Llewellyn, it’s a wonder he didn’t break your neck. Or his own. Fancy a man of his years terrorizing the whole county round with his bicycle like that.”

“Now, Gladys, he was ever so apologetic.”

Mrs. Webster huffed. “Well, it sounded to me as if he was trying to put the fault of it all on you.”