Rutledge had seen the new farm laborer as well, but standing well back, head down, when he’d asked Henry about the horse in the wrong pasture.
“What is his name?”
“Blackwood? Blackburn? Yes, I believe it’s Blackburn. Henry sees to his wages, you see. I try not to interfere—Eric left Henry in charge of the Home Farm when he went to France. He’s been very good too, and I leave him to it. We go over the books every quarter.”
“Have you ever seen this man before? At the airfield?”
“I—I don’t think so.” She rubbed her chin, trying to remember. “Certainly not one of the pilots. Possibly one of the mechanics? Margaret might be able to tell us.”
Patricia Lowell might have answered that, if she’d lived.
He said, “Mrs. Lowell might have remembered him.”
“Oh—yes! Of course! One of her pets. Um . . . Perry? The one with the stutter? No, I think it must be Reed.” She stared at him. “Are you telling me that Blackwood is also Sergeant Reed?”
“I think it’s very likely.”
“But Patricia never said anything!— It was—she had a flat going home on the Saturday after what happened in the garden—Blackburn was waiting by the road for someone to take him somewhere, and he—he came to her rescue and fixed the flat for her. She told me on Sunday how grateful she was.”
“Did she recognize him? Realize that he was Reed?”
“She’d have said something if she had. Surely?” Lady Benton shook her head. “I’m sure she didn’t. Or perhaps it didn’t occur to her that he was Reed. At least possibly not then—but later—” Her fingers went to her lips, pressing them as the next thought came. Rutledge read it clearly in her eyes.
“If she asked questions, if the police investigated, they might well discover he was a wanted murderer. And he hadn’t finished what he came here to do. He wasn’t going to take a risk that she knew Reed was using the name Blackburn now.” He waited the space of a moment, then asked, “Did Henry have much to do with the men at the airfield?”
“Hardly at all. You can’t imagine what it was like, with everyone enlisting, no one to plant or harvest—making do at every turn. I worried about him—he was working day and night, he kept us fed, and the animals as well. And he was much older. He had nothing in common with the men who were here. They were all so—so very young.”
He took the photograph from her and turned it over.
Someone had written on the back.
Brides are so lovely, aren’t they? Overshadows yours truly. Much love, Penny
“Who is Penny? Do you know?”
“Ah, she was Roger’s sister. She married a young American and they went back to his home there. She was Roger’s only family, and he took her leaving hard.”
And that explained why he’d been buried here. Why no one had come to Essex to take him home.
But was this bride the wife that Franklin killed three years later? Or someone else? Another victim?
If it was, then this was the only known photograph of Miles Franklin, other than that unclear one in the newspaper cutting.
No wonder the Captain had hidden it. Rutledge looked at the title of the book that Lady Benton was still holding. Myths and Monsters: A History of Strange Beings.
A fitting title, he thought.
Lady Benton was saying, “There’s a second volume. Perhaps we should look in there. Would you bring it down?”
Rutledge found it and handed it to her.
She thumbed through the pages, and stopped toward the end. “There are cuttings here. I don’t recognize them. Roger must have put them in as well.” She passed them to Rutledge.
He took them, expecting them to be copies of what he already had in his possession about the murders in Dorset. But they were not.
Here was the first murder—earlier than the one where Franklin had escaped from a courthouse and disappeared. At the least, the first one that anyone had found, searching what they could of Franklin’s life.
murder most foul was the headline. And beneath that was the story.
Last night the bodies of Mary Elizabeth Morton Franklin and her father, Jerome Andrew Morton, were discovered by a cousin who had come to the house to return a cooking pan she had borrowed for a Maundy Thursday dinner at St. Joseph’s. According to Constable Merriman, Inspector Williams was brought in to take charge of the inquiry into their deaths and is seeking Mrs. Franklin’s husband, whose present whereabouts are unknown. There has been a search for his body, but it has not yet been found. Mrs. Franklin and her father died of multiple stab wounds, and it is feared that Mr. Franklin may have suffered a similar fate. Neighbors interviewed by the police can offer no explanation for the deaths. “They appeared to be such a nice family” according to one, while another told us, “They were lovely people. This makes no sense to any of us.”
The second cutting reported that Mr. Franklin had not been found, alive or dead, and the police were still searching for him. A third reported that the police now believed that Franklin was a person of interest in the deaths of his wife and father-in-law. He had disappeared, and it had been learned that he had made numerous large withdrawals from accounts at the nearest bank before his disappearance, and that items were also missing from the home. He was being actively sought by Scotland Yard.
The date on the cutting was 1911.
A note had been added at the bottom of the third cutting.
Roger, darling, you remember Mary, don’t you? We were in school together, and I was in her wedding party some years ago. I never cared for him, I could easily believe he has killed her. But the police haven’t a clue.
And the note was signed with a P. Penny . . .
Appalled, Lady Benton looked away. She had been reading over Rutledge’s arm as he scanned the cuttings.
“Why did he kill them? Why not a divorce—or simply leave? Disappear? I can’t understand it.”
“I don’t know that anyone can. Perhaps Franklin believed that a divorce would take too long and be too difficult. That it was safer just to be rid of them, if he could get away with it. Needless to say, he was never caught. There’s a very good chance he’s killed others. Not just Morton and his daughter.” He said nothing about the other cuttings in his possession. This wasn’t the time. Instead he added, “Men like Franklin find it easy to kill, if someone is in their way. They feel no shame and no remorse. It’s merely self-protection.”
She was frowning, working it out in her own mind, putting the pieces together.
“Is—is Reed this man Franklin—and dear God, the man at the Home Farm as well?” She found her handkerchief, and wiped away tears. “I don’t want to believe it. I don’t want to think of Patricia dying at his hands.” She set aside the book lying in her lap, as if it were contaminated by what had been hidden among its pages. “Roger knew, he knew what Reed—Franklin—was, didn’t he?” Reaching out, she caught Rutledge’s arm, her fingers gripping it hard. “Inspector—it was an accident, wasn’t it? Roger’s crash? Please tell me it was!”
“I can’t. I think the Captain must have done or said something to alert Franklin. Or perhaps he even confronted him. Who can say for certain? He may have intended to talk to the Colonel—the police—someone in authority, and he had to be stopped. Without drawing attention to his death. Everyone seemed to know the Captain drove fast. Fiddle with the steering or the brakes, and let nature take its course. I don’t think Franklin expected it to happen in front of witnesses, who could vouch for what they thought they were seeing. He was fortunate there. If the crash had occurred somewhere on the road from Walmer, late at night, there might have been a formal inquiry. It’s very likely that Gerald Dunn discovered what had been done to the motorcar. That sealed his death as well.”