A Death in the Small Hours

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Before they went into the rooms where Constable Weston had lived, Lenox had a thought. He walked toward Fripp, who was positioned in sight of his storefront. “Will you do me a service?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Fripp immediately.

“You’re here every day. Would you knock on doors in the square, whether you like the people behind ’em or not, and ask if they saw anything strange last night? Oates has already canvassed them, but a second try can’t hurt.”

The fruit-and-vegetable man nodded. “If they saw anything you’ll hear of it.”

“Thank you, Mr. Fripp.”

The rooms Weston had occupied in life lay directly behind the police station, through a large walnut door or, alternatively, through the side gate where the cigar ends had been dropped. Lenox and Oates took this second point of entry.

There were two rooms, as bare and tidy as monks’ cells, leading one into the other. In the first there was a small round table with three much-scratched chairs around it, a comfortable armchair by a grate, the coals in it half-gray, still usable, and along one wall a shelf of thirty or forty illustrated novels. Lenox flipped through these carefully, looking for odd scraps of paper, but Weston had evidently been too organized for that.

“I take it he liked these stories?”

Oates nodded toward the book Lenox was holding. “That one, there, was his favorite. Dick Turpin.”

The illustrations were garish and violent. Dick Turpin had been England’s most famous highwayman during the century before this one, and his tale was still widely told. Oates was right; the spine of this book was creased from use. “Most of the books are about criminals.”

“He never wanted anything but to be a police officer,” said Oates. He spoke stiffly.

“Then I am heartily glad he was able to do it, while he was alive.”

“I suppose.”

On the walls of this first room there was only one framed image, a mezzotint showing the cathedral at Salisbury. “Constable,” said Lenox.

“Sir?” said Oates, who was standing behind him.

This play on words had been inadvertent; instead of trying to explain, he said, “Is there a kitchen attached? I see he has the leftovers of a meal here.”

Indeed, there was a plate with lamb and peas sitting on the table, as well as half a candle and another illustrated novel, this one about the thief-taker Jonathan Wild. It was marked with a blank scrap of paper.

The second room, like the first, was largely vacant but not without its comforts. There was a soft bed, still made, presumably, from the day before — Weston had never gotten into it before his meeting in the small hours. Lenox knelt to the ground and looked beneath. Stored there was a stout low-slung trunk, which, when opened, proved to contain his clothes, nothing else. On the nightstand was another book.

“The world can ill afford to lose such a reader,” Lenox muttered.

“Yes.”

“And yet—”

“Sir?”

Lenox sighed. “I hope these tales of adventure didn’t tempt him into some rash or reckless crack at heroism.”

“Such as?”

“Meeting the vandal alone, for instance. Would he have come to you?”

“Oh, certainly. He was never a rebellious sort, you know. Very respectful.”

“Mm.”

The walls in this room were entirely bare, and the only remaining furniture in the room was a desk. It had no drawers, but on top was a stack of papers. “Shall I look through those?” said Oates. “Him being my cousin.”

“I think we had better both do it,” said Lenox.

The constable looked pained. “But it seems wrong, don’t it, to—”

“Our debt is not to his privacy,” said Lenox.

“But—”

To put an end to the objections Lenox sat down and began to scan, with great care, the first sheet of paper. It was only a note from a cousin in nearby Cramton, full of prosaic news, but the detective nevertheless read it over with great diligence. Then he moved onto the next note, and the next. In all he sat at the desk for perhaps twenty minutes, reading and passing on the papers to Oates when he was done.

His reward for all this was nil.

At last he stood up. “I suppose the rooms are a blind alley, then,” he said. “Though it is sometimes valuable to learn about the character of the victim.”

“His character?”

“I knew he was amiable, which these letters prove, but I did not know about his taste for adventure novels. I did not know about his tidiness — that cannot be attributable solely to the charwoman — and it makes me think he had a well-ordered mind for police work. I wonder how that reflects upon his meeting on the green last night.”

Oates grunted as if to say that yes, plainly they were both wondering that. “Next, then?”

“Tell me, did he come and go as he pleased from the police rooms, on the other side of this door?”

“He had a key to lock it from the inside, but from our side it was never locked. He could go in and out as he pleased. Certainly I didn’t mind.”

“In that case let us look at his desk there.”

“You could scarcely call it a desk — there aren’t any papers in it. He did mostly footwork, to be honest, Mr. Lenox. I handle the papers, like.”

“Nonetheless.”

They went through to the next room. Lenox’s mind was busy; that Roman numeral, XXII, was beginning to obsess him. The hanging men and the black dog, too. If one of them had been a threat — and if this was a coincidence it was rather a wild one — they all might have been threats. Were they to be read in conjunction, or separately?

The small, narrow table where Weston had sat in the police station was dishearteningly naked. Oates had been correct; there was nothing here.

Yet almost as soon as they had finished looking at it, news came of a fresh clue. It was Wells, the grain merchant, who knocked on the door and ducked his head in.

“Dr. Eastwood would like to see both of you. Says he found something in the boy’s effects. Oates, did you hear that?” called Wells. “Eastwood found something!”

Oates, who had been at the far side of the room, back to the door, turned and said, irritably, “Yes, yes, one moment.”

As he turned back, Lenox saw a glint of metal and realized the man was taking a nip from a flask. “Shall I go on alone?” he said. “If you have business here?”

He had been hoping to let the constable off after his horrifying night, but Oates’s tone was sharp when he said, “No, I’ll come along.”

“He’s right down at his office,” said Wells.

“We know where he would be, thank you, Mr. Wells,” said Oates.

“How far is it?” asked Lenox, when Wells had closed the door behind him.

“Not three minutes,” said Oates. He took his coat down from the peg. “Shall we go?”

“Yes.”

There was to be a delay, however. When Lenox and Oates came out of the door, Fripp ran up to them, his face alive with news.

“What is it?” said Lenox.

“It’s Mr. Carmody, in thirteen,” he said. “He saw something.”

“What?”

“He won’t tell me. Says he’ll tell it to the member of Parliament. Come along, this way, this way.”