A Death in the Small Hours

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Lenox quickly took the knife, laying it in a white handkerchief. “Well done,” he said, “very well done.”

Both men peered down toward the object, dipping their candles better to illuminate it. “Is it the murder weapon?” asked Oates.

“Wash your hands and we’ll take it back to the station,” said Lenox.

Fifteen minutes later they were there. In the station were bright lamps, of long residence it would appear from the greasy black circles that had formed on the ceiling above them. Now they could inspect the knife more minutely.

Its smooth, nonserrated blade was perhaps four or five inches long, its haft about the same. Lenox asked for a tape measure to be sure. Yes; it was just a shade over five inches long, the blade. Which meant that it conformed to the description Dr. Eastwood had offered of the weapon that had killed the young police constable.

“Let’s have a look at the bucket,” said Lenox.

Oates had carried the slop bucket with them from Musgrave’s, and now he tipped it over and spread its contents thinly upon a long table, which the two men had covered with old newspapers. Wearing white cloth gloves, he and Lenox went through the mess.

They were looking for anything maroon and sticky, at the detective’s suggestion, for that was what covered the blade, and Lenox wanted to be sure that it wasn’t beet juice, colored meringue, discarded grapes, anything of that nature. Satisfyingly, none of the slop bucket’s contents, not its potato eyes, not its cauliflower stalks, looked likely to produce a red liquid.

“I think it is blood,” said Lenox at last, as he and Oates cleaned up.

“Have you seen blood on a knife before?”

“I have. Have you?”

“No. It’s what I imagine it would look like, though.”

“Quite.”

With a faintly chastened feeling they went back to the knife.

“I don’t like to look at it,” said Oates.

Lenox’s face was pensive. “What I cannot figure is why a man of military self-possession, or even a man of rudimentary intelligence, would have left the knife behind. Why not take it with him?”

“Fear of it being found among his possessions, I suppose?”

“Why not wash it, then!” said Lenox. “Why not wash it and leave it in with the other knives? He might have called for hot water at any time and attracted far less notice than his presence in the kitchens would have.”

“For that matter, why not leave it with the body?”

Lenox shook his head. “No, I believe such a knife might have been traced back to his kitchen, if it is part of a set. We will have to see about that. Although it may be that we are getting ahead of ourselves. Perhaps it was used to dress a chicken or a pheasant, after all. It’s the correct size for the job.”

“But if that was all anybody used it for, then why—”

“Why was it in the compost pile, hidden,” said Lenox impatiently. “I understand the situation, Oates.”

“Apologies, sir.”

Lenox looked up. “No, I apologize. If only it made sense! Either way we must send word along to Bath and Taunton that Captain Musgrave is wanted for questioning, in connection with Mr. Weston’s death.”

Oates’s face had a shadow upon it. “Do you think he did it, the bastard?”

“I think it’s too early to reach any conclusions. We must send our telegrams now, though, even if it means fetching the dispatcher out of bed.”

It was Oates who committed to do this job. Lenox took the knife in his pocket, for safekeeping, bade the constable good night, and — having dismissed the coachman and his horses when they dropped him at Musgrave’s house several hours before — began the walk back to Everley.

When he reached the hall there were still lights on in the rooms of the ground floor. They would have had dinner without him, in all probability. His own hunger had vanished when he saw the knife; even as he took a step now he could feel its weight in his coat pocket swing away from his body and then return with a thump against his hipbone. He didn’t like it.

He found his cousin and his protégé smoking a pipe and a small cigar, respectively, in the large library.

“How do you do, Charles?” said Frederick. “I was on the verge of asking your friend here whether he was much of a hand at cricket. Are you, Lord John?”

“Oh, none at all,” said Dallington cheerfully. “In school I forged my own sick notes.”

“Ah, excellent,” said Frederick, “we can give you to the King’s Arms. They’re a bowler short.”

Dallington looked prepared to object to this recruitment, but Lenox said, rather sharply, “You’ll enjoy it, John.”

Looking as if he doubted that assertion, the young man nevertheless said, “Yes, of course.”

“Do you have a report to make on Fontaine?” asked Lenox.

Now Dallington’s face brightened, exchanging the ease of an after-dinner smoke for a new sharpness. “Yes. Would you like to hear it?”

“Certainly. First, though, I should show you what I found at Musgrave’s.”

He unwrapped his handkerchief, now stained with a faint rust, to reveal the knife. His uncle gasped. “At Musgrave’s? Is that blood?”

“Yes, on both counts.”

Dallington, with the procedurally sound method that Lenox had taught him, used his own handkerchief to turn the knife over and examine it from every angle. “Fingerprints?”

“I am hopeful. I propose to send it to McConnell, in London, along with another little parcel.” He had almost forgotten about the white powder, but patted his breast pocket, took out the bag, and showed it to the men. “I’m rather curious what it was that the kitchen staff fed Mrs. Musgrave every morning and afternoon.”

Frederick was still absorbed by the knife, however. “Fingerprints, you mentioned? What does that mean?”

“It is a technology in its infancy, but quite useful,” said Lenox. “The whorls and ridges of each fingerpad are quite distinctive, from man to man—”

“I once read that Babylonian potters used the impress of their fingers to identify their work,” said Frederick, “but surely Musgrave wouldn’t have pressed his finger against the knife. It isn’t wet clay, either.”

“It doesn’t matter. Herschel’s son has been using them as a means of identification in India for years.”

“John Herschel? The astronomer?”

“Yes. Apparently with careful dusting one may ‘lift’ them, as the terminology has it, from any object. If Musgrave has held this knife, McConnell may be able to tell us. He has a very expensive kit, one of his own design, that he uses. He’s become rather a hobbyist, in fact. Offered the thing to the Metropolitan Police and they declined, with a typical deficit of imagination.”

“Where did you find it?” asked Dallington.

Lenox described the slop bucket and their retreat to the police station. “In the meanwhile Musgrave may be on a ship to Calcutta, for all that we know.”

Frederick frowned. “Perhaps I can rouse the authorities in Bath faster than Constable Oates,” he said. “I have one or two friends there. Will you excuse me, Charles?”

“By all means, though if you lack the energy to—”

“No, not at all,” said Frederick, and indeed he had a steely look in his eye. He tapped the ash out of his pipe, gave it a quick swab with a ball of cotton that had been left on a silver tray nearby for that purpose, and left the room, calling for his coat and his horses.

Dallington and Lenox were left alone.

“Cricket, then?” asked the younger man with a smile.

“I expect you’ll quite enjoy it.”

“Miss Taylor and I had been planning to watch from the sidelines,” he said.

“I would appreciate your playing.”

The compact young lord merely nodded. “Will you hear about Fontaine, then?”

“In fifteen minutes, if you wouldn’t mind. I would ship these things off to McConnell.”

“I’ll return with my notes.”