A Death in the Small Hours

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Lenox realized he hadn’t seen Jane or Sophia since he came back to the house, and as Frederick led them through the front hall he asked for word to be sent up that he had come and gone again already. Part of him — the part that had consumed three fingers of whisky, in all likelihood — yearned to stay in, to stall the adventure by a few hours of sleep. It had been a long day.

Of course he went, though.

“There was a great commotion when I got into town,” said Frederick as the carriage began the short drive. He faced Lenox and Dallington from one of its two plush benches. “I still managed to arrange about the telegrams with Timothy Milton, then I went off to find Fripp—”

“Is it his shop that has been vandalized?” asked the member of Parliament.

“No. It was the police station.”

Lenox’s eyes widened. “Really, though? I was there not an hour ago.”

“I know it. I’m glad you were gone.”

“What did they do?”

“It was the same again, a rock through the window — though this time there was a constable’s helmet tied to it, with a white X painted upon it. Oates isn’t taking it well.”

“You say the culprits were nearly apprehended?” asked Dallington.

“Yes. It was Wells who saw them — as you know his shop is just at the edge of the green, there, where the station is and where Weston was killed. The fellow is distraught because he fears that the men saw his face, and will return to silence him. He and his wife are at the station house with Oates now.”

“What did he see them doing?”

“The whole thing,” said Frederick. “There were two of them, and he raised a cry as soon as he saw them. Dozens of people came flooding out of the King’s Arms, and they gave chase down the Main Street. There were fresh prints from horseshoes there.”

“What was his description of the men?”

Frederick shook his head. “Oates took them down. I don’t know.”

Suddenly, there in the carriage, Lenox did.

The pieces had clicked together in his mind now, the deductions made sense. A stray morsel of information from Dallington, another from Musgrave, one from Wells, one from Fripp, one from Frederick, one from Carmody: these ratcheted into place and he understood it all. Or so he believed.

He thought he knew the murderer’s name.

“When we reach town,” he said, “perhaps I can leave the two of you to interview Wells and Oates. I have a brief errand I would like to run.”

Frederick looked at him queryingly. “If you like,” he said.

“Call it a suspicion.”

It was only twelve minutes or so to the village green, which was ablaze with light and jostling with Plumbley villagers.

“Look at this. It’s like the first of November,” said Freddie.

Dallington shot him a quizzical look, but Lenox understood. “You’ve heard of soul-caking?” he said.

“No,” said Dallington.

“Spoken like a Londoner,” Frederick said, though his eyes were fixed on the people congregated near the police station.

They stepped out of the carriage. Lenox said, “It’s a custom in many villages, though I’ve never seen one take it as seriously as Plumbley. They do it differently here, too, because in most villages the children beg for cakes, but here the children make them. They spend the whole last week of October doing it, out of raisins and flour, nutmeg and cinnamon, perhaps a little ginger, that sort of thing.

“Then on the first of the new month the whole village opens itself up, lights on in every house, a glass of wine exchanged among all the neighbors, very friendly, and the children trade the cakes they’ve made for toys and candies. It’s lovely to see. Old feuds are set to the side for an evening. At the end there’s the first Christmas carol of the year on the town green, along with a hymn or two, by candlelight. Each cake that’s eaten represents a soul freed from Purgatory, they say.”

“Sounds rather like guising.”

“No, there’s nothing mean-spirited in it. There wouldn’t be, in Plumbley.” As he said this Lenox felt a surge of fondness for the little village, and simultaneously an anger at the men who had put it in a state of fear, had fretted the faces he saw in conversation around the town green. “You two go. I’m off to see Carmody.”

That won their attention. “Carmody?” asked Dallington, eyebrows raised.

“I’ll see you before too long.”

As he approached Carmody’s house there were clusters of people talking, in the low murmuring gossip of village life. In the window of the man’s sitting room, Lenox could see that the curtains were parted and the lights were on. He knocked sharply on the door.

“Good evening, Mr. Lenox,” said the housekeeper. “Unfortunately Mr. Carmody has retired. Would you care to leave a message for him?”

“Please rouse him, if you would.”

“But—”

“It’s a matter of some moment, ma’am.”

“Very well. Wait here, please. I would invite you in, but at this hour—”

Lenox, standing on the stairs that led to the front door of the row house, pivoted so that he could survey the green as Carmody would have. He wondered where on earth Captain Musgrave might be.

The door opened again. “He will see you in his study, sir,” said the housekeeper.

“Excellent.”

Carmody was in his seat by the window, in a vermilion-and-gold dressing gown, a glass of port wine — no doubt of a vintage deemed acceptable by the boys in Covent Garden — in his left hand. “Mr. Lenox,” he said, “I take it your visit pertains to this latest incident?”

“Would you dress and come with me on an errand?” Lenox asked. “It would only take fifteen minutes.”

“At this time of the evening I fear I cannot—”

“Really, I must insist, Mr. Carmody,” said Lenox. “The next murder could happen this evening.”

“The next murder, Mr. Lenox?”

“Will you help me?”

“I do customarily take a walk in the evenings, as you know — but — well, yes, I shall come along, I suppose. Give me a moment, give me a moment,” he said, with the flustered annoyance of a bachelor interrupted in his routines.

Soon they were walking down the dim, moonlit streets of Plumbley. The short white houses, with their stooped green doors and friendly brass door-knockers in the shapes of horses, dogs, coronets, any such thing, looked completely innocent of malevolence.

“Where are we going?” said Carmody, trotting alongside Lenox.

“I’m taking you on a circuitous route to avoid the town green.”

“But where—”

“I’d like you to look at a pair of horses.”

After a short walk, not more than eight minutes, they stood before a large house with a stable adjoining it. Both were silent. “This is the place?” asked Carmody.

“Yes. Help me open the top-half of the stable door, if you would.”

They creaked these open, Lenox trying to be quiet in case there was a boy who slept above the stalls. Nobody emerged, and soon three fine horses were at the window, open breast-high. It was just like Plumbley to have an unlocked stable so close to town. Or had been, perhaps, until the recent crimes. Who knew what precautions people would begin to take if it didn’t stop; how the town would change.

“Are these the horses?” said Lenox.

Carmody looked at them very carefully. It was a piece of good fortune that the moon was bright. “Yes,” he said at last, very slowly. “They are, these two to the left here, beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

“Good. Help me close the door.”

Carmody was dumbfounded. “Stay a moment. Can that mean—”

“I must entreat you to hold your tongue, Mr. Carmody. Soon enough it will all come out, I assure you, but until then your discretion is crucial.”