An Old Betrayal

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

For the first time since he had fallen ill a week before, Dallington dressed to leave Half Moon Street, and the moment Mrs. Lucas understood this fact she raced into his rooms with pans of sulfur, blocking the keyhole with cloth as they left and opening all the windows. It was the usual manner of cleansing a sickroom. The smell was dreadful even from the street three flights of stairs below, where Lenox and Dallington waited for a cab to fetch them.

They passed the ride to Knightsbridge largely in silence, Lenox gazing out at the busy evening, angry with himself, Dallington, on the other hand, taking even breaths, trying to conserve his energy.

Soon they came to the address that Inspector Jenkins had given in his note. The bobby, having delivered word to Dallington, was now returning to Scotland Yard with a report, so the two men traveled alone.

It appeared that Archie Godwin had died in a hotel; the cab stopped in front of a modest, cheerfully bright hostelry, white with black beams in the old style of the Tudor coaching inns. It stood on a dignified side street, usually sedate no doubt, but at the moment flooded with activity. There were police carriages out front, which held extra lamps aloft and lit the pavement bright. Several bobbies were congregated around the hotel’s doorway, barring anyone from entrance.

“This is the Graves Hotel,” murmured Dallington.

“You know it?”

“Passably well. My mother’s uncle used to stay here, my great-uncle. Very quiet place. He thought it too noisy in our house. Anything above a whisper shattered his nerves, however. He was a general in Crimea.”

Lenox and Dallington alighted from the carriage and approached the door. There they saw, in among the bobbies, Thomas Jenkins. He had a bit of gray at his temple now and was certainly into the thin end of his thirties, though Lenox still tended to think of him as a young man. He was issuing instructions when he spotted them and strode over.

“Lenox, Dallington,” he said briskly. “I’m glad you’re here. Lord John, in your last note to me you mentioned the incident with Godwin. I thought of you when we took in this case, naturally. Or perhaps you’re the one who can help, Lenox?”

“Little enough, unfortunately,” said Lenox. He described their encounter at Gilbert’s Restaurant and his subsequent investigation at White’s. “I’m curious about the body you found. Is it a tall, slender man with light hair, or a short—”

“No, no, quite the latter,” said Jenkins impatiently, eyes roving the scene. Lenox remembered Dallington mentioning that the inspector was all haste for a promotion, now that his name was commonly found in the papers. He had recently been promoted and was now one of three chief inspectors at Scotland Yard. The job he wanted — which had rotated among several men, none of them satisfactory, since the death of Inspector Exeter — was superintendent. The other CIs wanted it, too. “Bald, short, stocky. The true Archibald Godwin, I fear.”

“Then at any rate I can provide you with a description of the man who ought to be your primary suspect. He is a shade above six foot, a handsome fellow, dressed like a gentleman, with a silver watch chain, light hair, rather an upturned nose, and a blond mustache.”

The inspector pulled a pad of paper from his breast pocket and transcribed this capsule biography, the eager young bobby just behind him, one Lenox had never seen, doing the same. Jenkins turned toward the lad after he was finished writing and said, “Get that description around, if you would.”

“Immediately, sir,” said the apprentice and vanished.

Lenox went on. “I think you’ll find him in the West End, if you want to inform the peelers there in particular. He bore every mark of a gentleman.”

“Shall we place someone inside Gilbert’s?”

Lenox shrugged. “You might. If he is indeed a criminal, he has likely investigated my name by now and knows that I am — that I was once a detective. If so I sincerely doubt that he shall return to Gilbert’s. He will likely be wary regardless. Plainly he is armed, if we assume he is the murderer.”

Dallington, hands in his pockets, leaning against the building for support, asked, “Where is the body? How long ago was it done?”

“Not above seventy-five minutes ago,” said Jenkins. “He is lying upstairs, in the corridor outside of his room. His cloak and pockets were stripped of all their contents. His hat and watch and watch chain — presuming he wore a watch — are gone also. So is an overnight bag, which the bootboy carried up to his room yesterday morning.”

“His hat!” cried Dallington. “How very odd.”

“Could they have been stolen by someone who came across the body in the hallway? Perhaps even one of the people working in the hotel? How long was he lying there?” asked Lenox.

Jenkins shook his head. “The sound of the pistol firing roused half a dozen people immediately. It’s a miracle that none of them saw the face of the man who did it, though they gave chase to a figure that fled down toward Gloucester Road.”

Gloucester Road was the main thoroughfare of this area; a man might have lost himself very easily in the public houses and restaurants there, even late in the evening. Still, Lenox said, “Have you sent bobbies down to—”

“Yes, they’re conducting a thorough canvass.”

“Do we imagine that the murderer took Godwin’s effects in the hope of concealing his identity?” asked Dallington.

“No,” said Lenox. “He was staying at the hotel. More likely the person wanted it to look like a robbery.”

“Or it was a robbery,” said Dallington. “At any rate, if his effects are gone, how can you be sure that it was Godwin at all? I suppose it was his room?”

“Yes,” said Jenkins, “and the fellow at the counter took a look and confirmed that it was the same man.”

“May we see the body?”

“Follow me.”

They entered the Graves — a discreet front desk to the right, a wide stairwell straight ahead of them, and to their left a quiet restaurant, with two or three customers sitting at the bar. “You haven’t let anyone leave the hotel, obviously?” Lenox asked.

Jenkins smiled. “Can you imagine that I would?”

“Forgive me. I’ve been away too long. One grows fretful — and witless, I don’t doubt.”

“No, no. We read about your case in Plumbley even here in London.”

“Well.”

Up the crimson-carpeted steps, lit with flickering gas lamps, was the hotel’s first floor of rooms. Jenkins turned left, nodding the three of them past a constable at his post. “The fourth door on the right was his.”

They could already see the shape of the body, under its white sheet, lying across the threshold, protruding slightly from the open door of the room.

Jenkins went to the body and lifted the sheet. The corpse answered exactly to the description the porter at White’s had given Lenox, a short, round, and bald gentleman, with a thin nose and a fringe of dark hair. The bullet hole was a very tidy red circle at his temple. There was no exiting wound. The poor chap.

“A small pistol,” said Jenkins, before adding grimly, “though it has done its work well enough.”

“Have you looked at his room?” asked Dallington, peering over the threshold.

“It is more or less empty, but I invite you both to inspect it.”

“Before we do that, John,” said Lenox, “do you recall his address in Hampshire? I believe it was Raburn Lodge.”

Dallington nodded. “That was it.”

“We ought to send a telegram to them inquiring about Godwin’s movements, what brought him to the city. Return paid, with the lad who delivers it to wait upon reply.”

“An excellent idea,” said Jenkins. “Here, write the name and the message on this scrap of paper and I’ll have one of the boys run it to the Yard’s office. They receive priority on the wires.”

“Should we inform them that he is dead?” asked Dallington doubtfully.

“Perhaps not at the moment,” said Jenkins. “Yet what will they think, receiving a message from Scotland Yard? It might be more humane simply to tell them.”

“I cannot see the harm in it,” said Lenox. “He is unmarried — thankfully, one might say.”

He and Dallington spent some minutes conspiring over the precise language of the message then, careless about length because the Yard would pay for it, and giving both of their names, too, that whoever responded might reply to all three. When they were finished they passed it to a constable to send.

When at last this was done they turned into the room, hoping that it might offer some suggestion about the crime — about the vicious person who had rendered lifeless this body, across which they had to step to enter.