An Old Betrayal

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The room was capacious but plain, with windows overlooking the street. It held a large four-poster bed with a white canopy at the top, a desk whose surface was empty save for a copper ewer and a stack of writing paper, a wardrobe, and a plaid horsehair chair by the fireplace. There were no ashes in the fireplace, nothing in the rubbish bin. In truth, no sign of Godwin’s habitation here.

Lenox went to the desk and shuffled through the writing paper to make sure that it was all blank. He peered into the ewer and shook it: empty. “I suspect this was his first day in London.”

“Yes, the hotel confirmed as much. But why do you say that?” said Jenkins.

“The state of the room.” Lenox went to the wardrobe. In it was hanging a single suit of clothes. It was disheveled and gave off something of an odor. “Too tidy. More than a day in London and things begin to accumulate in one’s pockets.”

Dallington, looking ill, set himself gingerly down on the armchair. Still, he mustered enough energy to ask if the hotel had given Jenkins any other information.

“Nothing of very great utility. He arrived this morning with one bag, and—”

“What time?” asked Lenox.

“Before midday at any rate, since the two women at the desk just now were not yet on duty.”

“He must have signed the book,” said Lenox.

“They don’t have one here. Discretion, they say.”

“That’s a fine way to be robbed.”

“If anyone is thieving it’s the hotel, if the rates they list are accurate.”

Dallington shook his head. “You two don’t understand. My uncle stayed here, as I was telling Lenox. It’s full of country gentlemen who dislike the city. They’re happy to pay for the quiet of the place, and its plainness, too. They bring you breakfast in your room at the crack of dawn, no doubt a single egg boiled hard and shoved in a newly killed rabbit, or some similar countrified nonsense. They’re strict about guests. The bar is quiet. They won’t object to muddy boots. It’s Pall Mall for people who can afford Pall Mall but don’t like to stay in the din of the city. No questions from the staff, or even greetings really. The patrons know what they like. My uncle Gerald shot about forty men at the Sea of Azov and found he didn’t care for much company after that. This was where he stayed in London. I don’t think he ever tipped me once, the old sod. May he rest in peace.”

“That sounds like Godwin,” said Lenox. He had been surveying the room and now took a lamp, went down to his hands and knees, and peered into the stygian recesses beneath the bed. “Certainly he wasn’t a Londoner.”

“How do you mean?” asked Jenkins, then added, rather irritably, “I did look under there already. I looked all over the room. At the notepaper too.”

“A new pair of eyes can never hurt,” said Lenox mildly.

“Mine hurt terribly at the moment,” said Dallington, pale, pinching his brow with a thumb and forefinger.

“John, tell Jenkins what we read of Godwin in Who’s Who.”

In the end there was nothing under the bed, or in any of the drawers of the desk, which Lenox removed altogether and turned around, inspecting — an excess of caution that had once or twice borne fruit. He saved for last the suit of clothes hanging in the wardrobe. It was a heather gray suit, made of heavy wool.

“It is in shockingly bad condition,” Jenkins called out preemptively when Lenox began to examine it.

Indeed it was. The cuffs of the suit’s arms were unraveling, and there were large holes dotted along the hem of the jacket. Its distinctly unpleasant scent grew stronger in the room every time the door of the wardrobe was opened. “A gentleman’s country suit, I suppose,” murmured Lenox. “I have seen worse garments upon the shoulders of earls who were looking after their pigs. Not much worse, mind you.”

“Certainly it could not respectably be worn in the city.”

Lenox frowned and turned toward the doorway of the room. “What was he wearing when he died?”

Jenkins began to speak but then stopped, nonplussed. “A suit” was all he said in the end.

Lenox went to the body and uncovered it, despite the attendant bobby’s initial objections. “A much finer suit of clothes,” he announced to Jenkins and Dallington. “Very nearly new.”

“We checked the pockets,” said Jenkins quickly.

Nevertheless Lenox carefully went over the body himself, dutifully rolling its unpleasant limp weight side to side, removing the shoes, feeling the lining of the suit for padding. (In such a fashion he had once come across a large ruby on a costermonger’s corpse, its origin and the history of its acquisition still, to this day, unexplained.)

Here Lenox did find something. The pockets of the suit were empty, but in the rolled cuff of the pants was a small ticket, evidently left there by the tailor, for delivery. It was dated to that day.

He showed Dallington and Jenkins. “It’s not much, but at least we know he had a delivery this morning.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t simply bring up a nicer suit of clothes.”

“I’m betting he wanted to travel lightly and knew that the suit in the closet had seen its best days. He knew he could wear the replacement back to Hampshire tomorrow.”

“Now what?” asked Jenkins.

“The hallway,” said Dallington and Lenox at the same time.

“We have scanned it closely — in increasingly large concentric loops,” said Jenkins.

Lenox felt a surge of pride: It was his method, one that he had urged the Yard to adopt. Now he employed it again, for the first time in a while.

Unfortunately the killer had left no telling detail behind this time.

“I take it there is a second stairwell?” asked Lenox. “The murderer could scarcely have strolled down this primary one, through the entrance of the hotel.”

“Particularly if the gunshots attracted people right away,” added Dallington.

“Yes — it is to the right, rather than the left. The staff use it, but it is much less trafficked than the main staircase.”

“The killer must have been familiar with the building,” said Lenox.

“Or done a little bit of preliminary investigation. After all, what do we make of this murder? Was it planned with forethought?”

Lenox thought for a moment. “Obviously it is significant that Godwin was nearly never in London — yet here we find him, appearing in the city only a few days after an impostor gave me his name.”

“Likely they will have information about his coming to the city at Raburn Lodge,” said Dallington. “I suppose we must be patient.”

“For my part, I wonder whether this was a long-or short-term impersonation. In the meanwhile we can hope to ascertain what he did in London. I think we might ask at White’s, John.”

Dallington nodded. “We can go there when we are finished here.”

“I’ll accompany the body back to the medical examiner’s,” said Jenkins, “if you two don’t mind handling that end of it. There are a great many cases on my ledger at the moment. Though this one, in such a quiet and respectable neighborhood, may attract more notice, I suppose, in the papers.”

“Happy to help,” said Dallington.

“Before we leave — were there any witnesses in the hotel?”

“We have interviewed everyone once now, I believe. Let me check.” Jenkins called over a young constable and conferred with him for a moment, then returned to Lenox and Dallington. “Yes, we have spoken to everyone. The results have been disappointing. Nobody saw the murderer — they only heard the gunshot.”

“Nobody was upon the back stair, I suppose?” asked Lenox.

“No.”

“We should look at it.”

“Be my guest. But there is one witness who saw Godwin earlier this morning. Perhaps you would like to speak to him first? He is staying in the room next door. Sooner or later we must permit him to leave the hotel.”

“Let’s see him now, then,” said Lenox.