An Old Betrayal

CHAPTER NINETEEN

As Jenkins led them downstairs, a different constable approached him with a report: Nobody along the Gloucester Road, or indeed anywhere in these environs, had anything useful to offer the police. It didn’t help that there was a fog that evening, thickening now to a degree of murkiness that meant cab drivers would soon start charging steeper fares, if they hadn’t already.

There were clusters of onlookers around the door of the hotel, waiting for the body to emerge. Lenox scanned their faces. It was almost axiomatic among his peers that murderers returned to the scenes of their crimes, but there was too great an element of calculation in this death, of murder by design, to think that it was somebody who killed for the excitement of it. Worse luck. Still, he advised Jenkins to have the bobbies take the names of everyone stopped on the pavement.

The witness who had seen Archie Godwin earlier in the day was a young man named Arthur Whitstable, in town from Liverpool upon business; he was a broker of stocks in that city. He looked the perfect exemplar of quiet English rectitude, a tall, square-jawed, deferential gentleman, sitting on a hard chair and reading the newspaper in the hotel manager’s office. He stood and shook hands with Lenox and Dallington — Jenkins had shown them into the room and left — without any evident impatience.

“I apologize for the inconvenience of another interview,” said Lenox.

“Not at all. This is a dreadful business,” Whitstable said. “I’ve been staying at the Graves for years, and count upon it absolutely as my home from home in London.”

“Had you ever met Godwin before, or seen him?”

“No.”

“But you saw him this morning?”

“Indeed, twice.”

“Can you tell us what happened?”

“I can tell you all I told Inspector Jenkins, at least. At around eleven o’clock, Mr. Godwin knocked on my door, apologizing for the intrusion, and asked if I had a pen sharpener he could borrow. They didn’t have one at the front desk. He was just on his way out but needed to finish a letter before he went.”

“He was alone?”

“No, he had a companion, a tall gentleman with blond mustaches.”

Lenox and Dallington exchanged looks. “Did he speak?” asked Dallington. “This other fellow?”

“No, and Mr. Godwin did not introduce him. I gathered that he had come to fetch his friend for some errand — he looked impatient to be gone.”

“The second time you saw Mr. Godwin was when he returned the pen sharpener?” asked Lenox.

“No. I had to go out upon a matter of business — in fact, just as he knocked on my door I was readying myself to leave — and told him he could leave the penknife with the front desk, under my name.”

“Did he?” asked Dallington.

“Yes, I have it right here.” Whitstable patted his breast pocket. “I usually carry it upon my person, because in my business one signs a great many contracts. As it happens I didn’t need it this morning.”

“What was Mr. Godwin’s demeanor when you first saw him?” asked Lenox.

“He was a very friendly chap, apologetic for the intrusion, and quite solicitous that I had no immediate need of the penknife. He said he would go borrow one elsewhere if I did.”

“And the second time you saw him?”

“Ah, yes. As I say, I went out upon business shortly after he knocked on my door. When I returned at noon I met him on the street, on Gloucester Road. He was in a great rush, not at all eager to speak with me — even rather avoiding me, until it was clear that I had seen him, when he thanked me hurriedly. He was with two men this time, one of them the same as earlier.”

“Did you get the sense that he was in danger?”

“Not at the time. Now, knowing that he is dead — perhaps. He wished to avoid meeting me.”

“Who was the third gentleman with them?”

“I didn’t speak to him, or look at him — just a normal sort of person.”

“You cannot think of anything physically distinctive in him?”

Whitstable narrowed his eyes, thinking. “He might have been rather shorter than average.”

“Fat, thin?”

“Neither, I don’t think.”

“You are sure he was with Godwin?” said Dallington.

“Yes, quite sure.”

“Did you have any sense of where they were going?”

“No. Probably I haven’t conveyed how brief the encounter was — no more than five or ten seconds. I should have forgotten it forever, if the gentleman hadn’t been murdered. Now I’ve wondered all evening whether it was those two companions of Mr. Godwin’s who did it.”

Lenox wondered the same thing. They asked Whitstable a few more questions, some in a futile effort to acquire a more detailed description of this unidentified third man. At last, Lenox thanked him and said, “We may find you here, if we have further questions?”

“Upon my word, no,” said Whitstable. “I couldn’t stay in that room, after all that has passed. I’ve already had the porter remove my things to the Chequers, two streets down by Onslow Square.”

“How long will you be in London?”

“Another eight nights. It is my semiannual trip to London, always two weeks.”

“Then we will see you out at the Chequers, if we have further questions. Thank you very much indeed for your patience.”

Whitstable shrugged, his face philosophical. “I wish there were more I could do.”

Lenox and Dallington made their way back upstairs and down the hall, headed for the hotel’s second staircase — the one by which, presumably, Archibald Godwin’s murderer had left the building.

It proved a disappointment. Dallington sat on a rickety chair at the top, out of breath and ill, as Lenox spent twenty careful minutes examining the area both inside and outside, hoping the murderer had dropped some small totem or left behind some smudged footprint.

There was nothing, however.

“It has the look of a careful crime,” said Dallington.

“Perhaps, but I cannot think why Godwin and his companion were together for so many hours before it was done.”

“Murder must have been a last resort. Bargaining first, then threats. Finally violence. So often one sees that pattern.”

“I suppose,” said Lenox, unpersuaded.

They traced their steps back down the hall — Godwin’s door shut now, a bobby standing by it, the blankness of his face hiding either boredom or stupidity, or who knew, great internal self-sustaining brilliance — and went back downstairs. As they came to the front hallway they saw that four bobbies were leaving the hotel, together bearing the stretcher that supported Archibald Godwin’s corpse.

They followed the body out of the door. On the pavement the crowd parted and grew reverently quiet, granting Godwin the prestige that belongs to the newly dead. Two or three men took off their hats. The local pub’s potman, roller of big cigars, with a wooden tray of beers hanging from a leather strap around his neck, had stopped here, attracted by the crowd no doubt, but now, perhaps out of respect, melted away, returning to his regular deliveries. This was death. Soon the body was out of sight, and the crowd, after the dissipation of tension that follows a long exhale, began to murmur again and then depart.

Lenox and Dallington had seen this kind of scene, each of them many times. It was always strange, jarring, raggedly human. After watching for a moment they decided to leave. There was nothing more for them here; they would be more useful calling in at White’s on behalf of Jenkins.

“Although you might go home if you like,” said Lenox as they got into his carriage. “If you’re ill.”

“I shall manage,” said Dallington.

He looked awful. “As you please.”

They rode in silence. Lenox must have seemed preoccupied, for as they were nearing White’s his younger friend said, “Are you quite all right, Charles?”

“I am,” said Lenox, shaking his head sharply to return it to attention, and smiling wanly. “It is only guilt that keeps me silent.”

“Guilt? Over what?”

“I sincerely hope that the young woman I saw at Gilbert’s — this Grace Ammons — is not in danger.”