Home by Nightfall

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

When they returned to the jailhouse, they found Clavering with Dr. Stallings. “Mr. Stevens is awake,” he informed them.

“Awake!” Edmund cried.

“Has he spoken yet?” asked Lenox.

Stallings shook his head. “I fear that speech is still a ways off, but I am heartened by his progress. I give credit to your friend from London, Dr. McDonald.”

“McConnell.”

“Excuse me — McConnell. He prescribed a very mild dose of phosphorous given in beef soup, and I would swear that the patient’s pulse has grown stronger since I gave it to him.”

“That is excellent news. The moment he can speak, please ask him who his attacker was.”

Stallings looked doubtful. “Calm is probably for the best, at least until he is much stronger.”

“Use your judgment, I suppose,” said Lenox. “It would be very useful to hear the answer.”

A woman or a child. McConnell’s description of the attacker: Might it prove as incisively given as his prescription for the wounds of the man who had been attacked? Was Calloway protecting one of the sisters of his late, beloved wife, either Elizabeth Watson, Hadley’s charwoman, or Claire Adams, who cleaned the town hall?

Although Claire Adams had an alibi, from the family for which she cleaned. It was Elizabeth Watson who did not. But she could scarcely have mistaken Hadley’s house for Stevens’s.

A few minutes later, as Clavering was telling them in a low whisper about what Calloway’s confession would mean for his trial, there was another knock on the jailhouse door. It was Arthur Hadley who came in.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I came as soon as I returned to the village. I apologize for having left. Word had spread to the pub in Chichester Tuesday evening about the drawing on the wall of Stevens’s office, and I admit that the fear I felt kept me away.”

“Where are your gemstones, may I ask?” said Lenox.

“In a deposit box in the London branch of the Dover Assurance, under lock and key, and two stories beneath street level.”

“An intelligent measure,” Lenox said, “though, as it happens, I no longer feel any anxiety on their behalf.”

“No?”

Lenox explained his theory of Hadley’s case — and as the pieces clicked into place, one by one, a powerful inner emancipation played out across the insurance salesman’s features. A mistake, all a mistake. What a relief. At the end of Lenox’s explanation Hadley looked five years younger than he had at the start.

“Stevens, though, that’s terribly unlucky,” he said, barely managing to keep the absolute delight out of his voice. In fairness, he’d just had a stay of execution, for all he knew. His sympathy was at least partly sincere. There were few men on earth who wouldn’t rather their neighbor’s skin be at risk than their own. “Will he live?”

“We hope so,” said Edmund. “He’s at least awake.”

“I’ll go by and see him. He was very decent to me when I first came to Markethouse.”

After he left, the three sat and talked for a while. The word “jailhouse” sounded rather severe, but between them Clavering and Bunce had made it a homey little place, with a teakettle in the corner, bits and bobs and old bottles of beer on the scarred desk, newspapers here and there, and a dozen candle stubs, all of it warm enough that the actual cell almost became an afterthought. Edmund, Clavering, and Lenox sat for a comfortable hour, drinking strong tea and discussing the case.

Comfortable, but also not very useful, Lenox knew, and after a while, with a sigh, he stood up. There was still much to do, if he suspected that Calloway was not telling the whole truth.

As he stood up he realized that there was still a telegram in his pocket. Mrs. Appleby had given him three the day before, one from Jane, one from the Dover Assurance. The third had been sent in at Chancery Lane — Dallington. Lenox had left it for later, and now found that later had come. He opened it.

Lenox’s face must have fallen as he read this, because Edmund looked at him with concern.

“What is it, Charles? Not bad news, I hope?”

“Oh, of a sort,” replied Lenox. He explained: Chadwick and Jukes were the two boys who worked in the office in Chancery Lane. Both had been living on the streets and running farthing errands, including occasionally for Lenox or Dallington and Polly, which was how they had gotten their jobs. They were the two who, upon finding regular work at the agency, had used their first pay to buy the hats of which they were so inordinately proud. “One of them has betrayed us to LeMaire and Monomark.”

“How do you know?”

“We left out a false letter, with the name of a lawyer and a password to give him in order to see our full list of clients. In fact it was only Lacker — and Chadwick came to him, I guess.”

“And the other boy?”

Lenox passed the telegram. “You can see for yourself.”

Edmund read it. “Very hard on him, if he didn’t know anything, this Jukes.”

“I know it. But Dallington’s right, what other option do we have?”

Edmund frowned. “I suppose. I wonder what he means, too, that the Muller case is coming along.”

While they had been obsessed with the events of Markethouse, the world, Lady Jane had told them the night before, had redoubled its own obsession with the missing German pianist; there was no other subject in any society now, high or low. The royals themselves had asked Jane if Lenox had any particular information on the matter.

“I wonder myself,” said Lenox. “I wish this were solved so I could go up this moment.”

“And miss Houghton’s ball?” said Edmund.

“I would be willing to forgo even that very great joy.”

At that moment, a hoarse voice spoke behind them — Calloway, whom they had all almost forgotten was present.

Clavering looked up from the paperwork he was doing at his desk. “What was that?” he said.

“I asked what’s become of the dog,” said Calloway.

“How did you come by that dog anyhow?” Clavering replied.

Calloway didn’t respond, merely stared at them. At last, Lenox said, “He’s been returned to Mr. Mickelson, I believe.”

“His owner,” Clavering added belligerently.

Calloway nodded once and then looked away from them and toward the one small window of his cell, set high in the wall and barred. They all looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to speak again, but he didn’t — not even after Clavering tried to prod him into speech with a few harmless questions about his garden.

Why did he care about that dog? Lenox wondered. Why had he taken it in the first place?

Just then the door of the jailhouse opened again. This time it was Pointilleux, bleary-eyed, with his black hair pushed up in a stiff wave. “How are you, gentlemen?” he said.

Clavering stood up. “Let’s go next door, just to be safe.”

They went into a small cloakroom through the door, out of Calloway’s earshot, where they stood, huddled among their own jackets, and the boots and whistles of all the volunteer night watchmen.

Lenox noticed that Pointilleux was holding a notebook. “I believe I have now consume every paper in this office,” said the young Frenchman.

“You must be very full,” Lenox said.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing, nothing.”

“Did you sleep?” asked Edmund wonderingly.

“Not yet I have not.”

“Never mind that,” said Lenox, who was less solicitous than his brother of Pointilleux’s health. “What did you find?”

“I find something, I believe. A connection between Mr. Calloway and Mr. Stevens.”