Home by Nightfall

CHAPTER SEVEN

Lenox’s coffee had gone lukewarm as he attended to Hadley’s account. He took the last sip, always so superbly sweet and milky, and then poured himself half a cup more from the chased silver pot at the center of the table, leaning back in his chair. A feeling of contentment and interest filled him. He’d feared a very gloomy trip, but now he had a pleasant fatigue in his muscles from the ride that morning, a fine breakfast in his stomach, a breezy and warm day awaiting him outside, and here, entirely unlooked-for, something to divert his attention.

And possibly Edmund’s, too, he thought.

Edmund had always been fascinated by Charles’s work. For years they had joked that they ought to trade jobs, during the period of his life when Charles had been so absorbed from afar by England’s politics. Then he had entered the Commons himself. After his election Charles had suggested that Edmund take the reverse course — set out his shingle as a detective — though of course only in jest. In all these years he had never done more than speculate from his armchair, hectoring Charles for ever more detail about his cases.

The look on his face now, intent and absorbed, was, if not exactly one of happiness, at least one of distraction. “Your safety?” he said to Arthur Hadley.

“I was at my desk the next morning at nine o’clock,” said Hadley, “a bit later than usual. That morning I had gone out to the front steps with warm water and scrubbed off the picture of the girl in chalk. I admit that I felt better when it was gone, though it is not rational. That, too, I could account for in the daylight — local children, and what had seemed like eeriness the night before no more than an accident, the inexpert effect of a clumsy hand.

“At about ten o’clock there was a ring at the door. It was Mrs. Appleby, the postmistress. Since you have both lived here, perhaps you know her. A very intelligent, closemouthed, and respectable person — certainly not someone who would be willing to participate in a joke.”

“A joke,” said Lenox.

Hadley nodded, face grim. His back was straight and his gaze level; he made for a very convincing witness even to strange events, a fellow utterly English, probably without a very great deal of imagination, certainly not prone to exaggeration or whimsy.

“According to the telegram Mrs. Appleby brought me, there was a fire at the corn market in Chichester. I don’t know if either of you knows Chichester, but the corn market is cheek by jowl with many of the finest houses on the town square there, half of which, perhaps more, I insure. You can understand my alarm.

“I hired the coach at the Bell and Horns to take me the twelve miles there, at no inconsiderable expense — but there are many insurance companies, and reliability and friendship in a crisis is what I have always felt distinguishes Dover from the others. We are not always cheaper, but we are always better, I tell my clients. Moreover, frankly, to be on the spot of a fire as soon as possible guarantees that we are not defrauded by our customers — that they do not overstate their claims, or what they have lost. Both for selfish reasons and for ones of professional pride, therefore, I was in haste to get to Chichester.

“The horses felt that haste on their backs — I offered the driver an extra half crown if he could cover the ground in less than two hours, and he did it, though we nearly turned over at a ditch near Pevensey.

“We arrived at the corn market, then, and what do you think I found? Nothing. Absolutely nothing — or rather, a normal day’s business, without so much as an upset firepot on the premises, or an ember that had flown out of a hearth and onto a piece of hay.”

Hadley’s indignation was very serious indeed. “Who sent the telegram?” Lenox asked.

“It was signed by the mayor’s office.”

“Did you not think that peculiar?” asked Lenox.

“No. I’m well known in Chichester, and in the case of a fire they know to call me straightaway. As it is, when I knocked on the door, they were as surprised to see me on a nontraveling day as if I had appeared at their front doors after working hours. Nobody there had sent me the telegram.”

“And at the post office?”

“I hadn’t thought to ask there.” Hadley frowned, then brightened. “That’s why you’re the detective, though, isn’t it?”

Lenox allowed himself a dry smile. “Perhaps it is, though. Is that the end of your tale?”

“It’s a very unusual one,” said Edmund.

“Nearly,” said Hadley. “Thank you both for your patience.”

“Not at all.”

“I returned home — much more slowly, and much perplexed, as you can imagine. I hadn’t yet connected this false report to the incidents of the night before, which had vanished from my mind in all the commotion, and indeed, at home everything was as I had left it. I returned to my papers, confused about the events of the day and regretful about the lost time, but determined to finish with the most essential parts of my work.

“After an hour at my desk it was five o’clock, and the woman who does for me, Mrs. Watson, said good-bye, and that there was dinner waiting for me under a cover. I thanked her, and when she was gone sat back and, with a feeling of great relief, packed my pipe. I changed into my slippers and my robe, found the newspaper that Mrs. Watson had left on my hall table, and thought that I would have a drink to soothe my nerves before I ate. I was looking forward to a good night’s sleep.

“I should add that everything in the house, upon my return, was exactly as I had left it that morning. There is no lack of things a thief might take in my house, either. I enjoy collecting small gems, and a few of the finer ones are laid out very prominently on my desk, including one ruby that I flatter myself does not have a superior from here to the doors of the British Museum. Needless to say, I have now stowed them away with the bulk of my collection under lock and key. To think, that I should have to take such a precaution in sleepy Markethouse!

“All of the liquor in my house is kept on a small mahogany stand in the sitting room. I went in to pour myself a drink — I enjoy a brandy — and noticed, to my amazement, that one of the six bottles that had been there, a bottle of sherry, was gone.”

“The charwoman took it,” said Edmund.

Hadley shook his head. “Yes, it must seem that way — but you are quite incorrect, with my apologies for contradicting you. She has been with me since the week I arrived in Markethouse, and her duties are quite clearly understood between us. She never touches my liquor stand. What’s more, I asked her the next day, and she gave me her word that she hadn’t taken it.”

“Or thrown it away? Was the bottle of sherry empty?” asked Lenox.

“On the contrary, nearly full.”

“How can you be sure that it hadn’t gone missing the night before?”

Hadley nodded excitedly. “Precisely the question, sir, precisely the question! I am very particular in my habits, and the night before, after seeing that pale face, and that ghastly drawing, I had taken a glass of brandy. I am absolutely certain — would swear it upon my parents’ eyes — that all six bottles were there when I went to bed. The same six bottles I always, always keep on hand.”

There was a long pause. “Curious indeed,” said Edmund.

“I felt a chill run down my spine. I tried to shake it off, tried out just the explanations you have both offered, but I couldn’t, and in the end I walked across town and knocked on Mrs. Watson’s door, which interview’s results I have already conveyed to you. She did not touch the liquor table, did not take the bottle of sherry. And yet it was gone. For the second day in a row, someone had been inside my house.”

Now Lenox frowned. “Had Mrs. Watson allowed any visitors into the house while you were away?”

“None.”

“Was the door to your house locked?”

“I generally leave the door and the windows unlocked while Mrs. Watson is there, and I believe I did that day, too. Since then, of course, I have taken to locking everything — and, I don’t mind saying, checking twice or three times that I have done so, before I have the courage to fall asleep.”

“Someone could have entered the house without her noticing, then?” asked Lenox.

Hadley grimaced. “I would have doubted it, if it hadn’t happened. Somehow they must have, I suppose. It’s true that Mrs. Watson passes a great deal of her time in the kitchen, which is at the back, and to some degree segregated from the other rooms in the house. By her own account, she was there for several hours in the afternoon while I was gone.”

Lenox pondered for a moment all that he had heard, and then, leaning back in his chair, he said, “You have come to ask me my professional opinion — well, you may have it.”

“Ah, that’s a relief.”

“I think that these are very strange circumstances indeed, and I think that the police would unquestionably be interested in them. I am happy to assist them or you, of course, but they know the village better than I do, they have your welfare at heart, and I should certainly, in your position, place the matter in their hands.”

Hadley nodded but said, “Without intending any disrespect, Mr. Lenox — I think you are perhaps accustomed to the Metropolitan Police, which is of a very different order than our local police forces, here in the country. I deal with loss and fire and theft for a living, and you cannot imagine how hidebound, how immobile, how very contrary, a small village constable can be.”

Charles looked to his brother, hoping to appeal to him for a better account — but saw, to his surprise, that Edmund was nodding. “It is quite true. Clavering’s a very good fellow, but not one of your cunning London sharps.”

“Indeed?” said Lenox. He thought for another moment. In truth, he was intrigued. The pale face, the drawing of the girl, the bottle of sherry. He turned to his brother. “Edmund, you know my days here are yours.”

Edmund nearly smiled. “In that case, I happily transfer ownership of them to Mr. Hadley, at least temporarily — and hope that he will accept mine as well, for I am exceedingly curious about what on earth all of this can mean. In Markethouse, too, as he says!”

“Very well,” said Lenox. “Mr. Hadley, I will take the case.”