The September Society

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

E nough. That was Lenox’s first thought when he woke up in the morning. Would it serve the dead to indulge in any further self-recrimination? Of course it wouldn’t. Solving the case was the only thing he could do of any consequence. When he had made this decision the room seemed like a brighter place, and after he had called down for a pot of coffee Lenox sat at the small table and wrote out a list of information in his notebook.

He wrote:

Clues in the Death of George Payson

• 1) The cat and its peculiar death. • 2) x12/43 21 31 25/x2 • 3) Letter opener, initial P. • 4) Frayed string; pen; tomato; all red, in unlikely spot. • 5) Disrupted line of ash by the window. • 6) September Society card, black and pink? on reverse. (Unlikely to doodle in two colors…) • 7) Muddied walking boots (on the chair) and walking stick. (GP the type to take long walks?) • 8) Hatch’s two lies.

Having written this out, he sat and thought for a few more moments, tapping his pen on the table, then stood up to change into his morning suit. He was due to meet McConnell soon, and didn’t want to be late. The eight clues rattled around in his mind the entire time he dressed.

McConnell was sitting at a table by the window at the Randolph Hotel that overlooked the Ashmolean. When Lenox came into the room, the doctor stood up and met him, subtly searching his face for the sorrow that had been there the night before. All at once Lenox, disconcerted, realized that it must have been the look McConnell constantly received, the reason his eyes were so often cast aside when he sipped from his flask.

“Well, you look a thousand times better, old chap,” said the doctor.

“Nothing like hard work to lift your spirits, you know. I’ve had a conversation with myself-abominably long-winded one, too-and decided to solve the case.”

“There’s the spirit of Agincourt,” said McConnell with a laugh. “A Lenox on the front lines there, I bet.”

“Twinging the arrows around, that’s right.” Lenox laughed too. “But look here, what happened last night?”

“Ah-about that, why don’t we gulp something down, and then I’d like to take you over to see someone.”

“Who’s that?”

“Better to leave it.”

“That’s awfully mysterious.”

“Not especially,” said McConnell with a smile, “but I want to have a bite of breakfast, and I know you’ll be dragging me off before the fish course if you begin thinking about the case.”

They ate their eggs and rashers quickly, washing them down with tea and talking only about McConnell’s next cataloging expedition north-the doctor had a particular hope of finding an unclassified and possibly apocryphal sea otter rumored to live in the Fjords-and when they had laid down their forks and knives both men lit cigarettes.

“Go on, then,” Lenox said. “Release me from the suspense.”

“They’ll let you look at the crime scene in the meadow.”

“Thomas! How on earth did they consent to that?”

“By pure chance I knew the coroner assigned to the body, a chap named Alfred Morris. Rather grim fellow, you know, but we studied at St. Bart’s Hospital together. I asked if I might help, and he said I could willingly enough.”

“Why?”

“Probably wanted to make certain that he didn’t bungle the thing, second set of eyes and all that. They don’t have many murders up here. At any rate, I can tell you about the body later.” After saying this McConnell stubbed out his cigarette, stood up, and motioned for the check. “Just put it on room 312, would you?” he said to the waiter. “What’s more important for the moment is that after Morris and I looked over the body, we went to meet Inspector Goodson, and I talked him around to letting you in on the work. Dropped a few names-the Marbury case, Soames, that small job you did for Buckingham Palace-and in the end he was quite pleased to have you in town.”

The two men had left and were walking along Magdalen Street now, south toward Merton and Christ Church.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” said Lenox. “I’d be nowhere if you hadn’t come up. You’re invaluable, Thomas.”

Presently they came to the slender path that ran inside of Merton (one of the most beautiful of all the colleges, in Lenox’s opinion, more beautiful by far than the ostentation of Christ Church) between the imposing beauty of the chapel, cut through with the strangely evanescent light of its stained glass windows, and the old Mob Quad, the small quadrangle responsible for the shape of Oxford to come-for all universities to come, in fact, the oldest structure of the ancient university. Merton was one of the most interesting colleges at Oxford historically, as well as probably the oldest; it was the only one not to side with the Royalists in the Civil War, and among its early alumni was Sir Thomas Bodley, the namesake of the Bodleian. Lenox relished seeing it again, though too soon the narrow perspective of the path had opened out into the fields of Christ Church Meadow. About two hundred yards away from the rear of Merton was a still-bustling crime scene.

“This looks to be it,” said McConnell, “and there’s Goodson.”

The Oxford inspector spotted Lenox and McConnell just as they spotted him.

“Mr. Lenox,” he said, putting out his hand, “I’m afraid you caught my sergeant at a bad moment yesterday evening. Glad to have you here.”

He was a medium-sized man, brown-haired and freckled, with a look of intensity in his face. There was also honesty there, and in his green eyes a hint of amiability.

“Not at all. It’s a damnable business from top to bottom.”

“If you come this way, you can have a look around.” Goodson motioned for a constable to lift the rope and beckoned Lenox and McConnell inside. “The body was here, sprawled on its back with its arms behind its head. There were footprints all around the area, unfortunately. People tramping around here all day, I’m afraid, and leaving every conceivable kind of shoe mark.”

“Clever of the killer, that,” said Lenox. “A good place to leave the body-or indeed to kill someone-if you have very little time, because it’s completely empty at night and yet still bears the signs of an active thoroughfare.”

“Precisely.”

“Where do you think they came in from, the murdered man and his murderer?”

“Came in from?”

“Where did they enter the park, I mean?”

The meadow was triangular and bound by Christ Church, Merton, and the two rivers. Away from the city of Oxford toward the south end of the park, there was a lower meadow, which sometimes flooded, and past which there were mostly fields.

“We haven’t considered that,” said Goodson.

“Down at the south end, I’d reckon,” said Lenox. “To come from any other direction would have meant either passing porters, students, and dons or else scaling a high fence. But it would have been easy enough to come in over the rivers, and the fields in that direction are empty, aren’t they?”

“I suppose that’s right,” said Goodson dubiously. “You mean they were hiding out just past the rivers there?”

“Exactly. Before yesterday the lads were probably south of here, by the least crowded part of the meadow, but still not that far from Oxford.”

It dawned on Goodson how significant this was, and in unison the three men strode south. When they got there they found the ground less worked over by pedestrians. Goodson beckoned to the crime scene, and two constables came over to see him. There were a few walking bridges over the rivers.

“Look on these bridges here for any marks of struggle-”

“Blood,” said Lenox.

“Blood, yes,” Goodson said.

“I would also recommend sending people south of the city, even farther than here,” said Lenox, “to check in the small hotels and the pubs, the little shops, that sort of thing.”

“I will,” said Goodson, noting it down.

As they walked back, Lenox said, “We should all realize the intelligence it took the murderer to disobey his instincts and return to a more populated area to kill George Payson. Of course, the killer’s first thought would have been to go somewhere remote-but it would have taken time, first of all, to find somewhere so remote that a body would remain hidden for long. He didn’t have time to be that careful.”

McConnell said, “I don’t believe it negates your point, Charles, but it’s worth mention that George Payson was dead before he came to lie here. We also learned from the body that he had been sleeping rough, outdoors, at best in barns or lean-tos. Only his face and hands had been recently cleaned.”

“That makes sense.” Lenox puzzled it over. “I suppose you’d better tell me all about the body, McConnell. But first, let’s look at the place where he was found. We can’t properly call it the scene of the crime, unfortunately.”