The September Society

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

T he next morning, slightly hungover after a merry dinner with McConnell, Lenox woke up to find the soft sun peering through the curtains. The Turf was well and good, but it was nice to sleep on soft sheets and to find his coffee waiting for him on a tray with a vase of nasturtiums. Graham must be awake, he thought. So the careworn detective lay in bed and read for twenty minutes or so, losing himself in the copy of The Praise of Folly that he had bought from Mr. Chaffanbrass. The sharp, warm coffee slowly brought him back to the world. By the time Graham had come into the room, Lenox was alert enough to have his mind on the case again. He would devote this morning to speaking to Rosie Little at Jesus College and looking over Payson’s rooms again. Then he would take the 11:35 train to Paddington and search out Theophilus Butler and the September Society. It was high time he found out more about both of them.

Graham was laying out a blue suit. “Will this do, sir?”

“Yes, thanks,” said Lenox. “Don’t know how I managed without you. Are you going to begin on Hatch today, then?”

“I had planned to, sir.”

“If you want to jaunt off, I can dress myself.”

“As you say, sir. May I inquire after your plans?”

“I daresay I’ll scratch a bite of breakfast together downstairs, then set out for Lincoln to look over the room again. Oh, and Graham, I’ll be returning to London for the night to follow up on a clue.”

“Do you require my company, sir?”

“Don’t even think about shirking-I need you to stay here, of course. Who’s in charge of the house at the moment?”

“Mary, sir.”

“How did Ellie take that?” Lenox’s cook was excellent but tempestuous.

“Equaniminously enough, sir.”

After eating alone (or rather, with his book and the Standard -McConnell had popped back to London that morning), Lenox took a final glance into the mirror by the door and left the Randolph. It was cold but bright, a taste of the autumn ahead, and he regretted leaving his overcoat behind. Fortunately it was only a few minutes until he got to Jesus. It was too early to see Rosie Little, so he turned left toward Lincoln. When he found the porter’s lodge, a strange man was there in place of Red.

“How do you do? I’m Charles Lenox.”

The man tipped his hat. “Mr. Lenox, sir. You can call me Phelps.”

“Hullo, Phelps. Are you the porter who was on duty with Mr. Kelly on the day Bill Dabney and George Payson disappeared?”

“I am, sir, yes. Why?”

“I’m by way of helping Inspector Goodson with his investigation. Here’s his note.” Lenox handed over that useful passport again and watched Phelps read it. “I was hoping to see Payson’s room once more-and in fact to have a word with you as well, Mr. Phelps.”

“Aye, sir?”

“Do you remember seeing Bill Dabney or George Payson that day?”

“No ’or’ about it, sir. I saw the two of ’em together, only but once.”

“Did you? What time would that have been?”

“Early, like, and that’s how I remember it. Neither of ’em was an early riser.”

“Where were they?”

“In the Grove Quad, underneath all that ivy along the high wall there. It was around seven o’clock in the morning, I’d reckon, sir.”

“Were they talking openly?”

“‘Ad their’ eads together, they did. Whispering.”

“Well, that certainly confirms our thinking. Had you reported this?”

“To Re-to Mr. Kelly, sir.”

Why wouldn’t Kelly have mentioned it?

“Did you catch anything of what they were saying?”

“I didn’t, sir, no.”

“Have you heard of the September Society, Mr. Phelps?”

“No, sir.”

“Anything else you can remember? What did you think of the lads?”

“Liked ’em, sir. Specially Payson, bit of a firecracker, him. We’re all passing sad about it, sir. Mrs. Phelps included, mind you.”

They spoke a few minutes longer, though Phelps didn’t yield any other interesting information. Then Lenox took the key from him and went up to George Payson’s room. It looked startlingly different, not so much tampered with as sanitized, depersonalized. The walking stick at its jaunty angle was gone from the chair; the tomato, string, and pen were gone; the books had been neatly gathered from their improbable homes and put in a row; the bed had been stripped. In the silence of the white, chill morning light it all seemed immeasurably sad.

Lenox looked behind all the furniture and in the ashes of the grate, and for good measure he glanced through the books, shuffled through the shapeless clothes on their sagging hangers, and read carefully through Payson’s notebooks. They only contained tutorial notes.

Lenox left Lincoln again with a few words to Phelps, who tipped his cap good-bye, and then made his way across the street to Jesus. When Lenox asked for Miss Little, the porter said that she had been expecting him and directed him toward the long hall at the end of the Front Quad. Finding it, Lenox went inside and saw a single woman pinning decorations to the wall.

“Miss Little?” he said, walking toward her.

“Ah-Mr. Lenox, is it? You’ve received my note, then.”

“Yes, that’s right. You wanted to speak to me?”

“I did. Call me Rosie, please.”

“May I ask how you heard about me, Rosie?”

“To be honest, Mr. Lenox-I-I followed you.”

She was an exquisitely pretty young girl, fair, with high plump red cheeks and lovely auburn hair. The dress she wore, blue and long, made her look both young and practical. She was distinctly of the middle class, the daughter of a banker or a local brewer, nineteen and with all the world before her.

“Did you?” he said mildly.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Lenox, but I did. It’s-it’s George, you see.”

“George Payson.”

Two large tears trembled in her eyes. “Yes.”

He put his hand softly on her arm and said, “Oh, my dear, I’m so terribly sorry.”

At these kind words her composure collapsed and she buried her head in Lenox’s chest, sobbing and sobbing.

Presently he asked, “Would you like to tell me what happened?”

She sniffled. “Yes,” she said. “I want to help.”

“Were the two of you-”

Hastily, she said, “No, no, Mr. Lenox, there was never a breath of impropriety. He was the finest gentleman I ever saw! So friendly, and so gentle with me, and such lovely manners. Once-once-he kissed me on the cheek. But oh, how I loved him, Mr. Lenox! I knew he was only polite, but Lord! How I loved George Payson!”

“Do you mind going backward a little? How do you come to manage these dances?”

Regaining some of her composure, Rosie answered, “It’s charitable work, Mr. Lenox. Half of the subscription prices go to the local orphanage. A few of us girls who grew up here do the work to prepare the dances.”

“How often do they happen?”

“There’s one every Friday evening in term. They rotate around the colleges by twos-that is, each college has two dances and then passes it on. This will be Jesus’s second dance; then it will go on to Magdalen.”

“The dances rotate through the colleges alphabetically?”

“Yes, Mr. Lenox. George and Bill took out subscriptions from their first week last year, and came to dance.”

“Did you dance, too?”

“Heavens, no. I serve punch and tick off names on the subscription list.”

“And over time you had a friendship with George,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes again. “But I didn’t write to tell you about this, I wrote to tell you about Friday.”

“What happened?” he said.

“The first odd thing was that his dance card was blank, Mr. Lenox. That never happened.”

“What did he do?”

“He stood off to the side, occasionally speaking with his friends, and occasionally having a word with me.”

“Did you notice anything else?”

“One other thing, actually-toward the end of the evening-”

“What time would that be?”

“Oh, quarter till eleven, perhaps.”

“Go on.”

“Toward the end of the evening, I saw him out in the quadrangle here at Jesus arguing with a man older than himself.”

“Can you describe him?”

“I can’t really, no, I’m afraid, because it was dark out. I saw that he wasn’t a student straight away from his dress, you see, and from the way he carried himself.”

“And you didn’t overhear them?”

“No, I’m afraid I didn’t. I’m sorry I can’t help more. But with what came afterward, it began to seem so strange!” She burst into tears again.

“On the contrary, you’ve been a great help. And you can trust that we’ll do whatever we can.”

“I’ve been so lonesome, Mr. Lenox!” she said, looking up at him with wet eyes.

Lenox didn’t speak for a moment, and then said, “How about this, Rosie: You and I shall be friends. Whatever I know, you’ll know. I’ll write you notes every other day or so and tell you what’s happened. A proper friendship.”

“Thank you,” she said, unable to say anything else.

A few minutes later they parted. Lenox thought of her, all alone over the past days with the terrible secret of her love and its defeat, aching to help, unequipped by her upbringing or her experience in the world to cope with her emotions. And felt at once a great pity for and admiration of her.

He had to catch his train in twenty minutes, but first he went back to the hotel and left Graham a note that read, Will you please find out whether Hatch attended the Jesus College dance last Saturday? An older man reported there. Thanks, CL.