The September Society

CHAPTER FOUR

In Warwickshire there were two families: the Lucys and the Wests.

The Lucys were the more famous of the two, for one thing because of the long-told, possibly apocryphal story that Shakespeare had been a tutor in the family of Sir Thomas Lucy and even poached his deer. But the Wests were richer. A West had played an important role in the crucial Battle of Edgehill during the Revolution, and now they lived in the north of the shire on land the King had granted to them after the Restoration, around the large towns of Nuneaton and Bedworth. It was far from the glory of Stratford and the beauty of the southern canals, but it was where the money lay.

Lady Annabelle was a West, and her brother, John, was the current patriarch of the family. John West was a kind, stolid, churchgoing, and thoroughly countryish man who loved his sister and hated London nearly as much as she did. He had tried to make up for her unpleasant marriage by making her widowhood comfortable, if not happy. As a result, she and Lenox were bumping along the road away from Hampden Lane in a beautiful six-horse carriage of the very best sort, with blue plush seats and a warm little fire in a steel grate at their feet. They hadn’t spoken about the case yet. Once Lenox had heard that her son was missing, he had grabbed an overcoat and the small valise that Graham always left at the ready by the door for occasions like this, and been off. A packet of the cook’s toasted tomato sandwiches served as a makeshift breakfast. As he opened them, the carriage was pulling away from London, moving quickly in those early hours that found the streets abandoned, and he said, “Now, will you please tell me the full details of the matter?”

“Yes, certainly. Where shall I begin? Today?”

“Tell me a bit about your son, if you would.”

Tears came into Lady Annabelle’s eyes. “George is a student at Lincoln College, where he is in his second year reading modern history. He is my only child, and I scarcely need to add that I value every breath he takes as much as my own life.

“The trip from my brother’s house to Oxford takes only an hour, and though George is very busy with his work and his friends, I visit him whenever I can, sometimes as often as three times a week. I don’t always see him, but sometimes I do, and occasionally I have lunch with the master there.

“But one meeting of ours is firm, and that is tea on Saturday in his rooms. Saturday was yesterday, as you know, and I set out earlier in the morning than I usually do, planning to spend an hour in the Christ Church Picture Gallery before I went to see him. But I was so excited when I arrived in Oxford that I went straight to Lincoln and asked the porter, who knows me by now, to let me into my son’s rooms.”

“His rooms?”

“George has a sitting room with a desk and a few chairs, and a smaller bedroom behind it, looking out onto the Front Quad.”

“Are there also windows in the sitting room?”

“Yes, a short row.”

“Go on, please.”

Her hand reached for her necklace, which she clutched and worried. “I knocked on the door to his bedroom, which was shut. Then I looked in and saw it empty, so I sat in one of his chairs to wait with a book. At about noon I was very excited indeed, and stepped out of his room to go look in the quadrangle for his arrival. I saw him the second I walked out-and how I wish I had clung to him then, and not let him out of my sight! He was paler than usual and his hair was disheveled, but when I mentioned that he looked upset, he only said that he had been up late, working in the Bodleian.

“I asked him if he would like to go out then, and he said very rapidly that he would meet me at the tearoom down Ship Street where we sometimes go, opposite Jesus College. I started back to the doorway for my book, but he said, ’For God’s sakes, go, I’ll bring it!’ and then kissed me on the cheek and told me he loved me.”

There was silence for a moment, as she cried into her handkerchief.

“What a terrible mother I am! I went and waited in the tearoom, worrying slightly about how run-down George looked and drinking a cup of black coffee to steady myself. But the minutes dragged on until it had been nearly three-quarters of an hour since he had said he would be right down to meet me.

“I waited indecisively for another fifteen minutes before I paid and went back to the college. The porter-nice enough, though he seemed puzzled-let me into George’s rooms again. My things were still lying as they had been by the chair, and nothing had changed in the room, though the fire in the hearth had guttered out. I knocked on the door to his bedroom-which was closed, though I had opened it earlier-and there was no answer. Then I plucked up my courage and opened the door.”

“Was it closed tightly?”

“Yes.”

“Is it a thick door? Might the wind have closed it?”

“No.”

“Had the porter seen George leave college?”

“No-that was the first thing I asked him.”

“Please, go on.”

“It’s a very spare room-just a bed and a chest of drawers. The bed was ruffled, but generally everything looked as usual. Except George wasn’t there, and on the floor of his bedroom there was a white cat, stabbed straight through the neck with my late husband’s letter opener-dead, needless to say.” She shuddered at the thought.

“Did you recognize the cat?”

“I thought I might have. I know that George and his friends shared a cat.”

“Shared it?”

“They each had it for a few days at a time, if you see what I mean. At any rate, I’m not sure.”

“What did you do after you saw the cat?”

“I fainted. After a few minutes-perhaps even a few seconds-I woke up and nothing had changed. I felt very weak. The problem was that my brother is in Newcastle on business, or I would have gone straight home and told him everything. As it is I waited very miserably in the sitting room for about an hour, sipping at a glass of the brandy George keeps on hand. Then I checked back in the teashop to see if George had come in-they know him there-and he hadn’t. By then I was at the end of my wits. I went home and sent a telegram to my brother, who wrote back that he would be at Lincoln by midday today-Sunday, that is. Then last night I had the idea to fetch you. Emily Foal speaks so highly of your skill.”

“Yes, those emeralds. What time was it exactly when you last saw George?” said Lenox.

“Five minutes past twelve.”

“Did you speak to his friends before you came to London?”

“No, I thought it best to seek you out right away.”

““Did you consult with the porter or master?”

“No.”

“What else do you know about this cat?”

“Nothing, really. I know that they’ve had him for a while now.”

“Well, you’ve been awfully brave,” said Lenox.

“I don’t think it will be enough,” she said.

“We shall see; I am certainly hopeful,” he said.

“Are you?” This in a tone of despair.

“It seems telling to me that he saw you when he knew something was wrong-and didn’t stop and run off with you.”

“You’re quite right,” she said. “I suppose I hadn’t thought of it that way. So you think he’s alive, at the very least?”

“I hope and believe he is, yes, Lady Annabelle-but I shouldn’t like to draw any conclusions until we arrive.”