A Death in the Small Hours clm-6

by Charles Finch

  “It is a technology in its infancy, but quite useful,” said Lenox. “The whorls and ridges of each fingerpad are quite distinctive, from man to man—”

  “I once read that Babylonian potters used the impress of their fingers to identify their work,” said Frederick, “but surely Musgrave wouldn’t have pressed his finger against the knife. It isn’t wet clay, either.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Herschel’s son has been using them as a means of identification in India for years.”

  “John Herschel? The astronomer?”

  “Yes. Apparently with careful dusting one may ‘lift’ them, as the terminology has it, from any object. If Musgrave has held this knife, McConnell may be able to tell us. He has a very expensive kit, one of his own design, that he uses. He’s become rather a hobbyist, in fact. Offered the thing to the Metropolitan Police and they declined, with a typical deficit of imagination.”

  “Where did you find it?” asked Dallington.

  Lenox described the slop bucket and their retreat to the police station. “In the meanwhile Musgrave may be on a ship to Calcutta, for all that we know.”

  Frederick frowned. “Perhaps I can rouse the authorities in Bath faster than Constable Oates,” he said. “I have one or two friends there. Will you excuse me, Charles?”

  “By all means, though if you lack the energy to—”

  “No, not at all,” said Frederick, and indeed he had a steely look in his eye. He tapped the ash out of his pipe, gave it a quick swab with a ball of cotton that had been left on a silver tray nearby for that purpose, and left the room, calling for his coat and his horses.

  Dallington and Lenox were left alone.

  “Cricket, then?” asked the younger man with a smile.

  “I expect you’ll quite enjoy it.”

  “Miss Taylor and I had been planning to watch from the sidelines,” he said.

  “I would appreciate your playing.”

  The compact young lord merely nodded. “Will you hear about Fontaine, then?”

  “In fifteen minutes, if you wouldn’t mind. I would ship these things off to McConnell.”

  “I’ll return with my notes.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The library in which Dallington left Lenox was one of the glories of Everley, built at the end of the seventeenth century by a student of Wren’s. It had white plaster walls and a white plaster ceiling, with intricate moldings where they met, and vast, cathedrallike windows, flat at the bottom, where each had a bench, and rounded at the top. Down the center of the library — which was tiled black and white, striking especially in the sunlight — was a long oak table, while mirroring limewood bookcases receded to a fireplace at the end of the room. In these bookcases were treasures: old incunabula still chained to the shelves, folios from the early part of the 1600s, and long leather-bound rows of philosophy, a hobby of Frederick’s father, their bindings well worn.

  Dallington and Frederick had been sitting in armchairs by the fireplace; now Lenox took their spot, though not before pouring himself a healthy tot of whisky from the table of bottles nearby. He rang the bell and requested a spoon, some small boxes, and some string, and when they arrived he carefully apportioned a small amount of the powder into two separate parcels, writing a note to go with each, one to Dr. Eastwood, which he would send down in the morning, and one that would travel to London and McConnell. The notes asked if either doctor could identify the powder. He had more faith that his friend would arrive at the answer, but of course Eastwood was closer by.

  After he had accomplished this he took the knife and made up a second package for his friend, and included a note, on a piece of blue-bordered Everley writing paper, that said, simply, Fingerprints, urgent. Lenox.

  He rang again — for Nash, this time, the butler — and handed him the parcels. When this was just done, Dallington returned to the library. He sat down in the other armchair, eyes on his notes, without as much as a glance at the table of alcohol. Funny, that. Lenox had known men who were saintly fathers and husbands but couldn’t be within fifteen yards of a quarter pot of beer without becoming different creatures, while Dallington, if he had work in front of him, seemed entirely indifferent toward his intermittent vice.

  “Where shall I begin?” he asked.

  “First of all tell me what you did when you left this morning,” said Lenox.

  “Did Oates tell you I sat with Fontaine for a while?”

  “No. Did Oates himself let you in?”

  “No, he’s got a temporary constable, a man named Hutchinson who has a small farm nearby. Apparently his son can operate the place for a few weeks without much disruption.”

  “Did Fontaine speak?”

  “Not to me. I tried all of the old tricks you taught me,” said Dallington. “I told him about myself. I misstated a few facts about Paris, where I’ve been — to see if he would correct me.”

  “Did you have a pack of cards?”

  “Yes, and I dealt out a hand of Beggar-Your-Neighbor, thinking he had to know it. I even started playing for both of us, and he looked down at the cards but he refused to take the bait.”

  “That was a dry well, then.”

  “Quite so. I had a bit more luck on his background, however.”

  Lenox took a sip of his whisky. “How did you proceed?”

  “I went out to the farm where he worked. There were half a dozen Frenchmen there, and when I saw them I can tell you that my heart fell, thinking that they would all be mum on their compatriot’s behalf. As it happened, they couldn’t talk quickly enough. His wife was first in line.”

  “Why?”

  “They dislike Fontaine. He came over because his cousin worked here, a man named Theodore Celine. Celine died last winter of consumption, but Fontaine stayed on. He was a good laborer, apparently, and in the early stages anyhow, a good husband. Lately he’s been cruel to her, however, sullen and violent with the others, and skived his work.”

  “But he had a great deal of money when he was arrested, didn’t he?”

  “That’s what’s odd,” said Dallington. “Six months’ wages, easily. Some of it was bad coin, some good — that’s one of the charges they have him up on in Bath, in addition to disturbance of the peace, a row with the constable, refusal to pay his bill at a chop house, and public indecency. Apparently he had a prostitute out with him in one of the nicer streets in Bath and was trying to redeem his payment then and there. She was — let me look at my notes—‘quite a decent one, too,’ according to the man in Bath, which I think is a testament to her long standing in town and relative modesty rather than to her professional skill. I laughed at that nevertheless.”

  “You went to Bath? Very thoroughly managed, John.”

  “Thank you,” said Dallington, with a diffidence that seemed to betray, to Lenox at least, an ardent hope for redemption. “Shall I tell you what they said in Bath, or shall I—”

  “No, tell me what they said on the farm.”

  “They didn’t know why he had such an unusual amount of money, but they were certain that he came by it foully. He spends his wages the instant he gets them apparently. As do they all, in fairness.”

  “None of them had an idea how he got them? His wife?”

  “She only said that he was absent more than usual.”

  “It’s a wonder he wasn’t fired.”

  “It was for-hire work, not a permanent position.”

  “Evicted, then?”

  “His wife and her two cousins, also French, live in the house. A hovel, really, you would call it. I felt badly for them with the winter coming up. Not a switch of wood to be seen.”

  “Who is the landlord?”

  “Yates.”

  “Yes, I always heard he was a hard man. Did they give you any other information?” Lenox asked.

  “I asked whether he could ride a horse. He could.”

  “Well done.”

  “I also asked whether he spoke of any business in town. He hadn’t. On the other h
and they knew that he came into the money on the morning he was arrested, some three weeks ago, because he had been boasting about it for a few days beforehand quite brazenly.”

  “So it’s a recent job. How do the dates line up with the vandalisms?”

  “He was arrested after the first, before the second two. So he might have been involved, but he wasn’t the chief actor, I suppose you could say.”

  “Still, it’s telling.”

  “Do you think so?” asked Dallington hopefully.

  “Money and crime are rarely cohabitants of the same neighborhood at random. What did they tell you in Bath?”

  “Not much, sadly. I asked around at the places he spent his money, too, hoping that the alcohol had loosened his lips, but no such luck.”

  “Well, it’s inconclusive, then.”

  Dallington mastered a look of disappointment on his face, and said, “I thought so, too. I had hoped it might dovetail with something you learned.”

  “It still may. I think it a promising lead, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know enough of the case to say. Perhaps you would fill me in.”

  Lenox stood up and poured himself another splash of whisky. “Would you like a glass?” he asked.

  “Not just at the moment,” said Dallington.

  Lenox sat down again and described the stages of the case to his apprentice more comprehensively than he had before. Just as he was reaching Carmody’s account of the horses, his story was cut short by the door of the library flying open.

  It was Frederick.

  “It’s happened again,” he said.

  Lenox and Dallington both rose, alarmed. “Not another murder?” Lenox asked.

  “No, no,” said Frederick. “Another vandalism has happened, and they nearly caught the man who did it. Come with me, I’ll tell you on the way.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Lenox realized he hadn’t seen Jane or Sophia since he came back to the house, and as Frederick led them through the front hall he asked for word to be sent up that he had come and gone again already. Part of him — the part that had consumed three fingers of whisky, in all likelihood — yearned to stay in, to stall the adventure by a few hours of sleep. It had been a long day.

  Of course he went, though.

  “There was a great commotion when I got into town,” said Frederick as the carriage began the short drive. He faced Lenox and Dallington from one of its two plush benches. “I still managed to arrange about the telegrams with Timothy Milton, then I went off to find Fripp—”

  “Is it his shop that has been vandalized?” asked the member of Parliament.

  “No. It was the police station.”

  Lenox’s eyes widened. “Really, though? I was there not an hour ago.”

  “I know it. I’m glad you were gone.”

  “What did they do?”

  “It was the same again, a rock through the window — though this time there was a constable’s helmet tied to it, with a white X painted upon it. Oates isn’t taking it well.”

  “You say the culprits were nearly apprehended?” asked Dallington.

  “Yes. It was Wells who saw them — as you know his shop is just at the edge of the green, there, where the station is and where Weston was killed. The fellow is distraught because he fears that the men saw his face, and will return to silence him. He and his wife are at the station house with Oates now.”

  “What did he see them doing?”

  “The whole thing,” said Frederick. “There were two of them, and he raised a cry as soon as he saw them. Dozens of people came flooding out of the King’s Arms, and they gave chase down the Main Street. There were fresh prints from horseshoes there.”

  “What was his description of the men?”

  Frederick shook his head. “Oates took them down. I don’t know.”

  Suddenly, there in the carriage, Lenox did.

  The pieces had clicked together in his mind now, the deductions made sense. A stray morsel of information from Dallington, another from Musgrave, one from Wells, one from Fripp, one from Frederick, one from Carmody: these ratcheted into place and he understood it all. Or so he believed.

  He thought he knew the murderer’s name.

  “When we reach town,” he said, “perhaps I can leave the two of you to interview Wells and Oates. I have a brief errand I would like to run.”

  Frederick looked at him queryingly. “If you like,” he said.

  “Call it a suspicion.”

  It was only twelve minutes or so to the village green, which was ablaze with light and jostling with Plumbley villagers.

  “Look at this. It’s like the first of November,” said Freddie.

  Dallington shot him a quizzical look, but Lenox understood. “You’ve heard of soul-caking?” he said.

  “No,” said Dallington.

  “Spoken like a Londoner,” Frederick said, though his eyes were fixed on the people congregated near the police station.

  They stepped out of the carriage. Lenox said, “It’s a custom in many villages, though I’ve never seen one take it as seriously as Plumbley. They do it differently here, too, because in most villages the children beg for cakes, but here the children make them. They spend the whole last week of October doing it, out of raisins and flour, nutmeg and cinnamon, perhaps a little ginger, that sort of thing.

  “Then on the first of the new month the whole village opens itself up, lights on in every house, a glass of wine exchanged among all the neighbors, very friendly, and the children trade the cakes they’ve made for toys and candies. It’s lovely to see. Old feuds are set to the side for an evening. At the end there’s the first Christmas carol of the year on the town green, along with a hymn or two, by candlelight. Each cake that’s eaten represents a soul freed from Purgatory, they say.”

  “Sounds rather like guising.”

  “No, there’s nothing mean-spirited in it. There wouldn’t be, in Plumbley.” As he said this Lenox felt a surge of fondness for the little village, and simultaneously an anger at the men who had put it in a state of fear, had fretted the faces he saw in conversation around the town green. “You two go. I’m off to see Carmody.”

  That won their attention. “Carmody?” asked Dallington, eyebrows raised.

  “I’ll see you before too long.”

  As he approached Carmody’s house there were clusters of people talking, in the low murmuring gossip of village life. In the window of the man’s sitting room, Lenox could see that the curtains were parted and the lights were on. He knocked sharply on the door.

  “Good evening, Mr. Lenox,” said the housekeeper. “Unfortunately Mr. Carmody has retired. Would you care to leave a message for him?”

  “Please rouse him, if you would.”

  “But—”

  “It’s a matter of some moment, ma’am.”

  “Very well. Wait here, please. I would invite you in, but at this hour—”

  Lenox, standing on the stairs that led to the front door of the row house, pivoted so that he could survey the green as Carmody would have. He wondered where on earth Captain Musgrave might be.

  The door opened again. “He will see you in his study, sir,” said the housekeeper.

  “Excellent.”

  Carmody was in his seat by the window, in a vermilion-and-gold dressing gown, a glass of port wine — no doubt of a vintage deemed acceptable by the boys in Covent Garden — in his left hand. “Mr. Lenox,” he said, “I take it your visit pertains to this latest incident?”

  “Would you dress and come with me on an errand?” Lenox asked. “It would only take fifteen minutes.”

  “At this time of the evening I fear I cannot—”

  “Really, I must insist, Mr. Carmody,” said Lenox. “The next murder could happen this evening.”

  “The next murder, Mr. Lenox?”

  “Will you help me?”

  “I do customarily take a walk in the evenings, as you know — but — well, yes, I shall come along, I suppose. G
ive me a moment, give me a moment,” he said, with the flustered annoyance of a bachelor interrupted in his routines.

  Soon they were walking down the dim, moonlit streets of Plumbley. The short white houses, with their stooped green doors and friendly brass door-knockers in the shapes of horses, dogs, coronets, any such thing, looked completely innocent of malevolence.

  “Where are we going?” said Carmody, trotting alongside Lenox.

  “I’m taking you on a circuitous route to avoid the town green.”

  “But where—”

  “I’d like you to look at a pair of horses.”

  After a short walk, not more than eight minutes, they stood before a large house with a stable adjoining it. Both were silent. “This is the place?” asked Carmody.

  “Yes. Help me open the top-half of the stable door, if you would.”

  They creaked these open, Lenox trying to be quiet in case there was a boy who slept above the stalls. Nobody emerged, and soon three fine horses were at the window, open breast-high. It was just like Plumbley to have an unlocked stable so close to town. Or had been, perhaps, until the recent crimes. Who knew what precautions people would begin to take if it didn’t stop; how the town would change.

  “Are these the horses?” said Lenox.

  Carmody looked at them very carefully. It was a piece of good fortune that the moon was bright. “Yes,” he said at last, very slowly. “They are, these two to the left here, beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

  “Good. Help me close the door.”

  Carmody was dumbfounded. “Stay a moment. Can that mean—”

  “I must entreat you to hold your tongue, Mr. Carmody. Soon enough it will all come out, I assure you, but until then your discretion is crucial.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The two men split apart now, Carmody for his evening walk — though he seemed apprehensive about venturing anywhere too far out of town, and said he would avoid the wood — and Lenox back to the town green.

  Dallington, standing on the church steps, hailed him. “Charles!”

  “How are you?”

  “Well enough. More important, how was your errand?”