The September Society clm-2

by Charles Finch

  He sat by the window for half an hour and then stood up with a sigh and went to the bureau to unpack his suitcase. He did so listlessly, doing a job so untidy that Graham would have cringed to see it, and wondered if he could remember that other old ghost story about the Turf. Yes, of course he could. He would never forget it.

  Lenox had been quite close with his grandfather, his mother’s father, the 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne, and often visited him at Bowood House, the Lansdowne family seat in Wiltshire. This was long past the days when the marquess had been the Member of Parliament for Cambridge University and served as chancellor of the exchequer. By then he spent most of his time in his large library, compiling his memoirs and reading. He was a tall, wrinkled, mischievous old man with snow white hair and an endless succession of stories.

  One of them was about the dirt hauling lane behind the Turf, where the local farms’ animals tracked on their way across the city to the butcher’s. A boy, Samuel, was returning from the butcher, having dropped off a flock of sheep there, when by the back door of the Turf two menacing gents had appeared, drunk and restive.

  “What do ye want?” Samuel had shouted at them preemptively. Lenox could hear his grandfather imitating the voice.

  “You have yer butcher money there, isn’t it?” said one of the men, and a moment later both had started walking toward him.

  At that instant, a massive black dog, something like a Great Dane, had materialized (the boy swore) out of thin air and started growling at the two men, standing between them and the boy. The men had leapt back into the Turf’s doorway, cursing the dog and the boy alike, and let them pass safely. Then the boy had run all the way through the city, past the dim colleges and murmuring pubs, until he reached the fields on the other side of town, by the river. The dog had run with him all the way, but there he stopped, immovable.

  “What?” Samuel had said. All the dog did was nuzzle the fence they stood by and stamp on the ground over and over. “What?” the boy asked again, and the dog had put his nose to the same spot. So Samuel had marked it with a stick by the side of the road, and as soon as that was done the dog had vanished, again (the boy swore) into thin air.

  The next morning, after he had safely deposited the money with the farmer, the boy had gone back to the spot by the fence and dug a hole. About three feet down he found a dog’s bones. In the rib cage was a small box, and in the box were forty gold pieces. A few years later, at the age of sixteen, Samuel had used them to buy the Turf Tavern.

  The old myths. There was some small relief in the memory of them, in the memory of his grandfather. But it passed, and Lenox went to bed that evening caught in a world of his own ghosts, his own dead, thinking of the newest in their number-poor George Payson, who didn’t even have the blessing of sorrow anymore.

  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 s
aid, 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.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  A nybody who has ever studied at Oxford loves Christ Church Meadow. With water to one side and the tall, beautiful college spires to the other, it is quintessentially English, almost like a picture by Constable in which water, grass, and a building so old it seems like part of nature itself all breathe against each other. To Lenox, it was most beautiful in the long golden light of springtime, when its green expanse seemed limitless and the soft water sounds of rowers and punters floated on the air, while in the distance cattle grazed in the lower water meadow. The line of boathouses down at one end was a happy place, too, for a day spent punting with friends along the Cherwell, drinking champagne (or champs, as they called it at Oxford) and eating cold chicken, was as close to heaven as this earth could get. A day of punting could erase weeks of dark Bodleian nights from the memory.

  But Lenox pushed these memories aside now and concentrated on the site where George Payson’s body had been fifteen hours before.

  There were five or six policemen around the roped-off area, as well as another dozen curious passersby. The men from the force were spending their time either classifying footprints or keeping people back from the site. To Goodson’s credit, they had left the scene in good working order, and the imprint of the body was still visible. Lenox noticed that it was slightly deeper toward the middle.

  “The person who dropped George Payson’s body must have been carrying him like this”-Lenox demonstrated-“just the way you carry a bride across the threshold, if you see what I mean, and then simply dropped him.”

  “I figured as much,” said Goodson rather testily.

  “Oh, certainly,” said Lenox. “This has all been done in a first-rate way-a sight better than some I could name from London might have done. I was only straightening the thing out in my own head. That means, then, that the person’s footprints are probably just ten inches to the left of the body-ah, a dense patch, I see,” he said, responding to Goodson’s pointing out the spot. “I really have to congratulate your thoroughness. The only other point to gather here, then, is that Payson must have been newly dead, garroted only a few moments before the killer dropped him here.”

  “Why?” Goodson asked.

  “Because the arms were splayed out above the head,” said Lenox, pointing to where the arms had left indentations in the soil. “They were still loose. The killer wouldn’t have carried him with his arms like that. Too unwieldy, too easily noticeable. He left the body as it fell. McConnell, how long would rigor mortis have taken to set in?”

  “It can take anywhere from five minutes to two hours, but in this case, given how the body has loosened again, probably on the shorter side-call it fifteen minutes.”

  “There you have it, Inspector,” said Lenox.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Even if the killer had some means of transport, the scene of the murder can’t have been far off at all. And this park is only accessible by foot, which cuts down the distance even further.”

  “Ah,” said Goodson, writing on his pad. “So the fight could only have taken place within a fifteen-minute walk of this spot.”

  “Call it a four-minute walk, actually-perhaps a six-minute perimeter south of here, figuring that one walks much less quickly when carrying so much weight.”

  “All right-I’ll tell the lads.”

  “Just a moment,” Lenox said. “What about objects near the body?”

  “At the station. Here, Ramsey, take these gentleman to the station when they’re ready to go and show them the box of things we found. All right, Mr. Lenox, Mr. McConnell.” With a nod Goodson walked off to give the men by the river to the south their instructions, stopping on the way to bark at the crowd that had gathered until they dispersed.

  Ramsey came over. “On your signal, then,” he said.

  Lenox nodded. “Give it ten minutes, if that’s all right?”

  “Just as you say.”

  When they were alone, McConnell said, “What do you reckon?”

  “Well, above all I’m grateful to you for finding a way for us to see this place. My other two thoughts are that we’re dealing with someone remarkably clever and that if there’s no sign of Dabney anytime soon it looks a bit black against him. Now what about the body?”

  “We’ve covered some of the details these past few minutes. There’s not much else to tell. He was garroted, but he put up a damn good fight. I’d say
the murderer will have some wounds to show for it. It was a standard stud chain garrote.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A long leather loop with a metal chain on the end.”

  “How easy do you reckon it is to acquire one of those?

  I most often see scarves or fishing line as garrotes. Piano wire once.”

  “Quite easy. It was a stud chain, the kind used to whip horses. You can find one in any stable.”

  Lenox thought for a moment, then said, “Go on.”

  “There were two other singular circumstances that Morris and I discovered. One, the body was bloody and badly mauled around the face and torso.”

  “Unrecognizably so?”

  “No, perhaps not, but badly. It’s strange, given how short a time the body was exposed to the elements.”

  “Animal wounds?”

  “That’s hard to say.”

  “What was the other singular circumstance?”

  “How closely shorn his hair was.”

  “Disguise, I would have thought.”

  “On his head, to be sure-but the hair was shorn from all over his body, you know, not just his head.”

  “That’s passing strange.”

  “We thought so, too.”

  The doctor and the detective discussed George Payson’s corpse for another moment and then made their way to look at the objects found around the body with Constable Ramsey.

  At the station the constable brought out a small cardboard box, filled with a random and, truth be told, somewhat unsatisfactory collection of odds and ends, most of which had probably been simply dropped in the park and never cleared away. There was a white feather, a receipt for a new hat to be picked up in a day’s time, several candy wrappers, a child’s mitten, a muddy and blank sheet of small paper, and a pin that was, Lenox saw with a thrill undercut by doubtfulness, the color red.