And now she was home.
She let herself into the tiny hallway between the piano shop and the wardrobe maker’s, and ascended the stairway to her waiting family.
NINE
It was Sebastian’s habit, when away from London,to send a postcard home at the first opportunity. His wife would be assured of his safe arrival, and if it was a picture card then Robert could add it to his collection.
His Arnmouth card that evening was a plain one from a sixpenny packet in his luggage, and when writing it he made no mention of the afternoon’s events. He addressed it in his room and then took it downstairs to give to the landlord for the morning collection.
He walked into a fug of beer and smoke. In the hour since his return from the assembly hall, the bar had been opened. The saloon and public rooms were now filled with local men, some the whistle-wetters from that afternoon, others still in their volunteer armbands. Despite the shadow that had been cast by the day, there was nothing subdued about their conversation. Tragedy always sharpened a community.
“Will you take a drink, Mister Becker?” the landlord asked him over the roar. The landlord’s name was Bill Turnbull, and he’d shed his constable’s jacket to work the pumps.
“I was hoping to get some supper,” Sebastian said. “Is there any possibility?”
“I’ll send Dolly out when she’s got a minute,” Bill Turnbull said, “if you don’t mind a wait.”
Supposing it would make no difference if he did mind, Sebastian agreed that he didn’t. He ordered a brandy and then, turning from the bar, spied Ralph Endell. The blacksmith was behind a table with three or four others, in a nook between the fireplace and the dining room. Endell made a gesture of invitation, and Sebastian went over.
They made space for him. Sebastian supposed that he’d be expected to stand the group a round at some point, and that point came rather quickly. He called Dolly over. She fetched the drinks on a tray and took his order for a sandwich and a bowl of the local fish stew.
They knew that he’d been to the spot where the bodies were found, and wanted to know more. He gave them an account of his arrival at the scene and his treatment at the hands of the army, with as little of the indelicate detail as he could include. In return he picked up the taproom gossip and speculation, which had no real substance to it at all. No local man could ever do such a thing, so it must have been gypsies, tinkers, or German spies.
“We’ll see what happens tomorrow,” one of the party said. “When the proper police get here.” He had small hands, wire spectacles, and a hank of hair that he’d arranged across his balding head in the hope of persuading the world that it grew there.
Ralph Endell had spoken the truth when he’d said that no man was ever a prophet in his own land. Penny Dreadfuls and story papers had recreated police detectives as exotic figures of adventure. A local boy like Stephen Reed could never expect to be taken seriously as one of their number.
After twenty minutes or so, and with no sign yet of his supper, Sebastian saw Stephen Reed enter. Reed called the landlord down to the end of the bar, and the two of them were in conversation for a while. Then Bill Turnbull reached under the bar and brought out the residents’ register.
Sebastian excused himself to the company and went over.
He found that Stephen Reed was arranging rooms for the senior detectives and other officers who’d be arriving in the morning to take over the case. The young detective sergeant didn’t seem despondent about it. If anything, he seemed relieved. A weight would be off his shoulders. He explained as much to Sebastian and declined to join him in a brandy.
He said, “I’m not here to drink. I’m here for what you know.”
“Upstairs,” Sebastian said, and led the way.
The residents’ corridor was as silent as it could be with a public bar directly beneath. As Sebastian stepped first into his room, he took a moment to look around before touching anything.
“What?” Stephen Reed said.
“I was downstairs for less than an hour,” he said.
He went over to his Gladstone and looked inside. The bag was exactly as he’d left it, but there was no mistaking that the contents had been disturbed. Sebastian knew his own packing. Or rather, he knew Elisabeth’s. She folded everything with precision and stowed it to a certain plan. No intruder could ever hope to recreate the effect.
He looked at Stephen Reed.
“I do believe I’ve been searched,” he said.
“Not by me,” Stephen Reed said.
The bedcovers didn’t appear to have been touched, and when Sebastian tipped over the bolster, his book and the papers were still there. “Do you know what this is?” he said, holding the volume up.
Stephen Reed shook his head.
“It’s Sir Owain’s account of his Amazonian adventure. Though it purports to be a factual account, it’s actually a fantasy of the most extreme order. He leads an expedition party into an unknown land. They find that they’ve ventured into a territory where monsters roam. The party is cut off from civilization and attacked from all sides. His men are carried off, one by one. At first the creatures move by night but then openly, by day. In the end, Sir Owain barely escapes with his life.”
“And he presents all that as truth?”
“He offers photographs and documents as proof of his story, all manufactured. The truth of it seems to be that these are the facts as he believes them.”
“Hence your interest.”
“He’s been of interest to my employers since the book was first published. You heard nothing of this? It caused quite a stir at the time.”
“All I know is that he lost his wife and child under tragic circumstances in South America. I can imagine that being enough to damage any man’s reason.”
“Not just his wife and son. His entire party, from the mapmakers and surveyors right down to the cook. There’s no true account. The inquest took place in a town where the British consul appeared to spend his nights in local whorehouses and his days sleeping off the drink, and his reports were useless.
“Questions from the bereaved families were met with offers of generous settlements. But the families have never been satisfied. There’s a thirdhand rumor of a Portuguese bearer. He’s supposed to have walked out of the jungle with a tale of the mad white captain who turned on his own crew when the river took his mind.”
“More storybook stuff.”
“That’s how it’s been dismissed,” Sebastian said, taking the papers from out of the book. “Your police commissioner’s response was a robust exoneration based on his personal knowledge of Sir Owain’s character. I have a copy of his letter here.”
“Let me understand this,” Stephen Reed said, with no more than a glance at the letterhead. “You’re telling me that Sir Owain is no mere eccentric. He’s known to be mad.”
“There are degrees of lunacy.”
“But you’ve known this for some time and he’s allowed to go free.”
“One needs a good reason in law to deprive a man of his liberty.”
“Especially a prominent man.”
“Prominence should have nothing to do with it,” Sebastian said. “But unfortunately, that’s not always the case. This list was compiled by my predecessor. A more meticulous man than I.” He gave the handwritten sheet to Stephen Reed.
As the young policeman scanned it, Sebastian went on, “My predecessor toured every parish with a border adjoining Sir Owain’s estate and noted every death or disappearance in recent years. Suspicious or accidental, report or rumor, they all went in. A woman drowned in a pool. A girl who set off for school and neither arrived nor returned. The disappearances were always at a time when Sir Owain was at home.”
