Frederick sat opposite Lenox again, his amiable face now grave. “Patience. We’re still near enough the beginning of the thing.”
“Go on.”
“Fripp was panicked, naturally. He thought it might be a threat of violence — violence at a minimum, in fact, or worse still of murder.”
“Had he any cause to believe he had enemies?”
“None. He chaffs the fellows at the King’s Arms, the other pub in town, about cricket, but really, I cannot imagine … anyhow, after that morning a few of the local men set up a watch around Fripp’s house and his shop. That lasted a week. Then the second incident happened, on the other side of town, and rather diverted everyone’s attention.”
“What was the second incident?”
“It was identical, only it happened to a different man.”
“Who, now?”
“Wells, the grain merchant.”
“He must be even older than Fripp.”
Freddie shook his head. “No, you’re thinking of the father, who’s been dead for three or four years. His son runs the shop now, Frank Wells, a lad of only thirty or thirty-two. Means business, though. He has much the most prosperous shop in town, and really the only one in Plumbley that attracts people from other villages, in order that they might buy. He’s built it up to no end from when his father owned it, and it was a rather sleepy place. I’m afraid it’s gone a bit to his head — a gold watch chain, a carriage for his mother. Last year they expanded the building, that high-beamed Tudor place on the corner of St. Stephen’s Street. It was a hellish noise, and caused a great fuss because he brought men in from Bath to do it, rather than hiring locally. Ironic, you see.”
“And the crime was the same?”
“Yes. All the windows broken, rocks found inside the shop, one of them wrapped in a paper with the same drawing. This time whoever had done it took something of value out of the shop, however.”
“What?”
“A brass clock that sat above the doorway. It was there in his father’s day, too. Frank Wells minded that far more than the windows.”
Lenox’s brow was furrowed, the beginnings of half a dozen ideas in his mind. “What did Oates and Weston make of it, your constables?”
“That the criminal was emboldened at going free after the first vandalism.”
“What do Fripp and Wells have in common? But no — perhaps you’d better finish by telling me about the crimes. How many of them were there in all? If they can be called crimes?”
“If they can be … certainly they are crimes! I would give the man who did it thirty without the option today, if I could. But to answer your question there have been four, the most recent not five days ago.”
“Was the third crime another broken window?”
“No. This time — you recall the white doors of the church?”
“Yes.”
“Someone had painted on them, in black paint, writ very large, a roman numeral: XXII. Twenty-two, as I scarcely need to inform you.”
“How strange.”
“Yes.”
“The curate had it whitewashed immediately. Then, three nights later, this image appeared on the same door.”
Frederick passed across another slip of paper. Like the hanging man it was eerie: a black dog, very simply drawn, and again with an air of definite menace.
“And nothing in the last five days?” Lenox asked.
“No.”
For some time Lenox was silent. Finally, he said, “It’s bizarre, to be sure, but how can you be sure that it wasn’t schoolchildren all along?”
The older man sighed, and swirled the last sip of port in his glass before drinking it down. “We congregated, a few of us men who are concerned with the village’s well-being: Mr. Crofts, who has a little land west of here, a very fine gentleman; Dr. Eastwood; Mr. Kempe, who lives now in the old parsonage. There are only thirty-two boys in the village who are of any age to make that sort of mischief. In the end we asked their parents to keep them under lock and key until the problem had been sorted. It seems extreme, I know, but as I said before this is Plumbley, not one of your great cities like Bath, like Taunton. The symbols were very menacing, Charles.”
“What happened?”
“The Roman numeral appeared on the door of the church, overnight. We checked in with all of the parents, and none of the boys had been out past dark.”
“Boys are very sneaky, you know.”
“I had your brother and yourself here once upon a time, did I not? We enquired carefully, however, and though of course it is not a certainty I think it unlikely that any of those thirty-two boys did this. For one thing the images are so strange and unlikely, and for another, I know the boys. None of them are a bad sort. Not that we haven’t had those, through the years, but most of them have gone off or grown up.”
“I wonder,” said Lenox, “whether the second pair of crimes, the defacement of the church doors, is connected with the first pair.”
Frederick shook his head firmly. “We might go fifteen years without one incident like any of these,” he said. “When there are four in as many weeks they must be connected.”
“Yes, very likely.”
“The village is trying to pretend that nothing is wrong. Meanwhile all the shops are barring their windows and people are afraid to walk about after dark. It’s a terrible state of affairs. I do wish you would put your mind on it.”
“I shall be rather busy with my speech,” said Lenox, and then, seeing Frederick’s disappointment, added quickly, “But I mean to think it over, perhaps even have a word with one or two people. Yes, you may count on that.”
Though he fooled himself that he made the promise on Frederick’s behalf, in some deeper part of his mind he knew that it was for himself, too; and there swelled up inside him the pleasure of anticipation.
CHAPTER NINE
From a distant part of the house a cry went up. “Is that the child?” asked Frederick.
“It is, but I must not go to her. Miss Taylor would be fierce with me indeed if I should. Tell me, who do you suspect of these crimes?”
“Still, it’s late, now, and you’ve had a long day’s travel. Shall we go on in the morning?”
“If you prefer it.”
Frederick’s slightly plump, kind face took on again a troubled aspect. “In truth I would like to tell you all now.”
“Are you not tired?”
“Me? It’s the deuce of a thing, getting older, but I will say in its favor that one sleeps less — and no worse. I spend many hours in this particular nook, in fact, when the rest of the house has gone to bed. And d’you know, I find it rather cozy.”
“It’s an eligible sort of room,” said Lenox.
“I could never use my father’s study — the large one. Too much room to think. Here I have my telescope”— he gestured toward the window—“and my books, my papers, and a drop of something to drink. No, I am happy to stay up with you.”
“Perhaps you will give me all the facts now, then.”
Fate intervened, however. There was a soft knock on the door and without was Kirk, who said, “Begging your
