“Our debt is not to his privacy,” said Lenox.
“But—”
To put an end to the objections Lenox sat down and began to scan, with great care, the first sheet of paper. It was only a note from a cousin in nearby Cramton, full of prosaic news, but the detective nevertheless read it over with great diligence. Then he moved onto the next note, and the next. In all he sat at the desk for perhaps twenty minutes, reading and passing on the papers to Oates when he was done.
His reward for all this was nil.
At last he stood up. “I suppose the rooms are a blind alley, then,” he said. “Though it is sometimes valuable to learn about the character of the victim.”
“His character?”
“I knew he was amiable, which these letters prove, but I did not know about his taste for adventure novels. I did not know about his tidiness — that cannot be attributable solely to the charwoman — and it makes me think he had a well-ordered mind for police work. I wonder how that reflects upon his meeting on the green last night.”
Oates grunted as if to say that yes, plainly they were both wondering that. “Next, then?”
“Tell me, did he come and go as he pleased from the police rooms, on the other side of this door?”
“He had a key to lock it from the inside, but from our side it was never locked. He could go in and out as he pleased. Certainly I didn’t mind.”
“In that case let us look at his desk there.”
“You could scarcely call it a desk — there aren’t any papers in it. He did mostly footwork, to be honest, Mr. Lenox. I handle the papers, like.”
“Nonetheless.”
They went through to the next room. Lenox’s mind was busy; that Roman numeral, XXII, was beginning to obsess him. The hanging men and the black dog, too. If one of them had been a threat — and if this was a coincidence it was rather a wild one — they all might have been threats. Were they to be read in conjunction, or separately?
The small, narrow table where Weston had sat in the police station was dishearteningly naked. Oates had been correct; there was nothing here.
Yet almost as soon as they had finished looking at it, news came of a fresh clue. It was Wells, the grain merchant, who knocked on the door and ducked his head in.
“Dr. Eastwood would like to see both of you. Says he found something in the boy’s effects. Oates, did you hear that?” called Wells. “Eastwood found something!”
Oates, who had been at the far side of the room, back to the door, turned and said, irritably, “Yes, yes, one moment.”
As he turned back, Lenox saw a glint of metal and realized the man was taking a nip from a flask. “Shall I go on alone?” he said. “If you have business here?”
He had been hoping to let the constable off after his horrifying night, but Oates’s tone was sharp when he said, “No, I’ll come along.”
“He’s right down at his office,” said Wells.
“We know where he would be, thank you, Mr. Wells,” said Oates.
“How far is it?” asked Lenox, when Wells had closed the door behind him.
“Not three minutes,” said Oates. He took his coat down from the peg. “Shall we go?”
“Yes.”
There was to be a delay, however. When Lenox and Oates came out of the door, Fripp ran up to them, his face alive with news.
“What is it?” said Lenox.
“It’s Mr. Carmody, in thirteen,” he said. “He saw something.”
“What?”
“He won’t tell me. Says he’ll tell it to the member of Parliament. Come along, this way, this way.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
When they reached Mr. Carmody in number thirteen, and an upper maid admitted them to a sitting room to wait, Lenox’s heart rose. From the armchair by the window, surrounded by snuffboxes and opened letters, it was clear that Carmody spent a great deal of time here, and the window itself offered a perfect vantage on the town’s green. With luck they might discover the identity of Weston’s murderer in the next ten minutes.
Carmody himself shuffled in, and Oates, Fripp, and Lenox rose to greet him. He was a gray-haired man, taciturn perhaps but not in bad condition, whose shape was rather like that of a snowman, with especial prominence to the roundness of his middle figure. Everything about his personage and this small chamber, with its japanned table of decanters, its piles of books, its soft furniture, indicated a life of ease and comfort.
“Mr. Lenox, I presume!” said the man. “Pleased to meet you, sir.”
“The pleasure is mine.”
“Yes, Oates, I see you. Hello. Tea, gentlemen?”
“No, thank you,” said Lenox. “If you could tell us—”
“Of course it should be sherry, at this hour. Esmeralda, two glasses — no, four, why not, Oates and Fripp, it’s not every day you sit with gentlemen, I know, but—”
“Please,” said Lenox, “I thank you but I would prefer to keep my wits. If you could simply tell us—”
“Nothing sharpens the wits quite like a sip of something at six o’clock, I say. There she is with the glasses. No, not this sweet nonsense, Esmeralda,” he said, taking a bottle from the maid. “Bring me the Oloroso, of course. No, hold that thought, the Fino, yes, I think Mr. Lenox will like the Fino. You may pour for Mr. Oates and Mr. Fripp from the bottle you have in hand, however. Mr. Lenox, you heard from Mr. Fripp of my occupation?”
“No, sir.”
“I imported wine, for many years. Go to Covent Garden and see if they know G. F. Carmody, just you see.”
“I’ve no doubt—”
“Retired fifteen years—”
“If—”
“Or was it sixteen, Fripp? How long have I been coming to your shop?”
“If we could just—” said Lenox, but was again interrupted, as Esmeralda returned with a new bottle of sherry.
Carmody watched its decantation greedily and then, not quite smacking his lips — but not not smacking his lips either, for what sense that makes — raised it to his mouth. The sigh he gave after swallowing a tot of the liquid was one of a man at peace with the world.
Lenox, out of politeness and exigency, took a large gulp, found it burned his throat, and set the wine down. “Thank you. Now—”
“What d’you make of that, Mr. Lenox?”
“Very nice,” he said.
“Very nice! If I told the boys in Covent Garden that you called a twelve-year Fino very nice, one hand-selected by G. F. Carmody, I wonder what they would say.” Carmody chortled at the possibilities. “My, oh my. No, but the palette, sir, consult the palette. Do you not find an oakish taste to it, something that lays off the sweetness of the first impression, something of the old—”
“Oh, yes, rather, just so,” said Lenox desperately. “But about—”
“Yes, yes, the boy. Terrible pity.” Carmody took another sip and then set about prying open a small, mother- of-pearl snuffbox, hideously inlaid with a pink tile outline of what appeared to be a donkey. “Ah, you see my snuffbox, sir? Presented me by Don Pedro Sousa himself, with an image of a Spanish stallion, representative of our mutual strength. Ask the boys in Covent Garden about Don Pedro Sousa.”
Lenox nodded. “As to Weston—”
“Of course, you are all in haste. I understand. Let me just—” He took a moment or two — what seemed to
