and Gareth Williams, Number Eight, had both arrived too late in the hall to see anything useful to his inquiries. Freddie Butcher, Number Two, who had spent most of his life working on the railways, had been one of the first on the scene but his eyesight had virtually gone and he had no testimony to give except that it was a crying shame and wouldn’t have happened under the administration of the previous Warden. Number Eleven, Archie Dunne, had slept through the whole affair and complained bitterly about the lack of breakfast. Wondering if he would ever collect any useful evidence at all and fearful of another visit from Sir Peregrine, Inspector Fletcher made his way across the courtyard to Number Six, temporary home of one Colin Baker who had a wooden leg from his time in the army.
Arthur Onslow had received his instructions from the Falcon, as he referred to his boss. He regarded this search for a detective as rather a lark that would take him out of the office and away from his master for a whole afternoon. He spent his time in a variety of different places, confirming in a way Sir Peregrine’s original assessment of him that he was an enterprising young man. The early part of the afternoon he spent in the offices of The Times where he had a Cambridge friend on the staff and where he believed all sorts of arcane wisdom were to be found. Then he made his way to Grays Inn, to the chambers of a barrister called Charles Augustus Pugh. This Pugh was a friend of his mother and had been a popular guest at a party in the Onslows’ grand house some years before where the talk was of a recent court case where Pugh had saved a man from the gallows, thanks to the work of a London detective whose name Arthur could not recall. Pugh was in court but the clerk gave him some useful information. Finally he visited a Salvation Army charity near Charing Cross where they cared for reformed convicts. They might have reformed from crime, Arthur muttered to himself, as he made a slightly unsteady return journey to his office, but they had certainly not reformed from drinking. His information had cost him many pints in the Rat and Compass.
Sir Peregrine had gone out on Silkworkers Company business. Arthur had long suspected that there was something suspicious going on in the world of silk. His master was more shifty and more devious than usual, if that were possible, about his activities in those quarters.
Arthur Onslow left a note on Sir Peregrine’s desk. ‘He has served in Army Intelligence in India,’ he wrote, ‘and led that branch of arms in the Boer War. He has been employed by the royal family and by a previous prime minister and by the Foreign Office. The man you want is Lord Francis Powerscourt, and he lives in Markham Square, Chelsea.’
2
‘Do you think I should tell him?’ Number Nineteen, a tall, very thin man called James Osborne, with a few white hairs left on the side of his head, was talking to his friend from Number Eleven. Number Nineteen was next door to the apartment of Abel Meredith, still interred in the hospital morgue. Inspector Fletcher was working his way round the almshouse, questioning each old gentleman in turn. Number Eleven, from the other side of the quadrangle, was, in contrast to his friend, short and rather fat with a full head of curly brown hair. His name was Archie Dunne and his last job had been as a car mechanic.
‘For the fifth time, James,’ Number Eleven said, ‘I think you should tell the Inspector. It can’t do any harm.’
‘I’m not sure, I’m not sure at all. It might get me into trouble. What would happen if they threw me out of here? I’ve got nowhere else to go.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. They’re not going to throw you out. If you don’t tell him, you’ll just worry about it for days.’
‘Oh dear.’ James Osborne, Number Nineteen, began rubbing his hands together, as if he were a reincarnation of Lady Macbeth, a sure sign that he wasn’t happy. ‘What am I going to do? That policeman will be here in a minute. Oh dear.’
‘Well, he won’t want me here when he does come,’ said Number Eleven. ‘You should tell him, James. It’s the right thing to do. It’s the only thing to do, for God’s sake. What would Mabel say if she was here? You know perfectly well what Mabel would say. Tell him, that’s my last word on the matter.’
Even as he said it, Archie Dunne, Number Eleven, realized that mention of Mabel was probably a mistake. Mabel’s passing, after all, just over a year before, was the reason Number Nineteen was in the Jesus Hospital, unable to cope on his own.
‘Don’t mention Mabel, please. Don’t set me off again. I couldn’t bear it.’
There was a light knock on the door. Inspector Fletcher said a polite good morning and sat down in the second chair. Deprived of a place to sit, Archie Dunne from Number Eleven made his excuses and left.
The Inspector was learning fast about the memories and afflictions of old men. They were, he thought, the most unreliable collection of witnesses he had ever come across. They weren’t lying, or if they were, they weren’t aware of it. They weren’t lying deliberately. They were also, although he didn’t know it, well suited to his temperament, the pauses, the hesitations. A more vigorous officer might have flustered the silkmen so much they would have said anything at all to be rid of him.
‘How kind of you to give up your time to see me this morning. I’m sure all you old gentlemen are still shocked by the events of yesterday.’
Number Nineteen did not feel it necessary to tell the policeman that his next fixed appointment was the weekly game of shove ha’penny at eight o’clock in the evening at the Rose and Crown in five days’ time.
‘It’s all very upsetting,’ he said, and gave a pause the policeman would have been proud of, ‘most unexpected.’
‘Now then.’ Inspector Fletcher opened his notebook and wrote Number Nineteen in large letters at the top of a clean page. ‘I have to write things down too, you see. Otherwise I forget them. They go clean out of my mind.’ The Inspector managed a little smile at this point. ‘What I would like you to do is just tell me in your own words everything you did yesterday morning, from the time you woke up until the body was found.’
Number Nineteen looked alarmed, as if this was an awful lot to remember in one go.
‘Well,’ he began, ‘I must have woken up some time around seven, half past maybe. I don’t have a watch, you see, so I take my bearings from the light and the people moving around outside. I got dressed as usual. Thursday is my day for a clean shirt so I put that on. I’d polished my shoes the night before, I don’t know why, I usually do them after breakfast. Then I went downstairs and out into the court. Most of the men were talking over by the hall. Number Fifteen, he’s not been right in the head for weeks now, that Number Fifteen, he was crying like a baby. I’d seen plenty of dead bodies in my time in the army so I wasn’t that bothered. Shocked, mind you, shocked that such a thing should happen in a place like this.’
By this stage in his career Inspector Fletcher had mastered the art of looking at his interviewee and writing his notes at the same time.
‘That all sounds very normal, Mr Osborne,’ he said. ‘Can you remember anything unusual?’
This was the moment Number Nineteen had been dreading. This had been the subject of his discussion with Number Eleven and the unfortunate invocation of the dead Mabel. What was he to do? He waited for so long before he spoke that the Inspector knew his man had heard something in the night. It would have been too dark to see anything at the time of the murder. The Inspector thought there was only one thing it could have been but he might be wrong. He leant forward in his chair.
‘There was something,’ he said very gently, ‘something in the night, wasn’t there? I wonder if it was something you heard.’
‘I won’t get into any trouble, will I?’ The old man looked very frightened now.
‘No, no, there won’t be any trouble. Not unless you killed him and I don’t think you did that!’
They both managed a laugh of sorts. Gallows humour, said the Inspector to himself, making a mental note to tell his wife about it that evening.
‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’ For a brief moment the Inspector thought James Osborne, Number Nineteen, was going to confess all. ‘For not having a watch, you see. I can’t tell you what time it was. When I heard the noises, I mean.’
He had said it now. It hadn’t been that bad. He began to feel a little better after the start of his confession.
‘Can you be any more specific about the time? Was it nearer the dawn than the middle of the night?’
