Trounce was puffing and had to wipe at his brow with a handkerchief.
They passed cottages and small terraced houses, kept going straight past the inn, and eventually arrived outside a square and rather dilapidated-looking residence. The ribbon of steam was slowly drifting away above it. A notice in one of the lower windows read:
Trounce reached out, grasped the knocker, and hammered.
They waited.
He hammered again.
A muffled voice came from within: “Keep yer bleedin' hair on!”
The portal opened and a fat man in an off-grey dressing gown blinked at them.
“What the bloomin' ‘eck are you wantin’ at this time o' night?” he demanded, his jowls wobbling indignantly.
“Police,” Trounce snapped. “Do you have a Peter Pimlico here?”
“More bloody visitors? I told him, none after ten o'clock, them's the rules o' the house, and what ‘appens? I get nothin’ but bleedin' visitors! You ain't foreigners, too, are yer?”
“We're English. Answer the question, man! Is Pimlico here?”
“Yus. He's in his room. I suppose you'll be wantin' to go up? You're police, you say? In trouble, is he?”
“It's distinctly possible,” Trounce answered, pushing his way past the man and into the narrow hallway beyond. “Which room?”
“Up the stairs an' first on yer left.”
Trounce started for the stairs but stopped when Burton asked the landlord, “You say there was a previous visitor for Mr. Pimlico? A foreigner?”
“Yus. A fat bloke with a big walrus moustache.”
“Nationality?”
“How the bleedin' 'eck should I know? They're all the same to me!”
“And when was he here?”
“'Bout ‘alf an hour ago. Woke me up landing his bloody contraption right outside, then thumped on the door. Pimlico came down the stairs like a bloomin’ avalanche to answer it, they both stamped up to his room, then a little bit later the foreigner came clod-hopping back down an' slammed the door behind him afore setting the windows a- rattling again with his blasted flying machine. I tell yer, it's been like trying to sleep in the middle of a bleedin' earthquake, and you ain't helpin'. Am I to get any kip at all tonight?”
“We'll not disturb you for long, Mr.-?”
“Emery. Norman Emery.”
“Mr. Emery. Remain here, please.”
Burton tied Fidget's leash to the bottom of the banister, muttered: “Stay, boy,” then, with Swinburne, followed Trounce up the stairs. The policeman knocked on the first door on the left. It swung open slightly under his knuckles. He looked at Burton and raised his eyebrows.
“Mr. Pimlico?” he called.
There was no reply.
The Yard man pushed the door open and peered into the room. He let out a grunt and turned to Swinburne. “Get Emery up here, would you?”
The poet, noting a grim aspect to the detective's face, obeyed without question.
“Look at this,” Trounce said as he entered the room.
Burton stepped in after him and saw a man stretched out on the floor. His face was a blotchy purple, his tongue was sticking out between his teeth, and his eyes were bulging and glazed.
“Strangled to death,” Trounce observed. “By Jove, look at the state of his neck! Whoever did this must be strong as an ox!”
“And a practised hand,” Burton added, bending over the corpse. “See the bruising? Our murderer knew exactly where to place his fingers and thumbs to kill in the quickest and most efficient manner. Hmm, look at these perforations in the skin. It's almost as if the killer possessed claws instead of fingernails!”
Trounce began to search through the dead man's pockets.
Swinburne reappeared with the landlord, who, upon looking through the doorway and seeing the body, cried out, “Cripes! And he ain't even paid his rent!”
“Is this Peter Pimlico?” Burton asked.
“Yus.”
Trounce uttered an exclamation and held up a small phial.
Burton took it, opened it, sniffed it, then tipped it until a drop of liquid spilled onto his finger. He put it to his tongue and screwed up his nose.
“Strychnine. No doubt about it.”
“It was in his pocket,” Trounce said. He addressed the landlord: “Does the village have a constable?”
“Yes, sir,” Emery replied. “Timothy Flanagan. He lives at number twelve.”
“Go and get him.”
“He'll be asleep.”
“Of course he'll be asleep! Bang on his door! Throw stones at his window! I don't care what you do-just wake him up and get him here, on the double!”
Emery nodded and disappeared down the stairs.
The detective turned back to the corpse, running his eyes over it, taking in every detail. He suddenly uttered an exclamation and bent close to Pimlico's swollen face.
“What is it?” Burton asked.
Trounce didn't answer. Instead, he pushed his fingers between the dead man's lips, groped to one side of the tongue, and pulled something out.
It was a small withered leaf, a dry brown colour with spitefully thorny edges, and it was attached to a tendril that, though Trounce gently tugged at it, refused to come out of Pimlico's mouth.
“Captain,” he said. “Would you prise the jaw open, please?”
Burton squatted, placed his hands around the lower half of the corpse's face, and pulled the mouth wide while Trounce pushed his fingers deeper inside.
“What in the blazes…?” the Yard man hissed as he drew out a second leaf and the vine to which it was attached tightened. “Look at this!”
He leaned back so Burton could peer into the mouth. The king's agent emitted a gasp of surprise, for the little plant was growing straight out of Pimlico's upper palate.
“I've never seen anything like it!” Trounce said. “How can it be possible?”
Burton shrugged distractedly and started to examine the dead man's head in minute detail. He quickly discovered other oddities. There were tiny green shoots in the hair, growing from the scalp, and a tangle of withered white roots issuing from the flesh behind both ears.
“I don't know what to make of it,” he said, rising to his feet, “but whatever this plant growing out of him is, it's as dead as Pimlico. What else did he have in his pockets?”
Trounce went through the items. “Keys, a few shillings, a box of lucifers, a pipe and pouch of shag tobacco, a pencil, and a 'bus ticket.”
“From where?”
“Leeds. Let's search the room.”
Swinburne looked on from the landing as the two men went over the chamber inch by inch. They discovered a small suitcase under the bed but it contained only clothes. No other possessions were found.
“Nothing to tell us who the foreigner might be,” Trounce ruminated. “And no clue as to where Pimlico lived in Leeds.”
“There's this,” Burton said. He held out the tobacco pouch-the brand was Ogden's Flake-with the flap open. On the inside, an address was printed in blue ink:
“If this is his local supplier, perhaps the proprietor will know him.”
“Humph!” Trounce grunted. “Well, that's something, anyway. Let's wait for the constable, then we'll leg it
