“ ’E’s down there,” the girl said with a nod toward the river. “At the cottage on the bank, just down from the bridge. That’s where she lives, the old witch. But ye’d better ’urry. ’E’s leavin’ today. ’E’s goin’ t’America.”
“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you very much.”
But she was already striding off, back to the scullery and a sink full of dirty pots and pans.
Charles and Murray made their way down an overgrown path toward the river, which still smelled of sewage, although drains had recently been installed throughout the town. Charles half smiled, remembering the story of Queen Victoria, being shown over Trinity College many years before by its master, Dr. Whewell, and asking, when she walked over the bridge, about the pieces of paper that were floating down the river. Dr. Whewell, with extraordinary presence of mind, had replied: “Those, Your Majesty, are notices that bathing is forbidden.”
The path dipped down to the riverbank. Ahead of them stood a small timber-framed Tudor cottage that might have been a bucolic addition to a romantic landscape painting, overhung as it was by a large weeping willow and fronted with a rose hedge in full bloom. Behind the cottage a small herd of cows was fording a shallow inlet on their way to their pasture at Sheep’s Green, and out on the river proper Charles could see two rowing teams in their sculls.
But the damp situation and the occasional spring rises of the River Cam had not done the cottage any good, and whatever pastoral romance it might have offered to a harried city-dweller in search of a weekend rural retreat was obscured by its dilapidated reality. The plaster on the walls had sloughed off, exposing the lath underneath; the thatched roof was ragged and pocked; the plank door sagged at an angle; and the window frame gapped so widely that, open or closed, there must be no want of fresh air indoors, especially when the winter winds blew. Through the dirty glass, Charles saw that the ground floor was one small, dark room, like a cave, brick- floored, with a fireplace at one end and a ladder at the other, reaching up through the low ceiling into a loft. Mrs. Sally Thompson seemed not to have made a great success of life, at least so far as material possessions might testify, for the room contained only a bare table, three chairs, and a narrow bed under a gray wool coverlet, pushed against the back wall. There was no china on the mantel, no pots of geraniums on the sill, no braided rug on the floor, no cozy cat warming itself by the fire-walthough an old black-and-white dog lay under the willow tree. Two empty whiskey bottles in the dustbin outside the door suggested one possible reason for the lack of niceties and knicknacks. Mrs. Thompson was fond of her tipple.
Inside the cottage, a slender man in a light-blue checked suit was just descending the ladder from the loft, a blue tweed cap on his head and a portmanteau in one hand. He turned toward the door just as Charles stepped inside, followed by Jack Murray, who was followed in turn by the dog, who stood just inside the doorway, scratching. They seemed to fill the small room.
The man looked up, his face draining of color, his eyes wide with sudden fear behind thick- lensed glasses. Then, seeing men whom he did not recognize, his fear turned to nervous belligerence.
“Who’re you?” he demanded thinly. “What do you want?”
“We’ve come to talk to you, Mr. Baggs,” Charles said, wondering just who the man had feared might find him. The police, perhaps? Or someone else?
The man cleared his throat. “There’s no Baggs here,” he said indistinctly. “You’ve got the wrong house. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll be off. I’ve a train to catch.”
“It’s Baggs, all right,” Murray said in a low voice to Charles. “I saw him once, with Badger. No mistaking those glasses. He’s blind as a bat without them.” At the mention of Badger’s name, the man pressed his lips together.
“Mr. Baggs,” Charles said. “I am Charles Sheridan and this is Jack Murray. We are conducting a private investigation, commissioned by the Jockey Club, into the murder of your partner. We would like to ask you a few questions, please.”
The dog growled low in his throat. Baggs put down his portmanteau and straightened his shoulders, the muscles in his jaw tightening. “A… private investigation?” he asked hesitantly.
“Right,” Murray answered gruffly. “We ain’t police.” He booted the dog outside, closed the door, and shoved the bolt into place. The action was clearly a threat.
Baggs’s chin began to quiver. “I… I don’t know anything about Badger,” he said plaintively. “I heard he’d been shot, but I’d already made plans to leave before that happened. I’ve been… I’ve decided to go into a different line of work, you see. In America. I’m looking for more opportunity.”
“That’s interesting,” Charles said, as Murray began to edge around the table. He gave Baggs an encouraging smile. “It is a natural thing to want more opportunity, and I congratulate you on your initiative. But what about your business in Newmarket? I’ve heard that it’s thriving. I shouldn’t think you’d want to leave it.”
“Business?” Baggs asked uneasily, his glance shifting from Charles to Murray. He took a step backward, in the direction of the fireplace. “That’s all over. Badger and I ended our partnership the week before, quite… quite amicably.”
“Amic’bly, huh?” Murray snarled, now standing within an arm’s length of Baggs. He spoke in a thick Cockney accent that made him seem larger and more menacing than he was. “That ain’t wot Sobersides sez. ’E sez you threatened to kill Badger if ’e didn’t lay off about the doping. ’E sez ’e’ll swear to it in court. So wot about it, huh? You killed ’im, right? You killed Badger.”
“No!” Baggs took another step backward. His eyes were wide and frightened behind his glasses, his mouth was working. “We… we may have had a few hard words. But-”
“When I said that your business was thriving, I was speaking of your connection with the Americans,” Charles said mildly. “I understand from various sources that you have undertaken a new business arrangement with them, which was in part the reason for terminating your relationship with Mr. Day.”
“That ain’t all,” Murray said menacingly. He thrust his face close to Baggs’s and growled, “You ’ad a row wiv Badger at the Great Horse jes’ before ’e was killed-a big row. You wuz seen, and ’eard, Baggs, so don’t try to lie out of it.”
Charles pulled out a chair from the table and sat down, crossing his legs. He leaned back. “I fear that Mr. Murray is correct,” he said regretfully. “The proprietor will testify that you followed Badger out of the pub and didn’t come back. I’m very much afraid that the police believe that
Baggs sagged against the fireplace mantel. “I… I’m not the man they’re looking for,” he whispered. His eyes were terrified. “I… I swear it.”
Murray yanked the other chair forward. “Oh, yeah?” He put a thick hand on Baggs’s shoulder and forced him into the chair. “You sure look like that man to me, Baggs, you do fer a fact. You and Badger ’ad a row, you followed ’im out in the alley, you shot ’im.” He leaned over and shouted into Baggs’s ear. “You did it. Didn’t you?”
Baggs shook his head wordlessly, his eyes rolling.
Charles leaned forward. “Then who did?” he asked softly.
“I… don’t know,” Baggs said. He blinked rapidly, as if he were blinking back tears. “I… didn’t see.”
Murray reached down and snatched Baggs’s thick glasses. “Lemme see them specs o’ yers. Mebbe you need better lenses, huh? Mebbe that way, you can see.”
“Give me back my spectacles!” Baggs cried, leaping up from the chair and grabbing at the air. “I can’t see without them!”
Roughly, Murray pushed him back onto the chair. “But you couldn’t see wiv ’em, now, could you, guv’nor? You couldn’t see ’oo killed Badger, right? So they ain’t much good to you, are they?” He held up the glasses with a grating laugh. “So mebbe I’ll jes’ step on ’em.”
“No, no!” Baggs turned to Charles, begging. “Stop him, please, sir!” He rubbed his eyes with the backs of both hands, like a schoolboy. “Make him give them back, sir!”
“I’m afraid that Mr. Murray is deplorably single-minded,” Charles said sadly. “He has his own methods for getting information, and he does not take direction well. You will have to undertake to persuade him
