An Old Betrayal: A Charles Lenox Mystery (Charles Lenox Mysteries) (12 page)

“That sounds like Godwin,” said Lenox. He had been surveying the room and now took a lamp, went down to his hands and knees, and peered into the stygian recesses beneath the bed. “Certainly he wasn’t a Londoner.”

“How do you mean?” asked Jenkins, then added, rather irritably, “I did look under there already. I looked all over the room. At the notepaper too.”

“A new pair of eyes can never hurt,” said Lenox mildly.

“Mine hurt terribly at the moment,” said Dallington, pale, pinching his brow with a thumb and forefinger.

“John, tell Jenkins what we read of Godwin in
Who’s Who.
”

In the end there was nothing under the bed, or in any of the drawers of the desk, which Lenox removed altogether and turned around, inspecting—an excess of caution that had once or twice borne fruit. He saved for last the suit of clothes hanging in the wardrobe. It was a heather gray suit, made of heavy wool.

“It is in shockingly bad condition,” Jenkins called out preemptively when Lenox began to examine it.

Indeed it was. The cuffs of the suit’s arms were unraveling, and there were large holes dotted along the hem of the jacket. Its distinctly unpleasant scent grew stronger in the room every time the door of the wardrobe was opened. “A gentleman’s country suit, I suppose,” murmured Lenox. “I have seen worse garments upon the shoulders of earls who were looking after their pigs. Not much worse, mind you.”

“Certainly it could not respectably be worn in the city.”

Lenox frowned and turned toward the doorway of the room. “What was he wearing when he died?”

Jenkins began to speak but then stopped, nonplussed. “A suit” was all he said in the end.

Lenox went to the body and uncovered it, despite the attendant bobby’s initial objections. “A much finer suit of clothes,” he announced to Jenkins and Dallington. “Very nearly new.”

“We checked the pockets,” said Jenkins quickly.

Nevertheless Lenox carefully went over the body himself, dutifully rolling its unpleasant limp weight side to side, removing the shoes, feeling the lining of the suit for padding. (In such a fashion he had once come across a large ruby on a costermonger’s corpse, its origin and the history of its acquisition still, to this day, unexplained.)

Here Lenox did find something. The pockets of the suit were empty, but in the rolled cuff of the pants was a small ticket, evidently left there by the tailor, for delivery. It was dated to that day.

He showed Dallington and Jenkins. “It’s not much, but at least we know he had a delivery this morning.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t simply bring up a nicer suit of clothes.”

“I’m betting he wanted to travel lightly and knew that the suit in the closet had seen its best days. He knew he could wear the replacement back to Hampshire tomorrow.”

“Now what?” asked Jenkins.

“The hallway,” said Dallington and Lenox at the same time.

“We have scanned it closely—in increasingly large concentric loops,” said Jenkins.

Lenox felt a surge of pride: It was his method, one that he had urged the Yard to adopt. Now he employed it again, for the first time in a while.

Unfortunately the killer had left no telling detail behind this time.

“I take it there is a second stairwell?” asked Lenox. “The murderer could scarcely have strolled down this primary one, through the entrance of the hotel.”

“Particularly if the gunshots attracted people right away,” added Dallington.

“Yes—it is to the right, rather than the left. The staff use it, but it is much less trafficked than the main staircase.”

“The killer must have been familiar with the building,” said Lenox.

“Or done a little bit of preliminary investigation. After all, what do we make of this murder? Was it planned with forethought?”

Lenox thought for a moment. “Obviously it is significant that Godwin was nearly never in London—yet here we find him, appearing in the city only a few days after an impostor gave me his name.”

“Likely they will have information about his coming to the city at Raburn Lodge,” said Dallington. “I suppose we must be patient.”

“For my part, I wonder whether this was a long-or short-term impersonation. In the meanwhile we can hope to ascertain what he did in London. I think we might ask at White’s, John.”

Dallington nodded. “We can go there when we are finished here.”

“I’ll accompany the body back to the medical examiner’s,” said Jenkins, “if you two don’t mind handling that end of it. There are a great many cases on my ledger at the moment. Though this one, in such a quiet and respectable neighborhood, may attract more notice, I suppose, in the papers.”

“Happy to help,” said Dallington.

“Before we leave—were there any witnesses in the hotel?”

“We have interviewed everyone once now, I believe. Let me check.” Jenkins called over a young constable and conferred with him for a moment, then returned to Lenox and Dallington. “Yes, we have spoken to everyone. The results have been disappointing. Nobody saw the murderer—they only heard the gunshot.”

“Nobody was upon the back stair, I suppose?” asked Lenox.

“No.”

“We should look at it.”

“Be my guest. But there is one witness who saw Godwin earlier this morning. Perhaps you would like to speak to him first? He is staying in the room next door. Sooner or later we must permit him to leave the hotel.”

“Let’s see him now, then,” said Lenox.

As Jenkins led them downstairs, a different constable approached him with a report: Nobody along the Gloucester Road, or indeed anywhere in these environs, had anything useful to offer the police. It didn’t help that there was a fog that evening, thickening now to a degree of murkiness that meant cab drivers would soon start charging steeper fares, if they hadn’t already.

There were clusters of onlookers around the door of the hotel, waiting for the body to emerge. Lenox scanned their faces. It was almost axiomatic among his peers that murderers returned to the scenes of their crimes, but there was too great an element of calculation in this death, of murder by design, to think that it was somebody who killed for the excitement of it. Worse luck. Still, he advised Jenkins to have the bobbies take the names of everyone stopped on the pavement.

The witness who had seen Archie Godwin earlier in the day was a young man named Arthur Whitstable, in town from Liverpool upon business; he was a broker of stocks in that city. He looked the perfect exemplar of quiet English rectitude, a tall, square-jawed, deferential gentleman, sitting on a hard chair and reading the newspaper in the hotel manager’s office. He stood and shook hands with Lenox and Dallington—Jenkins had shown them into the room and left—without any evident impatience.

“I apologize for the inconvenience of another interview,” said Lenox.

“Not at all. This is a dreadful business,” Whitstable said. “I’ve been staying at the Graves for years, and count upon it absolutely as my home from home in London.”

“Had you ever met Godwin before, or seen him?”

“No.”

“But you saw him this morning?”

“Indeed, twice.”

“Can you tell us what happened?”

“I can tell you all I told Inspector Jenkins, at least. At around eleven o’clock, Mr. Godwin knocked on my door, apologizing for the intrusion, and asked if I had a pen sharpener he could borrow. They didn’t have one at the front desk. He was just on his way out but needed to finish a letter before he went.”

“He was alone?”

“No, he had a companion, a tall gentleman with blond mustaches.”

Lenox and Dallington exchanged looks. “Did he speak?” asked Dallington. “This other fellow?”

“No, and Mr. Godwin did not introduce him. I gathered that he had come to fetch his friend for some errand—he looked impatient to be gone.”

“The second time you saw Mr. Godwin was when he returned the pen sharpener?” asked Lenox.

“No. I had to go out upon a matter of business—in fact, just as he knocked on my door I was readying myself to leave—and told him he could leave the penknife with the front desk, under my name.”

“Did he?” asked Dallington.

“Yes, I have it right here.” Whitstable patted his breast pocket. “I usually carry it upon my person, because in my business one signs a great many contracts. As it happens I didn’t need it this morning.”

“What was Mr. Godwin’s demeanor when you first saw him?” asked Lenox.

“He was a very friendly chap, apologetic for the intrusion, and quite solicitous that I had no immediate need of the penknife. He said he would go borrow one elsewhere if I did.”

“And the second time you saw him?”

“Ah, yes. As I say, I went out upon business shortly after he knocked on my door. When I returned at noon I met him on the street, on Gloucester Road. He was in a great rush, not at all eager to speak with me—even rather avoiding me, until it was clear that I had seen him, when he thanked me hurriedly. He was with two men this time, one of them the same as earlier.”

“Did you get the sense that he was in danger?”

“Not at the time. Now, knowing that he is dead—perhaps. He wished to avoid meeting me.”

“Who was the third gentleman with them?”

“I didn’t speak to him, or look at him—just a normal sort of person.”

“You cannot think of anything physically distinctive in him?”

Whitstable narrowed his eyes, thinking. “He might have been rather shorter than average.”

“Fat, thin?”

“Neither, I don’t think.”

“You are sure he was with Godwin?” said Dallington.

“Yes, quite sure.”

“Did you have any sense of where they were going?”

“No. Probably I haven’t conveyed how brief the encounter was—no more than five or ten seconds. I should have forgotten it forever, if the gentleman hadn’t been murdered. Now I’ve wondered all evening whether it was those two companions of Mr. Godwin’s who did it.”

Lenox wondered the same thing. They asked Whitstable a few more questions, some in a futile effort to acquire a more detailed description of this unidentified third man. At last, Lenox thanked him and said, “We may find you here, if we have further questions?”

“Upon my word, no,” said Whitstable. “I couldn’t stay in that room, after all that has passed. I’ve already had the porter remove my things to the Chequers, two streets down by Onslow Square.”

“How long will you be in London?”

“Another eight nights. It is my semiannual trip to London, always two weeks.”

“Then we will see you out at the Chequers, if we have further questions. Thank you very much indeed for your patience.”

Whitstable shrugged, his face philosophical. “I wish there were more I could do.”

Lenox and Dallington made their way back upstairs and down the hall, headed for the hotel’s second staircase—the one by which, presumably, Archibald Godwin’s murderer had left the building.

It proved a disappointment. Dallington sat on a rickety chair at the top, out of breath and ill, as Lenox spent twenty careful minutes examining the area both inside and outside, hoping the murderer had dropped some small totem or left behind some smudged footprint.

There was nothing, however.

“It has the look of a careful crime,” said Dallington.

“Perhaps, but I cannot think why Godwin and his companion were together for so many hours before it was done.”

“Murder must have been a last resort. Bargaining first, then threats. Finally violence. So often one sees that pattern.”

“I suppose,” said Lenox, unpersuaded.

They traced their steps back down the hall—Godwin’s door shut now, a bobby standing by it, the blankness of his face hiding either boredom or stupidity, or who knew, great internal self-sustaining brilliance—and went back downstairs. As they came to the front hallway they saw that four bobbies were leaving the hotel, together bearing the stretcher that supported Archibald Godwin’s corpse.

They followed the body out of the door. On the pavement the crowd parted and grew reverently quiet, granting Godwin the prestige that belongs to the newly dead. Two or three men took off their hats. The local pub’s potman, roller of big cigars, with a wooden tray of beers hanging from a leather strap around his neck, had stopped here, attracted by the crowd no doubt, but now, perhaps out of respect, melted away, returning to his regular deliveries. This was death. Soon the body was out of sight, and the crowd, after the dissipation of tension that follows a long exhale, began to murmur again and then depart.

Lenox and Dallington had seen this kind of scene, each of them many times. It was always strange, jarring, raggedly human. After watching for a moment they decided to leave. There was nothing more for them here; they would be more useful calling in at White’s on behalf of Jenkins.

“Although you might go home if you like,” said Lenox as they got into his carriage. “If you’re ill.”

“I shall manage,” said Dallington.

He looked awful. “As you please.”

They rode in silence. Lenox must have seemed preoccupied, for as they were nearing White’s his younger friend said, “Are you quite all right, Charles?”

“I am,” said Lenox, shaking his head sharply to return it to attention, and smiling wanly. “It is only guilt that keeps me silent.”

“Guilt? Over what?”

“I sincerely hope that the young woman I saw at Gilbert’s—this Grace Ammons—is not in danger.”

The windows of White’s were, at this hour in the heart of the evening, very bright, crowded with lively figures, all of them holding drinks. Dallington, a member of the club, tipped his hat to the porter—a different fellow than the one Lenox had met before—and led the way inside.

“Shouldn’t we ask that porter about Godwin?” asked Lenox in the front hall.

From upstairs came the merry noise of glassware breaking. “It will be Minting who knows,” said Dallington. “Let’s go to his office.”

As they passed an open door someone cried “Dallington!” The young lord, face still pale, soldiered onward, and a moment later Lenox heard the same voice say idly, “Could have sworn it was Johnny Dallington.”

He led Lenox up two flights of stairs and down a narrow passageway, lined with caricatures of the club’s members that had appeared in
Punch
and, lower to the ground, glass-topped cases full of old rifles belonging to past members.