The Solitary House (35 page)

“Now, young Charles,” he begins, taking a seat as if he were in his own sitting-room, and the bench as comfortable as his favourite arm-chair. “I hope this little interlude has given you some time to think, and consider your position. For it’s not a good one, all things taken into account. It’s a bad look-out for you at present, and no mistake.”

Charles, who remains standing, looks down at him without any attempt to conceal his distaste.

“Point one,” continues Bucket, counting them off with his fat forefinger. “You was heard, only a few days ago, by the deceased’s clerk, threatening his life—and in rather lurid tones, I may add. Point two, as the whole station-house here knows, you have a gun, and are competent to use it. Point three, you cannot—or will not—furnish an alibi for the time of the crime. So, young Maddox, can you give me one good reason why I should not be a-charging you with this murder right here and now, and having you taken down to Newgate without delay?”

Before Charles can answer there’s a noise in the passage outside, and Sam Wheeler’s carroty head appears round the corner.

“Just to say they’ve brought ’im in. The deceased, sir. ’E’s in the back room upstairs.”

Bucket betrays no irritation at the interruption—if indeed he feels any—but merely nods and goes out, calling to the guard to come and lock the door, and leaving Charles and Wheeler alone together. It’s only to be expected that Charles should beg a word with his friend, but
neither of them has any idea that they are not the only ones to take part in the conversation that follows, even if the third party is more by way of an eavesdropper than a participant in the full sense of the term. But Inspector Bucket is nothing if not patient, and he is quite content to sit quiet and unmoving in the darkened cell next door, listening intently and waiting for his moment in his own comfortable manner. He has built his career on that way he has, and his reputation on ruses such as this, and he is rarely if ever disappointed. When Wheeler leaves a few moments later and he hears the bolts slide to, Bucket glides from his hiding-place without making a sound—he is surprisingly light on his feet for such a solid little man. And having let you into this particular secret, you will guess at the next one easily enough. The Inspector has a shorter wait this time, having had the foresight to allow the prison guard an early luncheon, and to have made a certain amount of fuss at the front desk about a carriage he requires for an urgent call he has to make on an eminent member of the baronetage. And so it is that the station-house falls unusually quiet for the time of day, and Bucket has only to wait in stillness in the closet next to the room where they have laid—rather unceremoniously, it must be said—all that now remains of a man who once stood at the shoulder of half the peerage in the land. Once in a while he takes his fat forefinger and pushes the closet door an inch open, then lets it fall softly to. It has been much in evidence of late, that finger. When he is on the trail of a crime, this finger of Bucket’s will be seen placed close to his ear, or held in the air, or rubbed along his nose; but as every one of his subordinates knows, it never fails, be it soon or late, to finally point out the guilty man. But here, for the moment, it performs only the function that God—or evolution—intended.

And pat they come. Wheeler flushed, fidgety, transparently a guilty thing surprised; Charles pale, slightly hectic still about the eyes, but from the way he starts to examine the corpse his presence of mind has not yet abandoned him. Bucket observes him for a few moments
and sighs silently to himself. He has few regrets of a professional nature, but this young man is one of them. And there is something pre-occupying him now—something that seems to be almost literally eating away at him, that Bucket would dearly love to fathom. His forefinger twitches in sympathy, as if itching to prod and probe this little mystery and make all plain. He watches as Charles circles the table and comes to a halt by the old man’s head, where the sheet is pulled tight to the drooping chin. Even in life Tulkinghorn was a parched thing, a thing of sallow paper and old desiccated confidences, but in death he seems to have shrunk back inside his own bones. The blotched and withered skin sags from his skull and the old hair clings in scraps to the wrinkled scalp. From dust we come, and to dust we return, but in Tulkinghorn’s case the process seems to be starting long before he is committed to the ground. Bucket knows well enough what lies beneath that all-concealing sheet and Charles must surely guess, but all the same the young man takes a deep breath before he takes hold of it and pulls it back. It seems the lawyer is a lawyer yet, clad still in his time-honoured suit of black, his lustreless knee-breeches tied with ribbons, and his wilted white stock. But this impeccable palette of monochrome tones glares now with colour—colour almost scandalous in its gaudy flamboyance, its ostentatious indifference to all those qualities of silence and reserve and anonymity the old man once stood for. It’s doubtful anyone ever saw Tulkinghorn, night or day, with his coat unbuttoned, but this particular indignity is only the first of many his dead flesh must now bear. The fine lawn shirt is soaked with a deep red taint that spreads from neck to gut, but the red is rawest, and the stain is densest, and the bloody cloth is bloodiest, around a small tight black hole in the centre of his chest, hard by the heart few of those who had dealings with him ever believed he possessed. Charles stands there a moment unmoving, and Bucket nods unseen, as if reading his thoughts. Who, indeed, would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? But a minute later he hears Wheeler hiss at his companion from the doorway, “Come on, Chas—we ain’t got
all day.” Sam’s so nervous he can barely keep still, and keeps darting his head into the corridor then back again into the room. “ ’Ave you got what you came for because if you ’ave, let’s get out of ’ere, and quick.”

“I was right,” says Charles slowly. “See this bullet wound? It’s far too small to have been made with a bullet from my pistol.”

He looks again at the corpse. “In fact, I think the shot was fired from only a foot or so away. That means Tulkinghorn knew his killer, and trusted him. Or at the very least saw no threat in having him at such close quarters. Which is precisely the opposite of what Bucket is alleging where I’m concerned. If he’s going to rely on my supposed threats to make his case stick, how does he explain the old man allowing me to get so close?”

Wheeler edges nearer, interested despite himself. “But if it were close range there’d be powder marks and you’ve got next to no chance findin’ ’em. That moth-eaten old rag’s too dark to show anythin’.”

Charles turns the coat against the light and is forced to agree. But as Bucket already suspects, he’s the last and very possibly the best pupil his great-uncle ever had. A moment later Bucket sees him dip his head against the body and breathe deeply. A gesture, incidentally, that you would have seen Bucket himself performing no more than an hour ago, when the body was first brought in. Which means he knows exactly what conclusion the young man is drawing: Overlaid on the dankness of old clothes and the sweet metallic aroma of new blood, there is the faint but unmistakable smell of burnt gunpowder. When Charles straightens up there is a hard little smile on his face, but the smile dies when he lifts his eyes and sees who else is now in the room.

“Well done, young Maddox,” says Mr Bucket genially. “You’re a quick study, that’s what
you
are, and no mistake. And so you think you’ve found the answer, do you? And I suppose, moreover, that you’ll soon be a-persuading me that this
is
the answer, and expecting me to unlock these doors and put away my cuffs, and escort you with all
due courtesy to the front door? Of course you do,” he continues conversationally, “and very odd indeed it would be if you didn’t.”

“Don’t blame Sam,” says Charles quickly. “It’s my fault. I persuaded him to let me in.”

“Oh I know all about that.” Bucket taps his nose with his busy forefinger. “And you do right by him, so you do, for taking the blame. Now don’t
you
be a-fretting,” he says, throwing a glance in Wheeler’s direction. “I know what’s what, and who’s who, and loyalty’s a quality I prize a good deal even when it’s misplaced. As it looks to be in this case. Well then, I’ll tell you something, young Wheeler. I think you’d be best, all things taken into account, to take yourself back down to the desk and wait for me there. I’ll be wanting a word with you in due course, but I have one or two for Mr Maddox here first.”

Wheeler shoots an agonised look in Charles’s direction—which the latter does not see—then stumbles out of the room. Bucket hears his feet in the stone passage, first walking, then quickening to a run.

“Now then,” he resumes. “I heard what you were a-saying about the deceased, and I am obliged to say that I am minded to agree with you.”

“Then you’ll let me go—”

Mr Bucket’s finger is raised in the air.

“But if it wasn’t my gun—”

“Don’t you be jumping to conclusions,” says Mr Bucket, “and you’ll find it goes much better for you. Now,” he says, “I’m sure you realise, being such a quick study, that it would be as easy as winking for you to have borrowed another gun. That you might a-done so precisely for that reason—to lay me off the trail.”

“Where could I have found one like it? This gun can’t have been much larger than a pocket pistol—I don’t think I’ve ever even seen one, much less fired one.”

“Ah, but you would know someone who has, I think?” replies Mr Bucket affably. “You do, after all, frequent a well-known shooting gallery, where all types of tastes are catered for, and all types of firearms
are readily to be had. Indeed I’ll bet a pound that if I were to rummage about a bit in the said establishment I might find any number of the like weapons, and recently discharged to boot.”

“On the contrary—” begins Charles, before faltering. It seems he was about to come to the trooper’s stout defence, but something is suddenly holding him back. Something, muses Bucket, like a case of little pearl-handled guns, kept neatly in a drawer. But he says nothing of this, and merely watches Charles with his most watchful eyes and smiles his most knowing smile.

“As it happens,” the Inspector resumes presently, as if for all the world there had been no interruption at all, “I am inclined to believe you on this occasion. Which is lucky for you. Even luckier, I should say, is the fact that certain new information has come into my possession, which diminishes the suspicions I had entertained of you and raises them in regard to another party. That being the case, I am willing to discharge you, for the present, on your own recognisance. But with certain conditions. That does not surprise you, I am sure.”

“And they are?” asks Charles evenly.

“First, that you keep away from that shooting gallery and have no intercourse—written or otherwise—with the trooper who runs it.”

The young man gives little away at this, beyond the slightest of flickers behind the eyes. He’s a cool customer, thinks Bucket, and that’s a fact.

“And if I refuse?”

“Oh, you won’t do that, I’ll wager,” replies Bucket complacently. “You’re a clever young man, and a sensible one on the whole, and your business is a business that requires a reputation for trustworthiness and an unsullied record. I’m sure it ain’t necessary to say to a man like you that it’s the best and wisest way that this little matter of your arrest should not come to your clients’ ears.”

Charles’s face is set; he knows, and Bucket knows, that he has him there.

“And the other conditions?”

Bucket smiles. “In a case such as this one, all is not always what it
seems. In my experience, and I dare say in yours, things are apt to come to light, and secrets laid bare, that in other circumstances would no doubt have lain long dead and buried. I say it again, and you would do well to heed my words, all is not always what it seems, even to those most closely involved.”

He regards Charles with a thoughtful eye. “I am asking you, lad, as a present member of the Detective to a former one, to trust me. I am sure you see me, just at present, as your opponent. Your enemy, even. You know a little of my dealings with Mr Tulkinghorn, and you have extrapolated that little into a very great deal indeed. Moreover, you have picked up other bits and pieces here and there, and have fitted them likewise into the same great puzzle. I can see how this has occurred. I might even—in your place—have made the like error. But it
is
an error, Charles. I hope it will not be long before you see that. I can say no more than this for the present, but you have heard me say often enough, to the victims in like unhappy affairs, that I will not turn out of my way, right or left, or take a sleep, or a wash, or a shave”—this with a rather pertinent glance at Charles—“till I have found what I go in search of. And when that day comes, you may discover that we are, in fact, working the same case—albeit from opposite ends.”

“And you ask me to believe that—to take it on trust? On your word merely?”

“Dear me, no,” says Bucket. “Not on that alone. On your knowledge of me, and my methods, and the fact that I learned those methods from a master of our art. Now you know who I mean, and I know you know, so we need say no more on that.”

They stand, eyes locked, for perhaps a minute, then Charles shakes his head. “I’m sure you’ll understand,” he says drily, mocking the detective’s words, “that I don’t have much of a mind to accept your word, on this occasion. I will keep away from the gallery, but that is as much as I am prepared to pledge.”

Bucket nods slowly. “And you still refuse to tell me where you were last evening?”

The livid anger has returned to Charles’s face. “At ten o’clock last night I was with a woman—though not in the way
you
probably think. She was helping me. But as I’m sure you are only too well aware, anyone who offers to help me these days has a more than passing chance of turning up dead very soon after. I don’t want any more needless deaths on my conscience, and I’m certainly not going to be responsible for handing you another victim—you or Sir Julius Cremorne.”