The Truth of All Things (5 page)

The watchman rubbed his fingertips together, contemplating his options while staring into the dark gaze of Perceval Grey. “All right then, as you say. It ain’t so bad usually. Just this past week’s been worse than ever. I’ve been promising my wife I’ll go down to the druggist shop for them drops her sister’s always carping on about helping the rheumatism in her hands—”

Grey held up his own hand to stop the unnecessary tale. “Just a week, then? Before then you were making your rounds timely?”

“Yeah.” The man’s shoulders slumped, and he sighed, a combination of relief and defeat. “Been doing one roundabout soon as I get here and another before sunup. If I’d known that something like this would
happen, I’d have said something, let someone else take my rounds. But I can’t lose the work, you know?”

“You needn’t trouble yourself,” Grey said. “Walking your rounds would not have saved that girl. Now, let’s have a look at your bottle.” The watchman’s eyes went wide and his lips parted, but the protest of temperance died in his throat. With something of an effort, he leaned down to an overturned wooden crate and retrieved a bottle from inside. Grey examined the bottle, removed the loose cap, sniffed the contents, and handed it over to Lean. “The closure is of interest.”

Lean glanced at the bottle’s top. It was not the more common lightning-type closure that had a metal wire toggle atop the stopper. This one was a loop seal: a disk with a metal loop on top and a rubber convex bottom forced into the mouth of the bottle. It was favored by bootleg bottlers since it was cheaper, but it was only a one-timer, not reusable like the lightning type. Once it was yanked out by means of a small hook, the rubber stopper expanded, rendering it impossible to completely reseal. Lean also sniffed the bottle; it smelled of cheap beer, though a bit off. Unlike the stopper, the bottle would have been used many times over and might not have been cleaned after its last use.

“It’s just beer, no booze. And you see I only drank half it anyways,” said the watchman.

“Fortunate for you. You’ve been drugged. If you’d emptied the bottle, you’d still be unconscious. You bring the same kind every night?” Grey said.

“Most every.”

“You open it before your first inspection of the property?”

“Nah, I wait till after the first walk round. Done about ten o’clock.” The watchman wiped his lips with the back side of his hand. “Work up a thirst and all.”

“What time did you hear the bird crash into the lamp by the machine shop’s side door?”

“Right about ten twenty.” He stopped short and stared suspiciously at Grey.

“You looked at your pocketwatch?”

“No, but the Montrealer gets in at ten past ten. And it was just a bit after that I heard a bunch of fellas wandering this way from off the train. Carrying on loud enough to get me up to take a look. Could practically smell the Canadian Rye on ’em all the way up here. They made it a few hundred yards from the station ’fore they seen they were heading toward the ocean instead of the city.”

“So you noticed the light was out, went to investigate, realized that the bird had busted the lamp, and returned here. Then what?”

“Same as I’ve already said ten times. I was feeling sleepy. Must have dozed off. Next thing, I hear a sound—a scream, maybe. Took my lamp and stick. Saw a candle flame in through the window of the machine shop. Went inside, and that’s when I saw this man running for the side door. Didn’t get a good look at him. I would’ve gone after him, but then I seen her lying there. And that’s all.”

Grey motioned to Lean, passing off the watchman.

“All right, you’re free to go now. We’ll be in touch if we need anything else,” Lean said.

“There is one more thing you can do to help,” added Grey.

“Anything. Anything at all.”

“Don’t talk about this to anyone. Only a few souls know any details of tonight. Start talking and you’re liable to draw attention to yourself. Reporters first, but then, perhaps, from the fiend who did this.” Grey arched his eyebrows in warning.

The watchman nodded mutely before gathering up his things and bumbling out the door.

“You believe him?” Lean asked.

“He never had a hand on the girl, in any event.” Grey waved his hand at the small room. “No hint of her perfume when we entered. Nor do I think he was complicit in the break-in.”

“A bit of fragrance wouldn’t do him any harm.” Lean flipped through a small stack of loose papers on the desk. “If he’d been in on it, he could have broken that window to hide using his keys.”

“If the killer had the watchman’s assistance, he wouldn’t have needed that elaborate distraction with the dead bird.”

“You’re certain our killer planted the dead bird?” Lean asked.

“Birds don’t fly into streetlights at night, Deputy. Our killer was prepared. He needed to ensure that the watchman was not awake during the crime. But the killer couldn’t dope the watchman’s beer until after the bottle was opened. That would happen only after completing his first circuit. And he wouldn’t leave his shack to make another inspection until almost sunrise.”

“So the bird and the broken lamp were bait,” Lean said. “The killer needed to draw him out for a few minutes after he completed his first walk.”

“Precisely. Busting the lamp darkened the pathway and got the watchman’s attention. He came to investigate. And while he did, the killer sprinted around the back of the building, slipped unseen into the shack, and drugged the bottle.”

“Rather elaborate scheme,” Lean said.

“And, therefore, it provides several important clues. Not the least of which is that our killer was very familiar with the immediate area and with the watchman’s routine. He must have been lingering nearby for several nights at least.”

“Or else he invented the distraction on the spot. And he’s the sort who always carries a dead pigeon for just such an occasion,” Lean said with a smirk.

“A troubling development in either case.”

Lean glanced at his pocketwatch. “We should be on our way. Dr. Steig’s probably started his examination without us.”

T
he cab carrying Lean and Grey hurtled along Congress Street, with only splashes of light from the streetlamps to reveal the scene. This was Portland’s principal avenue, the only one that ran the entire three-mile length of the Neck, as the peninsula was called. It was a city of slopes, curves, and dips carved by glaciers and now crisscrossed
by a network of angled streets and blocks, unfettered by any sense of regularity and uniformity. Portland’s maze of cobbled roads was the result of two and a half centuries of fishermen and merchants driven by immediate necessity and that economy of steps that occurs naturally in a place where winters often lasted five months out of the year. Lean enjoyed the view at this hour: the public façade that met the commercial and social needs of the world stripped bare to reveal the city in dark repose. It was a scene reserved for those restless souls who were still awake, whether by choice, duty, or desperation.

Lean returned his attention to his notes from the crime scene. Fatigue was setting in, and he worried that his attention was fading; perhaps he’d failed to record some crucial fact. He glanced at Grey, whose closed eyes and serene countenance betrayed no hint of the same concerns that plagued Lean.

“Tell me something, Grey. It seems impossible that you could have known it was a prostitute that had been murdered. The mayor’s worried. Thinks we have stumbled upon the very man we seek.”

Grey chuckled. “ ‘Stumbled’ would be an apt description.”

Lean sat, awaiting an explanation.

“Oh, it’s all quite simple. Your presence could only mean that a crime had been committed. I know that Dr. Steig occasionally performs postmortems for the city. His presence indicated that violence had been done. Knowing the doctor’s commitment to his patients, it’s a simple deduction that if this victim were still alive, Dr. Steig would have been away attending her.”

“You said ‘her.’ How did you know the prostitute bit?” asked Lean.

“Ah, I gleaned that from the mayor’s attendance.”

Lean opened his mouth to comment, but Grey cut him off. “I only mean that the mayor certainly wouldn’t be about at three in the morning for a simple murder. The victim was someone of social significance, or else the murder was so sensational it warranted his immediate involvement. I observed his comportment. He was not outraged or distressed as he would be if some woman of substance had been murdered. Rather, his movements displayed a gross aversion to this entire matter.”

Grey motioned as if wafting a smell toward his nose. “Also, I detected inexpensive perfume when shaking the doctor’s hand. He had touched the victim, a woman. So what type of woman, not earning the sympathy of our municipal leaders and wearing cheap perfume, is out at night, in danger of meeting her end in a manner so startling as to rouse the mayor?”

“All plain enough when you explain it that way.”

Grey turned his face toward the small window, glancing at the buildings as they passed. “Everything that can be observed offers the opportunity to draw conclusions as to what must have occurred previously.”

As they turned off onto Bramhall Street and topped a short rise, Maine General came into full view. The four-story brick hospital, fronted by a spirelike tower, was still faint in the dawn light. The cab moved down Brackett Street to the hospital compound’s side entrance.

“One more thing, though. Inside the machine shop, you made a comment about my wife. I don’t wear a wedding band.”

“A man can be viewed the same as a crime scene. His appearance, his habits, his expressions, the questions he asks. They all reveal clues to his nature and his history. It’s just a matter of training oneself to note these traits, then cataloging them in the memory, contrasting them against those of different social classes, professions, and generations.”

“And so you figured I’m married. What else have you deduced about me?”

“It’s not really my place to say.”

“We’ve already stood together over a woman’s naked corpse, discussing her lunatic killer. I think we can speak openly.”

The cab drew to a halt, and the men hopped down.

“Very well, then. I should congratulate you on the impending birth of your child.”

Lean stopped dead in his tracks. “How …? Remove your hat a moment.”

Grey did so, with a bemused caution.

“No horns on you. So how the devil did you know that? Dr. Steig said something.”

Grey smirked. “There’s no magic trick. As I said, my conclusions about you follow the same path as the adduction of proof in a criminal inquiry. Drawing from the truth of one fact the existence of those other facts that most probably preceded it.”

Lean stared at him, silently demanding a more concrete explanation.

“In this instance your hat and your shoes.”

“What of them?” Lean inspected what looked to be a perfectly innocent bowler.

“The hat is on the far side of its better days but has been well tended. The ribbon about the base of the crown has been replaced recently, and the felt has been brushed within the past day.”

“So?”

“Having observed you over the past several hours, I note that you are not overly attentive to the finer points of your own grooming.” Grey gestured toward Lean’s coat pocket, from which dangled his crumpled handkerchief. “The care of your hat indicates a woman who takes pride in your appearance. A mistress is more concerned with her own. It’s a wife who takes such pains with a man’s hat. And yet your shoes haven’t been polished in days—weeks, even. You have an attentive wife but one who can reach the hat rack with much greater ease than she can bend to retrieve your shoes. A disorder of the spine is unlikely in a young woman. An altogether happier condition explains the known facts.”

“Fair enough. Still,” said Lean with a trace of a smile, “how long ago did you get into town?”

“Two months.”

“You’re safe by three months. But if you’re still around in October and the babe comes out with jet-black hair …”

Grey chuckled and approached the pair of double doors at the rear of the hospital. Lean was close behind but paused to turn his attention to the horizon. The hospital sat atop the northern ridge of Bramhall Hill at the terminus of Portland’s scenic Western Promenade.
This location at the base of Portland’s Neck gave a full view of the peninsular city’s only abutting neighbor, the town of Deering. Farther off in the distance, Lean could see the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the peaks now tinged a pleasant rose by dawn’s outstretched fingertips.

Lean turned his back on the panorama and walked up the two short steps to the doors. Fully aware of the scents that awaited him, he drew a last deep breath of the fresh air. He pulled the door open and glanced up, thinking a relief frieze of screaming, tormented souls above the lintel would have been more appropriate than the bare wall of bricks he saw there.

Formaldehyde mingled in the air with carbolic acid. Behind it all, Lean could still smell the ingrained stench of dead bodies. Maggie Keene was laid out on an examination table. The corpse had been stripped, and the young woman’s clothes were arranged on a sideboard. A sheet covered her from the pelvic bone to the ankles. Her abdomen was nearly as white as the hospital linen.