“Might I hazard a guess as to your employer’s identity?”
“I can hardly prevent you from speculating.”
“We traverse at this moment the ancestral estate of the Pellapons. Is this name known to you?”
“That great house is indeed my first stop. But I can say no more.”
“Naturally. I myself am free to come forward in my public capacity as an inspector of the Royal Mail. I am traveling only slightly farther along, to the village proper, Binderwood. You are aware, perhaps, of certain irregularities—one might even characterize them as abuses—in the local mail? London has grown alarmed. I am here to investigate.”
“As you say. And without compromising my discretion, you are undoubtedly apprised that these irregularities have affected Lord Pellapon’s affairs in matters of business, person, and privacy.”
“Say no more,” said Hewell. “It is not entirely unlikely that even though the London office ordered me here, a request from Lord Pellapon was behind that command. Therefore, if I may in any way be of service, please do not hesitate to ask. It might be to both our advantages were we to occasionally pool our findings.”
“Indeed.” The eyes of the other gent began to twinkle. “I like this thought. I like it very much. As two outsiders in Binderwood, we are certain to encounter nothing but resistance, doors slammed shut in our paths. But doors are ineffective if one can come at them from both sides at once! We shall beat them at their own game, sir, whatever it may be!”
“Hewell,” said Hewell, extending his hand.
“Deakins,” said the other, almost certainly a detective of the private variety. His skeletal fingers managed a firm grip as they shook.
“I did not see you on the train from London,” the detective said, “despite several strolls from one end to the other to work my legs.”
“I ride in the mail car,” Hewell said. “I wish I could recommend it as a mode of travel but its comforts are few. There is little in the way of seating, and one is constantly hampering the sorting clerks and made to feel unwelcome. Even though I repeatedly reassured them I was there purely as a passenger, they never believed me. In truth, I couldn’t help but notice some deficiencies in their methods, yet could say nothing after my promises. On my return, I will certainly avoid that particular car. The hardest thing is to know a truth one cannot speak.”
The coach stopped and the driver hopped down to put his head in. “I hope it’s no bother, Mr. Hewell, but I been instructed to deliver Lord Pellapon’s guest right quick. It’s a short deviation and we’ll proceed into Binderwood straightaway after, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” Hewell answered, pleased that he would get a look at Pellapon Hall. Since it figured into his investigation, he was glad of the opportunity to locate it in relation to various landmarks he had committed to memory. Studying the district map had given him only the faintest impression of the region.
They headed up a long drive among mature yet sickly hornbeams dappled with anemic sunlight, and the woods thinned to give glimpses of the grounds. There was not much to admire: a ragged sweep of bare, salted lawn cresting hills that ran toward the sea; and, at the end of the drive, a tall manor with wings not quite fully spread, like the halves of a traveling apothecary’s dispensary trunk interrupted in the opening. The stone of the place was rimed and spotted; sea spray and lichens had brought the house into sympathy with the local limestone. It was as if an architect had taken a stern hand to an outcrop.
A smattering of domestic staff awaited the coach, at their fore a hale, ruddy-complected figure with a raw nose and wispy hair that had gone to gray yet still retained a memory of orange. This attribute gave unspoken testimony that the twin girls waiting beside him were his daughters.
Hewell attempted to remain within the coach, but Deakins said a few words to Lord Pellapon and he found himself compelled into the house for tea. The driver, having no other passengers, was content to wait.
“Run along, girls!” Lord Pellapon barked as he led the way down a dim corridor toward the sitting room, for the two ginger lasses appeared inclined to lurk and listen to every word. They drifted away with whispers and titters, but Hewell sensed they were never quite out of earshot—his or theirs.
“Twins?” he asked.
“What’s that? The girls? Yes, and a trial to me as never to their mother, God rest her. I have no aptitude for the raising of such angels. Under my care they have become perfect devils!”
His face reddening, he looked on the verge of a fit until Deakins put a hand on his shoulder and said, “But your troubles hatch elsewhere, Lord Pellapon. With those resolved, I have no doubt your family will be restored to a more harmonious state.”
“Naturally,” Lord Pellapon agreed, subsiding into a state of quietude and a chair of oxblood leather near a window overlooking the cliffs. Through lozenges of poor consistency, Hewell saw the gray and restless bosom of the ocean. The sky was at the mercy of mist and cloud, and he supposed he might stand at this window for a year and never see an horizon. He felt grateful that his own chambers in London held no such views, or any at all, to distract him.
“My Lord,” said Deakins, “I thought since Mr. Hewell is here that you might be able to acquaint both of us, as one, with the details of your present difficulties. As I understand it, they revolve around the mail.”
“Yes, and I have had no satisfaction from the local authorities. Merricott is quite unhelpful. Incompetent, I daresay.”
“The local postmaster?” Hewell said. “Well, that is why I’m here. An obstinate fellow will be dealt with to the extent of my powers, keeping in mind that he may have a certain vestigial authority that proves recalcitrant. It is often the case with these local offices. They resist any attempt to bring them in line with the latest procedures, and any mention of increased efficiency is frequently met with outright hostility. If you knew the outcry we faced at the proposal of installing postboxes in regions even less removed than this…”
“Shameful, I’m sure,” said Pellapon. “But Merricott is not obstinate. He’s an idiot!”
“That does not necessarily make matters easier,” the detective said. “A measure of intelligence often leads to quicker arrival at an agreed destination—once trouble has been turned from its deviant course. What the perpetrators will not expect is a ferocious imagination—mine!—turned upon their plots. There is no mischief they can concoct that is inconceivable to me, and in this wise I shall expediently outwit them.”
Idiots and deviants, Hewell thought. They are certainly eager to work from assumptions.
“On behalf of the Royal Mail,” said Hewell, “I can promise a thorough, sober, and clear-eyed investigation. Now, as I understand it, Binderwood has experienced a tremendous rise in the volume of local correspondence—”
“To such an extent my business is suffering! Letters lost. Valuable communiqués gone missing in this deluge of packets, this… this torrent. I am constantly receiving missives full of nonsense while my own transactions go astray. A letter of patent I expected a month ago turned up last week in an illiterate cotter’s hut. It would be there still had not Doctor Ogilvy paid the poor wretch a visit to treat a milk-rash and spotted it in service as a blotter.”
“Many villages in Binderwood’s position are in a state of flux,” Hewell said, without trying to sound as if he were justifying the inexcusable. “Modern improvements are planned for all, to meet with the rise in demand, but some areas are still far behind the times. You have the telegraph, of course—”