“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
Lenox laughed but said, “How does it remind you of us?”
“It reminds me of you, you goose. All of your callers yesterday — was that not running in place? Here you may work properly.”
“Just so,” he said.
“It’s not far different for me. Nothing social — nothing more taxing than a walk with Sophia, you know. It’s lovely.” She put down her book and stifled a yawn. “I think I must go in to sleep, now. Will you be up long?”
“Only a few minutes more.”
“Good.” She stood up. “It’s a funny book, but I think I prefer Wonderland. Sophia will like it better, too — I know she will.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
He kissed her and returned to the small study and sat down. Kirk had laid out his papers, his royal dispatch bag, and his blue books — those slim Parliamentary files on the issues of the day, which each member of the House received in avalanches. There was also a fresh notebook in which he might write.
On its first page he found himself sketching out pictures of the hanging man and the black dog.
Soon he was writing in earnest. He made a small map from memory of the locations of the four vandalisms, deciding he would check it tomorrow — it had been many years since he was resident in Plumbley, after all — and at each location wrote a short list of questions to ask. “What sort of paint?” “Who found and reported each one?” “Connections?”
He was by no means convinced that a schoolboy was not in the end behind it all, despite the efforts of Frederick, of Mr. Kempe, of Dr. Eastwood, and of Mr. Crofts. Yet if an adult had been breaking windows and painting doorways around the town of Plumbley, what could have been his motivation? Did the images convey a message? Or were they only some unhappy soul’s bad-natured purgation?
Lenox’s own black dog was by his feet, at the moment, Bear, along with his golden companion, Rabbit. They had come down with Kirk in the coach. They were gentle creatures, two retrievers, a present from Lady Jane.
“Why would they’ve painted a dog like you?” said Lenox in a soft voice.
Of course in folk tradition a black dog meant death. All of the images were therefore deathly, except perhaps the Roman numeral. It made him wonder whether that was the one upon which he should concentrate.
He decided that after he had had the remainder of the story from his uncle, he would go into town and see Fripp, the victim of the first vandalism, and perhaps the grain merchant, Wells. Fripp anyhow was an old friend, and might have some information.
Upon making that decision Lenox set aside his notepad and endeavored to read a blue book upon the subject of rural education in Scotland. He had been much in the committee rooms that produced the report, and felt very strongly on the issue, yet his mind kept circling back to the Roman numeral and the black dog, wondering what they meant, and the broken windows, too.
But of course it was pointless. He had very little information still. With a sigh he snuffed out his candle, patted the dogs on the head, took a final sip of water, and started out for bed, obscurely dissatisfied.
CHAPTER TEN
That mood was gone by the next morning. Lenox rode out early across the fields on a neat little chestnut hack that his uncle kept stabled at Everley, primarily for visitors, occasionally for himself. When the member for Stirrington fetched up to the hall after his ride he was happy, hot, and in a tearing hunger. He fell eagerly to the eggs and bacon laid out upon the sideboard.
“How is Sadie?” asked Frederick when he came into the breakfast room. “Chalmers was delighted to have her taken out. Wishes I did it more myself.”
“She was in very fine form, quick as a bee when she jumped the stiles. I must have ridden her eight miles and she was still fresh when we returned.”
“I’m glad to hear it. I can never give her enough exercise, though I let one of the lads from the village take her out on Saturdays. Would you like a cup of tea? Or is it coffee?”
“If there’s coffee—”
When he had had his two cups of coffee and read the Times back to front, and the local paper from Bath more cursorily, Lenox, quite satisfied with his morning, sought out his uncle again. For his part Frederick always took his own breakfast in his study, even when guests were there; he had spread out on a table beside his telescope a single egg in a silver cup, a crust of toast, a blot of marmalade, and a pewter cup full of dark red liquid.
“Oh, Charles,” he said, turning at the sound of the door. “Will you join me in a glass of hot negus? It settles the stomach wonderfully, I find.”
Lenox sat down. “Thank you, no. I thought we might resume our conversation of yesterday evening, if you remain so inclined?”
“By all means, yes.”
“My question was whom you might suspect, or indeed who it is that the town suspects. They must have someone in mind, mustn’t they?”
Frederick, who had been standing over his breakfast, occasionally peering into the lens of his telescope, sat down, too. “There we come to Captain Musgrave.”
“Who took Dr. McGrath’s house.”
“The very one, and in fact he has bought the parcel of wooded land that lies behind it from old Turnbridge and is planning to clear it. He’s rather rich, I believe.”
“He’s not from Plumbley?”
“Oh, no, he’s from Bath. Tenth Regiment of Foot. I don’t think anyone here saw him before six months ago.”
“Why does the village suspect him?”
Frederick pursed his mouth thoughtfully, considering how to answer. “I half wonder if it’s only because he’s new to these parts, yet I confess that I don’t like the set of his sails much, myself. He’s a very handsome man, light-haired, rather tan, very tall, and even his worst enemy would have to admit that his manners are fair.”
“How did he come to Plumbley?”
“He married one of our local girls, Catherine Scales. Do you remember her?”
“I do not.”
“No, I wouldn’t have thought you would, but she was a very beautiful child around the time you visited Everley most often, working for her mother in the dress shop, always about town, quite beloved — spoiled, you might say, by those who knew her. She has pale skin and black hair.”
“A dress shop? I take it their birth is unequal, then?”
“Yes.”
“How did that come to pass?”
“Catherine’s mother died two years ago. The girl had an aunt in Bath and went to live with her. This aunt had married well herself, to a manufacturer, and just managed to keep a carriage, could nod at some of the finer women in Bath in the streets — was always very hard on her sister when she visited Plumbley, I know, came it very grand. Anyhow she was childless and took an interest in Catherine when the girl’s mother died. Catherine met her husband when she spent the season in Bath. Of course, a military man will set his cap at anything, much less a girl of her beauty. I would reckon she won the captain without much difficulty, to be honest, handsome though he may be. Men are fools.”
“Nevertheless, I’m surprised that he consented to move here.”
“As was I. Stranger still has been their behavior since they arrived.”
“How is that?”
“Nobody has seen more than a glimpse of her for these six months, Charles.” Frederick looked grave. “If I hadn’t nodded hello to her at the church, a few weeks ago, as she was rushing away, I swear I would have feared there had been some foul play.”