He had yet to acknowledge Oates, who was standing in front of his chair. Lenox, making a rapid judgment of Musgrave’s character, decided on an appeal to class. “You see now, Captain Musgrave, that I may summon the law enforcement if you wish me to do so. But perhaps it would be better to speak as two gentlemen.”
Musgrave inclined his head. “Just so.”
“Oates, my uncle is at Mr. Carmody’s house. Perhaps you might go there and aid him?”
Oates, to his credit, shot Lenox a look of canny comprehension, and nodded his way out of the room.
“Would you like more coffee?” Musgrave asked.
Best to preserve the tone of a social call. Lenox assented.
He would have to tread carefully. There were men in Scotland Yard now trying to raise this art of detection to a science, and much of their concentration had been devoted to the art of interrogation. Lenox admired and respected their efforts — in fact wished that he might donate some of his own time to such studies — but he had also found that too rigid and systemic an approach to this sort of interview could be counterproductive, hindering rather than helping the interviewer.
For instance: The wisdom of these men at Scotland Yard dictated that the first step in such an interview was to begin by attempting to shock one’s interlocutor into confession. So that Lenox should, by rights, have said to Musgrave without preamble, “Why did you murder Weston last night?”
He suspected that this might not work with Musgrave, who seemed self-protective and perhaps slightly brittle in his temperament, liable to suspect effrontery even where none was intended. Lenox had a great many questions, and he didn’t want to scare Musgrave’s coolness away.
He began, therefore, by saying, “You have heard of the murder two evenings past?”
“Yes, a terrible thing.”
“It is pro forma, but I must ask you some questions.”
“Why me?”
“You were seen walking upon the town green an hour or so before the murder.”
“Surely you cannot suspect me? An officer in the military?”
“No,” said Lenox, and then, making his voice confidential, “we believe we may apprehend the criminal sooner than we had dared hope, in fact.”
“Ah. Good.”
It was difficult to tell what emotion passed through Musgrave’s face now, if any. His black dog, which had been sitting upright, slumped into a curled shag at his feet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Perhaps you could begin by telling me something about yourself,” said Lenox.
Musgrave shrugged. “There is little enough to tell. I was born to two excellent parents in Bath, who purchased me a commission in the Tenth Regiment of Foot when I was still in an Eton jacket. I took up my commission some twelve years ago, and sold it out in 1870, just before it looked like being worthless.”
Parliament had decreed the year after that, in ’seventy-one, that men could no longer buy or sell their way into military office. “And subsequently settled here?”
“My wife is of a delicate constitution and wished to live near her childhood home.”
“You met in Bath.”
“Yes,” he said shortly.
“Are your parents there?”
“They are both deceased.”
“And how have you found Plumbley?”
“It is not to my taste, I confess to you.”
“But you stay?”
Musgrave was silent. “You may see that plainly enough for yourself, yes.”
“You do not find the people of the town congenial?”
“I never met a more tired social circuit in my life, and — excepting your relation, I mean,” said Musgrave, realizing his solecism. “I have not had the pleasure of much of his acquaintance but he seems a capital fellow.”
“And the shopkeepers, the men and women in church?”
“Am I expected to take notice of them?”
“What did you make of the vandalisms?”
Musgrave smiled maliciously. “Foolish superstitions of a foolish village.”
“Then you do not ascribe to them any connection with Mr. Weston’s death?”
“I had not thought of it.”
“It has been noted in the village that you have a black dog, of course.”
“I wonder whether there are ten thousand black dogs in the county? More, very likely. No, it is because I am new here that people do not like me. Have you noticed, Mr. Lenox, the intense moral pressure that a village feels it has the right to bring to bear upon any of its members? That is why I take joy in their panic over these childish symbols in the windows. It serves them right, the yattering halfwits.”
Lenox — who felt fairly confident he had a sense of the captain’s character now — said, “Let us turn, then, to the evening of Mr. Weston’s murder. The accounts we have received place you upon the town green at half past eleven. Is that accurate?”
“It may be. I did not have a close eye upon my pocket-watch.”
“Did you cross the green at the beginning or at the end of your walk?”
“Both. I went to the Yew Walk. The town green lies between the walk and Church Lane.”
“And you would not care to venture a guess as to whether you were going out or returning, at half past eleven?”
“Returning, I should imagine.”
Lenox made a note in his mind — important not to introduce the formalizing element of the notebook, just when they were talking so easily — to ask Carmody which way Musgrave had been walking, toward or away from Church Lane.
The dog was an alibi of sorts.
“Was your wife with you?”
“No. She would have been retired for several hours by then.”
“Is it a custom of yours, to walk at that time?”
“There is no specific time of day when I walk him.” He gestured toward the dog. “When the fancy takes us.”
“What is he called?”
“Cincinnatus. Cincy, inevitably.”
Lenox nodded. “I have my dogs with me, from London. They prefer the country air.”
“He has never known anything else.”
“Did you see anyone while you were walking the dog, Captain Musgrave?”
“One or two people, yes.”
“Did you know them?”
“I saw Mr. Fripp. Mrs. Tolliver, a widow who lives in Gold Street. One or two others, to nod to. In London of course I wouldn’t know them, but in a small village, you see, these civilities …”
“Were any of the people you saw behaving suspiciously?”
Captain Musgrave pondered this quickly, then said, “No.”
Lenox thought of the clearing, the horses, the bottle of ale. “Did you recognize all of them?”
“Yes. By face, even if I couldn’t place their names.” A footman came in from the hall, to pour more coffee. “Not now,” Musgrave said sharply.
The footman blanched, his visage transformed by fear, and quickly withdrew. Ten minutes of conversation with him might be valuable. Or with any of the servants. They still hadn’t spoken about Musgrave’s wife.
Almost as if by prearrangement, at that moment a piercing scream went up in a far corner of the house. It was a woman’s voice.
Musgrave stared steadfastly ahead, pretending not to have heard it. Good manners dictated that Lenox do the same, but his investigative instincts did not, and he made a point always to sacrifice the former for the latter when they came into conflict.
“It is impolite, but necessary, to ask whether that was your wife, Captain.”
“There is no other woman in the house.”
“She does not keep a lady’s maid?”
“No.”
That was unusual. Perhaps it was to keep her isolated. “I understand that she has not been well?”