“He took the train to Forstall”—this was one town over—“and then walked here. He was the one who spotted Weston, watching us.”
“Was it his idea to put the horses in the clearing?”
Wells shook his head. “I sent round word to my groom to take the two horses to the clearing, and a few beer bottles, after McCutcheon was so hell-bent on killing the witness. I liked Weston, for myself.”
“Liar,” spat Oates, full of rage.
“I did.”
“You weren’t worried that your groom would give you in?” asked Lenox.
“He’s loyal,” said Wells, shortly.
Frederick elaborated. “Simple is more like it. Joseph Thatcher, he had his head stoved in by his father when he was a lad, and hasn’t been the same since.”
“I knew Carmody or some-such would find the horses,” said Wells.
Archer was taking notes. “And you’ll testify against McCutcheon? If it saves you the rope?”
“Why not? But the other one — no, not the boss. My skin wouldn’t be worth a counterfeit groat if I did.”
This was one of the coins that Wells’s machine had produced, worth four pence, along with a shilling — that was worth twelve pence, the most valuable coin he could manufacture — and a ha’pence. These were the most easily replicable, apparently. A sovereign, a pound coin, worth twenty shillings, was too valuable to counterfeit, according to Archer. The penny itself had been counterfeited so often that it had been redesigned, and was more difficult to copy now.
It was now past one in the afternoon, and Wells, looking haggard, asked if he might have some food, or even a word with his wife.
The men all looked at Lenox, who consented to the first request, but not the second. “I will not have her destroying evidence,” he said.
“She knows nothing about it,” said Wells.
“Oh?” Something in Wells’s voice persuaded Lenox that she was not a conspirator. Later he would have to question her.
For now he sent a small boy hanging outside of the station — part of the undiminishing crowd — to the King’s Arms, to fetch hot food and beer. Lenox handed him a few coins as payment for the favor, and realized he had almost passed off one of the false ha’pennies. How easy it was!
They ate in one room, Wells in another, and then they returned to interrogate him again, but in truth there was little more to discover. Teams of men from London and Bath had been sent for already, and were no doubt steaming along the rails toward Plumbley, desperate to analyze the contents of the grain merchant’s cellar: For both police forces counterfeiting was of primary importance.
The murder was simple, terribly simple. Wells had approached Weston, while McCutcheon waited in the shadows for the young man to turn his back. A cowardly killing, in that regard.
Lenox went on probing, however. “Why did you clear out his pockets? You could not have imagined that he would go unrecognized, if you took his identification.”
Wells shrugged. “Greed.”
It was Oates who said something — Lenox would have waited until they searched Wells’s house — about the weapon that killed his cousin. “What about the knife? What did you do with it?”
“McCutcheon took it,” said Wells. “At least as far as I can recall. Certainly I never handled it myself.”
Oates and Lenox exchanged looks, each wondering, perhaps, to what purpose the knife in the slop bucket had been used — and where Captain Musgrave, late of the Tenth Regiment of Foot, might be. Wells couldn’t help them, however.
At half past two none of the men had any questions. Archer, the constable from Bath, wanted to take Wells right away, but Wells wanted to stay in Plumbley.
Frederick agreed in principle, but demurred. “I scarcely feel comfortable leaving Mr. Wells with Oates, whose cousin has been murdered by this prisoner.”
Oates shook his head slightly. “I respect the system of justice, sir,” he said with some self-mastery. “He shall not be in danger under my care.”
“I trust Oates not to do me any harm,” said Wells, his voice cold, “and should take it as a great kindness to be permitted to stay in town, near my family. Bath is a city I do not know.”
Lenox and Archer, then, went to inspect the shop and Wells’s house more closely, and Frederick — still holding strong, despite his age, though slightly wan — sat down with the merchant’s wife to tell her what had happened. How she told her son and daughter was her own decision, he said.
With that duty discharged he said that he thought he might go back to Everley. “You’ve solved it, Charles, thank you.”
“It never feels quite as triumphant as it ought, does it?” asked Lenox.
The old squire looked at him with a half-smile. “No, it doesn’t,” he said. “D’you know what’s funny, I feel worse knowing than I did not knowing, though I’m glad the danger has passed.”
“You’ve been doing too much. You need rest.”
“Yes, it will be a relief to return to my books, my flowers. I think I shall take my tea alone today, if it won’t bother you and Jane.”
“Never.”
Wells’s house and his shop were both barren of further clues as to his villainy; from all appearances he was what he claimed to be, a prosperous seller of grain and corn. Only his ledgers — his real ones, which showed a certain recent slackness of business — offered any hint to the contrary. That and the monolithic machine in the basement.
Dallington returned at 4:00 that afternoon, arriving at the police headquarters with Hutchinson and a meek-looking Jack Randall, the man Frederick had fined only a few days before for passing bad coin.
“He’ll talk,” said Dallington grimly. “It took two hours to chase him down to an apple orchard and another two to get him to say a word. None of the words he said after that were very pleasant, but he’s as scared of prison as anyone I’ve ever met.”
Randall’s hooded eyes went up when he saw Oates. “Couldn’t come arrest me yourself?”
“I was busy arresting Mr. Wells,” said Oates. “Coiners, in Plumbley. You should be ashamed, Mr. Randall.”
“I don’t want to go to prison,” he said.
“I’ll help you if I can,” said Oates. “I’ve known you long enough, and your family, but you must be honest with us about Wells.”
Randall, looking slightly more confident, took a seat opposite Lenox, who had returned from inspecting Wells’s house and shop to speak to Archer. The constable from Bath was on the verge of leaving, but, looking at the clock, must have decided to stay until the 4:49 train.
He would have been just as well going; Randall’s tale was useful but unexciting. Once every two weeks he was to take fifteen pounds’ worth of coins and, through trades and small purchases, return with a minimum of ten pounds for Wells. Any of the false coins he had left over he could keep for himself. That was how he had been caught: His entire payment was in false coins, and naturally he wanted to spend them.
“Did you ever come up short of the ten pounds?” asked Lenox, more out of curiosity than anything.
“No, no. Usually cleared a pound or two for myself, and then I got to spend the other three — musicals, the best seats, ladies …”
“Where’d you usually go?”
“Mr. Wells made sure I went to different places — Bath, Salisbury, twice London, each time with thirty pounds…”
“That’s a great deal of money to spend in one day in London.”
“I was there three days. I found coffee shops worked well, put down a pound coin and pick up nineteen shillings and sixpence. Problem is you have to drink a great deal of coffee, then.”
“Public houses?”
“They’re suspicious of a coin there,” said Randall. “As I learned.”
“Did it never attract notice when you left Plumbley?”
The farmhand shrugged. “I work day shifts when I like.”