Troublesome questions all, but Lenoir had always believed that motive trumped everything else when it came to solving a crime. Thad Eccle certainly had a motive; he had made that clear at the Hobbled Hound. So Lenoir grabbed his coat and a loaded flintlock and headed for Eccle’s last known address.
The poor district was a bustle of activity, even at this ungodly hour of the morning. Carts selling bread and hot pies were already doing a brisk trade, and butchers and greengrocers and fishmongers were busy laying out their wares in the predawn gloom. Lenoir kept to the center of the street, in spite of the mud. It was easier than jockeying for position with broomsticks and wheelbarrows and apple crates, and a little muck on his trousers was preferable to running the risk of being doused with a pail of slops from a window. He wended his way between slow-moving wagons, choosing his steps carefully to avoid horse shit and the occasional trickle of privy runoff. Odors both tempting and foul clashed for dominion over his nose. He threw an arm over his face to block them all.
He turned west onto Eccle’s street, a narrow canyon cutting a perfectly straight path between the sheer cliff faces of the tenement buildings. Washing lines formed a sagging canopy from one side of the street to the other, looking like bedraggled pennants at a fair. Lenoir passed beneath them, scanning the numbers at the top of each stoop until he came to number 56, a four-story rookery with a simple facade of gray stone. He climbed the steps and tried the door. Unlocked. Lenoir grunted in satisfaction and slipped inside.
Peeling paint lined the walls of a long, shadowy corridor stained with soot. The hallway was empty but for a jumble of sound and smells: pots clanging, bacon sizzling, babies crying, and the dry, stiff toll of bootheels crossing the floor. Snatches of conversation floated, disembodied, in the air, scarcely muffled by the thin doors of the flats. Somewhere on the second floor, a dog barked. Lenoir counted eighteen doors as he passed. Eighteen doors, but how many windows? Few, judging by the thickness of the air. Packed in like rats in the hull of a ship. Suddenly, his own flat did not seem so cramped.
He was out of breath by the time he reached Thad Eccle’s flat on the third floor. He paused to collect himself, positioning his flintlock so that its handle protruded obviously from his coat pocket. Then he rapped on the door and waited.
Nothing. After a long pause, he knocked again. This time, something shuffled on the far side of the door, and the floorboards beneath Lenoir’s boots creaked. A rough voice barked, “What?”
“Thad Eccle.”
“Who wants to know?”
“I am Inspector Lenoir of the Metropolitan Police. Do not make me force the door. It would not be fair to your landlord.” That was pure bluster. Forcing doors was Kody’s job; Lenoir had not attempted it in years.
Fortunately, Eccle could not see him through the door, or he might have called Lenoir’s bluff. Instead there was a muttered oath, and the sound of a bolt sliding out. The door opened a crack. An unshaven face loomed over Lenoir, bleary-eyed from sleep. “You,” Eccle said.
“Indeed.”
“What do you want?”
Lenoir considered the carved gargoyle before him. There was no point in trying to intimidate Eccle physically—that much was obvious. The man outweighed him by at least fifty pounds, all of it muscle, and the knuckles grasping the door were scarred from use. Lenoir could draw his gun, but that would only make him look fearful. He would not get anything from Eccle that way. Instead he adopted an air of supreme boredom. It was easily done, for Lenoir wore that expression more often than not. “I am here for the boy,” he said.
The uncle did some appraising of his own before he replied. His gaze swept over Lenoir’s shoulder, noting the lack of backup, before taking in the flintlock slouching conspicuously in Lenoir’s coat pocket. “What boy?”
“Do not waste my time, sir. I am a busy man.”
“If you mean that little piece of rat filth I saw you with the other night, I haven’t seen him since.”
“Oh?” Lenoir arched an eyebrow. “You seemed to have some rather urgent business with him.”
The scar on Eccle’s left cheek was a deep pink trough, shaped like the f-hole of a violin. A bottle to the face, Lenoir judged, probably in the man’s youth. When he smiled, as he was doing now, the scar coiled like a serpent about to strike. “You could put it that way. He owes me.”
“He owes you, or you owe him?”
Eccle’s smile widened unsettlingly. “Both.”
“Have you collected?”
“Not yet, but I will.”
“You are remarkably frank for a man under suspicion. Has it occurred to you that I could arrest you on the spot?”
Eccle snorted. “For what? He’s my nephew—I got every right to discipline the little bugger. But as it happens, I haven’t seen him.”
“And if I were to search your flat right now?”
“You’re welcome to try, hound, but I’d ask myself if it was worth the bother.” He sagged through the doorframe, giving Lenoir a better look at his massive frame.
Lenoir debated drawing his pistol. To stall for time, he said, “I want you to understand something. The boy may have information on a case I’m working. Therefore, he has value to me. I would be very put out if he were . . . indisposed.”
“What’s that to me?”
Lenoir gave a thin smile. It would not be as threatening as Eccle’s gargoyle grin, but he hoped it would do the job. “I’m sure you are aware that I have the ability to make your life extremely inconvenient, if not a good deal shorter. You are on thin ice with the Metropolitan Police, Eccle. And I carry a great deal of weight.”
Eccle’s eyes darkened. “I told you, I haven’t seen him since that night. If I’d wanted to do for him, I’d have done it by now. I know the orphanage where he lives. I told him to stay away from me, and he didn’t listen. Looked to me like I needed to make my point again, so I did.”
Lenoir eyed Thad Eccle’s brutish face carefully. He found much to dislike, but no evidence of deceit. More importantly, what Eccle said was true—he could have gone after Zach at any time since his release from prison a year ago. Why do it now, especially when he knew a hound had seen him chase the boy out of a tavern the night before? Eccle would have to be incredibly stupid to risk it, and he did not come across that way. And then there was the matter of the carriage. . . .
It doesn’t fit, Lenoir concluded unhappily. He could not discount the possibility altogether, but it seemed unlikely that Eccle was involved. It was time to pursue a different thread. “Stay away from Zach,” Lenoir said in parting, “or you will wish you had.”
Eccle stabbed a finger at him. “Keep him away from me, or you’ll wish you had.” So saying, he slammed the door.
Lenoir’s next port of call was the orphanage. It was only a little after dawn, so he was not surprised when the nun he had spoken to the previous night answered the door in her nightgown. She squinted up at Lenoir with sleep-crusted eyes and a thoroughly disapproving expression. “This had better be important, Inspector. You’re waking the children.”
Lenoir was in no mood for chiding. “I trust you consider it important, madam, that a child in your care has gone missing. Unless you have seen Zach since yesterday?”
“I haven’t, but you obviously don’t know much about running an orphanage. These kids go missing all the time. Sometimes they come back, sometimes they don’t. I’m not running a prison here. If they want to run away, I can’t stop them.”
“And it has not occurred to you to suspect foul play?”