Inspector Grime had a sudden vision of Horace Lewis, obsessed with the sale of his undergarments, supposedly up a ladder in the stockroom with a very pretty girl beside him.
‘We can get the exact figures from the solicitors, Mr Lewis, but I wonder if you could tell us exactly how much money we’re talking about here. In the shares and the property?’
William Lewis looked out of the window. A barge was making slow passage towards the long tunnel at the top end of Noel Road. ‘You may find this hard to believe, Inspector, but I don’t know. Truly I don’t. I could never keep up with the numbers at school. My brother Montague looks after all that. I know I have enough to live comfortably off the shares.’
‘Could I ask you to tell me how you felt about Mr Gill, sir? Did you dislike him? Did you hate him?’
William Lewis wasn’t going to own up to hatred. ‘Dislike would do it, Inspector,’ he said. ‘Extreme dislike, maybe.’
‘Did you kill Roderick Gill, Mr Lewis?’
‘I did not.’
‘Could you tell me where you were on the afternoon and evening of January twenty-second?’
‘Of course. In the afternoon I went for a walk, as I usually do, Inspector. I spent the evening with my brother. We played chess.’
‘Who won?’
‘I did, Inspector. It was quite a long game. In the end I captured his queen with a fork and that was the end of my brother. On the chessboard, I mean.’
Forty minutes later Inspector Grime was in the small library at 14 North Road, Highgate, home of the mathematically minded Montague Lewis, elder son of Mrs Maud Lewis of Fakenham. The conversation followed remarkably similar lines to the earlier interview in Noel Road. Montague Lewis, like his brother, thought his mother had gone slightly mad. He could see no reason why she wanted to marry this wretched bounty hunter. The Inspector noted that they used exactly the same word to describe Roderick Gill. It could have been collusion before he arrived, or it could have been the way they had talked about him for months.
‘How would you describe your feelings towards Roderick Gill, sir? Dislike? Loathing? Hatred?’
‘I don’t think I’d go as far as that, Inspector,’ said Montague Lewis. ‘I despised him, that’s the best way to put it, I think. I despised him for creeping round my mother the way he did, I despised him for insisting they get married as soon as possible.’
‘Did you kill him?’
‘I did not.’
‘Could you tell me your whereabouts on the afternoon and evening of January the twenty-second?’
‘Of course, Inspector. I spent the afternoon at the London Library. The staff there will confirm that. I spent the evening at my brother’s house.’
‘And what were you doing at your brother’s house, sir?’
‘Sorry, we were playing chess, Inspector.’
‘Who won?’
Montague Lewis looked cross all of a sudden.
‘I did,’ he said. ‘I usually beat William at chess.’
Inspector Grime didn’t know what to make of it. For now he said his farewells. He wondered how much collusion there had been between the brothers, all wasted by a silly mistake, not agreeing a common line on the chess match. Both of them must have been lying, he thought. Heaven knew what they had been doing that evening but one lie was not enough to convict anybody of murder.
As he made his way towards his train, Inspector Grime cursed London with greater fury than ever. Somewhere on his travels around the capital, probably in this very station where he now stood, swearing loudly, his pocket had been picked. The Artful Dodger had his wallet and the train ticket to take him home to Fakenham.
The old men of the Jesus Hospital were in rebellious mood in the days after they talked about their lives and their jobs to Inspector Fletcher and his sergeant. Even a new dress for the barmaid in the Rose and Crown had been unable to staunch their anger. The fit among them agreed to hold a meeting in the pub at seven o’clock in the evening. Three of their number were confined to bed on doctor’s orders. Two could see little point in wasting their money in the pub. Another two were teetotal and had never tasted a drop of alcohol in their lives. Their companions never tired of pointing out that this appeared to have done little to improve their health. On the contrary, these two were considered by the experts as the most likely to join the late Abel Meredith in the Jesus Hospital section of the graveyard. The rest made their way at varying speeds to the Rose and Crown where they were welcomed by the barmaid, pulling pints as fast as she could go.
They discussed various means of registering their protest. Hunger strikes were considered until those still in possession of normal appetites realized they might be having pap forced down their throats for days, if not weeks. Eventually they decided on a march, in their best coats and hats, to the Maidenhead police station to hand in a letter of protest about their treatment. Even then, taking note of the frail condition of many of the silkmen, they resolved to travel most of the way by bus.
Lord Francis Powerscourt was staring moodily at the fire in his drawing room on a Sunday afternoon in Markham Square.
‘I wish I’d never taken on this case, Lucy. I’ve never had one that spanned three different locations before. I can’t seem to get a grip on it.’
‘Do you still think they’re all the work of one man? And that the mysterious mark on the dead men’s chests is the key to the whole thing?’
‘Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum, fifteen men on a dead man’s chest,’ said Powerscourt with a smile. ‘I do think that, Lucy, yes I do. I doubt if any of the three Inspectors believe me any more on that point, mind you. Inspector Grime is very excited about the sons of that Mrs Lewis who Roderick Gill was going to marry. It seems they both lied to him about where they were on the evening before the murder. He’s writing to all the theatrical costumiers he can find to see if any of them hired a big black beard at that time.’
‘Are you going to come to Fakenham with me tonight? I’ve got to be teaching again in the morning. This is my last week.’
‘I shall come up with you this evening, Lucy, and return the next day or so. Your work up there in the school has been invaluable, my love. Who knows, maybe you’ll turn up even more information. I’m going to have a meeting with all three of those policemen here early next week. The Three Inspectors, it could be a pub, Lucy, coppers lurking everywhere to make sure there’s no drunk and disorderly behaviour.’
‘You’re not going to forget next weekend, are you, Francis?’
‘What’s happening next weekend?’
Lady Lucy pointed at an embossed card on the mantelpiece above the fire. ‘Why, it’s Queen Charlotte’s Ball, Francis. I’m so looking forward to it.’
Powerscourt made a face.
‘Now, now, Francis, you always complain about these things but you enjoy them once you’re actually there. I remember distinctly you saying in the taxi home the last time we went to a ball, years ago now it must have been, how much you enjoyed the dancing.’
Inspector Miles Devereux thought there was only about a week to go before the results of the Silkworkers’ vote were declared. The only thread he could see between all three murders was this strange election in the Silkworkers Company. As he made his way towards the Secretary’s quarters on the first floor, he wondered if he would find a lawyer there, as he had on his previous visit.
Anthony Buckeridge of Buckeridge, Johnston and Forsyte was indeed in attendance. He managed what might have been a smile at the policeman as he walked in.
‘Good morning, Colonel, Mr Buckeridge,’ said Devereux. ‘I was wondering if the votes were all in, if the result is known now, that sort of thing.’
‘Things are proceeding according to plan,’ said Colonel Horrocks, the Secretary to the Silkworkers. ‘There are still six working days to go before the ballot is closed.’