The destination of Mrs. Chalmers’ march was the schoolmaster’s bedroom. It was a small, tidy room. There was a bed, a bookshelf, and a writing desk with a view of the grounds to the west of the house.
She drew back the curtain. “Like I said. One day the schoolmaster was here, the next day he was not.”
“What do you think happened to him?” Quayle asked.
She looked doubtful. “Were it not for his shoes, I wouldn’t have troubled Lord Wickern. I would have assumed the man had just up and left in the night.”
“His shoes?”
“Black has four pairs of shoes, and if you look in his closet, you will find four pairs of shoes.”
Quayle looked. There were four pairs of polished shoes.
“He was always a fancy dresser,” the housekeeper remarked. “Always well turned out.”
Quayle had noted the clothing hanging above the shoes. The schoolmaster evidently knew a good tailor.
“And as best I can see, not one stitch is missing. If he did just up and leave in the night, he did so in bare feet and in his nightshirt.”
Quayle took a look under the bed. There was a suitcase. He dragged it out. The suitcase was adorned with numerous luggage labels. He opened it. It was empty.
“Where’s his passport?”
The housekeeper didn’t know.
On the bedside table was a pair of spectacles and a book: Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. On the writing desk beneath the window lay a pocket watch and a pipe. There was also a ration book — it was in Black’s name. Even just a cursory glance about the room suggested that if the man had just up and left in the night, he had apparently done so empty-handed.
“I will need to speak to the boys.”
“They’ll be at their lessons in the schoolroom.”
“Without a teacher?”
Mrs. Chalmers nodded. “They’re very good. Like little gentlemen, they are.”
The schoolroom was on the floor above the servants’ hall. There was a blackboard at the front, next to which was a desk for the teacher. There was a large globe, several bookcases lined with scholarly tomes, and, facing the blackboard, six student desks — suggesting the room had served many generations of Wickerns.
“You’re a policeman, aren’t you?” one of the Wickern boys inquired. He didn’t look up from his book. His voice sounded like that of a mildly irritated peer of the realm.
Quayle had entered and had been observing from the rear.
The boys were seated at their desks. The boy who had spoken was studying a book on the history of the monarchy. He glanced back over his shoulder to confirm his suspicion. The scar on his cheek announced him as Richard Wickern — he had fallen badly from a tree when he was six.
Quayle crossed the room. “I’m Detective Inspector Quayle.” He walked around and in front of the desks.
The Wickern boys were identical twins. They had matching small faces, curly blond hair, and pale blue eyes. There was only one distinguishing feature that could separate the two of them — Richard’s scar.
“Are you with Scotland Yard?” the other boy, Rawdon Wickern, asked.
“Yes.”
Rawdon was preoccupied with tying knots into lengths of twine, reading the instructions from a Boy Scout manual. He was as well spoken as his brother. “Have you come to look for the schoolmaster?”
“Yes, I have.”
“May we see your identification?” Richard asked.
Quayle obliged.
Richard took the inspector’s badge, and the two boys examined it with forensic interest.
The Wickern boys were dressed alike in tailored outfits. They were children, but with their manner and tone of speaking — daggers dipped in honey — they were like two miniature Edwardian gentlemen.
“Where were you born, Inspector Ian Edward Quayle?” Richard asked.
“London.”
“Shouldn’t you be fighting in the war?” Rawdon asked.
“I’m too old for that.”
“How old are you?”
“Sixty-six.”
“We’re fourteen. We’re twins.”
“Did you fight in the Great War?” Richard asked.
Quayle nodded. “I was a sergeant.”
Richard passed the identification back. “Have you met our father?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Our father works at the War Office.”
“He’s very important,” Rawdon added.
“So I understand.”
Richard leant back in his chair and stared indifferently at the inspector. “We don’t know where Black has gone.” His pronunciation of the schoolmaster’s name was with such distinctive sharpness, it almost carved the word into two syllables.
“What kind of man was he?” Quayle asked. He lit a cigarette.
Young Margaret motioned to speak, but then thought better of it. The housemaid couldn’t have been much older than the two boys, a tiny thing with a face of freckles.
The five of them — Quayle, Standish, Mrs. Chalmers, Margaret, and Joseph the stableboy — were seated at the dinner table in the servants’ hall. Supper had been polished off, and coffee was being drunk. The Wickern boys had been fed earlier, upstairs in the dining room, and had been seen off to bed.
Joseph the stableboy had said nothing throughout the supper. He was a peculiar boy of eighteen. His eyes never appeared to focus on anything, and his face seemed to be permanently on the verge of a smile.
“The schoolmaster was always reading,” Mrs. Chalmers commented. “He always had a book in his hand.” She licked her fingertip and dabbed up the remaining crumbs from the breadboard. “I couldn’t begin to think what’s happened to him.”
Standish lit his pipe. “Maybe the man got what he deserved.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I’m just saying.” Standish stubbed out his match in an ashtray. “I never did like the man.”
“Why didn’t you like him?” Quayle asked.
The groundsman’s face crinkled up into a scowl. “He was a bit toffee, for a servant. He spoke with an accent like he was one of them upstairs.”
“So, he was well spoken and well dressed,” the housekeeper said. “That’s no reason to wish ill of him.”
Standish shook his head. “If you ask me, you’re wasting your time.” He glanced across the table at the inspector. “The man’s cleared off. It’s as plain as the moustache under your nose.”
“We heard something,” young Margaret finally said.
“What did you hear?” Quayle asked her.
“In the night. We heard a noise. I reckon it was a gun.” She nodded with wide eyes. “It came from the south wing.”
“There’s nowt in the south wing,” Standish remarked.
Mrs. Chalmers was shaking her head. “That noise, whatever it was, had nothing to do with the schoolmaster’s disappearance. We heard that noise the night after he’d gone.”
Mallbright was freezing at night. It was after two in the morning, and Quayle was sitting upright in bed, buried under a mound of blankets and wearing a woolen nightcap. He had been billeted in the schoolmaster’s room. The bed had been made fresh the day the man had disappeared, and Mrs. Chalmers saw no good reason in opening up any other rooms, given that an empty bed already lay waiting.
Quayle examined the book lying on the bedside table. He opened it to the first page. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Dickens was one of his favorite authors. The author was also apparently one of the schoolmaster’s favorites — there was a dedication on the book’s title page. It was written in a wide hand: