'Ta,' I said.
I turned down the street he'd indicated.
Here was another frozen beck, with many pretty little bridges crossing it, each belonging to a big house. In my dateless state, I fell to wondering about the exact moment at which the beck had frozen. Midday? One o'clock? At that very moment, whatever it was, it had become a Christmas card. Moody's was the last house, and the biggest and oldest, and the sharp roof gave it the looks of a chapel. In the garden, I half-expected to see graves.
A maidservant answered my knock. I took off my hat and held up my warrant card - and I half-hoped I was doing it for the last time.
'Is the master of the house at home?' I said.
'Oh,' she said. 'Hold on.'
She wasn't very polite, for she left me dangling on the doorstep, and with a very tempting hallway before me: wide and firelit and with no furniture but two small, thin dogs in a basket. One stood and looked at me for a moment, but neither could be bothered to risk a cold blow by making a move in my direction. You couldn't blame them: they were just skin and bone the pair of them - two whippets.
The maidservant came back.
'Go up,' she said, still not polite.
The staircase had been wide, but the room she showed me into was small. Not much in it but a fire. It held a card table, an armchair and an empty bookshelf besides, but they didn't signify. It was a very clean house, considering the money came from chimney sweeping. I took the photograph from my pocket and looked at the oldest Club member: Moody. I must expect a man who looked something like him only twenty or so years younger. I walked over to the window, and looked out at the pretty road. I then heard a single loud slam, followed by a great roaring shout. Looking down, I saw a trap pulled by two horses and containing two muffled-up men come racing around the side of the house, along the drive and through the gate. It turned left into the road and flew, at full gallop, along the snowy road.
The maid came back a long while later.
'The master's not in,' she said.
'He was, though, wasn't he?' I said. 'I mean, he was in until he bloody left. He was in when I arrived.'
'He's been called away sudden,' she said.
She was quite bonny, but a good blocker.
'I am here on important police business. When is he coming back?'
She said nothing.
'Does he mean to return today?'
'He didn't leave word.'
We walked out into a corridor, where a manservant stood; he was closing a door behind him, but he didn't do it soon enough to stop me seeing that there was a world of whiteness inside this house as well as outside - white sheets over every article of furniture. He knew that I'd seen; and I could tell that he'd been told I was a copper. You can always tell when people know that.
'Does Mr Moody plan to remove?' I asked him.
'I think so, sir,' he said. 'We've all been given notice.'
I could feel the agitation of the maid without even giving her a glance.
'Since when?'
'A week since.'
The maid stepped in.
'You'd best talk to the master about that.'
The man said, 'If you leave a telegraphic address ...'
I wrote out the telegraphic address and the telephone number of the York police office, and gave it to the man, who was the more amiable of the two; or the more scared. The dogs and the two servants watched me go and, as I ambled along by the frozen stream, I turned and saw the two of them closing the great gates. I thought they were speaking to each other, but the frozen snow took away the sound.
Back in the high street, I saw that even the town hotel was called the White Swan, which seemed to be so in keeping with the whiteness of the place as to be ridiculous. I felt a powerful fancy for a pint of John Smith's, but I'd given my word to the wife, so I tramped on towards the station as afternoon changed to evening. All I was doing was sinking ever further into a kind of despairing dream; and all I had so far proved was that the Mystery of the Travelling Club certainly was a mystery. That house of Moody's was the sort of place in which a wealthy man saw out his days. It was the final prize for a lifetime of toil or luck. He ought not to be haring away from it at such a great rate in terrible weather on account of questions about his father. And who had been riding with him? Was the second fellow just the coachman? Or was he another member of the Travelling Club?
We stopped at the little town of Malton on the way back, making only a small disturbance in my tangled dreams.
Chapter Seventeen
Shillito was writing carefully. Baker and Crawford were in, and Crawford was reading a paper, evidently a comic paper, for he was saying to Baker, 'Here's a good one. What is the relation of the doorstep to the doormat?'
Shillito said, 'You and I must have words, Detective Stringer.'
'A step farther,' said Crawford. 'Do you see?'
But Baker had lost interest; all eyes were now on Shillito and me.
'I particularly wanted you in this afternoon,' said Shillito. 'You're still a good deal behind on your paperwork, and Davitt was seen earlier on at the bookstall.'
'He boarded the Pickering train,' I said, leaving off the 'sir', but looking at my boots, which I knew took away the force of leaving it off. 'I decided to have it out with him. I boarded the train, and asked to see his ticket.'
'And?'
'He showed me it.'
'He had a ticket?'
'He did.'
'And not just any old ticket? Not a last year's bicycle ticket for Poppleton with the date altered and destination disguised?'
Poppleton was the nearest station to York in any direction. A bicycle ticket for that stop was known to be the cheapest available at the York booking office.
'No,' I said. 'He had a valid ticket.'
'Davitt?' said Shillito, and his voice rose to such a pitch of disbelief that it sounded almost like a girl's. It worked on me like an electric jar, and I suddenly knew I could no longer be either the doorstep or the doormat. Well, I don't recall the moment, but only afterwards, with Shillito lying on the floor next to his desk, and skin split across my knuckles. He was looking up at me from just next to the ash pan of the stove, which somebody had half pulled out, and that was the best bit: the puzzlement on his face, the newness of the look that I saw there.
I picked up my topcoat and hat, and walked out of the office with my handkerchief over my hand. I was in search of a bottle of carbolic, and a pint of beer, but I didn't walk fast, and Shillito didn't come after me, or didn't see me in the crowds, for the station was like one colossal club now. It was five o'clock, rush hour, but there was something more. It was 16 December, and Christmas had started. There was all sorts going off in York: concerts and parties and plays, which all meant more top hats for the men and fancy bonnets for the women, fur collars and meeting off trains and kissing and laughing. I was not part of it. I had blood on my shirt, which had somehow flown there from my hand, and I was out of a job or as good as. But I had paid Shillito out, and that made up for it.
In the booking hall, the Salvation Army played and the decorated tree finally looked right. I walked on - out into the latest snowfall. I walked over the bridge that crosses the lines joining the old and new stations; even the old station looked picturesque, with its lamps all lit, and snowflakes flickering down over the crippled wagons kept there. I cut down Queen Street, heading for the Institute, where there was tinsel over the doorway, and paper chains in the corridors. I followed one of these past the reading room and the bars until I came to the caretaker's office. He was in there as usual, smoking by the hot stove. He was called Albert, and he was the idlest bugger that stepped.