Lenox, after considering his options for a moment, peered up and down the street, up into the stormy sky, too, and said to Blaine, “I’m going to the fishing town up north.”
He nodded in the direction opposite from where they stood in the center of Newport, from the cottages. “May I ask why?” said Blaine.
“It’s the only part of Newport I haven’t seen,” said Lenox.
Thoroughness wasn’t the whole truth. Sometimes instinct took over in a case like this, and even if the mystery of Lily Allingham’s death ended at 2:30 that afternoon, when they met with Willie Schermerhorn, the mystery of her last hours was still tugging on him.
“Shall I accompany you?”
This was awkward; Lenox intended to walk. “Actually I was hoping you might do me a different service.”
Blaine took out a pocket-sized leather notebook, and Lenox felt a quick fondness for him. “You need only name it.”
Lenox had seen Blaine’s effect on Welling. “I wonder if you might be able to track down Partridge and apprise him of what we know. Lawrence Vanderbilt’s confession. It will sugar the pill to have the news from you—besides which, he may have information we do not, and which he would share with you but not me.”
Blaine finished writing, and said, “Of course. Shall I see you at two thirty, then?”
“Yes, by all means.”
Blaine nodded. “Thank you again, Mr. Lenox, for allowing me to follow along with you.”
“Of course,” said Lenox. He had determination, Blaine, lurking behind his shyness, his politeness, and his impossible reserves of wealth and prestige. Lenox thought of saying something, but time was short. “You have done very well.”
They parted, and it was alone that the detective walked the mile to the tiny fishing village at the northern tip of Newport, covering the ground briskly—the temperature having stayed chilly.
He studied the crowded houses as he approached them, planted along an outcropping, each a fiftieth of the size of one of the cottages, yet home to souls equally divine, if you believed what you heard on Sunday mornings, as those in the cottages. The village was rather picturesque—the houses clustered together, small and mostly made out of weathered old boards, paint peeling off many of them, a dozen or so boats and skiffs hull-up on the shingle by the water. Buoys in the water and a strong smell of fish. The whole scene was set in front of the choppy, unhappy sea, which rippled this way and that in slashes of sharp white.
Just as he arrived, it started to rain. The sky had very suddenly (by his Sussex boyhood reckoning) resolved from gray into a series of huge dark storm clouds. He checked his pocket watch—one o’clock, a minute or two after. He pulled his hat lower, put his hands in his pockets, and looked around. There were lanterns above a number of doors now, glowing yellow even at this midday hour. They knew the weather. One, a few steps down a narrow alley, had a picture of a small boat at sea on it, and he took a chance and stepped inside.
It was a cozy place, a tavern. “Afternoon, sir,” said a stout man behind the bar.
“Good afternoon. How are you?”
“Still haven’t heard from Mrs. Astor.” The man laughed at his own joke. Lenox smiled and sat down at a table. “Anything to drink?”
He was cold and wet, pondering even now whether he dared steal into the second seat in front of the fire. “I would be very grateful for a cup of tea. Coffee, if you don’t have it.”
“We can manage tea.”
“Thank you.”
“Have a seat by the fire if you’re wet. Jeffries won’t bite.”
Jeffries was apparently the rumpled man already sitting by the fire, who said “Mmm” from behind his pipe and beneath his fisherman’s hat. When he returned his stare to the fire, his eyelids, briefly stirred into greater openness at the mention of his name, began to grow heavy again.
Lenox noticed that over the fireplace there was a pair of crossed pistols and a banner that said 7TH RHODE ISLAND INFANTRY. A crisp copy of a daguerreotype stood above it on the mantel—Mr. Lincoln, Lenox saw, that unmistakable face, deep-eyed and wise, revered on both sides of the Atlantic.
One thing he hadn’t anticipated when he sailed—well, aside from coming to Newport at all—was how recent and present the Civil War would still seem in America. He thought of Clark’s face, the new black ribbons pinned next to the plaque in the Union Club every day, of Stevens, bringing the mayor coffee, and of soldier’s heart.
Lenox grew so lost in thought that he didn’t notice the keeper of the house approaching. He set down a pot of tea and a cup. It was bitter stuff, but hot, and with enough sugar it went down gratefully.
“Anything else?” the barman asked after a reasonable interval.
“I would take a glass of wine.”
The man smiled, his lined old face crinkling up. “That we have too, I think.” He glanced at the fat casks underneath the front windows. “Something to eat?”
“What do you recommend?”
“There I’d have to think, me. Most’d say the stuffies.”
Lenox nodded, though he had no idea what those were. “That’s fine,” he said.
“Fair play. Won’t be long.”
The man withdrew. To Lenox’s left, something stirred in front of the fire and readjusted itself: a dog! A mastiff, or at least kin to a mastiff. Edmund had mastiffs. Lenox’s heart gave an absurd leap, and he went over and put a hand to the old hound’s nose. It sniffed, slowly and solemnly, and then pressed its great head comfortably into Lenox’s shoe and closed its eyes, adjusting infinitesimally along its curled body, sage creature. Lenox scratched the dog’s ear for a few minutes, letting the fire heat his own skin until it tingled before giving the dog a final rub on the back and returning to his table.
A glass of ruby-red wine appeared, and soon afterward his—it would seem—stuffies. There were a dozen of them, and when Lenox picked one up he discovered it was in a hard shell. This must be a clam, he realized, and he was glad he hadn’t bitten straight into it; though he’d heard of little else besides seafood since arriving in Newport, it sometimes seemed. His stomach growled—a delicious scent of onions, celery, toasted bread, and the sea steamed up from the plate. He took a small experimental bite, which was enough to convince him that the smell was true to its source, and soon enough, ravenous, he had eaten the whole plate.
The barman came to fetch it when he was done. “Wonderful,” Lenox said.
“Ah, good. Never seen ’em do a hungry fellow wrong yet.”
“I suppose they’re from Rhode Island?”
The man frowned. “You hear of ’em in Pawtucket; but not Providence; and Boston, never. So I should say they’re local, like.”
Lenox didn’t understand a word of this. “I see.”
“Was there anything else?”
“I was hoping to call upon Mrs. Walliter,” he said.
“Well, you’ve as good as done it.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m her brother. She lives next door.” The barman gave Lenox a more intent look. “What is it you’re needing from her?”
“I’m investigating the death by the cliffs.”
“Oh, you’re that limey. Miss Allingham. Yes. Mighty sad, that. And the rich folks’ll have their summer anyhow, won’t they?” He heaved a sigh. “Fair enough that you’ve come, of course. I’ll tell Emily you’re by. That’s Mrs. Walliter. It might be a few minutes, mind.”
Lenox thanked him, once more surprised that knowledge of his presence on the island had preceded him, but glad in this case, and settled in to wait. The gentleman with the low hat and the long pipe had fallen asleep. The pipe had burnt out yet remained lodged firmly in the grip of his mouth—a sailor’s trick, that.
It was only when there was a tap on the flagstone floor that Lenox started and realized that he had been close to slumber himself, there in the comfortable chair, the rain pattering outside and a good meal in his stomach.
A small, pretty, elderly woman in a bonnet and a calico dress was standing behind Lenox with the barman. The detective rose.
“Mrs. Walliter? How do you do?” Lenox asked. “Thank you very much for coming to see me.”
“I only have a moment.”
“Of course. Let me get straight to my point then. You run a boardinghouse?”
“Aye, that I do. But poor Miss Allingham has naught to do with it.”
“No, I didn’t think so. But I understand you had a break-in last night.”
A look of consternation passed over Mrs. Walliter’s face. “So we did. Some fool young fellow, I make it. I tell all of the girls that they may always accept callers in the parlor, as long as myself or someone else is present. But will they listen? Will they ever.”
“Then you don’t think it was a burglar?”
“In Newport? No. Any stranger would have been told us about a while since. I heard you were ten minutes here before our George came to fetch me.”
The barman, caught, shifted a little bashfully. “Was anything taken?” Lenox asked.
“No, nothing.”
“Which window was broken? A front one?”
“A side one.” She exhaled dramatically. “It will cost six dollars just the glass, and Chapman won’t cut it down for less than another two.”
Lenox paused, thinking; and then he played the hunch that had brought him up to this part of Newport.
“Can you tell me, Mrs. Walliter—is one of the girls who stays at the boardinghouse a Miss Maryanne Morris?”
She looked surprised. “Why, yes,” she said. “She’s been with me three years—nearly a daughter, Maryanne. The sweetest, prettiest girl. It was her window that was broke.”