AS THE VILLAGE OF WEXFORD CROSSING slipped out of view behind them, Avery slid down in his seat and braced his knees against the dashboard, making himself comfortable. The air had crossed the line from merely brisk to distinctly chilly, and he wrapped his scarf around himself a few more times. Meanwhile, Eric was enjoying the cold blast of air over his head, which was boiling over with new ideas. The touch of Mrs. Benson’s—Helen’s—hand on his cheek still burnt, and he wanted more than anything to have the feeling blow away in the wind.
“I hope you’re happy with the outing,” Avery said. “I can’t say I enjoyed it all that much, but I expect you’ve solved the whole mystery based only on what Mrs. Benson told you.”
“And what I found in the old office at the manor. Yes, Avery, the things in Benson’s box must have all come from here. The medical report came from Parker’s file, the photograph came from Mrs. Benson’s mantelpiece, and both the scissors and the hypodermic kit were probably leftovers from the hospital. I don’t know what happened to them, though. That’s as much a mystery as anything.”
“So where does that leave us?” Avery asked.
“The disappearance of Emily Ang,” Eric replied. “Benson talked about righting some great wrong, and Mrs. Benson said her disappearance was the thing occupying his mind. If we know what happened to Miss Ang, we’ll know what happened to Benson.” He paused, thinking. “She can’t have got far, I don’t think. A Chinese woman out here in the English countryside would have stood out something awful.”
“You don’t think she just ran off on her own, then.”
Eric shook his head. “No. That wouldn’t make sense. So if she did disappear, it would have to be foul play: kidnapping or murder.”
“Is it still white slavery if she isn’t white?”
“Avery!”
“I’m only joking.” But Eric shot him a glare to show he was serious, and Avery hastily apologised.
“If it were white slavery,” Eric said, “she can’t have been the only one. There’d be other reports of missing women around the area. And if it were murder, someone might have found the body, though it wouldn’t have been identified. That’s the sort of thing that gets reported in the news. Avery, first thing tomorrow morning, we’ve got to visit the British Museum and search the newspapers. We’re looking for reports of missing persons and unidentified bodies discovered in the south of England. That should be good enough to be starting with.”
“Oh, research,” said Avery dully. “My favourite. I don’t know why you bother. You knew this woman even less than you knew Benson. And speaking of Benson, I honestly think he was just asking for it.”
“What do you mean?” Irrationally, Eric wondered if Helen—Mrs. Benson—had something to do with it.
“His box, Eric. Box 13. An unlucky number, and it’s hardly a surprise what came of it. Frankly, if I were him, I’d have insisted on changing boxes immediately, and none of this would have happened.”
“He didn’t have much choice. The vault was full—” Eric stopped. Wolfe knew that the vault was full.
“What?”
“Wolfe could have forced Benson to take whatever box he wanted by taking the last box and vacating it at the last minute! No, that doesn’t make sense unless he knew Benson would be wanting a box that evening, and could prepare for it.” The next mile was spent lost in thought, and then Eric said, “I have it. Benson said it was Aldershott who showed him how the vault worked. Perhaps box 13 was Aldershott’s, which he gave up to Benson because … oh, call it hospitality. A favour for the new boy. Whatever the reason, Wolfe guessed that the only person likely to have vacated a box for Benson would be the one who was actually showing him the boxes. And if he knew which box was Aldershott’s, he’d know which box Benson had.” Eric felt quite pleased with himself.
“That’s one mystery solved, then. Don’t say I’m of no help to you. And how do you reckon Inspector Parker got in, or did Wolfe let him in after his own spot of burglary?”
“Mrs. Benson’s scuttled my ideas about Inspector Parker,” Eric said, frowning in consternation. Parker’s leaving when he did meant he wasn’t involved in Emily Ang’s disappearance; but Parker’s removing her photograph meant he was connected to it somehow. It really was quite vexing. Eric did have one concrete lead, though, such as it was: the notepaper scraps from the Butterworth Arms in Chichester. If it came down to a matter of handwriting, the simplest thing to do would be to compare the note against written entries in the register at the Britannia. Everything else would have to depend on what he and Avery found in the newspaper archives, and what they said about Emily Ang.
“You know, I don’t think I like her very much,” said Avery, interrupting Eric’s train of thought.
“You never even met her, Avery!”
“Not Emily. Mrs. Benson.”
Eric fell silent. “War does things to people, Avery.”
“That’s no excuse! If it brought out the ghoul in her, then that ghoul was always there to begin with. All those mutilated people! It was horrifying. And you! You were completely taken in by her. I expect she fed you some romantic twaddle about noble heroism, and you believed her.”
There’s still a certain nobility in smiling through the pain, Eric thought. But Avery seemed to have slipped into a foul mood, and nothing Eric could say would rouse him out of it.
Eric left a brooding Avery Ferrett at the Arabica before proceeding back to the Britannia Club. The last time he’d been there was Saturday, when they’d found Benson’s body. The police inquiry under Inspector Parker had just begun, and a general state of discomfiture was spreading through the air. He remembered that, coming out from his interview, he’d found the dining room empty and lifeless. Far from remaining silent in the background, a couple of attendants were whispering anxiously in one corner about the recent developments. Those who could leave had left, and those who could not didn’t seem to know what to do with themselves.
None of that had quite departed from the Britannia in the time since.
The soft clink of silverware was still missing. There were no diners tonight, and the smell emanating from the dining room was not of meat and gravy but of lye and disinfectant. Someone must have decided that Benson’s murder rendered the premises unclean, and ordered a thorough scouring of the public rooms. Perhaps it was simply for want of something to do. The waiters right now were lounging about, looking as much at a loss as the attendants that other day.
Peering down the corridor to the vault stairwell, Eric caught sight of the cleaning staff—characters one generally never actually saw—scrubbing away at the wainscoting in Aldershott’s office. Ugly black marks blotted various surfaces, and Eric at first wondered if the fireplace had exploded and deposited soot everywhere. He soon realised, however, that this was in fact fingerprint powder. The police had gone over every inch of Aldershott’s office with the stuff, and the rest of the corridor appeared much the same. One often read of fingerprint powder, but no one ever told you how tiresome it must be to remove it afterwards. Eric could only imagine what the scene must be like down in the vault itself, or up in Benson’s room.
Even Old Faithful, still behind the front desk, seemed a little more on edge than usual. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, sir,” he said as Eric came to sign the register. “I doubt we had more than a handful of gentlemen come in here today. No one rightly knows what to do, now there’s been a murder.”
“It’ll come right again, Cully. It’s just been too soon, that’s all.”
“I hope you’re right, sir.” Old Faithful heaved a sigh, then brightened up again. “Oh, and there’s a letter here for you, sir! From Captain Aldershott himself.”
Eric took the cream-coloured envelope from Old Faithful with some surprise. The thick, smooth card paper was luxurious under his fingertips—too fine an article to be wasted on ordinary notes and memoranda. Eric guessed a polite social engagement was in the offing, and tore it open to see.
Mr. and Mrs. Edward Aldershott
cordially request the company of
Mr. Eric Peterkin
for dinner on
Friday, the 31st of October,
8:00 P.M.
The address was in Mayfair, not far from Marble Arch and Hyde Park. Eric noted that, whereas his own name and the date and time of the event were handwritten onto blank spaces, as might be expected with an invitation card bought at the stationer’s, the Aldershotts’ names and address were printed along with the rest of the card. Evidently the Aldershotts gave dinners often enough to want a set of personalised invitation cards prepared.
But why was Aldershott extending the hand of friendship to Eric now? No doubt it was something of a response to the recent upheaval. Eric looked around again at the listless waiters just visible through the doorways of the dining room, and the corridor blackened with fingerprint powder. Perhaps it was even something of an apology for words exchanged in the heat of the moment. Aldershott must surely have realised by now how right Eric had been in warning him against tidying up his ransacked office.
Whatever the reason, Eric was happy to accept.
He glanced up at the grand staircase and the painting of the Arthurian Knights on the landing. The lights were dim, and he couldn’t see his usual touchstones, King Pellinore and Sir Palomides. There really is nothing quite like a crisis to spark camaraderie, he mused. When the shelling begins, you don’t care who or what the next soldier is, as long as he’s watching your back.
And speaking of shoving things about, here was a torn envelope shoved between the pages of the register. It looked identical to the one Eric himself had just ripped open, and it was addressed to Oliver Saxon.
“Begging your pardon, sir, I should have caught that.” Old Faithful took both torn envelopes from Eric and deposited them in a nearby wastepaper basket. “Lieutenant Saxon does tend to leave things lying around when he doesn’t want them. Half the books in the reading room have his scraps tucked in them for bookmarks.”
But Eric was looking at the entry right at the bottom of the previous page. Mr. Oliver Saxon, written in a textbook-perfect cursive, but for the curiously formed lower-case r in Oliver. Funny that such a slovenly individual should have such fine penmanship, but it was a perfect match for the notepaper Eric had found in the Sotheby Manor office. He took out the scraps of paper and laid them atop the register to confirm it. Yes, the handwriting was identical.
Saxon, who supposedly had no personal connection to Sotheby Manor, had been there at some point on or after the twentieth of July 1918, with a special interest in Emily Ang.
Eric remembered Saxon being manhandled up the stairs, and how the tension thickened the air when his eyes met Parker’s. Saxon had a key to the club’s back door and could come and go as he wished. There wasn’t any question, with him, of how he got in or how he might have disposed of any bloodied clothing. And Saxon was the only one with a reason to know that Benson might be found at the club that night. Why had Benson decided, at the last minute, to spend the night at the club rather than at Saxon’s? One assumed concerns over Wolfe’s proposed burglary, but what if it were really about Saxon?
Perhaps, Eric thought, perhaps he’d read this from the wrong side around. Perhaps Parker had been a secret ally of Benson’s, and the two had followed the trail to Saxon. Who better to enlist in an investigation, after all, than a police detective?