When Harper came down the road near the docks, Chambers Duffy was standing in front of the flop-house testing the door handle, his ashy hair akilter in the breeze. Duffy hadn’t changed since Harper had last seen him. He wore the same pilled sweater. He wore the same trousers, stiff as an infantryman. He wore, too, the look of a man who’d found your watch and already pawned it twice. When he saw Harper, a fresh gale of terror tumbled him inside.

Harper didn’t bother knocking. He just opened the door—the handle had come loose—and stepped inside. There wasn’t a fire burning on the hearth, but an iron brazier held a handful of coals. Duffy hunched behind the counter.

“Mr. Duffy,” Harper said.

Duffy snapped upright. He blinked. His hands crawled across the counter like spiders.

“Um, yes?”

“Captain Irving Harper. We met the other day. I’m sure you’ll recall. It was the day you went and warned those toughs that my friend and I were here asking questions. You know, the boys who got themselves killed.”

The color in Duffy’s face turned to dust and settled somewhere in his shoes. He licked gray lips.

“Captain Harper, I would—you can’t imagine that—but the thing is—you don’t—” He stopped. He didn’t swallow. Harper doubted Duffy had enough spit left for a stamp. “If you’ll—”

“I want their names, Mr. Duffy. That’s what I want right off the bat. I want to know how you knew them and how you knew what they wanted. I want to know everything you can tell me about the boy. And most of all, Mr. Duffy, I want you to keep your mouth shut this time.” Harper straightened his tie, noticing a stain that might—or might not—have been new. “Do we understand each other?”

With a chirp, Chambers Duffy lost consciousness.

Harper left the man on the floor. He stepped over Duffy, rummaged around under the counter, and came up with a bottle of gin. He tasted it, and it tasted right—like a pine tree that had been turned over and had its bloomers yanked down around its ankles. He took another, longer swallow, rubbed his eyes, and felt the warmth of satisfaction and alcohol in equal measure. Then, without a second look at Duffy, Harper started down the long hall of the flop-house. He took the gin with him.

The room at the back, where the boy had been, was empty. The narrow bed had been dragged away, the window had been papered over. Someone had scrubbed the place. That someone had not been Duffy, because the place had been cleaned to a shine. Ammonia hung in lazy, burning clouds. Bloodstains still marred the floor where some of the men had been killed, but even those stains looked faded, almost innocuous. Harper studied the room for as long as he could stand the ammonia. Then he helped himself to the gin and studied the room a bit more.

If Harper were honest, he’d admit that the real problem—the one he hadn’t seen coming—was that whoever had cleaned up the mess had done too good of a job. The realization sat ill. It was like the worst egg-salad sandwich from the worst diner in the world. It hadn’t been the police who’d done this. The St. Louis police couldn’t have made a case like this disappear without kerosene and a book of matches—and they’d need the whole damned book. Who then?

Harper didn’t trust himself with the gin. He refilled his flask, corked the bottle, and went back to the front of the flop-house. He set the gin on the floor, near Duffy, because he suspected the man would need it. Then he gave Duffy a good kick in the ribs.

Chambers Duffy opened his eyes. He let out a wheeze.

“Mr. Duffy,” Harper said. “Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

“I’d like an honest answer to an honest question, Mr. Duffy. Can you do that?”

Chambers Duffy didn’t answer. His eyes were trying, rather desperately, to roll back up into his head.

“Mr. Duffy?” Another, firmer kick.

“Yes, Captain Harper?” Duffy gasped.

“Who stopped by and cleaned that shit up?”

Chambers Duffy stared at Harper and clamped his lips shut.

“Mr. Duffy—”

“I can’t. Oh God, I can’t. He’ll kill me.”

“He?”

“Please, Captain Harper. I didn’t know the boy was trouble. I didn’t know.”

“You just thought he was a boy who was hurt and alone and had enough coin to pay your rates.”

Duffy nodded.

“You didn’t give a shit that he needed help, that he wasn’t old enough to be off on his own, that he was dying.”

Duffy didn’t answer.

Harper shook his head. He turned, took a step towards the door, and then stopped.

When he looked back, Chambers Duffy was cradling the gin to his chest.

“Mr. Duffy,” Harper said. “I’m going to imagine that a gentleman like yourself—the kind of lowest scum, the kind you can’t even find by trying—might not have been completely forthright with the police. In fact, I’m imagining that such a fellow might have held onto one or two things. Things he thought he could sell with no one the wiser.”

Half a minute passed. Duffy gave a long swallow. Then, “It was just odds and ends. The boy didn’t have any family.”

“That you know of,” Harper said. “Let’s see it all, then.”

It wasn’t much. A spool of thread. A dime-store crucifix. A crumpled ticket. A river-stone.

“Money?”

“Two bits.” Duffy said. “I spent it. I suppose I could make it up to you, come a day or two.” He sounded like he was offering Harper his mother.

Harper shook his head.

“And the police didn’t look at any of this?”

“They didn’t stay long enough to have a chance. They came in. They took notes. They talked and smoked their cigars and got ash and mud all over my floors. They did what cops always do: a fat lot of nothing.”

“And they took the bodies?”

Duffy blinked. “I suppose so.”

“You didn’t see.”

“No, I was—”

“You were off warning whoever came and cleaned this place.”

A nod.

Harper spread the objects on the counter. The crucifix didn’t have anything special to it. The tiny iron Jesus studied his toes, oblivious to the rest of the world. The thread wasn’t anything either. Harper unfolded the ticket. It had been punched. It had a picture of a steamboat on it and the words River Queen Calais, Davenport to St. Louis, Good for One (1) Fare Only.

“You’re set, then?” Duffy asked. “That’s all?”

Harper pocketed the ticket. “The name of your friend?”

Duffy shook his head.

“Think about it, Mr. Duffy. Think about it.”

Then Harper left the flophouse and started looking for a queen.