Anthony Horowitz - Moriarty

‘Thank you, Mr Lavelle,’ I said. ‘And as we know how busy you are, we will not ask you to stay. Clayton can show us out when we are done.’

He wasn’t too pleased about that, but went anyway. Jones said nothing but I could see he was surprised that I had dismissed Lavelle in this manner and it occurred to me that I had behaved, perhaps, a touch impetuously. However, this was my investigation too, and as much as I looked up to Jones, I surely had a right to make my presence felt.

‘My name is Inspector Athelney Jones,’ my companion began. ‘I am making enquiries about a man called Clarence Devereux. Does that name mean anything to you?’

None of them spoke.

‘Yesterday, shortly after two o’clock in the afternoon, I saw a boy enter this house. I had followed him here from Regent Street. He was wearing a bright blue coat and a hat. I see that the path leads directly to this room. Were any of you here when he came in?’

‘I was here all afternoon,’ the cook mumbled. ‘There was only me and Thomas and we didn’t see no one.’

Thomas, the kitchen boy, nodded in agreement.

‘What were you doing?’ I asked.

She looked at me insolently. ‘Cooking!’

‘Luncheon or dinner?’

‘Both!’

‘And what are you cooking now?’

‘Mr and Mrs Lavelle are going out today. This is for tonight. And those vegetables…’ she nodded at Thomas, ‘. . . is for tomorrow. And then we’ll start work on the day after!’

‘No one came to the house,’ Clayton cut in. ‘If they had rung the bell, I would have answered it. And we don’t get many callers here. Mr Lavelle don’t encourage ’em.’

‘The boy didn’t come in the front way,’ I said. ‘He entered through the garden door.’

‘That’s not possible,’ Clayton said. ‘It’s locked both sides.’

‘I would like to see it.’

‘To what purpose?’

‘I don’t think it’s your business to ask questions, Clayton. It is simply to do as I say.’

‘Very well, sir.’

He put down the fork that he had been polishing and lumbered over to the dresser, an oversized piece of furniture that dominated an entire wall. I had noticed a panel with a dozen keys hanging beside it and he carefully selected one, then used it to open the kitchen door, turning it in yet another of the complicated locks that lent themselves to the security of the house. The three of us—Jones, Clayton and myself—stepped into the garden. A curving path led to the wooden gate at the bottom with lawns and flowerbeds on either side. I suspected these had been planted by the former residents, for they had once been neat and symmetrical but were already in a state of some neglect. I led the way, with Clayton next to me and Jones limping behind. In this way we came to the door that we had observed from outside and saw that, as well as the Chubb lock, there was a metal hasp with a second lock on the inside, securing the door to the frame. It would have been very difficult to scale the wall, which was topped with sharp spikes and which would, furthermore, be in full sight of the house. Nor could anybody have jumped down. They would certainly have left footmarks in the lawn.

‘Do you have the key to this lock?’ Jones asked, indicating the metal hasp.

‘I have it in the house,’ Clayton replied. ‘But this gate is never used, Mr Jones, despite what you and this other gentleman may say. We’re very careful in this house. Nobody comes in except through the front door and the keys are themselves kept in a safe place.’ He paused. ‘Do you want me to open it?’

‘Two locks—one inside, one out. Both of them, I would have said, added recently. What is it your employer fears?’ I asked.

‘Mr Lavelle does not discuss his affairs with me.’ Clayton sneered at me. ‘Have you seen enough?’ It struck me that his manner was deliberately impertinent. Although he had encountered Athelney Jones in his former life, he had no fear of me.

‘I will not tell you what I have or have not seen,’ I returned. But he was right. There was no reason to stay any longer.

We went back to the kitchen. Once again, I was the first to enter and I saw that the cook and the kitchen boy had returned to their work as if they had forgotten we had called. Thomas was in the scullery and the old woman had joined him, selecting onions from a shelf one at a time as if she suspected that they might be counterfeit. Finally Jones arrived and the footman once more locked the door behind him and returned the key to its place. It was clear that there was nothing more to be said. We could perhaps have demanded to be allowed to search the house for the missing telegraph boy but what would that achieve? A place like this would have a hundred hiding places and possibly secret panels too. Jones nodded at Clayton and we left.

‘I do not think the boy came to the house,’ I said as we stood, once more, on the other side of the front gate.

‘Why do you believe that?’

‘I searched around the garden door. There was no sign of any footprints, man or boy. And he could not have opened the door from the outside as there was a metal hasp within.’

‘I saw it myself, Chase. And I agree that, from the evidence, it would seem impossible for the boy to have entered, unless, of course, the hasp had been unfastened in expectation of his arrival. And yet consider this. I followed him and, unwittingly, he brought me directly to the house of Scotchy Lavelle, a man familiar to you and a known associate of Clarence Devereux. This must have been where he came unless Devereux himself is living somewhere nearby and, as I told you, it is impossible that he went elsewhere. When the evidence leads to only one possible conclusion, the truth of it, no matter how unlikely, cannot be ignored. I believe the boy entered the house and I believe he may still be there.’

‘Then what are we to do?’

‘We must seek the proper authority and return to make a full search.’

‘If the boy knows we are looking for him, he will leave.’

‘Maybe so, but I would like to speak to that woman of Lavelle’s. Henrietta—was that her name? She may be more nervous of the police than he. As for Clayton, he may be too afraid to talk for the moment, but I will make him see sense. Trust me, Chase. There will be something in the house that will direct us along the next step of the way.’

‘To Clarence Devereux!’

‘Precisely. If the two men are in communication with one another, which they must be, we will find the link.’

We did return, as it happened, the very next day—but not to make the search that Jones anticipated. For by the time the sun had risen once again over Highgate Hill, Bladeston House would have become the scene of a peculiarly horrible and utterly baffling crime.

It was the maid who discovered the bodies and who awoke the neighbourhood with her screams the next morning. Contrary to what her employer had told us, Miss Mary Stagg did not live in the house and it was for that simple reason that she did not die there. Mary shared a small cottage with her sister, who was also in service, in Highgate Village, the two of them having inherited it from their parents. She had not been at Bladeston House when we were there—it happened to be her day off and she and her sister had gone shopping. She had presented herself the following morning, just as the sun was rising, to clear the hearths and to help prepare the breakfast and had been puzzled to find both the front gate and the front door open. Such an unusual lapse of security should have warned her that something was seriously amiss but she had continued forward, doubtless whistling a tune, only to encounter a scene of horror she would remember to the end of her days.