Charles Finch - The September Society

After two or three more inconclusive questions, Lenox led Dabney upstairs and put him in the guest bedroom; in only moments there was a deep quiet from within.

As for the detective, he went back downstairs. The candles guttered out, and long after midnight he was left staring into the embers of the fire for light, as a comfortless rain beat against the window.

It was almost noon when Dabney woke the next day. Lenox had spent the late night and the morning devising a plan of action; it depended on one man, but he thought it might just work.

He also had half a dozen questions he had forgotten to ask Dabney the night before. The foremost of these was about Hatch. When the lad had finished eating his breakfast (prepared by a wrathful Ellie, who thought that once the master started asking for eggs and kippers at noon the apocalypse couldn’t be far behind), Lenox began that line of inquiry.

“Did he deliver a parcel to you, out in the Meadow?”

“Who-old Hatch? No, I don’t know anything about that. I certainly didn’t see him, and I don’t think he could have spoken to Payson without my knowing about it.”

“Are you certain? It would have been on Sunday afternoon. And the two of them met at a place called Shotter’s just before Payson disappeared on Saturday.”

“Did they?” Dabney seemed perplexed. “Professor Hatch was decent for a laugh and a drink, but I doubt that he would have been George’s choice as a confidant. I very much doubt it.”

This exchange immediately led Lenox to reevaluate his thoughts about Hatch. He had to some extent discounted the possibility that Hatch was guilty, even as an accomplice. It had seemed logical to assume that Hatch had been helping his troubled young friend, bringing him a parcel of-what, food? Clothes? It seemed feeble now. Quickly he wrote a telegram to Graham, requesting that he remain in Oxford another twelve hours.

“Another question, then,” he said to Dabney. “What do you mean to do? I’ve met with your parents, and while they’ve handled it admirably, they’re of course frantically worried. I’m inclined to send them a telegram instantly. I fought against the instinct after you had gone to sleep last night, out of respect for your free will.”

Dabney winced. “Please, please don’t. I have a good reason.”

“What’s that?”

“Listen, when will all this be over, do you reckon?”

“Not later than Monday evening, I should say.”

“How can you know that?”

“I have a plan in mind that should force things to a conclusion, one way or another.”

“Tuesday morning, then, as early as possible. I’ll write them then.”

At half past noon, Lenox set out to execute his new plan. He walked with some trepidation for Pall Mall and the row of clubs along it. As he drew close to Carlton Gardens and the September Society (and Biblius Club), his uncertainty increased, and he decided to wait until after his lunch. At the Athenaeum Club he had turkey on the joint with cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes-heavy but sustaining in the weather, which continued cold and wet-and read the Cambridge Journal of Roman History.

The Athenaeum was a place for people accomplished intellectually rather than socially, and many of the people in the dining room were reading similar journals on any number of subjects. While its members were still largely drawn from the landed classes, some had arrived on the merit of their achievements. For example, in the late 1830s, when the club had been in a difficult financial position, its board had decided to admit forty less well born men from a waiting list. Thereafter known jocularly as the Forty Thieves, their number had included Dickens and Darwin. Lenox liked this tradition in the club-one dedicated to Athena, after all, the goddess of wisdom whose cunning had guided Odysseus-much better than he liked the tradition of exclusivity at Boodle’s, where the SPQRs met.

At half past one he finally made his way out, nodding to the familiar faces he saw on the way, and started for Carlton Gardens.

At the September Society, however, he did not find Hallowell as he had hoped, but the second, older doorman who had directed him once before to the Royal Oak.

“After Hallowell again, sir?”

“Yes, actually.”

“He won’t be at the Royal Oak now, I shouldn’t imagine, sir. His shift doesn’t begin for another hour and a half.”

“I see.”

“Would you like me to leave word for him that you called?”

“No, that’s quite all right. Thanks.”

Lenox decided to check the Royal Oak anyway. He turned up his collar against the rain and once more walked down the slender alleyway which housed the pub.

It was as he had left it, dim, the walls dampening a constant murmur of voices, and in the air the steamy warmth of a wet day brought indoors. In fact, the people at the tables might not have moved at all since he had last been there. The man with the large mustache was still behind the bar.

“Hello,” said Lenox. “I’m trying to find Hallowell. You may remember I was here-”

“In the back,” said the barman, pointing with his thumb.

It was a stroke of luck. Hallowell was reading a newspaper at a rear table, a full pint of Guinness before him. When he looked up and saw Lenox, his face fell slightly-and who could blame him? What had begun as a conversational acquaintance had become dangerously uncertain.

“Really, sir,” he said as Lenox approached, “I’ve told you all I know about Major Wilson. I haven’t thought of anything else.”

Lenox sat down. “Of course, and I’m sorry to bother you again.”

“It’s not a bother, sir, but it may be more than my job is worth.”

“Have you read anything about this business at Oxford?” the detective asked, pointing at the newspaper Hallowell was still holding.

“Some, yes, sir.”

“I know I’ve asked you to go against your conscience, but a great deal is at stake, you see. A lad died, a lad of twenty.”

“Yes, Mr. Lenox.”

“In part it was my own fault. I knew something was afoot before he died, young George Payson, and I couldn’t stop it from happening. But I may be able to stop it from happening again.”

Hallowell nodded slightly

“I need to ask you a larger favor, Thomas.”

“Sir?”

“It’s not about Major Wilson. It’s about the meeting tomorrow.”

“The September Society’s meeting?”

“Yes, precisely.”

“But I won’t even be there, sir. As I told you, we receive the night off.”

It was time to level with the man. He was sharp enough, clever enough, to see that things had changed. “I told you that I was working in the same direction as the Society, whether they knew it or not, didn’t I?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That no longer appears to be the case.”

Hallowell blanched. “Sir?”

“I think somebody in the Society is responsible for George Payson’s murder-perhaps several other deaths, too.”

“Sir, I can scarcely credit-I mean to say, I know these men, it’s not possible.”

“I’m afraid it is, in fact. And I need you to sneak me into the club before the meeting so that I can spy on them all.”

“No, sir, I simply cannot-”

“But you must!”

“I simply cannot, Mr. Lenox-”

Lenox’s temper rose. “They shot at my friend’s house, Hallowell! Did you read about that in the papers, on Hampden Lane? They threatened a woman with no involvement in the case-they’ve killed an innocent lad-they probably killed Major Wilson-you must!”

For a moment there was silence at the table. The paper fell out of Hallowell’s hands, while in the front bar the voices grew suddenly louder and a wave of laughter rose and fell among the house’s patrons. Outside, Lenox saw through the small window above him, the rain had stopped.