The September Society (11 page)

“Exactly. Before yesterday the lads were probably south of here, by the least crowded part of the meadow, but still not that far from Oxford.”

It dawned on Goodson how significant this was, and in unison the three men strode south. When they got there they found the ground less worked over by pedestrians. Goodson beckoned to the crime scene, and two constables came over to see him. There were a few walking bridges over the rivers.

“Look on these bridges here for any marks of struggle—”

“Blood,” said Lenox.

“Blood, yes,” Goodson said.

“I would also recommend sending people south of the city, even farther than here,” said Lenox, “to check in the small hotels and the pubs, the little shops, that sort of thing.”

“I will,” said Goodson, noting it down.

As they walked back, Lenox said, “We should all realize the intelligence it took the murderer to disobey his instincts and return to a
more
populated area to kill George Payson. Of course, the killer’s first thought would have been to go somewhere remote—but it would have taken time, first of all, to find somewhere so remote that a body would remain hidden for long. He didn’t have time to be that careful.”

McConnell said, “I don’t believe it negates your point, Charles, but it’s worth mention that George Payson was dead before he came to lie here. We also learned from the body that he had been sleeping rough, outdoors, at best in barns or lean-tos. Only his face and hands had been recently cleaned.”

“That makes sense.” Lenox puzzled it over. “I suppose you’d better tell me all about the body, McConnell. But first, let’s look at the place where he was found. We can’t properly call it the scene of the crime, unfortunately.”

A
nybody who has ever studied at Oxford loves Christ Church Meadow. With water to one side and the tall, beautiful college spires to the other, it is quintessentially English, almost like a picture by Constable in which water, grass, and a building so old it seems like part of nature itself all breathe against each other. To Lenox, it was most beautiful in the long golden light of springtime, when its green expanse seemed limitless and the soft water sounds of rowers and punters floated on the air, while in the distance cattle grazed in the lower water meadow. The line of boathouses down at one end was a happy place, too, for a day spent punting with friends along the Cherwell, drinking champagne (or champs, as they called it at Oxford) and eating cold chicken, was as close to heaven as this earth could get. A day of punting could erase weeks of dark Bodleian nights from the memory.

But Lenox pushed these memories aside now and concentrated on the site where George Payson’s body had been fifteen hours before.

There were five or six policemen around the roped-off area, as well as another dozen curious passersby. The men
from the force were spending their time either classifying footprints or keeping people back from the site. To Goodson’s credit, they had left the scene in good working order, and the imprint of the body was still visible. Lenox noticed that it was slightly deeper toward the middle.

“The person who dropped George Payson’s body must have been carrying him like this”—Lenox demonstrated—“just the way you carry a bride across the threshold, if you see what I mean, and then simply dropped him.”

“I figured as much,” said Goodson rather testily.

“Oh, certainly,” said Lenox. “This has all been done in a first-rate way—a sight better than some I could name from London might have done. I was only straightening the thing out in my own head. That means, then, that the person’s footprints are probably just ten inches to the left of the body—ah, a dense patch, I see,” he said, responding to Goodson’s pointing out the spot. “I really have to congratulate your thoroughness. The only other point to gather here, then, is that Payson must have been newly dead, garroted only a few moments before the killer dropped him here.”

“Why?” Goodson asked.

“Because the arms were splayed out above the head,” said Lenox, pointing to where the arms had left indentations in the soil. “They were still loose. The killer wouldn’t have carried him with his arms like that. Too unwieldy, too easily noticeable. He left the body as it fell. McConnell, how long would rigor mortis have taken to set in?”

“It can take anywhere from five minutes to two hours, but in this case, given how the body has loosened again, probably on the shorter side—call it fifteen minutes.”

“There you have it, Inspector,” said Lenox.

“What do you mean?”

“Even if the killer had some means of transport, the scene of the murder can’t have been far off at all. And this park is
only accessible by foot, which cuts down the distance even further.”

“Ah,” said Goodson, writing on his pad. “So the fight could only have taken place within a fifteen-minute walk of this spot.”

“Call it a four-minute walk, actually—perhaps a six-minute perimeter south of here, figuring that one walks much less quickly when carrying so much weight.”

“All right—I’ll tell the lads.”

“Just a moment,” Lenox said. “What about objects near the body?”

“At the station. Here, Ramsey, take these gentleman to the station when they’re ready to go and show them the box of things we found. All right, Mr. Lenox, Mr. McConnell.” With a nod Goodson walked off to give the men by the river to the south their instructions, stopping on the way to bark at the crowd that had gathered until they dispersed.

Ramsey came over. “On your signal, then,” he said.

Lenox nodded. “Give it ten minutes, if that’s all right?”

“Just as you say.”

When they were alone, McConnell said, “What do you reckon?”

“Well, above all I’m grateful to you for finding a way for us to see this place. My other two thoughts are that we’re dealing with someone remarkably clever and that if there’s no sign of Dabney anytime soon it looks a bit black against him. Now what about the body?”

“We’ve covered some of the details these past few minutes. There’s not much else to tell. He was garroted, but he put up a damn good fight. I’d say the murderer will have some wounds to show for it. It was a standard stud chain garrote.”

“What’s that?”

“A long leather loop with a metal chain on the end.”

“How easy do you reckon it is to acquire one of those?

I most often see scarves or fishing line as garrotes. Piano wire once.”

“Quite easy. It was a stud chain, the kind used to whip horses. You can find one in any stable.”

Lenox thought for a moment, then said, “Go on.”

“There were two other singular circumstances that Morris and I discovered. One, the body was bloody and badly mauled around the face and torso.”

“Unrecognizably so?”

“No, perhaps not, but badly. It’s strange, given how short a time the body was exposed to the elements.”

“Animal wounds?”

“That’s hard to say.”

“What was the other singular circumstance?”

“How closely shorn his hair was.”

“Disguise, I would have thought.”

“On his head, to be sure—but the hair was shorn from all over his body, you know, not just his head.”

“That’s passing strange.”

“We thought so, too.”

The doctor and the detective discussed George Payson’s corpse for another moment and then made their way to look at the objects found around the body with Constable Ramsey.

At the station the constable brought out a small cardboard box, filled with a random and, truth be told, somewhat unsatisfactory collection of odds and ends, most of which had probably been simply dropped in the park and never cleared away. There was a white feather, a receipt for a new hat to be picked up in a day’s time, several candy wrappers, a child’s mitten, a muddy and blank sheet of small paper, and a pin that was, Lenox saw with a thrill undercut by doubtfulness, the color red.

“Disappointing lot,” he said to Ramsey.

“It is, yes. ’Spector Goodson was ’opin to find a bit more. If that’s all, sir?”

“Yes, yes, thanks.”

As they left the police station and walked up Cornmarket Street, McConnell pulled Lenox into a doorway.

“One more thing, old man,” he said. “I kept it aside for you.”

“What is it?”

“We found Payson’s university identification in his pockets, cigarettes, some money, a pair of eyeglasses—and this.” He handed Lenox a scrap of paper. “I thought it might be important.”

“You were right,” Lenox said in a low, startled voice. There was a long pause during which he cycled rapidly through the list of clues he had made.

“What do you make of it?”

“For one thing it proves, I think, that we have a third companion in the search for the murderer: Payson himself is helping us.”

He looked at the scrap of paper again: a flimsy card, blank except for the words
THE SEPTEMBER SOCIETY
, which were written in red ink.

L
enox sat drinking a cup of coffee in the back room at the Turf, wondering whether Goodson had made any progress. Likely they had at least found something that would help establish that Payson had been staying in the fields to the south of Oxford—but, he thought with a sigh, where would that get them? Unless Dabney had left behind a witnessed and notarized description of what had happened, there would probably be little to gather from the site where they had stayed.

Then, just as he found himself sinking into pessimism again, Lenox saw something delightful hovering by the bar, looking respectfully toward him. It was a welcome sight: Graham.

“Graham! Good Lord!”

“I hope I haven’t startled you, sir?”

“A bit, yes. Rather like seeing Banquo’s ghost in gray spats. Why are you here, anyway? Not that it’s not jolly to have you, of course.”

“I took the liberty, sir, of catching the morning train. I thought I might be of some assistance.”

(Graham often helped Lenox with his cases, possessing as he did an uncanny ability to discover information that seemed
lost or buried, and understanding intuitively what mattered and did not. It was another example of their unusual friendship, so different than any other in London.)

“Dead right,” said Lenox warmly. “I’ve never needed it more. What of home?”

“Sir?”

“Everything calm there, I mean?”

“Ah—yes, sir. I’ve brought your post as well.”

“Thank you very much, Graham. I really am glad to have you here.”

“There’s not much in it, sir, though you’ve had another visit from John Best.”

“Whose card I had the other morning?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who the devil is he?”

“I cannot say, sir.”

“Odd.”

“Yes, sir. I trust the case is progressing?”

“It’s hard to tell. Hopefully.”

“Yes, sir.”

Lenox thought for a moment. “I say, Graham, why don’t you check us into the Randolph over on Magdalen Street?”

“Sir?”

“I’ve been staying here, but it would be appalling of me to impose my nostalgia on you. I doubt you’d see the charm in the place if you hadn’t been dropped here before every term.”

“I shall attend to it straight away, sir.”

“Mrs. Tate?” Lenox called out, and the Turf’s proprietor popped her head around the corner. “Mrs. Tate, do you mind awfully if I leave for the Randolph?”

“Is everything all right, Mr. Lenox?” she said.

“Oh—perfect, of course. It’s only that my valet here has come up, too, and I think it would rather stretch your hospitality to find a bed for him.”

She gave an understanding nod. “It won’t be too long before we see you again, though, will it?”

“Oh, definitely not,” said Lenox. “It had been too long since I last visited Oxford.”

“Certainly had, sir. Ah—a customer!”

When she was gone, Lenox said, “Can I talk something over with you, Graham?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Have a seat here. Anything to eat?”

“No, thank you, sir.”

“Good enough. The problem is this fellow Hatch, the professor at Lincoln. He’s got his back up about me, I’m sure, because I went around and asked him about the two lads. I think he may be at the bottom of all this somehow, whether he’s the primary mover or not.”

“Indeed, sir?”

Lenox briefly recapitulated his conversation with Hatch, emphasizing the two lies the professor had told. “He’s at 13 Holywell Street, just around the corner. Queer fellow, you know.”

“How so, sir?”

“From what I can gather, he’s better friends with the students than with the other dons, acts somewhat debauched, in fact, as a student might. My impression was that he was unhappy, if that makes sense. I only say so because I’ve found that unhappiness can disguise a multitude of sins.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So I’d like you to get round him, Graham. See if you can discover anything about his relationship with George Payson and Bill Dabney, and see as well what he gets up to—what his daily life is like, whether he would have had the chance to kill somebody in the dead of night, for instance, or whether his servants keep a pretty close watch over him. And of course what he was doing yesterday evening.”

“I shall endeavor to learn all I can of his activities and character, sir.”

“Good of you, Graham, thanks. That’s exactly what I’m after.”

“Not at all, sir.”

“Good as well to see a friendly face, now that I’m over the shock of it.”

“I apologize again, sir,” said Graham with a low laugh.

Lenox waved a hand. “Oh, not at all. This is a baddish problem, and I admit I felt defeated after McConnell got that wire about Payson. Time for all good men to rally round, I mean.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Good enough, then, and you’ll check on the Randolph? I’m going to go up to the Bodleian.”

“Yes, sir. With your consent, sir, I shall send a note up to you at the library confirming that the rooms have been secured.”

“Perfect. I should be there for a few hours, at any rate, and then I’m sure I’ll see McConnell and Inspector Goodson.”

“Very good, sir.”

“Excellent.”

After Graham had gone, Lenox read the
Times
. News of Payson’s death had made the front page of the paper, underneath a somber headline that read
MURDER AT LINCOLN
. Lenox pictured all of the proud old Lincoln alumni in the far-flung provinces of the empire reading the news and feeling as shaken as he would have if the case had happened at Balliol. There were only a few things Lenox took special pride in, but as he read the
Times
he realized that Oxford was one of them, and told himself that if he couldn’t solve this case he might as well retire.