Everything in Its Place

That night you laid the case out on the Bell Street table with the mugs. There were five of them, which was Jonah’s idea. One was for the body politic, tidy and tall, Ward’s. One for the arrangement, Rudd’s, chipped on the handle. One for the habit, Vera’s, with a brass rim. One for the house, Lilian’s and Ruth’s, a mug with a pencil in it. And one, in the middle, empty, for the man nobody had spoken to.

“Four stories,” said Jonah, “and none of them explains the stair.”

“Each of them explains why nobody went looking.” You turned the Ward mug a quarter-turn. “She’s right that the town has a fever, and wrong about the cause. Rudd is right about the arrangement, and wrong that it belongs only to the owners. Vera is right that we agree every night what sort of night it is, and she’s told us how much work the agreeing takes. And Ruth and Lilian are right that the cost falls first on the women who are never asked.” You touched the empty mug. “And not one of them explains why a man who hadn’t touched spirits in eleven years should sit in a snug at half past eleven holding a brandy.”

“That one’s the Weber one.”

“That one’s the person.” You smiled, tiredly. “Every other mug is a structure. This one’s a man.”

On the mantel the cream envelope from the Fairweather Foundation still leaned against the kettle, and beside it, delivered that afternoon by a man in a plain grey coat, was a second, much smaller, addressed in a looping hand. Sir Edwin hopes Dr Voss will not neglect the Lantern. He finds that those who are good at discovering who wrote the script are often curious about what the audience wishes to hear. Jonah picked it up, read it, and put it back under the kettle with the air of a boy who has found a spider in a shoe.

“Later,” you said.

You turned out the lamp. Outside the rain had stopped for the first time in a week, and the street smelled of wet slate and salt, and you could hear, very far off, someone practising a hymn on an organ that was paid for by the Chamber.