“Very possibly, sir. Mr Frant had been much beaten about the head. Indeed, one eye had been quite put out.”
“But you believe it was he?”
“I could not be sure. The hair, the height, the clothes – even the hands: everything supported that conclusion.”
“Yet the face was unrecognisable. That is the long and the short of it, is it not?”
“If it was not he, there was certainly a general similarity in appearance. The cast of features, the –”
“Granted,” Carswall interrupted. “But what of the hands?”
“Mr Frant’s ring was on his right hand. The top joints of the forefinger on the other hand were missing.”
“They were a gentleman’s hands?”
I shrugged. “It is hard to say. They too had been much marked. Nor did I have either the opportunity or inclination to examine them closely. Besides, the light was not good.”
Carswall consulted a watch he took from his waistcoat pocket. He sighed as though he did not like what it told him. For a moment, he stared into the depths of the fire. His cravat was loosened, his breeches were unbuttoned at the waist and the knee. His coat was crumpled and stained, his hair in disarray. But his mind was capable of such vigour, his habitual manner of speech was so emphatic, that one often forgot that he was an old, sick man.
Suddenly he glanced up and smiled at me and the effect was blinding. It was as though his daughter had smiled: a similar rearrangement of features into something so different from what had been before.
“You see where these questions are tending, do you not?”
“The finger.”
He nodded. “Were you able to form an opinion as to whether the amputation had been of recent date or not?”
“In the circumstances I suspect even a medical man would have found it hard to decide.”
“What of the skin beneath the clothes?”
“I did not have an opportunity to examine it.” I hesitated. “The skin of a cadaver is not like that of a living man. The body had been outside all night. It was very cold. Unless there were distinguishing marks, such as a scar or a mole –”
“There were not.”
Carswall brooded and drank wine. Only two candles were lit, one at either end of the mantel-shelf. The room was full of shadows. I thought of the cave that Plato describes in his Republic: here were the shadows and the fire; but would I ever be able to see what lay beyond the other side of the fire, in the sunlit real world? Or would the Frants and the Carswalls keep me for ever trapped in their cave?
“I will be plain with you,” Carswall said. “But first I must ask you to respect my confidence. Will you give me your word?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mrs Frant tells me that on two occasions a disreputable fellow came to Stoke Newington and pestered Charlie. And that on the first occasion, he tried to assault, or perhaps seize, the boy, and that you were at hand to effect a rescue. Is that true?”
“Yes, sir. Though –”
“And on the second occasion, the man was sufficiently in funds to give the lads a tip.” Carswall held up a hand, preventing me from speaking. “Now here is something you don’t know. On the Friday before he died, as Mr Frant was walking through Russell-square on his way home at about midday, he was accosted outside his house by a man who answered to the description that both you and Charlie had given of the stranger in Stoke Newington. Mrs Frant chanced to be looking out of the drawing-room window. She remarked the circumstance particularly, because at that time they were much plagued by creditors. This man did not seem to be a creditor, however, or a bailiff, or anyone of that nature. Though Mrs Frant could not hear the words of their conversation, it was clear from his gestures that Mr Frant was angry and that the other man was cowed by his anger. Mr Frant came into the house and the other man walked rapidly away. Mrs Frant asked her husband when he came up who the man had been. And here is the strangest circumstance of all: Frant flatly denied that he’d been talking with anyone.” Carswall paused, poked his forefinger through the gap between two buttons of his waistcoat and scratched his belly. “Now why would he wish to do that, do you think?”
“I cannot say, sir.”
“I wonder. Mrs Frant believes you had private business with her husband.”
“It is true that on one occasion I was able to be of service to Mr Frant.” I turned away, so that he could not see my face. “I confess I do not understand why you find this meeting that Mrs Frant witnessed to be of such significance in the matter of Mr Frant’s death.”
“I should have been surprised if you had. I have not told you the whole of it yet. The drawing-room window was open, despite the cold, because Mrs Frant had been airing the room. The stranger raised his voice, and she heard him quite distinctly say the words Wellington-terrace. Moreover, she believes – though I do not know how much weight one should attach to this – that the man had an Irish or perhaps American accent.” Carswall tapped the arm of his chair with the base of the glass. “I do not deny that her ears may have heard, at least in memory, what she wanted to hear. One more thing: she is convinced that the private business you had with her husband had to do with the stranger in Stoke Newington. She is barely well enough to speak at present but she charged me to lay all this before you.”
I bowed my head. A wave of shame swept over me.
“You would not wish to make her suffering worse, I take it?” Carswall said.
“No, sir.”
“Then you can have no objection to disclosing whatever you know.”
“Very well. After the man’s first visit to Stoke Newington, Mr Frant was naturally concerned for the safety of his son. I saw the man again, by chance, one afternoon in Long Acre. I gave chase and eventually ran him down and heard his story. He is an American, he told me, but of Irish descent. He called himself David Poe. The reason for his visit to Stoke Newington was not Charlie or Mr Frant. Charlie’s friend Edgar Allan was the object of his interest.”
“Allan? The son of the American who lives in Southampton-row? The Mr Allan who was badly hit when the tobacco market collapsed?”
“I cannot comment on Mr Allan’s business dealings, sir, but he is certainly the father of Edgar Allan – or rather the foster father. Young Edgar makes no bones about the fact that he has been adopted. This David Poe claimed to be his natural father.”
“Why should he turn up now after all these years?”
“He hoped for money.” I hesitated. “I think, too, there may have been an element of paternal affection in him. Or at least of curiosity.”
Carswall blew his nose long and loud into a large yellow handkerchief. “I do not understand. On the second occasion, he gave them money.”
“Yes, sir. I can only infer that in the interim Mr Poe’s material circumstances had considerably improved.”
Carswall consulted his watch. “There is another point: Mrs Frant made it quite clear that on that first occasion the man was interested in Charlie, not in the other boy.”
“I believe it probable that Poe made a mistake. I should make it clear that at the time the man seemed inebriated. Also, there is a certain resemblance between the two boys.”
“A double, eh?”
“Not precisely, sir. There is a similarity, no more than that.”
Carswall threw the butt of his cigar into the fire. “Tell me, were you able to establish where the man lives?”
“In St Giles. He would not say exactly where, but he informed me that he is often to be found at the Fountain, where