Murray went on foot down the drive and around to the tradesman’s entrance. The kitchen door was opened by an aproned girl, and the odor of onions assaulted him. He snatched off his bowler hat. “Mrs. Thompson, please,” he said humbly.

The girl took in his green bow tie, checked tweed suit, and bowler hat. “I s’pose ye’re ’ere ’bout the oysters,” she said enigmatically.

“Actually, I-” Murray said.

“Ye’d better come in, then, and face up to it.” The girl opened the door. She turned and bawled, over her shoulder, “It’s a man ’bout them bad oysters, Miz Thompson.” She went into the scullery to carry on with the washing up, making a great show of banging the pots and pans.

Sally Thompson was a large woman with a round face and a cross expression. Her gray hair was curled like a large snail at the back of her neck, and her bulbous nose was red and covered with a spidery web of blood vessels. With a glower, she looked up from her work at the pine table, where she was elbow-deep in a tub of bread dough. The offending onions were cooking in a cast-iron fry pan on the coal range.

“I can’t take the respons’bility fer them oysters,” she said in a dark tone. “Ye’ll ’ave to talk to Mrs. Darwin. She wuz terr’ble upset, ’cause there was fourteen t’dinner, including Perfessor Kelvin, ’oo is partic’lar fond of oysters.” She gave him a knowing look. “I’m sure ye can guess wot ’appened after that.”

Murray preferred not to think about it. “I’m very sorry about the oysters, Mrs. Thompson,” he said contritely, “but that is not why I’ve come. I was sent by Mr. Thompson’s cousin Angus.” In the scullery, there was a lull in the banging of the pots.

Mrs. Thompson looked momentarily confused, as if she were having difficulty associating her dead husband’s cousin and the misadventure of the oysters. Then her expression cleared. “Oh, Angus,” she said, and turned a large lump of dough out of the tub onto the floury table. “ ’Ow is the old devil?”

“Oh, he’s quite well, thank you.” Murray added, inventively, “He asked to be remembered to you. With affection.”

Mrs. Thompson put her head on one side and smiled reminiscently, raising her voice over the sound of pot-washing, which had once again resumed. “Angus was allus me fav’rite on that side of the fam’ly.” She floured her hands and began to knead the dough with a vigorous push and pull. “Why’d ’e send ye?”

“He and I both are eager to get in touch with your brother,” Murray said. “It’s a matter of some importance, I’m afraid.”

“Eddie?” Mrs. Thompson’s eyes flickered. She frowned. “Wot’s ’e done now?”

“Oh, nothing,” Murray said hastily. “Nothing at all. But it is possible that he may have some information about an accident in Newmarket. Angus thought you might happen to know where he is.”

Mrs. Thompson kneaded more vigorously. “Are ye from the p’lice?”

“No, ma’am. As I said, your cousin sent me. He is as anxious as I am to be in touch with Eddie.”

“Well, it’s no good talkin’ to me,” Mrs. Thompson said, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “Ye’re on a wild-goose chase.” Into another pause in the washing-up clatter, she added, “I ain’t seen Eddie since Boxing Day. ’E don’t come ’ere much. We ain’t been wot ye might call close since our poor dear mother died.”

“Oh, dear,” Murray said. “That really is too bad.” The scullery remained silent. “You’re sure you can’t give me some clue to his whereabouts? It’s awfully urgent, I’m afraid. A man’s life may depend on his information.” He paused. “I’d be glad to make it worth your while.”

Mrs. Thompson turned the pliant dough and pummeled it as though it were the truant Eddie. “I ain’t me brother’s keeper,” she snapped. “Off with ye now. If ye can’t ’elp with the oysters, ye’re no good to me.”

Murray turned, catching the flash of an apron at the scullery door. “If you hear of him,” he said, putting one of his cards on the table, “I can be reached at this address.”

For answer, Mrs. Thompson only assaulted the dough more energetically. Murray put on his hat and went to the door. “Thank you,” he said loudly. “I’ll be off now.”

He went out, leaving the door open a little behind him. Ten paces down the path, he stepped into the shrubbery and waited.

He didn’t have to wait long. Inside two or three minutes, the surly girl had joined him. He put his hand in his pocket and felt for a coin.

“Where is he?” he asked in a low voice.

The girl looked at the coin and gave a scornful grunt. “Thought ye said ’twas a man’s life.”

Murray added a second coin.

“ ’E’s down there,” the girl said with a nod toward the river. “At the cottage on the bank, just down from the bridge. That’s where she lives, the old witch. But ye’d better ’urry. ’E’s leavin’ today. ’E’s goin’ t’America.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you very much.”

But she was already striding off, back to the scullery and a sink full of dirty pots and pans.

Charles and Murray made their way down an overgrown path toward the river, which still smelled of sewage, although drains had recently been installed throughout the town. Charles half smiled, remembering the story of Queen Victoria, being shown over Trinity College many years before by its master, Dr. Whewell, and asking, when she walked over the bridge, about the pieces of paper that were floating down the river. Dr. Whewell, with extraordinary presence of mind, had replied: “Those, Your Majesty, are notices that bathing is forbidden.”

The path dipped down to the riverbank. Ahead of them stood a small timber-framed Tudor cottage that might have been a bucolic addition to a romantic landscape painting, overhung as it was by a large weeping willow and fronted with a rose hedge in full bloom. Behind the cottage a small herd of cows was fording a shallow inlet on their way to their pasture at Sheep’s Green, and out on the river proper Charles could see two rowing teams in their sculls.

But the damp situation and the occasional spring rises of the River Cam had not done the cottage any good, and whatever pastoral romance it might have offered to a harried city-dweller in search of a weekend rural retreat was obscured by its dilapidated reality. The plaster on the walls had sloughed off, exposing the lath underneath; the thatched roof was ragged and pocked; the plank door sagged at an angle; and the window frame gapped so widely that, open or closed, there must be no want of fresh air indoors, especially when the winter winds blew. Through the dirty glass, Charles saw that the ground floor was one small, dark room, like a cave, brick-floored, with a fireplace at one end and a ladder at the other, reaching up through the low ceiling into a loft. Mrs. Sally Thompson seemed not to have made a great success of life, at least so far as material possessions might testify, for the room contained only a bare table, three chairs, and a narrow bed under a gray wool coverlet, pushed against the back wall. There was no china on the mantel, no pots of geraniums on the sill, no braided rug on the floor, no cozy cat warming itself by the fire-walthough an old black-and-white dog lay under the willow tree. Two empty whiskey bottles in the dustbin outside the door suggested one possible reason for the lack of niceties and knicknacks. Mrs. Thompson was fond of her tipple.

Inside the cottage, a slender man in a light-blue checked suit was just descending the ladder from the loft, a blue tweed cap on his head and a portmanteau in one hand. He turned toward the door just as Charles stepped inside, followed by Jack Murray, who was followed in turn by the dog, who stood just inside the doorway, scratching. They seemed to fill the small room.

The man looked up, his face draining of color, his eyes wide with sudden fear behind thick-lensed glasses. Then, seeing men whom he did not recognize, his fear turned to nervous belligerence.