Page 91 of Corpse in the Canal

“I think you’re listed in this book of debts: AD. He hadn’t forgotten about you.”

“His father will cough up the quarter’s pay,” Darren said gruffly. “That’ll do till I get another position.”

“We’re going to take the book,” Janey said. “I’ll write you a receipt for it, though.”

When they left the building, Lenny offered her his arm, as he often did, just as though she were a lady. Or at least respectable. It still gave her a thrill to touch him, to walk with him.

“I think,” Lenny said, “I have to track down Hope the shady moneylender. Mrs. Grey asked us to, after all.”

“You ain’t going alone, Lenny Knox, so never think it.”

“I’m certainly not taking you with me.”

“Lenny, I know these kinds of people. I grew up with them. You’ll never even find him without me, and if you do, you’ll likely wind up as dead as Percy Harvey. We go together, and that way we might stay alive.”

*

Dr. Owens breezed into Solomon’s temporary bedchamber not long after nine o’clock in the morning. He seemed to be in a rather better frame of mind, so Constance made the most of it, flattering his care of Solomon’s wound—which the doctor pronounced clean and doing well—and the neatness of his stitches.

“Are you the only doctor in Channing?” she asked artlessly as he applied fresh ointment to Solomon’s head and reached for a fresh dressing. “I don’t wonder you are always so busy.”

“There is another physician in the town, but I am still more favored by the respectable families.”

By which she understood he meant the wealthy families.

“But you also have poorer patients,” she reminded him. “Because I know you were in that part of town the day Percy Harvey came home.”

Owens’s lips thinned slightly, though he merely nodded and began winding the bandage around Solomon’s head.

I wonder if you were there at all, Constance thought. And if you weren’t…

Solomon clearly had the same thought, for he said, “Perhaps you saw the vicar there that day.”

“I may have noticed his carriage standing in the street,” Owens muttered. “I can’t quite recall. I often see it while he is visiting his flock, so the occasions don’t stand out. Not when one is busy.”

“Of course, it is a large area to cover for one man,” Constance said sympathetically. “But perhaps your daughter is able to help to some degree?”

“Of course she does. She keeps my appointment book, delivers medicines on occasion, visits a few of my convalescing patients, that kind of thing. And, of course, she keeps house for me.”

“Which will stand her in good stead when she marries,” Constance said. “Although you are bound to miss her terribly when she does.”

“Every father must prepare himself for such an event.”

“Is it imminent?” Constance asked bluntly.

Owens hesitated. “There is little opportunity for her to meet eligible suitors. But I have hopes.”

Constance smiled expectantly, catching and holding his gaze, but he said no more, merely tied off the bandage and rose to his feet.

“Unless you see any signs of infection, you should not need me again. Just change the dressing each morning. A doctor will have to remove the stitches, of course, in a week or so, but I imagine you will have returned to London by then. Good day!”

“Interesting,” Solomon murmured as the doctor’s footsteps faded away. “Did he invent seeing the vicar’s carriage to make us believe in his presence in that part of town?”

“Maybe. We couldn’t find any patient visited by the doctor that day, could we? Though our search was hardly exhaustive. But if Percy was annoying Penelope too, getting in the way of her marriage prospects with Everett…”

“We need to talk to Penelope. And to Everett.” Solomon threw back the covers and began to climb out of bed. Constance hurried to steady him, but he showed no signs of unbalancing.

“Back to Channing House first to change,” she suggested. “And then perhaps you should rest while I visit our suspects.”