A Pale Horse - Charles Todd [5]
“Is this Crowell, then?” he asked, lifting his gaze to Constable Hood, his voice flat.
“No, sir. I’ve seen Mr. Crowell, sir. He comes sometimes to The Dog and Cart—that’s the pub near Dilby. A quiet man. Before the war he was schoolmaster in Nether Bromley, and now he’s at Dilby School. Well respected, from what I’m told.”
The younger constable stirred. “He was a conscientious objector in the war, sir. I’ve heard my father speak of it.”
Madsen turned his gaze to Constable Pickerel. Pickerel’s father had been a policeman as well, retiring from the Elthorpe force as sergeant just at the end of the war. Six months before Madsen himself arrived. “How does your father know what Crowell did in the war?”
“My father also drops in to The Dog and Cart from time to time. It’s the talk there, some evenings.” Madsen was still staring at him, and Pickerel found himself adding, “The pub was never on his patch, you might say, and he likes that. Nobody to bring up what’s past.”
The next village over might as well be in a foreign land, in the eyes of most. Though the war had changed that notion to some extent, people clung to their prejudices.
“Does he never come to Elthorpe? Crowell?” Madsen asked him.
Pickerel glanced at Hood for confirmation. He shook his head.
Madsen held up the book. “Then he’s made an exception last night. Maybe he can tell us who it is we have on our hands.”
Later that morning he found the schoolmaster in a classroom, seven or eight boys busy with a project involving, as far as Madsen could tell, catapults and castle walls of small mud bricks.
Crowell came out to speak to the inspector. Madsen tried not to stare at him like a specimen under glass, but this was the first time he’d set eyes on the man. Youngish, with that fair slimness that came from long lines of pedigree. His manner was composed, and his voice well bred. Glasses perched on the end of his nose, and he removed them as if suddenly aware that they were there.
If he felt any anxiety about confronting an inspector of police, he hid it well.
“Inspector Madsen, isn’t it?” Crowell extended his hand. “What brings you to Dilby? Not one of my students, I hope.” He smiled and nodded his head toward the half-closed door behind him. “They’re a handful, but there’s no meanness, I can tell you that.”
“Yes, sir.” Madsen took the proffered hand, then held out his own to Constable Hood just behind him. Hood passed him the book. “Can you tell us, sir, if this is by any chance your property?”
Crowell took it, frowning. “Yes, here’s my name in it, but if you’d asked me, I’d have told you my copy is in the bookshelf in my office.”
“Shall we have a look?”
Crowell cast a glance into his classroom. Three of the lads were staring back at him, their eyes large with alarm, as if the police had come for them. He made a mental note to discover what mischief they’d been up to, and said repressively, “Young Tredworth, mind you finish your section of the wall. Don’t be standing about just because I’m not there. That applies to your workmen as well. I want to see progress when I return.”
Hugh Tredworth ducked his head and turned back to his task. His cronies followed his example with suitable haste. “Very well, then,” Crowell said to the policemen, and led the way.
As Madsen followed him down the passage, he asked Crowell, “Interested in alchemy, are you, sir?”
“Not particularly. When I teach science, I often make more progress with something that’s exciting than I do with dull experiments. I say, how did you come by this? It’s an old book, I doubt it’s still in print.”
“We’ll attend to that in a moment, sir. This your office, is it?”
Crowell went in and crossed directly to the low bookshelf behind his desk. But when he put his finger out to tap his copy, the finger stopped in midair. “It isn’t here.” He turned back to Madsen, frowning. “I’m at a loss to explain how it got