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denunciations joined by the wails of a baby.
    “It’s a small world, Wigan?” Blair asked.
    Rose said, “It’s a black hole.”

In the morning Blair found himself feeling strangely better. Malaria did that, came and went like a houseguest. He celebrated with a bath and shave and was eating a breakfast of cold toast and dry steak when Leveret arrived.
    “There’s some terrible coffee on the table,” Blair offered.
    “I’ve eaten.”
    Blair went back to his meal. He’d had nothing but soup or gin for a week and he intended to finish the remains on his plate.
    Leveret removed his hat respectfully. “Bishop Hannay is up from London. He has asked you to dinner tonight. I’ll gather you here at seven.”
    “Sorry. I don’t have anything to wear.”
    “The Bishop said you would say that and I should tell you not to worry. Since you are American, people will assume you don’t know to dress for dinner.”
    “Very well, you can go back to His Grace and tell him that his insult has been delivered. See you at seven.” Blair returned to his steak, which had the texture of incinerated rope. He became aware that his visitor hadn’t moved. “You’re just going to stand there? You look like a doorstop.”
    Leveret edged toward a chair. “I thought I’d accompany you this morning.”
    “Accompany me?”
    “I was John Maypole’s best friend. No one can tell you as much about him as I can.”
    “You assisted the police?”
    “There hasn’t been a real investigation. We thought he was away, and then … well, he still may be away. The Bishop doesn’t want the police involved”
    “You’re the Hannay estate manager, haven’t you got things to do, cows to tend, tenants to evict?”
    “I don’t evi—”
    “What’s your first name, Leveret?”
    “Oliver.”
    “Oliver. Ollie. I know Russians in California. They’d call you Olyosha.”
    “Leveret will do.”
    “How old are you?”
    Leveret paused, like a man stepping into high grass. “Twenty-five.”
    “The Hannay estate must be quite a responsibility. Do you evict aged tenants personally or do you have a bailiff for that?”
    “I try not to evict anyone.”
    “But you do it. You get my point? No one is going to talk confidentially to me if I have you at my side.”
    Leveret looked pained. Besides making his point, Blair had meant to offend him; if brushing him aside with a paw left him scratched that was fine, but Leveret seemed to take the exchange as his own fault, which irritated Blair more. The man had an inward expression, as if the failing of the world was due to himself.
    “I was in Africa, too. In the Cape Colony,” Leveret said.
    “So?”
    “When I heard you might be coming here, I was thrilled.”
    * * *
    Blair visited the newspaper office next to the hotel and Leveret followed.
    Eight pages of
The Wigan Observer
were posted on the wall, announcing auctions of farm stocks and sawmills, vivid church pantomimes, complete railway timetables. Advertisements, too, of course. “Glenfield’s Starch Is the Only Kind Used in Her Majesty’s Laundry.” The
Illustrated London News
was also offered; its front page was devoted to the Lambeth Slasher.
    “You notice there are no washday encomiums from the Slasher,” Blair pointed out. “Now there would be an endorsement.”
    Punch, The Coal Question
and
The Miners’ Advocate
were offered to men,
Self-Help, Hints on Household Taste, The Englishwoman’s Review
to ladies. There were local histories like
Lancashire Catholics: Obstinate Souls
, and for the popular reader a selection of sensational novels about Wild West cowboys and Horse Marines. Glass cases displayed stationery, fountain pens, stamp boxes, steel nibs, India ink. A wooden rail divided the shop from an editor in an eyeshade scribbling at a desk. On the walls around him were framed photographs of derailed locomotives, gutted houses and mass funerals.
    Blair called Leveret’s attention to the railway time-table in the newspaper.