Chapter 27

He dragged himself out of his slough of grief and shock after lunch and went round to Archie’s digs. He roomed in a boarding house in Stepney and his landlady knew Lew to say ‘good morning’ and was happy to let him in on her way out to the chemist, to ‘wait for young Mr. Fornham.’

Archie’s room was a bit of a mess. Clearly Mrs. Aitken didn’t come in to clean and tidy often. The blankets were roughly pulled up to the pillows and there were dirty socks on the floor by a discarded pair of shoes. A small bureau in the corner was open with papers spilling out; that gave Lew pause, as his impression of Archie was that he was more careful than that and he’d never seen the bureau open before when he’d visited.

He examined the bureau carefully. It looked as if the lock had been forced. Gingerly, he reached out with his Othersense and touched it. Definitely recent. He shivered. Someone fiercely angry had been here and gone through Archie’s things.