The slick surface of the Thames, that July morning, was scattered with boats of all shapes and purposes, from the river wherry that carried Morton and Presley, to swimmies and stumpies, dobles and peter boats. Morton could see the lightermen on their barges, lying alongside or to anchors, waiting for the tide to turn, searching the sky for signs of a breath of wind below the bridges. The river was a high road of commerce and transportation through the heart of London and out to the sea and the great world beyond.
“Tide'll turn in two hour,” their waterman said. “Carry you back downriver afterward, sir, if you've a mind to return. I could tarry if ye not be too long.”
“We shan't be more than an hour or so, I wouldn't think,” Morton said.
“I'll abide then, if it pleases ye.”
Morton nodded his assent.
“Well,” Presley said, “we shan't find that poxy Frenchman in a temperance meeting. Beyond that the city is large, and we are few.”
“It is unfortunate. I thought Boulot too drunk to make any kind of escape, but when I returned to his rooms, I could find him nowhere.” Morton had waited for Jacobs, and the two of them had given the area around Maiden Lane a good combing. The estimable Boulot was not to be seen. Leaving Jacobs in Boulot's room, Morton had stumbled home in time to break his fast with Presley, and now the two were off to Barnes Terrace to keep the appointment with the Count d'Auvraye. Morton's poor brain hummed a high faint note from fatigue.
They'd found their waterman on the stairs at Beaufort Wharfs, where they'd also realised the reason for the early hour of their appointment-the count knew the tides on the river and when a boat might travel up to Barnes and when it might not.
Once they passed Vauxhall vinegar works, the London stench subsided rapidly, and it turned into a very fine morning to be on the water, with the summer sun shining, the green fields sliding by on either hand, and the casual traffic of barges and wherries causing no great congestion.
Morton had sent Wilkes with a note to Sir Nathaniel informing him of the talk he'd heard inside Boulot's room-threats of “assassinations”-but he'd felt a little foolish. After all, he had no notion of whom the victim might be. Or if, indeed, it really was to be an assassination, a murder, or was just wild talk.
“What are those Frenchies up to, then?” Presley wondered aloud.
Morton shrugged. “If Boulot is indeed a Bonapartist, then it would seem their intended victim must be a royalist of some stripe.”
“If they needed a ship, as you say, it could even be across the Channel.”
“I've thought the same thing. There are any number of prominent royalists who might be targets, including Louis himself.”
“Would you know them again were you to see them?” Presley asked.
“Nay, it were too dark, Jimmy. It's a demnable shame I couldn't keep hold of at least one of them.”
The younger man's beefy face frowned in thought as he squinted into the sun. He had his top hat on his knee, and the breeze was ruffling his thick brown hair. Morton watched as the steeple of St. Mary's, Chelsea, slipped slowly past on their right.
“Won't these folk have taken alarm now, what with them seeing you?” asked Presley.
“Perhaps. But I'm not sure they recognised I overheard any of what they said. They were skittish, though, that I'll say. I flushed them like a covey of quail. I wonder who they thought I was, for they ran me over before I said a word. They were fearful men. Fearful and suspicious.”
“Do you think they're the ones what murdered the count's mistress?”
“I don't know, Jimmy. They weren't visiting our drunken friend to buy wine, that's certain.” With that Morton lay down in the bottom of their wherry and let the ancient river rock him into a dreamless sleep.
Two hours later, as they came slowly around the final bend and Barnes village swung into view, Presley shook Morton awake. The two police men straightened themselves and put their hats back on, preparing to leave the untroubled world of the river behind. The elegant row of facades that made up Barnes Terrace was nestled prettily in the curve, rising over the stone wall against which the waters lapped. But now they caught a flurry of motion there.
“What's the to-do?” muttered Henry Morton. Through the screen of trees a crowd of people could be seen, milling about on the terrace. As they drew closer, a babble of voices drifted across to them.
As the boat nudged into the wall, they leapt ashore and climbed a set of slippery steps. The commotion when they got up to the top was intense. Somewhere a woman was weeping, crying out hysterically, then again weeping and sobbing. The front door of one house was open, and a group of apparent neighbours gathered there, whispering amongst themselves.
“What's happened?” Presley asked a woman.
“Happened?” she said. “Murder, sir! Coldhearted murder.”
“We're from Bow Street,” Morton said, and pointed toward the open door. “There?”
“Yes.” Then she called out to the people before the open door, “Call the constable, the Runners are here.”
The gathering on the steps gave way to let the Bow Street men pass inside, and a heavy red-faced man met them at the door.
“Good lord, sirs! How did you come so quickly?”
“We've come to Barnes on another errand,” Morton said. “But what has happened?”
This was clearly the village constable, who looked as though he might swoon. Nothing of the sort had happened to him before, and he was clearly unequal to the situation.
“Two of 'em, sir. Two! Master and man.”
Now Morton's eye caught the trail, the spotted spoor of red that led up the steps, and without even looking at the number, he knew whose house this was. He looked at Presley, who had made the same assumption, and then the younger man pressed himself past the constable and into the door.
“I didn't see them, sir,” the constable rambled on. “I've just come. Fetched by Mrs. Barkling.”
“This is d'Auvraye's house?” Morton asked. “Gerrard d'Auvraye?”
“So it is, sir.”
The Runner cursed.
“Morton!” Presley called from inside. His voice was hard. “Best come up.”
“None of you leave,” Morton ordered the crowd. “But keep yourselves back from this door.”
Inside, a man in servant's livery was sprawled facedown in the vestibule at the bottom of the stairs, his bald head toward them. A round pool of red spread visibly from his right side. Above him a bright rivulet of blood spilled, like a miniature waterfall, over the polished edges of the bottom three stairs, following him. Everything was motionless except that strange, slow falling of blood, as if the house were entranced. The crying of the woman was louder here, coming from the upper floor of the house.
The two Runners glanced at each other, and vaulting awkwardly over the body, Morton led the way upward.
“Who's there? Bow Street!”
At the top of the stairs they found that the voice of the woman, gasping and shrieking incessantly, came from the nearest of three open doors. Morton strode in. A bedchamber. A woman sitting on a chair, rocking, crying, her mouth contorted. Lying on his back on the silkencanopied bed, his hands spread out on each side, his head bent as if he were gazing down in fascination at his own bare chest, the white-haired corpse of the Count d'Auvraye. In his chest a round red hole.
“Surgeon! Send for a surgeon!” bellowed Presley back down the stairwell.
But Morton knew, as surely as if he'd seen a guillotine fall, that d'Auvraye was dead. He felt for a pulse in the neck, and though the body was still warm with life, no heart beat.
“The other chambers,” Morton said. The two Runners went down the hall, tense with readiness. But the rooms were empty-ordinary, sunlit, empty.
“This mustn't have happened more than ten minutes ago,” Presley said. “How far can they have gone?”
“Not far. Go out and see if you can find anyone who saw them and where they went.”
Presley nodded.
As his younger colleague ran back down the steps, Morton returned to the Count d'Auvraye's bedchamber. The young woman, gasping convulsively, looked up at him, desperate, her face swimming in tears. She was wearing housemaid's garb, Morton noticed.
“You are safe,” he tried to reassure her. “You are safe. We are the king's men.”
At this, the maid suddenly found her legs and with a wild cry leapt to her feet and rushed after Presley. Morton did not try to prevent her. He could hear her feet pounding rapidly downward.
“But you must not leave the house!” he called after her. For a moment more he looked at the dead man. The count was clad in a green silk-damask dressing gown, which had sagged open to reveal his motionless chest. On the floor beside the bed were the spilled and shattered contents of a breakfast tray, and the tray itself. Nothing else seemed out of order.
He went out of the room. From the bottom of the stairs the Barnes constable called up.
“Sir? This one's still alive!”
Morton clattered down the stairs. He and the constable and one of the bystanders lifted the man as gently as they could and laid him on his back on a long ottoman in the adjoining room. But there were two wounds in his chest, and the blood was coming fast. They applied hastily fashioned cloth compresses, but these were deep fountains, and nothing seemed to help. The man's eyes were squinted closed, in pain, and he was trembling. But he made no sound at all.
“What is his name?” Morton turned and demanded of the press of people who had edged into the room, despite his commands, and were watching.
“Armand, sir. French fellow-the count's butler.”
Morton bent urgently over him.
“Armand, there's a doctor coming, un medecin. We shall save you, bear up now, bear up, tu vas vivre.” The man made no response. It was not clear he had even heard. “Now Armand, if you can speak. If you can tell us, who was it did this? Qui a fait ca? Did you know them?” But now suddenly the butler's eyes did spring open, staring wide. He began to cough violently, spraying droplets of blood up onto Morton's face and neckcloth, and then to choke, in slow, retching, horrible convulsions. He was still choking a few moments later when the surgeon hurried in. Five minutes after that he was dead.
As the surgeon straightened, Morton slapped his hands together once in angry frustration and spun away.
Presley returned about an hour later. “It appears they went down the river,” he said, bleakly.
“Then they must have passed us!”
Presley nodded his head, chagrined. “Not a few boats went by while you slept.” He shrugged helplessly. “We pulled downstream a fair piece, but the tide's changed and swept them on toward the city. They might have gone ashore anywhere.”
“Un botiment,” Morton said to himself.
“A what?” There was always a touch of disapproval in the young man's voice when his friend spoke French. Certain kinds of knowledge did not reflect well on their possessors.
“A ship, Jimmy. That's what Boulot said, and I thought that's what he meant, but he was drunk. He must have meant a bachot-a wherry. His friends were saying they could not do it without his help.” Morton put his hands over his burning eyes for a moment. “And the other word I understood was assassiner-assassi-nate-but I did not understand it well enough.”
“Then you think it was our drunken Frenchman?”
“He had something to do with it, I'll wager, he and his Bonapartist friends.”
“And just minutes before we got here!” exclaimed the younger man. “A trice sooner, and we'd have had them! The nerve! In broad daylight!”
“Not just in broad daylight, but as the tide turned. They couldn't have done it before-not and escaped by the river. Look here.” Morton led him through the stillopen door and pointed at the red trail down the outside steps of the house. It was smudged from being trod on but visible yet. “One of them was wounded, and not just a scratch, by the look of it.”
As Presley bent to examine the trail, Morton went on:
“I have assembled everyone who might have aught to tell us. We'd do better to talk to them now, while it's fresh in their minds.”
The younger Runner rose. “Shall I start with them outside?”
“Aye. I will see what can be got from the servants.”
The village constable hovered, uncertain. Morton turned to him.
“Mr….?”
“Wainwright, sir, Silas Wainwright.”
“Mr. Wainwright, if you would be so good, perhaps you can attend me as I interview the women. I'm sure they will be reassured by the presence of a familiar face.”
“Thank you, sir,” stammered back the constable gratefully. “Anything I can do, sir, to be of assistance.”
Morton led him through into the small parlour at the back of the building. Here the domestics of the house sat waiting; this was a larger establishment than that of Angelique Desmarches, and there were half a dozen people in the room. Most of them had small crystal glasses in hand, held with an odd, unfamiliar primness. In the centre of the carpet, on a small pedestal table, lay a wooden-stocked flintlock pistol. Morton recognised the thin-faced, bow-mouthed young maidservant from upstairs, calmer now, eyes red but no longer weeping. Beside her sat an older woman, with an arm protectively round her shoulder. As Morton came in, this latter woman released the younger and rose.
“I am Mrs. Barkling, sir. I have taken the liberty of dispensing some sherry-wine for the female domestics, as a prop to them, given the circumstances.”
“I am sure it is justified, ma'am. I will vouch for you, if asked.”
Mrs. Barkling's eye was steady and her voice strong and deep. She wore a coarse grey-blue smock and an apron over her stocky figure, and Morton's observant glance caught a piece of white sticking-plaster on the bottom of one of her ears.
“I am normally a downstairs maid, sir. But I do some cooking and other work when the count's proper chef is up in London with the family, and I generally have charge of things. We are ready to tell you what we saw. Miss Boynton and I saw the most, so perhaps you will wish to begin with us.”
“Let us do that,” Morton said. He remained standing, using his great height to advantage. He could be an intimidating presence when necessary.
“Gladys?” As the cook turned to the younger woman, her voice softened. “Are you up to it, my girl?” The maid swallowed and nodded dimly.
“Begin with your name,” Morton said.
“Gladys Boynton,” the young woman said hoarsely.
“And where were you when this all began, Miss Boynton?” Morton asked softly. “What did you see and hear?”
“I was serving the count his breakfast, sir,” she began, punctuating her discourse with deep gasps, as though still unable to catch her breath after what had happened, “and suddenly I heard two very loud reports downstairs. I-I dropped my tray.” She took two long deep breaths. “At almost the same moment the door was flung open, and a man strode into the chamber.” She covered her eyes, gasped several times. “He raised a pistol and… and he just…sh-sh-” Sobbing interrupted her, and Mrs. Barkling gravely comforted her, slipping her arm again around the younger woman's frail shoulders, while the others watched with blank sombre faces.
“He just sh-shot him, without so much as a word, and th-then amp;” Her tears were even stronger now, as some greater crisis in her story seemed to have been reached. Morton leaned forward, his bowels tightening. Another young woman, another violent intruder. “And th-then, he… produced another pistol, and pointed it at me, and-” Again she had to pause, as Morton waited, his face set. “I th-think he was going to…to do something… but then Andrea, Mrs. Barkling, that is…was calling up from below the stairs… and he stopped… and he went down… and there was another shot…and I thought he had killed her… and I can't remember any more!”
“Nay, good lass, good, 'tis well done. There was no more.” Mrs. Barkling gave another reassuring squeeze with her arm before removing it, while others in the room sniffed and dabbed at their eyes in sympathy.
“Now, Miss Boynton,” said Morton, “did you know this man who came into the room?”
She shook her head.
“Are you certain that the Count d'Auvraye and he had no words, no words at all?”
“Yes-I mean no, they had none. The master and me just stared at him, so surprised we were.”
“And what did he look like?”
The attempt to recall the scene was obviously upsetting, and tears rose again. “I don't know! He were big!”
“I believe I may have seen him better, sir,” said Mrs. Barkling, and even smiled grimly. “I'll warrant I did.”
“Yes. Thank you, Miss Boynton.” Morton looked thoughtfully at her, as she dried her tears on Mrs. Barkling's proffered apron. He turned to the older woman.
“Mrs. Barkling, then, if you please. Perhaps from the start.”
“Very good, sir.” The contrast of the cook's voice and manner with that of young Gladys could hardly have been greater. Mrs. Barkling's self-possession was complete. There was even an edge of resentment in her tone as she told her story, a resentment whose source Morton could not quite discern. Was it the usual dislike of the Runners? Yes, probably, but something a bit more, as well. Something habitual, and just slightly contemptu-ous-part of the attitude with which this formidable woman faced the world.
“I had come up from the kitchen, sir, from the cellar, after finishing the count's omelette, and I was standing at the back garden door for a breath of air. Just here.” She pointed out the place, behind and around the corner from where Morton sat. “I heard Armand speaking to someone in the front hallway. He spoke in French, sir, which I don't understand. But he sounded surprised, which made me heed. His voice rose at the end, as if he were asking a question. The last word of what he was saying was monsieur, and 'twas a short sentence.”
“Was he angry? Frightened?”
“No, sir. Surprised.”
“Did the other answer?”
“Not so as I heard. Not in like manner.”
“Can you recall any of the other words Armand said, or what they sounded like?”
“I should not like to venture, were it a matter of evi dence before the bar, sir.”
“But merely as a guess, to assist us in our enquiries?”
“Very well, as such, then. I believe the other sounds may have included something like poor-kwah and zeesee.”
“Pourquoi etes-vous ici, monsieur?” ventured Henry Morton, after a moment's thought. “Did it sound like that?”
Mrs. Barkling's estimation of Morton's abilities seemed to rise. “Indeed, sir, it was very like that. And what does that mean, sir, if I may ask?”
“ ‘Why are you here, sir? ’ Please go on, ma'am.”
“Then there were two loud noises, shots, and I heard someone fall down the steps. Directly I went back downstairs and fetched my small cleaver, which lay on the cutting-board below, as I had been using it for the onions. 'Twas the first thing to come to hand, although there were better implements in the rack, I expect. While I did so, I heard a third report, from higher up in the house. As I came back up, I could hear Armand groaning in the front hall.”
“You did not stay in safety, in the kitchen?”
Mrs. Barkling's indignation rose. “Miss Boynton was upstairs, sir! I called to her as I came, telling her to hold fast and I would soon be there. As I came into the drawing room, I could hear the man coming down the stairs. I feared the worst, sir. I mean, that he'd done some harm to Gladys.” It was not fear that Morton saw in her bluntfeatured face now, but anger, the hunger for battle rising in her again as she remembered.
“Pray, continue.”
“The man and I reached the doorway from the drawing room together. We faced each other. There were no words between us, sir, as it was perfectly clear what both of us were about. He had pistols in both his hands, and he raised the one in his right hand and pointed it at my face, while at the same instant I struck at him with my cleaver. I hit his arm, here”-she patted her fore-arm-“and at the same second his pistol discharged and took off part of my ear.” Morton could see now the proof of this, dark stains on the back of her collar that were out of view before. He could see burns on that side of her cheek, too, from the closeness of the muzzle-blast. Mrs. Barkling had obviously tidied herself, washed off the black powder, and put on a fresh apron to cover most of the blood, but the angry red marks on her face remained.
“So,” she said, “then we stood a moment taking breath and looking at each other. The pistol had fallen from his grip-here it is.” Morton reached for the weapon on the little table and examined it as Mrs. Barkling continued. “For my own part, I still had my cleaver in hand, so I think he decided to try no more throws with me. He ran out the door. Then upstairs I heard the blessed sound of Miss Boynton's voice, weeping and wailing. I thought of going up to her at once, but as she was giving such hearty voice, I felt sure she was not hurt, and it seemed better to fetch the constable from around the corner first. Then, after Mr. Wainwright went running on ahead, my legs went all to jelly, and I had to rest against a railing. 'Twas pure weakness, sir, and with my Gladys wanting me, but I admit it to you. After that I came on and arrived back here just as she ran back downstairs, and you gentlemen were helping Armand.”
“How much time had elapsed, ma'am, do you think?”
“It seemed long, but mayhap 'twas not. A matter of a few minutes. But you wished to know the appearance of this man, with whom I had the set-to. Firstly, he was a stranger to me-I never laid eyes upon him before. Secondly, he was a very large man, as Miss Boynton has said, above six feet, and eighteen or nineteen stone. He wore tradesman's garb, sir, or that of a mechanic- rough breeches and an old woolen shirt, open at the neck. He had no proper beard, but he had not shaved of several days, neither. His hair was… no, sir, I cannot recollect anything of his hair. His eyes-they were black, or brown. Yes, I can aver so. Not blue. Oh, yes. His teeth were crooked, and gappy, and stained. Yes, his mouth was a fright.”
Morton waited as Mrs. Barkling considered. But she could call back nothing more, so he asked: “The other man, ma'am. Did you see him?”
“No, sir, I did not.”
“Are you quite sure there were two?”
“There were four shots fired in all, sir. Does that not suggest two men, each with two pistols? I think the second man had already gone out the house door when I encountered the other. The door was open.”
“Did the count say or do anything that seemed unusual or out of place to you, Mrs. Barkling?”
“Well, sir.” She considered. “He were… moody, Mr. Morton. Not his usual self, and he and Monsieur Rolles were closeted up, talking-even more than usual.”
The count had cast off his mistress for betrayal, and then she was murdered. Morton would have been more surprised to find that the old man was not moody.
“Did anyone visit?”
“No, sir. No one since the Count d'Auvraye arrived yesterday afternoon. He comes here to get away from all that, I think, Mr. Morton. I've never been there, but it's said his house in London is a regular hive of comings and goings.” She raised a finger. “Though there was one man, sir, last week when the count was in residence.”
Morton leaned forward. “Who?”
“I am sorry to tell you I don't know his name. None of us liked the looks of him, though. The master seemed to feel the same way, and so did Monsieur Rolles. They were both very agitated after he'd left.”
“You mention Monsieur Rolles, ma'am. I do not see him here today. Did he not come down from London, then? I mean, this time.”
“He came with the count yesterday afternoon. But then the count sent him back to London, in the early evening. I believe he had a message of some sort for him to deliver. After that the count was alone. Neither Madame Countess, nor the two misses, nor anyone else were with him last night. But 'twas not unusual.”
“What did last week's visitor look like?”
“A man of normal height, aged some thirty years, dressed as you might expect a foreign music-master or wine-agent to dress. Nothing much to distinguish him, sir, except that he had a red stain on his head-a raspberry-mark.”
Morton sat back and gazed at the estimable Mrs. Barkling. Boulot, again.
“How did these two men get into the house?” he wondered aloud. “I suppose Armand must have answered the door and let them in. Did anyone hear the knocker?”
None of the women in the room could recall hearing it. Morton spent some time questioning these other women, while Mrs. Barkling listened impassively, side by side with Gladys Boynton. No one else had seen either of the two men or heard Armand's words. Most of them had been either in the kitchen or on the second floor. One had been out to market. At the sound of shots, they had all hidden themselves. One or two had seen the visitor the previous week but could say nothing more about him. There had been an air of secrecy about his visit.
Finally Henry Morton drew back, and his attention returned to Mrs. Barkling. One strong hand lay in her aproned lap, and her severe features were set in a frown. Morton's imagination called back to his mind's eye the moment of confrontation. The peaceful house suddenly, unexpectedly, erupting with noise and terror. And below, that unhesitating response, reaching for a weapon and heading straight for the danger itself. Then, face-to-face with murder-and not backing down.
“I salute you, ma'am,” he said, moved. “You are a woman of spirit. The wound you inflicted will not be easy to conceal. With luck, you have delivered these vicious persons into our hands.”
But Mrs. Barkling was impervious to flattery. Her response was sharp.
“See that they are caught and hung, sir, and you'll repay our trust in you. Innocent working folk are not to be threatened in their places of employment, whilst going about their proper tasks. Now, if you have nothing more, we must be about laying out these two bodies.”
He asked them not to do this yet, as the coroner would very certainly need to see them in their current condition. He would surely be up from London before the day was out and would also doubtless be planning an inquest. They should rest now, and after he had taken a last look at things as they lay, they could perhaps put the house to rights. He warned them, too, that there would be an onslaught of people-officers of the crown but also writers from the newspapers, and the merely curious. A double murder, and one of them of a notable foreign personage, was not so usual a thing in England.
He found Jimmy Presley in the White Hart, the tavern at the west end of the terrace, where he had set up shop in the taproom, questioning the townsmen.
“There are a half dozen of them as say they saw the murderers, Morton. Four of them say there was but two, and the other two, they say there were three.”
Morton tossed his hat down on the oaken table and laid the murderer's pistol beside it with a sigh. He gestured to the tapster for refreshment.
This was about average. Folks' stories never matched up exactly. The third man might have been one of the party, or an unrelated man, glanced in the distance. Or he might have been a product of the imagination altogether.
“How did they describe them?”
This too was not very consistent. The large man, whom Mrs. Barkling had wounded, seemed to come through in some of the descriptions, as did the not-very-helpful observation that the other man was smaller. No one mentioned anything that sounded particularly like Boulot. But plainly enough no one had seen any of the men close up or for more than an instant.
Morton picked up the pistol that lay on the table and turned it slowly in his hands. The caustic odor of black powder still clung to the steel. A fine inlay of silver wire decorated the grip and stock, and upon the lock a stand of arms stood proud. It was a greatcoat pistol, smaller than a duelling pistol-about ten inches long. It was not a new gun, dated 1783, though by the looks of the steel it had been lightly used. The maker's name, engraved upon the barrel, was Twigg, London.
“That's a fine gun,” Presley said.
“Yes.” Morton tested the grip. “Made for someone with a small hand.” He held it up, aiming toward a post not a few feet away, cocked it, and pulled the trigger. A small shower of sparks scattered off the steel as the flint struck. He slid the gun across the table to Presley. “See if you can find its mate,” the older Runner said.
Presley picked up the pistol, gave it a cursory examination, then slid it into a pocket. “I shall go speak with Mr. Twigg, gun maker.”
“Unfortunately, John Twigg left the gun maker's trade before you were born.” Morton glanced round the room. “We shall have to linger here until the other Bow Street men arrive,” he said, as he received his ale and bread. “Then we're for London again, to speak with the count's family and consult with Mr. Townsend. We need to find Boulot more than ever now.”
Presley wanted to know what the maidservant had seen, and Morton relayed to him the tales he had heard in the house. At the description of Mrs. Barkling's battle with the tall intruder, the young Runner whistled.
“All to protect her master. There's loyalty.”
“I'm not so sure it was her master she was protecting,” Morton said quietly. But he went no further. There were certain kinds of truth he suspected Jimmy Presley was not quite ready for, and Morton had no desire just now to listen to shocked denunciations or crude jests. His knowledge of Mrs. Barkling, and everything she was, he kept for himself, in a place he could do it honour.