The streets were deserted, curtains drawn in nearly every house we passed, and only the lamps of the bigger streets were lit. We walked in silence; I was glad to see the men solid on their feet. When we rounded a corner, the modest crowd standing outside the constable’s office was quite a shock. I had assumed I was being taken to his home. I had also assumed I was among the first few people to have heard of the constable’s demise. The chief inspector had a saying about assumptions: if one didn’t kill you first, you’d still be making them on your death bed. The chief liked making up such things, and delivering them as if they were accepted wisdom.

Mayor Eder ordered people aside, and as the crowd parted I caught sight of the young boy, Victor, among them.

‘You shouldn’t be here, Victor,’ I said. ‘Don’t you have an experiment to be working on?’

‘But I found him,’ the boy said.

I glanced at the mayor, who gave a small nod. I followed the other men into the constable’s office.

The room was cold. Colder than outside, that was the first thing I noticed. I couldn’t recall if I’d felt the same chill on my first visit. One of the men blew into their hands and I resisted the urge to do the same. Instead, I turned to examine the heavy door: its edges were intact, as was the lock, and there was no damage or sign of it being forced open.

Mayor Eder handed me a candle in a porcelain holder and more were passed between the men. We four were the only people inside, except for the constable.

‘Victor found him in the dark?’ I said.

Eder seemed surprised by the question. ‘I don’t know, Inspector. But I do know the room was dark when we arrived.’

‘And that was…?’

‘As soon as Victor had run home and raised the alarm, so to speak.’

‘Does he usually rise so early?’ I said.

‘He’s a child,’ Eder said with a shrug, a gesture of helplessness in the face of the mysteries of children.

‘He is your child, correct? A night birth?’

‘Yes, though perhaps that is a matter for another time?’

I stepped further into the room. The fireplace was still full of ash, though a small stack of logs was neatly piled next to it. The desk was as tidy as I remembered and, peering to the back, the cells appeared to be in a similarly normal state. The constable’s chair was a little way from the desk and at an angle, as if pushed back in a hurry.

‘Nothing has been touched. Victor touched nothing,’ Eder said, as I looked about the room.

The constable was beyond the desk. Curled up on himself, agony writ across his body as clearly as it was across his face. Constable Webber, dead, but bloodlessly so – which led me to wonder if the cause of death was a natural one. But I doubted if the mayor would send for me if that were the case. Still, there was no blood on the floor around the constable. No blood obvious on his body from where I stood; the work of a knife or pistol shot would have bled horribly. From the shape of him a severe blow to the stomach made some sense if there had been someone else involved. A blunt, heavy instrument might have struck him hard enough to kill, and kill him dry. But something about that seemed unlikely; perhaps how neat and normal the rest of the room looked.