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call home. Also, I suspect that the squalor of the place was its main attraction, rather as some people form an affection for a mangy old cat because it is so revolting and unlovable.
    Hozwicki was there, as I had hoped. Not an easy fellow, Stefan Hozwicki, but his appeal was his diligence. He was unpopular amongst his fellows, with a reputation for being somewhat superior. This was unwarranted; he was merely very antipathetic. It was near impossible to like him and few had tried. I had made some efforts—thinking when he had begun about eighteen months previously that I could show him the ropes, as others had done for me. Hozwicki did not want instruction, which he considered patronising, and in truth he was a good reporter. Alas, he had never realised that writing good stories is only a small part of the job. Standing around, complaining about editors, moaning about this, that and the next thing is far more important. Cameraderie is all.
    By all means keep a scoop to yourself; that is expected. But do not hoard the unimportant. Most stories are picked up because a colleague tips you off, and expects to be tipped off in turn. Hozwicki saw all of life as a competition. He would never tell anyone anything. Instead of relying on, and contributing to, the pool of information offered up in the bar every morning, he went round all the police stations on his own. If he discovered something others had missed, however trivial, then he would keep it quiet. He was ambitious and was determined to make something of himself, no matter what others might think.
    I do not know whether he would ever have achieved his ambitions; he died at the Front in 1915, the victim of his own diligence. When others became war reporters, he joined up, determined to show himself a true Englishman, despite his name and place of birth—which was, I believe, Poland. And while his fellows kept their heads down in their trenches, he volunteered for nighttime scouting. His body was never found.
    He greeted me with little warmth, but at least he didn’t sidle off down the bar as I approached. “I’ve been doing the Hill End murder all day,” he said. Conversation did not come naturally to him. He either spoke to communicate information, or he was silent. At least it spared me the burden of having to make light conversation in return. Hozwicki was the only reporter in London who would not be offended by directness.
    “Did you write about Ravenscliff when he died?”
    He grunted. Was I about to point out a mistake? Offer some supplementary information? Was an answer to his advantage or disadvantage? He could not yet tell.
    “Yes,” he said.
    “Tell me. It’s an old dead story. You lose nothing. And might gain something in the future.”
    His eyes narrowed. “What?”
    “Whatever I discover. Have you heard that I’ve resigned?”
    He hadn’t. I felt a little offended. As I say, we are a gossipy bunch. I didn’t flatter myself that my departure would have been high on the list of interesting anecdotes, mind, but I had expected word to have gone around a little more quickly.
    “I have. So anything I find which might make a decent story will not be written up by me. Do you understand?”
    He nodded.
    “Good. I want to know why it took three days for Ravenscliff’s death to appear in the papers.”
    “Because the police didn’t tell anyone before then.”
    I frowned. “But why not?”
    “I imagine the family wanted it that way. They do that, these people. They ask the police, the police obey.”
    Something to ask Ravenscliff’s widow on our next meeting. “How do you know this?”
    Simple, in his account. He had gone to Bow Street police station, as he always did, at half-past nine in the morning. It was his last call of the day; he lived in the deepest East End and started with the City police stations at about five, working his way west on his bicycle round about the same time as I was heading east to work.
    “Normally, they just turn the duty