Another weary fourteen hours spent scouring this ragged patch of so-called town, and no end in sight. I told the boys, “Call it a night,” and hit the pub. Two dozen years upon the force have taught me how to read a man better than most. The man at the bar had a story of his own, and an itch to tell.

“A round for the room,” I said, “and put it on my tab.” (We’d been a fortnight here in town, and the barman recognized my badge.) I tipped my glass — all seemingly offhand — at the gentleman.

He said, “I thank you for the drink, and beg your pardon for my meager company. I can’t say as I have very much to say, at least not of late.” I smiled to put him at his ease. Explained my own presence in town indifferently, “I’m on the trail of a pair of vicious fiends who absconded east.”

“I’ve heard the tale,” he said. “The press does love it so. They say they vanished hide and hair and left their families in the ground.” I swallowed back my bitter pride and allowed that it was true.

“But come now, that’s not what’s on your mind.” He said that I was more than right. “Good constable, you cannot know how sorely I’ve been wronged by my own flesh and blood. My vile and most ungrateful son ran away to join the carnival last month. His path went cold in the forest by my home. Now I am all alone.”

And at that moment Providence displayed its hand. The answer so unknowingly delivered by this wretched man. I scarce remember my good-byes, I was in the street so fast. I threw wide the hostel doors and shouted up my men. “We’ll need provisions for the road, and all the horses you can get. I know where our quarry may have gone. We’ve a carnival to catch.”