“I can let you have four men from the Bayswater station.”
This was a police branch close by Paddington. “Thank you, Sir Richard.”
“For five hours. Not twelve.”
“Ah. Thank you.”
“I don’t have the time to fall out with Inspector Dunn today, either. So steer clear of him.”
“Happily, sir.”
Mayne looked away through the window to the Thames. It was busy—small ships crossing each other’s wakes, a few large ones turning fat into the tide, bound for the ocean after weeks in dry dock.
“What do you think it’s about, this murder? Is it really a problem for Manchester?” he asked. “The thing bothers me.”
Lenox shook his head. “I cannot say, sir. It’s too soon.”
“Hm.” Mayne tore the sheet off and handed it to Lenox. “Very well. On you go.”
Lenox crossed town to the Bayswater police station. He didn’t know anyone there, but they were friendly, and complied immediately with Mayne’s note. Lenox sent one of the five men they gave him straightaway to find the home of Joseph Beauregard Stanley—the stationmaster—and ask him whether he had known the conductor before the previous night.
The remaining four he took to Paddington. There he was able to discover, from the logs, the name of the gentleman who was scheduled to have been the conductor of the 449 the evening before: Mr. Norman Haase.
This accomplished, he set about hiring horses. There was no horse path along the railroad, but Lenox didn’t need one—for a very specific reason.
Though the number seemed arbitrary, it was not accidental that the width between railroad tracks all across England was exactly four feet eight and a half inches, measured from the inside of each track. It was because that was the width of a horse-drawn wagon.
At the turn of the century, it had been horses that carried coal out of the mines by the ton. This job was easier if there were metal tracks laid down upon which the wagons could roll.
Ever enterprising, it was coal barons who, forty or more years before, had understood the potential use of locomotion in their line of work. Indeed, many of the first, tiny rail lines to exist had traveled between coal mines and nearby depots.
What this meant for Lenox was that he could hire four horses from a stable near Paddington, divide them into pairs pulling small dog carts, and move with ease along the train tracks that ran on either side of the line upon which the 449 had traveled into London.
Lenox explained all of this, with some small pride, to the two constables with whom he rode.
To his surprise, one of them, a tall, graying fellow called Simonson, said, “Not only that, sir—they were the same width exact for the war chariots of ancient Rome.”
They had been trotting at a good pace for ten minutes and were now perhaps half a mile away from Paddington. The additional tracks would split off in different directions after about a mile. Then they would have to ride on horseback, he figured.
“Is that so?” he said, curious.
“My father said as much, at least,” Simonson replied.
“How very interesting to know,” said Lenox. “They were marvelous, the Romans. Did you know—”
But just at that moment there was a cry from the pair of Bayswater constables on the other side of the track.
There, lying face up in the ditch between tracks, was the body of a man.
Simonson and Lenox crossed the tracks and came down from their horses, forming a small circle around the corpse.
“Well spotted, gentlemen,” said Lenox soberly.
It would have been easy to miss the body—so covered was all his skin and clothing in coal dust and dirt.
But he wore the unmistakable double-breasted cloak of a conductor. It must be Norman Haase. He lay there, pale in the few places where his skin was visible, eyes open but unseeing. His throat was cut.
CHAPTER SEVEN
That evening, after a brief stop at home to rinse his hands and face and change his shirt, Lenox, so tired that he felt he could barely make the twenty-step trip next door, dined with Lord Deere and Lady Jane.
Finding Haase’s body had completed their crime. If affirmation were necessary, the old stationmaster of the night before had indignantly told the young constable from Bayswater that no, he had never met the conductor before: “That’s railway business,” he’d said. “I’m a stationmaster. I attend to Paddington.”
(This was maddening old England, Lenox thought—its ability to divide into half-sealed compartments the fluid systems that interconnected to make up the world. The army office couldn’t possibly have the army documents, you would hear; those were of course at the documents office; and when you went to the documents office, they said that all army documents were kept at their military branch in Edgeworth; which was closed for reconstruction; and so on, until you ended up at a small post office in John O’Groats, begging for the Queen’s certificate of birth from a surly northerner who was drinking straight whisky and didn’t trust anyone who had set foot south of Hull city limits.)
Inspector Dunn had been just on the verge of leaving for Manchester when Lenox had hastened back to Scotland Yard with the news of the body by the tracks. The inspector had been furious with injured pride, so that it seemed whatever gains Lenox had made in Mayne’s estimation had been lost in Dunn’s. Fortunately, it was Mayne’s opinion that mattered, and he had granted Lenox the right to his own line of inquiry. The next day both would attend an early meeting at Scotland Yard.
He recounted all this in a drained, jumbled way to his hosts over a glass of preprandial sherry, which he found was most welcome—pleasantly softening the yellow candlelight flicker of the room, taking the hard edge off of his sensations. Arriving not much later to make up the rest of the quiet party were Lenox’s older brother, Sir Edmund Lenox, the 15th Baronet of Markethouse, and his wife, Molly.
The pair had been married about seven years and had two sons. Molly was a pretty, plump, countryish woman; not an intellectual, but more intelligent and intuitive than most of those who were better lettered than she, a superb judge of character with a quick laugh and an endearing manner.
They sat down and Charles resumed his tale. Among them, only Deere was not of very old childhood acquaintance—and he was such a decent fellow that you barely noticed.
“What a horrifying day,” said Lady Jane, after Charles had finished his story.
“Oh, no, I found it rather thrilling.”
They were in the drawing room. It was a blend of the couple’s tastes, full of portraits of Deere’s childhood beagles and his wife’s many books.
“What stop was closest to the body?” asked Edmund.
Edmund was abundantly occupied by the stewardship of Lenox House and its lands along with his duties in Parliament. But from the start he had been his younger brother’s staunchest supporter—and keenest auditor—in this choice of career.
“The body was thrown from the train long after Nuneaton,” Charles replied. He took a seed cracker with a morsel of Stilton; Lady Jane put cheese out before supper, one of her eccentricities as a hostess. “The last stop between Manchester and Paddington.”
“Have you spoken with any passengers from the train?” asked Jane.
“Not yet,” said Charles. “We must locate them first.”
“And you still have no idea who the young man was, the victim from last night,” said Molly, looking unhappy. “These poor fellows. You never hear of it happening in the country.”
“There I can contradict you, Lady Molly, if you won’t take offense,” said Deere. “For I will never forget what Thurtell answered when the Crown asked whether his and his fellow criminals’ supper was postponed after they murdered William Weare.”
“What did he answer?” said Molly.
“He said, ‘No, it was mutton.’”
They all laughed except Molly, who colored and said she hoped they weren’t having mutton for dinner. It was enough to remind Lady Jane (who assured
her they weren’t) that they ought to sit—for which Charles was grateful, as he wanted, just now, nothing more than a good meal.
Perhaps out of deference to Molly’s dislike of the subject of Lenox’s case, the chief topic of conversation during the meal’s first course, a clear autumn vegetable soup, was Sir Edmund’s stockings.
“Do you not like them?” he asked Charles, astonished, when his younger brother raised the subject.
Charles frowned. “I don’t know if that’s putting it quite strongly enough.”
Edmund gazed at him, wounded, and stuck a leg out from beneath the table. “They are from that town in Scotland with all the weavers—Paisley.”
“They should have stayed there.”
“Charles!” said Molly, then added, to Edmund, “I think they’re handsome, dear.”
Edmund looked as if he suspected a wife’s compliments might be less sincere than a brother’s insults, but thanked her. “My tailor particularly recommended them to me, you know, Charles. Your tailor, too, for that matter.”
Lady Jane said, “I am in accord with you, Molly. Charles has no sense of dress, Edmund. He never had.”
“To be truly elegant, one should not be noticed,” Deere observed. “It was Beau Brummel said that.”
Charles was still examining the stockings, which stood out so markedly, in turquoise and blue, from Edmund’s restrained black suit and shoes. “Well, I don’t see there being any risk of Edmund’s not being noticed, alas.”
“Oh, leave off,” responded Edmund moodily. “You never had any sense of dress.”
“We all still speak of Beau Brummel,” said Lady Jane, “so I suppose by his own definition he was a failure.”
“He died penniless, insane, and alone, as I recall,” Lord Deere replied.
“Unnoticed, then,” said Lady Jane. “Elegant at last.”
Deere laughed, and said it was true. After the soup, a chaudfroid of salmon with hot buttered potatoes came out, and proved delicious with their chilled white wine. It was followed by a dish of roasted turkey covered with a gravy of nutmeg, brandy, and onion. Lenox barely spoke—merely sighed and tucked in more deeply as each course arrived.
“This is really very nice,” Edmund remarked. “I don’t think I’ve had it here before, Jane.”
“It is a new recipe, given me by Lady Laura Gentry.”
Here she looked pointedly in any direction but Charles’s, and Edmund said innocently, “I only know her by name, but I am certainly impressed with her cookery.”
Which confirmed to Lenox (who was a detective, after all) that they had contrived a plan together for him to marry her—whoever she might be, Lady Laura Gentry.
“She was presented at court just two weeks ago. Beautiful—a cousin of Duch’s. She dances and paints.”
“At the same time?” said Charles. “Now I must see that.”
Lady Jane threw him a dark look. “Everything must be a joke to you.”
“You have my word that if Lady Laura dances and paints at once, I will attend the performance with the most solemn gravity.”
And at this even Jane was forced to smile.
As they ate and conversed, a happy party, much of Lenox’s train of thought nevertheless remained with the case, tracing and retracing his plans for the following day. But some time around the second glass of burgundy he drank, a deep ruby liquid, he was able to let the case go and join in the conversation, hearing about Molly’s works in the town of Markethouse and who conveyed their greetings to him from there, what the cricket team had been doing, and Sir Edmund’s hours in Parliament (he was a dependable vote on the liberal side, as their father had been, though he hadn’t any special interest in politics—preferring, as he said, horses).
Dessert arrived, a gooseberry fool with whipped cream. Here, before the sexes separated, Lord Deere stood up.
He held aloft a small leaded flint glass, clear, achingly thin—specifically designed, indeed, to make the purest of chimes during a toast—and traced in gold with his family’s crest. “A brief announcement, though it is Charles’s day.”
“Mine?” Lenox said. “I reject the notion.”
“I have just had my orders. We are to perform field exercises in Buckinghamshire for the next twelvemonth, which means that I shall be able to spend a great deal of my time here in London, for the first time as a married man.”
There were loud congratulations and clinking of the glasses all around—and indeed it was welcome news, for Deere had been traveling almost from the moment of his betrothal to Jane.
“Ask him why he is so happy,” she said in a derisive voice, though her face shone with unusual joy, her eyes brilliant and happy. “It is because two puppies are on their way here from his family’s stables as we speak.”
“It’s true that I did not want a dog until I knew I could train it properly myself—and that a handsome litter has just been whelped, according to my father’s groom—but of course the reason for my happiness is that I get to remain with my dear wife and”—here he graciously turned to each of them in turn, in his bearing that faultless squared-off uprightness of the military man—“her splendid friends. May I ask you to toast to Lady Jane?”
“To Lady Jane!” the company called in unison, Lenox included—happy, truly, for his friends.
Nevertheless, he was glad that he could soon make his excuses and drag himself home, more beast than man after thirty-six hours virtually without sleep, upstairs, and into bed, where within twenty minutes of the toast and twenty seconds of lying down he had fallen into a fast and dark and deep-fathomed slumber.
CHAPTER EIGHT
At eight o’clock the next morning, five people gathered in the office of Sir Richard Mayne. Besides Lenox and Sir Richard, there were Hemstock, who looked forlorn to be up at such an hour; Dunn, with his shining black hair and wretched angry look; and an official from the railway, whom Mayne did not introduce by name. This gentleman sat off to the side of the room, a heavy, silent presence. He carried himself as became a man of influence. He was well dressed, and gold glinted from his watch chain and his cuffs.
“Good morning,” Sir Richard said when his efficient young secretary, Wilkinson, had ushered the last of them in. “Thank you for coming. No doubt you have seen this morning’s papers. What we supposed to have been a matter between two villains from Manchester becomes more grave in the light of Lenox’s discovery.”
Lenox inclined his head.
Mayne went on. “The second body has indeed been identified as that of Norman Haase. I am informed that Mr. Haase was a loyal servant to the rail line, a deacon at St. Mary’s Church in Epping, a widower, and the father of four children, adult now. We must exert ourselves doubly on his behalf and theirs.”
All present nodded—Lenox alone doubting, perhaps, whether the second murder was any additional incentive to pursue the murderer, but remaining silent about this particular reservation.
“We’ll get him, sir,” said Hemstock.
“Yes, no doubt,” said Mayne. “Now, I have two questions. The first is how we are to discover the identity of the man in the carriage.”
“We are circulating his description in London and in Manchester,” Dunn said.
“Good. The second is why on earth this fellow murdered Haase.”
“Sir?”
“The motive for the murder in the third-class carriage could be anything under the sun: money, a woman, drink. We all know the disputes that arise in that class. But why Haase?” said Mayne. He was no fool, Sir Richard. It was the question Lenox had been carefully pondering that morning as he shaved. “Did the conductor recognize him? A picture from the illustrated papers perhaps? Is he a known criminal?”
Dunn replied, “We are also circulating a description of the man who passed himself off as a conductor, based on the descriptions of the men who met him. Including Lenox. We know that he was about five foot and nine or ten inches, with dark hair, large eyes, a strong chin, and no visible scars. He carried himself r
espectably.”
“Though perhaps that is what we were all prepared to see,” added Lenox. “Though I know I could pick him from a group, my memory of his particular features grows dimmer the harder I try to remember them.”
“Sir Richard,” said Dunn, “I must again question why Mr. Lenox’s presence is necessary here.”
That seemed rude.
“He identified the murderer and found the dead conductor, Dunn. Any progress we have made belongs in his credits column—not the Yard’s,” Mayne said, with a pointed smack of his desk.
“Someone would have found the body,” Dunn muttered.
The representative from the railway moved forward in his chair. “That is not necessarily the case. It is a section of the line close to no village, and as Mr. Lenox observed, gravel and dust covered the body quickly, and might have concealed it further as time passed.”
“Mm,” said Dunn.
“Moreover, Mr. Haase lived alone,” the man said. “Of course, he would have been missed after three days at a minimum. He was assigned to be the conductor of the 858 overnight train to Edinburgh on Friday.”
Dunn looked murderous. “I was not informed that every man in London capable of scheduling a train to Bournemouth or gambling on cards at Cambridge had suddenly become a detective,” he said, glancing between the railway’s man and Lenox.
“Watch your tongue,” said Sir Richard. “I mean it, Dunn.”
Dunn, apparently realizing that he had shaded beyond complaint into insult, begged their pardons—with what some keener observers of nature, Lenox thought, might have called less than complete sincerity. But the words would have to suffice. It didn’t seem the moment to mention that he had been not at Cambridge but at Oxford.
“I have one observation, Sir Richard,” said Lenox.
“Go on.”
“The clothes must be our most important clue.”
“The victim’s clothes?”
“Yes.”
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