A Stranger in Mayfair clm-4

by Charles Finch

  “Charles!” said Edmund. “I wondered whether you might be here. My God, they gave you the worst office in the entire place. Young Michaelson had it, but he traded out like a shot when he got the chance. I hope you don’t die of a draft. But come: Has it really been ten weeks? Shake my hand. I stopped in earlier, and Graham told me you were to have a tour, but come have lunch at Bellamy’s afterward, will you?”

  This was the famous Members’ restaurant at Parliament.

  “Of course,” said Lenox.

  “Excellent. In that case, I’ll take my leave and see you then.” Edmund put on his hat, which had been in his hand, and left, whistling down the hallway.

  Mr. Bigham, who arrived a few minutes later, proved to be a plump, small man, with big owlish glasses and a dry manner of speech. He sat in front of Lenox’s desk for some twenty minutes and lectured him on various matters of protocol and procedure.

  “As you know,” he began, “the House meets at a quarter to four in the afternoon, except on Wednesdays, when we convene at noon. Each sitting begins with a religious service from which the public is barred, but as soon as that ends strangers come into the galleries. Here’s a funny fact, Mr. Lenox: Although there are six hundred and seventy Members of Parliament, only about three hundred and fifty people can fit into the House of Commons! Remarkable, isn’t it? For an important vote we might just cram four hundred in, but not more than that.”

  “I suppose many Members don’t come to the sittings?”

  “Oh, there are a hundred men who only come to London once a year but find it convenient or pleasurable to hold a seat. Another hundred live in London but still come to the House only once a year. In the end only two hundred or so attend regularly. There are always empty spots on the benches.”

  “I shall be part of that two hundred,” said Lenox.

  “Shall you?” Mr. Bigham smiled, his jowly face lit up. “I’ve heard that before, I can promise. Now, business. In any given session of the House, you’ll first handle private business-anything of an essentially local nature and any vote pushed through by one of several important companies, including the railroads and the water works. Public business covers pretty much everything else you can imagine…”

  Eventually the lecture was over and they were walking through a labyrinth of alternating small and vast hallways, some dim and low-ceilinged, others imposing and portrait-lined. Bigham kept up a steady prattle about the history of the building. A few times Lenox bumped into men he knew and stopped to say hello. It was all starting to feel real; he was here.

  That feeling truly took hold of him when they entered the Commons. He had sat in the visitors’ galleries, of course-had from them often watched his own father speak-but to be on the floor, so near the chair of the Speaker of the House…it was a remarkable thing. The room was tiny, ornate, and as hushed as a cathedral.

  Mr. Bigham whispered reverently, “To think-from this chamber a group of six hundred and seventy men rule an empire of tens of millions of souls. Once you write your name in the Members’ book, it will remain there forever as part of the history of this time. How lucky you are, Mr. Lenox!”

  “I am,” said Lenox. There was a strange hollow place in his chest. “I am,” he repeated. “I know I am.”

  Chapter Eight

  Still, he hadn’t forgotten the murder. Lenox was particularly eager to see Ludo Starling again, if for no other reason than to further analyze the man’s behavior, which had on their first encounter been so strange. The lie about his wife, for instance. The odd braggadocio of his claims about a palace-bestowed title.

  Alas, between the meetings and the reading he had to do, there was no time for it. The task thus fell to Dallington and, of course, Scotland Yard. Inspector Fowler. He had replied to Lenox’s inquiring note with a few perfunctory lines explaining that the Yard had the case well in hand and that outside interference could only hinder the course of the investigation. The note was distinctly unfriendly, if not hostile.

  On the second evening after Lenox saw his new offices, Dallington came by with a report. Kirk announced him.

  “Who’s this new chappie buttling for you?” asked the young lord. “Surely Graham hasn’t handed his notice in?”

  “Not at all, no. He’s become my political secretary. Kirk was Jane’s butler for many years.”

  Dallington frowned. “My parents were always trying to make me be a political secretary to some sniveling politician. No offense, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “I never saw the good in it. Parliament would burn to the ground before they made me a Member of it, and unless that was your goal it was just a job with long hours and no pay.”

  “We haven’t spoken about your parents in some time.”

  “Oh?”

  “Would it be intrusive of me to ask what their current mood is-on the subject of your new career, I mean?”

  “Middling, I’d say. They haven’t thrown themselves off a cliff yet, anyway. It helped when you spoke to Father.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “But leave that aside-how about Frederick Clarke?”

  “Well?”

  “What can you possibly mean by saying ‘Well,’ for God’s sake?” asked Dallington with an irritable scowl. “I hope you don’t think I’ve found the murderer or anything like that.”

  Lenox chuckled. “No. I only wondered what progress you had made.”

  “Too bloody little progress.”

  “What have you done?”

  “Whatever I could. I was hoping to convince you to come speak to the family with me.”

  “Why?”

  “Ludo Starling looks at me like I’m a leper.”

  “He judges you on outdated information, I fear.”

  “It’s not as if I reeled in there on a bender. I was altogether respectful. But he simply said that it was up to the Yard now and turned me out. It was dashed uncomfortable, to be honest.”

  “What have you been doing instead, then?”

  “Anything I could think of. I interviewed housekeepers and footmen up and down the street. None of them said anything interesting, unfortunately.”

  “They knew him? Clarke?”

  “Oh, yes, from the shops and the alley-the one where he died. None of them had ever exchanged more than fifty words with him, though. Said he was extremely deferential and polite.”

  “That’s a piece of information, at any rate. It makes it less likely that this was a crime of passion or anger.”

  “Yes, I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Anything else? Did you ask about the scabs and wounds on his hands?”

  “Nobody knew a thing about them. Several people said how large he was, however. If he was in a fight it sounds as if he wouldn’t have been easily overmatched.”

  “Which was perhaps one of the reasons an ambush was the murderer’s soundest course. You’ve done quite well.”

  “Only that from two days! You could have solved the thing and been to Bath and back in that time.”

  Lenox laughed. “Not true. Still, it’s important to speak to Ludo’s family. What do you say to going now? I’m meant to be reading a blue book”-these were the dense parliamentary briefs all Members received for scrutiny-“but it’s deathly boring.”

  “Just what I’d hoped for,” said Dallington. “I have a cab outside. Is Lady Jane in?”

  “She’s with your mother, in fact.” Jane and the Duchess of Marchmain were close friends. “Give me a moment to gather my things.”

  They pulled up to Ludo’s large, rambling house not twenty minutes later and knocked on the door. The butler-Lenox remembered that his name was Jack Collingwood-opened the door and ushered them in. At odds with the majority of his profession’s practitioners he was very young, perhaps thirty or a bit younger. While he went to fetch Ludo, Dallington whispered that he was the son of the Starlings’ old butler. That accounted for his age.

  Ludo looked much more composed now than the last time Lenox ha
d seen him. “Hello, hello,” he said. “How do you do, Charles?”

  “Quite well, thank you. You’ve already met John Dallington?”

  “Of course, yes. Good to see you again. Although as I said to him, the Yard can handle things from now on.”

  “Would you mind if we spoke to a few people in the house?” asked Lenox. “I have a spare evening.”

  “I really think-the Yard has been excellent. Mr. Fowler was here just this morning.”

  Then why did you ever come to me? Lenox thought. All he said was, “He’s excellent, yes, but perhaps another set of eyes could see something new.”

  “Two more sets,” said Dallington and grinned.

  Ludo grimaced but relented. “Of course,” he said. “With whom would you like to speak first?”

  “Have you been through his room at all?”

  “Oh, no. The maid stripped off the sheets but left everything else as it is. For his mother, you see. We thought she might want to look over his things before they’re packed up.”

  “When does she arrive?”

  “Today. She’s traveling by post.”

  “What’s the delay? It’s been four days.”

  “I don’t know,” said Ludo. “Perhaps she had to find someone to look after her public house.”

  Lenox shrugged. “At any rate, it might be valuable to speak to her. But that’s for tomorrow. Shall we have a look at the room? We need to know more about Frederick Clarke.”

  “By all means,” said Ludo.

  From the rather glum front parlor where they had been sitting, Ludo took them into the entry hall. There he led them through an unobtrusive door, painted the same color as the walls, and downstairs to the servants’ quarters. The largest room downstairs, the kitchen, was bright and busy with cleaning up after supper. Down a slim hallway to the right was a row of doors.

  “Which one was it again?” said Ludo to a pretty young girl. “Frederick’s room?”

  “It’s the last on the right, sir.”

  The chamber when they reached it proved exceedingly modest, with only a bed and a small side table in it. There was one closet, too. On the side table were a stack of books and a candle that had burned down to a snub.

  “Bring a lamp!” called Ludo down the hallway, and a moment later the same girl scurried down with it.

  “Are you Jenny Rogers?” asked Dallington.

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  “How the devil did you know that?” asked Ludo.

  “She doesn’t look like Betsy Mints, aged forty, cook, to me,” said Dallington.

  “You’ve been looking into my household?”

  “Yes.”

  “Quite routine,” said Lenox.

  “Still, I say, it’s a bit awkward,” said Ludo.

  “We’ll need to speak to you soon, Miss Rogers.”

  “You’re not a suspect,” added Dallington, still smiling. Lenox sighed. His apprentice couldn’t resist a pretty woman.

  Chapter Nine

  After Jenny Rogers had blushed, offered a confused curtsy, and retreated down the hallway, Lenox and Dallington turned into the room to begin a proper examination. Ludo stayed in the hall, trying to peer over their shoulders and shifting nervously from foot to foot.

  “He was reading rather heavy stuff,” said Dallington, crouching down to look at the names on the spines of the books upon the side table.

  “What?” said Lenox.

  “There’s something called The Philosophy of Right by a chap named Hegel, a pamphlet on universal suffrage, and a little quarto of George Crabbe’s. He must have been the best-educated footman in London.”

  “Those are all from my library,” said Ludo. “We encourage the staff to pluck what they will from it, but I’m afraid most of them read books from Mudie’s-adventure stories and romances. Three-volume novels. You know the sort of trash.”

  “I rather like the triple-deckers myself,” said Dallington. “They make the time go.”

  “To each his own,” answered Ludo frostily. His vices were not intellectual ones, at any rate.

  “What sort of education did he have?” asked Lenox curiously. He stood up from his examination under the bed. “It must have been rather atypical. One of my friend Thomas McConnell’s footmen is quite illiterate.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know. As I told you before, I didn’t pay the lad much attention.”

  “I don’t blame you if he was always on about Hegel,” murmured Dallington, then laughed at his own joke.

  There was really very little to see in the room. Lenox examined the entire bed and its frame for anything hidden-a note, a diary-but found nothing. The side table was similarly unrevealing. A small shelf in the corner had an assortment of meaningless trifles: a jar of ink, a picture postcard of Stratford with nothing on its reverse, a ball of black India rubber. The only thing that intrigued Lenox was a scrap of paper that read, When’s your birthday? C. said you would turn 20 soon. Did you have the day off last year?

  “Does this note mean anything to you?” asked Lenox.

  “I was curious about it myself,” said Ludo. “I asked Collingwood, and he said Elizabeth sent it, through him-we let the staff have their birthdays off, but she realized she didn’t know Clarke’s. She knew all the others.”

  “Wouldn’t Collingwood have found that out? I imagine days off are within his purview.”

  Ludo shrugged. “You know how solicitous my wife can be. She felt badly to think that we hadn’t given him his birthday off.”

  “I see.”

  The closet was the last place in the room that hadn’t been searched; in fact both Dallington and Lenox had run their eyes over everything else, shaken out the books, felt for lumps in the pillows. Lenox opened the closet, vaguely hoping to see something revelatory-something covered in blood, say-but he was disappointed. There were two tidy suits of livery, both black, such as a footman might wear, and four shirts.

  “We provide them, of course,” said Ludo.

  There was also a very fine gray suit, his one personal suit, that looked expensively tailored. On a shelf behind these was a stack of shirts. Lenox shook out and refolded each, then did the same with two pairs of trousers, checking the pockets, three pairs of socks, and a nightshirt.

  “Defeated,” said Dallington.

  “Probably,” replied Lenox.

  He knelt down and looked at the shiny black shoes on the floor of the closet. He groped inside the left and found nothing, and then he groped inside the right and found-something.

  He pulled it out and saw that he was holding a gentleman’s signet ring, made of heavy greenish-yellow gold. On its oval face was an intricately worked griffin with a small ruby as its eye.

  “Good Lord,” said Dallington. “It looks like an heirloom.”

  “I should think so. It’s shined smooth from use on the outside.”

  “What is it?” asked Ludo, still in the hallway.

  “You can come in,” said Lenox.

  “I’d rather not.”

  The detective flipped the ring. On the reverse of the griffin were two initials: LS. “I think perhaps you’d better,” he called out to Ludo.

  “What is it?”

  Lenox went to the hallway, holding the ring up between his thumb and middle finger. “Does it look familiar?”

  For a long time Ludo peered at the ring uncomprehendingly. “What is it?”

  “I believe it’s your ring. Unless there’s another LS in the house.”

  Realization dawned on Ludo’s face. “The thieving bastard! That’s an old Starling family ring. I had it engraved when I was at university.”

  “You didn’t give it to him?”

  “Give it to him! Never in a century of Sundays!”

  “Then I’m afraid he may have stolen it. I’m surprised, however. Would his duties as a footman have taken him near a jewelry case?”

  “Anything’s possible.”

  Lenox frowned. “Perhaps somebody else took it and put it here
.”

  “It even could have happened after Clarke’s death,” said Dallington.

  “Yes.” Lenox examined the ring, holding it an inch from his eye. “Ah-or perhaps not,” he said.

  “Why not?” asked Ludo, still in the hall.

  “There’s another engraving, on the bottom inside of the ring, opposite your LS. FC. ”

  “Frederick Clarke,” said Dallington.

  Lenox nodded.

  “The ruddy nerve,” said Ludo.

  “Did you wear it often?”

  “That? No. That doesn’t mean I intended it as a present for a footman.”

  Lenox peered around the room, the ring now in his clenched fist. He gave the bed a tentative prod and thought over what he had seen. From the kitchen a sound of heavy washing filled the room’s new silence.

  “It’s strange,” he said. “A strange room.”

  “Why?” asked Dallington. “Strikes me as in the normal run of things for a footman.”

  “Does it really? It’s extremely spartan, for one thing. I doubt the other servants’ rooms are as unadorned as this one. Could he possibly have been here four years and left so little a mark?”

  “Perhaps he moved between rooms?”

  “I doubt it. Ludo?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “I think he’s one of those people who lives a life of the mind. Did he often take books of this sort from your library?”

  “Yes, quite regularly according to Collingwood.”

  “Yet contrast that with this ring.” Lenox held it up again. “Why take such a personal bauble for himself? From everything this room has to show, he cared nothing at all for physical comfort or ornament, but this is what he chose to steal?”

  “Worth a damn lot of money,” said Ludo.

  Lenox shook his head. “No. It’s not about the money. He engraved his initials on it. That shows he valued it.”

  Dallington said, “Of course.”

  “Something odd was happening in this young man’s life. Intelligence combined with menial labor…I wonder, is it possible he had found his way into crime?”

  “Of course he had,” said Ludo. “My ring.”

  “Not that, no. Think: a well-tailored suit, a signet ring…it looks to me as if he might have been playing the young aristocrat. Some scam or other, couldn’t it be?”