A Stranger in Mayfair clm-4

by Charles Finch

  “How many days before I can take this to Hilary again, or Brick, or the Prime Minister?” asked Lenox as he was putting on his overcoat, ready to go to Whitehall.

  “Parliament opens very shortly, sir. There will be a great deal of official business to accomplish, and people are often bursting with ideas in the first days, from everything I understand.”

  Lenox nodded. “So I’ve heard. I don’t want to get lost in the shuffle of things.”

  “No, sir, certainly not. I think we must wait a week or two. When we have support and the House has quieted down, and the less committed Members have returned to their clubs after their bursts of initial enthusiasm have subsided-then we may strike. I recall from your account of the conversation that Mr. Hilary laughed at the idea of you giving a speech in your first weeks.”

  “He did.”

  “Without support-as simply a wild gesture, sir-his incredulity at the thought of a speech might be correct. With the proper support, however, it could be powerful.”

  Lenox nodded thoughtfully. “Perhaps I’ll begin to write something out.”

  “That would be wise, sir. As I understand it the best speeches are heavily revised and compressed, never off the cuff-very brief, full of conviction, even inspirational, but always with a practical bent.”

  The detective laughed. “Yes. Although I’ve heard enough tales of new Members who write a perfect speech and forget every word of it the moment they stand up. Still, we must try.”

  “Indeed, sir.”

  After a long day of meetings-the most tedious was with a gentleman from Durham who represented northern farming concerns-at five o’clock Lenox was in his office. He was running through potential clerks, Graham at his side. They were all young, bright boys from middling backgrounds, the sons of merchants, schoolteachers, doctors, small landholders. A job as a clerk was moderately paid and, better still, might lead to a job as a personal secretary. Even if that route failed, a Member with influence could be a wonderful ally for a young gentleman hoping to make his career. There were jobs in the City, jobs in the colonies, government sinecures in Ireland and Scotland.

  He had interviewed four boys and now was sitting across a desk from the fifth. This was by far his favorite. The lad, one Gordon Frabbs, was very young-looking, with pale blond hair and a dense of freckles on his cheeks. He had an earnest air about him and was cleverer by half than any of the other boys. He had Latin and some Greek, was excellent at sums, and could even draw skillfully. What weighed against him was his age-he was only fifteen, on the callow side for this sort of job-but otherwise Lenox approved. He wondered as they spoke whether Graham would agree.

  “You can write a good hand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Can you read quickly?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “With comprehension?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He pushed Cranford across the table. “There, read the first chapter of that as quickly as you can, and I’ll ask you a few questions about it.”

  Frabbs grabbed the book as quickly as if it were a life preserver and he was drowning, and began to scan the lines, biting his lip and with a look of immense concentration on his small face.

  There was a knock at the door. Expecting it to be the next candidate-they were running behind-Graham went to the door.

  Instead of another seventeen-year-old lad, though, Dallington came rushing in. “There you are,” he said.

  “What is it? I’m in the middle of seeing clerks.”

  “Never mind that-Ginger came to the Beargarden and told me that they’ve arrested Collingwood.”

  “What? Why?”

  “It was he who killed Frederick Clarke and attacked Ludo Starling.”

  Lenox stood up immediately. “Mr. Frabbs, you’re hired. Graham, give him his desk.”

  “Am I really, Mr. Graham, really really?” Lenox heard Frabbs say as he left, the boy’s voice squeaking with delight.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “How do you know?”

  That was what the detective asked his apprentice as they rolled through Whitehall in a hired brougham.

  “Fowler caught him last night after you left.”

  “Fowler?”

  “He pretended to leave-this was Starling’s plan-and fetched back quickly to the alley door to take everyone by surprise. He was convinced it might be Collingwood, apparently.”

  “Perhaps he’s spoken to Ginger, too. Did you ask him?”

  “Damn, I didn’t. That’s true. I thought we had an advantage.”

  “It’s not a competition,” said Lenox. “I would be just as pleased if Fowler caught the murderer as if we did.” This wasn’t true at all, but he felt he needed to say it.

  “In any event, Ludo ordered the entire staff to wait in the living room, and Fowler went through all of the rooms.”

  “What did he find in Collingwood’s?”

  “It wasn’t in Collingwood’s room. That was what Fowler hoped, and he searched it high and low, but no such luck.”

  “Well?”

  “Among the staff only Collingwood has a key to the larder. It was in there. A bloody knife, a black wool mask, and a green butcher’s apron. It was you who saw the flash of green, wasn’t it?”

  “It was I, yes.”

  “He arrested Collingwood straightaway, for assaulting Starling. The house was in a stir about it, of course.” Suddenly there was a silence, and Dallington stared moodily at the carnation in his buttonhole, fiddling with its stem. “Charles, I’ve told you a lie.”

  “What?” said Lenox, shocked. “It wasn’t Collingwood?”

  “No, no-not that. About Ginger. It wasn’t he who came to me at the club.”

  “Then who-” Suddenly Lenox remembered with perfect clarity the light banter, the looks of curiosity, that had passed between Dallington and the young housemaid. “Jenny Rogers, was it?”

  The younger man nodded guiltily. “Yes.”

  “It’s bad-very bad. Not so much that you lied, though you ought to deplore any action of the sort, but that you have a-a friendship with a suspect.”

  “A suspect!” cried Dallington. “Surely not!”

  “Not a very likely one, of course-but certainly she had the opportunity, and she knew the alley well enough to find that loose brick. The weapon.”

  “But-but motive!”

  Dallington looked pale, and Lenox decided he had been hard enough on the lad. “It’s unlikely, as I say. Almost impossible. Still, it was unprofessional of you.”

  “I don’t get paid,” said Dallington miserably. “I’m not a professional.”

  “It’s not so bad. Look-we’re here. Wait, before we go on we must think for a moment. Hold here a second, sir, and it’s a shilling for you,” he called out to the cabman.

  “What is it?” asked Dallington.

  “Well, only this-do we believe Collingwood murdered Frederick Clarke? Or that he attacked Ludo Starling?”

  “It certainly seems likelier now.”

  “Let’s take this as part of your education, John. Think! Why would Collingwood have attacked Ludo Starling? How could it have benefited him?”

  Dallington frowned. “Perhaps Starling knew Collingwood had killed Clarke?”

  “Then why on earth wouldn’t Ludo have told us? All he wants is for this scandal to end!”

  “Still, you must admit Starling is acting peculiarly.”

  “There! That’s certainly true. We have to think about his motivations in all this. But then, listen-is there anything strange about what Collingwood hid?”

  “What?”

  “Even granting that he may have had a green butcher’s apron-which I feel far from sure of-why would he have worn it?”

  “To keep the blood off?”

  “Fair point. Still, I find it a singular piece of evidence. Then, last of all, the larder.”

  “Well?”

  Lenox shrugged. “Why choose a place in the house so closely associated with himself
? Besides which certainly Collingwood isn’t the only person with a key.”

  “Ludo!”

  “That’s one. Or, for that matter, another member of the family whom we’ve both observed at the trough.”

  “Alfred-but why on earth would he attack his father?”

  “I don’t say he did, just that he may have had a key, somehow, and if so he may have lost it-misplaced it-given it away. Anything.”

  “It’s true.”

  Lenox stepped out and paid the driver. “Bear that in mind as we interview Collingwood. If we have a chance to, that is.”

  “I doubt he’ll still be here.”

  Dallington was right. They saw Ludo, who looked heartily sick of them, and he recapitulated briefly what they already knew.

  “Do you believe Collingwood was capable of murdering Frederick Clarke?” Lenox asked.

  “I don’t know, to be honest. Look, I’m late for a game of whist.”

  “The Turf?”

  “No, we’re playing at the house of a chap I know. I must be off.”

  “How’s your leg?”

  “My leg? Ah, that-it’s painful but healing, thanks.”

  When they had walked a block away, Dallington said to Lenox, “Maybe we should go to the Turf.”

  “His club?”

  “We agree that his behavior is strange. Shall we see whether he was playing cards during the time Frederick Clarke was killed?”

  The Turf was a very new club-it had been founded in 1861-but already a very exclusive one among the younger generations. The game that had taken London by storm in the past several years, whist, had actually been invented there and then certified by the much older Portland Club, a more staid place where the game of choice was generally contract bridge. The Turf had a comfortable house in Bennett Street in Picadilly, with many small rooms for cardplaying, a fine cellar full of wines, and a notably discreet staff. Many of the surfaces in the building, the doors, chairs, and tables included, were embossed with the club’s emblem, a centaur.

  Dallington, who was a member, asked the porter if he could look through the sign-in book, passing him a coin; everyone who entered the Turf, member or guest, had to sign the book. After they had signed it themselves he and Lenox looked back to the date when Ludo had been playing cards. “For ten hours or more,” Lenox recalled him saying, or something like that. It wasn’t at all uncommon for these games of cards to go on for days, with players dropping in and out to eat or sleep for a few hours, and then returning to see a mix of old and new faces at the table.

  Ludo’s name wasn’t in the book.

  They checked the date twice, and for good measure each day on either side. “There, Frank Derbyshire,” said Lenox. “That was the group he said he was with.”

  “He was lying!”

  “He might have been. Or he might simply have walked in with a crowd and not bothered to wait around for his turn to sign the book. Still, it is suspicious, I’ll grant you that.”

  “This is it!” said Dallington excitedly. “Ludo is involved, even if we don’t know how!”

  “Patience. Let’s go see Frank Derbyshire.”

  Dallington flipped to the front of the club book and studied the names on the most recent page. “We may not need to leave the building,” he said after a moment. “Derbyshire signed in an hour ago.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  There were servants stationed at the door of every card room that was in use, in case the players needed a fresh cigar, or a cutlet to eat during play. Dallington, who knew many of the servants by name quietly asked each whether Frank Derbyshire was there. The third one said yes.

  Derbyshire, an ugly, carrot-haired, very rich young man, was annoyed at the disruption. “What in damnation is it, Dallington?” he said. “I don’t owe you a cent, and there are no places at the table. Monty Kibble is ahead thirty pounds, and I’ll be damned to hell if he isn’t cheating. I need to get back in there and catch him.” A moody puff on his cigar.

  “It’s not about cards.”

  “Well, what else is there?”

  Lenox smiled, then realized it wasn’t a joke.

  “Ludovic Starling,” said Dallington, whom they had agreed would be the one to speak to Derbyshire.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Ludo-”

  “No, this gentleman.”

  “Ah. This is my friend Charles Lenox. Lenox, Frank Derbyshire.”

  “Lenox the detective? That’s right, you are, too, Dalls,” said Derbyshire, giving them a nasty grin. “Playing about at bobby?”

  Something happened then that shocked Lenox: For a single moment Dallington’s face showed a mix of shame and hurt that was piercing. He covered it with a sardonic laugh. Suddenly Lenox understood the cost to his pupil of this occupation: dismissed for so long because he didn’t work, because he drank and played, and now dismissed because he did work.

  Dallington went on, “Did you play cards with Starling recently?”

  “Yes, strangely enough. He usually plays with an older set, doesn’t like the university crowd down here on the second floor. But he wanted a game and got one, by God. I took him for eight pounds and a halfpenny.”

  The impeccable memory of the gambler, thought Lenox. “How long did you play for?” he asked. “Ten hours, was it?”

  Derbyshire snorted, and then something from the snort caught in his throat and he coughed horribly on his cigar smoke, hacking for what seemed like an entire minute. At last, eyes watery, he gasped out, “Never!”

  “How long, then?”

  He was still hoarse. “Couldn’t have been more than four hours.”

  “What day?”

  “Would have been about a week ago. It was eight days, in fact, I remember.”

  The day of the murder.

  “What happened?”

  Derbyshire looked at Lenox strangely. “What happened? Nothing unusual. I took the eight pounds and bought as much wine as I could carry to take over to the old Rugbeian match. We drank ’em all. I still have the halfpenny.” He grinned.

  “You’re sure about the day?”

  “Yes!”

  “What time of day was it? This is important. Late? Afternoon?”

  “Early evening.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “You can stop asking me that. I’m certain.”

  They let Derbyshire go, amid a variety of hacks, coughs, and eructations, back into his card room. As he turned he invited Dallington to play that night and shrugged at his decline.

  “Inconclusive,” said the younger man to Lenox, hands in pockets, a disappointed look on his face. “He was probably there.”

  “You’re sharper than that, surely. Think-we’ve just caught Ludo in his first lie, and if he would lie about six hours, wouldn’t he lie about matters of greater moment?”

  “Anyway, why wouldn’t he have signed the book if he simply wanted an alibi? It might have been an exaggeration.”

  “He was too specific for that, as I remember it. This is incriminating, somehow or other.”

  “So Collingwood is innocent.”

  “I don’t stipulate that point,” said Lenox. “There have been half a dozen cases during my years in London when a man who had been arrested seemed innocent, another suspect having emerged, only for the first man arrested to be proven guilty. In one instance, Smethurst back in ’52, the second man was covering up for an entirely different crime. Embezzlement.”

  They were out on the street now, the light low. They passed a fruit and vegetable cart, and Dallington swiped an apple from it and flicked a coin at the cart’s owner, who caught it and touched his cap in one quick motion. Dallington crunched into his fruit as they walked down toward Green Park.

  “Tell me, what shall we do next? Or what shall I do next, as you must be in Parliament tomorrow?”

  “I think we must go see Collingwood himself, and I would like to go to the boxing club. It still bothers me that Clarke had money slipped to him under the servants’ do
or. I reckon Collingwood wouldn’t have tolerated secret doings among the servants, strange business that touched the house. And then Clarke’s peculiar room…” Lenox shook his head. “I feel quite sure we’re missing something.”

  “Must you go back to work?”

  “No. I don’t have any particular role in the state opening of the House, beyond observation.” He looked at his watch. “It’s only six o’clock. We should be able to find our way to Collingwood if we get there before eight. We’ll pass by the Starlinghouse along the way, to wish Ludo a swift recovery.”

  As a shortcut they took the fateful back alley, now gloomed with shadows. Fetching up at the back stoop of Ludo’s house on Curzon Street, Lenox said, “Out of curiosity, which house belongs to Ginger’s employer?”

  “It’s three down,” Dallington was saying, when they heard the short, urgent rap of knuckles on a window. They looked up. It was coming from behind a curtain on the second floor.

  The curtain pulled aside, and they were both surprised to see Paul, Ludo’s younger son. He held up a finger: Wait.

  He had raced down the stairs, evidently, because when he reached them he was breathless. “Dallington!”

  “What is it? Didn’t you like Cambridge during your visit?”

  “Oh, bother Cambridge. It’s Collie!”

  “A dog?”

  “Collingwood, you ass!”

  Dallington raised his eyebrows. “I see.”

  Paul looked appalled at what he had said to his drinking hero. “I’m sorry. I’m too used to speaking with Alfred. Anyway, no, it’s about Collingwood. They’ve arrested him!”

  “So we heard.”

  “But don’t you understand, it’s impossible!”

  “Why?” asked Lenox.

  Paul threw up his arms with the despair of someone who feels that he should be understood but isn’t. “Ask Alfred. Collie was our friend-our best friend. When we were children and he was a footman, he let us jump on him over and over, and just laughed. When he should have given us a lashing for stealing from the pantry, he smiled and looked the other way.”