A Stranger in Mayfair clm-4

by Charles Finch

  The door to his office was ajar. Lenox braced himself for a stream of vitriol before he knocked, and got about what he expected.

  “Mr. Fowler?” he said, knocking the door and pushing it open.

  “Mr. Lenox,” said Fowler with dangerous calm.

  “I’m afraid it’s about the Starling case. We must speak about it.”

  Fowler reddened. “I would ask you kindly not to tell me what I must do, sir!”

  “I-”

  “Really, this infernal and constant intrusion into official matters of the Yard cannot stand a moment longer! Good Lord, Mr. Lenox, do you have no sense of boundary? Of decorum? Of-”

  “Decorum?”

  “Yes, decorum!” He stood up behind his desk and began to cross the room with a menacing air. “You would do well to learn it, rather than presuming upon our past contact to make a nuisance of yourself.”

  Then, rather quietly, Lenox said something that stopped him in his tracks. “I know you’re being bought off.”

  The transformation in Fowler was extraordinary. He tried to bear up under the truth of the accusation for a moment, but it wasn’t possible. As he spoke initially a domineering, imposing man, he now drew inward, seemed to get smaller, looked tired and, most of all, old. Lenox was right. The burst of insight had come, funnily enough, from that unreadable blue book-the one on corruption.

  “Of course not,” he muttered.

  “The truth is in your face, Mr. Fowler-and I can think of no reason on earth why you would behave toward me as you have, when our relationship has always been cordial.”

  “Paid? Don’t talk foolery.”

  “Yes-by Ludo Starling, to look the other way.”

  “No!”

  “About a day after the murder, I would hazard. I’m here in part to speak to someone about it.”

  The dam broke. “You can’t do that!” cried Fowler.

  “Oh?” said Lenox coldly. “I understand that you were going to let an innocent man go to trial, Jack Collingwood-testify against him-perhaps even send him to hang. That I do understand.”

  “No! It’s not true, I swear on Christ’s name. For God’s sake, shut the door, come in, come in.”

  Lenox entered the office, reluctant to be alone with Fowler but certain the man had information. “He paid you, then? Ludo Starling?”

  “Yes.”

  Lenox had resisted heretofore believing that Ludo was the killer. Based both on the man’s mien (his rather hapless, debauched life was nonetheless lived without cruelty to others) and the facts (it was his son, for God’s sake), it had never seemed like the likeliest truth. Now the final barriers to his credulity fell away. How unknowable man is, he thought.

  “I can’t believe you accepted money from him.”

  “You don’t know the circumstances, Lenox.” The inspector sat back in his large oak chair, underneath a certificate praising his work from the Lord Mayor of London, and lit a small cigar. While it was clenched in his teeth he reached into a low drawer of his desk, pulled a bottle of whisky out, and poured two tots of it into a pair of dingy glasses. “Here you are,” he said, his voice weak. “Have a drink with me at least.”

  “What circumstances?” asked Lenox.

  Fowler smiled a bittersweet smile and took a puff on his cigar. “We’re very different men, you and I,” he said. “It’s all very well for you to take the high ground on a subject like money, knowing full well that in the normal run of life it would never come up between us. But do you know what my father did?”

  “What?”

  “He was a pure collector.” Lenox grimaced unintentionally, and Fowler laughed. “Not so nice, is it? No, it wasn’t then.”

  Lenox knew of pure collectors; they had formed part of his reading on cholera. They were men-very poor men-who scavenged for dog and human waste, which they then sold to farms. It took extremely long workdays in extremely unpleasant places to make a living at it.

  “I don’t understand the connection of that to Ludo Starling,” said Lenox.

  “No; you wouldn’t. While I was using tea leaves four times to get all the flavor of them, living in a house that smelled of-well, why mince words? It smelled of shit! Yes, you can make all the unpleasant faces you want, but while I was living there you were in your father’s house, looked after by nannies, eating off of silver, learning about what your old ancestors did at, at Agincourt…no, we’re very different, you and I.”

  Lenox felt on uncertain ground now. This was a tender spot for him. Money was the great unexamined area of his conscience, in a way. “But you took bribery, Grayson, and you have a job now. You’re not a pure collector. That was your father.”

  The look on Fowler’s face was contemptuous. “You know about it, do you? Did you know that I have nine brothers and sisters, and that of us all I’m the only one with a decent job? That I’ve given them nearly every cent I earned to keep them in food and clothes, to try to educate their children, and that four of them have died anyway, of that blasted cholera? You have a brother, I know. Can you imagine burying him, Mr. Lenox?”

  “No.”

  “I have my house, Mr. Lenox-a modest enough affair, but it took me ten years to buy it. Beyond that, nothing except my next wage packet from the Yard…and last year I found out that I’m getting too old to stay on here.”

  “What?”

  “There’ll be my pension, but that’s only enough for tea and toast. So yes, I’ve taken a few pounds here and there. Always in cases when I thought I knew better than the law. Can you judge me for it?”

  The answer was that he couldn’t. No. It was possible of course that Fowler was spinning a story for him, playing for sympathy, but something final and confessional in the man’s air convinced Lenox it was all true.

  “Well, but what about Collingwood?” asked Lenox with a struggle.

  “He would have been free next week.”

  “Why next week?”

  But Fowler was in his own world. He stood up and looked through the window, which was flung with a few raindrops. “Do you know when I joined the Yard?” he said. “It was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “When?”

  “1829. I was one of the first peelers. Fifteen years of age, but I looked eighteen. Thirty-eight years ago, it was.”

  Lenox nearly gasped. In 1829 Sir Robert Peel-one of the great politicians of the last century, famed for the greatest maiden speech ever given in Parliament-had founded the modern police force. He started with a thousand constables, the peelers. Over time they had taken as a nickname not his last but his first name: They were bobbies. To have been among the first rank was an honor, and Fowler was surely one of the few dozen who remained alive.

  “I never knew that,” said Lenox and could hear the awe in his own voice.

  Proudly, Fowler nodded. “I always drink to Sir Bobby,” he said and nodded toward a dusty pencil portrait of Peel as a young man that Lenox had missed before. “I met him four times. Once he asked if I had heard who won the fourth race at Goodwood. That was the only time we said anything other than hello.”

  Lenox smiled despite himself. “You said-”

  “Can you imagine what that meant to me? My brothers and sisters worked the worst jobs-dipping matches or out with my father-and so had I. It was on a lark that I applied to be a peeler. I had always had good marks, when they could afford to keep me in school, but to be selected, Mr. Lenox-to be chosen -can you understand that? Birth selected you; I had to wait fifteen years. And then, the greatest day of my life, when I was plucked from the constables and allowed to train as an inspector! Can you imagine the honor, to a boy like me?”

  “Yes,” murmured Lenox.

  Fowler, who had been at the window, now faced Lenox. “I’ve given this work every ounce of my being. You know that.”

  “I thought I did.”

  “I cannot apologize for accepting money. I needed it, not for myself alone, and after thirty-eight years the Yard is going to turn me away. That-n
o, that I could not brook.”

  Lenox didn’t know what he should do with this information, but he knew what he would do. Nothing, as long as Fowler pointed him toward the truth. His own conscience wasn’t strong enough.

  “Listen,” he said rather desperately. “You said Collingwood would be out of Newgate next week. Why?”

  Fowler waved a dismissive hand. “Paul Starling will be out of the country by then,” he said and drained his drink.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  “Just a moment-Paul Starling?”

  Fowler looked at him. “You didn’t know?”

  “I assumed it was Ludo.”

  “Why did you think Paul was being sent away on such short notice?”

  Lenox looked stunned. “I know Collingwood took the blame because he wanted to protect Paul, but it didn’t add up for me. What can the motive have been?”

  Fowler shrugged. “I don’t know. Mr. Starling saw it all happen, apparently. He laid out the facts before me, and I decided that a young man’s life could still have value.”

  This inflamed Lenox. “What about Frederick Clarke’s life? That didn’t have value?”

  Fowler sighed. “I didn’t say it was easy to look in the glass every morning as I shave, but I’ve explained to you why I did it already.”

  “There’s a mother sitting in a hotel in Hammersmith right now, crying her eyes out.”

  “Would it really have helped her to know that Paul Starling was in prison? Between his father’s connections and his youth he wouldn’t have swung for it, I don’t think.”

  “Leave all that aside-how does Ludo being stabbed fit into this theory?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps it was a way to pin the blame on Collingwood.”

  “My God!” said Lenox. “Don’t you see that the stabbing suits Ludo perfectly as an alibi, not his son? Did you even bother to find out that Ludo was Frederick Clarke’s father?”

  Fowler blanched. “His what?”

  Lenox was in no mood for explanation. “There’s every chance Ludo killed the boy and blamed Paul to keep them all safe.”

  “There’s-no, it was Paul! The mother knew about it, too-she came here weeping, begging me for lenience!”

  Lenox chuckled grimly. “I see now why Ludo came to me, at least. I never quite understood that. He must have wanted someone to bribe, and thought he would test the waters with both of us. My reaction was less civil than yours, apparently.”

  “I assure you Paul-”

  “How did you intend to get Jack Collingwood out of Newgate, can I ask?”

  “Telling them the truth! Ludo said he would come forward and confess that he had seen his son do it.”

  “You believed him? The stupidity, man-my God.”

  Fowler looked horrified. “But he swore-”

  “To a man who had accepted a bribe from him! What pressure could you have exerted on him, may I ask? No-I must be off.”

  Lenox stood up, and his head, which had felt quite under his control as he sat, gave a twinge and started to throb like a heartbeat. Nevertheless he just managed to turn to the door.

  “Wait! Lenox!” cried Fowler, standing up, too. “What about me?”

  “You?” Lenox paused, and remembered the story about Fowler in the peelers. “Do you have enough money now?”

  He nodded slightly. “I suppose.”

  Lenox saw that there had been other times-perhaps many-when Fowler had taken money. Perhaps it had begun nobly, but it had turned into base greed. “Are you quite rich?”

  “No!”

  “The Gauss imbroglio-I wondered at the time that you couldn’t solve it.” This was the murder of a diplomat from whom quite secret papers had been taken the year before.

  Fowler tilted his head in miserable assent. “It was the cousin.”

  “Gauss’s? Ah-I see. He sold them to a foreign government and cut you in on the proceeds. Yes. Well, Grayson, if you retire this week I can leave it alone. I’ve known you to do good work, after all.”

  Fowler cringed with gratitude. “Instantly-straight away. Reasons of health-easiest thing in the world.”

  Without responding, Lenox turned and left.

  Out in the street it had started to rain hard, gray in the sky, with wind gusting the raindrops every which way. Nonetheless Dallington was stood there, waiting, and Lenox felt a wave of respect and admiration for him.

  “We may have to swim out!” called the young lord.

  “There are usually cabs at Brown’s Hotel-let’s walk there.”

  Eventually they reached Hampden Lane, a little wetter than they had ever been before. Lenox tipped the driver handsomely, and they dashed inside.

  Dallington had heard about the meeting with Fowler on the drive there, and they had only intended to regroup before going to the Starlinghouse. But Lady Jane was waiting at the door and insisted Lenox rest for an hour or two.

  After arguing only halfheartedly-for his head did hurt-Lenox said, “Will you see what you can find out about Paul?”

  “Find what out?” asked Dallington.

  “Whether he’s left the country. If he hasn’t, you might try to sneak a word with him.”

  “I’m sure he’s under lock and key.”

  There were fuller reports in the morning newspapers about the attack on Lenox, and as he rested he cast a critical eye over them, looking to see whether any marked the connection with Ludo. In fact the only bystander named was Dallington, and the comments from Scotland Yard were diffident. It would be out of the news tomorrow.

  What did it mean, he wondered? Had it been foolish to leave the house today? Was the attack even related to the Starling case? Or was it another alibi Ludo had created for himself, in the vein of the butcher’s attack?

  His head ached, and he prodded the bandage above the wound gingerly, looking for the spot that hurt. Tossing the newspaper to one side, he picked up a fresh blue book. He was in the back sitting room, a small, quiet chamber where they often read in the evenings, stretched out on a sofa. The small fireplace nearby was burning bright orange, keeping out the cold of the rain.

  The blue book was, for a change, absorbing. It was about perhaps the most significant political issue of the day, Irish home rule. On the first day of 1801 Parliament had passed a bill absorbing Ireland into Great Britain, and ever since then there had been bitter, occasionally violent opposition by the majority of the Irish people. Lenox had always been of two minds on the subject; the Irish would be independent sooner or later, it seemed clear, but in the meanwhile it was perhaps to the benefit of both nations that they be joined.

  There were those within his party who would have perceived this as a treacherous viewpoint-who regarded home rule as absolutely and unquestionably a right of the Irish-and as he read on he realized that his opinions, which he had always thought so carefully formed, were based on ideas rather than facts. The book taught him a great deal he hadn’t known, and troubled his mind on whether his more vociferous friends weren’t correct.

  Some time after he had begun reading, Lady Jane brought him a plate of sliced oranges.

  “Your brother has been by twice,” she said, sitting by him as he ate. “He was very worried.”

  “You told him I was doing well?”

  “I did. He said he would come by later in the day, and asked when you thought you could come back to Parliament.”

  “The home rule debate will be interesting.” Lenox frowned. “Although I want to see this case through, at the least.”

  She looked at him with a mix of sympathy and concern. “Which is more important to you?”

  He thought about it and then gave an honest answer. “I don’t know.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  It was time to go confront Ludo once and for all, he decided. The die was cast. He would wait for Dallington-it was the case in which the lad had had the most involvement, and it was his due to be there at the end-and then go. Whether the murderer was Paul or, as he now suspected, Ludo himself (but why?), t
he truth would have to come out soon.

  When Dallington arrived back some hours later he looked tired. “I’ve been all over this blasted city,” he said, “without finding a trace of Paul Starling.”

  “No? Perhaps he really did leave from Norfolk, as Elizabeth said. I didn’t think it possible.”

  “No, I don’t think he did. He was booked into a first-class berth on a ship called the Bruce, which carries indentured servants from Trinidad to other colonies and ends here. It makes port in three cities along the way.”

  “Has it left?”

  “It has-yesterday-but I couldn’t establish whether he was on it.” Dallington, who had been in the doorway, strode over and mixed himself a rum with tonic water. “The chap who books passengers on the Bruce gets paid when the ship leaves, and apparently he drinks himself half to death every time. I didn’t have the heart to visit forty different taverns in the Dials, so I came back.”

  “Nobody else might have seen him?”

  “They might have, quite easily. Whether they did or not-well, it’s a busy dock, of course, and none of them were impressed by my vague questions about Paul Starling.”

  Lenox nodded. “Thank you for trying,” he said. “It was well done to find out that he was booked on the Bruce.”

  “I daresay he’s on board, having a whale of a time playing cards with these poor indentured fellows,” said Dallington. “But where does that leave us?”

  Lenox stood up and, despite a wave of lightheadedness, said, “At the end. We must go and confront Ludo.”

  Dallington looked impressed. “Fair enough. Let me finish my drink and we’ll go. Won’t he be at Parliament, though?”

  “We’re not sitting tonight-tomorrow is the great debate about home rule.”

  It was dark out, the days shortening, and still there was a threat of drizzle in the air. Lenox, impatient, didn’t bother waiting the fifteen minutes for his own horses to be rubbed down and his carriage to be readied, and instead hailed a cab. The drive was a short one.