A Stranger in Mayfair clm-4

by Charles Finch

  They arrived at the Starling mansion in time to hear Elizabeth Starling’s usually gentle voice saying, “Now polish it again!”

  “Yes, ma’am,” came the tearful reply.

  Dallington reddened and clicked his tongue indignantly-the girl was Jenny Rogers, as they could both hear.

  It wasn’t Elizabeth who answered, however; they heard her footsteps (or someone else’s) walking briskly away from the entrance after they had knocked.

  It was Tiberius Starling who opened the door for them. “No damn butler,” he said moodily.

  “That will be fixed soon enough,” answered Lenox with a broad smile. Then he noticed a fresh red welt on the old uncle’s cheek.

  He didn’t say anything, of course-manners forbore it-but Tiberius must have seen his glance. With the occasionally excessive frankness and confidentiality of old gentlemen, he leaned into them and said, “That devil woman did it. Threw a book at me, one I had left lying on the table. She’s in a fearful temper. About Paul, I expect.”

  “I’m extremely sorry to hear it,” said Lenox.

  “Come in-Ludo’s at his desk.”

  Elizabeth Starling was indeed in a fearful temper. It was no wonder, of course. Her son was gone, in all likelihood off to the colonies, and either the boy or his father was a murderer.

  Ludo’s face again fell when he saw who his visitors were, and he started to say what he had before. “A damn intrusion” was his greeting to them, “a nuisance of the first order and-”

  Lenox interrupted him. “I had an interesting discussion with Inspector Fowler. About your friendship.”

  Ludo, nonplussed, stopped talking for a few seconds. “Oh?” he said at last, in an attempt to be brazen. “At least he’s competent enough to be employed as an inspector. A pair of bumbling amateurs, you two.”

  Lenox shook his head gently. “It’s no good, Ludo.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We know far more than we did-enough, I should say.”

  “What do you mean?” he said again. He was seated at his desk still, not having risen to greet them, and Lenox could see the stress in his visage-of lying, of guilt, of sleepless nights.

  “You’ve reached an agreement with an inspector of Scotland Yard. You paid him money in order to conceal a crime. Both of you will appear before the bench for it. Your trial will be in the House of Lords, yes”-this was customary for all members of Parliament and the nobility-“though I don’t know that it will matter. What sickens me is that you’ve let Jack Collingwood sit in Newgate Prison, wondering whether he’ll be hanged by the neck until he’s dead.”

  “No!”

  “Even though he’s an innocent man.”

  “How do you-how do you think you know this?” asked Ludo.

  “It’s no use bluffing. Between this and Frederick Clarke’s true identity-as your son-I thought it was time to consult with Scotland Yard. Because we’re acquaintances I wanted to give you the chance to confess first.”

  At last now Ludo broke down. “I didn’t kill the boy,” he said. “I gave him money, for heaven’s sake! I looked after him! We were-well, friends, you might say! I only paid Fowler because I was trying to protect someone I love.”

  “Was it-”

  Lenox silenced Dallington’s question with a look. It was always best to let them ramble on.

  “You must believe me, Charles.” A pleading look came into his eyes. “You must. I didn’t kill him. I wouldn’t have, never.”

  Very gently, still not wanting to intrude upon the confession, Lenox said, “Paul? Did you want to protect Paul?”

  “Paul’s gone,” was all Ludo said.

  “He isn’t,” bluffed Dallington. “I checked at the docks.”

  Ludo shook his head. “He’s gone. Collingwood can come out of jail.”

  “I checked the docks!”

  Lenox quietly said, “He’s in Wiltshire, isn’t he. Starling Hall. I imagine Elizabeth couldn’t bear to see him go overseas.”

  Ludo nodded just perceptibly. “Yes.”

  “Ludo inherited it last year,” said Lenox to Dallington. “It’s empty, other than staff, of course. I imagine Paul could stay well concealed there for some time.”

  It was all clear enough. Paul Starling had killed Frederick Clarke. Since that awful moment Ludo had scrambled to protect his younger son, shifting the blame to anyone he could, paying out money to whomever he could.

  There were two things Lenox didn’t understand, still. The first was motive. It had seemed so clear: Ludo killed Clarke because the sudden appearance of a bastard son would have destroyed his plans for a title to pass on to Alfred-perhaps for a title at all. Paul, though-what did Paul care? Whether Frederick Clarke or Alfred Starling was next in line surely was irrelevant to the youngest son, wasn’t it?

  The second point was even more puzzling: Who had attacked him, Charles Lenox? The plan to steal Paul away to Starling Hall had already been set in motion. Had Ludo wanted to clear his own name, too?

  “Who attacked me?” Lenox asked. “Were you trying to give yourself an alibi? But no,” he said to himself, “that doesn’t make sense. You already had an alibi from the butcher attack.”

  “I didn’t know anybody was going to attack you,” said Ludo mournfully. He sank back into his chair and put his face in his hands. “There’s so much I would take back if I could-I should never have protected-”

  There was a sound outside the door, a “shush!” in a woman’s voice.

  And suddenly Lenox put it all together, what had been invisible for so long. It wasn’t Paul Starling who had killed Freddie Clarke. He was innocent.

  I only paid Fowler because I was trying to protect someone I love.

  The wound on Tiberius’s face, and a dozen other details.

  It was Elizabeth Starling who had attacked Lenox.

  It was she who had killed Frederick Clarke.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  A dozen things crowded Lenox’s mind: Elizabeth’s occasional temper, which he had seen over the past weeks, Ludo’s seemingly inexplicable tangle of actions, her ironclad alibi for the butcher stabbing, when she had been in Cambridge. Her intense devotion to her sons, and her sometimes scorn for Ludo; it would have killed her to know that his title went to a footman, of all people, another woman’s son, rather than her Alfred. Her soft, gentle exterior, her quiet manner-he saw now that they concealed a character that was dreadful and dark, capable of evil things.

  He thought back to the day of the murder. She had come into the alley. Why? At the time she had said she wanted to see if the constable was hungry or thirsty, but now this seemed unlikely. It was much likelier she would have sent a servant out. Did she want to move the brick? Conceal some other clue?

  And the attack on Lenox: She had been standing at the door to see Ludo away, no doubt, and heard him come. When she learned the secret was out, eavesdropping on the conversation in the street, she must have flown into a rage.

  There was the note! In Frederick Clarke’s room, the note asking him when his birthday was. She must have found out that he was Ludo’s legitimate son, and wanted to know exactly how old the lad was.

  These ideas flooded his brain, one tripping on the heels of another, but he didn’t have time to articulate any of them.

  Ludo had stood up. “What!” he called. “They know about Fowler. They know about poor Freddie.”

  Elizabeth Starling flung the door open, her face transfigured by rage, and screamed, “Shut up, you fool!”

  Dallington, who was still in the dark, looked taken aback, but for Lenox it was the final nail in the coffin.

  “You killed Clarke, didn’t you?” he asked very softly.

  The three other people in the room froze, but he walked to Ludo’s desk and rapped it with his knuckles, eyes cast down, brow furrowed, thinking it through.

  “It makes sense to me now. Poor Ludo isn’t a violent type. He’s happy with a game of cards and a glass of brandy. But you-you’re a plotter.
”

  She was bright red. “You’ve always been a small man, Lenox. Get out of my house.”

  “I don’t think I shall. What happened? When did Ludo tell you? Or was it Freddie who told you? Yes-I suspect that’s right.” He started pacing up and down the room. “Freddie wanted to be acknowledged as Ludo’s son and heir, the heir to any Starling title, the heir to Starling Hall. In the heat of the moment-or did you do it coolly?-I can’t decide-at any rate, you pried a brick from the ground and waited at the bend in the alley, where you knew he passed often enough.”

  “No!”

  “Then you did it. Smiled to his face and struck a blow on the back of his head as he walked away. I shouldn’t have been fooled by your gentle manners, I see now.”

  “Lenox, what are you saying?” asked Dallington, appalled. “A woman-a gentlewoman-to have killed-”

  Ludo interrupted. “It’s true,” he muttered, almost involuntarily.

  “Ludovic!” screamed Elizabeth Starling, her fists tightly clenched and trembling.

  “I hate this,” he said. “Because of you-to have been stabbed-our son cast out of our home-our faithful butler-my son! Freddie was my son!” He descended into incoherence now, muttering single words that formed a loose narrative in his own mind.

  Lenox saw that the spell of her personality, her willpower, had been broken when the secret came out.

  “Why did you cover for her? Why agree to be stabbed?”

  “She’s my wife,” was all he managed to stammer out. “But this folly has to end, Eliza.”

  As Lenox turned to see Elizabeth Starling’s reaction, two things happened: He heard a sound behind him, and Dallington shouted “Lenox!”

  She was attacking him again. She had picked up a good-sized gold clock and had it above her head.

  Dallington, who had jumped to his feet, was too late. Fortunately Lenox had managed to spring around her strike and grasp her from behind. She struggled mightily against his grip, but soon she let the clock go and fell in a heap into an armchair, sobbing without restraint.

  Lenox, his heart pounding, felt the bandage on his head. Ludo and Dallington were standing beside him, looking shocked.

  “I think we must call the police constable,” said Lenox, “but perhaps a doctor would be better first.” He picked up the bell and rang for the maid, whom he directed to fetch both.

  It was strange to be in that quintessentially English room, with its hunting prints, its lines of leather-bound books, its fireplace, its old portraits along the wall, and to imagine all the violence that it had borne. Both Ludo’s careless life-marrying a maid, having a child with her, and later accepting him in as a footman (the madness!)-and more importantly Elizabeth Starling’s raging anger, her dark heart.

  As she sobbed, dispossessed now beyond a doubt of whatever life she had made for herself, he almost felt pity for her. Then he remembered the other mother, the one in a hotel in Hammersmith, slowly coming apart at the seams.

  “Come, Ludo,” he said. “You shall have a drink. This will all be over soon. I’m sorry you had to endure it.”

  Ludo looked at Lenox, tears in his puffy, dissipated eyes. “My own son” was all he said. “The insanity of it.”

  “What happened?” asked Dallington. “You wanted the blame to fall on Paul?”

  “No!” It wasn’t Ludo but Elizabeth who spoke, between sobs, from the chair. Despite her anguish she couldn’t stand to see her son’s name fouled. “He saw it. He saw me. Then when the trial was close he refused to let Collingwood stay in jail any longer.”

  “And you-you let Collingwood believe Paul was a murderer? Your son?”

  “Why do you think I’m crying, you halfwit?” she said. “Because of Paul. I don’t care whether Freddie Clarke burns in hell. Or his father, for that matter.”

  “But I helped you!” said Ludo, shocked again. “You-you told me we had to protect ourselves! Our family!”

  “I’m not going to say another word,” Elizabeth answered.

  In its dimensions it was more like a Greek tragedy than anything he had ever come across in his career: the striving bastard (who turned out not to be a bastard at all), educating himself, seeking the approval of a diffident father; the mad wife; the incidental victims; the double-crossing and lies. Dallington was glassy-eyed. There was none of the satisfaction that usually comes at the end of a case.

  In due course the doctor arrived, and so the wheels of bureaucracy began their slow revolutions. He gave her a sedative; she was docile enough but, true to her promise, didn’t speak. After him the police came, and then more police-the inspector, Rudd, was extremely troubled, needless to say-and soon she was taken away.

  Rudd stayed behind, a bluff, genial, stupid man with a great red nose, the sort who would be the most popular man at his local public house. He was one of the two or three men who had risen after the death of Inspector Exeter.

  “What do you reckon, Mr. Lenox?” he said. “Can she really have done it?”

  “She admitted as much.”

  He shook his head as if he didn’t like that much. “And attacked you! Lady Macbeth ain’t in it!”

  “She ain’t,” agreed Dallington, still awestruck. Then a thought occurred to him. “I daresay Collingwood will be relieved.”

  “Mightily,” said Lenox.

  “Ah, you’ve put your finger on the thing, young man-is he innocent? Was he not complicit? What about the green butcher’s apron?”

  Both Dallington and Lenox turned uneasy eyes on Ludo, who was sitting in the corner alone, a devastated man; everything in his mien said he hadn’t realized the extent of his wife’s evil.

  “He certainly wasn’t involved,” said Lenox, “unless he agreed to go to Newgate to protect the Starlings.”

  There was a tremendous commotion at the door just then, and two constables with their hands full of a fifty-year-old woman staggered back into the room.

  “Where is she! I’ll kill her!” cried Frederick’s mother. “Where is that devil woman?” Her wild gaze alighted on Ludo. “Oh, Luddy!” she cried and in two or three steps fell on him.

  To Lenox’s surprise he returned the embrace, and tears seemed to escape his eyes, too. “I’m so sorry,” Ludo said, patting her on the back. “Our poor son. He was such a lovely boy.”

  In that instant Lenox wondered whether Ludo had loved her all along.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  The next day Lenox resumed his place in the House of Commons. He was determined to make a go of it; the brief spark of excitement that the cholera problem had given him was fresh in his mind still, and he realized that to last in Parliament you had to be one of two sorts of people. You could be the dogged, workaday type (there had been plenty of Prime Ministers and Chancellors of the Exchequer who belonged to this category, and it was by no means lesser), and spend long hours in study and work. Or you could be the sort who felt strongly the inciting passion of ideas, and work to bend other men to your will.

  He had no chance of being the first kind. It wasn’t in his makeup. But he could be the second kind, he hoped.

  In the meanwhile it was Graham who filled the first role. As the days passed after the case had concluded and Lenox spent more and more time in his office, he found out that Graham had inexhaustible reserves of energy to devote even to the minutest issues. He was a wonderful taskmaster to Frabbs, both cajoling him into better work and teaching him how the work was to be done.

  Lenox ran into Percy Field one morning in the halls of Parliament, and Field stopped him to say thank you again for the invitation to Lady Jane’s Tuesday.

  “You’re all over the papers,” he said after they had exchanged “thank you” and “you’re welcome.” “Elizabeth Starling?”

  “Poor Ludo-I wonder whether he’ll return to the House, or if he’s finished.”

  “He’s back at Starling Hall, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  He was there with Frederick Clarke’s mother. Before he had left he had come
to Hampden Lane, some three days after his wife’s arrest, to apologize for the past weeks. As they sat in front of the fireplace, lit because the first frost of the autumn had been in the gardens and parks of the city that morning, Lenox studied the other man. His face was pained and older than before. He had taken the glass of claret Lenox offered but, in a way that was very unlike himself, didn’t touch it.

  “Do you ever feel you’ve wasted your life?” he asked, an exceedingly, even inappropriately intimate question, but of course Lenox was prepared to make allowances for him.

  “I daresay everyone feels that way once in a while.”

  Ludo smiled. “No-I see you don’t know what I mean.”

  “Perhaps not.”

  “I’m taking Alfred to Starling Hall. Paul is there.”

  “How are they?”

  “Alfred is bewildered-between you and me, he’s rather a bewildered kind of soul-and Paul is angry. I think it will do them both good to get to Cambridge. They go next week.”

  “Have you seen Elizabeth?”

  “No,” he said shortly, “but Collingwood was in the house this morning. I poured my heart out to him.” He laughed. “I don’t think he forgave me. I wouldn’t either.”

  “I can’t imagine he would, no.”

  “There are no criminal charges to be laid against me.” Ludo paused. “Tell me, will you turn Fowler in?”

  “He and I have our own agreement.”

  “I wonder whether you would forgive me, Lenox.”

  “Certainly.”

  “Don’t be hasty. She might have killed you, you know, on the street outside of our house. D’you know, I feel now as if it was all a dream-a bizarre dream.”

  “She was a strong-willed woman.”

  “That’s like saying London is a biggish village,” responded Ludo, with a flash of his old bantering ways.

  “Could I ask you a question, Ludo? Was Derbyshire supposed to vouch for you? Is that why you didn’t sign in?”

  Ludo sighed. “Yes,” he said. “That’s right. If I had signed in, when I arrived it would have showed I wasn’t at the club during the time Freddie was murdered. I was home, in fact.”