A Stranger in Mayfair

by Charles Finch

  There was a dead silence in the room.

  Lenox broke it, in the end. “There are mysteries remaining in all this.” He thought of the butcher, of Ludo Starling’s lies. “Still, you have my backing, if that counts for anything during your trial, or before that when the police build their case. I believe you to be innocent. As for Paul—I’m not as convinced as you are that he’s guilty. If he is, however, I cannot promise to protect him.”

  Collingwood was past caring. His soliloquy about Paul and his fresh confession, of innocence, had taken the last of his energy. “Can I go now, please?”

  “Yes,” said Lenox. “Thank you for speaking with us.”

  Outside of the prison Lenox and Dallington were standing on the pavement, waiting for Lenox’s carriage to round the block and pick them up, when they saw Ludo Starling. He was smoking a short, fat cigar, a hand in one pocket, seemingly idle.

  “Starling!” called out Lenox. To Dallington he whispered, “Don’t mention anything Collingwood told us.”

  Ludo turned to see them, and his face fell. “Oh, hullo,” he said. “I suppose you’ve been to see my butler?”

  “Yes, we have.”

  “It’s damned…I wish you wouldn’t have done it. Elizabeth and I have both asked you over and over to step out of our family’s business. What will it take, money? Let me pay your standard fee, and we shall be done with each other.”

  “Money doesn’t interest me.”

  “Fowler has everything in hand. Collingwood has confessed, for the love of Christ.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Will you stop?”

  “There are one or two small things I wish to learn the truth about before I do,” said Lenox.

  “Damn it, you’re a Member of Parliament! It’s a disgrace!”

  “Because you’re angry I’ll let that pass, but don’t say it again.”

  Ludo waved an angry hand at him. “We’re at an end, by God.” He paused to regain some measure of composure. “I’ll be pleased to deal with you in the House, or see you socially—but as for this business, there will be no more relationship between us.”

  “A final question, then?”

  “Well?”

  “Who does your butchering?”

  Starling reddened and walked inside the prison without another word, throwing his cigarette angrily to the ground as he went.

  Dallington looked at Lenox. “You know who his butcher is.”

  “I wanted to see his reaction.”

  “Is it so mysterious? He wants to protect his son from you. Just like Collingwood.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Dallington was perhaps right, but too many loose threads remained for Lenox to feel happy. Why had the butcher run out of the boxing club? Was he from Schott and Son? And above all: If Paul had killed Frederick Clarke, then first, what was his motive, and second, who had attacked Ludo? For Paul and his mother had been in Cambridge then. Though the idea of him being asked to defer entry must have been a lie, the trip wasn’t.

  Lenox explained this all in the carriage, which he directed to Schott and Son. “Will you come along with me?” he asked Dallington. “I can drop you at home.”

  “Oh, I’ll come. I’m as curious as you are. Actually I feel stupid—all the facts before us and no solution, no rhyme and reason to any of the blasted thing.”

  A dry laugh from Lenox. “If you dislike that feeling, you should leave the profession before it’s too late.”

  Unfortunately Schott and Son was closed again. It was strange, of course, for a prominent butcher in the heart of Mayfair to close on consecutive days without any explanation.

  “There’s a wine shop I know next door,” said Dallington. “Trask’s. We could ask about our butcher there.”

  “Perfect.”

  They went inside the shop, which was so honeycombed with wine bottles—on the walls, in great cases down the middle of the floor—that it was hard to move to and fro. A tall, thin, gray-haired gentleman, evidently with poor eyesight because he had thick glasses perched on the end of a thin nose, approached them.

  Only when he was very close indeed did he exclaim, “Lord John Dallington! It has been far, far too long.”

  Dallington, smiling ruefully, and participating gingerly in the shop keep er’s vigorous handshake, said, “Only a week, I think.”

  “I remember when you were here every day! Will it be another case of champagne? Or did you like that Bordeaux we ordered for you in August? Too heavy a wine for such weather, I said, but you had it; and liked it, I fancy, for it’s a hard wine not to like.”

  “I’m after information, actually,” said Dallington.

  “Oh?” said Trask, crestfallen.

  “Well—why not send me another crate of champagne.”

  “Excellent! I’ll have the boy take it over this afternoon. Let me find my book, here…” He pulled a ledger off a nearby crate of wine and made a note in it.

  “Do you know anything of the butcher next door?”

  “Schott?”

  “And son,” added Lenox.

  “It’s only the son,” said Trask. “Old Mr. Schott died four years ago, and his son runs the place with a cousin now.”

  “Do you know where he’s been the past two days?” asked Dallington.

  “No, and it’s quite unusual. When Schott is sick his cousin is usually there, at least, or the other way round sometimes. They don’t often close.”

  “You haven’t heard anything else?”

  “No. Shall I tell you if I do?”

  “Please—that would be wonderful.”

  “May I ask why you gentlemen want to know?”

  “To settle a bet,” said Dallington.

  “Not the first time I’ve done that—do you remember, sir, coming in with the stopwatch to see whether you or your young friend could drink a bottle of wine in under ten minutes? An exciting day, that was.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Dallington hurriedly, “well—thank you—I’ll expect that champagne. Good-bye!”

  Outside again they walked in silence for thirty seconds, Lenox smiling inwardly.

  Dallington stopped and with an irritable grimace said, “Well? They know me at the wine store, as no doubt you’ll have observed.”

  “Did you drink it all? In under ten minutes?”

  “Oh, bother it,” said Dallington and stepped into the carriage. “If you have time, let’s go see Clarke’s mother again.”

  She was still at the Tilton Hotel in Hammersmith; unfortunately she was now in a bad way. With the passing of time her stern resolve to stay until her child’s murderer was found had changed into a mother’s grieving dissolution. She smelled of gin, and wept twice in their presence.

  “Have you spoken to any of Frederick’s friends?” asked Lenox.

  “No, no—the poor boy!”

  “Did he mention a friend—a butcher?”

  “A butcher? He never would have associated with that kind—the poor boy!”

  And so forth.

  “Don’t feel guilty,” Dallington told her just before they left. “It’s not your fault.”

  “He needed someone. A real father would have protected him,” she said. “That’s what he needed—he should have had a real father. Ludovic—Mr. Starling—he could have been that, when I entrusted my poor Freddie with him. Or at least a friend. It’s not right to leave a boy alone in a city like this. I should have been here—I should have come down from Cambridge more often…”

  And fresh tears.

  When they finally managed to elicit her opinion on Collingwood’s confession, all she could say was that it shouldn’t have happened—that someone should have protected her only son.

  The two detectives left dispirited. They had tried to give her some solace by speaking in euphemism about death and afterlife, but she would receive none.

  “I must go home now,” said Lenox.

  “What can I do?”

  “You could try Fowler again.”

/>   “Very well.” Dallington smiled. “And thanks for waking me up, even though it seemed like a cruel thing to do at the time.”

  When he arrived back in Hampden Lane, starving and feeling just marginally more intelligent about the whole messy Starling question, the house looked somehow brighter to him. Its matched and yet strangely mismatched facade, only partially a house still—it needed to be lived in longer—finally gave him a feeling of contentment.

  Inside, all was in confusion. Footmen were moving furniture to and fro, the door to the servants’ quarters downstairs was swung wide open into the front hall, and over it all Kirk was presiding, harassed.

  “Are we being evicted?” asked Lenox.

  “No, sir, not to my understanding.”

  “It was a joke—a poor one, I’m afraid. What’s the row?”

  “I see now, sir—very good—ha, ha. If your question refers to the activity in the house, this is the standard preparation for one of Lady Lenox’s Tuesday evening parties.”

  That explained it. “Does she always go to such lengths?”

  From the front stairway Lady Jane’s voice called out, “Charles, are you there? Leave Kirk alone, the poor dear has a great deal to do.”

  “There you are,” said Lenox, finding her as she trotted back up the stairs. “Can’t you stop to say hello?”

  “I wish I could! But I want this evening to be memorable—your first days in Parliament, you know!”

  “I forgot all about it. Will there be any dratted soul I can talk to there?” said Lenox moodily.

  “Oh, yes, you and Edmund can sit in the corner and grumble together while the adults make conversation.”

  She turned as she reached their bedroom, and her warm smile showed she was teasing; a perfunctory kiss and she had gone to her changing room. “Toto may come!” she called as she walked.

  Lenox, who was nearly hit by a passing bookcase, beat a rapid retreat to his study. On the desk there was a stack of blue books that needed his attention. Leaning back in his chair, his feet propped up on the ledge of the tall window that looked over Hampden Lane, he picked one up. “Railroad and Waterway Taxation,” it was called. There was a note in Graham’s surprisingly messy, quick script (he was so fastidious in other ways) that read, Many important men are interested in this subject. Please study carefully.

  With a sigh Lenox turned to the first page and started to read.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Kirk might not have known all of Lenox’s idiosyncrasies, but there were few like him in London for a party. When at eight o’clock that evening Lenox went into the rose-colored drawing room (now quite large after the joining-up of the houses, though Jane had done well to create several small sitting areas within it), he saw three long tables piled close with food and drink. On one was the hot food, a nod toward incipient autumn: roast fowl with watercress, jugged hare, steak and oyster sauce. On the next was cold food, appropriate for the summer that was now passing out of existence: cold salmon, dressed crab, and a great bowl of salad. Finally, on the third table were drinks. There was champagne, of course, and a drink made of champagne and cold sherbet, which many of the women liked if the room became overhot. There was wine in plentiful quantities besides, and for the gentlemen spirits. At the center of the table was the party’s true heart, an enormous silver punch bowl filled to the brim with orange (or peach?) colored naval punch.

  Footmen stood behind each table, ready to serve. What was considered charming about Jane’s Tuesdays—and even by some inappropriate—was their informality. All around the room were card tables and sideboards where people could set their plates, but beyond that there was no central dining table. It was rather like being with family for breakfast on the morning after a great party; everyone with a bit of something on a plate, milling through the room and chatting. Tonight there would be thirty people or so, half of them who might be deemed friends, the other half who would more properly be called personages.

  “You’re home, sir,” said a voice behind Lenox, who was asking for a glass of punch.

  “Ah—Graham. I just got back.”

  He had just rushed home from Parliament and changed. The immemorial practice of the House was to convene in mid afternoon and go late into the night; on the face of it an impractical schedule, until one remembered that there was a great deal of work done in the morning and early afternoon to prepare for the later assembly. In fact the morning work was perhaps more important, and now that they were just finished debating the Queen’s Speech the House would be only lightly populated for the rest of the evening.

  “I wanted to remind you before I retire, sir, to pay special attention to Percy Field, the Prime Minister’s personal secretary.”

  “Surely you’ll be coming?” said Lenox. “You’re invited, you know.”

  Suddenly there was a pained look on Graham’s face, and Lenox realized that to be a guest where just weeks before he had been a butler would be too awkward, too abrupt—even too painful. “I fear not, sir. At any rate, your attention, or perhaps Lady Lenox’s, would be far more significant than mine.”

  There was a ring at the bell, and Graham bowed very slightly, a habit of his former profession that still hadn’t left him, and withdrew.

  “Who the hell wants to be first?” muttered Lenox to nobody in particular, setting down his punch to greet whoever it was. He heard Lady Jane’s quick footsteps on the stairs and smiled, imagining her sentiments—similar to his own—on early arrivals to a party.

  Presently Kirk came down the hallway with someone who was in fact a welcome guest: Edmund.

  “Oh, hurrah,” said Lady Jane. “I worried it was someone I would have to speak to. I’ll be down again shortly.”

  “I call that a greeting!” Edmund laughed, and as she went out he said, “Well—if I’m not somebody one must speak to, I’ll sit in the corner and have my punch alone.”

  “Thank goodness you’ve come—I don’t want to talk to the Archbishop of Winchester. How are Molly and the boys?”

  “Molly sends me letters from the country—from the house—that I don’t mind telling you make me weep with frustration to be in this city all the time. I haven’t been on a horse in two weeks, Charles. Two weeks!”

  They had both grown up in Lenox House, Edmund’s seat now, as the baronet, and Charles spent most of his holidays there. “Any word on the Ruxton farm? Is the son taking it over?”

  “No, he’s selling out to open a chemist’s shop in town. It’s a relief—both of them, father and son, have been devilish. Rest in peace,” Edmund added obscurely.

  The farms on the land were a source of income for Edmund—Charles had been left money outright, through their mother—and he had to deal frequently with discontented tenants. “What will you do with the land?”

  “Southey, on the next parcel of land over, wants to expand. I’ll give him a fair rent to take the Ruxton land—about ten acres, I think—because he doesn’t need the house on them. A hellish little house, you remember.”

  “Oh, yes. Mother used to go sit and teach the Ruxton children how to read, though she never got any thanks for it.”

  Edmund snorted. “Well, hopefully the son can read well enough, or his new shop will poison half the people we know.”

  “What about the boys?”

  A glow came into Edmund’s face. “Teddy is owed a lashing for having candy at church, but I shan’t give it to him. Church is boring enough as a child without candy—oh, the door!”

  Soon the party was crowded with incoming guests, Lady Jane greeting them, Kirk taking whole double armfuls of shawls and coats here and there, the punch bowl quickly shallowing down. There were small groups forming around the archbishop and around an extremely amusing man named Griggs, a clubman and a wastrel who nonetheless was held to be the most enjoyable conversationalist in London. Edmund and Lenox, deep in their own conversation, broke off when two very important Members came in from the House, looking extremely gratified to redeem their first invitat
ions; this was always an exclusive event, not generally overpolitical in its composition.

  Percy Field came in, Lenox noticed, tall, thin, and austere, and soon experienced the same gratification. For a while, fifteen seconds or so, he stood uncomfortably in the doorway. Just as Lenox was going to greet him, however, the Duchess of Marchmain beat him to it. In truth she was more of a cohost than Charles was at these events.

  “Can I find you a drink?” she said to Field, as he was stammering out an introduction.

  He was both pleased and nonplussed by this sudden intimacy with nobility (“Why—Duchess—no—I couldn’t—ah—yes—punch would be lovely”) and his stern visage, with its rather pompous chin, flushed with the excitement of met expectations. Lenox smiled.

  Edmund came over, mouth full. “This is quite nice, actually. Have you tried the crab?”

  “Not yet. Generally I wait until the party’s over to eat—there’s so much food left Jane has it for days.”

  “By the way, that case—Ludo Starling. Is it true the butler did it?”

  “Keep it quiet, but I don’t think so.” Lenox lowered his voice to a whisper. “In fact there’s some suspicion that it was Ludo’s son Paul, though I’m not convinced of that either.”

  Edmund’s eyes grew wide. “His son! Never!”

  Charles nodded. “We’ll see—at any rate it wasn’t the butler. Be grateful you only have to fret about candy in church.”

  Edmund shook his head. “I don’t envy the boy anyway, having Starling for a father—he loves cards and drinking, and no chance of much attention when you compete with those.”