A Stranger in Mayfair

by Charles Finch

  Dessert, however, was where Lenox found himself most impressed: a meringue, then a light-as-air piece of sponge cake with the browned crusts removed, and on top of that a perfect mountain of whipped cream.

  As a final touch there was another chocolate, again robed in white, again with a cursive G written on it, and coffee. Coffee was the mystery they all spoke about (“They’ll overcream it,” Lady Jane predicted confidently), but when it arrived it surprised them all; floating above the black coffee was a thin white disc of crystallized sugar. They broke out into spontaneous applause at that, and Toto blushed.

  “It was my father’s thought,” she said, and her father reddened slightly, too, then looked very serious and said, “Oh, no, quite a frivolous idea,” and hastily drank off a great gulp of his wine.

  After the food there were speeches. McConnell’s father addressed them in a deep voice, with his son sinking into a chair like a young child at his father’s table; he spoke about Scottish traditions, the Scottish countryside, and even Scottish food with tremendous veneration, and concluded by saying, in a loud voice, “To our Highland granddaughter! May she live a full, happy life!” This drew overwhelming applause from seven or eight McConnell relatives and polite clapping from the rest of the party.

  Then Toto’s father stood up. “I shall be very brief,” he said. “This is the happiest day of my life.” He sat down, quite emotional, and earned truly overwhelming applause, along with shouts of “Hear, hear!” Lenox felt goose pimples on his arms; he knew how dearly, more dearly than anyone, the man loved Toto, and how pained he had been by her unhappiness over the years.

  Finally there was the bishop, who blessed the meal, called the day “joyouth indeed!” and sat down with the beaming face of a man who has done the work of God and, in the way of business, drunk six or seven glasses of good wine on a warm afternoon.

  When the lunch was finished the women and men retired to separate rooms, the women to sewing and gossip, the men to cigars and gossip. As it neared six o’clock some people, particularly the older ones, left, and others started for the ballroom, where guests were beginning to congregate. McConnell was at the threshold there, promising Toto would come down soon. It was a large, very high-ceilinged room, which was usually full of his sporting equipment but had been emptied out and varnished for the occasion. Along one wall were tables with punch and sherbet on them, and waiters with trays of the same now circulated among the guests.

  “McConnell,” said Lenox when he came in, with Lady Jane. “We’ve barely had a chance to speak.”

  “This sort of thing is never for friends, is it? Friends you see on any old night—this is for cousins and acquaintances, I think.” He smiled. “Still, would the two of you drink a glass of champagne with me?”

  “With all my heart,” said Lady Jane.

  McConnell stopped a servant and sent him to fetch three glasses. “To Grace’s godparents!” he said when they arrived, and held up his own champagne.

  “And to his father!” added Lenox.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw a figure enter the room; he turned and recognized Dallington. “Will you excuse me, both of you?” he said and walked off.

  “Lenox!” said Dallington when he spotted the older man walking toward him. “I don’t mind telling you that it’s five hundred degrees out there—really, I wouldn’t be surprised if some natives set up a colony on the banks of the Thames. There—a glass of champagne, that will cool me.” He swiped one from a passing tray.

  “How was Fowler?”

  “Bloody-minded old bastard.”

  With a reproving twist of his eyebrows, Lenox said, “This is a baptismal party, you know.”

  “True enough, and more to the point there’s a real bastard involved, isn’t there? I don’t want to confuse us.” Dallington grinned. “Well—call him an old fool, then.”

  “Did you even speak?”

  “Oh, we spoke. He asked if I had lost my mind, interfering with Scotland Yard.”

  “And you said?”

  “That I wasn’t interfering. I asked him if he knew about Frederick Clarke’s relationship with Ludo Starling—their secret—and he said yes and slammed the door in my face.”

  “I wonder if he does know.”

  “But not before saying ‘Tell Lenox not to darken my door again, either.’ I thought that was pleasant.”

  “I’ve news as well. The butcher.”

  “Oh?”

  “For a moment I thought he meant to skin me alive, but it turned out better than that.” Lenox laughed ruefully. “Though it’s all even more puzzling than it was before.”

  He told Dallington the story in detail, speaking in a low voice so as not to be overheard. With increasing astonishment the younger man listened, but at last felt compelled to break in.

  “Charles, this can mean only one thing!”

  “What?” asked Lenox.

  “That Ludo Starling killed Clarke!”

  Chapter Forty

  Lenox’s eyes shifted across the room, checking to see if anybody had heard the outburst. In fact someone was nearby, a pretty, rather large girl of twenty named Miranda Murray, red-haired and pale-cheeked. She was one of McConnell’s cousins, distantly. Toto disliked her for being humorless, but Thomas loved her dearly for her intelligence and pride. Dallington had cause to feel more strongly than any of them, because for a brief while they had been engaged. The end of the engagement, some years before, had been the talk of London, and in truth it was he who had jilted her. Quite unreasonably he hated her for it, in particular because she tried to be friends with him, putting a brave face on things.

  Approaching them, though, she must have seen something closed in their visages, and veered away as she was about to reach them.

  Dallington turned back to Lenox and in a lower voice said again, “Ludo must have killed Frederick Clarke. He needed an alibi from the butcher.”

  “I wish it were as simple as that.”

  “Why isn’t it?”

  “Ludo has flaws, but do you think he would kill his own son? And more perplexing still, come to me within an hour or two of it happening?”

  “Why not? What better to make him seem guiltless than to come to you and ask for help? I remember how he acted when we were inside Freddie’s room, as if he had a guilty conscience.”

  Lenox sighed. “I don’t know.”

  Dallington paused. “I discovered something else, too.”

  “What?”

  “I hope you don’t think I overstepped my duty. I went to see Collingwood.” He went on in a rush. “I felt he might need a visitor—some company. I should have asked you, I daresay, but it occurred to me while I was on the other side of London—and it was useful, as I say.”

  Lenox allowed himself the fleeting thought that perhaps Dallington was ready to work independently. “I think it was an excellent idea. What did he say?”

  “He knew about the money.”

  “That’s wonderful! What did he say?”

  “Starling was slipping him the money.”

  “Ludo Starling? Was slipping Frederick Clarke money?”

  “His son.”

  “Everything comes back to Ludo—the money, the stabbing,” muttered Lenox, almost to himself. “I wonder whether it was he who hid the apron and the knife, too…but can he have been the murderer?” He fell silent and stared intently at the floor, his mind far away from the party.

  “Lenox?” said Dallington quietly.

  “Sorry—quite sorry. Did he have a story to tell, Collingwood?”

  “Indeed he did, and I don’t mind adding that he lives in mortal terror of the gallows. His trial will begin in a week. I told him we would do our best for him.”

  “Of course.”

  “He didn’t want to talk about the money at first, but I could see he knew something, and I tried to pull it out of him gently.”

  “What was the story?”

  “His bedroom was close to the door of the servants’ quart
ers, the one you walk a few steps down from the street to reach. It was the biggest room and always belonged to the butler. According to Collingwood he heard someone stumbling down the steps one night.”

  “Starling?”

  “He didn’t know. An envelope slid under the door, and he opened it to check what it was.”

  “Even though it had Clarke’s name on it.”

  Dallington grimaced. “He wasn’t proud to tell me that. He didn’t steal anything—or so he said. At any rate, he didn’t twig what was happening then, but the next time it happened he heard Starling coming in upstairs.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Nobody else was out of the house—it couldn’t have been anyone but Starling. Then the third time he had confirmation, saw him through the window.”

  “I had hoped the trail of money would lead somewhere more conclusive,” said Lenox. “Instead it must draw our focus even tighter on Ludo, I suppose.”

  “Another interesting thing—all three times, he bragged to Collingwood afterward about winning at cards the night before.”

  “But Ludo’s rich. He could have given Frederick Clarke money whenever he wanted. Or for that matter, stopped him working as a footman!”

  Dallington laughed. “Apparently not. Elizabeth Starling keeps the family’s finances under tight control, Collingwood said. There was gossip in the servants’ quarters that Ludo owed more than a few men money for cards, and only paid when he won.”

  Lenox pondered this. At last, when he spoke, it was methodically, with determined logic of thought. “Here’s a simple enough story,” he said. “Clarke was tired of having so little money—wanted to be recognized as a gentleman’s son, which his mother had raised him in the knowledge that he was—and threatened to tell Ludo’s family. Ludo killed him to stop that. It’s all the more plausible because he’s so concerned about the title he may get.”

  The young man laughed. “Not that mine has done me any good. But Charles, think—if the simplest story makes such sense, mustn’t it be correct? Hasn’t Ludo been behaving strangely all along?”

  “It makes sense, I know. Except it doesn’t sit right with me. Look at the facts. Ludo was Frederick Clarke’s father—I think his giving the boy money only confirms what we thought on that subject—yet he allowed Clarke to work as his servant and pretended to me barely to know his name. He had ambivalent feelings, not angry ones. For God’s sake, he took him into his house, at least in some fashion! Yet you say he murdered him? His own son? It doesn’t sit right with me,” he repeated.

  “But having himself stabbed by Schott’s cousin makes it seem conclusive to me,” said Dallington. “Not to mention framing Collingwood! And for that matter, implicating his other son, Paul! These are the actions of a man with something to hide.”

  Lenox shook his head. “Maybe. Maybe Ludo Starling killed Frederick Clarke. There’s something we’re missing, though. I feel sure of it. Ludo is no mastermind, and I’ve never known him to be violent.”

  “Well, what shall we do, then?”

  Dallington looked unhappy. Lenox knew the feeling—to feel so sure, and not understand why other people didn’t, too.

  “We start over. First of all I think we ought to confirm with Mrs. Clarke what we suspect about her son’s paternity. I’m meant to be in Parliament tomorrow, but I’ll see her early in the morning, out at the Tilton.”

  “Then?”

  “Then we need to sit down and speak with Ludo, and ask him to describe exactly what his relationship with Frederick Clarke is. I don’t think Inspector Fowler has done it, or is likely to, and we can’t let Collingwood rot in jail.”

  “It may not work.”

  Lenox looked grim. “It will if we keep trying. The truth wants to come out.”

  They had been in a dark corner of the ballroom for so long that Lenox had forgotten there was dancing and merriment nearby. He only recognized it as noise, until a female voice called out to him.

  “You must be the two dullest men in London!”

  They turned and saw that it was Miranda Murray speaking.

  “You don’t want to get caught between us, then. Perhaps you should dance,” Dallington said.

  It was abominably rude.

  Miranda, who looked wounded, tried a smile. “Perhaps you’re right!” she said.

  “Might it be a dance with me, then?” asked Lenox. “I’m not much account, but of course the eyes in the room will be on you.” He held out a hand.

  Gratefully she took it and followed him onto the dance floor. “Thank you,” she said as a new song started.

  “Now tell me,” said Lenox, smiling mischievously, “do you think that baby looks more like Thomas or Toto?”

  “You must know my answer,” she said. “I think Grace favors my cousin, of course. No doubt Toto’s cousins think as I do but in reverse. But look at the child’s strong chin! She’s a McConnell.”

  “If you can keep a confidence, I think as you do. Of course I would never dream of saying it to either of them. She would be put out, and he would become terribly vain.”

  She laughed gaily and turned with him toward the center of the room.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Lenox awoke the next morning bleary-eyed. It wasn’t so much that he had had three or four drinks but that they were spread over so many hours. In his younger days he would have woken the next morning and taken his scull onto the river to refresh himself, but it was his fortieth year now, and it took him longer to feel quite normal again.

  Still, he dragged himself downstairs early and over a strong pot of tea devoured five blue books, none of them riveting but all, according to Graham’s carelessly penned notes, quite important. The sole moment of amusement that any of them afforded him was when a piece of paper dropped out of a blue book on education and he discovered that it was a self-portrait by Frabbs—that is, a self-portrait of how Frabbs wished he might look, which was nineteen years old, much more muscular, and with a rather dashing mustache. It was signed Gordon Frabbs in a deep, swooping hand.

  “Graham!” he called out when he had finished his reading. It was nearly ten o’clock.

  “Yes, sir?” said the political secretary when he appeared a moment later.

  “I’m going to attend to the Starling case this morning—no, there’s no use looking stern, I tell you—but I want to be at the House promptly. Is it important to be there at the beginning?”

  “I rather think so, sir. There will be an address on India by Mr. Gladstone, much anticipated, and he could use the benefit of your support on the benches.”

  “Shouting ‘Hear, hear,’ and that sort of thing?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lenox sighed. “I only feel half part of the Parliament, Graham. I should have known about Gladstone’s speech. You told me, if I recall—but my mind has been elsewhere.”

  “If I may speak freely, sir, I think it has.”

  A look of anger quickly muted into resignation passed over Lenox’s face. “It’s not what I expected, I suppose. Not as easy, or revolutionary, as what I expected.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well,” he said and stood up. “Thank you.”

  Graham bowed. “Sir.”

  When he was alone again Lenox’s mind traversed once more the details of the public water system, alighting on both its strengths and flaws. He was pacing his study when there was a ring on the doorbell. Dallington.

  They rode together in a cab to Hammersmith, with the foul-mouthed driver cursing everyone who stood in their way. For much of the time they didn’t speak; Lenox had a blue book and Dallington a copy of Punch, and they read in the two corners of the carriage.

  When they were close to Hammersmith Dallington looked at him. “How would you like to speak to her? Shall we come right out and ask who Clarke’s father was?”

  Lenox was silent for a moment. “You mustn’t always look to me, if you intend to learn anything for yourself,” he said. “Perhaps I’ve been too domineering an inst
ructor. Would you like to speak to her yourself?”

  The younger man looked surprised. “If you like,” he said. “I’ve no wish to jeopardize our chance of hearing the truth.”

  “You’ve sat with me often enough as I spoke to people, and stuck in your oar once or twice. Be gentle, I think—she seems quite fragile—and more importantly, when she looks like she’s wanting to speak, for heaven’s sake don’t say anything.”

  “Well—excellent, then.”

  They waited for her in a cluster of armchairs in a private corner. Lenox ordered tea and sandwiches. When she arrived to meet them she looked terrible, wracked by grief. She declined food and let a cup of tea sit untouched on the table before them all.

  “I fear I cannot help any of you,” she said. “Not Mr. Fowler, nor you, Mr. Lenox. What am I meant to believe? That Mr. Collingwood killed my son?”

  “What do you think?” asked Dallington.

  She turned her eyes on him. “If I had an opinion I would be a great deal less unhappy, young man,” she said. “And don’t think I don’t remember you, at my pub—breaking glasses—carousing—inviting loose women into the bar. Sent down from Trinity College, weren’t you? Lord John Dallington! Out of respect for Mr. Lenox—a man in Parliament, no less—I’ve held my tongue, but I don’t want you asking me what my opinion might be. I want help!”

  He blushed furiously and stammered out something less than cogent. It was true that Cambridge had expelled him, not so long ago. “Younger days—terribly sorry—new leaf—broken glasses a terrible expense—please allow me—” and so forth.

  “Your scout, Mr. Baring, paid for the broken glasses. Your tab as well. He took it from the pocket money your father sent him instead of you. You ought to be ashamed for it, too.”