A Stranger in Mayfair

by Charles Finch

  “I am,” said Dallington in a low voice.

  Lenox, who had at first been inclined to smile when Mrs. Clarke began her rebuke, saw how gravely affected the young lord was and stepped in. “I’m sorry we can’t help you,” he said. “I wish we could.”

  “Yes—well.” Momentarily her fragility was covered up by something hard and angry.

  “We had a question, actually. That might help.”

  “About Frederick?”

  “After a fashion.”

  “What is it, Mr. Lenox?”

  It was Dallington who spoke. “Who is his father?”

  “Frederick Clarke Sr. Of course.”

  With a gentle frown, he said, “Is that—is it quite true? Might his real father be Ludovic Starling?”

  She first looked taken aback, then crumpled into tears. It was a moment before any of them spoke again, and as Lenox had advised, Dallington stayed quiet. It was she who broke the silence.

  “Yes…but I can’t believe he told you.”

  “He d—”

  Lenox interrupted Dallington. “How did it happen?” he asked.

  Crying again, she said, “Oh, when I was a pretty little fool in Cambridge. He was a student at Downing, where I was a maid.”

  “There was no uncle, was there?” asked Lenox. “The money for the pub?”

  “No. It was his money. Ludovic’s.”

  Lenox remembered her calling him Ludovic the last time they spoke, a little too intimately. “Why did you go to work for him?”

  “We were still—I thought we were still in love. I said he had to let me work there, or I would tell his new wife.”

  “It must have been a miserable time,” said Lenox.

  “Miserable?” She let out a sob. “How can you say that when Freddie came out of it all? Dear, wonderful Freddie?”

  “And when you were—with child?”

  “I was six months pregnant when I moved to London, and only stayed for about two months. It was a terrible ordeal to watch him build a new life without me, but I blackmailed him into letting me stay. I was always very cordial to Elizabeth, and she gave Freddie a job straight away when I asked. In the end Ludovic gave me the money I bought the pub with and sent me to the seaside, where a nurse looked after me. After I had the child I thought perhaps he would wish to speak to me, but he never did, and in my pride—in my foolishness—I decided I hated him. Though I love him still, God curse me for it!”

  There was a long break in the conversation, as she cried and cried. The wound was still fresh, it was obvious, or had perhaps been reopened by her son’s death.

  “There was a ring,” Dallington ventured at last. “A signet ring, with Ludo’s initials in it.”

  Haltingly, she said, “He gave it to me—he—” She began to sob again.

  “Then you gave it to Frederick?”

  “Yes. When he was fourteen I sat him down at our kitchen table and told him the truth. From then on there was nothing in his head but the Starling family. Just like his mother—a pair of fools.”

  “No.”

  “A pair of fools.”

  “So is that why Frederick went to work for Ludo’s family?” asked Lenox.

  “Yes. I begged him not to, but he wanted to be close to his father.”

  “Did his father acknowledge him?”

  “Yes. Freddie told me they were getting more and more friendly. Freddie said he would end up a gentleman one day.”

  “No wonder Ludo has seemed so agitated,” said Lenox.

  Dallington merely raised his eyebrows; apparently he still considered Ludo the primary suspect. Lenox wasn’t quite as sure.

  Something else, though, made sense: the intellectual reading, the philosophy and great literature; the tailored suits and shoes; the aristocratic boxing club, where he spent money freely; and the ring, most of all having his own initials engraved on the Starling ring. Frederick Clarke was setting himself up, in his own mind, as a gentleman. Raised in a pub, but apparently of some natural gifts, he had decided to emulate his father. Freddie said he would end up a gentleman one day.

  It reached a tender spot in Lenox’s heart, this idea of Freddie Clarke, the footman, striving to be so much more than himself—striving to be like a father who would never fully own him, indeed who would likely never fully love him.

  “There was something else, too.”

  “What?”

  “Something even worse, for poor Ludo—for poor Freddie,” she said, sniffling into her handkerchief.

  “Poor Ludo?” said Dallington with disdain.

  “What is it?” asked Lenox.

  “We—” She couldn’t go on, and for a tantalizing moment it seemed as if she were going to silence herself.

  Then suddenly Lenox saw what it must be. “You and Ludovic Starling were married, weren’t you?”

  She nodded and burst into further tears. “Yes. That’s it. That was when he gave me the ring! As a wedding ring. I thought his family would kill him when they heard, and they began to put an end to it quickly enough. Pretty soon after that they forced him to marry Elizabeth, though I know for a fact he didn’t love her, and in our little chapel in Cambridge!” A wracking sob went through her body, as if she could only now see just how much she had lost. “An arranged marriage.”

  Lenox put a hand on her arm. “It will be all right,” he said.

  “Why is that worse? What am I missing?” said Dallington.

  “When is Frederick’s birthday?” asked Lenox of Mrs. Clarke by way of response to the question.

  She looked at him, and he saw the truth.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Lenox thanked Mrs. Clarke, promised to visit her again soon, and dragged Dallington out to the front of the hotel, where they picked up a new cab.

  “Where in damnation are we going?” asked Dallington as they climbed in. “Don’t you have to be at Parliament soon?”

  “I have an hour. We have to go see Ludo Starling.”

  “Why?”

  “To confront him. For the first time I think he may be guilty.”

  “Finally!” Dallington exhaled. “What convinced you?”

  Lenox smiled. “Let me have my little game—come and talk to Ludo with me.”

  As they rode through the streets from Hammersmith to Mayfair, the buildings going past in a transition from shabby to genteel to pristine, Lenox tried to read his blue book, but there was no point. Nothing, not even Parliament, could match the excitement of the chase.

  In a part of himself, though, he understood that this must be an ending. He would pass more cases on to Dallington now, and if Dallington needed help or advice Lenox would provide it, but only as a secondary figure. Cases of particular interest, or brought to him by those with a deep personal claim on him, would be the only ones he undertook to solve.

  As they approached Curzon Street, Dallington leaned through his window to look up at the Starlinghouse.

  “Look—he’s just leaving!” Dallington said.

  “Probably on his way to Parliament. There, driver, leave us here!” called Lenox, rapping the top of the brougham with his fist. “Dallington, will you pay the man?”

  “Yes—I’ll be behind you.”

  Lenox stepped out of the cab and walked briskly down the street. “Ludo!” he called out.

  He had begun to understand in the past few weeks how a tax collector must feel. Ludo’s face, expectant as he turned, fell into a look of disappointment.

  “Oh. Hullo. Walking down to Parliament? Come along, I suppose—yes, come along. Same party, after all,” he said, with a forlorn shrug.

  “I’m going there in a moment, yes, but I came here to speak to you. I’m glad I’ve caught you.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s about Frederick Clarke.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s—”

  “Or more precisely, I should say, about your son Alfred.”

  Ludo’s puffy pink face looked startled. “Alfred? What on earth could you want
to know about him?”

  “Only one thing—his birthday.”

  Dallington came up to them now, and with that distraction Ludo managed to compose his features. “You, too?” he said. “Would you like to know the date of my wedding anniversary? Or old Tiberius’s saint’s day?”

  “I’m as much in the dark as you are,” said Dallington. “What did you ask him, Charles?”

  “Only his son’s birthday.”

  “Paul?” asked Dallington doubtfully, perhaps suspecting that Lenox had returned to his quick departure for the colonies as a key point. “Why would it matter?”

  “No. Alfred.”

  “It’s taking a good deal of restraint not to snub you, Charles,” said Ludo. “Why should I submit to this intolerable invasion of my life? I’ve repeatedly asked you to leave the case to Grayson Fowler and Scotland Yard, and yet here you are for the fourth or fifth time, asking impertinently for help I’ve no desire to give you! I’m due in Parliament soon, and I would take it kindly if I could walk alone.” He turned away.

  “Is Mrs. Starling home?”

  “Yes—but she won’t want to speak to you, either!”

  He began to walk away. Lenox waited a beat before he said, “Alfred—he’s almost a year younger than Frederick Clarke, isn’t he?”

  Ludo turned back, white with either anger or surprise. It was hard to tell which. “I don’t see your point, and I don’t care to.”

  “If you did get a title, it would have descended to Freddie Clarke.”

  Dallington, suddenly comprehending all, whistled lowly.

  The reaction of Ludo was much more pronounced. He gaped at them for a moment, then started to speak, then stopped, and finally just stood there, flabbergasted. “What do you mean?” he said at last.

  “Freddie Clarke was your son, wasn’t he?”

  “What—what possible—”

  “Worse still, you were married to his mother. He was legitimate. Not a bastard. My question is this: How could you have let your own son work as a footman for three years, and in your house? What sort of man would tolerate such a circumstance?”

  Staggered but determined to extricate himself from the situation, Ludo said, “I will take my leave now.”

  “We’ll speak to Elizabeth, then,” said Lenox quietly. He had grown more certain in his own mind that Ludo was the murderer.

  “She’s not home!”

  “You said she was.”

  He came back toward them in short, furious strides. “I was wrong! Now leave my family the hell alone!”

  “You couldn’t bear the thought of depriving Alfred of his lordship, or of the Starling land up north. The Starling money is entailed, I believe? A system I never liked much, I confess. I doubt you would enjoy living out your days in the knowledge that a youthful indiscretion you made twenty years ago meant your two sons were disinherited.”

  “You’re a liar! Leave them alone!”

  But the truth was plain on Ludo’s face; Lenox had hit home.

  The detective smiled faintly. “The real shame in it all is that Freddie Clarke would have made an admirable gentleman. He read philosophy, he boxed. He was quite plainly intelligent. Well liked.”

  “It’s nothing to me what he was—he was a footman.”

  “And Collingwood—for shame, Ludo. An innocent man. Who really did this deed?”

  Ludo looked for the first time as if he were on the verge of confessing. The people going by on the pavement jostled him closer to Lenox, and a confidential look appeared on his face.

  Just as he was about to speak, however, something entirely unexpected happened.

  The position of the three men on the pavement was such that Dallington and Ludo were facing Lenox, and suddenly they both saw something he didn’t.

  “Lenox!” cried Dallington.

  He knew somebody was behind him, and with a quick step backward he saved his own life. (He had always found stepping into the attacker the most successful gambit, unbalancing the other person—a boxing lesson Freddie Clarke might have known.) Something extremely heavy and blunt grazed the side of his face painfully, tearing at his skin.

  Even as he turned he saw from the corner of his eye Ludo, stock still, eyes wide with astonishment, and Dallington, springing forward to help him.

  He felt a heavy blow on the side of his head. His last thought was to wonder where the person had come from so quickly, and then he forgot the living world.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  When he came to he was for a moment quite dreamy, but then the nature of the situation returned to his mind and he sprang away with all his might from whoever was grasping him.

  “Lenox! Lenox! It’s only me!”

  As he blinked his eyesight back, he saw that the person holding him had been Dallington, who had supported him to Starling’s front steps.

  “Who was it?” Lenox asked in a hoarse voice, his head still spinning.

  “We couldn’t see—he wore a mask, whoever it was. He ran off as soon as he had fetched you that last smack on the head. The coward. I caught you as you lost consciousness.”

  “And Ludo?”

  “He tried to catch the attacker, and now he’s off to find a constable.”

  “Or pay the person his fee,” said Lenox. He felt a throb in his head. Groaning, he let his body go slack, as it wanted to, on the step. “Just get a cab, will you? I want to lie down.”

  “Of course.”

  On the short ride home Dallington only spoke once—to ask whether Lenox believed that Ludo knew the attack was coming.

  Lenox shook his head. “He didn’t know we were coming to see him.”

  “He could have set the person after you nevertheless, and told him to attack you when you were in Ludo’s presence. Another alibi!”

  Lenox shrugged. “It could be.”

  In fact part of him wondered whether it was William Runcible, still afraid of jail and no longer pacified by Lenox’s promise in the butcher shop. Still, wouldn’t he have used a knife, or a cleaver?

  At home there was a flurry of activity when it was discovered that he had been attacked. Kirk sent for the police, Dallington went to fetch McConnell, and two or three maids hovered anxiously around the door, waiting to see if he needed anything. As for Lenox, he lay on the couch with a wet, cold towel over his eyes, the lights all dimmed. He wanted to see Lady Jane.

  When she arrived he felt comforted. She spared just a moment to come and put a hand on his forehead, then became a whirlwind of businesslike commands. She ejected the maids (who were having a very exciting day, it must be admitted) from the threshold of the room, and asked one of them to return with a basin of water and a cloth to clean the wound, though Lenox had already assayed the job. Then she called Kirk into the room and berated him for not returning with the police, who were on their way, before instructing him to find a doctor in case McConnell wasn’t in.

  He was in, however; he arrived not fifteen minutes later. “What happened?” he asked Lenox.

  “Some thuggish chap tried to hit me with a brick.”

  McConnell smiled. “He succeeded admirably.”

  “Don’t make jokes,” warned Lady Jane, her face tense with anxiety. “Look at his head, will you?”

  McConnell spent the next few minutes gently cleaning the jagged wound on Lenox’s forehead (a third cleaning), prodding around its edges, and asking Lenox what hurt and what didn’t. At last he offered a verdict. “It looks painful, but you’ll be all right, I think.”

  “You think?” said Lady Jane, alarmed.

  “I should be clearer—you will be all right. The only thing that worries me is whether you might not have some dizziness and lightheadedness in the next few weeks. If that happens you’ll need bed rest—”

  “He’ll have that anyway.”

  “You’ll need bed rest,” McConnell said again, “and minimal activity. But you aren’t in any danger of long-term consequences, thank the Lord.”

  He then took from his battered lea
ther medical bag a length of cloth and set about making Lenox a very dramatic bandage for his head.

  “There,” he said when he was done, “now you look like you were in a war, or at least a duel. Walk down Pall Mall on a busy afternoon and it will get all over town that you did some heroic deed.”

  Lenox laughed and thanked McConnell, who left, in a hurry to get back to George. Dallington had stayed in the room, at Lenox’s request, but now he left, too.

  “Shall we discuss the—” Lenox had said, turning to the lad.

  “No, we shall not,” Lady Jane had answered firmly. “John, come back tomorrow if you like.”

  When at last they were alone—Lenox feeling much more human, a cup of tea from one of the (again hovering) maids in hand—the pretense of anger and hardness fell away from Lady Jane.

  “Oh, Charles! How many more times will I have to worry this way?” was all she said. She hugged him close to her.

  McConnell had joked about the attack reaching other ears, but he wasn’t far wrong. In the past when Lenox had been harmed in the line of duty he had never read of it in the evening papers, but now he was a Member of Parliament. After the police had come and gone, offering very little hope to the victim that they might catch his attacker, the newspapers arrived. It was only a small item on two of the front pages, doubtless placed there close to the hour the papers went to press, but it reminded Lenox that he had responsibilities to people other than himself now—and even beyond Jane.

  By suppertime he could stand up and move about, and after eating a light bowl of soup in his dressing gown, he went to bed.

  In the morning he had a splitting headache and a thousand questions about the case. But he had slept well, and he felt ready for the fight again.

  Graham was the second person he saw, after Jane had brought him his coffee and asked how he felt.

  “May I inquire after your health, sir?” asked Graham.

  “I’m a bit thumped, of course—but no permanent damage.”

  “The police have no idea who might have attacked you?”

  “None.”

  “But you feel quite well?”

  “Oh! Yes, not bad.”

  Graham coughed discreetly. “In that case might I ask you to discuss parliamentary matters?”