The Vanishing Man

by Charles Finch

  They spent much of the ride back to London in silence, an unreadable silence on the young woman’s part, a respectful one on Mayne’s and Lenox’s. Wilkinson rode on the box. The horses pulled them swiftly and surely—perfect beasts.

  When they had arrived within the limits of London, Lenox begged Mayne to let him off at the Wilcombe Tavern. When asked why, he said he had some business to conduct here. He would meet them at Dorset House.

  Receiving no farewell from Lady Violet, Lenox watched the carriage go.

  Then he sprinted inside and asked for the hostler.

  A grizzled old gentleman with squinting eyes met him. “I need a horse, your fastest.”

  “Three shillings and a five-pound bill of debt for collateral. Standard.”

  “Done.”

  Within a few minutes Lenox was in the saddle. He rode as hard as he could, aiming for the center of London.

  It was a rough ride over uneven ground, and before long both man and horse were sweating. But they made excellent time—slipping through small spaces, easily outpacing the carriages that passed each other in a handsome, elegant trot along the road, carriages like the one carrying Mayne and Lady Violet.

  His destination was Dorset House. He needed at least fifteen minutes, and when he pulled up in front, he thought he probably had it. He handed the reins of the horse, a fine youthful mare called Pepper, to one of Dorset’s own stableboys.

  Now it all depended on whether Lord Vere was home.

  He was. He greeted Lenox, who was hot and sweaty, with some surprise and offered him a lemon ice, or a glass of water. The detective, though he was desperate for a sip of water, declined.

  “Time is short,” he said to Vere. They were in a drawing room, lined with oils of clouds by Constable. Yet another room new to him. Would this house never give up all its secrets! “Listen to me, Corfe. I admire you and Mr. Craig for helping your sister.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It may still be possible to ensure that her name is not brought before the public, which I imagine to be your wish, as it is your father’s. But you must tell me all.”

  Corfe, who was again impeccably afternoonified, in black boots and a pink-and-white striped waistcoat under his navy suit, drew himself taller for a moment.

  Then his face crumpled. He was not a very bright fellow. It was best, the thought flashed through Lenox’s mind, that a king or a duke be either very stupid or very brilliant. No other kind of brain would admit for the paradoxical absurdities and dignities of the position. Corfe would pull it off well; his father was perhaps just a bit too clever.

  “That damnable Walters,” Corfe muttered, sinking back into a chair.

  Walters. He knew that he had just learned the name of the gentleman who proposed to marry Lady Violet. That was worth the price of hiring Pepper on its own.

  “You do not approve of the match?” Lenox asked.

  “He is not a gentleman.” Sometimes silence was best. Lenox let Corfe’s troubled eyes turn away. “Little more than a decent shot. What a devilish thing that he should be so handsome!”

  “Mm.”

  “We lost a good gamekeeper out of it, worse still.”

  A gamekeeper! That explained it. For a gamekeeper Lady Violet Vere was going to find and sell a lost play by William Shakespeare—her family’s great imagined contribution to England, its great imagined treasure.

  If Walters was indeed quite so handsome, though, Lenox could see why his appeals to Lady Violet had been irresistible, given that she was already up on the shelf, a spinster at age thirty.

  It was also clear why the duke had forbidden the match.

  Less clear to him was why Craig and Corfe had been persuaded to conspire against their father and benefactor, respectively.

  “Hard on your sister,” Lenox offered.

  He was keenly aware of the time, but also keenly aware that he mustn’t press Lord Vere. “Yes,” the heir said. “Hard on her. Listen here—how did you discover I was involved?”

  He hadn’t. But it had struck him as simply too unlikely that Lord Vere’s fever had coincided so exactly with the period of the thefts from the duke’s study, and that the painting had ended up in his room. That was the sum of it. Still, he felt a bit of pride. His instincts must be improving.

  He looked out through the window, expecting at any minute the carriage bearing Mayne and Lady Violet.

  “That doesn’t matter now. But I would like to know how the three of you devised this plot. Your grandfather told you about the play, of course. When did Lady Violet finally decide to take action?”

  Corfe looked at him. “Two weeks ago. Walters is leaving for South Africa next month, if he cannot have Violet.” He shook his head. “In the end we made a choice. It’s a bad fare that Craig paid for it with his life.”

  Lenox nodded, still dreadfully thirsty, but aware that he was about to hear the whole story at last. “Go on,” he said in a measured voice.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Lord Vere looked down at the drink he had in his hand, a glass of amber something—perhaps brandy. “Pater was always devilishly awkward on Violet,” he said.

  Pater: Lenox was returned to his schooldays, when that was what the boys called their fathers, and he realized that in many ways Corfe, never touched by the world, remained a schoolboy still.

  “How so?”

  “It was a long seven years before I came along, you know. Hell for her, and everyone, that she wasn’t a boy. The next in line for the dukedom is a distant cousin, the Earl of Coverdale, so it would have gone out of the family, essentially. Including the secret of the portrait—and you have seen how mad that has driven my father, a sane man. But then I came. I was something of a miracle.”

  “I see,” said Lenox.

  The window had fully half of his attention. Let them have been snarled in London traffic, Mayne and Lady Violet!

  “It was my sister who loved me the most. My mother is a very responsible woman, her good works, the charities, a lady of great distinction of course, and…” He trailed off, looking to the side, and the unsaid opened up a whole vista onto the coldness of the mother’s character. “Still, it was Violet who sent me packages when I went away to school at eight. And mended my trousers when I was home on hols. Wiped my tears.”

  He laughed scornfully at the boy he had been, after he said this, but to Lenox it was clear that the words carried deep feeling. “A very good sister,” he said quietly.

  “Oh yes, good as gold. Kind to Craig, too. Made him part of the family, you know. Had him play Father Christmas for me, which he claimed to hate, but you know. Pater is a bit of a tough nut, and Craig never had a family of his own. He loved her, too. We both loved her more because we knew nobody would marry her. Finally when it came down to it, we decided to do something for her, he and I. Craig thought of the ruse of my illness and putting the painting under my bed. Not just under my bed—he was very bright, old Craig. Christ. I still can’t credit it that he’s gone.”

  “And you had known about Mr. Walters.”

  “Oh, Walters! Yes. Yes. It was the subject of a great deal of discussion—within these walls. It will kill Father to hear it get out, if it does. He would rather hang in the Tower ten times over.”

  “That is why I am amazed that your sister decided to defy him.”

  “She felt she had a last chance at happiness. And she is such a sensible, engaging person—but she is … is thirty, you know.”

  Lenox nodded. His tone implied that she might just as profitably have been ninety. “Of course. Was—”

  But at that moment there was a loud sound outside, four horses stopping at the door. Lenox rose and excused himself, saying that he would check to see if it was Sir Richard. But that was not his intention; he knew the house fairly well by this time, and he slipped back to the stables and fetched his horse. Once Lord Vere and his sister spoke, he knew, he would be unwelcome at Dorset House.

  It was all clear to him now, regardless. Only
two questions remained. One would never be answered—whether she had shot Craig on purpose. The other was whether they would find the lost play.

  He rode home, gratefully took a sip from the barrel of water the servants kept just outside the back door, then asked his coachman to water and feed Pepper and return her to the Wilcombe.

  He went inside, dusty and tired. Graham and Lancelot were both out, as was Mrs. Huggins, who was, according to the chambermaid Clarissa, who looked terrified at her temporary elevation in station, pricing cloth.

  “Cloth? For what?” asked Lenox.

  “I don’t right know, sir,” she said, trembling.

  “I’m not mad,” said Lenox carefully.

  “Mad, sir!” she blushed to the roots of her hair.

  She was a microscopically small and delicate person, holding a broom that as she shrank back came to be about twice her height.

  He sometimes forgot that the staff must think his line of work very curious. “Angry, I mean!” he clarified quickly. “I am not angry.”

  “Oh.”

  “Nor am I mad.”

  “No, sir,” she said, but looked unsure.

  “Are you the Irish one?”

  Mrs. Huggins suspected everyone of being Irish, and Lenox, in a fit of insubordination not long before, had insisted that she hire an Irish maid. That had been only a few weeks before, and he barely recognized this young person.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, you’re doing capitally, from all I hear,” he said. This wasn’t strictly a lie, since he hadn’t heard anything. “Just capitally. Carry on.”

  “Oh, thank you, sir,” she said, with impossible gratitude, and went downstairs as if there were a fire to put out there.

  Lenox, for his part, went into his study, where he removed his jacket. He sat down in his chair, looking out through the windows. The shop across Hampden Lane—what had been the cobbler’s until that spring—had new lettering going up in its windows.

  “Chaffanbrass,” he read out loud to himself.

  Sounded like a butcher—he hoped not, because of the smell. He was tired, but he began notes on the case, trying to write down all he could remember of his conversation with Corfe. Still, his eyes kept wandering to the window, the empty storefront, and he leaned back farther in his leather chair, and it was warm, and his eyes were so heavy …

  What rest could do for a soul! When Lenox felt himself stirring half an hour or so later, lying comfortably tilted back in his thickly upholstered desk chair, he let himself linger in that half-state of sleep a little while longer, his eyes closed. He felt the coolness of the high-ceilinged room and the warmth of the day even each other out. He felt the air go in and out of his nostrils.

  What a creature one was, after all, it turned out—thirsty, tired, and then to drink, to sleep, how joyful it was to be alive in a body sometimes.

  He slowly let his eyes open. A noise had woken him. Something to do with the front door perhaps, but he could tell, through the innumerable small specks of comprehension that every person registers without naming, that it was nothing to do with him. He let himself turn to the street, body quiet, eyes heavy still, though open now. He watched the people pass, experiencing that dispassionate, affectionate, removed sensation of one who has just woken up. He had been to the other world; it was no bad thing to sit here, between ways, for another moment.

  Finally he yawned, stretched his arms, shook his head, and stood up. He retrieved his notebook from the floor and went out into the hallway.

  The noise had been a telegram, it turned out.

  It was from the asylum in Edinburgh, and was quite to the point.

  No patient of name Belmont received here STOP Nor Irvington STOP William Wellburn

  He felt a chill run through him. Wellburn was the head physician there.

  As he stood there, contemplating this telegram, trying to remember Belmont more vividly in his mind, Mrs. Huggins came in.

  This was odd, as she would usually have entered by the servants’ door. “Good evening, Mrs. Huggins,” he said.

  “Good evening, Mr. Lenox. Please excuse my intrusion. I had hoped to offer you some forewarning that—”

  Behind her burst through Lancelot, who looked, first, thoroughly pleased with himself, indeed was whistling, and, second, a wreck, with two swollen red eyes, a split lip, and a gash across his cheek.

  “What happened?” asked Lenox.

  “I got in a fight!” said Lancelot excitedly.

  “What, with a bear?”

  “It was with Lord Decimus Spate, sir,” said Mrs. Huggins. “He was riding in the park. Master Lancelot called him a name, I fear.”

  “Decimus Spate?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But he’s twenty-two! He did this to a child?”

  “It was a very bad name,” said Mrs. Huggins. “I have spoken to Lancelot about that.”

  Lancelot placed himself in front of Mrs. Huggins importantly. “Here’s how it was. He shoved Wutherington-Fassett out of the way while we were playing skittles in Hyde Park—reckless as you like—and I called him a pompous fool—I thought that sounded good—and he said always to make way for horses—and I said I would, but he was a horse’s ass, so I wouldn’t—and he said well didn’t I think I ought to apologize—and I said I did, to horse’s asses, for confusing them with him—and that was a pretty good one to get off—and he said who was I—and I said who was he and why was he so fat—”

  “Oh, Lancelot,” said Mrs. Huggins despairingly, lovingly.

  Lenox sighed. It was true that Decimus Spate had begun eating twenty-two years before and permitted himself only very brief cessations of the activity since—and was very sensitive about the results.

  “Then he shoved Wutherington-Fassett again—and I called him the name—and he got down from the horse—and I caught him a lovely poke in the ribs before he knew what was on—and he set upon me—but altogether, Mrs. Huggins, wouldn’t you say I got the best of it? How would you rank it?”

  “For shame, Master Lancelot,” she said.

  “I thought you were pricing cloth,” Lenox said.

  The housekeeper’s brow darkened. “Is that what the Irish girl said?”

  Lenox threw up his hands. “I am going to my club to dine. Put ice and raw beef on this child’s face—and you’d better wire Eustacia and say he’s been in a fight, but he’s all right. Lancelot, you’ll write a letter of apology—”

  “Never!”

  “—tomorrow. Good-bye.”

  He left in a reasonable semblance of ire. But Lenox had always hated the Spates—Decimus himself was a great lump of unthinking brutish aristocratic matter—and before he went, he whispered to Mrs. Huggins to give him something soft to eat, like Italian pudding.

  He wondered, as he walked briskly down Hampden Lane, if one day he would be a father after all, and the thought filled him with such terror that he almost forgot the telegram he had in his pocket.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  He dined at one of his clubs, the Beargarden. Arriving there, he found that his reputation went on pinging about like a bullet in a steel drum; now he was known to be Dorset’s only confidant, privy to great secrets, engaged upon important missions—every variety of thing—and found himself once more in prestige.

  He sat to eat a beefsteak, string beans, mashed potatoes, and gravy with a few of the people he actually liked, younger friends, sharing a jug of house claret with them.

  At about nine o’clock, when he was in the midst of a hand of cards, the porter came in and said that a Mr. Graham attended upon his leisure in the servants’ waiting room. Lenox went down to the basement straightaway.

  It was a convivial and comfortably furnished chamber, the servants’ waiting room, where the valets bided their time, many of them playing penny hands of whist and slanging their masters to each other, usually in varying states of progressive drunkenness. You saw every type of the genus here. There was a dull, burly, fish-eyed, suspicious boulder
of a man, who served the very dull, burly, fish-eyed, and suspicious Lord Varling, a fellow not past thirty and exceedingly rich, who nonetheless lived his life in a state of continual ill temper. A lank, dusty chap named Pole—not below sixty-five in years—waited upon the sprightly Lucan Wells, one of the dandiest chaps in London. Half a dozen or so others were sprinkled about, none of them sober; in their midst sat Graham, legs crossed, arm along the back of the sofa, but alert. He rose when Lenox entered.

  “Hello,” said Lenox.

  “Good evening, sir,” said Graham.

  “How did you find me?”

  “Oh, I guessed, sir.”

  He said this casually, but Graham had an almost occult ability to predict where in London Lenox would be at a given moment. “You ought to guess the horses for Lancelot.”

  “Or Mr. Templeton, sir.”

  “Or Mr. Templeton! I wonder what they do with curates gone bad. Anyhow, come into the smoking room.”

  This was just up the front hall, a room to which members could invite their valets, or outside guests they wished to keep at arm’s length. The upstairs was more restricted. As they crossed the lobby, Lenox nodded at the younger of the two doormen, who was about ninety-five.

  The smoking room—a crimson-red chamber, encircled with sofas, hung with oils of various dead gentlemen—was empty. “There are two things, sir,” said Graham. “First, this.”

  He handed Lenox a fresh copy of the Times, probably not more than twenty minutes from press. Lenox read its bold-faced lead article with care. Then he sighed. “It was to be expected,” he said.

  The Times reported more fully than earlier papers had that the Duke of Dorset had been cleared by an expedited coroner’s report of any wrongdoing in the death of Mr. A. A. Craig, late of the Scots Guards. He would not stand trial.

  No mention appeared of Lord Vere, Lady Violet, the duchess, a missing painting, or, of course, Shakespeare.

  Lenox contemplated the article, which was reliable confirmation of what had seemed all but inevitable, and then told Graham about his long morning, culminating in his meeting with Corfe. The valet listened carefully, then said, “What will the young lady do, sir?”