A Beautiful Blue Death clm-1

by Charles Finch

  Exeter shrugged. “Very well. He wouldn’t miss it, though.”

  “He wouldn’t miss it if it weren’t important. If it were, he would miss it immediately.”

  “Something in that.”

  Exeter, at least in private, did not hold on to his public stubbornness and spoke agreeably when a better idea than his came along—which must have happened to him, Lenox reflected, a substantial amount of the time.

  He removed from his pocket a small kit that McConnell had given him, which was comprised of a cotton ball, a small glass jar, and a pair of tweezers. He took the stopper out of Potts’s bottle, dipped the cotton in it, using the tweezers, then tucked the sample safely into the glass jar, screwed on the top, and dropped it into his pocket.

  “Should we arrest Potts?” asked Exeter.

  “No,” said Lenox, who was very nearly at the end of his rope. He was hungry as well.

  “You’d better give me what you just took, at any rate.”

  Lenox turned to him. “I shall have the results forwarded to you instantly—but I shall have it analyzed by a man who is superior to your men at the Yard and does quicker work.”

  Exeter looked affronted. “What’s wrong with the men at the Yard?”

  “Nothing, nothing,” said Lenox. “Do you trust me?”

  Exeter merely looked at him, with pursed lips.

  “I assure you that doing it this way will yield faster results—within two days, you know. That may mean solving the case faster. Nobody will know that I aided your efforts.”

  This had the intended palliative effect, and Exeter nodded, though still without speaking.

  “Now how much time have I got?” Lenox asked, placing the bottle of liquid back in the valise and carefully setting everything as it had been.

  “Five minutes,” said Exeter.

  “Is that all?”

  “No longer, I’m afraid.”

  “Then show me the staircase to the next floor, please.”

  “The next floor?”

  “Yes, Inspector.”

  “There’s nothing there, Mr. Lenox, but flowers, like.”

  “The greenhouse is above us?”

  “Right,” said Exeter. “No use there.”

  “Nevertheless, I’ll take a quick glance.”

  The Inspector shook his head expansively, as if to say how little he thought of quick glances, but nevertheless led Lenox to an undersized stairwell at the end of the hall.

  “I’ll stay down here. We have enough flowers in our garden.” Exeter chuckled.

  “As you wish,” said Lenox, thankful for a moment alone.

  The stairway turned at a right angle halfway up, and soon Lenox had lost sight of Exeter. At the top of the steps was, indeed, the door to the greenhouse, but just to its side was another door. A large man stood in front of it, wearing a gray suit but with the air of a bobby.

  “May I open that door and look in?” Lenox asked.

  “No,” said the man.

  “On police business?”

  “No.”

  “Are you with Exeter?”

  “No.”

  Lenox thought for a moment, considering which tack he could take.

  “Look—are you married?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “There was a girl murdered here—barely twenty-four—I’m only trying to figure out who did it.”

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “I already know what’s in the room.”

  “I doubt that, sir.”

  Lenox pulled a shilling out of his pocket and held it in the air. “My brother is in Parliament.”

  The man looked slightly impressed but still shook his head, no.

  “Please?” said Lenox. “You’ll watch the whole time.”

  The man said nothing.

  “Her name was Prue.”

  “I thought you knew what was in the room. Why do you want to see it?”

  “There may be a clue—something vital—that nobody else would see.”

  The man looked down at him steadily for fifteen seconds and then said, “Oh, all right, but you only have a moment. The guard changes over rather soon.”

  “Thank you, thank you,” said Lenox.

  He opened the door partway. He didn’t know what he had expected, but it wasn’t what he saw—tightly bound packing crates without any visible markings. The room was large but empty, other than the packing crates. The only door was the one Lenox had opened, although, at the very edge, half of a skylight, where the greenhouse ended, peered into the corner—but it was dusted over, and tiny, at any rate.

  He looked around quickly. There was nothing to see; the large man had been right.

  “Mr. Lenox!” boomed Exeter’s voice up the stairs.

  He looked around again, disheartened. He had felt with such conviction that this room bore some relation to the case but, if it did, it revealed none of its secrets to him.

  Something—he didn’t know what—made him glance up, and immediately his dejection ended—for he saw, pushing the dust away from the skylight, a hand. Acting as quickly and as quietly as he could, Lenox drew the door nearly shut, leaving himself a sliver of a viewpoint. The hand continued to brush the detritus from the window away, but at last it was clean and a face was lowered to the glass.

  “Lenox!” Exeter shouted at that precise moment—which was just like him, Lenox thought—and the face vanished as quickly as it had come. Lenox closed the door quietly and thanked the guard. He walked down slowly, though his mind was running.

  “Anything?” asked Exeter, when Lenox appeared.

  “No.”

  But this was a lie, for in the dusty window he had seen, unmistakably, the pink cheerful face of the old athlete—Jack Soames.

  Chapter 28

  I see Barnard’s been here,” said Lenox, taking off his coat in Lady Jane’s hallway.

  “Charles, you’re early,” she said. “It’s only just after three.”

  He looked at his watch. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s quite all right. I was only reading. Are you hungry?”

  “Terribly.”

  She called for Kirk and asked him to bring food and tea to the drawing room.

  “Barnard was here,” she said, “only I didn’t see him.”

  “Did he leave a message?”

  “Only his compliments. And the orchid, of course.”

  Lenox bent over to smell the flower. Then he stood up and smiled. “Oh, Jane, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m in a black mood, and I didn’t know where to go.”

  “I’m glad you came here, then,” she said, and led him to the rose-colored couch. The instant she said it Lenox felt better. “Where did you have lunch?”

  “I didn’t eat.”

  “Charles!”

  “I went into a chophouse, but I only had a pint.”

  “Of beer?”

  “I was in a black mood, as I said.”

  “What happened?”

  He waved a hand, stood up, and began walking around the room restlessly. “Nothing, nothing,” he said. “It’s hard to say.”

  She was silent.

  “Why do you think Barnard visited you?”

  “No doubt to remind me of the ball tomorrow evening. He usually goes around.”

  “Shall we go together?”

  “Yes, of course—although Toto wants to come as well.”

  “With Thomas?”

  “No, Thomas doesn’t want to, and she doesn’t care. Nobody will mind her going alone. But you might write to him.”

  “I might.” He picked up a silver vase full of lilies and smelled them. “Jane,” he said, “would you believe that Jack Soames could murder anyone?”

  “Is that why you’re upset?”

  “There’s nothing certain about it, but it may have been him.”

  “How awful.”

  “Yes.”

  “Charles, what happened? Won’t you tell me?”

  “I can’t until
I’m sure. And at any rate part of it is a secret.”

  “Your brother’s secret?”

  “Yes.”

  Kirk came in with the tea and some sandwiches. Lenox felt the sudden hunger of someone who hasn’t eaten but doesn’t truly realize it until he sees food.

  “Sugar?” said Lady Jane.

  “Yes,” he said. “Just this once.”

  “How many sandwiches?”

  “Twelve, I should say.”

  She laughed and handed him his tea and then put three of the small sandwiches on a plate, which she laid on the table next to him. It was strange, the new closeness the case had brought them. Lenox almost dared to think about—but no, it wouldn’t do.

  “What about the others staying with Barnard?” she said.

  “Perhaps, perhaps. There are points against each of them. I wish I knew more about Duff.”

  “Then it isn’t conclusive, about Jack?”

  “No, it isn’t conclusive.”

  There was a pause. “I have to confess something,” Lady Jane said.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t think Barnard brought the orchid around just because of the ball.”

  “What do you mean?” said Lenox.

  “I think he—well, what you and Toto say about his affection for me—”

  “Oh, is that all?”

  “Not quite. Do you remember me asking whether I should try to take advantage of knowing him to find something out? I know you said I shouldn’t, but I did. I had to try to help, particularly after those men hurt you.”

  When she said this there was a pang in some inner chamber of Lenox’s heart.

  “Jane, don’t you understand the danger of what you did? I said you oughtn’t to try for a reason. What if—what if you had been hurt? I can’t think about it.” Without realizing it, he had taken one of her hands. “Will you stop now?”

  “Oh, yes, you have my word on that. I was absolute rubbish at it, you see. No use at all.”

  “What happened?”

  “We had lunch with him yesterday, Helena Adeline and I, and then I spent really the most awfully boring afternoon at the botanical gardens, where he’s a director.”

  “The botanical gardens?”

  “You can’t imagine it.” She laughed. “It was a trial, listening to Barnard talk about bark and different sorts of leaves and things. He made me take a couple of them, the beast. He took some, too. Mine are still around somewhere. A cluster of yellowish sorts of leaves. You’ll trip across it, I daresay. I felt like strangling him with one of his stupid orchids. The way he went on!”

  “And there wasn’t anything you found of interest?”

  “No, I’m afraid. I stumbled about looking for things in the most amateur way possible, until the housekeeper wanted to murder me and even Barnard began to get suspicious. I suppose he thought it was out of the ordinary for Lady Helena and me to wander off together for half an hour. Really, I was using her as an excuse to snoop. But I was an absolute failure, as I told you.”

  They were both laughing by this time and Lenox felt he could breathe again. “That’s too bad,” he said. “Brave of you to try it.”

  “Oh, but there was one thing!” she said.

  “What?”

  “What was the name of that poison?”

  “Bella indigo?”

  “He had some.”

  “What!”

  “In his greenhouse, in among the orchids, were a lot of little bottles and things. I took a quick look through them, and that name struck a bell. But it was five years old.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It was dated on the label. But at least it shows there might have been poison like it floating around the house or the greenhouse.”

  “Fascinating,” Lenox murmured. “He could also have intentionally misdated it.”

  Lady Jane didn’t seem to find it as interesting as Lenox. “I really wasn’t much count, Charles, but you’ll find out what happened.” And she smiled at him.

  “Thanks.” He took a sip of tea and bit into the edge of a sandwich. “My favorite, tomato,” he said, and smiled back at her.

  Half an hour later, and a good deal more cheerful, he left Lady Jane’s and walked the few feet back to his own house. It was nearly four.

  He was pondering the greenhouse when Graham met him at the door.

  “Sir Edmund is in the library, sir,” he said.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll go see him.”

  His brother had indeed come on one of his rare visits. He was sitting in one of the two armchairs by the fire with a tray of tea things by him, staring out the window.

  “Edmund,” said Lenox, “what an unexpected pleasure.”

  “They said you came by the house to visit last night,” said the baronet, as he turned and smiled. He had a cup of tea in his hand.

  “So I did. Will you pour one for me?”

  Sir Edmund did as he was asked and waited to speak again until Lenox had settled comfortably into the other armchair.

  “How is the case?”

  “Perplexing.”

  “Who did it?”

  Lenox raised his eyebrows. “Hm.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I may, actually, but it’s not happy news. By sheer luck, I may have discovered that it was Jack Soames.”

  “Soames!”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s impossible. I could see him having a gambling debt, at most. But cold-blooded murder? It’s impossible.”

  “You may be right. It looks badly though.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “I was in Barnard’s house this morning—”

  “How did you manage that?”

  “Exeter asked me to come. He was struggling with the case.”

  “That man you hate so much?”

  “I don’t hate anybody.”

  “That man, though?”

  “Yes.”

  Sir Edmund looked into the fire ruminatively. “I suppose frogs will begin to fall from the sky pretty soon.”

  “I daresay.”

  “We should stay indoors when it happens. Messy business.”

  “I saw Soames trying to figure a way into the guarded room.”

  “What!”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me straightaway? We need—we ought to—”

  “No, it’s safe.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I saw him through a skylight, and it would have been impossible for him to drag any of the crates through it.”

  “Then what was he doing?”

  “Examining the room. I expect he’ll make a try during the ball tomorrow night. If it is him.”

  “Do you think it is?”

  Lenox shrugged. “It’s so hard to say. What do you know of his finances?”

  “He’s washed out, I’m afraid. Oh, is that why—he’s after the gold!”

  “I think so.”

  “But he might have been merely taking a walk, Charles. I would think that more readily than that Soames could kill somebody. He might have been looking at those blasted orchids.”

  Lenox shook his head. “I went to the greenhouse once with Lady Jane. Barnard had a lunch and showed us up there afterward. I saw the row of skylights. First of all, it would be particularly hard and pointless to get there—there’s no door, and once you get there there’s no view, no stretch of roof to walk across. You have to walk around the entire greenhouse. You have to want to get there. And second of all, Soames was looking through the window. It seems too clear to be coincidental.”

  “Another thing, though,” said Edmund, satisfied with his brother’s explanation of the last point.

  “Yes?”

  “The girl couldn’t possibly have known, even if she had seen him snooping around.”

  “Perhaps he thought she knew and became nervous,” said Lenox. “I don’t think it’s in his natural way t
o be a thief and a murderer. He might have become paranoid.”

  “Would he know anything about poisons?”

  “I don’t know. Although he lives near Oxford, of course, and went there with you.”

  “In my year,” said Sir Edmund.

  “Yes.”

  Still, his brother’s points were valid. It was good to bounce ideas off of him. Had Soames been forced to kill Prue Smith? No, probably he hadn’t…

  “Jack Soames.…”

  “You must tell me something more of his finances, Edmund.”

  “I heard it from Robert Camp, but everyone knows, I rather think.”

  “What did Camp say?”

  “That Soames had been struggling along with less than anybody thought and then lost a few bets and had to pay some outstanding debts to tradesmen, and that he went under. More or less. He’s living on credit.”

  “Is it only gossip?”

  “I don’t know. Could be. At any rate, you heard it, didn’t you?”

  “From Graham.”

  “Not one to lie.”

  “What does he have left?”

  “They say very little ready money,” said Sir Edmund, plucking another scone from the tray and spreading clotted cream over it. “He could touch his friends for some, I suppose.”

  “He has a great many friends.”

  “One has fewer when one needs money, however.”

  “You’re right. It’s awful, really,” said Lenox.

  “Well, it’s awful for the girl, Miss Smith.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “At any rate, people live on nothing all across London. It’s sad that Soames has fallen over, I grant you, but what do we know about any of it?”

  Sometimes Lenox’s brother surprised him. “You’re right, of course.”

  “And anyway, he has the Pacific, I suppose.”

  “The Pacific?”

  “Surely you know what that is, Charles? It’s much in the news.”

  “No, I’m afraid not. I don’t often read the bits about business.”

  “He sits on the board of the Pacific Trust, that trading company. They pay him something.”

  “How many people are on the board?”

  “Seven or eight. Actually, it must be seven—they can’t have an even number.”

  “What does he have to do?”

  “Vote. He made people cross only the other day, because he was the deciding ballot on something or other, I’m not sure what. I can only say I’m grateful that Father put our money in the five percents.”