A Beautiful Blue Death clm-1

by Charles Finch

  “I did not love her at all. A fine manly affection, yes. A fondness for the extra dessert she slipped me now and then, certainly.”

  Lenox laughed. “I apologize. Will you tell me what happened?”

  Sir Edmund tried to master his emotions and deliver the rest of his report. “After that, I tracked only Claude, because Eustace went into the salon, and you had told me Eustace was less important.”

  “I did. Now. You’ve done very well, Edmund, but there remains work to do.”

  “There does?”

  “Yes. I need you to spend whatever time you can in front of Barnard’s house.”

  “What?”

  “Specifically, in front of Prue Smith’s window. Fourth on the right.”

  “The window?”

  “Yes. Look through the window, see if anyone enters, see if anyone’s lurking—however you can.”

  “But I shall be noticed!”

  “No, you shan’t.” Lenox walked to a chest in the corner of the room. “Wear these,” he said, and he held up a houndstooth suit with mud all over it.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Oh, yes. Clean on the inside, my dear brother, and warm as a button. Wear a low hat. Scuff your face—I use tobacco ash. Come back here before you have to go to the House, and then—when you can—go round again.”

  Sir Edmund took a great deal of cajoling, but gradually Lenox convinced him that he could imitate a loafer and was earning his stripes as a detective.

  At last, after half an hour and several more cups of coffee, his brother went upstairs to change into the clothes. Graham fetched him some ashes from the grate, and when Sir Edmund came back down again he looked fairly convincing.

  “I look all right?” he said.

  “For the part, perfect,” said Lenox. “Graham, bring a flask of brandy for Sir Edmund, please.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lenox wrote a quick note on a piece of paper. “If any of the constables trouble you, ask them to give this to Exeter. It says you’re there on my behalf.”

  “If you’re sure, Charles,” said Edmund.

  “Positive. Now, take this flask,” he said, as Graham returned. “Brandy will keep you warm and also give you the proper smell. But don’t get tipsy.”

  After a few more minutes of reluctance, Edmund left. Lenox chuckled to himself for a moment. But he was glad that Edmund was going. The murderer was bound to come back for the weapon if he had any wits about him, and Lenox had specifically omitted this fact when he talked to Exeter. A constable by the door of Prue Smith’s room would have scared anybody off almost instantly. It was a long shot, but maybe Edmund would find something. It was a job he would usually have asked Skaggs to do, but he was waiting for Skaggs to complete his work on an equally pressing business: an investigation into the altogether mysterious Roderick Potts.

  Chapter 38

  In one of their many conversations since the beginnings of the case, both brief and long, Lady Jane had said something that had rankled in Lenox’s mind. Specifically, she had said he had a responsibility to inform James, the young footman, about Prue Smith’s true actions. Her argument was that it would save him suffering; it would allow the young man to make a clean break with the past, even if his immediate reaction was of deeper grief. The truth would bring him peace. Or at any rate, he wouldn’t live a half-life, unwilling to love any girl as he loved the ideal of Prue.

  In response, Lenox had said that James would indeed be devastated, but the devastation wouldn’t dissolve as quickly as she thought. There would be no answers about Prue’s behavior that would satisfy him. While he might forget her sooner if he was told about the maid’s affairs, he might also pore over them endlessly, withering away in jealousy, self-doubt, and the strange mixture of hatred and love that devolves upon someone in grief who learns an unpleasant fact about the object of his worship.

  And this quick argument—not even an argument but a considered exchange of ideas—had remained with Lenox longer than he might have thought.

  Then he found, as so often happens, that the subject on his mind was confronted by the situation itself. Soon after Edmund left, James knocked on the door and was admitted to the library while Lenox was deciding what to do next.

  This was really too much, Lenox felt. Grief, he forgave. But the young man was dogging his footsteps and in a very real way impeding the progress of the case. Perhaps the time had come to follow Lady Jane’s advice.

  Lenox had been sitting at his desk, and he stood up when James came in. The young man was extremely pale, and because his hair was black the contrast was shocking. His face seemed even gaunter than it had, and his hawkish features, in particular his long melancholy nose, had grown pronounced with lack of sleep and food.

  “James,” said Lenox, gesturing toward the chair in front of his desk.

  “Mr. Lenox, I truly am sorry, sir, only—only—I can’t get it away from me.”

  “James?”

  “Like her ghost—not a real ghost, mind you—but like a ghost, all the same.”

  Lenox looked at him with sympathy. “I understand.”

  The young man laid his head in his hands and moaned. “It’s agony,” he said.

  “I’m so very sorry, James. I truly am. She must have been a remarkable girl, if you love her so.”

  “A gem, sir,” said James, barely lifting his head to speak.

  Here was the moment. Time to tell him. Lenox was on the verge of thinking that Lady Jane had been right. The young man looked as if he would pine away into nothingness. Why, he must have lost ten pounds already.

  “James—”

  The young man looked up, and Lenox was very nearly prepared to do it, to reveal Prue’s betrayals of him with both Deck and Claude. But at the moment his will failed.

  It was not that Lenox reconsidered Lady Jane’s position, or even that he considered anything at all. It was an entirely instinctive decision. Even if the suffering would be greater through the years this way, he hadn’t the heart to be so cruel, to dash this young man’s certainty, his grief, his true pledged love, because it was the right thing to do.

  Here was a characteristic that Lenox came up against in himself sometimes, which even vexed him in rare instances. It could be cowardice or compassion; he cared little what it was called. It was in him, and that was all.

  He went around the desk and put his hand on James’s shoulder.

  “I know it seems as if you’ve lost the only girl you’ll ever love,” he said, “and I know it seems impossible that your life will ever be happy and contented again, and I know each hour seems blacker than the last. I know all these things. But don’t become black inside. You may think you’re left with nothing, but you still have your memories of her, and you have time. Sorrow is all very well but, as the church says, darkness never lasts, and light always comes. Even when it doesn’t seem so, my boy.”

  James lifted his head. “I suppose,” he said. “I suppose.”

  “I promise.” In truth Lenox didn’t know. But he made the promise anyway. “You must try to live, James.”

  “Aye.”

  “It will be all right.”

  “There’s no more I can do, sir? Nothing?”

  “I’m afraid not. But we’ll get him, sooner or later. I promise that, too.”

  James stood up, bowed slightly, and walked out of the room without saying anything. Lenox sighed and leaned over with his hands on the desk, looking out at the snow on the sidewalks and the people walking along, and eventually he saw James come out, looking very dark against the white of the landscape in his heavy black coat.

  Chapter 39

  Only a moment later the doorbell sounded again, and Graham’s light footsteps echoed along the hallway, while Lenox pricked his ears and wondered who it was.

  Graham opened the doors of the library. “Newton Duff, sir.”

  You could have knocked Lenox over with a feather. It appeared that today the case had decided to come to him. But t
hen, he reflected, as he waved for Graham to admit the visitor, that was often how it came out at the end; and though the ideas in his mind were elusive, he knew the end was near. Briefly he wondered about that arsenic. Was this a man capable of murder?

  He stood up to receive the Member from Warwick Downs, and the two shook hands. Lenox gestured toward the armchairs by the fire and then followed Duff as he went over to sit down.

  “Would you like anything to eat or drink?”

  “I take nothing between meals, sir.”

  “Water?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Graham?” said Lenox, and nodded. “May I help you, Mr. Duff?”

  “You may help me, I may help you; at any rate, I am here now, and we shall see.”

  “As you please, of course.”

  There was a moment of silence, and Lenox took it to study the man in front of him. Anybody’s first impression would have been the same: a hard jaw, black hair, thick eyebrows, a rigid posture, and a well-fitting old gray suit, with a gleaming pocket watch that he checked as he sat down. But the eyes—well, the eyes were shrewd and quick.

  Lenox broke the silence. “You plan to stand in another borough, Mr. Duff?”

  Duff started. “Have you been in my business, then, Lenox? But I’ve told nobody! Damned cheek!”

  “No, no, not in your business beyond the present case, I assure you.”

  “Well, I am. What of it?”

  “Nothing at all. But your father is dead, is he not, for some years? The country all knows that.”

  “Well, what the deuce does that figure?”

  “Since I have known you, your pocket watch has been a present from the electors of your borough. And now I see a pocket watch with your father’s initials, which are as famous as your own. You have evidently had the watch for some time, because he is dead, but have chosen not to wear it until now—when, I would suppose, you have no further reason to ask the favor of the Warwick electors.”

  Duff nodded grudgingly. “Yes, I am returning to my hometown this next election. It was always one of my desires to do so, though Warwick Downs has treated me very well. At any rate, Mr. Lenox, enough of this.”

  “Quite so. How may I help you?”

  “On the contrary, sir, I think I may help you, if you will listen. In return, the solving of this case will be a benefit to me.”

  “I’ll listen gladly,” said Lenox.

  “Very well. I must ask you, then, if you are aware of the unique contents of Mr. Barnard’s house. I doubt that you are, but I may be willing to inform you.”

  As he had once before, Lenox removed a gold coin from his pocket and held it in the flat of his palm.

  “Exactly,” said Duff. “I suppose you’re not as hopeless as I originally thought.”

  Lenox laughed. “High praise.”

  “Well, then, I may as well tell you that in addition to the guards, who merely stood watch by the room, Jack Soames and I were guarding the money from the mint by observing the activity of the house.”

  “Guarding it? Really?” Lenox was surprised.

  “Yes. No doubt you asked yourself why we were staying there when we both had our own places of residence—and when both of us preferred our own homes to visiting.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “A few of us in government agreed that the money needed more than armed police officers; it needed people on the spot. We kept it dark from most people, even in the party. The ball was a convenient excuse. Barnard protested at first, arguing that his own presence in the house, as an officer of the mint, surely constituted protection. The very fact that we had chosen his house, after the attacks on the mint, seemed proof to him. There was nowhere else, you see, from Buckingham Palace to Parliament itself, that seemed more anonymous yet safely public. But he came around eventually to the need for another presence in the house. I immediately volunteered, of course, as I am involved in the finances of the country—second to the Exchequer in that regard, I may say.”

  Lenox was much taken aback but continued his questioning. “And Soames?”

  “Not a leading political light but loyal and undeniably patriotic. Also a military man and handy with a pistol. I may fairly say that it appears to me he was murdered in the line of duty.”

  “Yes, it seems possible,” said Lenox, in a low voice. At any rate, this would explain Soames’s face in the skylight, looking over the crates of gold. “And it accounts for your praise in The Times obituary this morning, which struck me as odd.”

  “Just so. At any rate, I may say that we have been successful, despite the unfortunate murder, and the money, which will be released to the public in a day or two, seems safe thus far.”

  “Thank you for telling me.”

  “You’re welcome. But I have come for another reason, as well. That man Exeter suspects me.”

  “Does he now?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Surely you think me equal in wits to Inspector Exeter, Mr. Lenox?”

  Lenox laughed mirthlessly. “Yes, yes, far lesser men than you are his superiors, I’m afraid.”

  “At any rate, I thought it best to come to you.”

  “If I’m to be honest,” said Lenox, “I’m not certain I don’t suspect you.”

  The fury in Duff’s face was complete and instant, but he seemed to control himself. “What do you mean?”

  “Why was a bottle of arsenic that belonged to you found in the murdered girl’s room?”

  Duff seemed to relax his anger. “Is that all?” he said.

  “That’s all,” Lenox answered.

  “That was connected with my work for the committee from the Royal Academy on banned substances. It’s rather a large problem. Children accidentally eating cheese left out for the rats, that sort of thing. Particularly over in the Rookery, where supervision is less stringent. We need to revise the 1861 Arsenic Act.”

  “That doesn’t explain the poison, Mr. Duff.”

  “Surely you understand what I’m telling you?”

  Lenox sighed inwardly. “Yes, I do. But why go and buy a bottle yourself?”

  Duff waved a hand. “To see how easy it is to acquire. I’m actually rather pleased you were able to trace it. That means the chemist must have written my name in a ledger somewhere.…

  “What did you do with the poison afterward?”

  “I had about ten bottles from various apothecaries in my room and asked the housekeeper to dispose of them. The murderer must have gotten it from her.… I say, you do believe me? After all, I’ve come to you now to talk directly about this subject.”

  Lenox looked thoughtfully at the fire with his fingertips together. “That is what puzzles me, Mr. Duff. If I may be frank, you have never seemed to like me.”

  “I disregard your profession as sheer nonsense, particularly for a man of your birth, sir, if I am to speak plainly.”

  “That is precisely what I mean. Why come to me now?”

  “Surely you know, sir.”

  “I confess myself baffled, Mr. Duff.”

  “Your brother.”

  “My brother?”

  “Yes, Sir Edmund. A man whose opinion I respect as highly as any in the land.”

  Lenox was flabbergasted. “My brother, you say?”

  “Yes, indeed. Surely you realize how vital, in recent years, Sir Edmund has become to the Party? People underestimate him, I suppose, because he is so gentle—but no, a sharper mind does not reside in Parliament. I may fairly say that the Prime Minister and the Cabinet could not lead the Party without his advice.”

  “But he holds no office!”

  “He refuses them all.”

  “And comes so infrequently!”

  “Comes only when called. He is reluctant to take credit. But surely this is not as important as the business at hand, Mr. Lenox?”

  Lenox shook his head. “No, no, of course not.”

  “What ought I to do about Exeter?”

  Lenox
, though still distracted, managed to say, “Nothing, nothing—leave him to me.”

  “I shall then,” said Duff, and stood. Lenox stood too and walked him into the hallway. For the first time, the two men shook hands with something akin to warmth. “Perhaps I’ve underestimated you,” said Duff.

  “Perhaps,” said Lenox, smiling. “Good day, Mr. Duff.”

  “To you as well,” said Duff, and left the house.

  A slight draft came in as he left and hit Lenox, rather bracing him. The newfound mysteries of the case would emerge momentarily—but first, a moment to consider his brother!

  As long as Lenox could remember, Edmund had been intelligent, but that quality in him was always dominated by his unfailing kindness and cheerfulness. Lenox was himself the same way, to some extent. But gentle Edmund, with gravy on his tie? His life had always been devoted above all to the hills of Sussex and to his hearth.

  Still, men must serve their country, their father had always taught them, and as strongly as Lenox remembered the lesson, Edmund must as well.

  He returned to the armchair and lit his pipe. Duff… that aspect of the case deserved a good think. But Lenox couldn’t stop considering his brother.

  To think that Edmund said so little! And to have sent him out, that very morning, in a beggar’s costume—one of the leading political figures of the day, according to Duff! Lenox would most certainly press his brother the next time they were together.

  Chapter 40

  It was nearly lunchtime; Lenox decided to eat in. He asked Graham for something simple, and when he went into the dining room, half an hour later, he found beef in sauce with peas and potatoes, as well as a half bottle of wine. He refused the wine and drank water instead, because he wanted to keep his mind clear.

  After he had eaten—it was an excellent meal—he had a thought and went back to his desk in the library. There was a cigar box there where he had assembled the small items that constituted the clues to the case, and he opened it and pulled a scrap of paper out. It was the one he had found in Duff’s room, which read £? JS?. It occurred to him that it must have been shorthand for Jack Soames and referred to the money.