A Beautiful Blue Death clm-1

by Charles Finch

  Was it all a blind? Duff’s unexpectedly confiding in him was out of the ordinary—and anything out of the ordinary mattered in a case like this. It was worth thinking about, particularly after his elaborate and too-convenient account of the arsenic. Had there been a flash of fear across his face, mixed with the obvious anger, when Lenox brought the little bottle up? Duff was too smart by half.…

  Another knock came on the front door, but this one he expected.

  “Mr. Skaggs,” said Graham, admitting him without asking leave from Lenox.

  Skaggs was dressed very tidily, in a black coat and thick gray trousers, which looked awfully warm to Lenox, who was still seeking a solution to his perpetual misery in cold weather.

  “Mr. Lenox,” the man said, and tipped his cap.

  “How are you, my dear man? And how is your youngest daughter?”

  Skaggs grinned. “Fairly flourishin’, sir, fairly flourishin’.”

  “I should think so, with such an excellent mother.”

  Now he blushed a bit. “Well, yes, never a finer woman—”

  “Now, how has the work gone, Mr. Skaggs?”

  “Well, as far as it goes, I suppose, sir.”

  “I don’t quite get you, I must say.”

  “Well, Mr. Lenox, if I’ve assumed correctly that you’re investigating Miss Prudence Smith and Mr. Jack Soames—I gathered as much, because Mr. Roderick Potts, the man you asked me to investigate, was residing in the mansion where they died—then I may or may not be useful to you. However, I think I can definitively strike him from the list of suspects, though I’ll leave you to judge that.”

  “Good heavens! This is certainly more than I had hoped for, Mr. Skaggs.”

  Again the investigator tipped his cap. “Thank you, sir.”

  “How can you say so?”

  “Well, sir, you gave me the assignment of tracking Mr. Potts and learning what I could. Here are the facts, in a nutshell, then: very rich, indifferent to social status, in fact altogether wary of it, exceedingly kind even to his most distant acquaintances and relations, a widower, one daughter, the apple of his eye, donates great sums to charity, but tends his business still.”

  “All in all, a perfect suspect.”

  Skaggs grinned. “Aye. At any rate, I figured I ought to learn more. Why was he in the house, specifically?”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  “So I sought employ in Mr. Barnard’s house myself.”

  “Skaggs! You didn’t!”

  “Indeed, the ball being an excellent excuse, I was hired as an extra footman, and I worked up to and during the ball. One of a fleet of temporary servants. Chap in the hiring agency owed me a favor.”

  “Excellent!”

  “And that is why I can say with definite assurance that he did not kill Mr. Soames. I followed Mr. Potts throughout the party without my eyes leaving him once.”

  “Skaggs, shake my hand. You have a very bright future, you know.” The two men shook hands.

  “Thank you, sir,” said Skaggs.

  “Now why was Potts staying at Barnard’s house?”

  “The way I saw it, he might still have had a hand in things, so—I’m not ashamed to say—I eavesdropped. And it cost me my job, too, sir!” Both men laughed at this. “The housekeeper caught me; I wasn’t sorry to see the back of her by the end of it. But I learned the truth. It appears that Mr. Potts plans to give away half his fortune. He’s taking such action because his daughter is engaged, and he will give it away in her name. She’s to wed a farmer in the north—a nice fellow, who reminds Mr. Potts of himself. Of what you might call the working-class background. Disregarding the money.”

  “What! Not a duke?”

  “Certainly not. When speaking to Mr. Barnard, Mr. Potts most vehemently decried the earls and such who had come courting. Said he was above all that. The farmer is educated, like his daughter, and a gentleman, but by no means an earl, from what I overheard. He said his money had grown heavy on his hands, and he saw such poverty around him that he felt it right to give it away. He seemed to indicate that he might give away a fair percentage of the remainder in the rest of his life. He was speaking to Mr. Barnard as one of the first men of finance in the land.”

  “Human beings are remarkable, Mr. Skaggs.”

  “That they are. At any rate, Potts was not at all pleased with Barnard’s advice—namely, to keep it. This was during the ball. And Mr. Potts left in quite a huff, saying he would seek counsel elsewhere.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “As I said, sir, it is possible that all this is a blind, but he had no reason to know that he was being overheard, and all in all he seems the most honorable man I’ve ever known. Oh, a glint of hardness in him. It’s hard to make money without that. But good at bottom, you see, Mr. Lenox.”

  “I do indeed, Mr. Skaggs. I do indeed.”

  Lenox was thinking to himself of how he had rifled this kind man’s room and felt sick at the memory. But it passed; he scratched Mr. Potts from his list as well, thought he might send a present to the engaged couple, and felt mildly better.

  The two men spoke for another moment, and then Lenox thanked him, paid him the balance of his bill, and bade him goodbye. Then—just as Skaggs walked through the door—Lenox noticed his boots—the finest boots he thought he had ever seen.

  “Mr. Skaggs, if I may—where do you find boots such as those?”

  Skaggs turned around, briefly puzzled, but then smiled and said, “Ah, yes. Cork-soled, sir, and lined with thick flannel, and extra rubber for dryness. Very snug, even in the snow.” He tipped his cap. “Linehan’s, on Crown Street, sir, and not a bad bargain either.”

  To Lenox this sounded very near to heaven. He said goodbye with a smile, and the moment the door was closed he donned his old inadequate boots and his greatcoat and jumped into his carriage, telling the driver, “Linehan’s, Crown Street,” before he forgot.

  Chapter 41

  His business done, Lenox set out for McConnell’s house.

  “What can you tell me?” he said when he arrived, skip-straight past hello.

  “Not much.”

  “I see.”

  “Come upstairs?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  They walked to McConnell’s private room and then went down to the end of it, where the doctor kept his four or five large tables, his equipment, and his cabinets full of bottles.

  “Mr. Potts,” McConnell said, “is not your man—at least not on the strength of the sample you gave me from the bottle in his valise.”

  “No?”

  “What he had was a bottle of very nasty poison.”

  “What?”

  “Poison for insects. Perfectly harmless for human beings.” McConnell laughed. “Sorry for the joke.”

  “Why would he have it?”

  “Ah, I asked around. Bit of an amateur entomologist, I understand. Studies bugs, you know. I think he made a study of northern water beetles that the Royal Academy published.”

  “Ah.”

  “The knife gave nothing away either. Relatively clean. No fingerprints, although they would be inconclusive, anyway. Drenched in blood, of course. No powders. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  Lenox sighed. “It’s all right,” he said. “I am close to a solution; I can tell I only want a missing piece. But that piece!”

  “I’m sorry, Charles.”

  “Quite all right, quite all right. Well, I must be off.” He thrust his hands into his jacket pockets and began to walk back toward the door with McConnell at his side.

  But then he felt something at the bottom of his pocket. “Hang on a moment.” He extracted the object; it was a crumpled leaf, the one he had discovered by Barnard’s house. “I don’t suppose you know what this is, Thomas?”

  “It looks like a leaf.”

  Lenox chuckled. “Could you find out what it is, though?”

  “Yes, of course. It will take me an hour or so. I must look into a few books.” He pointed upward,
at the library that surrounded the balcony of the room.

  “Will you come over when you do?”

  “Yes, indeed,” said the doctor.

  Lenox handed the leaf over gingerly. “I’ll be off, then,” he said. “You shall find me at home. I plan to smoke my pipe and solve the case.”

  “Ambitious.”

  “As ever, Thomas. Well—goodbye.”

  “You’ll find your way out?”

  “Oh, yes, of course.”

  Lenox left McConnell hurrying back to his tables, where he would place the leaf between two glass sheets. He soon found his carriage again, said goodbye to the somnolent Shreve, left his salutations to the lady of the house, and went home.

  Once there he removed the boots, found his slippers and a comfortable old jacket, and, as he had promised, lit a pipe and sat before the fire, thinking. Here was the problem: Effectively, he could remove every suspect from suspicion: Potts, Duff, Claude, Eustace, Soames, poor devil, and Barnard himself, who would seem to have no motive whatsoever and who also lacked opportunity, for he had been on the spot immediately after Soames’s death. He couldn’t have gone through the window and come around that quickly.

  He smoked his pipe, waited for visitors, and mulled it over. But he didn’t have, any longer, the feeling of being blocked. He felt instead as if he were circling closer.

  About an hour after he had arrived home, McConnell came in, looking flushed from the cold but pleased.

  “I’ve got it,” he said.

  “Yes? Already?”

  “I was lucky to find Tilney in—but let me begin at the beginning.”

  “Would you like a cup of tea or anything?”

  “Certainly—I skipped tea.”

  “Graham?” said Lenox, and the butler withdrew.

  “Japanese maple, my dear Charles. Called Acer palmatum. An exceedingly rare tree here in the West. Many of the leaves look like normal maple leaves, you know, but as you can see”—he took the two plates of glass with the leaf between them out of his pocket and handed them over—“these are lace-leaf, more deeply cut and of a different shape.”

  At this moment the tea came in and each man took a cup, as well as a piece of toast.

  “How did you find this out?”

  “I went around to an acquaintance of mine on Bond Street. I doubt you know him: John Tilney. Cares for no company but that of his oldest friends, who are all, like him, past seventy, but I daresay he has made as close a study of trees as any man in the kingdom. He has a virtual forest of exotic trees at Talliver Point, his house in the country. Fascinating old man. And now, this is the interesting part: He says they’re hardy trees but susceptible to English frost. As a result, only the botanical gardens here in London stock them—and those would have gone bare some months ago. So somebody has preserved this leaf for at least a month.”

  “Fascinating,” said Lenox, as the wheels revolved in his mind.

  “It is indeed. Something I never would have imagined knowing, you see.”

  “Nor I.”

  “And you know, Barnard has an interest in rare trees.”

  “Yes,” said Lenox thoughtfully. “And I know for a fact that he was in the botanical gardens recently. Eustace might have been too.” He sighed. “Or anybody, for that matter.”

  McConnell smiled. “There is great pleasure in true work, Charles. At times I almost think of returning to it full-time.” He was flushed now with excitement, not cold.

  Lenox paused. “It makes me happy to hear you say that,” he said quietly.

  “But at any rate, I must be off. Thanks ever so much for the tea—and for all the interesting pursuits of the case, sad as it is.” McConnell stood, shook hands, and went quickly on his way.

  Lenox ran his fingertips over the glass and began to ponder, but at that moment the front door opened again—it seemed to be off its hinges, practically, it had opened and closed so often that day—and Lenox went into the front hall to see who had come now.

  Chapter 42

  It was Edmund.

  “Charles! I’ve just seen McConnell.”

  “Yes, he was here.”

  “Charles, I’ve never had such a thrilling day in all my life!”

  Lenox laughed. “Yes, I can see,” he said.

  Edmund was still clad in the rumpled clothes and brownish hat that Lenox had given him, and his face was still scuffed with ash here and there, which concealed his identity very well, as he said cheerfully, and he had rolled in some trash so he would smell dreadful.

  But where you could see his face, his cheeks were bright pink and he was plainly beaming.

  “I’ve missed my vocation, Charles! I would have made an excellent detective.”

  “You make an excellent panhandler, as well. What did you discover?”

  Edmund waved his hand. “Nothing, nothing. I mean to go back after the session this evening. But the sheer excitement of it! Eluding Exeter! And Barnard went straight past and didn’t even look at me!”

  “You mean to go back? I really don’t wish to put you to so much trouble, Edmund.”

  “Trouble! I would rather Parliament burned to the ground than give up the evening I have planned. Yes, a quick bite—perhaps a sandwich—and then out to patrol the area. Oh, Charles, you should see how I explain myself to the police who try to remove me! I wouldn’t trade it for all the money in the funds!”

  And then it happened: All the loose strings came into Lenox’s hand, and he felt with all the force of his mind, which had never fallen so short as in the past few days, that he had it. The minute puzzle pieces he had collected so carefully at last fit together. “You’ve given it to me, my dear brother!” he shouted. “Yes, it just may work! I would kiss you, if you didn’t smell so awful!”

  Sir Edmund’s face fell.

  “Why, what’s the matter?”

  “Oh, nothing, nothing!” Sir Edmund said. “I’m very pleased, Charles. What did I say?”

  “Oh, a trifle—never mind it.”

  “So I shan’t have to go back out? What excellent news, Charles. It was beastly cold.”

  Lenox understood immediately. “Oh, no, Edmund,” he said. “You must by all means go out this evening. I apologize for your discomfort, but I must impose upon you. It is vital that you continue your work.”

  “Vital? Are you sure?”

  “Oh, absolutely. The cold can’t be helped. I myself have boots that seem to be made of paper—but no, we must go forward.”

  “Very well,” said Sir Edmund.

  “And now I shall go,” said Lenox, gathering together his effects.

  “Good, good, excellent. May I take a bath, though, do you think? Your house is closer to Whitehall.”

  “By all means, Edmund. And remember, I’m counting on your help.”

  Very solemnly, the baronet said, “Oh, yes, indeed. I certainly shan’t fail you.”

  A moment later Lenox’s carriage rattled down Hampden Lane and out into the West End of London, along the snowy streets, through a dense afternoon fog that reached up to the starless sky above.

  Shortly thereafter he knocked on the door of his friend Lord Cabot, with whom he had shared a pleasant evening at the Travelers the evening after Prue Smith’s death. He walked into his friend’s study behind the butler.

  “Cabot,” he said, without bothering to say hello. “You know the keeper of the records, don’t you?”

  “Why, Lenox—well, yes, I do. The son of Colonel Waring, my oldest friend.”

  “Will he do you a favor?”

  “Yes, of course: anything legal.”

  “Without delay?”

  “Yes, of course. But why the rush, Lenox? Are you quite well?” Lord Cabot was very fixed in his habits and thought of Lenox, who moved in the fashionable world and had his detective work besides, as a positive dervish.

  “Yes, very well—arisen out of the murky fog, I daresay. Come with me?”

  After a moment’s cajoling, Lord Cabot assented, and then took his
time preparing to go outdoors; in truth, he had planned to stay inside all day and further catalog his collection of Chinese pottery, his main passion. The catalog was badly outdated, poorly compiled, and neglected many fascinating recent additions; so he told an impatient Lenox, who in quieter moments had listened with great interest on the subject.

  Soon he finished his lecture and then took a long time finding his cloak and searching for his hat, all to Lenox’s silent frustration. But at last they went out to Lenox’s carriage and began to drive toward the Thames, near the Cleopatra Needle, where the Hall of Records was.

  This large building was made of the old white Roman stone, with marble columns, and had a series of steel doors in front. They went into one of these and asked for Colonel Waring’s son, who was named Morgan. He was an agreeable young man of thirty or so, already risen to a prominent position and, so Lord Cabot had assured Lenox on the ride, destined for great things. Young Mr. Waring said that Lenox could certainly look through the records. Soon Lord Cabot had bid his goodbyes, and Lenox had at his fingertips the financial records of the entire market for the last century, which had been kept in earnest after the “South Sea Bubble.”

  The Bubble was the only reason any of this existed, and for that he was thankful. Lenox remembered his grandfather telling him of his father’s boyhood memories of the Bubble, back in the early 1700s. What happened was simple. King Philip V of Spain had agreed for the first time to allow a very small number of ships from England to travel to the ports of his empire, and the South Sea Company was formed (with the consent of Parliament) to send these ships across.

  But people quickly forgot that the agreement permitted very few ships and, picturing the mining of huge untapped gold deposits in Chile and Peru, not to mention other as yet unknown opportunities, they began to invest their money heavily. Almost instantly the company was worth millions of pounds, despite the fact that it didn’t even own a ship and had no goals it knew to be attainable. The delusion of the people investing in the South Sea Company had been unbelievable: merely a hope and a wish, spurred on by other people’s certainty and greed.

  Then, in September of 1720, the bottom of the stock fell out. A few people sold at the top, but nearly everyone else sold at the bottom because there was so little demand and, of course, no regulation of the price. Poor families were ruined and sank to destitution. Rich families saw their worth drop severely. The malaise lasted years, and the terror of investing lasted generations. Nearly every financial rule of the modern day came from that single company’s missteps, as well as the conservative market of Queen Victoria’s reign.