An Old Betrayal: A Charles Lenox Mystery (Charles Lenox Mysteries)

by Charles Finch

  He and Dallington applied here for entrance to the palace and were told they must go around the corner. This they did, and after a very cross-grained porter looked up their names in several different ledgers, he locked the door of his post and beckoned them inward. The fate of any visitors who might arrive in his absence was apparently of negligible interest to him.

  “They could sell one of these paintings and hire another chap,” muttered Dallington, gesturing at the brightly adorned walls.

  Indeed, the entire building, even in these back channels, bore a kind of heroic concupiscence, like a child adding twenty spoonfuls of sugar to his tea. They were walking on a red and gold carpet of intricate design, and it was so thick that one’s footsteps wobbled into it. (Lenox thought of Sophia, who would have enjoyed it for crawling.) A less charitable Englishman might have believed that he discerned a certain German richness of taste—or absence of taste, supplemented with richness—but it was doubtful that the Queen had ever thought of these halls, much less designed them herself. As they walked, Dallington steadied himself upon a succession of priceless French side tables.

  “Here you are, sirs,” said their guide, rapping snappishly against a heavy door. “Mrs. Engel.”

  The door opened immediately, a sinewy woman with thick glasses and white hair standing behind it. “Yes?” she said.

  “My name is Charles Lenox. My colleague and I made an appointment to call upon Miss Grace Ammons.”

  “I am Grete Engel,” she said. “Come in.”

  The room the Queen’s social secretary had for her use was tiny, but there was a small Rubens upon one wall, a Winterhalter portrait of Prince Albert upon another, and best yet a lovely view of the palace’s large interior courtyard, crisscrossed with a complex geometry of paths. On a cloak stand in the corner was a smart jacket, which Lenox guessed that Mrs. Engel might wear over her rather plain smock when she went to see the Queen.

  The largest object in the room was the secretary’s desk, an oak and mahogany object the size of a small seafaring vessel. There were dozens of tiny cubbyholes in it, each brimming with paper. Only a madman or a genius could find organization in such profusion. Then again, Mrs. Engel took credit, one heard from those in the Queen’s circle, for being a genius. Victoria’s own version of Mr. Minting, as it were—likely with a slighter attentiveness toward horseracing results, however.

  The actual surface of the desk was clear, except for an inkstand and a single sheet of paper. Lenox sneaked a look: It was a menu. Mrs. Engel, standing by her chair, must have seen his eyes, because, with a faint smile, she said, “Pigeons in jelly, hare soup, galantines de veau, and saddle of mutton. And plum tart, Her Majesty must have plum tart.”

  “Do you plan the food at the palace, too?” he asked. “Surely your responsibilities are heavy enough.”

  “I check the menus against the guest list.” Her English was excellent, albeit with a slight German crispness around the vowels. “The Prime Minister cannot abide onions in any hot dish.”

  That was actually a useful bit of information to Lenox, and he filed it away in his mind to tell Jane later. “This is Lord John—”

  “I know both of your names, Mr. Lenox,” she said. “Why do you hope to see Miss Ammons?”

  Lenox’s face became serious, and his voice confidential. “You may once have heard my name connected with criminal investigations,” he said, “though perhaps not. Lord John is still involved in the field. Together we have reason to believe that Miss Ammons may be in danger.”

  Mrs. Engel looked at them both with an appraising eye. Then she nodded. “Give my regards to your mother,” she said to Dallington. “Miss Ammons is waiting in the East Gallery now. The door into it is at the end of the hallway. There are guards at all the other doors. I tell you this simply as a matter of course, not because I expect you to leave the room.”

  They thanked her, and she set one foot into the hallway to watch them go down the corridor. At the end of the hallway Lenox tried the door; it was open, and together they stepped into one of the most beautiful rooms, he thought, that man had ever produced.

  It was a long, thin gallery, with a curved glass ceiling. Because the Queen and her guests processed down it before official state banquets, it was empty in the middle other than a rich, slender carpet, but along the walls were long couches, upholstered in white with a very thin gold stripe. Then there was the art: High on the vaulted walls were massive paintings by Van Eyck, Rembrandt, Lawrence, and Constable. In the center of the gallery were two doorways, and all along it were ranged a series of marble fireplaces, carved with cherubim.

  The two nearest were lit, and sitting on a sofa between them, looking very small in these surroundings, was a beautiful young woman: Grace Ammons.

  She stood; there was already something defiant in her posture, and Lenox said, a propitiatory hand held in the air, “Miss Ammons, I’m afraid I owe you—”

  “You cannot harm me here,” she said. “There are guards at every door, who will be here in an instant should I call for them.”

  “You have my solemn word that we would never harm you,” said Lenox.

  “It’s my fault,” said Dallington, coming forward. “I wish you would let me explain. Here, sit.”

  Each fireplace was flanked by chairs, and Lenox pulled two forward, so that they could all sit, though he left them at an angle to the sofa, not wanting this young woman, whose nerve he already admired, to feel surrounded.

  Slowly, and interrupting each other, Lenox and Dallington laid out the facts of the case in their entirety: Dallington’s illness, the missed signal in Gilbert’s, the roundabout way that Lenox had found out her identity, and finally, though it might frighten her, the death of Archibald Godwin at the Graves Hotel.

  “What do you mean, that Archibald Godwin is dead?” she asked, leaning forward eagerly. “The man who came into Gilbert’s?”

  “No,” said Dallington. “A different gentleman, whom perhaps your foe was impersonating.”

  She slumped back into the sofa. Her face, though still wary, had relaxed slightly, and Lenox sensed that she believed their account, or wished to believe it. “Will you tell us your story?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “It is too great a coincidence that Mr. Godwin—the man I know as Mr. Godwin—appeared in Gilbert’s at the same moment as you.”

  Gently, Lenox said, “Is it not possible that he tracked you there, or knew your habits? Had you been dodging him?”

  From her face he could see that this was a plausible suggestion, but she shook her head again. “It’s no matter. I’ve hired a different adviser.”

  “Who?” asked Dallington.

  “Miss Strickland. Her agency has been excellent so far.”

  Lenox suppressed a sigh. “Miss Strickland.”

  “Yes.”

  “We don’t need payment,” said Dallington, “and as we’re helping Inspector Jenkins at Scotland Yard with his murder investigation, you needn’t even hire us on. We’re simply investigating a case related to your own. Here is Jenkins’s card, if you wish to contact him.”

  She took the card from Dallington and looked up at him, hesitating. At last, she said, “My friend—you may as well know it was Emily Merrick—said you were very reliable.”

  “You can trust us, Miss Ammons, I promise.”

  “Very well,” she said, then began to tell her story.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “I was born twenty-six years ago in a small town in Yorkshire, where I lived until I was seventeen. I have no family members still alive, save a few distant cousins who live in that part of the world, my mother having died just before my thirteenth birthday, and my father three years later. I stayed in the village long enough to speak to the executor of my father’s will, to reassure myself that I had enough money upon which to survive until such time as I found either a husband or employment, and then I took the next train to London, and from there to Paris.”

  “Paris!” said Dallington
.

  “My mother and father were sophisticated people for their part of the world, and my mother traveled to London to buy her dresses, from a Frenchwoman. She had been to Paris twice in her youth. It was the place she loved best.”

  “You had no connections there, no family?”

  “My father knew that his own death was coming, and wrote me a letter of introduction to his business partner, and to a very dear friend, in London. I saw them, and they arranged for me to stay upon my arrival with Madame de Vincennes, a young relation of the Duc d’Espaille, whose mother is English. She began to introduce me into the world of Paris society.”

  These names were unknown to Lenox (though he had taken his honeymoon partly in Paris, and dined out a great deal). “Go on,” he said.

  “I stayed in Paris for six years. I knew nothing of English society in that time, and traveled back to Yorkshire only once. Eventually, however, the money my father had left me began to dwindle, and I knew that I’d better either get married or return to London to find work. I had a good education and now spoke French fluently. So I began to plan my return. Then, in the last few weeks I was in Paris, I met a young man named George Ivory.”

  She blushed as she said the name, and Dallington, ever gallant, broke into a fit of coughs, whether by design or happy accident allowing her a moment to regain her composure. “Excuse me,” said the young lord. “Still a mile or so under the weather.”

  “George and I are to be married—for the past three years we have both been saving money to be married. He doesn’t have any family either, except for his mother, who lives—”

  “In Paddock Wood,” said Lenox.

  She looked at him. “Yes. In Paddock Wood.”

  “You go down to visit her each month?”

  “George lives there, rather than in London, to save money. It is really very close. My work is taxing, but I have one weekday off a month, and I take it to visit him. On weekends George comes into London, and on Sundays he brings his mother, and we go to St. Paul’s for the nine o’clock service.”

  “Why do you write to yourself from Paddock Wood?” asked Lenox.

  “Oh, that. Occasionally I work as I ride down on the train. It’s easier to mail the work back to myself than to worry about losing it, especially if it’s not urgent. I’m forgetful about papers. It was at Mrs. Engel’s suggestion, in fact.”

  “What work does George do?” asked Dallington.

  “He’s a solicitor.”

  “Please, go on.”

  “I came back from Paris and, with the help of a friend there, became secretary to the wife of the Earl of Axford.” This particular Earl Lenox knew—the greatest womanizer London had ever seen. “From there I went to her friend Lady Mannering’s, in the same position, and she was so pleased with my work that when Mrs. Engel needed a new secretary, she recommended me. These women like to be in Mrs. Engel’s favor, as perhaps you can understand.

  “It all happened so smoothly and easily—until two months ago. That was the day that Archibald Godwin called upon me.”

  “Here at the palace, or at your home?”

  “At my home. I wish he had tried to see me here—he shouldn’t have been allowed through the door.”

  “What did he want?” asked Lenox.

  “To be placed upon a guest list.”

  “It is your job to make up the guest lists?” he asked.

  “One of my jobs—in consultation with Mrs. Engel.”

  Lenox was writing now, in a small notepad. “How did he discover your home address?”

  “I don’t know, and it frightened me. He was horribly bullying. Very polite, all the while, but somehow at the same time threatening.”

  “You have the power to place people on and take people off of guest lists?”

  “For larger events, yes. Mrs. Engel checks them, but she trusts me.”

  “Why did he believe you would do it?”

  Her steady gaze faltered now, and Lenox felt they were close to the truth. “He said that he would have George fired.”

  “But how could he have the power to do that?”

  “He was a director of a company—”

  “The Chepstow and Ely,” murmured Lenox.

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “Only a suspicion.”

  “They are a large client of George’s firm—possibly the largest client, I think, though George himself is extremely discreet. This man said he could have George fired at any time.”

  “So you placed him upon the guest list.”

  “Yes—once. It was a reception here for the ambassador from Spain, nearly eight hundred people. I could not see the harm in it.”

  “Did you see him there?”

  “No—but he came. His name was checked on the list.”

  “What then?”

  “Nothing. I had a horrible fear that he would steal some priceless sculpture, or insult the honor of—well, you can imagine my fears. The party ended, and I thought that the worst had gone with it.”

  “Until?”

  “He came to see me again. He was in a terrible knock, for some reason, and said that he needed to go to another party. I said that I couldn’t allow it, and I thought he would thrash me then and there. He told me that if he didn’t receive the invitation in the next three days, George would be fired.”

  “And you sent it to him.”

  “I told him it must be the very last time, and that I would go to the police. He sneered and said I didn’t dare, and that if I did George would be fired. The next day I moved rooms, though I had lived in Caxton Street for three years and considered it a second home. That was also the day when I wrote you, Lord John.”

  “I sincerely doubt that his injunction was made to the exclusion only of public criminal investigators, and not private ones,” said Dallington.

  “I hoped for your discretion. That was why I was so alarmed when I saw him at Gilbert’s, just after having taken the drastic step of moving house,” she said.

  “He must have heard that you moved and known his best chance of finding you again was on your regular morning at Charing Cross,” said Dallington. “How frightening it must have been.”

  She looked down at the floor. “Yes. That is nothing to the fear I feel now, though, having heard of this murder.”

  “Just to clarify,” said Lenox, looking at his notes, “when you refer to Godwin you mean the man at Gilbert’s—tall, fair-haired, with a blond mustache and a gentlemanly appearance?”

  “Appearance—oh, yes, that is he. But he has the soul of a devil, Mr. Lenox.”

  “What has Miss Strickland advised?” asked Dallington.

  “She is going to find him for me—”

  “That will be a neat trick.”

  “And discover his motives.”

  “What will you do then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “At some stage you will need to consult Scotland Yard,” said Lenox.

  “He was so clear—that if I went to the police, it would all be over.”

  “Did he come to the palace again?” asked Dallington.

  She nodded. “Yes. A little more than a week ago. There were six hundred guests this time. He came to me at the party and said that he needed to return one more time, to a smaller party the Queen was having the next week. I said he couldn’t.”

  Dallington and Lenox looked at each other, and then Lenox said, “Did he insist?”

  “Yes. It was a terrible scene—and George was to be at the palace. My heart was beating terribly. I told him he would be too noticeably out of place at a party for a hundred people. He seemed to understand that, at last, and stalked off.”

  “He didn’t insist?”

  The secretary’s large brown eyes, full of apprehension, were wet with tears nearly ready to fall. “No.”

  “Were there any differences between the first party and the second?” Lenox asked.

  She pursed her lips in thought. “The second was a garden party. It was fi
nally warm enough, though we opened the residence, too, in case it started to rain or anyone took cold.”

  “And the third party that he proposed to attend?”

  “That was altogether different—in a different quarter of the house, with many fewer people.”

  Lenox thought for a moment and then said, “This man has proven himself dangerous. I can only suggest that you take precautions for your safety.”

  “Miss Strickland has had two gentleman walking me to and from work. They make sure that we aren’t followed. We change carriages, also.”

  Lenox frowned at this; his estimation of Miss Strickland (or more likely Mr. Jones, or whatever his name might be) ticked upward with that bit of information. It was the course he would have suggested.

  They promised the young woman that they would give her troubles their full attention, and then, after asking a few more questions, they rose and left by the same hallway through which they had entered. Mrs. Engel was at her desk, door opened, and saw them out, with a few parting words.

  “She is the third-best girl I ever had doing this particular job,” the small German woman said. “Treat her well.”

  “We will, certainly,” said Dallington.

  Out on the gravel again, Lenox looked at his pocket watch. It was far later than he expected. “Damn it all to hell,” he said. “I have to go meet Marsden now—twenty minutes ago, in fact. John, take my carriage, you’re ill. I’ll get into one of these cabs; it will be quicker.”

  Lenox was already walking away. Dallington called after him, “Wait—what did you think?”

  Lenox was stepping into the cab, Dallington running up to come within earshot. “I liked her. I don’t know why she lied.”

  “Lied?”

  “To Parliament, sir,” he said to the driver, who flicked the horses. “John, let’s speak about it this afternoon—I really must go, I must.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE