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

by Charles Finch

  “Come now, Dallington.”

  “Only a joke.”

  They visited Mark Troughton first, and Skaggs had been correct; he was not the man for whom they were searching. They apologized to him and returned to the Yard’s large, rather ratty carriage.

  The remaining three gentlemen all, by coincidence, resided within a few streets of each other in Bloomsbury. The first they visited was St. John Walker—his forename pronounced Sinjun, one presumed. As they approached his door, Lenox felt a patter of anxiety in his chest. He braced himself.

  The result of their inquiry here was disappointing, too. Walker was a tall, very thin person, with enormous red ears like bell pulls. When they explained their visit he replied that, instead of murdering and thieving, he occupied his time by buying antiquities and reselling them on the secondary market. “I’ve very sorry you’ve got the wrong man,” he said.

  “It’s not your fault,” Dallington told him glumly.

  “I had never supposed it to be, but I can understand that it must be an exasperation to you nevertheless.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Walker,” said Jenkins and motioned the two constables, hearty beef-fed lads with high hopes of making the arrest, to retreat down the steps of the house.

  That left two men: Walworth and Smith. “Skaggs notes that Smith is the handsomest of the lot,” said Lenox.

  “Ah, Rupert Skaggs, noted judge of beauty,” said Dallington.

  Lenox smiled. “I suggest we leave him for last.”

  Walworth was out. He lived in a gloomy set of apartments, largely unadorned, with a single servant, a young and jumpy valet who introduced himself as Albert Wrightswood. “You’re both called Albert?” Lenox asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “He must sound mad when he speaks to you,” Dallington said. “It’s as if he’s telling himself to fetch his pipe or lay out his clothes. ‘Albert, you’ve done first-rate work today.’ Eh?”

  The junior Albert smiled weakly, the presence of five strange men from Scotland Yard evidently having dampened his appetite for witticisms at his own expense. “Perhaps, sir.”

  There was something Lenox didn’t like in the young man’s edginess, however. “Where is your employer?” he asked.

  “Out upon a social call, sir.”

  “Do you know where?”

  “At the Biblius Club, I believe, sir.”

  Lenox and Dallington glanced at each other. “I know it,” said Lenox. “He is a member?”

  “Yes.”

  “We shall seek him there.”

  When they left, however, Lenox, in a whisper, suggested that they watch the door for a moment. Sure enough, Albert Wrightswood appeared a few moments later, all in haste to be gone. Jenkins sent one of the constables along with cab money to follow him.

  The party from Scotland Yard was down to four in number, therefore, when they knocked upon the door of Jeremiah Smith. It belonged to a lovely alabaster town house overlooking Bedford Square.

  Jenkins wasn’t pleased. “This hardly has the appearance of the residence of a gentleman who needs to commit fraud to buy a hat.”

  “Perhaps his frauds have run pretty large,” said Dallington.

  A white-haired housekeeper answered the door and led them into a drawing room, where they waited for three or four tense minutes. At last Jeremiah Smith entered the room, face serious—and confirmed all of Jenkins’s fears. It was not the man from Gilbert’s.

  They made their hasty apologies and, without needing to consult each other about the decision, made for the Biblius Club, and Albert Walworth.

  The club’s steward acknowledged that he was in, and after a perfunctory objection to their intrusion upon a private clubhouse, which Jenkins immediately squashed, he led them upstairs to the club’s back library, overlooking the garden.

  “What is on the third floor now?” asked Lenox to the steward in a low voice, as they walked. “I know the society that was there has been disbanded.”

  “Yes, that was a terrible set-to. The Biblius Club uses the space now—and got it very cheaply, because nobody wanted to rent the rooms of the September Society. Here we are, gentlemen. Mr. Walworth, you have visitors. Impertinent visitors.”

  Indeed, here Walworth stood, and the last of Lenox’s hope dissolved. Jeremiah Smith had not been remarkably handsome, but in comparison with poor Albert Walworth, who had a bulbous nose and eyebrows the size and texture of two voles, he was like one of the ancient Greek gods, returned to modern times. For the fourth time they went through the same apology, which Walworth, befuddled, managed half to accept.

  Out upon the street Lenox sighed and made his own apology. “I am sorry, gentlemen.”

  “It was worth the effort,” said Dallington loyally.

  “Perhaps the two of you would like a cup of tea?” asked Lenox.

  Jenkins hesitated, plainly out of sorts, but then, manners winning out, assented. Soon they were all in a carriage bound for Hampden Lane.

  As usual, Lenox was greeted by a raft of telegrams, many of them to do with Parliament. One of them, however, bore the return address of Skaggs. This he tore open as Dallington and Jenkins settled themselves into armchairs.

  Misidentified forty-one, forty-three STOP addresses and names appended STOP Apologies Skaggs

  Lenox handed this note to Dallington, who read it and passed it on to Jenkins.

  “What sort of code is this?”

  Lenox explained: Skaggs had dismissed forty of the names on his initial list, reserved judgment about the four they had just visited, and had all but certain confirmation on three: the forty-first, -second, and -third names on his list. Apparently his certainty had been misplaced, however, and when he had gone back to check those three he had discovered the fact.

  “It’s two new names,” said Lenox. “If you have the energy to go out again.”

  “We’ve sent Constable Hardy home.”

  “I’ll go,” said Dallington. “Though I might swallow down a sip of that tea first.”

  Twenty minutes later the three men were in Lenox’s carriage, bound for Belgravia. The first address was in Dalton Mews; the name of the man who lived there was Leonard Wintering. It did look rather a more promising location in which to find their impostor, a dingy building in an otherwise affluent street, no steward or porter or housekeeper at the door to greet them.

  “The third floor,” said Lenox, looking down at the telegram. “The door is marked with Wintering’s last name.”

  “I look forward to apologizing to him for infringing upon his privacy,” said Jenkins. “It will be our fifth apology of the day. Mrs. Jenkins will be delighted that I am so promiscuous with the things.”

  Lenox ignored this sarcasm and led them up the stairs. He was using no special caution, until, on the landing below the third story, Lenox suddenly felt a sense of unease. “Stop,” he said.

  “What is it?” asked Dallington in a low voice.

  “Do you smell that?”

  Both men turned their noses up into the air. “Someone has built a fire,” said Jenkins. “It’s cold out, after all.”

  “No—that is cordite you smell, not a wood or gas fire. A gun was fired here today.”

  Dallington and Jenkins looked at each other and nodded. “Carefully, then,” said Jenkins and went ahead of them, leading the way up to the third floor and Wintering’s door.

  He knocked at it. “Delivery!” he announced in a confident voice.

  There was no answer. “Try again,” whispered Dallington.

  Jenkins repeated the ruse. “Delivery!”

  “See if the door is open,” said Lenox.

  It was. They crept inward, single file, down a shadowy front hall, closing the door behind them. Jenkins had his small revolver out. The smell of cordite was strong here; there was no noise inside, nobody moving toward or away from the door.

  “He’s killed again, and fled,” said Jenkins.

  Suddenly there was a hammering on the door that they had closed beh
ind them, and all three men jumped, startled, at the same time. “Hellfire below,” said Dallington. “What was that?”

  “Delivery!” a voice called out.

  Lenox’s heart was racing. “We look inside before we go to the door,” he said and, seeing that Jenkins wavered, strode with a purposeful step down the hall.

  “Delivery!” shouted the voice again, and there was a fist on the door.

  They came into a large living room, blue with evening light. Nobody was in it. In the corner of the room was a door, leading to a bedroom. “Follow me,” said Lenox.

  Here, where the smell of gunfire was so intense that it might have been only moments old, they saw it: the body of Leonard Wintering, long and lean, flung back on the unmade bed, one leg dangling off, a small bullet hole in its temple. Leonard Wintering—or, as he had called himself in Gilbert’s, that day, Archie Godwin. He had not killed again; he had been killed, this time.

  “My God,” said Jenkins.

  It was Dallington who had already looked away, back down the hallway. “Do we wait it out? Or do we go to the door?” he asked.

  “We go to the door,” said Lenox.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  As they walked with quiet steps down the hall, Lenox’s mind was racing: Their chief suspect was dead, shot in the temple, and their surmises about him would have to be adjusted. He thought of Whitstable’s plain, honest face; thought of Grace Ammons; tried to move backward through his ideas about this whole business.

  It was Jenkins who—bravely—threw open the door, all three of them pressed with their backs against the wall in case of a violent greeting, but none came. Instead an enormous, bristle-bearded fellow in a peacoat, hair black as night, barreled into the room. “Where is Wintering?” he demanded. “Tall, light-haired fellow.”

  “Who are you?” asked Jenkins.

  “Who are you, for that matter?” said the man, eyes glinting dangerously.

  “I am Inspector Thomas Jenkins of Scotland Yard, and I repeat my question: Who are you?”

  “The Yard, eh? Is Wintering here? Let me see him.”

  “I am asking for the final time, before I place you under arrest. Who are you?”

  The man looked at Jenkins, Lenox, and Dallington, perhaps reckoning his odds of outmuscling all three of them, and then said, “Alfred Anixter. I’m here from Miss Strickland’s Detective Agency. I want a word with Wintering.”

  The three men looked at each other.

  “Wintering is dead,” said Lenox. “How did you come to hear his name?”

  “He was harassing one of our clients.”

  “Yes, Grace Ammons. My question stands.”

  Anixter looked as if he might remain silent, until Jenkins, irritated, said, “Unless you answer Mr. Lenox, we will have to consider you the chief suspect in this murder.”

  That drew him out. “I was following you,” he said.

  There was a pause, and then Dallington burst out laughing. “I rather like this new detective agency,” he said.

  “Which of us were you following?” Lenox asked.

  He nodded toward Dallington. “Him.”

  “How did you know Wintering’s name?”

  “It was on the door.”

  “Then why not wait until we had gone to speak to him?”

  “I wanted to see his face before you arrested him and hid him away. Miss Strickland has a portrait artist who can draw a wonderful charcoal likeness from a description. Takes him about six minutes. We could match it to Miss Ammons’s description that way.”

  That was ingenious, Lenox thought, though he didn’t say anything. Jenkins, tone officious, pointed to a chair in the living room, “You may sit here until we decide whether we need to speak to you further.”

  “Why not let me help you?” asked Anixter.

  “No, thank you. Don’t think about leaving, either.”

  Dallington, Jenkins, and Lenox had a brief conversation. The first thing they had to do was to examine these rooms, then speak to the residents of the building. After that they had to learn as much as they could about Wintering—as they now knew him to be.

  Jenkins went downstairs with his whistle between his lips, planning to blow for a constable, who could offer immediate assistance; in the meanwhile he could send Lenox’s carriage to the Yard with word that help was required.

  Dallington and Lenox went back into Wintering’s bedroom. Lenox looked down at the body. It seemed infinitely long ago that he had spoken to this gentleman at Gilbert’s. How much pain might have been avoided by detaining him then and there? If only there had been a reason to do so at the time.

  “Quickly, John—you and I must search as rapidly and thoroughly as possible, for all I trust Jenkins.”

  Dallington looked at him and nodded, and they began.

  Fortunately the flat was small, three rooms. There was the sitting room, with a gas stove and a crimson sofa, where Anixter was sitting and tapping his foot, restless; the bedroom, where the body lay; and the kitchen, which had a small breakfast table in the corner. Lenox took the bedroom, Dallington the kitchen.

  The bedroom was small and unadorned. In it were a narrow bed and a bookshelf; Lenox turned his eye to the latter first. It was crowded with randomly shoved-in volumes of The Gentleman’s Magazine, a digest for educated Englishmen (and the first publication to use the word “magazine,” French for “storehouse,” which was now becoming more and more common—although now, oddly, the word had migrated back to Paris from London and come to mean “journal” there, too). Lenox sifted through these as quickly as he could. There were no books on the shelves. Not a reading man. A few trinkets—a silver watch fob, a hinged pine box with LW carved into its top and tobacco spilling untidily out of it, a jar of loose coins. On top of the bookshelf were a number of bills and a book of checks—he banked at Barclay, Bevan, Barclay, and Tritton—and Lenox looked through both. All of the bills were invoiced to Leonard Wintering, none to Archibald Godwin. It made sense. He wouldn’t have given out this address when he used a false name.

  “Lenox!” called Dallington from the kitchen.

  “I’m not quite finished.”

  “You had better come in here anyhow.”

  Lenox went to the kitchen and saw Dallington sitting at the table there. “What is it? I’ve yet to even look at the body.”

  “Look.” Dallington gestured at the small piles of paper and the other objects that covered the table in front of him, and Lenox looked more closely. There were newspaper clippings and a soft black cap. Dallington picked up a half sheet of paper. “Look at the dates that he circled.”

  It was the court circular from the Times, the very one Willard Fremantle had been reading when he informed Lenox that there were parties at Buckingham the next three nights, and then the party was off to Balmoral.

  Wintering had circled two of the nights: tonight, tomorrow.

  With dawning interest, Lenox began to sift through the other objects on the table. “What else have you found?”

  “Look at this.”

  Dallington was holding a small square of red wax. Lenox took it and asked, puzzled, “What is its significance?”

  “You have to open it in half.”

  He did this, and saw that in the soft wax there was a perfect impression of a key for a mortice lock. He whistled. “A proper housebreaker—and tomorrow was the third party he asked Grace Ammons to get him into.”

  “What better occasion to steal from the palace than during a crowded party, too? Ten to one it belongs to one of the doors at Buckingham Palace.”

  Lenox shook his head. “No—look at the size of the key. It belongs to a window. I would guess they left the keys in the windows during the party, in case it grew too warm. It’s the season of unpredictable weather.”

  “And look at the rest of this.” Dallington held up the newspaper clippings. “An account of the last party, the rooms that were used. The Queen’s social calendar, and here is an odd little shorthand list of some kind
or another—but it’s placed with the things I think he meant to take, the wax, the cap, and this knife.”

  Dallington held up the knife. It was a short, ugly, efficient object. “This looks like the kit of a serious thief. It’s hard to believe the fellow in the bedroom put it together,” said Lenox.

  “We must learn more about him. Perhaps he even has a criminal record.”

  “Yes, it could be.”

  There was a noise in the hallway and Jenkins came in, trailed by a constable. He found them in the kitchen—Anixter stood up at his arrival, and again offered to help, an offer the three men declined in unison—where Dallington reported on all they had found.

  Jenkins blanched. “Thank God somebody got to him before he could steal from the palace.”

  “But who?” asked Dallington.

  Almost at the same moment, Lenox said, “I’m not at all persuaded that the palace is safe even now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Arthur Whitstable described three men walking up the Gloucester Road that morning. Now two of them are dead. Who was the third?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Thirty-five minutes later they were in the Blue Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace. A grim-looking lieutenant stood watch over them. The Queen was on her way.

  Jenkins paced the room nervously; they had left a passel of constables behind at Wintering’s, to take care of the body and search the rooms, but he would have preferred to do the job himself. Meanwhile Dallington and Lenox sat on two uncomfortable chairs near the door. Despite its name, the color of the Blue Drawing Room was almost entirely gold—too sumptuous for Lenox’s taste, though undeniably spectacular, with its long rows of high columns and its vast acreage of glossy royal portraiture.

  “Have you met the Queen?” asked Lenox in a quiet voice.

  “Several times as a child.”

  It was sometimes easy to forget that Dallington was the son of a duke. “Of course. You must have been a page.”

  “Yes, I still have the costume. Fearful bore.”

  “Come now, be respectful.”

  Dallington grinned, but when the door opened a moment later, he was just as quick to his feet as Lenox.