The Inheritance

by Charles Finch

  Seeing he had returned, she asked, “What were the three candidates’ names?”

  “Brewster, Townsend, Ashe.”

  Leigh looked up and shook his head. “Brewster died many years ago. It can’t have been him.”

  “Your uncle, then, Ashe, and Townsend,” said Polly.

  Leigh looked away. “Yes.”

  Sitting, Lenox glanced at his own notes. “Robert Roderick was your uncle’s name?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Leigh again.

  “What was your mother’s Christian name, if I might ask?”

  “Regina,” said Leigh. “Why?”

  “Oh—only trying to remember.”

  But that wasn’t quite true. He could tick off one mystery: RSR, the embossed seal on the envelope of Leigh’s letter. It must have belonged to his mother. No profit in pointing out this memento of Leigh’s grief, however.

  “Well, then,” said Polly. “What time did you leave Middleton’s offices two days ago?”

  “At half past twelve. After that I went to the British Museum. It was upon leaving the museum that I was attacked.”

  Leigh explained that he had dined with an acquaintance from the staff and then stood politely for a while before Lord Elgin’s marbles, while this friend deplored the Greeks who were so importunately demanding their return. (It would all be settled very soon, at least, the friend had added.) He estimated that he had left the British Museum at three.

  “It was still light out?” Lenox asked.

  “Yes, just. I walked through Bedford Square. It was very empty—that was the day the snow began—and very austere, with nobody about and the trees utterly bare, you know. It saved me, because I could see my assailants stalking me from a few hundred yards off, couldn’t possibly have missed them, didn’t like their look at all. And so I turned toward Oxford Street, where I knew it would be busy.”

  “Why did you think that they were after you?” Polly asked.

  “It was something in their step. You would have thought so, too. And of course Bloomsbury is not an altogether savory area. At first I assumed they were thieves.”

  Lenox nodded thoughtfully. “They caught up with you?”

  “Yes. It was very near-run—I was half sprinting down a little alleyway and they nearly had me by the back of the coat when I stepped out into Oxford Street, and suddenly we were surrounded by people. It was a jarring moment. One of the two fellows gave me a hard shove anyway, and I stumbled down into the gutter. There was a commotion. They had vanished by the time I regained my feet, though it was only an instant. I looked around for them but they were long gone.”

  “And how do you know they weren’t simply thieves?”

  “Well, so, it was this way. After our little chase I was shaken, but not too badly. I’ve run into ugly customers over the years, you know—anyone who has been aboard a ship has—and after I had dusted myself off it didn’t seem so bad as all that. I returned to my hotel, dined very pleasantly with my friend Lovell, then turned in and had a good night’s sleep.

  “The next morning I was to return to Middleton’s office to sign a few more documents he had prepared—he wanted to know which bank would receive the money, when I could take receipt of it, et cetera, et cetera.

  “As my cab pulled up to his street, though, I spotted none other than the two chaps who’d come so close to setting about me the day before.”

  Lenox raised his eyebrows. “Ah.”

  “Yes, ‘ah,’ you describe my thoughts to a very nice exactitude, Charles.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I ordered the cab to proceed on its way without a stop, needless to say. I returned to my hotel. That was when I wrote you.”

  “You were interrupted in the middle of writing the letter, though.”

  “Yes, I had a caller. They left the name ‘Smith.’ I asked for a description, and it matched one of the two fellows too finely to be anyone else. As you can imagine, I was not eager to receive him. I finished writing to you, gave the letter to the bellman to post, and escaped through the back door. Or so I thought.”

  “Only thought?”

  “In fact the other fellow was waiting there by the door for me—with a knife out. He came after me, hell-for-leather. I swear there was an unnatural ferocity in his eyes. If I hadn’t thought quickly we wouldn’t be speaking right now.”

  “Why a knife and not a gun?” asked McConnell.

  “Noise,” said Lenox. “There are more bobbies than civilians in that part of the West End. Leigh, my goodness! What an ordeal. This was when you went to take cover at the coffeehouse?”

  “Precisely. I paid a passing boy to take word to Middleton that I had witnessed two ugly-countenanced fellows outside of his offices and that I would prefer to conduct the rest of our business by the mails, thought of writing to you but didn’t want to draw attention to your house—they already had the solicitor’s address, obviously—and then retired to the coffeehouse.

  “At first I thought I would attempt to see you. But more and more this morning it has struck me that I had better just go. They keep a Bradshaw’s at the counter of Mr. Covington’s establishment, and just before you came I was going to consult it to find the next train that departs for Dover, and thence to France. It was a relief to contemplate leaving all of this terrible business behind me. That knife will live in my nightmares forever. It came within the width of a—of a microbe, of my eye.”

  Lenox leaned forward, frowning. “Did you not consider alerting the police to your situation?”

  “I tried! With two constables I tried. Both of them moved me on. So I gave up.”

  It was true that Leigh, with his tobacco-stained fingers, in scruffy collar and grizzled coat, was not a classic picture of respectability. The average London policeman heard twenty outlandish tales a day, the majority of them designed to distract him from his beat so that some other crime could be peaceably conducted nearby.

  “Has anything strange happened to you in the last few months, may I ask?” Lenox inquired.

  “Nothing other than this inheritance.”

  “Can you think of anyone who might wish you harm?”

  “Nobody at all,” said Leigh.

  “Except perhaps the person who would have twenty-five thousand pounds were it not for your existence,” said Polly.

  “Correct.”

  “And these two men—describe them, please, if you would,” said Lenox.

  “One was an Englishman, I think, and one, I believe, an Indian.”

  “An Indian.”

  “At any rate an Easterner.”

  “Dressed in Oriental clothes?” Polly said.

  “Quite the reverse—he wore a highly respectable suit and a bowler hat. He might have been a clerk in Mr. Middleton’s office.”

  “And the other?” Lenox said.

  “The thing that stands out about him to me is that he had flaming red hair, and a beard to match it. A short beard.”

  Polly put down her pen and glanced at Lenox. He returned the look, but with caution in his eyes: better not to say anything right away.

  Still, they both understood now that Leigh’s position was more precarious than they had realized. These men were known to them, unless there had been a very profound coincidence. Anderson and Singh, they were called. Not pleasant chaps.

  Lenox asked him to elaborate. Leigh had the scientist’s natural attentiveness to details of appearance and typology, which made him a useful forensic witness. He remembered several small points that few witnesses would have—accent, shoes, even the length and style of the knife, which Lenox, who had made a point of studying such things, immediately recognized as being the standard blade issued by most army regiments.

  As Leigh was searching for any last fleeting niceties within his memory, McConnell stifled a yawn. Lenox, remembering that the doctor had been awake all night at work at the hospital, urged him to go home and sleep.

  “No, no. I’m wide awake. But tell me, Mr. Leigh—would yo
u consider taking up residence in my guest room? My own wife and child are away in the country, snowbound, and I even have a small laboratory. I know you would be comfortable, and there would be numerous people about the place.”

  “It is very kind in you, sir,” Leigh said, dropping into the earnest and old-fashioned Cornwall language just as he occasionally had at Harrow, “but I mean to stick to my plan. Straight back to France, where nobody has ever tried to stab me with a knife. Long may that record remain unblemished.”

  Polly frowned, pushing a wisp of light brown hair behind her ear. “Anybody who hopes to murder you in London will hardly be deterred by a channel twenty-five miles across.”

  Leigh smiled. “That’s only to Calais, or Lille at best. Then they have to get to Paris.”

  “I only—”

  “No, I understand. And I thank you. My hope is that by rejecting the inheritance I can put an end to the whole business. I have more than enough to live on—and they are very generous to scientists in France. I want for nothing. Excepting good tea, perhaps.”

  And excepting a new jacket, Lenox thought, and felt a surge of affection for his friend.

  He was just about to tell Leigh who Anderson and Singh were, the Indian gentleman and his red-haired companion stalking him, when Dallington came in. He was holding a pair of brown gloves and brushing snow off the shoulders of his coat.

  “They said you were in here! Hello, McConnell, capital to see you. And who is this?” Dallington put out his hand for Leigh, who shook it. “Not the internal revenue, I hope? Ha, only joking. I’m sure we’re quite paid in. Polly, we are paid in, aren’t we?”

  “This is my friend Gerald Leigh,” Lenox said. “He’s found a bit of trouble.”

  Dallington’s face fell. “Oh, dear,” he said. “You’re in the right place at least. Welcome. But I say, Lenox, Polly, did you hear the news down on the street? A shooting, only a few blocks away. He’s dead, the poor soul, in his own chambers.”

  “Who was it?”

  “A solicitor, according to the fellow who sells whelks on the corner.” Dallington squinted, trying to remember the name. “Middleton, I think it was?”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Everyone in the room other than the deliverer of this news reacted to the shock of it at once, all of them hesitating for a beat and then breaking out into speech simultaneously.

  Dallington raised his eyebrows. “Wait, wait. What do you know that I don’t?”

  It was Polly who answered. “That is the name of the solicitor who is supposed to give Mr. Leigh here tens of thousands of pounds.”

  Dallington looked understandably nonplussed, and Lenox said, preemptively, “Middleton was the solicitor of an anonymous benefactor who has left Leigh a medium-sized fortune. Since returning to London to sign the papers, Leigh has been attacked twice, and his attackers were waiting for him yesterday outside of the very chambers where, you now tell us, the solicitor has been killed.”

  Subtly, Polly gestured toward a line on her notepad, visible only to Dallington, standing behind her, and Lenox. It said “Anderson+Singh” and though Dallington’s expression didn’t change when he read it, Lenox could sense him tensing.

  At that moment there was a knock at the door. It was Anixter, there with Leigh’s possessions.

  “Anyone lurking about the Collingwood?” Polly asked.

  Anixter shook his head, and after pausing to see if anything else would be asked of him, left the room.

  “Chatty fellow,” said Leigh.

  But the stab at humor was reflexive. He looked rattled, as he had every right to. As for Lenox, his mind had already jumped forward: He had to get to Middleton’s chambers as soon as possible, that was clear. The questions that remained were, in the first place, what was to be done about Leigh, and in the second, what kind of head start they had on Scotland Yard. It might be their means of bargaining their way inside the case if an inspector who looked unfavorably upon the agency had been assigned it.

  First things first. “Dallington,” he said, “what did Mr. Cheesewright say about the thefts in Parliament?”

  “They want us on the spot. A case of interesting features.”

  “You and Polly ought to go and handle it, then.”

  Dallington glanced at his pocket watch. “Yes, I came back to report in, but I’m heading back. It’s already three forty-five.”

  Polly looked at Lenox. “I’ll stick with you.”

  Lenox shook his head firmly. “No, I’ll take Pointilleux if I need anyone.” This was a young associate of theirs, a Frenchman. It was important to retain the parliamentary business, and he also knew that the Yard didn’t like Polly to come to their scenes, her presence a continual low-burning threat of humiliation for them. “I’ll go over now.”

  “I can pay your fees, of course,” Leigh said.

  He looked pale. Lenox smiled. “Yes, I’ll be sure to charge you twice our usual rates, since you’re a Parisian now.”

  “Very droll.”

  “Listen, though, before I go, two things. First, what shall we do with your person?”

  “I am dead set on returning to France as soon as possible now. It would be useful to have twenty-five thousand pounds, but it is not nearly so essential to me as an intact body.”

  Lenox nodded. “I understand. But I would counsel you to remain here for another day or two. The Yard may have questions. Better still they may have answers.”

  “Would you feel comfortable in Paris anyhow?” Polly asked.

  Leigh conceded that he would not feel entirely comfortably there—but more comfortable than he felt here. “And where would I stay?”

  “Are you disinclined to accept McConnell’s offer?” Lenox asked. “You would certainly be safe at his house.”

  What he knew and Leigh did not was that McConnell’s house in Grosvenor Square was both well populated and well defended, because of Toto’s family. Leigh looked hesitant, but then, giving himself over to the situation, said he would do it.

  And what was the second question, he inquired.

  “Ah,” said Lenox. “That’s more easily answered. Townsend and your uncle: Has either of them died recently? At the risk of sounding insensitive, it would be helpful if one of them had.”

  A faint smile returned to Leigh’s face for the first time since he had heard the news of Middleton’s death. “There’s the rub,” he said. “They both did.”

  Lenox raised his eyebrows.

  Fifteen minutes later, the detective had ventured outside into the winter weather again, riding in a cab bound for the offices of Middleton and Beaumont.

  The snow was driving down once more. The distinctive scarlet of a mail cart flashed by in the whitened street, its horses’ shoes clicking sharply against the roads even through the powder. Lenox stared out through the window.

  What had Leigh gotten himself into?

  The offices of Middleton and Beaumont were on Maltravers Street, a lane so slender that Lenox’s carriage had to leave him off at the top of it, and walking down it felt like entering a hedge maze. The street was dominated by the legal profession. It was obvious instantly which building had domiciled Leigh’s unfortunate solicitor—there were constables milling outside, and various lookers-on, undeterred by the cold or the snow, peering in the windows.

  By chance Lenox knew one of the attending constables from a previous case. “Hello, Chapman,” he said, elbowing through.

  “Hello, Mr. Lenox. Been called in?”

  “After a fashion. I believe I may have some information. Who’s caught the case?”

  “Inspector Timothy Frost, sir.”

  Frost was a competent middle-aged officer, with a thick gray beard. He was by no means unfriendly toward Lenox, which made his presence a positive development. “I’ll go upstairs. Thank you, Chapman. Stay warm.”

  “Doubtful prospects of that, sir.”

  Lenox laughed and bade him good-bye, going to the stairwell.

  Frost was upstairs. He gave
Lenox a quick glance, then a longer one. “Hello, Lenox,” he said. “We can’t have called you in, can we? It hasn’t been ninety minutes.”

  The offices were small but luxurious, three rooms from what Lenox could see. Frost was standing with an older man in black legal robes. Beaumont, Lenox guessed. Behind them, two constables were looking carefully through the room.

  “No,” said Lenox. “But Mr. Middleton’s name arose in a case I’m investigating—an assault, possibly an attempted murder. I came over because I wondered if they might be connected.”

  Frost took in this information. “I suppose it’s possible. At the moment we have it pegged as a robbery gone wrong.”

  “What happened?”

  The inspector nodded toward the older man. “I only just arrived. Mr. Beaumont has given his account to Constable Moss, but I was going to impose on him to give it to me again, fresh. Mr. Beaumont, this is Charles Lenox. Please consider him my own auxiliary for the moment.”

  Beaumont nodded. He was a stout, florid fellow, with pouches under his eyes and white hair that hung below his collar donnishly, curling down over his ears in haphazard fashion.

  He started his story, and indeed, despite looking rather stunned, proved lucid in his speech.

  It was no wonder that Frost had thought he was dealing with a robbery. In the first place, Mr. Middleton’s inner office, to which Frost pushed open the door as Beaumont told his tale, was sumptuously decorated, a heavy clock upon the wall, painted ivory portraits around it, a silver astrolabe upon a delicate-looking French desk, and amidst it all Middleton’s body, slumped heavily over the desk.

  In the second, there were the circumstances.

  Beaumont had left at noon to meet with a client in the courts at Chancery. His own specialty was entail, the tricky set of laws by which England’s aristocratic families passed down their houses and fortunes. Middleton had been a specialist in more common middle-class wills and estates. They had joined their legal practices nine years before, believing they would dovetail well, and been satisfied in the partnership from the first moment, Beaumont said.

  “It is only the two of you?” Lenox asked, glancing pointedly at an empty desk in the outer office.