“Did he deliver a parcel to you, out in the Meadow?”
“Who—old Hatch? No, I don’t know anything about that. I certainly didn’t see him, and I don’t think he could have spoken to Payson without my knowing about it.”
“Are you certain? It would have been on Sunday afternoon. And the two of them met at a place called Shotter’s just before Payson disappeared on Saturday.”
“Did they?” Dabney seemed perplexed. “Professor Hatch was decent for a laugh and a drink, but I doubt that he would have been George’s choice as a confidant. I very much doubt it.”
This exchange immediately led Lenox to reevaluate his thoughts about Hatch. He had to some extent discounted the possibility that Hatch was guilty, even as an accomplice. It had seemed logical to assume that Hatch had been helping his troubled young friend, bringing him a parcel of—what, food? Clothes? It seemed feeble now. Quickly he wrote a telegram to Graham, requesting that he remain in Oxford another twelve hours.
“Another question, then,” he said to Dabney. “What do you mean to do? I’ve met with your parents, and while they’ve handled it admirably, they’re of course frantically worried. I’m inclined to send them a telegram instantly. I fought against the instinct after you had gone to sleep last night, out of respect for your free will.”
Dabney winced. “Please, please don’t. I have a good reason.”
“What’s that?”
“Listen, when will all this be over, do you reckon?”
“Not later than Monday evening, I should say.”
“How can you know that?”
“I have a plan in mind that should force things to a conclusion, one way or another.”
“Tuesday morning, then, as early as possible. I’ll write them then.”
At half past noon, Lenox set out to execute his new plan. He walked with some trepidation for Pall Mall and the row of clubs along it. As he drew close to Carlton Gardens and the September Society (and Biblius Club), his uncertainty increased, and he decided to wait until after his lunch. At the Athenaeum Club he had turkey on the joint with cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes—heavy but sustaining in the weather, which continued cold and wet—and read the Cambridge Journal of Roman History.
The Athenaeum was a place for people accomplished intellectually rather than socially, and many of the people in the dining room were reading similar journals on any number of subjects. While its members were still largely drawn from the landed classes, some had arrived on the merit of their achievements. For example, in the late 1830s, when the club had been in a difficult financial position, its board had decided to admit forty less well born men from a waiting list. Thereafter known jocularly as the Forty Thieves, their number had included Dickens and Darwin. Lenox liked this tradition in the club—one dedicated to Athena, after all, the goddess of wisdom whose cunning had guided Odysseus—much better than he liked the tradition of exclusivity at Boodle’s, where the SPQRs met.
At half past one he finally made his way out, nodding to the familiar faces he saw on the way, and started for Carlton Gardens.
At the September Society, however, he did not find Hallowell as he had hoped, but the second, older doorman who had directed him once before to the Royal Oak.
“After Hallowell again, sir?”
“Yes, actually.”
“He won’t be at the Royal Oak now, I shouldn’t imagine, sir. His shift doesn’t begin for another hour and a half.”
“I see.”
“Would you like me to leave word for him that you called?”
“No, that’s quite all right. Thanks.”
Lenox decided to check the Royal Oak anyway. He turned up his collar against the rain and once more walked down the slender alleyway which housed the pub.
It was as he had left it, dim, the walls dampening a constant murmur of voices, and in the air the steamy warmth of a wet day brought indoors. In fact, the people at the tables might not have moved at all since he had last been there. The man with the large mustache was still behind the bar.
“Hello,” said Lenox. “I’m trying to find Hallowell. You may remember I was here—”
“In the back,” said the barman, pointing with his thumb.
It was a stroke of luck. Hallowell was reading a newspaper at a rear table, a full pint of Guinness before him. When he looked up and saw Lenox, his face fell slightly—and who could blame him? What had begun as a conversational acquaintance had become dangerously uncertain.
“Really, sir,” he said as Lenox approached, “I’ve told you all I know about Major Wilson. I haven’t thought of anything else.”
Lenox sat down. “Of course, and I’m sorry to bother you again.”
“It’s not a bother, sir, but it may be more than my job is worth.”
“Have you read anything about this business at Oxford?” the detective asked, pointing at the newspaper Hallowell was still holding.
“Some, yes, sir.”
“I know I’ve asked you to go against your conscience, but a great deal is at stake, you see. A lad died, a lad of twenty.”
“Yes, Mr. Lenox.”
“In part it was my own fault. I knew something was afoot before he died, young George Payson, and I couldn’t stop it from happening. But I may be able to stop it from happening again.”
Hallowell nodded slightly
“I need to ask you a larger favor, Thomas.”
“Sir?”
“It’s not about Major Wilson. It’s about the meeting tomorrow.”
“The September Society’s meeting?”
“Yes, precisely.”
“But I won’t even be there, sir. As I told you, we receive the night off.”
It was time to level with the man. He was sharp enough, clever enough, to see that things had changed. “I told you that I was working in the same direction as the Society, whether they knew it or not, didn’t I?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That no longer appears to be the case.”
Hallowell blanched. “Sir?”
“I think somebody in the Society is responsible for George Payson’s murder—perhaps several other deaths, too.”
“Sir, I can scarcely credit—I mean to say, I know these men, it’s not possible.”
“I’m afraid it is, in fact. And I need you to sneak me into the club before the meeting so that I can spy on them all.”
“No, sir, I simply cannot—”
“But you must!”
“I simply cannot, Mr. Lenox—”
Lenox’s temper rose. “They shot at my friend’s house, Hallowell! Did you read about that in the papers, on Hampden Lane? They threatened a woman with no involvement in the case—they’ve killed an innocent lad—they probably killed Major Wilson—you must!”
For a moment there was silence at the table. The paper fell out of Hallowell’s hands, while in the front bar the voices grew suddenly louder and a wave of laughter rose and fell among the house’s patrons. Outside, Lenox saw through the small window above him, the rain had stopped.
At last, almost imperceptibly, Hallowell nodded. “Yes,” he said. “All right.”
Relieved, Lenox said, “Good. Excellent.”
“But just a moment—how can I trust you? How can I be sure you’re not involved?”
Lenox scribbled a few words on a piece of paper in his notebook and tore it out. “Here,” he said, “take this to Inspector Jenkins at Scotland Yard. He’ll tell you that I’ve been doing this for a long time.”
Hallowell glanced at the paper, then folded it and put it in his pocket. “Tomorrow, then,” he said. “Meet me here tomorrow at five in the afternoon.”
“I shall.”
“I may be late.”
“I’ll be here,” said lenox. He Stood Up. “You’re doing the right thing. I can only promise you that. If you lose your job for any reason, Because of this or not, You need only come to me, Hallowell.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
After he left the Royal
Oak, Lenox hailed a hansom cab and went to Hunt House. It was here, close to the river, where Dallington still lived with his parents. The house belonged to an old family with a relatively new dukedom; for centuries before their elevation the family had been a steady and well-respected line of local squires in Bedfordshire, but in the last hundred years they had gone from that prosperous station in England’s landed gentry to the pinnacle of its nobility. Hunt House reflected that. It was quite modern, painted white with gold and green window frames, and every cut of stone and pane of glass sighed money.
They were an amusing family. The duchess was plain-spoken, pretty, well past fifty, and a close friend of Lady Jane’s. The duke was a generous and entirely idle man. Both of them were continually at court, good friends to Victoria and once upon a time Prince Albert, who had been dead five years. Their heir was dull and industrious; their second son was vain and pious; and their third son was Lenox’s apprentice.
Eager, quick-witted, and conscientious for the time being, the young lord had suddenly begun to seem indispensable to Lenox; a second set of eyes at the September Society during the meeting, what he had in mind for Dallington, might ultimately mean the difference between success and failure.
Lenox stepped out of his cab and rapped the door sharply. An eminently appropriate butler answered the door.
“How do you do, Mr. Lenox?” he said. “Please come in.”
“Oh, I can’t, thanks. I was only looking for the youngest of the brood.”
“Lord John is not presently in, sir.”
The respectful and cautious tone of these words made Lenox uneasy. “Do you know where he’s gone?”
“I believe he stated an intention of visiting Claridge’s, sir, with one or two friends.”
Damn. “Thanks,” said Lenox. “If he does return, hold him here for me, won’t you?”
Lenox quickly hailed another cab and directed the driver to the hotel. Claridge’s was an august establishment on Brook Street in Mayfair, about fifty years old, which the Queen had consecrated not long ago by calling on Empress Eugenie of France in her suite there. It also—and this was the cause of the butler’s overly polite manner, perhaps, in referring to Dallington—housed a raucous bar full of slightly disreputable young aristocrats.
When he arrived at the terraced house, Lenox walked straight to the bar. Sure enough, Dallington was there, having a glass of champagne and unloosening his tie while he spoke with a florid, light-haired lad of about the same age. There was also an extremely pretty young woman with them. She wore a bright red dress and had a high, clear laugh that rang out across the room. Lenox went over to them.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but might I have a word?” he said.
Dallington looked up blearily, then gave an excited start. “Oh, I say, Lenox! I say! Meet Solly Mayfair!”
Lenox shook hands and nodded at the woman, to whom he hadn’t been introduced. “Nice to see you. Do you think I could have that word, Dallington?”
“About what? No secrets from Solly.”
All three of them found this outlandishly funny.
“About the case, John.”
“Quite right, Lenox, quite right—we should get a case of champagne. These bottles on their own seem so stingy. A case of champagne, a barrel of beer—that will set us to rights.”
“Can you not be serious, for a moment?”
“I was never more serious in my life!” said the lad with a Falstaffian belch. “A case of champagne! A barrel of beer!”
Now Lenox realized that Dallington was too far-gone with drink to pay him any notice.
“Perhaps another time,” he said. Nodding to Dallington’s friends, he rapidly turned and left the bar, then the hotel.
It was a bitter disappointment. He wasn’t exactly certain why. As he walked the short way home, however, he slowly realized how much this new attachment—friendship, even—had meant to him. A detective’s work was so isolated, and while Lenox had come to accommodate the isolation, had agreed to it as a condition of the work he loved, the lad had seemed to offer a kind of professional companionship he hadn’t known before. Even Jenkins, for instance, would grow gradually more conservative. He would begin to believe, if imperceptibly at first, that the Yard should be the sole authority over crime in London. The critical thing about Dallington was that in some significant way he was like Lenox. In his background. It had been gratifying to have an ally.
As he turned into Hampden Lane, Lenox decided to visit Lady Jane. With a dull thud of fear in his chest he realized that they might actually find themselves alone. When Kirk led him into the house a moment later, however, Lenox heard voices. When he came to the drawing room he stopped. It was the man he had seen at the door twice before, the tall, lean one who had both times worn a long gray coat. Now he stood as Lenox came into the room.
Lady Jane looked flustered, and sounded it, too. “Charles, how are you?” she said. “I’m so glad you’ve come. Won’t you meet Michael Pierce? Mr. Pierce, this is Charles Lenox, my particular friend.”
“How do you do, Mr. Lenox?” said the man, striding forward with his hand outstretched.
“I’m pleased to meet you,” Lenox said. “Have I come at an inconvenient time, Jane?”
“I was just leaving, in fact,” said Michael Pierce. “Good day, my Lady. Good day, Mr. Lenox. I’m pleased to have met you.”
Lenox’s mind was racing. He hadn’t heard the name before. They had been sitting next to each other, not across from each other, which meant they were more than simply formal friends.
What followed was the first strained conversation of Lenox and Jane’s long friendship. They weren’t curt, precisely, but neither of them could find exactly what to say. At last they alit on the subject of his case.
“It’s going well enough,” he said.
“When will it be over?”
“Tomorrow, perhaps.”
“That will be a relief.”
Stiffly, he said, “Yes, it will. How is Annie, if I may ask?”
“Very well. Recovered, in fact.”
“I found out something about the gun that did it.”
“Did you?”
“Circumstantially it’s linked to the September Society.”
“How awful.”
“Yes.” It was horribly impolite, but he couldn’t help himself from saying, in a strangled voice that sounded nothing like his own, “I hadn’t met Mr. Pierce before.”
“You wouldn’t have. He’s a friend of my brother’s from school, only recently arrived in town from the colonies in Africa. He knows very few people.”
Why did she still look so flustered?
“Oh, yes?”
Miserably, Lenox said, “Perhaps I ought to introduce him about.”
“Yes, perhaps.”
He stood. “Well, I had better go,” he said. “I’ll speak to you soon.”
As he walked down the long hallway, and out again into the street, he thought that he had never felt unhappier in all the years of his life.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Dabney was sitting in a chair at the far end of the library, reading. When Lenox came in he marked his place in the book and laid it to the side.
“Hullo,” he said. “Have you had a productive time out?”
Lenox again marveled at how Oxford had moderated his parents’ Midlands accent. “Productive enough,” he said. “We’ll know it all by tomorrow evening, or I’d be very much surprised. I’ve arranged to infiltrate a meeting of the Society.”
“Good,” said Dabney with a firm nod. “How can I help?”
“I’m afraid you can’t. I shall have to go alone.”
“I’ll come into the meeting with you.”
“It won’t be that easy.”
“Have you convinced the Society that you’re someone you’re not? Or are you going to hide and observe from within the room?”
“I’m going to hide and observe, as you say. It’s their annual meeting, the Society’s most im
portant evening of the year.”
“Then I shall come and hide as well.”
“I’m afraid it would be far too precarious. You might easily hinder me.”
But Dabney was insistent. “See here, Mr. Lenox, you’ve been very kind to take me in, but I promised George that I would stick by him until his trouble was over, and though he’s died I mean to keep that promise.”
They wrangled for another moment over the question, and then Lenox relented. “If you must, then,” he said. “I meant to ask a second man anyway, but he was unavailable.”
“I’ll be happy to follow your lead—just as long as I’m involved.”
“Incidentally, perhaps you can help with something.” Lenox pulled his small notebook from his pocket and flipped back to an early page in it. “I believe Payson left behind clues about his departure in his room. I’d like to run them past you to see if they make sense.”
Dabney nodded amenably. “Fire away.”
“I think your friend realized that he had very little time to leave his room, somehow. Perhaps an hour, but not longer. And he decided to do something bold: to kill the cat you two shared.”
Dabney blanched. “Longshanks? Has Longshanks been killed?”
“Oh—yes. I’m sorry.”
The lad waved it off. “It’s no great loss in the end. Though I did love that cat.”
“I don’t think he died in vain, if it’s any consolation. I think George killed Longshanks because he needed a tangible, striking demonstration that he hadn’t simply disappeared to a party in London or gotten waylaid some other way. Hence its double death, if you will: first by drugging, then by stabbing. He needed to signal—to me, to the police—that something strange had happened. His mother, as you may know, is rather high-strung, and perhaps even I would have attended her anxiety with less patience if there hadn’t been this bizarre signpost. There’s also the fact that the September Society’s seal has a wildcat on it. So Longshanks served multiple purposes. Killing him was really a brilliant, even necessary solution.”
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