Home by Nightfall

by Charles Finch

  Dallington shook his head. “I must say, I call it pretty shabby to bring in that fraud LeMaire, after all the help we’ve given the Yard over the years, from the murders in Fleet Street to—”

  “But I’ve told you that I’m not even—”

  “To that terrible business about the prostitution ring in Regent Street, to Mrs. Wilkin’s missing pearls, to—”

  “They were under her dresser!” said Nicholson. “Anyone could have found them! And as I said, I’m not even on the case!”

  Dallington took a sip of his coffee. “You could have put in a word.”

  “I think you have an inflated sense of my importance, my lord.”

  Dallington laughed. “Once you’ve been shot at together, last names will do, I think. Call me Dallington.”

  At last, Nicholson had consented to take them to Broadbridge. The chief was seated at his desk, with his back to a splendid view of the Thames, signing papers. A constable was next to him—“My nephew, Bailey,” he said, not joyfully—and he put his pen back in its inkstand and crossed his hands over his fat taut stomach, giving them his exclusive attention.

  “Thank you for seeing us.”

  “Nicholson says you have an idea about the pianist,” said Broadbridge.

  “I’m Charles Lenox. This is my associate, John—”

  “Yes, I know who you are. What about the German?”

  “Hardly call that proper German music,” said the nephew, Bailey, in a cockney accent.

  Dallington snorted. There were two types of street bands in London, English and German. The German ones rarely had any Germans in them; the name only meant that they played brass instruments, as opposed to string ones.

  “Quiet!” thundered Broadbridge at his nephew.

  “I don’t rightly call it German when—”

  “Quiet, I said!” Broadbridge looked as if he would happily murder the lad, who had an obstinate frown on his face, as if he were ready to debate the issue. By way of explanation, he added, “He’s my wife’s nephew, the young fool.”

  “From what I understand, Muller’s wineglass was empty,” Lenox said.

  “Yes.”

  “Who filled it?”

  Broadbridge glowered. “This isn’t a twopenny quiz game, it’s a criminal investigation.”

  Nicholson stepped forward. “I believe the two stewards, as was customary,” he said, sounding anxious to keep the peace. “I’m not on the case myself, but word goes around.”

  “It shouldn’t,” said Broadbridge, “and that’s incorrect. Muller himself poured the wine, at intermission. Now, Mr. Lenox, spit it out, quickly.”

  “I need to see his dressing room before I fully explain my theory,” said Lenox. “It’s essential.”

  “Out of the question. It’s not a stop on the day tour of London.”

  “If I am wrong, you will have lost half an hour, and you will have my sincere apology. If I’m right, this will be over—solved.”

  Broadbridge hesitated. Lenox sensed through his gruffness his desperation to find Muller and get the Yard out of the morning newspapers. Pressure from the Palace itself—Broadbridge’s superiors must have been hounding him hourly for answers.

  “Very well,” he said. “Bailey, fetch my hat. Mr. Lenox, these answers had better come pretty sharpish once we’re there, you understand.”

  Now they were there, in the dressing room.

  It was a small, square chamber—though perhaps large in proportion to the crammed warren of the average theater’s backstage area—dominated by an immense vanity mirror on one side, which had a row of gas lamps above it, and a table and chair in front of it. The wineglass itself stood upon the table, a small red smudge of wine dried in its bottom. In the center of the room were two sofas, and in the corner there was a stepladder, stacked with books. Lenox leafed through them—all German. Apparently Muller had been a reader.

  Above them was an immense chandelier, shimmering with crystals. Lenox studied it for a moment thoughtfully. “This is very fine,” he said.

  “We often use it in our performances, actually,” said the theater manager, who was still in the doorway. “Comes right down, only glass. It hooks onto a gaff above the main stage.”

  Lenox knelt and grazed his fingers across the rug that stood between the two sofas. He pressed down.

  “McKee has done all that,” said Broadbridge, impatient. “LeMaire too, now that we’ve been told to bring him aboard, the sod.”

  A look shot between Dallington and Lenox. Told to hire him—Monomark’s influence again, in all likelihood. That was a piece of information to stow away.

  Lenox lifted the rug. The floorboards were solid, seamlessly joined. He tapped on the floor in a few different places and heard a thick, dull sound. Well, that was no less than he had expected.

  He was just knocking the floor in the corner of the room when there was a noise in the doorway. “What’s this!”

  Lenox turned and saw McKee. He was Scottish, an inspector at the Yard, a small man with freckles and bright orange hair. With him was LeMaire. Lenox, from his crouched position between the sofas, inclined his head toward the two men in greeting, but neither returned the courtesy.

  “We have already checked the floor,” said LeMaire. He turned his gaze to Broadbridge. “I have been trusted with the consultation of this matter, sir, but now I find a competitor of mine on the scene—tampering with the work I have done. Who is to answer for this?”

  McKee looked disposed to voice a similar objection, though Broadbridge was a station above his own, so he remained silent—clearly outraged, but silent.

  Broadbridge seemed to puff up. “I would hear out a goat-boy from the circus if he had a plausible idea about where this blasted German has got himself to. Mr. Lenox—is this all mere showing away? Or can you help? My patience is running short.”

  Poor Nicholson, who knew he would have the consequences of that impatience to deal with, looked at Lenox. “It’s certainly not showing off, Mr. Broadbridge, I will vouch for that. But Lenox, I hope you have something, however. Do you?”

  Lenox rose to his feet, dusting his hands off. “Four things,” he said. “First, where is the wine bottle from which Muller poured his glass? Second, why is there a stepladder in this room? Third, why has it been moved out of the corner and moved back to the corner in the past week?”

  “And fourth?”

  “And fourth, who would like to help me use it now?”

  The room was silent. Dallington smiled, and Nicholson, looking relieved, glanced at Broadbridge. Broadbridge said, “Use it now?”

  “What makes you think the stepladder’s been moved?” asked McKee.

  Lenox looked at it. “There are four rectangles in the dust, in the shape of its feet, where they must have rested for a long time previously—just slightly off from where it currently stands, you can see for yourselves.”

  “Muller himself moved it, then,” said McKee.

  Lenox smiled. “I don’t think so.”

  “Why?”

  “Look closely at the books on the stepladder. It has three steps, as you can see. On the first, all of them are alphabetized by their authors’ last names, from G to R. On the second step, from A to F. On the highest step, from S to Z.”

  “So?” said McKee.

  “They are Muller’s books—most have his name on the flyleaf. Clearly he was scrupulous about how he ordered them. But these are out of order. Someone, I think, took the three stacks, put them on the sofa, used the stepladder, and then replaced the books—with the three stacks in the incorrect order.”

  There was a pause in the crowded room as everyone absorbed this.

  “Well done, Lenox,” said Dallington.

  “Someone other than Muller used the stepladder, then,” said Broadbridge. “Why do we care?”

  Lenox looked up at the chandelier. “You say this comes down easily, Mr. Thurley?”

  The manager nodded. “Yes.”

  What Lenox’s slumbering min
d had told him, back in Sussex, had been simple: if everyone was agreed that Muller hadn’t left the room, then it must be the case that Muller hadn’t left the room.

  Mustn’t it?

  He took the books off the stepladder, setting them carefully on the floor, and brought it underneath the chandelier. This he removed. It was surprisingly light, only glass, as Thurley had said, and easy to hand down to Dallington, who stood beneath him. Lenox looked up at the ceiling with narrowed eyes.

  “There’s a latch there!” said Nicholson.

  “I’d no idea that was there,” said Thurley, voice astonished. “No idea at all. I’ve been here nine years.”

  McKee looked ill. “Hm.”

  Broadbridge shot him a look of disbelief. “A door in the ceiling!” he said. “McKee, of all the hellish incompetence!”

  Lenox allowed himself a moment of sympathy for the fellow. McKee had tried the floorboards, which showed some resourcefulness. And a chandelier is such a grand object that it would have been hard to imagine it moving. This one, however, made of cheap glass and brass …

  He tried the small black handle, which was embedded in the door but pulled out. There was a lock in it.

  “Do you have a key?” he asked Thurley.

  The manager shook his head. “I don’t think so. Here, you can try my skeleton key. It works in most of the locks in the building.”

  It worked in this one, too.

  Lenox, heart racing, pulled down the door. Nothing fell, as he had half expected. “Hand me a candle, would you?” he said.

  Having taken it, he stepped onto the highest footing of the stepladder and popped his head above the ceiling.

  What he saw confounded him, and he inhaled deeply, pondering it—a mistake, because there was the beginning of a smell.

  “There’s a body up here,” he called down.

  “Muller?” shouted Broadbridge.

  “No, I’m afraid not. A woman.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  That afternoon it began to rain, and when the employees of Lenox, Strickland, and Dallington gathered in the large central room of their offices, leaning aginst the various slanted clerks’ desks, or sitting in their chairs, their chatter was matched by the steady thrum of the drops on the window.

  The three partners of the agency stood at the door, facing them.

  Fourteen men in all. There were the four hired detectives, Atkinson, Davidson, Weld, and Mayhew; six clerks; Pointilleux, who occupied a position somewhere between clerk and detective; Anixter, the immense, dark-browed, and ominously mute ex-seaman who had accompanied Polly wherever she went as long as Lenox had known her, and presumably made it safe for a woman to be a detective in a city that could be unfriendly to both detectives and women; and two boys, Jukes and Chadwick, each around thirteen years of age. Both had been more or less urchins, well known in Chancery Lane for running errands for small change. With the regular pay of the agency, each had ascended to the highest sign of social acceptability he could imagine, the ownership of a hat—a gently used black bowler for Jukes, a wide-brimmed soft cloth cap for Chadwick. Neither had removed his in Lenox’s sight since obtaining it, indoors or out. Hats mattered a great deal, of course. Lenox had once seen a man being released from Newgate prison refuse to acknowledge his family, who were eagerly awaiting the reunion, for fifteen puzzling minutes, until a friend found and handed him a hat. Then he turned to them and embraced them all, as if he had just spied them and it was the most natural and spontaneous thing in the world to say hello

  It was Lenox who cleared his throat, waited for the chatter to subside, and then spoke. Though the partnership was equal, he was the eldest of the three, and perhaps for that reason the employees paid him the greatest deference.

  “It has come to our attention that someone may have passed proprietary information belonging to the agency to an outsider,” said Lenox.

  Everyone looked at him blankly.

  “More specifically, the identities of at least three of our clients have been passed to LeMaire and Monomark, we believe.”

  That drew a stronger reaction. “How do you know this?” asked Pointilleux.

  “All three clients have defected. Lower fees, LeMaire’s name constantly in the paper. It’s not surprising.”

  Without staring at them too closely, Lenox was trying to keep an eye on Mayhew and Davidson, the two friends. Davidson stood upright, his bearing fastidious; Mayhew leaned against a desk, one hand in his pocket, occasionally drawing his other languorously to his mouth to have a puff of his small cigar. Neither had betrayed any surprise. Perhaps it was natural that they should just listen, however.

  “Good Lord!” said Pointilleux, outraged, using one of the British expressions he often leaned on as he limped through the language.

  In truth he ought to have been the first person they suspected—he was LeMaire’s nephew—but as the partners had walked back to Chancery Lane from the Cadogan a few hours earlier, all had agreed that it couldn’t be him. It seemed impossible, that was all.

  “He’s too … too unimaginative,” Dallington had said.

  “I think it’s more than that,” put in Polly. “I think he has honor. We’ve come to know him, haven’t we?”

  Lenox had agreed with both of them. Now he went on, describing new security precautions to the employees, urging them to come forward if they had any idea about the crime, and finally promising whoever had done it that if he had the full list and returned it now, he could avoid criminal prosecution—a promise that would not hold should the partners discover the person’s guilt independently, which they believed they were within a day or two of doing.

  After the meeting was over, a chattering buzz had broken across the room.

  “One other thing,” Dallington said.

  Everyone quieted down and stared at him, including Lenox, who wasn’t sure what his young protégé intended to say.

  “This morning, the agency made a major breakthrough in the Muller case. The Yard has officially hired us to investigate it, at one and a half times our normal rate. All three partners will be dedicating at least some of their time to it in the coming days, so there may be a bit more work for everyone, later nights. I don’t expect to hear any grumbling about it, or I’ll have Anixter drag you under the keel of a ship.”

  There was a laugh, and immediately a louder, more insistent conversation. What was the breakthrough? Had they found Muller? That had been smart of Dallington. Better to leave them on a note of optimism than doubt.

  Dallington, Polly, and Lenox went to Polly’s office, where there was tea on the desk, and closed the door. Dallington poured three cups of tea, dashed some sugar into his, and then sat back heavily into an armchair, crossing his legs and stirring his tea moodily. “We’re in for it if someone has that full list,” he said. “No chance they’ll come forward.”

  Polly, stirring milk and sugar into her own tea with the precision of a chemist, said, “We have to hope the person who stole it is a coward, and fears jail more than the loss of his job.” She sat down on the front edge of the seat behind her desk, thinking. Her hair was pulled back with a gray ribbon.

  Lenox smiled at the two of them, so well mismatched. “We can only wait,” he said.

  Dallington shook his head. “I hate waiting. I’ve never had any patience.”

  “Do we find it odd that Mayhew and Davidson are so close?” asked Polly in a low voice.

  “Yes,” said Lenox. “They’re very different.”

  “They eat at the same slap-bang every day, down Cursitor Street.” Slap-bangs were popular among law clerks and other penurious professionals in this part of London for both their cheapness and speed—many only took fifteen or twenty minutes for lunch. They took their name from the sound that the busy waiters made dropping off the food. “I see them there every time I pass it on the way to the Beargarden for my own lunch.”

  “Could they be conspiring then?” asked Polly.

  “We simply can’t know yet,” sa
id Lenox. “At any rate, our trap may work.”

  Among the precautions for security that Lenox had enumerated before the employees was a new safe in Dallington’s office. It contained a sheet with the name of a lawyer and the password (“Chancery”) that would allow him to release their client list. In fact, it was Lenox’s own solicitor; anyone who approached him with that password would be held there by the bailiff under presumption of guilt.

  “Leaving this aside,” said Dallington, “my question is, what do we do next on the Muller case? If we could only solve it, clients would line up to India for us.”

  “We must be close now,” said Polly. “If only McKee and LeMaire weren’t working on it, too.”

  “But Broadbridge must give us first whack, after this morning,” said Dallington.

  Lenox shook his head. “I don’t think he cares who solves it.”

  The three partners looked at each other in silence for a moment.

  Lenox thought back to that morning. Theaters were odd places, full of lost rooms, winding backstage corridors, unexpected closets. Above the main dressing room, apparently, there was a small tunnellike space.

  They had taken down the woman, as carefully as they could, Broadbridge’s nephew assuming the bulk of her weight, and laid her on the sofa.

  Thurley, the theater manager, had gone pale. “That’s Margarethe,” he’d said immediately.

  “Who?” asked Broadbridge.

  “Margarethe. Mr. Muller’s sister.”

  “What in damnation—did we even know she was missing?” said Broadbridge.

  Thurley shook his head. “She was here on opening night—she traveled with Muller as his assistant. But after the first performance, she went on to Paris, his next destination, to book his rooms and make sure everything was in order there.”

  “Christ alive, man, are you telling me that we may have a pair of dead Germans?” Broadbridge said, a look of despair on his face. He glanced over at McKee. “You’ve had this room for a week.”

  “Yes, sir,” said McKee—and then, because blame runs downhill, he shot a sidelong glance at LeMaire.