A Beautiful Blue Death (16 page)

“Anything!”

“In time it will pass.”

“But… oh, I loved her so very much, Mr. Lenox!”

Lenox thought carefully for a moment. “Very well,” he said. “If it gives you comfort, you may observe the inmates of Mr. Barnard’s house, watching for any peculiar behavior.”

James looked at him. “Observe?”

“Yes. Understand, however, that I will be part of no deception, and that if you come to me, it will not be because I have asked you to. I am only counseling you to do what I myself would do, in your position. You have a unique opportunity to see what you can.”

“I shall,” said James.

“But not on my behalf. However, if there is anything in the house or in the actions of the people residing there that you wish to report, come to me or go to Inspector Exeter, as you see fit.”

“Oh, Exeter, what does he know?”

Lenox tried to smile, but the young man was patently unhappy—and lurking in the back of his own mind was Bartholomew Deck, for whom he had some sympathy as well.

“Good evening,” said Lenox, and turned away, not toward the Athenæum, now that he was no longer pursued, but up the street and in the direction of home.

He had walked two blocks, and left James behind, when the third of the three events occurred.

To cut more quickly toward his own house, Lenox had chosen to walk along one of those small, dark, thin streets, closer to alleys than anything, that proliferate everywhere in London,
even in the best parts of the city, and that always seem to hold some menace in them until they are safely traversed, after which they seem to be less than nothing.

He was alone in this little alley when suddenly he saw two men coming at him from behind but at an angle, and walking quickly. It would have been better, he later saw, to run away immediately, but in the event he thought only that he had been unnerved by the quick encounters with Claude and James and was being foolish.

The two men were of a similar height, both an inch or two shorter than Lenox and younger as well. From their dress and their demeanor, it was impossible to tell whether they were middle-class or lower-class men wearing their finest, but they did not stick out too badly for the neighborhood—except in a single respect. The shorter of the two men had a very clearly outlined tattoo of a hammer curved around his left eye.

It happened in a quick flash. At one moment they were striding toward him and, the next, one of them—it later seemed to Lenox to be the one with the tattoo, though he would never be sure—had clipped him hard into the wall.

The detective did not lose his wits all at once, and when the second man came toward him he dealt him a hard blow in the concavity of his chest, doubling him over. As Bartholomew Deck had learned, Lenox knew just enough to protect himself. But no sooner had the second assailant fallen than the first was again upon him, shoving him to the ground and kicking him hard in the stomach with the toe of his boot.

It was not the first time that such a thing had happened to Lenox, and yet he felt shock—pure shock. He had been brought up a gentleman, and though he had chosen to wade, occasionally, into an unfamiliar world, a world of hard men, his own essentially genial outlook on life had never left him. The toe in his stomach, therefore, was shocking, and by the time the other man had recovered, Lenox was overwhelmed.

He protected himself as well as he could with his arms, but they rained blows across his shoulders. Only once did one of them hit the side of his face and then quickly corrected himself, as the other grunted “Not the face” and pushed him aside.

Then one of them took out a knife, and Lenox felt a violent fear in his chest. Though the alley was dim, he could see the silver gleam of the knife’s edge. Even amid his fright, he tried unsuccessfully to spot something distinctive about the knife.

“Wot now?” said the one with the hammer over his eye.

“That’s good enough.”

“Let me give him a poke—quick one, in the belly.”

The leader seemed to consider this, then, to Lenox’s almost uncontrollable relief, said, “No. You’ll make a mistake and knife an organ.”

“How about the leg?”

There was a noise at the end of the alley, and they looked up.

“Let’s get out of here,” said the tattooed man, and he spat near Lenox’s foot.

The other man told Lenox, “Leave it to the Yard,” and then both men ran away, leaving him against the wall: prone, terrified, and breathing heavily, still within less than a minute’s walk from his own home.

B
easts!” said Lady Jane, yet again.

“Yes,” said Lenox.

“The absolute beasts!”

“I daresay,” said Lenox, wincing as he tried to sit up.

He was on the sofa in his library. Graham stood back, but Lady Jane was perched on the edge of the sofa next to him. Word had somehow worked its way to the next house when Lenox came staggering home, and Lady Jane had rushed into the library and said, “Graham, move out of the way!”

There were very few people from whom Graham would have accepted such a command at that moment, but she was among their ranks. She had been able to do very little in the way of providing Lenox with physical comfort—he had, he thought, a broken rib, but other than that only bruises, albeit painful ones—but she hadn’t left anyone in the room in doubt of her opinion of the two men who had done it. She thought that they were beasts.

“Where did they come from?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Did they try to rob you?”

“No.”

“Then why?” She patted his hand sympathetically.

“I think it must be in connection with the case.”

“About Prudence Smith?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, Charles, I
am
sorry. Be done with it this instant. Please, let’s let the man you so dislike do it all, and perhaps he will turn up the person who did it, but please don’t do anything further!”

“I fear I shall have to.”

“Charles!” She leaned toward him, her hands in her lap and a look of concern on her face. Lenox thought she looked beautiful.

“I’m sorry, my dear, but I have to finish, now more than ever.”

“Why, because two cowardly men hurt you? Please, stop your investigation.”

“It may have been Exeter himself who put them up to it.”

“It couldn’t have been, Charles. He’s a policeman.”

“Yes, but I daresay he caught wind of me trolling around the edges of the case and wanted to warn me off. I made him look a fool with that forgery last week. I tried to beg out of going to the Yard to put it all down officially, but he wouldn’t let me.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I’m nearly sure of it.”

“Then report him!”

“That’s not how it’s done. But don’t worry, my lady, I shan’t get into any more trouble if I can help it. I’ll equip myself with a rifle or something and wave it around, and nobody will come near me.” He made an effort to laugh and winced as he did.

“Oh, don’t joke, Charles, it’s not in the least bit funny to us, you know.”

She looked at Graham, nodding, and he nodded too.

At that moment there was a knock on the outer door, and Graham excused himself to answer it. After a few seconds he announced Dr. and Lady McConnell.

“Oh, Charles, you poor dear man!” said Toto, bursting through the door and kissing him on the forehead. “Are you dying?”

“Not at the moment, at any rate.”

“Thomas will make you better,” she said, and promptly pulled her aunt away—Lady Jane was her cousin in fact, but Toto had always called her aunt—to the set of chairs on the other end of the room, and forgot about Charles entirely.

“Did Graham send for you?” Lenox asked McConnell.

“No, your neighbor did.” He gestured at Lady Jane. “She sent a note.”

“Nothing serious.”

“I am still a doctor, for all that, Charles. Lift your arm.”

For perhaps five minutes, McConnell gently pushed his fingers into Lenox’s ribs and stomach and over his waistcoat, checking twice in each case. He then sat in a chair facing the couch, pulled his flask from his hip, and took a sip from it.

“Gin?” he asked.

“No, thank you,” said Lenox.

“Your ribs aren’t broken, though one of them is badly bruised.”

“I thought as much, more or less.”

“How much advice will you take?”

“The maximum amount that will not result in any impediment to my work.”

“None, in other words.”

“You are, for all that, the doctor, Thomas. Have you no advice that fits those parameters?”

McConnell laughed. “I do, I suppose. You must eat soon and then sleep, without delay. Sleep as long as you can. Don’t have Graham wake you up.”

“I shan’t.”

“And move about gingerly.”

“I shall—or, at least, I shall as far as I can.”

“Then you’ll be all right, in the end. Who was it?”

“Two men. At the behest of Exeter, I should imagine.”

McConnell took another sip. “Do you have any proof?”

“No. One of them said,
Leave it to the Yard,
but that might have been a message from the murderer, or Barnard, or even somebody who wishes me to abandon detective work altogether.”

“In that case I should probably do things much as I have been,” said the doctor, “but I might carry a revolver.”

“I don’t like to.”

“Give it a miss, then. But I would.”

Lenox sighed. “Perhaps you’re right, after all.” He noticed for the first time that McConnell and Toto were dressed for the evening. He was wearing a dinner jacket and she was wearing a blue evening dress. “Where are you going?” he said.

“To dinner at the Devonshires’.”

Lenox sat up. “I was to attend, as well. It had slipped my mind entirely.”

“No doubt they’ll forgive you. Although not as readily if you hold Lady Grey back with you.”

“No, of course not. She and the Duchess have become near friends.”

“Quite right. And Toto adores them both, or so at least she tells me.”

McConnell laughed tiredly and took another sip from his flask. A stud in his shirt had come loose, but Lenox left it to the doctor’s wife to find it. She seemed to sense that her husband was finished, for she patted Lady Jane quickly on the hand and stood up to join the men.

“Charles, old dear,” Toto said, “have you been a good patient?”

“A reasonable one, I think.”

“And shall you keep Aunt with you?”

“No, of course not.”

“Oh, good,” said Toto.

But Lady Jane looked at her young friend firmly. “I shall stay
here for supper, at any rate,” she said. “Toto, apologize to Mary, and tell her I’ll play a hand of whist after Charles and I have finished, if she likes.”

Toto looked extremely cross.

“It will do no good for you to stand there like an angry cat,” said Lady Jane. “Run along.”

Toto gave her cousin a grudging hug and once again kissed Charles on the cheek, McConnell nodded his farewell, and then they were gone.

“You needn’t have stayed,” said Lenox to Lady Jane.

“Of course I shall. I’ve told Graham to bring supper into the library.”

He smiled. They ate very simple food—cold sliced tomatoes, mashed potatoes, and milk—as they had when they were children together. They ate over the side table, laughing and talking the entire time, as outside it began to snow once more.

A
s he left Lenox’s house, McConnell had apparently slipped a dram of sleeping powder to Graham, who had in turn given it to the patient. The next morning, as a result, Lenox arose at nine o’clock, which, though it might have seemed like the crack of dawn to Claude Barnard, was quite late for the detective. He had slept off much of his soreness, though his ribs were still tender and the cut on his face had swollen. But he had slept well and felt fit for a reasonable day’s work. A sort of terror at the memory of the glinting knife stirred somewhere deep in him, but he ignored it.

It had, after all, snowed the whole night through, and there was a fresh white coat over the city. Lenox’s bedroom had a broad window with a very comfortable armchair by it, close enough to the fire for warmth, and he ate breakfast in that chair, wearing his robe and slippers. He had only just gotten used to the old snow, which was conforming to the habits of the city’s walkways, and while this new coat was lovely to look at, as he sipped his hot coffee and ate his toast, he knew it would only add to the difficulty of getting about.

He sat with his final cup of coffee long after he had put the
discards of his breakfast to the side, on the tray on his night table, sipping slowly, snug in his chair, and with the prospect of a long day ahead of him. Occasionally he preferred to give himself half an hour before he started out, and so he did this morning. After last night, he thought it would be all right.

But eventually he stood up, put the cup and saucer next to the tray, and dressed. He asked Graham for his overcoat with the fringed collar, which was his warmest, and lamented again his poor choice of boots, which would no doubt be in tatters after half an hour. Then he put them on.

When he was outfitted, he stepped downstairs. As he arrayed his clothes and his person to his liking in front of the mirror, Graham spoke to him.

“Sir, I was hoping I might have another afternoon off. I have an aunt to visit.”

“An aunt?”

“Yes, sir. In London.”

“Not in Abingdon?”

“No, sir.”

“But you’ve never visited her before.”

“No, sir.”

“Inventing aunts now! That’s scarcely polite, Graham. What would your real aunts think?”

There was a slight, almost invisible smile on Graham’s lips, the sort of thing only somebody who knew him well would spot.

“Is it a girl, Graham?”

“Yes, sir.”

Lenox started. “Who?”

“My aunt.”

Lenox laughed. “Go ahead, of course. Keep your secrets from me.” Turning back to the mirror, he touched the cuts and bruises on his face, which were pretty bad looking, then laughed and stepped outside to his carriage.

He directed the driver to Parliament. There was to be a vote
that day, and speeches beforehand, of course, and he hoped to catch Soames on the way in. He knew the man well enough to detain him for a few moments and knew also that Soames so little liked the life of a backbencher that he might even agree to sit for a while.