A Beautiful Blue Death (18 page)

“Yes, well, they only wish you’d come more often. Particularly the boys.”

“Yes,” said Lenox, and smiled to himself. “Where are you off to?”

“The law and order committee in the House. The Royal Academy’s report on banned poisons is coming in.”

Lenox had an idea. “Who was responsible for it, in the House?”

Edmund thought. “Young James Hilary. Duff. Alexander Adams. Those three, I think.”

“Duff?” For a moment disappointment coursed through Lenox. Was that why Duff had the arsenic? But if so, why buy it in a private shop? Surely the Academy would have given them samples.

After a few moments of further talk, Edmund and Lenox stood up and began to walk back toward the members’ entrance, wending their way through the refreshment rooms and tearooms and card rooms.

“You’re staying in the House for the evening?” Lenox asked, as they walked.

“I must. Terrible trouble, of course, but they would like it.”

“Shall we trade jobs? I’ll leave you the task of interviewing Duff.”

“Newton Duff?” Sir Edmund grimaced. “Perhaps we’ll trade later. Oh! There he is.”

Both men had seen Duff, who was a member, settling on a couch in the usually abandoned chess room, surrounded by a set of papers he appeared to be deciphering.

“Would you like me to take you over?” Sir Edmund asked in a low voice.

“Yes, actually. I suppose it may as well be now as ever.”

“Unpleasant, though.”

“Thank you for reminding me, dear brother.”

“Only saying. Here we go.”

The two men walked over to Duff, but Lenox had to cough once before the austere member would look up.

“Mr. Duff,” said Lenox. “We’ve met several times before, but I daresay you don’t remember.”

“I do.”

There was a moment of awkward silence.

“Well, I must be off, then!” said Sir Edmund, and shook his brother’s hand and walked away.

Duff looked down at his papers again.

“May I sit, for a moment?” Lenox asked.

“I suppose, yes, if you must. I came to this room seeking solitude.”

There was another moment of silence. Duff’s hard, dark eyes focused relentlessly on him. His hair was dark as well, and combed back, and he had the strong jaw and lean body of someone without much pleasure in his life except work.

“I believe you’re staying with George Barnard?”

“I am.”

“Some business of a murder, from what people say.”

Duff finally looked up, though it was not an altogether pleasant look that he gave Lenox.

“Yes.”

“Have they any idea what happened?”

In response to this question, Duff stood up and said, with an iron glance, “I must be on my way, sir. Good day.”

Lenox watched him leave with a sigh. Why had he bought that arsenic? He was a difficult man. Other men, whom Duff walked by on his way to the chambers, seemed to wait for him to pass until they spoke again. Curious, his reaction—but hard to say whether Duff merely disdained frivolity or, perhaps, knew Lenox’s business, as Soames had, or, indeed, mistrusted his own answers, should the line of questioning have gone any further.

C
harles, Charles, Charles!” said Lady Jane, rushing to the door to meet him. “Oh, Kirk, call Lucy, won’t you?”

She took his hand and led him to the rose-colored sofa, where they sat, but she was in such a flurry of emotions that she stood up almost immediately and paced back and forth in front of the fire, though she would tell Lenox nothing.

It was near teatime, which had become, since the beginning of the case, a daily event for Lenox and Lady Jane. They had always managed to see each other several times a week in the afternoons—and inevitably more in the evenings, for they shared a similar society—but now, he knew, he had a daily mandate to come see her and discuss Prue Smith’s murder. He liked it, in a way. Often he took tea at home, as the quietest part of his day, but to be with his friend was no chore. He shouldn’t have been surprised, really, that she had become so invested in the matter; but in a way, nevertheless, he was.

The butler, so instructed, clambered heavily down the lower stairs, in his loud way, of which Graham so disapproved, and reappeared a moment later with the young maid Lenox had met once before, who had been Prue Smith’s nearest friend.

“Lucy, be kind enough to repeat for us what Kirk overheard you saying.”

“I’m sorry to be sure, ma’am.”

“Very well. Now let us hear it.”

“I only meant it as a bit of fun, ma’am, nothing serious,” she said uncomfortably.

Lady Jane stood up—she had been back upon the couch—and gazed imperiously, in the way Lenox always forgot she could, at the young girl.

“Lucy,” she said, “I demand that you tell us what you said
now.”

“Yes, ma’am. I only said—leastwise, I only meant to say—as how Prue, she knew one of the nephews, the grand one, called Claude.”

Lenox said gently, “She knew him?”

“Well—knew him well, like, sir.”

“They had an affair, Lucy?”

Lady Jane sighed and walked toward the fire. Kirk coughed and Lucy stammered out an apology.

“It’s all right, Lucy,” said Lenox quietly. “It’s quite all right. When did this begin?”

“Last month, sir, when Mr. Claude came down to London. He’d nip into Prue’s bedroom, sir.”

“How often?”

“Often, like, sir.”

“What did she say about the matter?”

“Oh, it wasn’t serious, sir—she meant to marry Jem, sir, and keep Deck on the side, I guess, sir.”

Lady Jane grimaced, and Lenox stood up. “Shall we continue in the hallway?” he said to Kirk, who nodded.

But Jane said, “I’ll hear this,” with that strength of purpose Lenox knew so well and bade Lucy to continue.

“Well, I guess that’s all, m’lady,” said the girl.

“Was there anyone else?” asked Lenox. “I shall try just as
hard to find out who killed her, Lucy, no matter what you tell me. She deserved to be killed just as little as the Archbishop of Canterbury does. But I have to know if there was anyone else.”

She shook her head with certainty. “No, sir. And even Prue knew it wasn’t right, about Mr. Claude, only she couldn’t say no, really—and he’s a charming young man, sir, you know.”

“Indeed,” said Lenox. He nodded to Kirk. “Thank you, Lucy,” he said, and turned away, and the butler led the maid back downstairs.

He walked to Lady Jane, who had her back to him now, and looked out the window.

“It’s really the fault of Barnard’s nephew,” he said. “The poor girl—”

“You’re right, of course, Charles. But it seems awful nevertheless.”

“Yes,” he said. He took her hand and smiled sympathetically when she turned to look at him.

“Well,” she said, still frowning. “Tea?”

“Of course.”

They sat again, and Lenox asked how the Devonshires’ party had been, to which Lady Jane replied that it had been rather boring, because an ambassador of great reputation and poor social skills had been the central attraction. But she had played a hand of cards and had stayed late with Toto, talking over the new season—the young girls were coming out now—and where it might be fun to stay in the country after Christmas.

“Oh, but Charles,” she said at last, cutting him a slice of treacle tart, “you must tell me, have you found anything new?”

“Perhaps,” he said. “But it is a difficult case, of course, and it has barely been three days.”

“I mistrust that man Duff, you know, and the nephew sounds like the limit, but so does the other one. I bet they all three did it together, just to be awful.”

“I’ll look into it,” said Lenox, laughing.

“Must it have been one of them, though?” she asked.

“Or Potts, or Soames. Or indeed Barnard.”

“Nobody else?”

“I grow less sure by the moment. But I am beginning to think that it may have been Soames.”

“Not Jack Soames? He’s so gentle!”

“It seems possible.”

She looked at him wide-eyed.

“Oh, but you’re right,” he said, “it seems impossible as well, of course. Duff seems more likely.” He murmured this last thought.

“No,” she said. “You know what you’re doing, Charles.”

“It’s only that it’s maddening.”

“But you have to solve the case—I know you can—and your getting hurt makes me want it even more.”

“I thought you said you’d rather I quit.”

“Not anymore. I don’t want you to be afraid.”

“Thank you, Jane.”

“What will you do next?”

“I’m waiting for word of Potts, and I ought to interview Claude Barnard again. And then I will have to wait for the ball, to see if I can have a look at the people.”

Barnard’s ball was in two days, and Lenox had firm ideas about what he would do there, but he decided not to share them with Lady Jane—which was, indeed, a good decision, because when she remembered that it was nearly time for the ball, she began to speak about another set of subjects entirely, including the possible attire of one Lady Wendall; the prospects of a young girl with great beauty and birth, but without fortune; and the possibility that Lenox, who preferred to stay off to the sides, might be persuaded for once to dance.

I
n reality, Lenox was even less hopeful than he told Lady Jane he was. Events seemed to have arrived at an impasse. He had very little access to the suspects, and very little reason to suspect any of them individually—other than Eustace’s knowledge of botany. But Eustace was exempt, according to Graham’s undoubtedly reliable information.

The only real hope, Lenox felt, was the ball.

He sat down at around eight o’clock to supper, though not in the dining hall, choosing instead to sit at his desk in the library, where he could read. A new book about Peru had come from the bookseller across the way. After the previous evening, when the Devonshires’ party had slipped his mind altogether, he had double-checked that there was nowhere to go tonight; and there wasn’t. He felt restless again, as he laid aside his fork and knife, but had no impulse to go for a walk, which was natural, one night after his attack, and neither did he much feel like reading or answering letters. Perhaps it was, after all, time to go down to the St. James’s Club, where he could read the newspapers in the front room and look at the park through the window, or have a quiet chat.

But the doorbell rang just as he was standing up from his desk so that he might go upstairs and change, and Graham brought forth a most unexpected visitor, one whom Lenox had never thought would dare to ask admission to his house: Inspector Exeter.

“Mr. Lenox,” said the tall man, bowing.

His bobby’s helmet was tucked beneath his arm, and with his other hand he absentmindedly twirled his mustache. It looked as if he had spent a day on the streets; his cheeks were red and he had snow and mud around his boots, Lenox noticed, although he had tried to wipe them off.

“I see you’ve come from Barnard’s?” Lenox said.

Exeter carefully studied his entire person, searching out the clue that had betrayed him, but it was a game he inevitably lost.

“How do you figure?” he asked.

“The lemon,” said Lenox.

“What lemon?”

“Giving off a slight smell. You’ve had your tea there, I imagine.”

“I have.”

“George is one of the only men I know who serves lemon whether or not women are present.”

“Others might, though.”

“And yet I should have guessed you were come from him even without the lemon, you know—which made it slightly easier.”

“Tricks,” said Exeter, pompously, “are an excellent pursuit for the leisure class.”

“They are indeed. Cigar?”

“With pleasure, Mr. Lenox.”

The two men sat down facing each other and smoked in silence for a few moments.

“Mr. Lenox,” said Exeter, at last, “you are not a workingman.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“A workingman has pressures on him, you know.”

“Yes,” said Lenox. “It’s true.” In one way ridiculous of Exeter, he thought, but in another way true enough to give him a moment of inner embarrassment. What poor manners to make Exeter feel stupid about the lemon—about anything.

They fell again into silence. Again, it was Exeter who broke it.

“Would you care for half an hour inside of Mr. Barnard’s house when all of its residents are out?”

This was so surprising to Lenox that first he coughed and then he tried to stifle his cough, which led to much more coughing.

“Why are you here, Inspector?” he finally managed to say.

“To make you that offer, Mr. Lenox.”

“You will forgive me for saying that it seems improbable.”

“Yes, yes,” said Exeter, “very improbable. Nonetheless.”

“You’ll have to explain what you mean just a bit more.”

“That’s all there is to it.”

“A half hour in the house?”

“Perhaps a bit less, if I should change my mind.”

“To roam about freely?”

“Yes. I know you’re on the case, Barnard’s word aside.”

“I have never raised this point, Inspector, but I feel that now I must: You seem more likely to hinder my efforts in that direction than to help them. Such has been my experience, at any rate.”

“Mr. Lenox, I’m a simple man,” said Exeter, leaning back in his chair and shrugging. “I seek no glory, no riches, nor any of the like, you see, and I don’t mind a bit of collaboration, if the situation calls for it.”

Lenox knew, on the contrary, that Exeter did seek glory and riches and that collaboration was the equivalent, to him, of giving away a pound. Not ruinous, but not intelligent either. But now he saw. There was only one thing that could trump his unwillingness to let the amateur detective into the case.

“You’re stuck, then,” said Lenox.

Exeter seemed to ponder the idea. “Well, I shouldn’t say that, sir. But it is not the clearest case, either.”

“You no longer think it was suicide?”

“We ruled out self-destruction this morning or thereabouts.”

Lenox laughed bitterly, even though he knew he shouldn’t have.

“And what of ‘Leave it to the Yard,’ Inspector?”

Exeter looked so genuinely perplexed that after a moment a wave of fear reached Lenox; perhaps somebody else had sent the two men to find him. He felt again that pang of fear in his chest, constricting around his heart. The police wouldn’t kill anybody—that had been his comfort. But someone else might. For a moment he thought about leaving the room, but he pulled himself together.