A Beautiful Blue Death (33 page)

Graham had sent their luggage forward the day before but had brought the morning papers, which he read, while Lenox gave another effort to
De Rerum Natura,
which he had detested at school, where he had been forced to learn it by rote, but now thought he ought to try again.

Faithfully, he read a great deal of the volume, laying it aside only when evening began to overshadow the landscape and the train drew into Sussex, the part of the country he recognized the best. For half an hour he looked out of the window, his thoughts strumming quietly along.

When they were close to Markethouse, Graham said to him, “Have you looked at the
Daily Telegraph
today?”

“I flipped through it earlier.”

“The business section, sir?”

“Well, no.”

Graham raised his eyebrows ever so slightly.

“Tomorrow,” Lenox said, waving a hand.

“There’s an article just here, sir, which might be worth looking at.”

“I’m not really in the mood.”

But Graham insisted in his quiet way. “I can’t quite put my finger on it, sir. Perhaps you might.”

Lenox took it reluctantly and scanned the headlines, then turned inside, where he read the agony column and the notes on London crime. Finally, keeping his promise, he turned to the financial page. He read the long stories and even glanced at the smaller ones, so that the most remote names of people and companies in the news would be stored away in the attic of his mind.

But the article that truly grabbed his interest was what Graham had pointed out, a very short column of print at the bottom of the last page. This he read again and again, with his brow furrowing, clutching the paper close to his eyes, for the light had all but failed.

He scarcely took his attention from it even when Graham and he left the train and stepped into the waiting carriage. And in the carriage he doggedly studied the little corner of the paper until at last, halfway through their journey to Lenox House, which was a good twenty minutes from the station, he threw the whole thing down and buried his face in his hands.

“Sir?” said Graham.

“By jove, what a fool I am, Graham,” Lenox said. “You were absolutely right. Give me a kick in the trousers if I don’t listen to you again.”

“What is your opinion, sir?”

Lenox read it aloud, as much for himself as Graham.

The
Daily Telegraph
has learned that the nation’s money was in good hands for two weeks: Mr. George Barnard’s. Most readers will say that this has been true for some time, to which the
Telegraph
replies that we mean the statement literally. After the series of assaults on the mint, which police now think was done by members of the Hammer Gang, quick-acting members of the government, including Lord Russell and Mr. Gladstone, consulted and decided that the money due to be released for circulation would be best concealed in a strongroom in Mr. Barnard’s house. There it resided safely until Tuesday, when it was released under supervision into popular use. Indeed, £19,100 was lost, though Mr. Barnard attributed this to assaults on the mint, saying the government was lucky not to lose more and the preservation of the remainder of the money was due to their quick action. The missing amount was coinage stored in one crate. The
Spectator
adds that while £19,100 would be a large amount for most individuals, in matters of government it is insignificant, bearing in mind that the total sum of the gold successfully stowed away was approximately £2,000,000.

“Odd, I agree. What do you see in it, sir?” Graham asked.

It had been less than a week since Claude Barnard’s guilty plea at the Assizes, and during that time something had bothered Lenox. He was certain in his conviction of the lad’s guilt, and certain of Eustace Bramwell’s death, but in the back of his mind he realized that there were dark spots in his understanding, and he had worked his mind over them ceaselessly, if quietly, like a stream wearing away a stone.

“There was a second plot line in the Smith/Soames case, Graham,” he said, “running with a faint pulse beneath the actions of the cousins. Oh, to have missed it!” He pounded his fist on the seat. “And now the footprints will be gone.”

“May I ask what you mean, sir?”

Lenox, though, was already lost in his thought. “How far back… ?” he muttered, and then, a moment later, he shook his head, and said, “Very possibly.…”

He spoke again a few minutes later, at the beginning of the long driveway to the house, which ran for some miles through a dense grove of trees. “You know, Graham, I’ve fallen into the trap of thinking that I’m clever.” Graham said nothing but gave that same small raise of his eyebrows. “I ought to have paid closer to attention to Barnard.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Yes, of course. The immediate obfuscation—the insistence that it was suicide—and then the exchange of bright young Jenkins for bull-headed Exeter, and finally our odd breakfast together and his insistence that I stand at the edges of the case. Stupid me, I ignored it—took it for his usual ill grace.”

“What was it, sir?” Graham asked.

Lenox sighed. “It was he who stole the money, Graham. I have little enough proof, but I know it in my bones. He stole the nineteen thousand and who knows how much else?

“You remember, of course, the men who attacked me. I think you were right to begin with. When that man muttered Barnard’s name, it wasn’t because Barnard’s a public figure.”

“I agree, sir. As I said before, they did not seem like men who read the society pages.”

“Exactly. You had it all along—he sent them. I also believe he organized the original attacks on the mints. The hammer tattooed above the man’s eye—of course I see it now; he was in the Hammer, the gang that runs out of the Rookery. No wonder that’s where the chaps led you. I should have seen it before—daft of me. Led by a fellow named Hammersmith, who controls most of the organized theft in East London. Some of its more powerful members have that tattoo as a mark of loyalty. It’s considered an honor in those circles.

“Why attack me? It was absolutely necessary that I stay away from the case. Barnard could handle Exeter; he couldn’t handle me. But why attack the mint? It was too well guarded. He could guarantee bad guards occasionally, because he runs the mint, but it was too risky. So Barnard himself suggested keeping the gold in his strongroom. Newton Duff mentioned to me when we met that Barnard had initially wanted no guards in his house; he felt he could guard it alone. Is there anything more transparent? I say again, I have no proof, but I feel utterly certain.

“And then the sum! Nineteen thousand pounds. A clerical sum, a sum that would be missed but not thoroughly investigated. A sum a gentleman could live off of for years and years, but not a sum so ostentatious as to arouse much curiosity. I wonder, Graham—how many times has he stolen such a sum? How many times has he squirreled away a few hundred pounds, then a few thousand pounds, as his status rose? All the time, mark you, serving so well as to be above suspicion.”

Graham began to speak, but Lenox held up a hand. “No, Graham. I know it. Everything tells me. The great mystery of George Barnard’s money—I’ve got it. Nobody has ever known, not even the men who always, always, know such things.”

The carriage slowed to a stop as they arrived at the door. “I can’t prove it yet,” said Lenox, “but I will.”

He didn’t open the door to the carriage for a moment.

“It is quite possible, sir,” said Graham.

“It is beyond possible, Graham. It is a certainty. And you should take more pride in it—you were the one who forced me to read this and who followed those thugs to the Rookery.”

“What will you do next?” Graham asked.

“I must track down the men who attacked me; I am certain now that it was Barnard who sent them. Claude would have mentioned it, you know, if he and his cousin were responsible for the attack. And Eustace, I would guess, would have thought his plan too clever, estimated his own intelligence too highly, to
resort to such things. His plan was already working. Barnard is the only answer.

“But he has gone a step too far. He should have left the money alone, after I began to look into his household.” With a look of determination, Lenox said, “Yes, he will regret that. He should have laid low.”

Only then did he step out of the carriage and greet his brother, his sister-in-law, and his nephews.

I
t was now nearly a month later. Lenox had grown accustomed to living in Lenox House again and felt happy, pottering about during the days and sleeping well during the cold nights, back in the heart of his family, back in his childhood home, reading quietly and eating well and resting his mind. He had made a bargain with himself that he would only begin to think about Barnard when he went back to London, which wouldn’t be for some time.

One Sunday at midafternoon, he had just come back from a long walk through the grounds. He had taken to doing this every day. He would walk past the thickets of old trees at the end of the park, which he greeted like friends, and then across the stream that divided the park from the wild acres of the property, where he and Edmund had played as children. After perhaps three miles, he would reach several large rented farms at the south end of the estate, which buzzed with activity even through winter. Horses grazing, vets examining the pregnant cows and dogs herding the rest of them, rows of chicken coops where the farmer’s wife went every afternoon to find a new batch of eggs. It was a
life he loved. He would watch for a while and then turn around and head for home.

Back now, he paused briefly in the parlor to warm his face and hands at the great hearth. His feet, of course, were quite warm enough, thanks to Mr. Linehan.

It was a large solid house, divided into two wings and shaped like an L. In the older wing were the great hall, where the family portraits were, and the chapel where the family had been that very morning. But the bedrooms there, because they were small and medieval, went unused. They all slept in the new wing.

Lenox was staying in his old room, which Sir Edmund reserved for his use alone. It was attached to a good-sized study, where he kept a few duplicates of his favorite books, histories of the Roman Empire and journals on English archaeology, plus pictures and papers from university, which he sifted through now and again. It also had a desk and a small fireplace, and he had his morning tea there, writing letters in his robe and slippers before joining the family for breakfast.

Warmer now, he leaned his walking stick against a wall before going off to search for his brother. He would probably be in his library, where he usually stayed when his family was gone, and Molly had taken the boys over to town to see a play. The two brothers were alone in the house.

Strange to think of it as Edmund’s library; it had always been their father’s, where the young Edmund and Charles had gone, in season, to be chided, praised, or punished, from their earliest years to their time at Harrow and then Oxford. But now it was cluttered with the things of the ninth baronet, blue books from Parliament, letters, and a portrait of Molly. All that really seemed the same were the old desk, the family books, and the small diamond-shaped windows at the back of the room.

Lenox and his brother had always been affectionate and spent a good deal of time together. But during this visit, sitting
here together late at night, they had talked much more deeply than ever before. They discussed their family; they were the only people who remembered their parents as they did, and it was nice to talk about them together. They talked, at last, about Edmund’s real role in Parliament, which his modesty had concealed for so long. Lenox told his brother about old cases, which he had never bothered to mention, and they conspired over small matters of the estate.

Now, when Charles knocked, Edmund was there and invited him to sit down.

“I’ve just been for a walk. I was wondering, do the Adamses still rent Darrow Farm?”

“Yes, indeed. Do you remember old Adams?”

“Remember him? He terrified us both for years.”

The brothers laughed. “Yes,” said Edmund. “I’m afraid he’s dead, but his son keeps the farm up. He makes a very good living out of it, too.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Do you remember—?”

They launched into a nostalgic conversation about the former tenants of the farms, which spread into a discussion of the masters at their grammar school, and it was nearly time for dinner when they had stopped.

“Are Molly and the boys coming back?” asked Lenox.

“I shouldn’t think so. They’re bound to go over to the Lenox Arms, which the boys think is the most thrilling thing they do. And Molly, truth be told, likes it herself. I’m afraid she’s quite lenient about it. But old Jos. Turner runs it, and he’s a good man. He’s in charge of nearly all the politics down at Markethouse, these days.”

This inaugurated another conversation, about Jos. Turner and his father, also called Jos. Turner.

They decided to eat in the library. It was dark by now, because the winter nights began early. Edmund lit some lamps and the
two ate in front of the warm fire, on small trays, while snow began to fall outside.

Sunday had been a quiet day, but by Monday the house was again in full swing. Molly had invited a friend of hers to stay, a rather pompous but good-natured old woman named Lady Milton, and the boys went to school in the old wing of the house with several of the local boys. Edmund rode out with the land’s steward to look at the fields he had taken for himself, after an older childless tenant’s death, and Charles, who kept a three-year-old mare in the country, rode out with them.

The entire household had a lively lunch together with the local curate, who had just married a bashful young girl, and Lady Milton, who acted as a sort of godmother to Molly.

After lunch Lenox retreated to his small study, where he sat by the fire and read one of the books that his bookseller had shipped out the other day, at his request that anything new be forwarded to the country. It was a study of the Italian artists with color plates, and he was enjoying it quite a lot.