A Beautiful Blue Death (7 page)

He loved going to the Houses of Parliament. He and his brother had gone with their father as children, and he still remembered eating lunch there and watching the debates from the visitors’ galleries. These days, he often visited his brother or one of his several friends there.

The buildings had burned down in 1834, when he was a boy, and had been rebuilt over the next few years. And then they had added the tall clock, called Big Ben, only five or six years
previously—was it 1859? For Lenox’s money, Parliament was one of the two or three most beautiful buildings in London, in that yellowish stone unique to England, with its high towers and intricately carved walls. Its vastness alone was comforting, as if generations could rise and fall but these eight acres, these halls and rooms, would keep England safe. Nobody, on the other hand, would ever care about Big Ben.

The public, when it visited, entered at Westminster Gate, but Lenox went to a small door on the other side of the building, facing the river, and there, waiting in the hall, was Edmund. This was the members’ entrance—straight ahead, up a staircase, were the chambers of government. To the left and the right were the members’ rooms, which were closed to the public. If you took a right, you went to the dining rooms and smoking rooms of the House of Lords and the Queen Empress; to the left and you were in the branch dedicated to the House of Commons. The two brothers turned left, to Bellamy’s.

Bellamy’s was a large spacious restaurant looking over the river. Dickens had written about it—the butler Nicholas and the provocative waitress Jane—in
Sketches by Boz,
and their father had always told them that William Pitt’s dying words were, “Oh, for one of Bellamy’s veal pies!” It had old dark mahogany tables and smelled of cigar smoke and the waiters’ pomade. A lot of grizzled old men sat around talking grumpily, sticking as close to the fires as possible, and a lot of animated younger men took drinks at the bar.

Lenox and his brother sat at a table next to a window, under a portrait of Fox, and Edmund, staying true to form, immediately said, “Well, dear brother, and what are you working on?”

Lenox smiled. “Lovely to see you too, as always. Are young Edmund and William well? And Emily?”

“Don’t be that way, Charles, what have you got? Why, only the other day in the country we had a silver thief.”

“A silver thief! In mild Markethouse! And was he caught?”

“Well, it was not so much that there was a silver thief as that there was a matter of misplaced silver.”

“Who could have misplaced so much silver? Did you think of insurance fraud?”

“It was a fork, to be precise.”

Lenox raised his eyebrows. “One fork, you say?”

“But a serving fork, you know, so it was really quite large. And of good silver. Very well made. And old. An heirloom, really.”

“How many men were assigned to the case? Did you break up the silver ring?”

“It had fallen under a chair, you see. But I only read that the next day.”

“So it was touch and go for a turn of the sun?”

Edmund smiled. “Have your laugh.”

Lenox did laugh, and then put his hand on his brother’s arm. “Shall we order?” he said.

“Yes, yes.”

They each decided that they would have the same thing, the only thing the chef did decently: roasted mutton with new potatoes and buttered peas under, and a flood of gravy over the entire thing.

“And a bottle of claret?” said Edmund.

“Unless you have the business of the people to attend to, this afternoon?”

“No, we’re in committee.”

“Then yes.”

“Now really,” said Edmund, “stop delaying, and tell me what happened with the forgery. The Yard has refused to leak it to the press.”

“It was Isabel Lewes.”

Edmund gasped. “It couldn’t have been!”

“It was indeed.”

“She was out of London!”

“No, she wasn’t.”

“And how are you so sure?”

“There was a sapphire necklace involved.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Well, please, go on!”

“Another time.”

Edmund groaned.

“At the moment, I am at work on another matter.”

“What is that?”

“You’re certain you want to hear?”

“Of course, of course!”

Just then the mutton came, and as they poured the wine and cut the meat, Lenox briefly relayed to his brother the events of the previous night and of that morning. He omitted only the name of the poison, because he didn’t want to risk being overheard.

Edmund was a little overexcited by the new case and for some reason kept saying that he was “as good as a vault” and would be happy to stay in the city to “ferret out the truth, however dark it might be.”

“It is a perplexing matter,” Lenox concluded, “because the motive of any murder is most likely to originate from one of the victim’s daily acquaintances, but none of her daily acquaintances would be likely to use such a means of murder.”

“Mightn’t the murderer have stumbled upon the poison? In Barnard’s house or elsewhere? A servant could easily do that.”

“I thought of that,” Lenox said. “McConnell sent a note over this morning, saying that only one apothecary in London sells the poison, so I mean to ask there. But I think it unlikely. It would be so easily traced to whatever house it came from.”

“But perhaps the murderer thought the fake suicide would never let the police get so far.”

“Perhaps. At any rate, I shall see the chemist this afternoon, and he can settle it. If so, the case will be solved.”

“Yes,” said Edmund. But he looked uneasy.

“Is anything the matter?” Lenox asked.

“I’m in the midst of what you might call a moral dilemma.”

Lenox looked at his brother, who was in his tweed jacket and had a spot of gravy on the old Harrow tie they both happened to be wearing that day, and at his furrowed brow, and felt an enormous surge of fondness for him.

“Tell me what it is, if you like.”

“The dilemma is whether or not I ought to.”

Lenox suddenly looked very serious. “It is related to this case?”

“It is.”

“Then you must, Edmund.”

“One man can have several loyalties to consider at once, dear brother.”

“To whom must we be loyal beyond the dead? Surely none of the family is at all involved.”

“I am loyal to my family and, as you say, to this young girl—but also to my country.”

They had finished eating. The waiter cleared the plates away in the long pause that ensued. Both men leaned back and lit cigarettes, and Lenox drank a sip of wine.

“A matter of state?” he said at last.

“Yes.”

“Then it is your choice. But you shall have my discretion as a detective and as a brother, should you choose to tell me.”

Edmund smiled. “I know that,” he said. He sighed. “I may as well.”

The two men leaned close to each other, and Edmund said, “Barnard is storing this year’s gold in his house.”

“What do you mean?”

“The coinage.”

“The mint’s gold? To go into circulation next month?”

“Yes.”

Lenox sat back and whistled softly.

The mint was located in a very secure building in Little Tower Hill, near the Tower of London. It was a yellowing stone building that sat behind a tall iron fence. Its front was pillared and wide, though it was only very rarely that somebody went in or out. In a busy street, it was silent. Whenever Lenox passed it he felt the million jealous eyes that had stared at it in the past. Inside, delicate machinery converted bars of pure gold into exact-weight coins, which were then distributed to the nation.

Barnard ran this operation with great care. For instance, it had once been very common to see nicked coins, with little pieces cut out of the sides, not enough to render them worthless, but enough that if the nicks were in a pile they were worth something. Barnard was the first director of the mint to recall nicked coins and melt them back down into gold ingots. This was the sort of care he took.

“Impossible,” Lenox said.

“I’m afraid it’s true,” said Edmund.

“That changes things a bit.”

Edmund laughed. “A pile of gold is slightly more important than Mrs. Shattuck’s serving fork.”

Lenox couldn’t help but laugh, too. “But why?” he said.

“The mint was no longer secure. There had been attacks.”

“Who attacked it?”

“We don’t know. There’s an ongoing investigation. A very threadbare rumor says the Hammer Gang, who run by the docks and control a good deal of the prostitution and robbery over there along Canary Wharf, but that may be false. Probably is.”

“But then why not a bank? Or the Parliament?”

“Neither is safe. Neither has half the precautions of the mint, and they’re both too public.”

“But Barnard’s house?”

“The attacks on the mint were persistent and very careful. Whoever did them would get past several guards, giving them a sleeping pill or too much gin or a blow to the head, and then
retreat when it became too dangerous. But they had penetrated farther and farther at each attack, and by the end they were close to the gold, no matter how many guards we put out.”

“I see,” said Lenox.

“Yes. We had to throw them far off the trail. Barnard also had a perfect room for it—difficult to get to, with only one access point, easily guarded. He
is
the director of the mint, Charles, and it is a closely guarded secret.”

“That’s true.”

“And Barnard cares too much for his position, and his reputation, to let anyone near the gold. He has men around it all the time who don’t even know what they’re guarding. He probably told them they were looking after a rare orchid.”

“True too, I suppose.”

“Perhaps that’s why he wanted the murder to be a suicide so much,” said Edmund. “Scared of an attempt on the gold.”

“You may be right.”

“At any rate, the gold will be there for the next two weeks, nearly two million pounds. Anyone who stole it would immediately become one of the richest people in the British Empire.”

“Where in the house?”

“In a secret room beneath his greenhouse.”

Lenox whistled again, more loudly this time.

“Well,” he said. “This is an entirely new case.”

“It is, I think,” said Edmund. “But I hope you appreciate the utter secrecy which I must ask of you. For the next two weeks, that means the cost may rise as high as delaying the murderer’s arrest.”

“I know,” said Lenox. “But you were right to tell me.”

“You understand, needless to say, that the board of trade is having difficulties, and that our economy
must
hum along with regularity for the next year, for Lord Russell’s government to accomplish anything whatsoever.”

“I understand. Though I am unused to hearing you speak so strongly about the government.”

“We were both raised to serve, Charles.”

They looked at each other.

“Well,” said Lenox, “shall we have the trifle for dessert.”

E
dmund’s revelation about the mint’s gold had rendered the source of the
bella indigo
no less important, and as soon as he left Parliament Lenox took a cab to Jensen’s. It had begun to snow again, and Lenox looked forward to five o’clock, when he could have his tea. It was more the pleasure of the ceremony and the comfort of his fireside that he looked forward to, for of course he was still full from lunch.

Jensen’s was not the chemist whose name Thomas McConnell had given him—the sole apothecary in the city of London who sold
bella indigo,
to his knowledge—but Willie Jensen was a man Lenox knew and trusted and one with whom he had consulted before. His apothecary was on a corner somewhat close to Hampden Lane, in Brook Street, and Lenox often passed it when, as was his custom, he took long walks after supper. The shop had a bright lantern hanging in front of it above a large chalkboard advertising its goods.

He arrived at a little past two and pushed open Jensen’s door. The space inside was small but tidy and smelled of cinnamon and soap. There were rows of creams, hairbrushes, and powders on plain wooden shelves along the walls, and rows of
small, apparently unmarked bottles behind the counter. Jensen himself was an old man, who smoked without cease throughout the day and spoke in a thick brogue. He had tufts of white hair in his ears, none on his head, and white whiskers on his cheeks.

A customer was already at the counter. He appeared to be a footman, and he was, Lenox overheard, seeking a respite from the gout for his employer, one Lord Robinson of Bruton Street. Jensen told the footman that his master would need to see a doctor—to which the servant responded with a horrified shake of his head, betraying, no doubt, Lord Robinson’s own prejudice—and gave him a small bottle of medicine.

“Twice a day,” he said, “and tell Lord Robinson to eat lightly.”

This suggestion met with a reaction even more violent than the one to seek out a doctor, and by the time the footman hurried through the door, Lenox had begun to picture this lord as grotesquely fat and singularly averse to medical treatment and fewer than seven courses for dinner. Too fat to attend the House of Lords, or his name would have been familiar.

“Mr. Jensen,” he said, approaching the counter, “I fear I shall be no easier a customer than that young man.”

“What ails you, Mr. Lenox, sir?” said Jensen, in a strong Irish accent.

“Something called
bella indigo,
I’m afraid.”

“Wait a moment, sir, while I get my spectacles.” The old man reached beneath the counter for his glasses and put them on. “Ah,” he said, squinting through them.

“What demands such close inspection?” asked Lenox.

“You’re the first ghost I’ve gazed upon, sir.”

Both men laughed, the detective with his head thrown back and the chemist in a thick, rasping voice.

“Mr. Jensen,” said Lenox, still laughing, “I believe that’s the first joke I’ve ever heard you tell.”

“I was savin’ her up, sir.”

“It was worth the wait.”

Lenox chuckled again, and Jensen lit a short cigarette, which fit snugly in his hand.

“Now, sir, how’ve you come across a thing as nasty as
bella indigo,
if I might ask?”