The September Society (21 page)

Briefly Jenkins consulted his notepad. “Not much, I fear. We only have one description of the man, and that’s a vague one—we just managed to figure out his height and weight, but they’re average.”

“Nothing, then.”

“Well, whoever murdered George Payson has made the mistake of involving the London police force. We’ll give you and Inspector”—again Jenkins’s eyes scanned his notes—“Inspector Goodson all the help you need on this end. You’ve described the September Society to me, and we’ll put a constable near Lysander’s house, watch his comings and goings for a few days. And we’ll shake out our
usual East End gangs, see if they know anything. Which is always possible.”

Lenox shook his head. “It’s a pity there’s no more to be done.”

Jenkins nodded. “Yes. Still, everything turned out as well as it could have.”

“That’s true.”

“We’ll leave a rotation of constables in front of these two houses as well, for a few days anyway.”

“Well, thanks—you’ve made this a lot smoother than it might have been.”

“Cheers, Lenox. And I say, please do keep me up to date on the case. I shall want to find out who did this very much.”

They parted with a handshake, Jenkins to speak to his men and Lenox to return inside. The inspector was doing as well as he could under the circumstances, but it was infuriating that someone had threatened Lady Jane’s house with a gun—in fact shot her servant!–with relative impunity.

Inside there was some normalcy to the voices of Lenox’s friends. As he paused in the hallway he overheard Toto talking about her baby again, Thomas chiming in with an occasional low word of wit, and Jane laughing at all the two of them said. Good of them to try to cheer her up; and even better of her to try to reassure them that she was already cheered. Was he blinded by love, or was it only to himself that she had shown her true fear, her true emotions? He hoped—feeling ridiculous even as he did, for he wasn’t generally given to over-the-top Arthurian chivalry—that he was worthy of her confidence. He hoped his love was enough.

“Everything all right in here?” he said, speaking to Jane alone as Toto, the duchess, and Thomas were once again buried in the controversy over the name Malory.

“Yes,” she said, laughing and slightly rolling her eyes toward
the couple. “Things have gone back to normal rather quickly, as you can see.”

“I’ve spoken to Jenkins.”

“Have you?” she said lightly. “What has he said?”

She was wearing a pale green dress, simple and straight, and her pretty face betrayed no anxiety; and when he looked at her lovely curling hair and long, proud neck, his heart nearly burst.

“Only that they would try to track the man down, and that they’ll have a rotation of police constables set in front of our houses. But I think you’d probably better visit your brother, don’t you?”

The Earl of Houghton, whose house was only a mile or two from Edmund Lenox’s, was a well-intentioned, studious, and thoughtful man, but without Jane’s lightness; a man who took his responsibilities and position too seriously to be like her.

“I don’t think I shall, no. It happens that I can’t leave London at this particular moment, and then, why give them the pleasure? Surely if there are constables here the person won’t dare return.”

“Probably not. It was probably only a message to me—and for that I apologize again.”

“It’s not your fault that there are madmen in the world. It’s not your fault that somebody killed that poor boy in Oxford.”

“But it is my fault for holding you so dear.”

In the moment of silence that followed this comment, Lenox’s and Lady Jane’s eyes never left each other. The other three broke off their conversation and looked at the pair of them. At last Toto said, “Is everything all right with the policeman, Charles?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, tearing his eyes away from Lady Jane’s to look at her. “They’ll put somebody by the house for a few days. And I’ve said to Jane she should visit her brother for a little while.”

“Oh,
don’t
leave London, Jane, you can’t!”

“She’ll have to if it makes her feel safer, darling,” said McConnell to his wife. Then he turned to the rest of them. “In fact, if you prefer you can stay with us for a few nights. Just until things are as calm as usual.”

“Now
that
, as my father would say, is a ripping idea.” Toto beamed. “Please do, won’t you, Jane? We’ll make you ever so comfortable. And nobody will be there but you and me, because Thomas looks at squids in his microscope all day! And we’ll have lovely things to eat and read novels and see our friends if we feel like it.”

McConnell half laughed, half grimaced at the depiction of his daily life, but otherwise seemed enthusiastic, and Toto looked utterly delighted.

“Shall I, Charles?” said Lady Jane, delaying her friend’s happiness momentarily.

“It’s an excellent idea, I should say. It would make me easier in my mind.”

She turned to Thomas. “Then I will, thanks. Only for a night or two.”

“Or a week,” said Toto doggedly. “Consider staying for a week, at least.”

“Perhaps three nights. I can’t stay more than that or people will think I’m afraid of going home.”

“Well—three nights to be going on with,” said Toto and hugged Jane.

“McConnell,” said Lenox, “shall we leave them for a few minutes?”

The two men stepped outside. All but Jenkins and the two constables who were on the first watch had left, and Jenkins was getting ready to go.

“Keep in close touch, would you Lenox?” he said.

“I shall—I’ll write to you once a day with whatever progress we have if I can’t come see you.”

“Excellent.”

Turning to his friend, Lenox said, “You will keep an eye on Jane, won’t you?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Exactly. I actually wanted a word on another subject as well. Are you still friends with Harry Arlington, at the War Office?”

“Yes—you know that.”

“I was going to ask you a favor. I need to see the file of a soldier who died twenty years ago. In the 12th Suffolk 2nd.”

“Is this about the case?”

“Precisely.”

“Tangentially, I assume?”

“From the age? No, in fact it’s at the heart of the matter.”

“I’ll write to Harry straight away when I get home. What’s the soldier’s name?”

“James Payson.”

McConnell looked appropriately taken aback. “The lad’s father? How does he figure into it?”

“He would have been one of the tiny number of men eligible for the September Society, had he lived.”

“I’ll write him tonight,” said McConnell. “If you go by tomorrow morning, he’ll certainly have gotten my note.”

“Thanks, Thomas.”

“Not at all.”

A
fter several sunny, seasonable days, the next morning was gray. Just as Lenox stirred into a first, dreamy kind of wakefulness, rain began to drop softly against his windows. It reminded him somewhere deep in his mind of his first days at boarding school, when as a thirteen-year-old he had sat at the desk in his tiny room feeling lost in the world. Soon enough he had made friends, but the desolate feeling of that rainy autumn had always remained with him.

The late night seemed like a dream—it had been almost one o’clock when he had put Jane, Toto, and McConnell in a carriage. Afterward he had restlessly inhabited his study for another hour or so, but at last he had gotten to sleep.

At just past nine he went downstairs. He wrote a few notes, including one to Rosie Little, and then went to the table in his dining room. His eggs and toast were waiting there, and he dug into them hungrily, relishing their buttery taste and following it with swallows of hot tea. The rain had gotten louder, and by the time he finished eating it was lashing across the empty streets on a high wind. He decided to run across to the bookshop and risked doing it without an umbrella.

“Well,” said Mr. Chaffanbrass, sitting by his hot stove reading when Lenox entered, “look what the cat dragged in. Has Noah started to load up his ark yet?”

“No talk of cats, please, if you have a heart. Too frighteningly apt.”

“Quite a noisy affair last night, wasn’t it? It was lucky that Annie was only scratched.”

“Do you know her, then?”

“Oh, yes. She often stops by for a word or to pick up a book for Lady Grey.”

There were several customers patrolling the bookshelves that ran from floor to ceiling, and one of them came up to the front desk now. He had the look of a genuine bibliophile, something intangible in the way he held the book just so, lightly but at the same time as if he never wanted to lose his grip.

“How much for this, sir?” he asked, his eyes keen.

Peering over the man’s shoulder, Lenox saw that it was a battered but ancient edition of Lavater’s
Physiognomy
. “Three crowns, and a bargain at that price,” said Chaffanbrass.

The transaction took place, and the man left.

“Do you know who that was?” Chaffanbrass asked.

“Who?”

“Charles Huntly.”

“I don’t think that rings a bell.”

“Do you remember Princess Amelia?”

“George III’s daughter? Something of her—she died during my father’s lifetime.”

Chaffanbrass nodded. “When I was a boy. They wouldn’t let her marry her true love, Charles Fitzroy, but they had a child anyway. Illegitimately. That son was Charles Huntly’s father.”

“So then—”

“Yes, exactly. Great-grandson in the direct line to George III. Mad King George. They’ve kept him as a commissioner in some part of South Africa, but now he’s made his fortune
and returned. It all would have been a great palaver in your grandfather’s time.”

“Is he a book lover, then?”

“He certainly is. When he was poor his uncle’s manservant came in to pay his tabs now and then. Old Prince Adolphus, the Duke of Cambridge.”

“Does he have any children?”

“Oh, a dozen, I expect.”

Chaffanbrass rambled on about the royal family a little bit longer—a favored subject of his—and then Lenox was able to ask about a book. Something recent, he said, and not quite as taxing as Erasmus. Chaffanbrass said he knew just the thing, then presented Lenox with about ten books. After a few minutes the detective left with a new volume under his arm,
Felix Holt, the Radical
. It had only just come out.

When he left he saw that the rain had subsided, and he was able to dash across the street without getting too wet. Just as he reached his own door, however, he saw something disheartening: The same tall, thin man in the long gray coat he had seen coming out of Lady Jane’s house before was there again. This was the second time. Who was he? Could he be the cause of that sorrow Lenox had detected in his friend?

It was in a duller mood that he ordered his carriage and departed to see Harry Arlington, McConnell’s friend at the War Office.

Arlington received Lenox in his usual jovial way. They had met once or twice before, though they had never spoken at length. He was a large man, tall and broad-shouldered, who had been forced into the military by his father straight out of school and spent his lifetime flourishing there. He had become a general three years ago, and two years after that become the military secretary, the senior military assistant to the secretary of state for Defense. He spent his days appointing colonels, considering court-martials, judging applications
to Sandhurst, and overseeing Her Majesty’s Bodyguard of the Honorable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms, who protected the Queen, performed ceremonial duties, and also still, 350 years after their creation by Henry VIII, served on regular duty. He called the work dull but in fact was perfectly suited to the somewhat nebulous position he occupied between Parliament and the armed services. He was about fifty, in the pink of health, with five daughters and a string of horses in the country. In all he had done very well for himself. His best friend had once been Arthur McConnell, Thomas McConnell’s uncle, with whom he had entered the Coldstream Guards as a lad of seventeen. Arthur McConnell had died in the Crimean War, and since then Arlington had kept a close watch over his (as he called McConnell) honorary godson.

His office was massive and daunting, with a large window behind the desk overlooking Whitehall. The flag of the Lily-whites was on display next to the Union Jack on one wall, and on the other was a row of full-length portraits of former military secretaries. Arlington put Lenox at ease straight away, offering him a cigar and a handshake.

“Toto’s pregnant, then, Mr. Lenox? And I hear you’re to be the godfather? Well, well, congratulations.”

“Thank you, General. They seem awfully happy.”

“Call me Arlington, call me Arlington. Are you related to Edmund Lenox, by any chance? I come across him in my work in Parliament here and there.”

“He’s my brother,” said Lenox, once again marveling at Edmund’s hidden life in government.

“Wonderful fellow. Now, I have the file here which Thomas wrote to me about.” His manner became suddenly grave, as he took a folder out of the top drawer of his desk and tapped it thoughtfully against his palm. “And I can’t help noticing that the name is a familiar one.”

“The lad at Oxford?”

“Exactly, Lenox, exactly.”

“You won’t be surprised to hear that the errand I’m on is related to his death. I’m investigating it, helping the police there.”

“I see. And how do you think that the death of the boy’s father however many years …” He peered into the folder. “Nineteen years ago—how do you think that may be involved?”

“Have you heard of the September Society, Arlington? For retired officers of the 12th Suffolk 2nd?”

“I haven’t, no.”

“A small club of men. But they keep turning up in unlikely places. Daniel Maran—you know that name, I’m sure?”

Arlington’s brow darkened. “Yes, yes I do. We run on parallel lines, and the less I deal with him the better, as I find it.”

“He’s a member of the Society. It would be too complicated to explain it now, in full anyway, but I think George Payson’s death may have some link to his father’s death, and I wanted to look into the file.”

Arlington turned so that he was in profile to Lenox and looked out through his window. “In this room I make decisions,” he said, “which affect my country—my Queen—every day.”