A Beautiful Blue Death

Chapter 14

McConnell’s study was, like every other room in the house, slightly larger than one could conceive of a room’s ever being. The ceiling rose twenty-five feet in the air, and all four sides were paneled in dark red wood. On the far end of the room was McConnell’s laboratory, spread out over several tables, one of which was covered with chemicals and another of which had squids in jars and samples of algae and other things of that sort on it. To the left was a high stone hearth, surrounded by leather armchairs and ottomans, and a single couch, on which McConnell, in his darkest days, had dozed through the night, waking to drink or to stare into the fire. On the right, overlooking the street, was his desk.

The room’s most distinctive feature was a thin spiral staircase made out of marble, with cherubim carved into it. The staircase led up to a balcony, which encircled the room on all four sides. A thin railing closed it off, but there were chairs and tables overlooking the lower level. Behind them were rows of cases, filled with McConnell’s books. Collecting first editions of early English and Latin scientific texts was his hobby, and he had managed to fill many of the shelves, so that standing in the middle of the lower level one could see an entire universe up the small staircase. It was where McConnell had his guests to tea, but he offered nothing to his guest this morning, rightly suspecting that Lenox had eaten with Toto.

The doctor liked to say that this was the sole place in the house upon which Toto had never left her imprint, and while Lenox would never for a second have thought to comment on their marriage to either of them, he had noticed, recently, that in a small way Toto had begun to leave her imprint on the study. She had had the late rosemary sent in, Lenox guessed, the flower of remembrance—he couldn’t see McConnell putting it there himself—and there were a few new paintings on the walls. They were of wild horses in the Scottish dales, Mc-Connell’s home country. Scotland had always divided the two, but she had had them commissioned, Lenox knew, which was just the sort of peace offering she was likely to make.

They walked toward the laboratory at the end of the room.

“The glass,” said McConnell, “was trickier than I suspected it would be.”

“How do you mean?”

Both men stood by a large black table covered with beakers full of chemicals and solutions, of which the centerpiece was the object in question, enclosed in a case, almost exactly as Lenox had last seen it.

“Well, there was no doubt in my mind that bella indigo killed Miss Smith. Poisons, as you know, are one of my hobbies.”

“Partly why I asked you to come,” Lenox said.

“Of course. As I say, there was no doubt in my mind. I came back that evening and searched through my sources”—he gestured toward a stack of books in disarray by his desk—“and confirmed my first reaction. In conjunction with the small clues that you gathered, I assumed that the glass would yield up no more than what I had suspected. Murder. But there was a bump in the road.”

“What was it?”

“When I tested the glass, I found that the resin on its lip was not, in fact, bella indigo.”

“Then what was it?”

“It was identical to the contents of the bottle of poison it stood next to on the desk. Arsenic. Mixed with a dash of water, I expect, for it was fractionally weakened.”

“That makes my work significantly harder,” Lenox said. “If arsenic killed her. Or significantly easier, if Jensen comes up with a name from his research into the bottle.”

“Ah. Perhaps if you had sought another man. But I delved deeper.”

“And found what?”

McConnell pointed at the bottom of the glass. “Do you see anything?”

“It looks clean, I should say.”

“It does. But there were a few specks of poison at the bottom. There usually are—sometimes enough for a small sample if you do it cleverly, though my colleagues would declare that heresy. My own opinion is that one day even a single speck of something will tell us everything about it.”

“Doesn’t seem quite right, that,” said Lenox dubiously.

McConnell chuckled. “Anyway, I checked, and those dregs, unlike the poison that so dramatically turned yellow in the victim’s room, turned purple. The glass had been used—filled with bella indigo, that is—then washed, then filled with water and arsenic, and finally drained again into a sink.”

“Fascinating.”

“A double deception. To confirm what I had found, I looked around the rim of the glass.”

“Yes?”

“While there was arsenic on the lip of the glass, there was no longer any sign that any human being had drunk from the glass. No partial print, even. And glass is notoriously easy to find fingerprints on, even with our inadequate system. The glass was washed after Prue Smith ingested the bella indigo and before it reached me, or her fingerprints would be all over it.”

“All of it is crafty,” said Lenox, “but only to the point that the murderer assumed that the police would conclude that the girl had destroyed herself.”

“Exactly. Though the murderer wanted to conceal as well the use of the rare drug.”

“Which may mean he knew the poison was so rare it would lead to him, perhaps. That’s very helpful. But why not just use the arsenic?”

McConnell looked at him keenly. “That crossed my mind,” he said. “I think there are two reasons. The first is that the murderer thinks himself very clever—a doctor, perhaps. The second is that arsenic is less definitely deadly than bella indigo, which always kills. Arsenic is hard to dose. It can make people very sick rather than kill them, for instance. And it’s easier to trace. The arsenic on the table must have been an afterthought.…”

Both men walked toward the armchairs by the fire. A window was open, as it was in every season, and a chill blew through the room.

“Can I offer you a glass of something?”

“This early?”

“It’s nearly ten, you know.” McConnell studiously avoided Lenox’s eyes as he poured himself a drink and took the first sip. “Anything else new?”

Lenox shrugged. “Yes and no. I know who Barnard’s guests are, now.”

“Who?”

“Two nephews. Neither of them seems the sort. And two politicians. Neither of them seems the sort either.”

“Which ones?”

“Soames and Duff.”

“Newton Duff?”

Lenox nodded.

“I wouldn’t like to have him in my house, for what it’s worth,” said McConnell, and took another sip.

“Nor would I,” Lenox answered. “That doesn’t convict him, unfortunately.”

“Who’s the last?”

“Roderick Potts.”

“The fellow with all the money?”

“Yes.”

“Toto won’t let us see him. She says he’s a beast, whatever that means. Perhaps even a perfect beast, which from my experience is a title that she reserves for few people. Shreve, on occasion her father, on occasion… well, myself, I suppose.” McConnell laughed uneasily and took a long sip of his drink.

“So you don’t know him at all?” said Lenox quickly.

“Not at all.”

“Toto may be right about him. Jane, insofar as she controls my social life, would never let me see him either.”

“Lower class, or a brute?” asked McConnell.

“Both, perhaps. From what I know he has few social aspirations, which sets him apart from most of these enormously rich men who come to London.”

“Sets him apart from Barnard.”

“You’re right,” said Lenox, “absolutely right. I would say that the only force strong enough to draw each to the other is a large amount of money. And as it happens, though I can’t mention details, there is a large amount of money on the periphery of the case.”

“Perhaps at the center.”

“It had crossed my mind.”

“How did this chap make all his money? Robbing graves, or something?”

“He’s from the north, actually, near Newcastle. He manages industrial plants there. Steel, that sort of thing. The end of the country farmer, the beginning of the modern age. Actually, I know very little about him.” He would have to think of a way to change that.

“Why did he come to London, then?”

“You’ve got me there. He lives in grand style quite near here. It may be that he manages his plants from afar and gambles on the Exchange.”

“That sounds like Barnard’s cup of tea,” McConnell said.

“Indeed it does. But you were right to say that Barnard would usually be too proud to have a man like Potts in his house—you know, salt of the earth.”

“Curious.”

“Yes. Although from what Graham says I believe there may be another possible reason.” Lenox frowned. “Apparently Potts has a daughter who has come of age. She’s pretty, I gather, and extremely well educated, and she’ll have a dowry and a half, should it come to marriage.”

“An impoverished older house, you think?”

“Something along those lines, I expect. Potts, as I say, has a grand house in London himself, but he would have gone to Barnard’s in any case if he had an ounce of social ambition.”

“Of course,” McConnell said. “Do you think Potts means to tie the girl to one of the nephews?”

“I doubt it. I imagine he thinks too lowly of them and too highly of his daughter. But if Potts could broker a deal with an older house, one of the Duchess Marchmain’s sons, for instance, he might have entrée to a world outside politics and money. Our world, Thomas.”

“We see enough of Barnard.”

“That’s true. But he has more acquaintances than friends.”

“What does this man Potts look like?” McConnell asked.

“I don’t know, really. A twinkle in his eye, good posture, exercises daily, cold baths, all that, I daresay. The self-made man. Intelligent, whatever you think of him.”

“Toto thinks quite highly of the self-made man, of course.”

“I do too, if it comes to it,” said Lenox.

“As do I.”

Lenox stood up. They shook hands and agreed to check in with each other soon, and McConnell saw his friend out of the room.