A Beautiful Blue Death

Chapter 21

It so happened, when Lenox returned home, that he discovered that for once he had no social obligations. He knew he ought to be grateful for the free time, but almost immediately a sense of restlessness came over him.

Like some men of varied interests and comfortable means, he was rarely bored, but nevertheless he occasionally found himself unsatisfied by the pursuits available to him of an evening. Neither his books nor his maps nor the prospect of a spell at one of his clubs interested him, and therefore he found himself, in the hour before supper, walking vaguely toward the West End along St. James’s Street, growing gradually less certain by the moment of any firm knowledge he had about the murder of Lady Jane’s former upstairs maid. Newton Duff kept running through his mind. Would the man be foolish enough to kill somebody? And if so, why? Or if not, why had he bought the arsenic and to whom had he given it?

It had now been two full days, as well as the evening of the murder itself, that he had been invested in the case. It felt at once like less time than that and more. He had done a great deal, but instead of the work yielding back to him a series of small discoveries, such as those that comprised most cases, all he could do was pull at the ends of the ropes and hope something would pull back.

This evening, at any rate, there was little more that he could do. He would have his supper and go down to the Devonshire Club later, perhaps, or go to see a few collectors he knew, or even drop by—but no, he felt; no, none of it would do. With the restlessness in his heart increasing every moment, he found his feet turned toward Clarges Street and, without quite realizing it, soon found himself standing across from George Barnard’s house, as if by staring at it he could unlock the secrets it held.

For fifteen minutes he saw very little. Indeed, it was hard to discern whether or not there was anyone in the house at all. Barnard’s dining room sat to the rear of his living room, whose windows were darkened, and if there was a glimmer, now and then, it might have only been a trick of the eye.

And then three things happened in rapid succession, all of which filled the space of less than half an hour but which it would then take Lenox a great deal of time to piece together.

First, Claude Barnard burst forth from the house, laughing, with a young man Lenox took to be a friend, probably from the Jumpers, a tall fair lad. The two of them paused together on the stoop to fix their cuffs and examine their appearances in the window glass—and in the light pouring through the front door and by an odd flicker of the streetlamp, Lenox thought he saw a small raw burn mark on Claude’s forearm. No sooner could he look again than the door was closed, the buttons had been buttoned, the coat donned, and the forearm again concealed, and the young men had turned down the street.

But the moment left Lenox with the peculiar feeling of having seen something revealing without knowing precisely what it was—and without having a chance to learn because it was so quickly withdrawn.

He turned on his heel, and within short order the second thing happened: He felt sure that he was being followed.

It was the sort of thing for which he had developed an instinct. No specific shadow stalked him, but from the corner of his eye he sensed a presence behind him amid the flickering lamps that played along the cobblestones.

This gave him no alarm, but all the same he felt he had better pursue a cautious course. He walked down the street, nodding, once or twice, to men he knew, and planning to seek refuge in the Athenæum, his nearest club. It was unlikely that anybody could follow him inside, unless it was a gentleman who sought a word but felt uneasy about meeting him in public—which was certainly possible.

But as he turned up the steps of the club, the man who had been following him apparently relented, because from behind him Lenox heard his own name called.

“Mr. Lenox!” the voice repeated.

The detective turned around to see James, the footman, fiancé of the dead maid, looking up at him breathlessly.

“James?”

“Yes, Mr. Lenox.”

“I understand that you’re having a difficult time, James,” said Lenox, “but it is unpleasant for anybody to be followed through the streets at night.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Lenox, sir.”

“It’s all right. What can I do for you?”

The young man looked so anguished, Lenox took a step back down the stoop to stand at eye level with him.

“Something is on your mind?” he said. “Is there anything you wish to confess?”

A moan of some sort escaped the footman’s lips. His black hair was uncombed and his eyes were sunken, as if he had not slept since Prue’s murder. “No,” he said, “no.”

“What troubles you, then?”

“Oh, Mr. Lenox,” cried the young man, “tell me anything, give me anything to do, anything, anything!”

Lenox softened toward him immediately. “I truly am sorry,” he said.

“Anything!”

“In time it will pass.”

“But… oh, I loved her so very much, Mr. Lenox!”

Lenox thought carefully for a moment. “Very well,” he said. “If it gives you comfort, you may observe the inmates of Mr. Barnard’s house, watching for any peculiar behavior.”

James looked at him. “Observe?”

“Yes. Understand, however, that I will be part of no deception, and that if you come to me, it will not be because I have asked you to. I am only counseling you to do what I myself would do, in your position. You have a unique opportunity to see what you can.”

“I shall,” said James.

“But not on my behalf. However, if there is anything in the house or in the actions of the people residing there that you wish to report, come to me or go to Inspector Exeter, as you see fit.”

“Oh, Exeter, what does he know?”

Lenox tried to smile, but the young man was patently unhappy—and lurking in the back of his own mind was Bartholomew Deck, for whom he had some sympathy as well.

“Good evening,” said Lenox, and turned away, not toward the Athenæum, now that he was no longer pursued, but up the street and in the direction of home.

He had walked two blocks, and left James behind, when the third of the three events occurred.

To cut more quickly toward his own house, Lenox had chosen to walk along one of those small, dark, thin streets, closer to alleys than anything, that proliferate everywhere in London, even in the best parts of the city, and that always seem to hold some menace in them until they are safely traversed, after which they seem to be less than nothing.

He was alone in this little alley when suddenly he saw two men coming at him from behind but at an angle, and walking quickly. It would have been better, he later saw, to run away immediately, but in the event he thought only that he had been unnerved by the quick encounters with Claude and James and was being foolish.

The two men were of a similar height, both an inch or two shorter than Lenox and younger as well. From their dress and their demeanor, it was impossible to tell whether they were middle-class or lower-class men wearing their finest, but they did not stick out too badly for the neighborhood—except in a single respect. The shorter of the two men had a very clearly outlined tattoo of a hammer curved around his left eye.

It happened in a quick flash. At one moment they were striding toward him and, the next, one of them—it later seemed to Lenox to be the one with the tattoo, though he would never be sure—had clipped him hard into the wall.

The detective did not lose his wits all at once, and when the second man came toward him he dealt him a hard blow in the concavity of his chest, doubling him over. As Bartholomew Deck had learned, Lenox knew just enough to protect himself. But no sooner had the second assailant fallen than the first was again upon him, shoving him to the ground and kicking him hard in the stomach with the toe of his boot.

It was not the first time that such a thing had happened to Lenox, and yet he felt shock—pure shock. He had been brought up a gentleman, and though he had chosen to wade, occasionally, into an unfamiliar world, a world of hard men, his own essentially genial outlook on life had never left him. The toe in his stomach, therefore, was shocking, and by the time the other man had recovered, Lenox was overwhelmed.

He protected himself as well as he could with his arms, but they rained blows across his shoulders. Only once did one of them hit the side of his face and then quickly corrected himself, as the other grunted “Not the face” and pushed him aside.

Then one of them took out a knife, and Lenox felt a violent fear in his chest. Though the alley was dim, he could see the silver gleam of the knife’s edge. Even amid his fright, he tried unsuccessfully to spot something distinctive about the knife.

“Wot now?” said the one with the hammer over his eye.

“That’s good enough.”

“Let me give him a poke—quick one, in the belly.”

The leader seemed to consider this, then, to Lenox’s almost uncontrollable relief, said, “No. You’ll make a mistake and knife an organ.”

“How about the leg?”

There was a noise at the end of the alley, and they looked up.

“Let’s get out of here,” said the tattooed man, and he spat near Lenox’s foot.

The other man told Lenox, “Leave it to the Yard,” and then both men ran away, leaving him against the wall: prone, terrified, and breathing heavily, still within less than a minute’s walk from his own home.