A Beautiful Blue Death

Chapter 22

Beasts!” said Lady Jane, yet again.

“Yes,” said Lenox.

“The absolute beasts!”

“I daresay,” said Lenox, wincing as he tried to sit up.

He was on the sofa in his library. Graham stood back, but Lady Jane was perched on the edge of the sofa next to him. Word had somehow worked its way to the next house when Lenox came staggering home, and Lady Jane had rushed into the library and said, “Graham, move out of the way!”

There were very few people from whom Graham would have accepted such a command at that moment, but she was among their ranks. She had been able to do very little in the way of providing Lenox with physical comfort—he had, he thought, a broken rib, but other than that only bruises, albeit painful ones—but she hadn’t left anyone in the room in doubt of her opinion of the two men who had done it. She thought that they were beasts.

“Where did they come from?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Did they try to rob you?”

“No.”

“Then why?” She patted his hand sympathetically.

“I think it must be in connection with the case.”

“About Prudence Smith?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, Charles, I am sorry. Be done with it this instant. Please, let’s let the man you so dislike do it all, and perhaps he will turn up the person who did it, but please don’t do anything further!”

“I fear I shall have to.”

“Charles!” She leaned toward him, her hands in her lap and a look of concern on her face. Lenox thought she looked beautiful.

“I’m sorry, my dear, but I have to finish, now more than ever.”

“Why, because two cowardly men hurt you? Please, stop your investigation.”

“It may have been Exeter himself who put them up to it.”

“It couldn’t have been, Charles. He’s a policeman.”

“Yes, but I daresay he caught wind of me trolling around the edges of the case and wanted to warn me off. I made him look a fool with that forgery last week. I tried to beg out of going to the Yard to put it all down officially, but he wouldn’t let me.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I’m nearly sure of it.”

“Then report him!”

“That’s not how it’s done. But don’t worry, my lady, I shan’t get into any more trouble if I can help it. I’ll equip myself with a rifle or something and wave it around, and nobody will come near me.” He made an effort to laugh and winced as he did.

“Oh, don’t joke, Charles, it’s not in the least bit funny to us, you know.”

She looked at Graham, nodding, and he nodded too.

At that moment there was a knock on the outer door, and Graham excused himself to answer it. After a few seconds he announced Dr. and Lady McConnell.

“Oh, Charles, you poor dear man!” said Toto, bursting through the door and kissing him on the forehead. “Are you dying?”

“Not at the moment, at any rate.”

“Thomas will make you better,” she said, and promptly pulled her aunt away—Lady Jane was her cousin in fact, but Toto had always called her aunt—to the set of chairs on the other end of the room, and forgot about Charles entirely.

“Did Graham send for you?” Lenox asked McConnell.

“No, your neighbor did.” He gestured at Lady Jane. “She sent a note.”

“Nothing serious.”

“I am still a doctor, for all that, Charles. Lift your arm.”

For perhaps five minutes, McConnell gently pushed his fingers into Lenox’s ribs and stomach and over his waistcoat, checking twice in each case. He then sat in a chair facing the couch, pulled his flask from his hip, and took a sip from it.

“Gin?” he asked.

“No, thank you,” said Lenox.

“Your ribs aren’t broken, though one of them is badly bruised.”

“I thought as much, more or less.”

“How much advice will you take?”

“The maximum amount that will not result in any impediment to my work.”

“None, in other words.”

“You are, for all that, the doctor, Thomas. Have you no advice that fits those parameters?”

McConnell laughed. “I do, I suppose. You must eat soon and then sleep, without delay. Sleep as long as you can. Don’t have Graham wake you up.”

“I shan’t.”

“And move about gingerly.”

“I shall—or, at least, I shall as far as I can.”

“Then you’ll be all right, in the end. Who was it?”

“Two men. At the behest of Exeter, I should imagine.”

McConnell took another sip. “Do you have any proof?”

“No. One of them said, Leave it to the Yard, but that might have been a message from the murderer, or Barnard, or even somebody who wishes me to abandon detective work altogether.”

“In that case I should probably do things much as I have been,” said the doctor, “but I might carry a revolver.”

“I don’t like to.”

“Give it a miss, then. But I would.”

Lenox sighed. “Perhaps you’re right, after all.” He noticed for the first time that McConnell and Toto were dressed for the evening. He was wearing a dinner jacket and she was wearing a blue evening dress. “Where are you going?” he said.

“To dinner at the Devonshires’.”

Lenox sat up. “I was to attend, as well. It had slipped my mind entirely.”

“No doubt they’ll forgive you. Although not as readily if you hold Lady Grey back with you.”

“No, of course not. She and the Duchess have become near friends.”

“Quite right. And Toto adores them both, or so at least she tells me.”

McConnell laughed tiredly and took another sip from his flask. A stud in his shirt had come loose, but Lenox left it to the doctor’s wife to find it. She seemed to sense that her husband was finished, for she patted Lady Jane quickly on the hand and stood up to join the men.

“Charles, old dear,” Toto said, “have you been a good patient?”

“A reasonable one, I think.”

“And shall you keep Aunt with you?”

“No, of course not.”

“Oh, good,” said Toto.

But Lady Jane looked at her young friend firmly. “I shall stay here for supper, at any rate,” she said. “Toto, apologize to Mary, and tell her I’ll play a hand of whist after Charles and I have finished, if she likes.”

Toto looked extremely cross.

“It will do no good for you to stand there like an angry cat,” said Lady Jane. “Run along.”

Toto gave her cousin a grudging hug and once again kissed Charles on the cheek, McConnell nodded his farewell, and then they were gone.

“You needn’t have stayed,” said Lenox to Lady Jane.

“Of course I shall. I’ve told Graham to bring supper into the library.”

He smiled. They ate very simple food—cold sliced tomatoes, mashed potatoes, and milk—as they had when they were children together. They ate over the side table, laughing and talking the entire time, as outside it began to snow once more.