A Beautiful Blue Death

Chapter 26

In reality, Lenox was even less hopeful than he told Lady Jane he was. Events seemed to have arrived at an impasse. He had very little access to the suspects, and very little reason to suspect any of them individually—other than Eustace’s knowledge of botany. But Eustace was exempt, according to Graham’s undoubtedly reliable information.

The only real hope, Lenox felt, was the ball.

He sat down at around eight o’clock to supper, though not in the dining hall, choosing instead to sit at his desk in the library, where he could read. A new book about Peru had come from the bookseller across the way. After the previous evening, when the Devonshires’ party had slipped his mind altogether, he had double-checked that there was nowhere to go tonight; and there wasn’t. He felt restless again, as he laid aside his fork and knife, but had no impulse to go for a walk, which was natural, one night after his attack, and neither did he much feel like reading or answering letters. Perhaps it was, after all, time to go down to the St. James’s Club, where he could read the newspapers in the front room and look at the park through the window, or have a quiet chat.

But the doorbell rang just as he was standing up from his desk so that he might go upstairs and change, and Graham brought forth a most unexpected visitor, one whom Lenox had never thought would dare to ask admission to his house: Inspector Exeter.

“Mr. Lenox,” said the tall man, bowing.

His bobby’s helmet was tucked beneath his arm, and with his other hand he absentmindedly twirled his mustache. It looked as if he had spent a day on the streets; his cheeks were red and he had snow and mud around his boots, Lenox noticed, although he had tried to wipe them off.

“I see you’ve come from Barnard’s?” Lenox said.

Exeter carefully studied his entire person, searching out the clue that had betrayed him, but it was a game he inevitably lost.

“How do you figure?” he asked.

“The lemon,” said Lenox.

“What lemon?”

“Giving off a slight smell. You’ve had your tea there, I imagine.”

“I have.”

“George is one of the only men I know who serves lemon whether or not women are present.”

“Others might, though.”

“And yet I should have guessed you were come from him even without the lemon, you know—which made it slightly easier.”

“Tricks,” said Exeter, pompously, “are an excellent pursuit for the leisure class.”

“They are indeed. Cigar?”

“With pleasure, Mr. Lenox.”

The two men sat down facing each other and smoked in silence for a few moments.

“Mr. Lenox,” said Exeter, at last, “you are not a workingman.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“A workingman has pressures on him, you know.”

“Yes,” said Lenox. “It’s true.” In one way ridiculous of Exeter, he thought, but in another way true enough to give him a moment of inner embarrassment. What poor manners to make Exeter feel stupid about the lemon—about anything.

They fell again into silence. Again, it was Exeter who broke it.

“Would you care for half an hour inside of Mr. Barnard’s house when all of its residents are out?”

This was so surprising to Lenox that first he coughed and then he tried to stifle his cough, which led to much more coughing.

“Why are you here, Inspector?” he finally managed to say.

“To make you that offer, Mr. Lenox.”

“You will forgive me for saying that it seems improbable.”

“Yes, yes,” said Exeter, “very improbable. Nonetheless.”

“You’ll have to explain what you mean just a bit more.”

“That’s all there is to it.”

“A half hour in the house?”

“Perhaps a bit less, if I should change my mind.”

“To roam about freely?”

“Yes. I know you’re on the case, Barnard’s word aside.”

“I have never raised this point, Inspector, but I feel that now I must: You seem more likely to hinder my efforts in that direction than to help them. Such has been my experience, at any rate.”

“Mr. Lenox, I’m a simple man,” said Exeter, leaning back in his chair and shrugging. “I seek no glory, no riches, nor any of the like, you see, and I don’t mind a bit of collaboration, if the situation calls for it.”

Lenox knew, on the contrary, that Exeter did seek glory and riches and that collaboration was the equivalent, to him, of giving away a pound. Not ruinous, but not intelligent either. But now he saw. There was only one thing that could trump his unwillingness to let the amateur detective into the case.

“You’re stuck, then,” said Lenox.

Exeter seemed to ponder the idea. “Well, I shouldn’t say that, sir. But it is not the clearest case, either.”

“You no longer think it was suicide?”

“We ruled out self-destruction this morning or thereabouts.”

Lenox laughed bitterly, even though he knew he shouldn’t have.

“And what of ‘Leave it to the Yard,’ Inspector?”

Exeter looked so genuinely perplexed that after a moment a wave of fear reached Lenox; perhaps somebody else had sent the two men to find him. He felt again that pang of fear in his chest, constricting around his heart. The police wouldn’t kill anybody—that had been his comfort. But someone else might. For a moment he thought about leaving the room, but he pulled himself together.

“Never mind, never mind.”

“It would be tomorrow morning, Mr. Lenox. Three of the guests will be at the House, the two nephews will be at separate engagements, and one of my men will be following Barnard, in case he returns abruptly.”

“I see.”

“And of course, the Yard will appreciate your insights, Mr. Lenox.”

“Of course.”

“Well?” Exeter puffed on his cigar.

It had the flavor of a trap or, if not of a trap, then of a foolish adventure, likely to yield more harm than good. And yet it was irresistible. To be able to look into the suspects’ bedrooms repelled Lenox in one way, but he knew it was a chance he could not reject. Again, he reminded himself that Prue Smith’s interests must triumph over his own.

“I will, Inspector,” he said, “on the condition that Barnard shan’t know, at least for now.”

“You have my word,” said Exeter.

Lenox knew what to think of Exeter’s word. Nevertheless, the two men shook hands and, after naming a time, ten the next morning, Exeter left.

The real question was why the Yard would be so deeply concerned; the answer, Lenox knew right away, lay with Barnard. But did that remove him from suspicion? It must have been at his prompting that Exeter was working so diligently—his prompting and perhaps his gold, on behalf of the country’s gold.

Lenox was too agitated, by the time his guest had left, to settle in for the night. He decided to pay a visit to his brother, so that he might ask him about the mint.

But when he reached nearby Carlton Terrace, where the Lenox family house in London was, Sir Edmund was out. Lenox felt at a loss, until it occurred to him that he might seek out Claude Barnard sooner than he had planned. He walked back to his carriage and asked his driver to go to the Jumpers.

He arrived there a few minutes later. The window that had been broken by a shoe, when Lenox had first come to see Claude, was repaired, and inside there was the sound of loud talking. He could see through the glass a foursome playing whist, and beyond them a billiards table, and after a moment’s pause he went inside himself, to find the young man he wanted to speak to.

“Claude Barnard?” he said to the harassed porter.

“Right away, sir. If you’ll follow me.”

He led Lenox up a flight of stairs and into a smaller dining room than the one on the first floor. It smelled of smoke and was full of dark wood paneling and small tables. The club’s insignia was framed on the left wall, but that was the room’s only decoration, and Claude Barnard was its only inhabitant. He sat at a table with a plate of simple food in front of him, a few pieces of bread and cheese and a jug of wine, which he was tipping into his glass when Lenox came in. He seemed morose.

“Claude?”

The young man looked up and laughed bitterly. “It is my fate, I see, to be pursued by men whom I scarcely know.”

“Surely I’m the only one,” said Lenox, sitting down across from him. The porter had left.

“Ah, life would be a good deal easier if you were, my dear fellow.” Claude stroked his chin contemplatively. “There’s you. There’s that horrid man from the police, Exeter. There’s my tailor; he’s waiting for my next allowance even more eagerly than I am. And then there’s that awful footman, who sneaks about like a spy but seems to be deficient in the most basic areas of common sense.”

“James?”

“I daresay. I ask you, what sort of man thinks that spying consists of standing in the hallway in front of one’s damn bedroom? About as subtle as a slosh on the head with a stick.”

There was a pause. Lenox lit a cigarette before he spoke.

“You had an affair with the dead girl, I believe, Claude?”

For a moment, Claude’s face was impassive. Then he laughed and threw his hands up in the air. “There it is,” he said.

“What do you mean?” asked Lenox.

“Now you know.”

“I know what?”

“It’s out. Damn, though. Yes, yes, I had an affair with her. What of it?”

“That you concealed the fact seems to make you a likely suspect in the girl’s death.”

“It does?” He laughed again. “There would be more dead girls than you could count, if I was that sort.”

Lenox said nothing.

Claude rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, inappropriate… but of course I didn’t kill her, you know.”

“You didn’t?”

“Dammit, no! I feel horribly broken up about the entire thing. Why do you think I’m dining in this godforsaken room?” He picked up the wine and then put it down again, waving his hand with a gesture of futility. “I tried to act normally, but God—”

“I must ask why you neglected to tell me your secret,” said Lenox.

“You’re a stranger to me!”

“Yes. But you must have known it would come to light.”

“No. I thought it would die with her.” Claude lit his own cigarette and shrugged. “I really am sad, you know. I joke, but only because it’s so damn hard—I couldn’t tell anyone, of course, and I couldn’t even go to the funeral. It would be ridiculous.”

“Yes,” said Lenox.

“At any rate, you know everything now. Tell the world, if you like.” Claude chewed morosely on a bite of food.

“Claude, what did you do with the money your uncle gave you? The ten thousand pounds?”

Claude looked at him. “You don’t miss a trick,” he said. “I invested it. Found a good, only slightly risky proposition in America.”

“What is its status?”

“Flourishing.”

“You have enough money?”

“Nobody has enough, but I’m decently covered.”

Lenox sighed. “I must ask, again, whether or not you killed her.”

Again the young man laughed. “You’re not much of a detective, are you?”

“Perhaps not.”

“I was in the drawing room the entire time.”

“Not the entire time. You told me you went out to the washroom. And then you might have enlisted outside help.”

“Enlisted whose help? I don’t move in your circles, my dear man. The criminal elements are wary of offering their services on the street corner, you know. Not sound business, I expect.”

“Claude—”

“Although I suppose I could have asked Eustace to do it. But no—he would have lectured me on civic responsibility and the greed of the lower orders, so scratch that; it would never be worth it. But how about Duff? He’s a likely fellow. Or one of the lads downstairs, eating supper below us? All of them are masterminds. I believe Solly Mayfair solved Fermat’s theorem last week, on a bit of scrap paper between hands of gin rummy. Or perhaps I asked the Prime Minister?”

“Claude—”

“Or the Archbishop of Canterbury?”

“Claude—”

“The Queen!”

“Claude, it is a serious matter.”

He waved his hand tiredly. “Leave me alone, would you?” He began to pour wine into his glass and acted, indeed, as if the older man weren’t there.

After a few moments, Lenox stood up, paused for a moment, and then left. It was not the time to ask about the burn on his arm. This conversation was even less fruitful than their first one.

On his way home, he felt more lost than he had since the case began—and, for all that, very nearly sorry for the fellow he had left behind, sitting alone over his modest repast.