A Beautiful Blue Death

Chapter 32

Supper had lasted until nine, and the ball had commenced an hour later. It was now eleven, and the chatter on the couches and the clack of shoes on the dance floor were growing steadily louder, as the flow of guests into the party reached its crest. Sir Edmund had come, looking not altogether disheveled, and Lenox had set him the task of watching the two nephews, Eustace and Claude.

Lenox had originally intended to watch Claude himself, but he had begun to feel more strongly by the moment that the murderer was Soames. Thus he devoted his entire attention to his prime suspect. He must have murdered Prue Smith, Lenox thought, because she had tripped over him while he was angling after the gold—and while she couldn’t know what it was, he would have been on edge and more likely to overreact. In particular because this would be his first time, really, as a criminal. How had he cadged an invitation to stay with Barnard?

Soames was dancing with a succession of women, but he had grown redder and drunker and visibly less in control of himself, and after a last waltz he had sought rest at one side of the ballroom and taken a glass of champagne to cool himself.

Lady Jane and Lenox stood on the other side of the ballroom. They had just finished a dance together.

“What was that business with Barnard?” Lenox asked, with an eye on Soames.

“Strange, wasn’t it?”

“There are probably worse things than dancing with Barnard, but at the moment I can’t think of them.”

“Don’t be mean,” Lady Jane said. “I suppose he needed a woman and saw that I met that description, in some modest way.”

“You look lovely.”

“Thank you, Charles.”

“Have you danced with Edmund?”

“Of course! Not half so much twirling as you frightened me with, although he stepped on my foot once. I think he was trying to spy on somebody.”

“He’s a zealous assistant.”

“Tell that to my poor ankle. But listen. If he’s going to spy on somebody, I will too.”

“I won’t have it—listen to me this time—it might be dangerous.”

“What about Barnard?”

“No! We’ll do fine, McConnell, Edmund, and I. Would you like a glass of water?” A waiter was walking by with a tray.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “How can it be so frightfully warm when it’s so cold outside?”

She sipped the water he handed her and continued to fan herself. At that moment McConnell came toward them.

“Hot as anything, isn’t it?” he said.

“I may step out in a moment,” said Lady Jane, “if you care to join me. I’d like a breath of fresh air.”

McConnell smiled. “I would, you know, but the boss might object.” He nodded at Lenox.

“I’ll get Toto to take me then.”

“She’s with Mary, just over there.” He pointed to one of the couches that ringed the dance floor and Lady Jane walked over to it.

“Soames is acting strangely,” said Lenox, when the two men were alone.

“You suspect him?”

“Perhaps.”

“Brave of him to come at all, if he’s gone broke.”

“Very brave, if he’s not guilty of murder. If he is, I shan’t know what to think.”

McConnell smiled again. “You do get wrapped up, my good friend.”

Lenox looked away from the dance floor for a moment. “I think I should stop doing it if I didn’t.”

Just at that moment the host came toward them, bearing three glasses of champagne on a tray he had just swiped from a waiter and smiling broadly.

“McConnell! Lenox! A toast!”

“As you say,” said the doctor, though Lenox kept silent. Why on earth did Barnard want to toast with them? In all likelihood he was drunk.

At any rate, the three men tipped their glasses and threw down the champagne.

“First-rate,” said McConnell.

“Of course, of course,” said Barnard. “Are you having a pleasant time?”

“Very pleasant, aren’t we, Lenox?”

“Indeed. Thank you, Barnard. One of the must delicious suppers I’ve ever eaten.”

“I’ve got a new cook. From France, but he does English dishes quite nicely, doesn’t he? And then that salad—I’d never had the like before, and I daresay no man in London had either, don’t you think?”

He had stepped closer to them, and at that moment, forced to respond to Barnard, Lenox lost track of Soames.

“Anyway,” said Barnard, after half a minute, “dance, drink, and be merry!”

He raised his empty glass in salute and walked off.

“Damn,” said McConnell. “I lost both of them.”

“I lost Soames, too.”

“Split up, shall we?”

“Yes. But keep an eye out for Soames above the nephews. He may be planning a theft.”

“As you say.”

The two men walked away from each other. Lenox’s heart had begun to beat faster, and his pace increased as he walked around the edges of the ballroom, praying for his eyes to alight on that familiar visage.

He wended his way through six drawing rooms, each of them impossibly crowded, making sure not to miss a single person as he searched out Soames. Doing his best to nod and smile at everybody without getting caught in conversation, he got to the end of the house, went back through again to double-check, and then nearly ran to the dance floor and walked briskly around it, hoping to catch a glimpse of him.

Some plan must be afoot, he thought at last and, as surreptitiously as he could, he began to creep upstairs toward the room that contained the gold.

He scarcely knew what to expect—perhaps the man guarding the room would be dead? If he was, Lenox didn’t think he could ever forgive himself. He hoped McConnell had come upon Soames but thought it more unlikely by the moment.

The second floor had been dimly lit but deserted. Now he was cautiously stepping up the next staircase to the third floor. He had followed the advice of his friends, and now, with a feeling of absurdity, pulled a small gun from his pocket, which he had had as a souvenir from the Plymouth case. If he needed to he could handle it, but he left it half-cocked.

Suddenly he heard a rustling from one of the rooms and paused on the middle of the stairway to the third floor. The noise seemed to be coming from the second room on his left. He approached it slowly and at last cocked the gun altogether, though he kept it by his hip. He counted to three under his breath, and then opened the door suddenly, with the pistol raised slightly though not enough to be conspicuous.

He had stumbled upon two young people he knew, if not by name then by face, a young girl and a young man. He was holding her hand and whispering to her when Lenox interrupted them.

“Sorry,” Lenox said.

“No, no—got lost, you know.…”

Lenox withdrew, closing the door behind him, and heard the sound of stifled laughter from the room. Again his nerves heightened; he was on the third floor and walking slowly toward the staircase he had gone up only the day before. But it was dark this time, almost dark enough that he couldn’t see anything at all.

He reached the bottom stair and steeled himself against any possibility. Then he took a deep breath, lifted his foot—but at that moment he heard a piercing scream. It came, without any doubt, from the first floor of the house.

He raced downstairs, concealing his pistol as he did. When he was on the second floor, he began to walk down quietly, but he needn’t have; the commotion was a hundred yards away, in the hallway leading from the front door to the ballroom. As he got closer, he could see that it came, more specifically, from the head of the stairwell leading down to the servants’ quarters.

His first thought was for Lady Jane, but as he glanced around he saw her with Toto, sitting on a sofa, looking concerned but not, like the majority of the party, pushing toward whatever spectacle had aroused their interest.

This left him free to push toward it himself, and with the best manners he could muster he parted the crowd until at last he arrived at the epicenter—where he saw McConnell leaning over into the darkened stairwell and Barnard hanging over him, while several footmen kept the crowd at bay, to its chagrin.

McConnell looked up, for just a second, and turned back—but in that second Lenox must have flickered on the edge of his vision, for the doctor turned around again and shouted, “Charles!”

Lenox pushed his way past a footman and toward McConnell and Barnard.

“What is it?” he said.

They were both examining something, but not until Barnard stepped aside did Lenox see what it was—a body, a male body, slumped on the stairs to the servants’ quarters, stripped of its jacket, with a pool of brilliant red blood staining the pure white shirt. Still, the face remained obscured.

“Who is it?” said Lenox.

McConnell stood up, cupped his hand, and whispered in Lenox’s ear. “Soames.”