A Beautiful Blue Death

Chapter 34

Sir Edmund had the same thought. He was standing at the head of the stairs, trying to convince a phalanx of footmen he was in fact one of the men assigned to help in the case, without avail.

“Charles!” he said, when he saw Lenox open the door. “Tell them!”

“Will you have a cigarette with me outside, Edmund?”

“Dash it all, Charles, no. Tell me what happened!”

“Outside, Edmund.”

“Oh, all right.”

The two men walked past the crowd and through the front door to the stoop, where it was lightly snowing. People were leaving, so they stood off to the side.

“What happened to the two nephews?” asked Lenox.

“I lost one of them, Charles. I apologize.”

“Quite all right. McConnell lost both of his. Did you lose Claude?”

“Claude? No. The other one, Eustace.”

“You mean to say you had your eyes on Claude the entire time?”

“Well, ever since you asked me, at least.”

“What happened?”

“The two were talking but just for a second, and then Claude seemed to strike Eustace—I must say, they don’t seem to like each other—and then they diverged, and I could only keep up with Claude, who you said was more important.”

“Yes,” said Lenox. “You did well.”

“Thank you. Who did it?”

“I don’t know. The only people we can account for are Soames and Claude, the two men I thought were most likely to have killed Prue.”

“Claude might have done the first murder anyway, mightn’t he?”

“No, I don’t think so. It was the same murderer. The chances that there would be two murderers in a single house—with a giant pile of gold in it—are too remote.”

“Who does that leave?”

“Eustace, Duff, Potts. Barnard, I suppose. A servant. Someone I’ve never even considered.”

Lenox dropped his cigarette, smothered it with his shoe, and gave a sad sigh.

“I’ve bungled it badly you know, Edmund.”

“No, you haven’t, Charles. You’ll get it.”

“I know next to nothing about Potts. And I haven’t worked on Duff nearly enough.”

“This is the part you’re cleverest at, though, Charles.”

“Thank you for saying so.”

“Really, it is.”

“Yes, perhaps.”

“Is there anything I can do? As far as Soames? Poor fellow.…”

“Yes, it’s awful,” said Lenox. “But no. Not unless you care to keep an eye on Duff or Potts—or, better still, sneak up to the fourth floor just to make sure the gold is still there.”

“I will.”

“Thank you.”

They both went inside, Lenox in a downcast frame of mind, searching for the clue he had missed, the step he glided over, the mistake he made that had perhaps cost Jack Soames his life.

Just as he was about to go back downstairs, Lady Jane tapped him on the shoulder.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Yes, are you?”

“Awfully sad, of course. But listen, I know what a rush you must be in. I followed George around—Barnard, I mean.”

Lenox sighed. “I suppose I can’t stop you. Remember the Charterhouse case, when you kept helping?”

“Of course,” she said.

“What happened tonight?”

“I saw you go upstairs, you know, and started to worry a little bit, so I tried to watch him from near the stairs. Well, almost right after you walked upstairs he brushed right by without seeing me. I couldn’t tell if he was following you or going on his own. So I followed him, you know, and then when I was on the first floor and he was headed toward the second I called after him.”

“What did you say?”

“I just called his name. He looked reluctant, but he came back. Then I said I had been getting away from the madding crowd for a minute, but would he dance with me? I had to throw over William Carstairs, but that didn’t matter. At any rate I dragged him back down. We didn’t dance, but he said he’d be right back. Then, within about thirty seconds, the maid screamed.”

“Were you watching him?”

“No, I headed back to the stairs to catch you up, I’m sorry to say.”

Lenox paused. “Let’s talk it over later.” He turned away, but then stopped and said, “You know, I can’t think of any other woman I know who would have done that. You’re awfully brave.”

“Oh, nonsense,” she said. But in her face a look of happiness rose briefly and then disappeared.

Lenox ducked through the footmen, who grudgingly allowed him passage, and back downstairs to the servants’ quarters. He saw the light burning in the kitchen and caught a glimpse of Mc-Connell, who was still examining the body. But instead of walking toward him, Lenox turned left and went back to Prue’s room.

What had he missed? What, in this room, revealed the murderer? He opened the door, candle in hand, and saw again the narrow bed, the plain desk, and the drawing on the wall.

He also saw that the window was open—still open since he had examined the room? Probably not. It seemed unlike Miss Harrison to allow a draft in.

And then all at once Lenox realized what must have happened. The murderer must have lured Soames near the service stairwell, killed him there, and then, instead of going back up through the party, gone down—down through the servants’ quarters. He would have been bloody—wet work, McConnell had said—and his escape would have been this way.

But through this room, or through the kitchen? It might have been any of them, unless the murderer happened to know about the window in Prue Smith’s room and knew it was still unoccupied. This fact increased the odds that the murderer was someone living in the house, someone who had been in Prue’s room before. Claude? Whoever it was, he would have had to gamble that the servants were upstairs or else stayed in the kitchen as he got away.

It was the open window—he was by no means certain, but he had a hunch that it had been the means of exit, too. Eagerly, he lit the candle on the desk—the new candle—and set it next to his so that the room was bright. He looked carefully over the floor for a footprint, a drop of blood, anything. But he found nothing, and again his heart sank.

Just to be thorough, he looked in the drawers of the bureau and examined with particular care the entire area around the window. Still nothing.

Out in the hall, he heard Exeter’s booming voice, asking Mc-Connell who he thought he was. There was nothing else Lenox could do that evening. Exeter would be in command of the situation. Terrified, of course, that a Member of Parliament had been murdered, but in command.

Lenox sat on the edge of the bed, cursing to himself. He had mangled the entire case. Motive, he thought—he should have begun with motive. Why would anyone kill Prue Smith, if not for love or money? To keep her quiet. Suddenly the wine and the food caught up with him, and he felt heavy and tired.

The bed creaked as he got up, and its noise gave him one last thought. Sinking to his knees, he took the candle and held it underneath the bed. Last time it had been bare; this time, he saw with a start, it was not. He reached into the far corner to see what had been hurled back there—a dark indistinct object—and pulled it out to find his fingers bloody and a long wet knife in his hand.