A Stranger in Mayfair

Chapter Thirty-Two

Lenox didn’t get home until past two in the morning, only about half an hour after the session had finished. To his surprise and pleasure, he found Lady Jane waiting up for him.

“My wife,” he said, and smiled at her with tired eyes.

She stood up and without speaking gave him a fierce hug, clutching him tightly to her, face buried in his chest. When she looked up at him it was with tears in her eyes. “Since we returned from our honeymoon everything has been…wrong.” Gesturing at the hallways she said, “Even our houses don’t feel right together yet.”

“I think perhaps it takes time, Jane. We’re not used to being married yet. On the Continent it was all somehow unreal-somehow child’s play. Now we’re back to real life.”

“It was bad timing, Toto and Thomas having their baby.”

“What do you mean?” he asked. She was still clutching him, her face just visible in the half-light of the hallway. The house was quiet.

“I don’t know what I mean,” she said. She started to cry again. “I’m so sorry, Charles.”

“I love you,” he murmured.

“I love you more than all the world.”

“Here-cheer up,” he said. “Come and sit with me. We’ll have a cup of hot chocolate.”

“We can’t get the servants up.”

“You forget that I had to fend for myself once upon a time. There was Graham, of course, but I warmed up the odd cup of tea. At Oxford I once even made sandwiches for a young woman I liked.”

With mock suspicion, Lady Jane said, “Who is she, the harlot?”

“She wasn’t a harlot, of course. It was you.”

She looked confused and then laughed with recognition. “That’s right, I did visit you. Those were delicious sandwiches. I remember thinking you must have had a good scout, with salmon and every nice thing to offer me. Well-hot chocolate is just what I’d like.”

Like disobedient children they crept down the stairs to the basement, which held the servants’ quarters and the oversized, still-warm double kitchen of both their houses. With just a candle to light the way between them, whispering, they went and lit the stove. Jane burrowed through the cabinets until she found a few bars of chocolate, brought back from Paris, and then looked in the iced crate below the cabinets to find the last of the day’s milk.

Meanwhile Lenox, taking a key from his pocket, opened the silver cabinet and took out that strange hybrid pot, with a short spout and a long wooden handle sticking out of its side (never its back), that it was customary to serve chocolate in. He poured the milk into a saucepan, and then they slowly melted the chocolate bars into it, one by one, until it was rich, dark, and fragrant. At the last he dropped a pinch of salt into the mixture and swirled it in.

“Isn’t this wonderful?” she whispered. “I forgot what it was like to sneak around-I used to be a terrible little thief as a child.”

“So did we all, I imagine. My father was in a fearful temper once when he couldn’t have cold steak and kidney pudding for breakfast, the day after we had it for lunch. I went down and ate it all. I was punished, though-I felt sick for two days, glutton that I was.”

“You devil!” She kissed him happily on the cheek.

When the chocolate was ready Lenox carefully poured it from the saucepan on the stovetop into the silver pot. Jane took two teacups down from the hutch by the stove, then two saucers, and, still laughing, they stepped quietly upstairs and back into the study.

Nothing, they both said after they had finished off the whole pot, had ever tasted better.

As he fell asleep a little while later, Lenox realized that for the first time in too long he felt content. Gradually he began to think about his day-his afternoon in Parliament, his morning at the boxing club, Collingwood’s confession, all in the drifting, cloudy way of half-consciousness.

What was missing, he knew, was a clear motive for Collingwood to kill Freddie Clarke. Would such an apparently genial soul-loved by Paul, Alfred, and Tiberius Starling-commit murder over a few coins? No. But then what could the real motive be?

The next morning he woke up and, just like that, he had it.

He jumped out of bed and dressed hurriedly, not bothering to shave or comb his hair. Soon he was at Dallington’s flat-a particularly eligible set of rooms in Belgravia. Lenox had never been there. There was only one servant, who looked at Lenox suspiciously.

“Lord Dallington often sleeps well beyond-”

“Get him. I’ll answer for it.”

In the event it took Dallington half an hour to appear in a candy-striped dressing gown, and even then he was groggy. He grabbed at a cup of coffee his valet offered him as if it were the elixir of immortality, and until half the cup was gone he held out a hand to prevent Lenox speaking.

“Well,” he said at last, “what in all of fiery hell could it be, to get me up so early?”

“Did you visit Collingwood?”

“I did. They wouldn’t let me in.”

“You have to bribe the guard. Didn’t you see? Well, never mind that-yesterday, you remember, you suggested that Paul Starling killed Freddie Clarke, didn’t you?”

“Yes, and you dismissed the idea.”

“I was wrong. Listen: Collingwood has only confessed to protect Paul Starling.”

Dallington looked skeptical. “Paul Starling killed Freddie Clarke?”

“I’m less sure of that, but I feel certain that Collingwood believes he did. Do you remember when Paul’s name came up at our meeting with him?”

Slowly, Dallington nodded. “I think I do. He said Paul didn’t have a key to the larder.”

“I remember his phrasing because I found it awkward at the time…he said, ‘He wasn’t involved.” I was too focused on the green butcher’s apron and knife to notice but I think you’ll agree it was an odd thing to say.”

Dallington, awake now, nodded. “So he’s facing the gallows to protect one of the family he serves. Bricker, my man, won’t even press my suits.”

“I don’t think he’s facing the gallows. I think he’ll wait until Paul is out of the country, then tell the truth.”

“What good does that do Paul, then? He can’t come back to Cambridge.”

“No, but he’ll be safe from hanging.”

“I’m confused-do you believe Paul Starling murdered Freddie Clarke or not?”

Lenox grimaced. “I don’t know. All I know is that it’s what Collingwood believes. I want to go visit him again.”

In Lenox’s carriage, which had been waiting outside, both men gazed through a window, lost in thought. At last Dallington said, “And Parliament-how has that been?”

“Do you know that saying about answered prayers? No-but it’s wonderful, in its way. It’s just harder than I imagined it would be.”

“Personally I wouldn’t go into that House for love or money. Every man you meet is a stuffed shirt or a bore, or one of those chaps at university who look down on fun. You know the kind-half vicar, half self-righteous scholarship student. If you have a glass of punch in front of them they start to tremble.” Dallington suddenly looked more ruminative. “Do you think you’ll continue to do this? To take cases?”

He sighed. “I don’t know. It’s too difficult to balance them, and I can’t help but wonder whether perhaps my ability in each pursuit has suffered for the other.”

Dallington’s face, which was usually on the verge of a smile, now looked concerned. “More than just losing a teacher, I worry at London losing you. Many men can sit in a room and talk nonsense, as they seem to do in Parliament, but fewer can go to a prison and phlegmatically sit with a confessed murderer.”

Lenox’s own face, which he turned again to the window, showed that it was a point he had considered himself.