A Stranger in Mayfair

Chapter Forty-Two

Lenox thanked Mrs. Clarke, promised to visit her again soon, and dragged Dallington out to the front of the hotel, where they picked up a new cab.

“Where in damnation are we going?” asked Dallington as they climbed in. “Don’t you have to be at Parliament soon?”

“I have an hour. We have to go see Ludo Starling.”

“Why?”

“To confront him. For the first time I think he may be guilty.”

“Finally!” Dallington exhaled. “What convinced you?”

Lenox smiled. “Let me have my little game-come and talk to Ludo with me.”

As they rode through the streets from Hammersmith to Mayfair, the buildings going past in a transition from shabby to genteel to pristine, Lenox tried to read his blue book, but there was no point. Nothing, not even Parliament, could match the excitement of the chase.

In a part of himself, though, he understood that this must be an ending. He would pass more cases on to Dallington now, and if Dallington needed help or advice Lenox would provide it, but only as a secondary figure. Cases of particular interest, or brought to him by those with a deep personal claim on him, would be the only ones he undertook to solve.

As they approached Curzon Street, Dallington leaned through his window to look up at the Starlinghouse.

“Look-he’s just leaving!” Dallington said.

“Probably on his way to Parliament. There, driver, leave us here!” called Lenox, rapping the top of the brougham with his fist. “Dallington, will you pay the man?”

“Yes-I’ll be behind you.”

Lenox stepped out of the cab and walked briskly down the street. “Ludo!” he called out.

He had begun to understand in the past few weeks how a tax collector must feel. Ludo’s face, expectant as he turned, fell into a look of disappointment.

“Oh. Hullo. Walking down to Parliament? Come along, I suppose-yes, come along. Same party, after all,” he said, with a forlorn shrug.

“I’m going there in a moment, yes, but I came here to speak to you. I’m glad I’ve caught you.”

“What is it?”

“It’s about Frederick Clarke.”

“Oh, for heaven’s-”

“Or more precisely, I should say, about your son Alfred.”

Ludo’s puffy pink face looked startled. “Alfred? What on earth could you want to know about him?”

“Only one thing-his birthday.”

Dallington came up to them now, and with that distraction Ludo managed to compose his features. “You, too?” he said. “Would you like to know the date of my wedding anniversary? Or old Tiberius’s saint’s day?”

“I’m as much in the dark as you are,” said Dallington. “What did you ask him, Charles?”

“Only his son’s birthday.”

“Paul?” asked Dallington doubtfully, perhaps suspecting that Lenox had returned to his quick departure for the colonies as a key point. “Why would it matter?”

“No. Alfred.”

“It’s taking a good deal of restraint not to snub you, Charles,” said Ludo. “Why should I submit to this intolerable invasion of my life? I’ve repeatedly asked you to leave the case to Grayson Fowler and Scotland Yard, and yet here you are for the fourth or fifth time, asking impertinently for help I’ve no desire to give you! I’m due in Parliament soon, and I would take it kindly if I could walk alone.” He turned away.

“Is Mrs. Starling home?”

“Yes-but she won’t want to speak to you, either!”

He began to walk away. Lenox waited a beat before he said, “Alfred-he’s almost a year younger than Frederick Clarke, isn’t he?”

Ludo turned back, white with either anger or surprise. It was hard to tell which. “I don’t see your point, and I don’t care to.”

“If you did get a title, it would have descended to Freddie Clarke.”

Dallington, suddenly comprehending all, whistled lowly.

The reaction of Ludo was much more pronounced. He gaped at them for a moment, then started to speak, then stopped, and finally just stood there, flabbergasted. “What do you mean?” he said at last.

“Freddie Clarke was your son, wasn’t he?”

“What-what possible-”

“Worse still, you were married to his mother. He was legitimate. Not a bastard. My question is this: How could you have let your own son work as a footman for three years, and in your house? What sort of man would tolerate such a circumstance?”

Staggered but determined to extricate himself from the situation, Ludo said, “I will take my leave now.”

“We’ll speak to Elizabeth, then,” said Lenox quietly. He had grown more certain in his own mind that Ludo was the murderer.

“She’s not home!”

“You said she was.”

He came back toward them in short, furious strides. “I was wrong! Now leave my family the hell alone!”

“You couldn’t bear the thought of depriving Alfred of his lordship, or of the Starling land up north. The Starling money is entailed, I believe? A system I never liked much, I confess. I doubt you would enjoy living out your days in the knowledge that a youthful indiscretion you made twenty years ago meant your two sons were disinherited.”

“You’re a liar! Leave them alone!”

But the truth was plain on Ludo’s face; Lenox had hit home.

The detective smiled faintly. “The real shame in it all is that Freddie Clarke would have made an admirable gentleman. He read philosophy, he boxed. He was quite plainly intelligent. Well liked.”

“It’s nothing to me what he was-he was a footman.”

“And Collingwood-for shame, Ludo. An innocent man. Who really did this deed?”

Ludo looked for the first time as if he were on the verge of confessing. The people going by on the pavement jostled him closer to Lenox, and a confidential look appeared on his face.

Just as he was about to speak, however, something entirely unexpected happened.

The position of the three men on the pavement was such that Dallington and Ludo were facing Lenox, and suddenly they both saw something he didn’t.

“Lenox!” cried Dallington.

He knew somebody was behind him, and with a quick step backward he saved his own life. (He had always found stepping into the attacker the most successful gambit, unbalancing the other person-a boxing lesson Freddie Clarke might have known.) Something extremely heavy and blunt grazed the side of his face painfully, tearing at his skin.

Even as he turned he saw from the corner of his eye Ludo, stock still, eyes wide with astonishment, and Dallington, springing forward to help him.

He felt a heavy blow on the side of his head. His last thought was to wonder where the person had come from so quickly, and then he forgot the living world.