A Stranger in Mayfair

Chapter Forty-Three

When he came to he was for a moment quite dreamy, but then the nature of the situation returned to his mind and he sprang away with all his might from whoever was grasping him.

“Lenox! Lenox! It’s only me!”

As he blinked his eyesight back, he saw that the person holding him had been Dallington, who had supported him to Starling’s front steps.

“Who was it?” Lenox asked in a hoarse voice, his head still spinning.

“We couldn’t see-he wore a mask, whoever it was. He ran off as soon as he had fetched you that last smack on the head. The coward. I caught you as you lost consciousness.”

“And Ludo?”

“He tried to catch the attacker, and now he’s off to find a constable.”

“Or pay the person his fee,” said Lenox. He felt a throb in his head. Groaning, he let his body go slack, as it wanted to, on the step. “Just get a cab, will you? I want to lie down.”

“Of course.”

On the short ride home Dallington only spoke once-to ask whether Lenox believed that Ludo knew the attack was coming.

Lenox shook his head. “He didn’t know we were coming to see him.”

“He could have set the person after you nevertheless, and told him to attack you when you were in Ludo’s presence. Another alibi!”

Lenox shrugged. “It could be.”

In fact part of him wondered whether it was William Runcible, still afraid of jail and no longer pacified by Lenox’s promise in the butcher shop. Still, wouldn’t he have used a knife, or a cleaver?

At home there was a flurry of activity when it was discovered that he had been attacked. Kirk sent for the police, Dallington went to fetch McConnell, and two or three maids hovered anxiously around the door, waiting to see if he needed anything. As for Lenox, he lay on the couch with a wet, cold towel over his eyes, the lights all dimmed. He wanted to see Lady Jane.

When she arrived he felt comforted. She spared just a moment to come and put a hand on his forehead, then became a whirlwind of businesslike commands. She ejected the maids (who were having a very exciting day, it must be admitted) from the threshold of the room, and asked one of them to return with a basin of water and a cloth to clean the wound, though Lenox had already assayed the job. Then she called Kirk into the room and berated him for not returning with the police, who were on their way, before instructing him to find a doctor in case McConnell wasn’t in.

He was in, however; he arrived not fifteen minutes later. “What happened?” he asked Lenox.

“Some thuggish chap tried to hit me with a brick.”

McConnell smiled. “He succeeded admirably.”

“Don’t make jokes,” warned Lady Jane, her face tense with anxiety. “Look at his head, will you?”

McConnell spent the next few minutes gently cleaning the jagged wound on Lenox’s forehead (a third cleaning), prodding around its edges, and asking Lenox what hurt and what didn’t. At last he offered a verdict. “It looks painful, but you’ll be all right, I think.”

“You think?” said Lady Jane, alarmed.

“I should be clearer-you will be all right. The only thing that worries me is whether you might not have some dizziness and lightheadedness in the next few weeks. If that happens you’ll need bed rest-”

“He’ll have that anyway.”

“You’ll need bed rest,” McConnell said again, “and minimal activity. But you aren’t in any danger of long-term consequences, thank the Lord.”

He then took from his battered leather medical bag a length of cloth and set about making Lenox a very dramatic bandage for his head.

“There,” he said when he was done, “now you look like you were in a war, or at least a duel. Walk down Pall Mall on a busy afternoon and it will get all over town that you did some heroic deed.”

Lenox laughed and thanked McConnell, who left, in a hurry to get back to George. Dallington had stayed in the room, at Lenox’s request, but now he left, too.

“Shall we discuss the-” Lenox had said, turning to the lad.

“No, we shall not,” Lady Jane had answered firmly. “John, come back tomorrow if you like.”

When at last they were alone-Lenox feeling much more human, a cup of tea from one of the (again hovering) maids in hand-the pretense of anger and hardness fell away from Lady Jane.

“Oh, Charles! How many more times will I have to worry this way?” was all she said. She hugged him close to her.

McConnell had joked about the attack reaching other ears, but he wasn’t far wrong. In the past when Lenox had been harmed in the line of duty he had never read of it in the evening papers, but now he was a Member of Parliament. After the police had come and gone, offering very little hope to the victim that they might catch his attacker, the newspapers arrived. It was only a small item on two of the front pages, doubtless placed there close to the hour the papers went to press, but it reminded Lenox that he had responsibilities to people other than himself now-and even beyond Jane.

By suppertime he could stand up and move about, and after eating a light bowl of soup in his dressing gown, he went to bed.

In the morning he had a splitting headache and a thousand questions about the case. But he had slept well, and he felt ready for the fight again.

Graham was the second person he saw, after Jane had brought him his coffee and asked how he felt.

“May I inquire after your health, sir?” asked Graham.

“I’m a bit thumped, of course-but no permanent damage.”

“The police have no idea who might have attacked you?”

“None.”

“But you feel quite well?”

“Oh! Yes, not bad.”

Graham coughed discreetly. “In that case might I ask you to discuss parliamentary matters?”

“Of course.”

Lenox came away from the conversation with a stack of fresh blue books (he hated the sight of the things by now) and spent the morning reading them. McConnell stopped in to change his bandage, and Lady Jane brought a pillow or a sandwich or something else useful every half hour, but otherwise he was alone.

He tried-really tried-not to think about Ludo Starling or Frederick Clarke. There was Dallington who could look into it all now.

Nevertheless, as the hands on the clock seemed to slow to a halt and his eyes grew dry from all that unrewarding prose, the questions he had woken up with returned in greater force.

Why had he been attacked? Was it a message, or a true attempt on his life? Did the attacker know that Dallington had the same information Lenox did?

Most importantly, had Ludo been involved?

It was a relief when at noon or so Dallington arrived. He brought with him a few magazines full of crime stories.

“It’s what I always read when I’m sick. Somehow having a fever makes them even more exciting.”

Lenox laughed. “Thank you. But what about the real thing?”

“Starling? I spent the morning on it. Something occurred to me.”

“Oh?”

“The method of attack-it was the same as killed Freddie Clarke.”

Lenox inhaled sharply. Of course it was. How could he have missed it? “Good Lord, you’re right. That must mean it was an attempt-a real attempt-to murder me.”

Dallington nodded gravely. “I think so, yes. Or else Ludo wanted again to transfer the blame away from himself. After all, a similar attack rather conveniently removes suspicion from someone we both saw didn’t do it.”

“And less conveniently away from Collingwood.”

“Precisely. In any event, I checked the alley.”

“Yes?”

“There was a different chunk of brick missing from it.”

“The same weapon.”

“Exactly.”

Lenox was still holding a blue book on corruption in the Indian army; he tossed it aside lightly, brooding on the new information.

Suddenly something occurred to him, and he stood up.

“What is it?” asked Dallington.

“I’ve thought of something. We need to go see Inspector Fowler.”