A Stranger in Mayfair

Chapter Four

As he had one foot hiked up into Starling’s carriage (a massive black conveyance with the family crest worked into its doors-a slightly low thing to have if you weren’t a duke, perhaps) Lenox had the novel realization that for the first time since he was a boy he had a duty to keep someone apprised of his whereabouts. Stepping back down, he grinned to himself. He was a married man now. How wonderful to contemplate.

Jane was on one of the thousand social visits that occupied weekday mornings, making the rounds in her own old, slightly battered, and extremely homey carriage. She would be back soon, however.

“Just one moment, Ludo,” said Lenox and dashed inside. He found Graham and asked him to tell Lady Jane where he was going; between this and the meeting it would be nearly supper before he returned.

“Yes, sir,” said Graham. “Here, sir, your-”

“Ah, my watch. Don’t think I’ve forgotten our conversation, by the by. Will you think about it?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Since you’re still a butler for the moment, however, don’t forget to tell Jane where I am.” Lenox laughed and stepped quickly back out to join Ludo. He realized as he laughed that his spirits had lightened with the prospect of a new case.

They went through Mayfair at a rapid trot. It was Lenox’s home neighborhood, the one in which he felt most comfortable, and much of his adult life had been spent inside this stretch of London from Piccadilly to Hyde Park. As it had been for the past century or so, it was a fashionable place, the most expensive part of the city, with faddish restaurants, white glove hotels, and a gentle, calm aspect: The boulevards were wide and uncrowded, the houses well kept, and the shops tidy and pleasant. In some parts of London one felt quite hemmed in on the narrow streets, with carriages brushing by each other and mongers shouting to sell their fruit or fish, but Mayfair seemed somehow more civilized. It certainly wasn’t a quarter of London that Lenox associated with murder. Though the practice was all but dead, you’d still be more likely to see a duel between gentlemen in Green Park than any bloody-minded killing.

The carriage stopped a few hundred feet short of Curzon Street, where the Starling townhouse stood just off a corner. Ludo, who hadn’t spoken during the trip, rapped the side of the carriage with his walking stick.

“Here it is,” he said to Lenox as they stepped out. “The alley. Many of the servants on Curzon Street use it every day to do their errands. These constables have heard a fair bit of backchat from upset housemaids wanting to get by.”

It was a narrow lane, the width of only two or three people, and slightly suffocating because the two brick walls that closed it off reached up five and six stories. South Audley Street, a busy thoroughfare, was bright and summery, full of people, but as Lenox peered down the lane it looked dim and sooty.

“What time of day did it happen?”

“In the evening, apparently. It’s far busier during the day than at night. A young girl came across the body at half past eight and immediately fetched the officer at the end of the road.”

Lenox nodded. It was an affluent neighborhood, of course, and as such would have been swarming with bobbies. The alley might have been the only place for blocks where an assailant could risk an assault without being immediately seized.

“Let’s walk down and have a look.”

The alley was fifty or sixty feet long, and halfway down that length a single constable stood. He was a tall, burly, and reassuring sort. It had been some time since Lenox had visited the site of a murder, and he had somehow forgotten, as one always did, the eerie feeling of it.

“Hello, Mr. Johnson,” said Ludo. “Where did your Mr. Campbell go?”

“Back to his beat, sir. We had the inspector out, and he said only one person needed to stay here.”

“To see if anyone returned to the scene?” Lenox asked.

“Yes, sir. Can’t quite see the point myself, when there are thirty people clamoring to get in every minute or so.”

“At any rate I’m glad you’ve kept the scene intact this long. Which inspector was it?”

“With all politeness and that, sir, I didn’t catch your name?”

“I’m Charles Lenox, Constable Johnson.”

The man’s ruddy face lit up. “Lenox the detective!” he said brightly.

“That’s right.”

“You ought to have said so. We’re all right grateful down the Yard that you caught that bastard Barnard. Excusing my language, sir,” he added, nodding to Ludo.

“Not at all.”

Barnard had killed-had ordered killed-a famous police inspector, a man by the name of Exeter. Lenox had uncovered the deed.

“Thank you,” said Lenox, “although I must say that my role was extremely minor-the Yard did the vast majority of the work.”

Johnson grinned and tapped his nose. “Our secret, sir,” he said, “but I heard Inspector Jenkins tell about it all, sir. All of it,” he added significantly.

Ludo looked at the pair slightly irritably, as if he suddenly suspected that Lenox might get a title now and there was only one to be had. “Would you mind if Mr. Lenox looked at the spot?” he asked.

“Not at all. Down this way, sir.”

The genial tone of their conversation abruptly changed as they came upon the scene of the murder. There was a large smear of dried blood along the brick walkway. Only nineteen, thought Lenox with a lurch in his heart. Just an hour before London had seemed like the most marvelous place in the world, but all at once it seemed like a midden of sorrows.

“As well as we can work it out, Mr. Clarke never saw the man who attacked him,” said Johnson, now somber, business-like.

“Must it have been a man?” asked Lenox.

“Sir?”

“If this is a servants’ lane, it’s much more frequented by women then men, I would imagine. Was Clarke a large boy, Ludo?”

“Yes.”

“Still, we mustn’t exclude half of the population from our suspicion. Or slightly more than half, isn’t it? Go on, Constable.”

“The wound was on the back of the young man’s head.”

“Was he hit from above or below?”

“Sir?”

“Never mind. I’ll ask-just a moment, I don’t think you ever told me which inspector is looking at the case?”

“Old Fowler, sir.”

“Grayson Fowler? Perhaps I’ll ask him. Or it might be just as well to send for McConnell,” muttered Lenox to himself.

He dropped to one knee and began to look very carefully at the vicinity of the attack on Frederick Clarke. Aside from the blood there was an unpleasantly evocative clump of hair on the ground.

“Did you remove anything from the area?” asked Lenox. “Or did Fowler?”

“Only the body, sir. All else is as it was.”

“Which way was the body facing?”

“Toward the street you came from-South Audley Street, sir.”

“And he was attacked from behind. Where does this alley lead?”

“To a small back lane with houses backed onto it, sir, including Mr. Starling’s.”

“I take it the servants use this lane to get between their houses and the street? If that’s so it seems likely our attacker was either lying in wait or came from that direction. It makes me suspect one of your servants, Ludo.”

“Oh?” said the man, who had been standing quietly off to the side.

“The men and women with whom Frederick Clarke spent nearly every hour of his life in quite close proximity-yes, our first thoughts must go to them. Still, it would be silly to draw any conclusions yet.”

Rising from his crouched position, Lenox walked around the blood spill toward the side of the alley that led to the backs of the houses, away from the alley’s busy end at South Audley Street. He ran his hands gingerly along the walls.

“Did Inspector Fowler say what kind of weapon it might have been?” he asked.

“No, sir.”

“Ludo? To you?”

“He didn’t say anything about it.”

For the next ten minutes Lenox went up and down the alley, very carefully dragging his fingertips along each wall and walking gingerly, in short steps.

“What are you doing?” Starling eventually asked.

“Oh, just a suspicion,” said Lenox quietly, still focusing intently on his fingertips and feet. “If the murderer was someone who came down this alley often…I’ve seen this kind of thing before.”

“What?”

“Sometimes the murder weapon is whatever’s at hand.”

Suddenly Lenox felt his foot rock slightly. Without moving he bent down, then drew his foot back. The brick that had shifted when he trod on it now looked plainly disconnected from the ones that surrounded it. He gently pried it out and held it up for all three of them to look at.

“What is it?” asked Johnson.

“It’s sticky,” Lenox said.

“Cor!” said Johnson wonderingly.

On the bottom of the brick was a smudge of what was plainly fresh blood.