An Old Betrayal

CHAPTER FORTY

It was impossible for Lenox to put his finger on what bothered him so much about the case — about Wintering’s death, about this third man Whitstable had seen with Godwin and Wintering, about Grace Ammons, about the whole bloody mess.

He spent his evening thinking about it. Lady Jane was out upon the errands of the season, fluttering around the girls who were newly out, fixing their hair and dresses, consoling and congratulating their mothers. Lenox ought to have been with her, but he had begged off it. Something in his face must have told his wife it wasn’t worth attempting to persuade him to come.

He gave the servants the night off and ordered supper in from the chophouse down Hampden Lane. He poured himself a strong whisky and soda and pictured the front benches that evening, without him; pictured the cold body of Wintering in the cellar of Scotland Yard; pictured the Queen’s servants packing for Balmoral. It was a good evening, cool and remorseless, for self-pity.

After he ate he felt exhausted. He went over to the soft armchair by the fire where he liked to read and picked up the Telegraph, casting his eyes over the crime notices for London. There had been a stabbing in Bethnal Green, a fire in Bermondsey, a straightforward murder in Chelsea — the husband had already confessed to killing the wife. In Kensington that same paradoxical homeless man was still missing. Someone had cut loose all the horses in southwest Battersea. As he read these notices his eyes grew heavy, and soon he could feel, with some barely conscious part of his mind, his hands descending heavily into his lap, the newspaper softening down with them, and then he was unconscious.

He woke up with no particular sense of urgency, only a pleasant warmth, until he realized, with a start, that all of his deductions and suspicions had woven together in his mind.

He had it.

It was the newspaper that had finally given him this comprehension. He understood the whole thing now, he thought — or at least the who, the how, the when. The why was murkier.

He bolted out of his chair and to his desk, yelling for the only remaining servant in the house, Kirk, to come to his study.

“Sir?” said Kirk, looking alarmed.

“Telegram this around to Jenkins and call my carriage out.”

“You have given all the stable—”

“Christ, call me a cab then.”

The telegram he had written said:

It would bring Jenkins. It had to. He sprinted down the steps of the house and into a cab, which he directed to Half Moon Street.

Dallington was in, fortunately. Lenox didn’t even bother knocking on the door — he simply stood on the pavement and called up toward the open window. “Dallington, we have to go!”

Dallington’s head popped out. “Righty-o. Down in thirty seconds.”

Lenox, stepping from foot to foot, was too nervous to feel much amusement, but his friend’s predictable gameness did put a brief smile on his face. When he heard footsteps on the stair, he got back into the cab and waited.

He had never felt entirely happy about the suit they found in Godwin’s wardrobe, he thought.

Dallington’s tie was still only half looped around his collar as he stepped into the cab, and he was standing on the backs of his soft boots. Lenox rapped the cab’s window, and they began to move. “Where are we going?” asked the young lord, bending down to fix his boots.

“Buckingham Palace.”

“But there’s no party tonight.”

“I think we were mistaken,” said Lenox, turning toward his friend. “What if Wintering’s objective wasn’t to rob the Queen?”

“Then what was it?”

“To harm her.”

Dallington’s face, never much inclined to seriousness, nevertheless now took on a look of severe concern, and the thought skimmed across Lenox’s mind that his friend was a more serious royalist than he let on — more devoted to the Queen than he would have admitted. “What makes you think that?”

“The thought that has unsettled me is that the scene at Wintering’s was too perfect — the dates circled in the newspaper, the wax impression carefully placed alongside it, the knife, the black cap, all of his kit so neatly laid out.”

“That only means he was thorough.”

“You saw his rooms — tobacco spilling, bed unmade, nothing put away. He didn’t seem so orderly to me.”

Dallington shrugged. “It hardly seems conclusive.”

“No. Only suggestive, but think — would he really need to have circled those dates in the newspaper? In his position I would have committed them to memory.”

In this particular part of the West End nearly every house was busy and full, roused from the dormancy of winter by the season. The exception was Buckingham Palace, apparently. As they approached it along Constitution Hill, the flag was still high, indicating that the Queen was in residence, but all of the gas lamps lining the front gates were unlit and the interior was dark.

By some kind of magic Jenkins had reached the palace before Lenox and Dallington. He ran up to their cab when it arrived. “What the devil is this about, Lenox?” he demanded.

“I think they’re coming back tonight.”

“They?”

“He, I should say — the third man.”

“And why do you think that?”

Now Shackleton was bearing down on their small group, his face irate. “Gentlemen, what is the meaning of this?”

Lenox explained again that he thought Wintering’s rooms had been used by the murderer to misdirect them — but as he spoke, he saw three faces fill first with doubt, then with outright dismay.

“That is all?” asked Jenkins.

“No. That is far from all,” said Lenox.

“Then tell us what you think.”

Not wanting to look foolish — he had begun to doubt himself, very nearly — Lenox said only, “You’ll see. Shackleton, if I’m not mistaken, this is the south end of the palace, and the Queen’s rooms are on the north end?”

“Yes.”

Dallington added, “The rooms of state — the East Gallery, for instance — are in between, along the west side of the palace.”

“We have two men waiting by the window for the key of which you found the wax mold.”

Lenox shook his head. “I think that mold was a blind, like the circled dates in the court circular in the Times. I think Wintering took a second mold while he was in the palace. That was why he had to come back for a second party — one in the garden, around the north end. The whole thing has been exquisitely planned from the start, Jenkins. Is the Queen guarded?”

“Of course. Always.”

Lenox waved a hand. “No, I mean, are there still extra guards attending her?”

“Not from the Yard any longer.”

Shackleton shook his head. “Two outside that window, just in case, and half her usual compliment in the palace. Many of us go ahead to Balmoral, to secure it.”

Lenox looked at Jenkins. “He knew that.”

“Who?” asked Jenkins, his voice full of frustration.

Lenox was about to explain — the suit, the newspaper, even the letter he had received that morning — when there was a crack of gunfire from the palace.

All of the blood drained from Shackleton’s face. Without a word, he turned and began to sprint the hundred yards back to the palace.

Lenox, Dallington, and Jenkins hesitated for a moment and then ran after him.

The place was in chaos. A servant in a nightcap had woken and was stumbling down the hall with a candle; the porters had abandoned their stations to help the Queen; there were cries from distant rooms. Shackleton wended his way through the byzantine corridors with expert speed. They were just barely able to track him.

Leaping up the marble steps of the private residence three at a time, he called out, “Your Majesty!”

When they reached the top of the stairs — even in this hurry Lenox noticed how different it looked here than in the official rooms, more subdued, if no less richly outfitted — the Queen was standing there.

“He missed,” she said and then added, “So did all of you, apparently.”

Lenox felt sick with failure. “Where is he, ma’am?”

“My guards fell upon him. He will be bruised in the morning, I expect.”

This was Victoria’s famous calm, then. “You are sure you’re not injured, Your Majesty?”

She gave them a small smile — but Lenox saw in her eyes fear, shock, something she was attempting to master, the old lessons of a youth dedicated to the exigencies of self-restraint. “I was at my desk. He entered the room and told me to raise my arms. I threw a crystal glass at him and yelled for my maid, and he fired his pistol wildly, the stupid fool. Shackleton, tell them to find Hannah and send her up to me. I will be in the Pink Study.”

“Ma’am.”

If only Albert were still alive, Lenox thought. Or if only the Queen’s children didn’t all live in Germany, sent out upon the transnational chores of royalty.

There was a hoarse shout two rooms away. Shackleton pulled a guard aside and told him to find Hannah. Then he gestured for the three men to follow him.

The assassin was being held in a small closet covered, rather absurdly in the circumstances, with murals of laughing angels, playing in a woodland. Fragonard, Lenox would have guessed. Another treasure — though too saccharine for his tastes.

It was dark in the room, and the three guards turned with angry faces, until they saw that it was their superior officer.

“Is he secured?” said Shackleton.

“A sight beyond his liking,” said one of the men, with grim satisfaction.

“Who is it?” said Dallington. “Ivory?”

“No,” said Lenox and lit a lamp so that they all might see more clearly. “Gentlemen, unless I am much mistaken, this fellow is Mr. Archibald Godwin.”