The Laws of Murder

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

After they had finished interviewing Smith, the detectives split apart. Nicholson had a fleet of constables arriving to help him, ready to comb the house for clues about Wakefield’s activities in the past few weeks. Another group of constables were investigating the Asiatic Limited’s offices, to see if they might learn anything further about aft hold 119 on the Gunner. An inspector and now a marquess: the full mechanism of the Metropolitan Police had been triggered into motion. No case could conceivably have a higher priority.

That left Lenox and Dallington with a job that Nicholson agreed they might do more quickly than the Yard could — to find out what they might of Mr. Francis, preferably well before he was waiting by the Duke of York’s Gate at Regent’s Park that evening at midnight to meet Lord Wakefield.

“That’s if he even comes,” said Dallington.

“Why wouldn’t he?” asked Nicholson.

“I can think of two reasons. First — he’s heard of Wakefield’s death somehow. Second — he killed Wakefield himself.”

Lenox nodded. “Very fair. Nevertheless I think we had better be there, watching.”

“Damned right we better had,” said Nicholson. “I also want to know if Bryson or either of Jenkins’s constables knows that he met with Wakefield last week. Though I doubt it.”

“So do I.”

Lenox and Dallington walked out into Portland Place. It was warm now, the middle of the day. Lenox looked left and right and saw that there was a line of cabs by Regent’s Park, to their right. He had sent his own carriage home when they arrived here, because his driver hadn’t liked the look of one of the horse’s forelegs. “Shall we go see York’s Gate for ourselves, quickly?” suggested Lenox. “Then we can find a cab.”

“To where?”

“I’m not altogether sure. Are you a member of either the Beargarden or the Cardplayers?”

“The Beargarden,” Dallington said, with an abashed smile. “I scarcely go.”

“You can go all you like, of course,” said Lenox. He thought of Polly. “At any rate we can begin the search for Francis there. According to Smith he was a gentleman, which makes it seem at least possible that he and Wakefield shared a club, if they were so close. I take it you don’t know the name?”

Dallington shook his head. “Not from the Beargarden. My mother once had a maid called Mrs. Francis. I think she’s dead. And of course she was a woman. So I doubt it’s the same person.”

Lenox laughed. “Don’t jump to conclusions too swiftly, I’ve always told you that.”

As they walked toward Regent’s Park, with its high line of trees just coming back into leaf above the nearer houses, they passed the convent, the one with the towering black gates. There was an old woman in a nun’s habit standing behind them, staring out, a rather fattish person, puffed out by age, her skin gleamingly healthy given that she must have been seventy-five or so. She was the same woman who had been gazing at them as they stood near Jenkins’s body.

On impulse, Lenox stopped. She looked at him quizzically. “Do you spend much time here, in front of the convent?” he asked through the narrowly spaced black bars.

The woman shook her head, not to answer the question but to signal her incomprehension. Then she took a card from a fold of her habit and passed it to Lenox, who read it.

The box was checked, and next to it someone had written Sister Grethe, Germany. Lenox nodded, showed it quickly to Dallington, then passed it back, holding up his palm toward Sister Grethe to indicate that he understood and to thank her. She nodded. She didn’t seem perturbed by the interaction.

“Were you hoping she had seen something?” asked Dallington.

“I imagine the Yard’s canvass would have made certain that each sister saw nothing. They were at their prayers anyhow, according to the porter. We can ask Nicholson later if he has any more information in the actual written report. I just found it interesting to see her again, for a second time now, in perfect view of where Jenkins died. If only she had been standing there when he was shot. I suppose it’s not impossible.”

“Hadn’t we better go and ask Nicholson now?” asked Dallington, stopping to turn back toward Wakefield’s house behind them.

Lenox shook his head. “I doubt he’ll know. Armbruster is the one we ought to ask, or another of the sergeants. It will keep. I can’t imagine they came away from the convent without a thorough account from the sisters. Whatever the nuns’ vows might be, the average bobby isn’t very fond of either obstruction or silence.”

“Or Germans,” Dallington pointed out.

Lenox smiled. “Or Germans.”

“A rum sort of life it seems to me, sitting in the middle of London, never saying a word, longing all the time for the pastures of Bavaria, or whatever they have over there. Standing in the cold behind some bars and handing out a card that says you can’t talk. It’s not what I call cheerful.”

“No wonder she watches the traffic,” said Lenox.

“Well, quite.”

They spent a few minutes then looking at the spot where Francis and Wakefield were meant to meet each other that evening, a tall gilded black gate with the Queen’s arms worked into its wrought-iron. There were refreshment stands nearby, and after these closed at nightfall it would be easy to conceal themselves behind one and watch the gate.

As they gazed upon the stands, discussing how they ought to hide, the peculiar rich smell of the London Zoo, situated within the park, floated toward them on the air, some mixture of hay and manure and animal. It wasn’t unpleasant. For Lenox it recalled a trip he and Lady Jane had made there with Sophia the fall before, the child happily babbling for a very long time at the only orangutan ever to be seen in London, her favorite animal. She had also dragged them again and again back toward the quagga, a strange beast whose forward half resembled a zebra but whose back half resembled a horse. Lenox smiled to remember her amazement at the creature. It was an excellent zoo, very likely the best in the world. Two aristocrats had founded it in 1827, for the purposes of scientific study; only in the past few decades had it opened to the public as well, but they loved it beyond anything, coming in their multitudes to look at the oddities of Africa, of Asia, of the Continent.

When Lenox and Dallington were quite satisfied with their survey of York’s Gate, they hailed a cab and made their way to the Beargarden Club. It was only a short drive. Dallington signed Lenox into the guest book, and then they went to look at the rolls of membership, which were listed in a book hanging from a string near the bar. On a blackboard nearby were chalked the debts that members owed each other — only the bartender could reach it, Lenox saw. Dallington was owed six shillings by someone called Roland Raleigh. The wager was over a year old. Lenox didn’t ask what it had been, and Dallington, absorbed in the membership book, didn’t offer any explanation.

After riffling through it, Dallington dropped the book, which swung back and forth on its string in a lessening arc. “Nothing,” he said. “No Francis, no Hartley. That’s unlucky.”

“Would they have the peerages here?”

Dallington brightened. “Yes, that’s not a bad shout. Let’s have a look. Shall I order us some tea first? We could come back here and read.”

“That sounds marvelous, now that you say it. Ask if they have toast, too, would you?”

Dallington spoke to the barman and then led Lenox through a dim hallway back to the snooker room, which was lined with cartoons from Punch. Above the snooker table was a complex system of pulleys and cords by which one could manipulate a scoreboard at the far end of the room. Two very well-dressed young men, one with a monocle screwed in tightly, were playing balls across the vast green felt.

“Hullo, Dallington,” said one of them. “Here for a game?”

“Not unless you’ve improved.”

“I have done, I’ll have you know,” said the fellow indignantly.

“Keep practicing anyhow. I’m only here for these.”

Debrett’s and Burke’s, the two great lists of aristocracy in England, were on the end table, much thumbed. Lenox and Dallington took them back to the bar. Their tea was waiting on a table, with several stacks of golden-brown toast, glistening with butter.

“I’ll take Debrett’s, shall I?” asked Dallington.

“I’ll take the toast.”

Soon they were reading and sipping their tea in companionable silence, the pale midday light flooding the empty room. Bars were always most pleasant in daytime, Lenox thought. The tea was wonderful, dark and sweet. He had been hungrier than he realized. He helped himself to another piece of toast, folding it in half and crunching it between his teeth, then following it with a sip of the warm tea.

After half an hour they’d found nothing. There were plenty of people named Francis, and a few named Hartley, but none seemed to match the man they were looking for: a man of under forty, living in London. Most of the Francis clan seemed to be based far in the west, and none of the men were below fifty. Lenox copied out a few addresses anyhow, just to be sure. There might be second sons, cousins. Nevertheless it was dispiriting.

Dallington signaled to the bartender for more hot water, then turned back to Lenox, rotating his cup ruminatively in his hand. “What the hell do you think is happening, then?” he asked. “First Jenkins, and then Wakefield?”

Lenox considered the question for a moment. He took a wedge of toast and ate it. At last, he said, “The thing that worries me most is the third mystery.”

“Which is that?”

“Not Jenkins’s death, nor Wakefield’s — but the fact that Jenkins’s papers, the ones he felt were important enough that he left a note for me about them in case he should be killed, seem to have vanished completely.”