The Laws of Murder

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

A panic descended on Lenox. It was the newspapers, he thought — his name appearing in the newspapers that morning as a consultant on the investigation. But why wouldn’t they warn the Yard away? Why not Nicholson?

“Are you certain that’s all they said?” he asked. “A wife and a daughter? They didn’t mention any other person?”

They hadn’t, according to Smith.

“And that was all they said to you?”

“Yes, sir. That was their final word. They left me alive, thanks be, and then must have bolted past Miss Randall on their way out.”

Lenox excused himself and ran from the room, scribbling a note that he handed to his driver, which asked Jane to take Sophia and go to her friend the Duchess of Marchmain’s — Dallington’s mother, who also happened to have one of the largest and best-guarded houses in London, with a vast staff.

When he returned he found that McConnell was checking Smith’s wounds; finding them to be still damp, he dressed them in fresh bandages, but didn’t seem concerned about the butler’s prognosis. “Ugly, but not serious,” he said. “No major blood loss. You’ll certainly be sore for a few days, I’m sorry to say, and there may be some slight scarring. But your recovery should be uncomplicated.” He came over to Lenox and said, in a softer voice, “What can I do to help? With Jane, I mean?”

“Thank you, Thomas. You could go and tell her to get to Duch’s house, or yours, anywhere really. I doubt there’s immediate danger, and I did send a note — but you might beat it there, and I would feel more comfortable knowing she and Sophia were safe.”

“Of course,” said McConnell. “Instantly. The wounds look painful, but they really aren’t dangerous — not enough to keep me useful here.”

“Thank you for coming.”

“Of course. Good luck.”

As McConnell bade good-bye to everyone in the room, Lenox pulled a chair over to the bed and soon with a greater sense of urgency was leading Obadiah Smith once more through the questions he had about the assailants, their dress, their accents, their hands, their footwear, their height. Painstakingly he amassed slightly more information than he had before. They’d both had lower-class accents. That would seem to discount Wakefield’s friend Francis as one of them, though he could have shammed an accent quite easily: Indeed it might have been savvy to do so.

When this conversation was concluded they left Smith to rest, the loyal Miss Randall sitting with large worried eyes trained upon his pale face.

Downstairs in the lovely, impersonal hallway of his father, the new marquess thanked Nicholson and Lenox. “When do you expect to have this business wrapped up?” he asked.

“It’s impossible to say, My Lord,” answered Nicholson, his tone careful. “It could be hours or it could be years. We try not to hold out false hope. But in this case I’m optimistic that we might come to a solution within the week.”

“Excellent. The sooner it’s out of the papers … well, I’m sure you understand.” Travers-George hesitated. “It was port wine that killed him?”

“Yes, sir, we believe so.”

“Are you familiar with a friend of your father’s named Francis?” asked Lenox.

The lad frowned. “I’m not familiar with any of my father’s friends, blessedly,” he said. “Our relations were not close. We didn’t see eye to eye on several important matters pertaining to the family’s estate. Thankfully those matters are in my hands now.”

Thankfully! “What matters?”

Travers-George shook his head. “They cannot be of material interest to your investigation. Family affairs.”

“What about the name Hartley? Does that ring a bell?”

“None whatsoever. I’m afraid I really will be of very little use in sketching out the details of my father’s personal life, unfortunately.”

“A final question, then. Did you know that he kept a hold on the Gunner, which shuttles between London and Calcutta with mail and goods?”

“The ship where he was — was found?” For a moment there flickered into the son’s face a slightly more human aspect, as if it were just occurring to him that his father was gone not merely in name but in flesh. “What was he shipping?”

“We’re still trying to discover that information,” said Nicholson.

“I didn’t know that, no. I can refer you to Robert Barker, of Prowse Street. He manages our family’s investments — including my father’s. Although I cannot guarantee that my father did not keep some of his income apart.”

“Thank you very much for your time,” said Nicholson.

“I’m at your service,” said the new Lord Wakefield. He looked very conscious as he said this that the reverse was the case. Lenox could very nearly see his self-confidence expanding to fill his new, illustrious place in society — only faintly blemished by his father’s conduct, a blemish that his own sober deportment could efface very quickly. “You may find me here at any time.”

Out on the pavement Nicholson and Lenox paused. “What do you make of it all?” asked the man from the Yard. He was pulling a pipe and a packet of shag from his pocket, and soon he had lit up and was drawing the smoke into his lungs, then exhaling it with a great sigh of relief. “Strange business.”

“Do you really think the case will be solved within the week?” asked Lenox.

Nicholson smiled ruefully. “It’s best not to antagonize a fellow who could have your chief apologizing for you inside of ten minutes, if he wanted to. A lord and all.”

Lenox understood. “Of course. I only ask because in truth I’m as puzzled as ever.”

“Today’s attack seems straightforward to me. Francis, or his proxies, wanted to fetch the port before we found it — and possibly any letters they could find on Wakefield’s desk. Perhaps even the parcel with the gun in it, I suppose.”

“Why did they wait until two days after the murder?”

Nicholson shrugged. “Access to the house. There have been officers and visitors in and out since the day of the murder.”

“So they chose to enter in broad daylight?”

“It was bold, certainly. Misguidedly bold, it would appear, since they didn’t get the port and we have some clues as to their appearance. What I’m curious to know is who Wakefield was mixed up with.”

“Did you ask the neighbors whether they had seen anything of the two attackers?” asked Lenox.

“Yes, and they must be the blindest godforsaken neighbors in the whole of London, because again we came up nil, damn them.” Nicholson sucked on his pipe angrily. “Though in fairness it’s not as if the two men burst out of the house with drawn knives. They only needed to lower their scarves from their faces to their necks and they would seem like any other pair of fellows on foot in the city.”

It was a chilly night, the moon slender and shrouded, and soon they parted. Lenox told Nicholson that he meant to look into Asiatic Limited — something about that hold on the Gunner still made him uneasy — and Nicholson said that he would call on Robert Barker, of Prowse Street. The fact was, though, both men felt rather stymied. A gunshot in Portland Place, a body stuffed in a trunk, poisoned wine, and now this attack upon a servant: It ought to have been simple, with such a surfeit of incident, to decipher the links between Wakefield’s death and Jenkins’s death. Instead it was one of the most difficult cases Lenox had encountered in his career. Whether that was luck or cunning remained to be seen.

He arrived back at Hampden Lane with his heart beating more quickly than usual, wondering whether he should send Jane and Sophia and the servants down to the country for a little while, shut the house altogether, and take a room at the Savoy himself.

He was ruminating on this idea as the carriage turned into his street, and to his surprise he saw that his house looked busy inside and out. For a moment — one of the worst of his life — he thought they might be the police, that it might be a crime scene, but then he saw that they were workmen.

He mounted the steps of his own house as a stranger might, passed on either side by men who were busy with — well, with what? Some were carrying parcels, other tools. Several were propping up a tall ladder.

“Jane?” he called as he entered the house.

He found her in the dining room, consulting with a gray-haired gentleman in a suit. “Charles,” she said, “there you are. This is Mr. Clemons — shake his hand if you like, yes — he’ll be making our house secure.”

“Mr. Clemons,” Lenox repeated.

“Yes, Mr. Lenox.” Clemons passed him a card. “We’re a security firm.”

“Security?”

“They installed Duch’s safe,” said Jane, “and they work with the Queen. Haven’t you worked with the Queen, Mr. Clemons? Have I got that correct?”

Clemons inclined his head. “We have been so honored, madam.”

“I take it my wife has hired your services?” asked Lenox.

“I have,” said Jane. Lenox could tell from her businesslike demeanor — there were few women in England as fiercely determined, when she set her mind to a thing — that she had no interest in his opinion of the project. “They’ll be here several hours, and at least until this case of yours is finished they’ll leave a rotating service of men at our doors and in our back garden. Mr. Clemons has assured me that they’re all armed to the teeth.”

“With safeties on their firearms,” said Clemons quickly. “They are professionals, Mr. Lenox — primarily ex-servicemen.”

“They’re putting bars on the windows, too,” said Jane. “Here, come and say goodnight to Sophia — unless you need anything else, Mr. Clemons?”

“No, madam, thank you.”

As they climbed the stairs, Lenox said, “You’ve acted very quickly.”

“About three months too slowly, in fact. I ought to have done this the moment you started that agency.”

“Are you quite angry at me?” he asked.

She had reached the top of the stairs, and she turned, her face dark. “I am, yes. But I love you, more the fool am I, and nobody will come into our house to hurt any of the three of us — you may be absolutely sure of that.”