The Laws of Murder

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

At just after eight o’clock, Lenox and Pointilleux left Chancery Lane. It was a bright morning; passing down the street was a long double line of schoolboys in matching navy jackets, each carrying a slate board with a piece of chalk tied to it. The last two little fellows in line had crimson armbands with the word “Dunce!” written on them — a common enough punishment, though Lenox thought the exclamation point unnecessarily mean-spirited. Still, it was preferable to the bin, a device many London schools still used despite the efforts of the reformers to ban them. These were the cramped dome-shaped wicker baskets in which idle students might be enclosed and then raised to the ceiling by a system of levers and pulleys. They would be gone soon enough, he imagined. Lenox would have shot anyone who tried to put Sophia in one.

Their first stop was the offices of Asiatic Limited, where an elderly clerk named Bracewell assisted them, after they showed a letter from Nicholson with the official seal of Scotland Yard imprinted upon it in black wax. Bracewell could find the records for the Gunner—at the name he looked up at them sharply, perhaps contemplating the money his concern was losing every day that she was in dock — but it would take some time to find out who was permitted to retrieve Lord Wakefield’s goods in Calcutta.

“Two to one, sir, it is the Pondicherry Limited, which distributes nearly every piece of cloth and bottle of liquor we ship. Nevertheless I am happy to check. If you return tomorrow morning someone will have the ledger in question.”

“Thank you,” said Lenox.

“My pleasure.”

This job done, they hailed a cab, and Lenox directed it to Portland Place. Pointilleux looked extremely focused. After they had ridden some blocks, he said to Lenox, “Still you do not prefer to tell us where Mr. Jenkins’s papers have gone?”

Lenox shook his head. “I want to be sure first. We must go see Nicholson. Or I must, I suppose.”

“I am happy to come, too.”

“I’m sure you are.”

When they arrived at 77 Portland Place, Lenox stepped out of the cab and stood still for a moment, looking at it with fresh interest. It must once have been a normal London residence, a low-slung brick house, rectangular in shape. The nuns of St. Anselm’s had made it extremely secure — a fence that reached as high as the roof, bars over every window, heavy padlocks on the black gate in front. He wondered how long they had been there.

As they crossed the street toward 77, dodging an omnibus, Lenox saw a woman standing out front: Sister Grethe again. Behind her in a small lodge near the door was another woman, who must have been the same porter Armbruster had encountered on his canvass.

Lenox approached the gate with Pointilleux behind him, and automatically Sister Grethe pulled a card from the folds of her habit — the same one Lenox had seen before.

“No, thank you, no,” said Lenox, waving it away. He pointed behind her. “We need to speak to the porter.”

Sister Grethe turned and looked at the porter, then gestured in her direction questioningly. Yes, Lenox indicated. The sister went and knocked on the porter’s door, and soon the woman came down. She was young and heavy, with thin, downturned lips that gave her a no-nonsense look.

“Good afternoon,” said Lenox. “My name is Charles Lenox. I’m assisting Scotland Yard in the investigation of the murder of Lord Wakefield, who lived two doors away. We believe several of the residents of the convent might have valuable information — might have witnessed something.”

“The sisters are at prayers just now.”

“So you told my colleague on the evening of the murder. They don’t stop often, I suppose?” said Lenox with a smile.

“They’re right pious, yes,” said the young woman suspiciously.

“May I ask your name?” said Lenox.

“Sarah Ward.”

“Miss Ward, it’s urgent that we speak with the sisters. Or at a minimum with some representative who can tell us when we might have a conversation with each of them individually.”

“They ain’t to be bothered,” said the porter.

Sister Grethe was watching this exchange dumbly. Lenox felt a growing irritation. “In this case I’m afraid I must insist.”

The young woman looked uncertain, and went on hemming at the notion — but at last she said she would try to find someone.

They waited a very, very long time. “Why can this sister not be help to us?” whispered Pointilleux eventually.

“She only speaks German. And she’s taken a vow of silence.”

To Lenox’s surprise, Pointilleux turned to her and said something in German, in a lively tone. Sister Grethe merely stared at him. He tried again, and she handed him the same card Lenox had already seen, then turned back to the street.

Pointilleux read the card. “She behave as if I speak to her in strange language, but my German is excellent,” he whispered unhappily.

“Do you know the term ‘vow of silence’?” asked Lenox.

“I am French. I know about my church more in my little toe than every Englishman put together in their head.”

Finally Sarah Ward emerged. Behind her, in a dingy habit, was a middle-aged woman. She looked as if she had been sleeping, not praying. “May I help you?” she asked.

Lenox introduced himself and asked her name — she was Sister Amity, she said — and then asked whether they might interview the sisters of the convent, beginning with Sister Grethe, to whom his assistant would be happy to speak in German.

Sister Amity looked alarmed. “Absolutely not!” she said.

“But if you only—”

“Should you choose to address your impertinences to us again, we will be forced to contact the police! Now — good day!”

Lenox frowned. “I’m afraid then that we, too, will be forced to return with the police — for we really must speak to all of you. You may have been witnesses to a crime without knowing it, and your house was the property of a murdered man.”

“We have a long lease signed upon it,” said the sister.

“Did Lord Wakefield often come by?”

“Absolutely not. Nor should you, if you have any sense of decency. Good day.”

With that, Sister Amity turned and went back into the house. Sarah Ward gave them a gloating look and returned to her lodge. Sister Grethe continued to look at them without any change in her expression, which irritated Lenox so profoundly by this stage that he had to stop himself from slamming shut the gate as they left.

They would return with Nicholson. It was all they could do.

The carriage rolled through the bright morning toward the Yard. Lenox was in a brown study, absorbed in a deep contemplation of the details of the case, until finally Pointilleux said, “Can you not tell me where the papers are, of Inspector Jenkins?”

Lenox looked at him. “Not just yet. I may be wrong.”

Nicholson was at Scotland Yard when they arrived, reading through the results of the canvass upon which Pointilleux had accompanied Armbruster and several other men the evening before. He looked fatigued. “We’ve had the new Lord Wakefield’s solicitor in already this morning, to inquire about our progress,” he said.

“That’s no good,” said Lenox.

“Why is it not?” asked Pointilleux.

Lenox looked at him sternly. “If you have questions while we are speaking to Inspector Nicholson, please save them until you and I are alone.”

Pointilleux raised his eyebrows in surprise, then nodded. “My apologies,” he said.

“Nicholson, I wonder if you could send for Armbruster. I wanted to ask him directly about the canvass.”

“I don’t know if he’s here at the Yard. Let me ask.”

“Tell them to look in the canteen, I suppose.”

Nicholson smiled, then stepped out to send one of his constables off to search for the sergeant. While they waited they discussed the Gunner and the Asiatic Limited Corporation.

At length Armbruster appeared. “Sirs,” he said. Then he gave a not particularly favorable look to the Frenchman. Too zealous the night before, perhaps. “Mr. Pointilleux.”

All three men had remained seated when Armbruster came in, and Nicholson’s office, smaller than Jenkins’s though with the same lovely view of the Thames, barely had room to hold a fourth chair. Instead Lenox moved to a nearby filing cabinet, leaning against it and offering the sergeant his chair.

“You had a question about the canvass?” asked Armbruster, sitting back and looking up at Lenox expectantly.

“A few questions,” said Lenox. “Though my more pressing concern is what you’ve done with the papers Inspector Jenkins left behind.”