The Laws of Murder

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

The look of incomprehension that had been habitually fixed on her face was gone. She raised a gun at them.

Lenox disliked guns, though not as much he disliked knives. He had been shot at a dozen times in the course of his career as a private detective, and witnessed several other weapons fired, and in his experience the shooters tended to overestimate their own skillfulness, unless the range was very close. Whereas even the most modestly coordinated simpleton could make a knife hurt, at close enough quarters.

Here, unfortunately, the range was very close.

“Gun!” cried Lenox, and dodged left as sharply as he could.

Dallington, no fool, did the same, and within an instant both of them were muddled into a crowd with Smith and Miss Randall, at whom, they hoped, Sister Grethe wouldn’t be inclined to shoot.

But Nicholson, with real bravery, took the opposite tack, charging her. Just as Lenox heard the bang of the gun go off, Nicholson bowled over both the old woman and the chair she was sitting in.

There was a fraction of a second in which Lenox was sure Nicholson was dead — then, behind him, the bullet ricocheted off the ceiling over his head, chipping clear a large chunk of plaster. He felt his chest constrict and his breath stop, then start again. The plaster fell, and at the same moment the gun dropped to the ground and skittered across the floor.

Smith darted forward, but Dallington, who was just behind him, used the butler’s own momentum against him, shoving him in the direction he was moving so that he stumbled, out of control, past the gun and into the wall.

Just as Miss Randall began to realize that she might try for the gun on the floor, Lenox leaped forward and grabbed it.

For a moment they all stayed exactly as they were — breathing hard, tense, recovering from the rapid sequence of events. Sister Grethe and Nicholson were still in a crumpled mass on the floor, Smith not far from them on his backside. Dallington stood ahead a few feet. Lenox and Wakefield’s cook stared at each other warily — but he had the gun.

Once, in the case of the September Society, one of the shots intended for Lenox had hit him — a superficial wound, but there was a scar as its evidence, and sometimes when they were arguing Dallington would remind Lenox that it had been he who tackled the shooter. There had also been a case in ’64 when Lenox had come within a hair’s breadth of being shot by a gamekeeper on a farm in Nottinghamshire: The squire who owned the hunting preserve had noticed only after several rather dim-witted decades that nearly all of his family’s silver had vanished, and twelve hours after taking up the case Lenox had discovered that it was sitting, a veritable treasure, under the frigid one-room hovel in which the gamekeeper lived. The gamekeeper had been less delighted than his master by that piece of detection and opened fire upon them. Unsuccessfully, thank goodness.

Still, this was been the closest a bullet had come to striking him since those two occasions. That piece of plaster had been very low above him.

“Is everyone unharmed?” he asked.

Nicholson nodded, and Dallington said, “Think so, yes.”

They looked around at the conspirators. “You’re all under arrest,” Nicholson said. He stood and went to the window, lifted it, and blew his police whistle. Then he turned to Sister Grethe. “You especially.”

“Can you be especially under arrest?” asked Dallington.

Grethe spat in his direction, disgustedly. “Lovely,” said Nicholson.

“I’m beginning to suspect she’s not a real nun,” said Dallington to Lenox and Nicholson.

“Possibly not.”

“To begin with, her English is better than she lets on,” said Dallington.

She swore an oath at him, violently — and in English.

That evening, when Lenox arrived home, he passed by the two sentries in front of his house with a nod and turned the new second key in the new second lock, thankful that these precautions were no longer necessary. They had their criminals. He and Nicholson and Dallington had agreed: The exact details of their crimes could wait until the morning. Let them simmer overnight. Armbruster, too; he was back in custody.

Lady Jane greeted him at the door, with a kiss on the cheek. She held a blanket she was sewing for her cousin Addie’s new infant. “I decided just now that I’d like to have a dinner party in two weeks,” she said.

“I was nearly shot today.”

Her face paled. “What?”

“It doesn’t mean we can’t have a party.”

“What happened, Charles?”

“Maybe a smallish party, given the circumstances.”

“No, don’t talk like that, please — what do you mean, nearly shot? Are we in danger? Ought we to leave Hampden Lane?”

“No — no, no, no, I’m sorry, my dear. It all ended well enough.”

She had an arm around him and was looking up at him. Now she leaned her face into his neck. “I don’t like this new job.”

They walked down the hall and went to sit in her drawing room, and carefully he relayed the story of the afternoon to her. He spoke in a tone of voice that downplayed the real sense of danger he had felt — the thudding of his heart, the mixture of euphoria and dismay he’d felt in the hours afterward — while giving her all of the facts.

But she knew him well. “You must be terribly shaken.”

“It’s different than Parliament, certainly.”

She stood up and poured him a brandy then — his second of the day, since Nicholson had sent out for a bottle of it when they returned to the Yard, admitting himself that his hand was still trembling.

“But you were the one who charged her yourself,” Dallington had said. “You saved all three of us.”

“Not at all,” said Nicholson.

“He’s quite right,” Lenox interjected.

Nicholson nodded philosophically. “Well — a toast to all three of us being alive, then.”

“Hear, hear.”

Lenox described this conversation to Lady Jane, too, and she said that she intended to send Nicholson a hamper from Fortnum’s, and asked Lenox whether he would prefer sweets or savories.

“I have no earthly idea.”

“You’ve been with him every day for a week.”

“I know that he likes ducks. Living ones, however.”

“You’re hopeless.”

At last they exhausted the subject of the day’s events, and Lenox said, “Is there anything left for me to eat?”

“Of course. What would you like?”

He looked up and thought for a moment. Suddenly he felt a powerful sense of relief — he was alive, when he might have been dead. No matter the circumstances, that made it a notable day. He was very glad to have Jane, very glad. He squeezed her hand. “I think I would like scrambled eggs, toast, and a cup of very strong and very sweet tea,” he said.

“You’ll have it in eight minutes,” she said, jumping to her feet. “We should have given it to you straightaway.”

Eight minutes later — or perhaps a few more, but he could be charitable — the food and drink were on a tray before him, steaming and filling the room with the rich smell of warm butter and freshly brewed tea leaves.

He tucked in voraciously. “What kind of party did you have in mind?” he asked between bites.

“Only a supper, next weekend. But it’s the last thing we need to think about just at the moment.”

“No, it would be very fine, I think. My brother can come. I’ve seen too little of him recently. Too little of all of you!”

After he had eaten they sat on the sofa for a passage of time. Lenox picked up a newspaper and began to read, which he found restful, and Lady Jane returned to sewing the blanket. She paused midstitch after some time and looked at Lenox curiously. “Who was she, then?” she asked. “Sister Grethe?”

Lenox smiled. “She wouldn’t say at first, but we found out soon enough.”

“How?”

“When we returned to the Yard, I asked several of the older bobbies if they remembered Obadiah Smith, a constable for the Yard. Two did, but no more than the name. But another fellow, Clapham, said Obadiah Smith was the least savory, most crooked officer he’d met in all his days at the Yard. It was then that I realized who Sister Grethe might be, if that man’s son cared enough to stop for her before leaving London.”

“Who?”

“His mother.”