The September Society

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

After he left the Royal Oak, Lenox hailed a hansom cab and went to Hunt House. It was here, close to the river, where Dallington still lived with his parents. The house belonged to an old family with a relatively new dukedom; for centuries before their elevation the family had been a steady and well-respected line of local squires in Bedfordshire, but in the last hundred years they had gone from that prosperous station in England’s landed gentry to the pinnacle of its nobility. Hunt House reflected that. It was quite modern, painted white with gold and green window frames, and every cut of stone and pane of glass sighed money.

They were an amusing family. The duchess was plain-spoken, pretty, well past fifty, and a close friend of Lady Jane’s. The duke was a generous and entirely idle man. Both of them were continually at court, good friends to Victoria and once upon a time Prince Albert, who had been dead five years. Their heir was dull and industrious; their second son was vain and pious; and their third son was Lenox’s apprentice.

Eager, quick-witted, and conscientious for the time being, the young lord had suddenly begun to seem indispensable to Lenox; a second set of eyes at the September Society during the meeting, what he had in mind for Dallington, might ultimately mean the difference between success and failure.

Lenox stepped out of his cab and rapped the door sharply. An eminently appropriate butler answered the door.

“How do you do, Mr. Lenox?” he said. “Please come in.”

“Oh, I can’t, thanks. I was only looking for the youngest of the brood.”

“Lord John is not presently in, sir.”

The respectful and cautious tone of these words made Lenox uneasy. “Do you know where he’s gone?”

“I believe he stated an intention of visiting Claridge’s, sir, with one or two friends.”

Damn. “Thanks,” said Lenox. “If he does return, hold him here for me, won’t you?”

Lenox quickly hailed another cab and directed the driver to the hotel. Claridge’s was an august establishment on Brook Street in Mayfair, about fifty years old, which the Queen had consecrated not long ago by calling on Empress Eugenie of France in her suite there. It also-and this was the cause of the butler’s overly polite manner, perhaps, in referring to Dallington-housed a raucous bar full of slightly disreputable young aristocrats.

When he arrived at the terraced house, Lenox walked straight to the bar. Sure enough, Dallington was there, having a glass of champagne and unloosening his tie while he spoke with a florid, light-haired lad of about the same age. There was also an extremely pretty young woman with them. She wore a bright red dress and had a high, clear laugh that rang out across the room. Lenox went over to them.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but might I have a word?” he said.

Dallington looked up blearily, then gave an excited start. “Oh, I say, Lenox! I say! Meet Solly Mayfair!”

Lenox shook hands and nodded at the woman, to whom he hadn’t been introduced. “Nice to see you. Do you think I could have that word, Dallington?”

“About what? No secrets from Solly.”

All three of them found this outlandishly funny.

“About the case, John.”

“Quite right, Lenox, quite right-we should get a case of champagne. These bottles on their own seem so stingy. A case of champagne, a barrel of beer-that will set us to rights.”

“Can you not be serious, for a moment?”

“I was never more serious in my life!” said the lad with a Falstaffian belch. “A case of champagne! A barrel of beer!”

Now Lenox realized that Dallington was too far-gone with drink to pay him any notice.

“Perhaps another time,” he said. Nodding to Dallington’s friends, he rapidly turned and left the bar, then the hotel.

It was a bitter disappointment. He wasn’t exactly certain why. As he walked the short way home, however, he slowly realized how much this new attachment-friendship, even-had meant to him. A detective’s work was so isolated, and while Lenox had come to accommodate the isolation, had agreed to it as a condition of the work he loved, the lad had seemed to offer a kind of professional companionship he hadn’t known before. Even Jenkins, for instance, would grow gradually more conservative. He would begin to believe, if imperceptibly at first, that the Yard should be the sole authority over crime in London. The critical thing about Dallington was that in some significant way he was like Lenox. In his background. It had been gratifying to have an ally.

As he turned into Hampden Lane, Lenox decided to visit Lady Jane. With a dull thud of fear in his chest he realized that they might actually find themselves alone. When Kirk led him into the house a moment later, however, Lenox heard voices. When he came to the drawing room he stopped. It was the man he had seen at the door twice before, the tall, lean one who had both times worn a long gray coat. Now he stood as Lenox came into the room.

Lady Jane looked flustered, and sounded it, too. “Charles, how are you?” she said. “I’m so glad you’ve come. Won’t you meet Michael Pierce? Mr. Pierce, this is Charles Lenox, my particular friend.”

“How do you do, Mr. Lenox?” said the man, striding forward with his hand outstretched.

“I’m pleased to meet you,” Lenox said. “Have I come at an inconvenient time, Jane?”

“I was just leaving, in fact,” said Michael Pierce. “Good day, my Lady. Good day, Mr. Lenox. I’m pleased to have met you.”

Lenox’s mind was racing. He hadn’t heard the name before. They had been sitting next to each other, not across from each other, which meant they were more than simply formal friends.

What followed was the first strained conversation of Lenox and Jane’s long friendship. They weren’t curt, precisely, but neither of them could find exactly what to say. At last they alit on the subject of his case.

“It’s going well enough,” he said.

“When will it be over?”

“Tomorrow, perhaps.”

“That will be a relief.”

Stiffly, he said, “Yes, it will. How is Annie, if I may ask?”

“Very well. Recovered, in fact.”

“I found out something about the gun that did it.”

“Did you?”

“Circumstantially it’s linked to the September Society.”

“How awful.”

“Yes.” It was horribly impolite, but he couldn’t help himself from saying, in a strangled voice that sounded nothing like his own, “I hadn’t met Mr. Pierce before.”

“You wouldn’t have. He’s a friend of my brother’s from school, only recently arrived in town from the colonies in Africa. He knows very few people.”

Why did she still look so flustered?

“Oh, yes?”

Miserably, Lenox said, “Perhaps I ought to introduce him about.”

“Yes, perhaps.”

He stood. “Well, I had better go,” he said. “I’ll speak to you soon.”

As he walked down the long hallway, and out again into the street, he thought that he had never felt unhappier in all the years of his life.