“Go on.”
“What’s far more damning for Collingwood is something that happened about a fortnight ago, four days before Clarke died.”
“What?”
“According to Ginger, Freddie found Collingwood pilfering money from Elizabeth Starling’s desk.”
Lenox turned, his eyes wide with surprise. “Really?”
“Yes. Apparently Collingwood went pale, and Clarke left immediately. Still, they both knew what he had seen.”
“Congratulations, John. It may be the answer.”
“It may be.”
Inside, however, Lenox felt a twinge of disappointment. He told himself it was stupid, but he had found himself drawn further and further into the case as the days went on, and while he hadn’t realized it until now this return to detection had been deeply satisfying. In turn it made him doubt, for a fleeting second, whether he truly belonged in Parliament. If his old career felt so natural, so true, was it right to turn away from it? Was it vanity that made him want a more respectable, prestigious occupation? Partly, perhaps. He had always loved politics, it was true, and he knew he would make a good Member. Nevertheless he felt troubled in his mind. It would be a grave personal loss to give up detection altogether. A grave loss.
“Did Ginger or any of Clarke’s other friends go to Inspector Fowler?”
“No.”
“Or Ludo Starling?”
“No. Clarke himself said he wouldn’t be a tale-teller unless Collingwood tried to get him sacked. Which makes it all the sadder, really.”
“That doesn’t mean Ginger shouldn’t say anything. It’s not telling tales if it’s murder. A few coins is obviously a different matter.”
“Sorry, I wasn’t clear. That was just an additional piece of information. The reason Ginger and his lads won’t tell is that they’re trying to establish where Collingwood was during the half hour when Freddie might have been killed.”
“Why? Surely that’s the work of the Yard.”
“Perhaps, but they feel that the stronger their case is, the more likely they’ll be heard.”
“It may be so.”
“At any rate, that’s what I got out of my afternoon at the Bricklayers’ Arms. That and a hundred stories about Freddie Clarke.”
“Did you talk to the lad’s mother, incidentally?”
Dallington swirled the last sip of his brandy and then drank it down. “No. She only stayed for one drink, and then one of Freddie’s friends chaperoned her back to her hotel. When he came back to the pub he said she was dead tired and of course pretty beaten up. Ginger is going out to see her tomorrow.”
“I may as well see her, too.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t think it can hurt,” said Lenox, “and it may help us discover something new.”
“What about Parliament?”
“I’m in too deep now to give it up. I’ll still ask you to look at things, but I want to be a part of it, too. Besides, Graham has made my life much more efficient. And perhaps it will turn out to be simple, and Collingwood will be the murderer as you say.”
“It seems pretty damning.”
“Indeed. Even if he did murder Frederick Clarke, though, I wonder if there was anything more to it than the change he stole from Elizabeth Starling. A job as a butler and a few shillings-are they worth killing for?”
“Don’t forget his father was the butler, too. It could be a matter of family pride.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
Chapter Fourteen
Lady Jane returned rather late in the evening, not much before midnight. For a moment Lenox wanted to comment on this and ask how it was any different from his own late homecoming the night before. He decided against it when he saw her impassive face, set for an argument. She sat at her mirror and began to let down her hair.
“Hello,” he said, standing near their bed.
“Hello.”
“How was your evening out?”
“Well enough as these things go.”
“Where was it?”
She gave him a frosty look and was just about to answer when there was a knock at the door downstairs. Lenox, puzzled, trotted down the stairs, with Jane close behind him. Kirk was still dressed and awake and answered the door as they all stood in the wide hallway.
It was McConnell.
“Why, Thomas, hello,” said Lady Jane. “How are you?”
He was red and flustered.
“Quite well, quite well.” He looked at them blankly for a moment, then seemed to remember his purpose. “I came because Toto is having the baby.”
“Why, that’s wonderful!” said Lady Jane. “Is everything all right?”
“Perfectly-perfectly,” said Thomas in a rush.
There was an awkward silence. Toto’s last pregnancy had ended with the loss of the child some few months in.
“Shall we come back with you?” asked Lenox softly.
“I couldn’t ask you-I couldn’t-”
“We’re coming,” said Lady Jane.
They went in McConnell’s roomy carriage, after Lady Jane had gone to fetch a parcel of things she had laid aside for the day when the baby came. She clutched it on her lap, occasionally giving Lenox’s hand a squeeze. All of the anger between the newlyweds was dissolved, and they exchanged joyful smiles. Sitting opposite them, McConnell prattled nervously on.
“The doctors said she was quite healthy, and of course we watched her nutritional intake most strictly-most strictly-fascinating paper I read from Germany about prebirth care, they translated it over here-we gave her good dairy and beef, not too many vegetables-hearty fare, you understand-and I fully expect everything to go well-I feel quite certain it will.”
Lenox and Lady Jane nodded thoughtfully and said “Oh, yes!” and “Mm, mm” in all the right spots.
When the carriage arrived only a couple of minutes later at the massive Bond Street house, McConnell darted out and into the door, apparently quite forgetting about his guests.
“He’s got the nerves of all first fathers,” Lady Jane said quietly as they walked up the steps to the open door. “I’m glad we came.”
Lenox nodded, but saw something different in his friend’s mien than Jane did. He saw a man looking for redemption, both for not preventing the loss of Toto’s first baby (even though every doctor had concurred that it was an act of God) and for something greater: his whole mess of a life, which had begun so promisingly when he was a young surgeon and made such a happy, spectacular marriage, but which had somehow gone awry. This was his chance to amend all that. It was a fresh start.
Jane rushed straight upstairs to the vast second bedroom, which had been arranged for Toto’s comfort and where a small huddle of doctors and nurses, all hired at great expense from the best hospitals in England at McConnell’s insistence, consulted with each other. As for the doctor and his friend, their fate was to wait hour upon hour in McConnell’s study.
It was a wonderful room of two levels; first a comfortable sitting room with desk and armchairs, plus a comprehensive laboratory against the back wall, and then, up a winding marble staircase inlaid with cherubim, a library full of scientific texts. The ceiling, twenty-five feet above them, was a white Wedgwood design.
“Would you like a drink?” asked McConnell, heading for the table with the spirits on it.
“Not quite yet-Thomas,” said Lenox hastily, “before all that will you show me what you’ve been working on?”
McConnell looked at him inscrutably. “Of course,” he said after a moment. “Although I shouldn’t touch any chemicals-I’ve been staying away from them for the past few weeks, and before that scrubbed my hands and arms very thoroughly whenever I worked at my table. For Toto.”
Against the back wall were three long wooden tables, very rudimentary things. Stacked above these were many small shelves, on which were lined hundreds, perhaps thousands, of bottles of chemical. On the tables themselves were chopping blocks, microscopes, scientific instruments, and formic-acid-filled jars, some otherwise empty, some containing samples. In all, a first-rate chemical laboratory.