“Charles, you dear, how are you? Didn’t you think George performed admirably? I can’t tell whether I would mind if she ran off and became an actress on the Parisian stage. She has the talent, to be sure-but the life they lead you! Of course she would be popular, but the impudent men that an actress attracts…and of course it would be too low for words, though I don’t mind that…no, I think she shall marry a Prime Minister. Yes. That’s more suitable.”
“Where is she?” asked Lenox.
“With her nurse. She’s not coming to the party, though she may sneak down for a moment. Look out for a woman with a face like a tombstone and see if she’s holding a baby. If she is, the baby’s George.”
Lenox laughed. “Can I get you anything? A glass of water?”
“No, thank you.”
“Are you sure? It’s better to drink.”
“Everyone has been inundating me with glasses of water, I promise you. Now go, sit! I want to eat soon.”
Lenox knew that it was to be a “white” meal, a tradition in Toto’s family every Sunday, but especially observed on days of baptism. All the food would be white, and the tablecloth and candles, too. But he hadn’t realized the imagination that would go into it all.
To begin with, for each person there was a glass of champagne and a white-robed chocolate with G written in cream-colored cursive on it. Then there was an oyster, potato, and cauliflower soup, warm but not steaming, and perhaps made with white wine, because it felt very light. After that was a lovely piece of haddock, dressed in a sauce of celery and butter, and then supreme de volailles, white chicken in cream sauce, stuffed with (hidden) mushrooms and served with pure white potatoes, sliced thin and steamed. With these two courses was a crisp, fresh Sauterne; with the next was light sherry, fresh out of the cask according to the butler who served it alongside small plates of wafers and two sorts of white cheese.
Dessert, however, was where Lenox found himself most impressed: a meringue, then a light-as-air piece of sponge cake with the browned crusts removed, and on top of that a perfect mountain of whipped cream.
As a final touch there was another chocolate, again robed in white, again with a cursive G written on it, and coffee. Coffee was the mystery they all spoke about (“They’ll overcream it,” Lady Jane predicted confidently), but when it arrived it surprised them all; floating above the black coffee was a thin white disc of crystallized sugar. They broke out into spontaneous applause at that, and Toto blushed.
“It was my father’s thought,” she said, and her father reddened slightly, too, then looked very serious and said, “Oh, no, quite a frivolous idea,” and hastily drank off a great gulp of his wine.
After the food there were speeches. McConnell’s father addressed them in a deep voice, with his son sinking into a chair like a young child at his father’s table; he spoke about Scottish traditions, the Scottish countryside, and even Scottish food with tremendous veneration, and concluded by saying, in a loud voice, “To our Highland granddaughter! May she live a full, happy life!” This drew overwhelming applause from seven or eight McConnell relatives and polite clapping from the rest of the party.
Then Toto’s father stood up. “I shall be very brief,” he said. “This is the happiest day of my life.” He sat down, quite emotional, and earned truly overwhelming applause, along with shouts of “Hear, hear!” Lenox felt goose pimples on his arms; he knew how dearly, more dearly than anyone, the man loved Toto, and how pained he had been by her unhappiness over the years.
Finally there was the bishop, who blessed the meal, called the day “joyouth indeed!” and sat down with the beaming face of a man who has done the work of God and, in the way of business, drunk six or seven glasses of good wine on a warm afternoon.
When the lunch was finished the women and men retired to separate rooms, the women to sewing and gossip, the men to cigars and gossip. As it neared six o’clock some people, particularly the older ones, left, and others started for the ballroom, where guests were beginning to congregate. McConnell was at the threshold there, promising Toto would come down soon. It was a large, very high-ceilinged room, which was usually full of his sporting equipment but had been emptied out and varnished for the occasion. Along one wall were tables with punch and sherbet on them, and waiters with trays of the same now circulated among the guests.
“McConnell,” said Lenox when he came in, with Lady Jane. “We’ve barely had a chance to speak.”
“This sort of thing is never for friends, is it? Friends you see on any old night-this is for cousins and acquaintances, I think.” He smiled. “Still, would the two of you drink a glass of champagne with me?”
“With all my heart,” said Lady Jane.
McConnell stopped a servant and sent him to fetch three glasses. “To Grace’s godparents!” he said when they arrived, and held up his own champagne.
“And to his father!” added Lenox.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a figure enter the room; he turned and recognized Dallington. “Will you excuse me, both of you?” he said and walked off.
“Lenox!” said Dallington when he spotted the older man walking toward him. “I don’t mind telling you that it’s five hundred degrees out there-really, I wouldn’t be surprised if some natives set up a colony on the banks of the Thames. There-a glass of champagne, that will cool me.” He swiped one from a passing tray.
“How was Fowler?”
“Bloody-minded old bastard.”
With a reproving twist of his eyebrows, Lenox said, “This is a baptismal party, you know.”
“True enough, and more to the point there’s a real bastard involved, isn’t there? I don’t want to confuse us.” Dallington grinned. “Well-call him an old fool, then.”
“Did you even speak?”
“Oh, we spoke. He asked if I had lost my mind, interfering with Scotland Yard.”
“And you said?”
“That I wasn’t interfering. I asked him if he knew about Frederick Clarke’s relationship with Ludo Starling-their secret-and he said yes and slammed the door in my face.”
“I wonder if he does know.”
“But not before saying ‘Tell Lenox not to darken my door again, either.’ I thought that was pleasant.”
“I’ve news as well. The butcher.”
“Oh?”
“For a moment I thought he meant to skin me alive, but it turned out better than that.” Lenox laughed ruefully. “Though it’s all even more puzzling than it was before.”
He told Dallington the story in detail, speaking in a low voice so as not to be overheard. With increasing astonishment the younger man listened, but at last felt compelled to break in.
“Charles, this can mean only one thing!”
“What?” asked Lenox.
“That Ludo Starling killed Clarke!”
Chapter Forty
Lenox’s eyes shifted across the room, checking to see if anybody had heard the outburst. In fact someone was nearby, a pretty, rather large girl of twenty named Miranda Murray, red-haired and pale-cheeked. She was one of McConnell’s cousins, distantly. Toto disliked her for being humorless, but Thomas loved her dearly for her intelligence and pride. Dallington had cause to feel more strongly than any of them, because for a brief while they had been engaged. The end of the engagement, some years before, had been the talk of London, and in truth it was he who had jilted her. Quite unreasonably he hated her for it, in particular because she tried to be friends with him, putting a brave face on things.
Approaching them, though, she must have seen something closed in their visages, and veered away as she was about to reach them.
Dallington turned back to Lenox and in a lower voice said again, “Ludo must have killed Frederick Clarke. He needed an alibi from the butcher.”
“I wish it were as simple as that.”
“Why isn’t it?”
“Ludo has flaws, but do you think he would kill his own son? And more perplexing still, come to me within an hour or two of it happening?”