It was a half-hour walk to the City, the tiny scrap of London that was in fact the only place that could technically be called “the City of London”—the other boroughs having their own names, Westminster, Hammersmith, and so forth. The City was London’s center of business, and to say that someone worked in the City meant that he was in one of the professions: law, business, the stock market.
Chancery Lane, for instance, where the agency’s office stood, was in the City.
The City was divided from the idler sectors of the West End by the Temple Bar, a narrow stone gateway that had been widened but nevertheless always had a long backup of carriages waiting to pass through it, what locals called the traffic-lock. He came to this gateway after twenty minutes or so.
Sometimes, as Lenox passed through it, he felt a strange little emotion: one foot in the West End, his old, aristocratic life, and one in the City, his new, money-centered one. Would his father be disappointed? Time bulled its way forward, of course. Lenox saw more familiar faces than he would have expected in this side of town nowadays. The Earl of Allingham’s third son owned a stockbrokering concern two doors down from them. It was true that two or three men in his clubs had snubbed him since the agency was founded, though few people with any social ambition could afford to alienate Lady Jane. His good fortune, that.
He walked on. The season was changing, he saw. For the first time since April, the pea soup vendor was selling hot elder wine, too, in halfpenny and penny measures. Lenox touched his hat to the man, who was doing a brisk business, then moved with expert agility between the ale sellers and the horses spattered up to their blinkers with mud, touching his hat to a different fellow, this one something of a local celebrity, named Joz, who always stood on the same corner selling pamphlets, stationery, newspapers, and “the smallest Bible in the world.”
Finally, this gauntlet run, Lenox turned down Chancery Lane, eager to find Dallington and Polly and tell them his suspicions.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Two hours later he stood in the unprepossessing doorway of Muller’s dressing room, backstage at the Cadogan Theater.
Just behind him were his two partners, accompanied by Thurley, the manager of the theater; just ahead of him, opening the door and going into the dressing room, were two men from Scotland Yard. One was a friend, Inspector Nicholson, tall, hook-nosed, and gangly. The other was Nicholson’s superior, Broadbridge, a froward, scowling individual in his fifties, with close-cut white hair, smelling strongly of a morning visit to the barbershop. He wasn’t pleased to have Lenox there. Then again, he wasn’t pleased not to have found Muller, either, and for the moment at any rate it appeared that that displeasure outweighed this new one.
Nicholson looked nervous. “I’m not even on the case,” he had said that morning, standing at a coffeehouse near the Yard with Dallington and Lenox, as they attempted to persuade him to intervene on their behalf.
Dallington shook his head. “I must say, I call it pretty shabby to bring in that fraud LeMaire, after all the help we’ve given the Yard over the years, from the murders in Fleet Street to—”
“But I’ve told you that I’m not even—”
“To that terrible business about the prostitution ring in Regent Street, to Mrs. Wilkin’s missing pearls, to—”
“They were under her dresser!” said Nicholson. “Anyone could have found them! And as I said, I’m not even on the case!”
Dallington took a sip of his coffee. “You could have put in a word.”
“I think you have an inflated sense of my importance, my lord.”
Dallington laughed. “Once you’ve been shot at together, last names will do, I think. Call me Dallington.”
At last, Nicholson had consented to take them to Broadbridge. The chief was seated at his desk, with his back to a splendid view of the Thames, signing papers. A constable was next to him—“My nephew, Bailey,” he said, not joyfully — and he put his pen back in its inkstand and crossed his hands over his fat taut stomach, giving them his exclusive attention.
“Thank you for seeing us.”
“Nicholson says you have an idea about the pianist,” said Broadbridge.
“I’m Charles Lenox. This is my associate, John—”
“Yes, I know who you are. What about the German?”
“Hardly call that proper German music,” said the nephew, Bailey, in a cockney accent.
Dallington snorted. There were two types of street bands in London, English and German. The German ones rarely had any Germans in them; the name only meant that they played brass instruments, as opposed to string ones.
“Quiet!” thundered Broadbridge at his nephew.
“I don’t rightly call it German when—”
“Quiet, I said!” Broadbridge looked as if he would happily murder the lad, who had an obstinate frown on his face, as if he were ready to debate the issue. By way of explanation, he added, “He’s my wife’s nephew, the young fool.”
“From what I understand, Muller’s wineglass was empty,” Lenox said.
“Yes.”
“Who filled it?”
Broadbridge glowered. “This isn’t a twopenny quiz game, it’s a criminal investigation.”
Nicholson stepped forward. “I believe the two stewards, as was customary,” he said, sounding anxious to keep the peace. “I’m not on the case myself, but word goes around.”
“It shouldn’t,” said Broadbridge, “and that’s incorrect. Muller himself poured the wine, at intermission. Now, Mr. Lenox, spit it out, quickly.”
“I need to see his dressing room before I fully explain my theory,” said Lenox. “It’s essential.”
“Out of the question. It’s not a stop on the day tour of London.”
“If I am wrong, you will have lost half an hour, and you will have my sincere apology. If I’m right, this will be over — solved.”
Broadbridge hesitated. Lenox sensed through his gruffness his desperation to find Muller and get the Yard out of the morning newspapers. Pressure from the Palace itself — Broadbridge’s superiors must have been hounding him hourly for answers.
“Very well,” he said. “Bailey, fetch my hat. Mr. Lenox, these answers had better come pretty sharpish once we’re there, you understand.”
Now they were there, in the dressing room.
It was a small, square chamber — though perhaps large in proportion to the crammed warren of the average theater’s backstage area — dominated by an immense vanity mirror on one side, which had a row of gas lamps above it, and a table and chair in front of it. The wineglass itself stood upon the table, a small red smudge of wine dried in its bottom. In the center of the room were two sofas, and in the corner there was a stepladder, stacked with books. Lenox leafed through them — all German. Apparently Muller had been a reader.
Above them was an immense chandelier, shimmering with crystals. Lenox studied it for a moment thoughtfully. “This is very fine,” he said.
“We often use it in our performances, actually,” said the theater manager, who was still in the doorway. “Comes right down, only glass. It hooks onto a gaff above the main stage.”
Lenox knelt and grazed his fingers across the rug that stood between the two sofas. He pressed down.
“McKee has done all that,” said Broadbridge, impatient. “LeMaire too, now that we’ve been told to bring him aboard, the sod.”
A look shot between Dallington and Lenox. Told to hire him — Monomark’s influence again, in all likelihood. That was a piece of information to stow away.