Lenox excused himself and stepped out of the room to write a few notes, to McConnell and about five others, naming a restaurant in Piccadilly called Thompson’s, which he knew to be cheerful. He was looking forward to it himself. Between the death of George Payson and his reticence with Lady Jane he hadn’t realized how low his spirits had gotten, despite his determination to direct all of his energy into the case. One too many glasses of wine and a night of good company would be just the thing, he thought, to leave him ready for a fresh try the next morning.
“I’ve written the notes,” he said, coming back.
“Oh, good,” said Toto.
“Will you be in London long, Charles?” Lady Jane asked.
“I won’t, I’m afraid. Too much of the case is in Oxford-I’ll have to return tomorrow. But it will be over soon, I hope.”
“I hope so, too,” said Lady Jane, with something indeed hopeful in her voice.
But here again the line separating friendship and love was unclear, and he couldn’t decipher her feelings, usually so plain to him. He wondered for the thousandth time about the man in the long gray coat whom he had seen visiting her, and for the thousandth time reproached himself for his vulgar curiosity. The special misery of undeclared love again rose within him, but he pushed it back down and listened intently to what Toto had to say about February birthdays and their astrological luck.
Toto and her news were what both prevented and saved Lenox from speaking to Lady Jane alone, of course. But there was a moment toward the end of their conversation when Toto went off to look in the mirror in the hallway and all of the unsaid words underneath the two old friends’ conversation began to fill the room as slowly and surely as rising water. Just when Lenox had built up some particle of courage Toto came back-and the two of them left Jane a little while later, both promising to return soon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
T he next day, his higher spirits worth a terrible morning head, Lenox woke up to a note and a visitor. The note was from Captain Lysander. It was written on heavy paper with the September Society’s seal embossed in the upper right-hand corner and Lysander’s name at the bottom, and said: Mr. Lenox, By all means come see me, though I don’t know how much help I can be to you. I shall be in Green Park Terrace at 2:30 this afternoon. Incidentally, Major Butler, in case you desired to speak to him as well, is out of town.
Yours amp;c,
Captain John Lysander, 12th Suffolk 2nd
Funny, thought Lenox, that he would mention Butler. Had Hallowell, the Society’s doorman, mentioned Lenox’s visit there? Perhaps.
The visitor was just as mysterious. For propriety’s sake, it was a footman, Samuel, who had given Lenox the note and announced the visitor, not Mary. The card he bore on his tray only had the name John Best written on it, without any further explanation. So this was the man who had been dogging Lenox’s steps, leaving his card at the house every few days.
“Did he say anything else? The name doesn’t ring a bell,” Lenox said as he dressed, pausing now and then to sip the lifesaving cup of coffee on his table.
“No, sir,” said Samuel, “though he assured me that you knew him.”
“Did he? Cheek, that-I haven’t the foggiest idea who he is. Are you sure he isn’t asking for money or selling tastefully designed Christmas wreaths?”
“He assured Mary, sir, that he was on no such mission.”
“Dress?”
“Quite high, sir.”
Lenox shrugged. “I must see him, I suppose. If you haven’t already, offer him something to drink and tell him I’ll be down in a moment.”
He ate a ruminative apple slice-no sense in hurrying to see a man who had come at this early hour-and checked a list of what he would do that day. He would look at the coroner’s report, if Jenkins had sent it; he would meet with John Lysander in the afternoon; he would call on Lady Jane; and then he would take the train back to Oxford, where Graham would hopefully have completed his research about Hatch. It was the third of these tasks that reigned in his mind. Sighing, he took a final sip of coffee and put on his tie.
When Lenox went downstairs, he found a man of perhaps twenty-two or twenty-three, dressed quite well, who said, “Where’s Graham, then? I’ve been curtsied roughly a thousand times by a creature called Mary.”
“John Dallington?” said Lenox, much surprised.
“No other. I thought John Best was a lovely touch, though. Had a hundred of the cards printed up.”
“What for? Why have you visited? Not that I’m not always happy to see you, of course. It must be a year or so.”
Lord John Dallington was the youngest of the Duke and Duchess of Marchmain’s three sons, and a notorious anxiety to his parents. In person he was short, trim, handsome, dark-haired, and deep-eyed, with an amused look always lurking in his face and an air of boredom in how he stood. In his buttonhole, as ever, was a perfect carnation, his trademark. He looked a bit like Napoleon, in fact, if Napoleon had decided to drink at the Beargarden Club every evening rather than conquer Russia.
His reputation across London was set; he was known to be the most determined drinker, partygoer, and cad in the West End. Instead of entering the military or the church, as most third sons might have done, he had elected to idle until he discovered what he wanted to do in life. Such a discovery would have shocked everyone, however, and though Dallington gave the impression that it was daily expected, even his partisans admitted that a long life of dissolution seemed most probable.
Lenox sometimes met Dallington in Marchmain House in Surrey during hunting season, and less often in London. Lady Jane, on behalf of her friend the duchess, had once asked Lenox if he might talk to the lad, but Lenox had put his foot down smartly and averred to his friend that under no circumstances would he be dragged into a conversation doomed to end in failure and, worse still, awkward silence. However, the mountain will now and then come to Mohammed, and here Dallington was, and at this early hour. For Lenox, it had the same surreal quality as running into the Emperor of Japan in the Turf would have.
“I was hoping to speak to you about something, Mr. Lenox. You know my father is fond of you, and I’ve always liked you, too-I haven’t forgotten, of course, the timely half crown you delivered to me before I left for school, and which bought me many an illicit cigarette in those early days-and I have something serious on my mind.”
“Do you?” The pronouncement would have made happy news for the duke and duchess. For Lenox it was simply perplexing.
“Though I left my card before, at the moment I’m especially keen, because I know you’re working to find out who murdered George Payson.”
Surprised, Lenox said, “I am, yes.”
Dallington paused, looking as if he were weighing in his mind the best means of expressing something larger than his powers of articulation. At last he said, “As you may have heard, I’ve been casting around for a career that I fancy, and while I’d love to make the governor happy and became some dratted vicar or general, the idea that keeps returning to me is that I become a detective.”
There was a long pause. “I’m astonished,” Lenox said, and he had never spoken truer words.
“I’ve had my wild times now and then-more than my share perhaps-and I don’t think I’ll give them up, because I like them too well. But I have also always had a very fine sense of justice. It’s really the highest praise I can give myself. Criticism is easier, of course. I’m a spendthrift-I play with girls’ hearts-I drink too much-don’t give a whit for the family escutcheon-don’t always listen to the mother and father. Still, though, weighed against all that, for as long as I can remember this sense of justice, of fair play, was what I liked best in myself.”
“I see,” said Lenox.
“Part of it is the playing fields of Eton sort of thing, that old sense of never ratting and always sharing out and that, but I also remember earlier examples. As a child I always confessed to my crimes when there was any chance of another person getting blamed. Which was out of character, as I never minded the crimes themselves, you see.”