Charles Finch - A Stranger in Mayfair

“Did you ask him where he got them?”

“No, sir.”

Lenox sighed. “I take it you’ve spoken to Inspector Fowler?”

“He has,” interjected Ludo.

“I can find out more from him, but what were you doing at the time of his murder?”

“I was here, sir, with Jenny and Betsy.”

“So I understood. Why did he go out?”

“To fetch the bootblack.”

“Did he speak of meeting anybody?”

“As I told Mr. Fowler, no.”

“Is it normal for one of you to leave so soon before dinner?”

“Oh, yes, sir. There are always last-moment tasks.”

“Well, thank you, Mr. Collingwood.”

“Yes, sir.”

When Collingwood had walked down Frederick Clarke’s old hall, Ludo motioned Dallington and Lenox up the narrow staircase to the ground floor of the house.

“Mr. Starling, is your family about?” asked Dallington.

“Why do you ask?” said Ludo.

“It would be useful to speak to them.”

“The boys are out. They generally are at night. Elizabeth will have been retired this hour or more.”

“Perhaps tomorrow,” said Lenox. “Would you mind if Dallington attended the funeral?”

“No,” said Ludo, though looking as if he rather would. “You can’t attend?”

“Meetings.”

Ludo looked relieved. “Shall we just let the Yard handle it, after all?”

“With your permission, I would like to keep an eye on it,” said Lenox. “Grayson Fowler is an excellent detective. Still. I can’t quite identify what bothers me so much, but it’s there.”

“Well-all right.” They were now in the entrance hall. “Good night.”

Just as Lenox and Dallington said good night, however, a voice stopped them. “Who’s there?” rang out from the drawing room in a cranky old tone.

“Only a couple of friends, Uncle Tiberius,” said Ludo in an agitated way. “We’re on our way out.” He added in a confidential tone, “I’ll come along and go to my club. I rather fancy a hand of whist.”

“Wait!” cried the old man. He appeared in the doorway, holding a candle and dressed in a rumpled suit. “Is it the inspector again? I want to speak to the inspector!”

“No-only my friends,” said Ludo. He looked irritated. “John Dallington, Charles Lenox, may I please introduce you to my father’s uncle, Tiberius Starling.”

“How do you do?” the two visitors asked.

“I remembered something to tell the inspector.”

“It can wait until tomorrow.”

“We’re acting as inspectors, too,” said Dallington mildly, earning for his troubles a look of pure vexation from Ludo, who was almost physically harrying them out. They paused by the door.

“Good, good,” said the old man. “I remembered something about Clarke. The packets.”

“What packets, blast them?” asked Ludo.

“Under the servants’ door,” said Tiberius. He looked at Dallington. “I sit down there, you see, because they have that cooks’ fire. It warms up these old bones. One day I was alone down there-it was Sunday morning-and a packet came under the door. I hobbled over to fetch it for ’em, and it was unsigned. I opened it, and what do you think was inside?”

“What?” asked Dallington.

“A note! A white note, worth a pound! Not even a coin!”

Money. All notes issued by the Bank of England were printed in black on one side and blank on the reverse and were called white notes.

“Oh?” said Lenox.

“I thought it was empty-that’s why I opened it-but down marched Frederick Clarke, who by rights should have been out on a Sunday, and he told me it was his, he was expecting it. I asked what was inside, to test him, you see, and he told me. Well, I had no choice but to give it to him then.”

“You said packets, plural.”

“It happened again two Sundays later, but he was there to scoop it up before I did.”

“Why did you never tell me this, Uncle?” said Ludo.

“Forgot. But now he’s dead-rich as he would please.”

“How much did you pay him a year, may I ask, Ludo?” said Lenox.

“Twenty pounds.”

Dallington was shocked. “My God, how dismal!”

“It’s on the lower side, yes, but that includes room and board, of course,” said Ludo, bristling.

“I’m sorry-quite sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. I haven’t any idea what any servant earns.”

Lenox ignored this all, deep in thought. At last he said, “Five percent of his yearly wage, slipped under the door so nonchalantly. What was that young man doing with his life, I wonder?”

Lenox and Dallington walked very slowly through the pristine, vacant streets of Mayfair, moonlight and lamplight enough to make it rather bright. They discussed the case and arrived at one essential conclusion: Ludo Starling’s behavior was odd. Neither of them knew whether it was significant, but they concurred upon that fact. As for the packet, or packets, that Frederick Clarke had received, Lenox was inclined to believe that Clarke had been the participant in some variety of fraud or chicanery.

They stood at the corner of Hampden Lane discussing it until they were neither content nor unhappy, then parted. It was past midnight. They agreed that Dallington would attend the funeral and then report in to Lenox.

When he went inside his house, Lenox was surprised to find a figure on the small chair in the hallway. It was Jane.

“Hullo,” he said, cheerfully enough.

“Hello, Charles.”

“You sound upset.”

She stood. “I am.”

“What’s the matter?” Dread struck his heart. “Is it Toto?”

“No. It’s you.”

“What have I done?”

“Are you aware of the time?”

“Roughly.” He pulled his pocket watch from his waistcoat. “Fourteen minutes past midnight,” he said.

“I came home at nine o’clock, and Kirk hadn’t the slightest idea where you were, except to say that John Dallington had dragged you off.”

“I don’t understand what’s wrong, Jane.”

“Why didn’t you tell me where you would be? Or leave a note! The most threadbare consideration would have satisfied. Instead I have had to worry for three hours, needlessly.”

“Three hours scarcely seems enough to go into such a panic over,” he said. “I’d have thought you understood the nature of my profession.”

This raised her ire. “I understand it well enough. You are under the constant threat of getting shot or stabbed or who knows what, while I wait at home and-what, politely wait to hear news of your death?”

“You’re being absurd,” he said in what he instantly knew, and regretted, to be a haughty fashion.

“Absurd?” Suddenly her anger had turned into tears. “To worry about you-that’s absurd? Is this what marriage is meant to be like?”

As she started to cry in earnest, his resentment washed away and was replaced with regret. “I’m terribly sorry, Jane. For so many years I could come and go as I pleased, and now-”

“I don’t have any interest in that. We’re married now. Do you understand that?”

He tried to take her hand, but she pulled it away. He sat down. “I hope I do.”

“I don’t know.”

“Really, I am sorry,” he said. Still she wouldn’t look at him. He sighed. “We never argued once during our honeymoon, did we?”

“Our honeymoon was lovely, Charles, but it wasn’t real life. This is real life. And it’s not fair on either of us to have you gallivanting around London, putting yourself in danger, over some obscure murder.”

“Obscure murder? If our friendship had taught you nothing else, I hoped it had taught you that there is no such thing.”

“It’s past midnight!”

“When I’m in the House I won’t be home till much later than this on occasion.”