Home by Nightfall (3 page)

Her death had been fast—shockingly fast. A mild headache on a Tuesday; a fever on the Wednesday; better on the Thursday and planning out her social calendar; very weak indeed on the Friday but optimistic she would see the illness out before the weekend; then, on Saturday morning, badly feverish, and by the afternoon, unconscious, the best doctors from three counties called to her bedside. On Sunday, dead.

One of Lenox's closest friends in the world was a physician named Thomas McConnell, a Scotsman who had often helped him in his criminal investigations.

“What killed her?” Lenox had asked after the funeral. “It would be nice to know.”

They had been walking down the lovely avenue, lined on either side with lime trees, which led toward Lenox House. McConnell, a rangy fellow, given perhaps too much to drink at moments in his life but a surpassingly excellent doctor, had shaken his head sadly. “I cannot say, exactly. A fever.”

“But you have spoken to Lincoln, Hoare?”

It had been a lovely day, one of those true summer days of September in Sussex, still, bright, mild, a few clouds in the brilliant blue sky. “There are moments when I congratulate myself on belonging to an age of sophistication, Charles—none of the slime-draughts and silver bark and bloodletting of last century, all remedies that killed more than they saved. We know infinitely more than our grandfathers did. And yet something like this—delirium … a fever … chills? We are no closer to understanding precisely what killed her than the Romans would have been. Go back farther, if you like—the ancient Egpytians.”

“Poor Molly,” Lenox had said.

“Poor Edmund,” McConnell had replied, shaking his head. “The dead are at least beyond whatever harm this world can do them.”

McConnell worked at Great Ormond Street Hospital, which served severely ill children, regardless of whether they could pay—a charity that was one of the great credits to the empire, or so Lenox thought. McConnell had seen children die. “Yes,” Lenox had said. “I'm sure you're right.”

As he and his brother ate lunch now, talking with simulated engagement about political matters, Lenox tried to think of what he could do to help. The five weeks since that day with McConnell might have been five seconds for his brother. Edmund's face, his mood, were no different, his shock still total.

What made it so difficult was his brother's essential sweetness. London and his career as a detective had together sharpened Lenox into hawkishness, observance, and cynicism, not all the way perhaps, but far enough that there was little enough that could catch him off guard. Edmund, however, had never been altered, not from boyhood. Even as he maneuvered in Parliament—for he had reached a high position there—it was not through cunning but through his good nature, the ease with which people loved him, that he attained each success. He was intelligent, to be sure, but he had held on through the long years to his country openness.

Part of the credit for that was in all likelihood due to Molly, Lenox realized now.

“I'm down to the house in two days' time,” Edmund said, as the waiter took away their plates.

Lenox frowned. “On Wednesday?”

“Yes. There's a lot to look after—I've been away too long. They'll want to know about the horses, and I hear that some of the tenants have complaints.”

“Mather can deal with all of that,” said Lenox.

This was the fellow who managed the estate, a young, energetic person, nephew of the old steward, who had retired to the village. “On the contrary, he needs a great deal of assistance,” said Edmund.

Fortunately their coffee came then—for Lenox was extremely concerned, and he managed to conceal it only by busying himself with milk and sugar. He and Jane had invited Edmund to stay with them after the funeral, but he had declined absolutely. At least, though, he had been in London, and one way or another they had managed to see him most days since then. He would be terribly isolated in the country. He had friends there, but none closer than a twenty-minute gallop. And it was where Molly had died.

“Are you sure that it will be tolerable—mentally, that is?” said Lenox, with great care in his voice.

Edmund actually laughed. “Ha! No, no, I am not,” he said.

“Skip it, then.”

He waved a dismissive hand. “No, I must go. It was urgent two weeks ago. Now it is past urgent.”

“You will be very gloomy down there, Ed.”

“I don't doubt it.”

This was typical enough. Edmund wasn't resistant to talking about his state of mind, particularly with Charles and Jane, and he did not pretend to be happy. It didn't seem to help him, though. If Charles asked him, he answered truthfully and politely, but every word of his reply was filled with a monumental sense of the pointlessness of such conversation, how little it had the power to change anything. The subject would move toward politics then, or Sophia, Lenox's daughter—and there at least Edmund could give his honest attention, with the part of his self that still remained down here among the living.

Lenox had a thought. “What if we came for a visit?”

Edmund frowned. “To Lenox House? I hope you'll still be there at Christmas.”

“No, now. Wednesday.”

“I couldn't possibly ask you to do that. The agency alone takes up so much time.”

“Are you being witty? It would be a positive relief to get away from the city. Dallington can manage the queue for a week or two.”

“What if they ask you to help find Muller?”

“They won't, the devils.”

Edmund considered this. Then he shook his head. “No,” he said. “It's better that I spend these ten days there myself. It will be very dull, you know—all business, every day.”

There was a brief pause, and then Lenox decided that he would simply be honest. In a low voice, he said, “I think there is nothing I can do to help you now, Edmund, but if it would make you even slightly less alone to have company at Lenox House, I would like to come with you. I know Jane and Sophia would, too. Please allow us. At least then I will feel better, whether or not you do.”

Edmund looked at him levelly. “Very well,” he said. “As you please.”

“Ah, thank you,” said Lenox. He leaned back in his chair and hailed the waiter. “Will you have a biscuit with your coffee?” he said to Edmund.

“No, thank you.”

“Well, I call that foolish, because I know something you don't know—which is that they have the biscuits with raspberry jam in them. We passed a plate on our way in.”

“In fact, I did know that,” said Edmund. “They have them at every meal.”

“That's the best case I've heard yet for London being the center of civilization,” said Charles, and then said, to the waiter, “We'll take as many biscuits as you can fit on a plate.”

“Very good, sir,” said the waiter.

Edmund, stirring his coffee, thought for a moment and then said, with a glimmer of interest, “Really, though, nothing about Muller? Nothing at all?”

Lenox smiled. “I think until we get more information we'll just have to assume the butler did it.”

 

CHAPTER FOUR

To leave London meant to miss out on a great deal of work, and that afternoon Lenox tried to clear as much from his calendar as he could. It wasn't easy. He would ask Polly to take the meetings he couldn't shift—she was far better at dealing with clients than the mercurial Dallington—and his only ongoing investigation, one that he was making privately into the criminal behavior of a fellow named William Anson, was a long, slow one, without any immediate necessity for action.

It wasn't until seven that all three of the partners were in the office, and Lenox, putting his head around Polly's door, asked if they might have a quick word. She said she would be with him in a moment. Dallington was playing checkers against himself at his desk when Lenox came in and asked the same question. “Yes,” he said, standing up. “Is everything all right?”

“Oh, fine,” said Lenox.

They met in Polly's office; each partner had a small private room off the large central area, which was full of slanted clerks' desks. LeMaire had had one, too, but since he had vacated it three of their new detectives had gone shares in it, tight-quartered but comfortable. There was also a large meeting room toward the front of the suite, overlooking Chancery Lane, but this was an informal gathering.

Lenox told them that he had to leave for ten days.

“Ten days!” said Polly.

“Yes, unfortunately. I've pushed as many meetings as possible to tomorrow or the other side, but I was hoping you might take those I can't.”

She furrowed her brow. “I suppose. I'm stretched already.”

“How so?”

She sighed. “Too many cases. I would have bitten off your hand if you offered me that problem in the spring, but here we are.”

She was a pretty, vivacious young woman, of good birth, though somewhat slighted socially. This was for two reasons: first, because she was inclined to speak her mind, cuttingly from time to time, and second, and perhaps more to the point, because she had been widowed young, making her an unpredictable quantity and earning her widespread blame for her attractions. “John, are you busy?” asked Lenox.

He didn't look it, the duke's son, handsomely turned out as ever, but he nodded. “Terribly,” he said. “I was out at dawn this morning, and I'm seeing a fellow about a dog in half an hour.”

“It's not an ideal moment for one of us to leave,” said Polly.

“You were playing checkers against yourself five minutes ago,” Lenox pointed out to Dallington.

He frowned. “I sometimes do that when I need to think.”

“Fair enough. I suppose I can try to cut the trip short—particularly if you wire to tell me that things are becoming unmanageable here. But I would prefer to go.”

“Ten days, though!” said Polly. “Where are you going?”

“To stay with my brother.”

Both of their faces changed simultaneously.

“Oh, I see,” said Polly.

“Take all the time you want, of course,” said Dallington.

“I won't take any more vacation this year, you have my word on that.”

“Charles,” said Dallington firmly, “you must go stay with your brother as long as you like. We can manage very easily. I was telling Polly only this morning that you were next to useless.”

She laughed, and though Dallington's face remained impassive, appropriately considerate of Lenox's feelings, a pleasure passed just visibly through it. The truth was that Dallington loved to make Polly Buchanan laugh; he had been something like in love with her ever since they had discovered she was the mysterious Miss Strickland, nearly two years before.

Did she return his love? At moments Lenox would have sworn she did. For a while, that summer, he had awaited the news of their engagement daily, and once he had very nearly even
asked
Dallington, before stopping himself. He had seen them laughing and walking hand in hand down Hampden Lane together one evening, and there had been moments in the office when they seemed so close that they barely needed to speak to understand each other.

But Dallington had had a strange run of it—widely condemned by the aristocratic world in his early twenties, nearly disowned, a denizen of every bar and casino and brothel in London, before finding a second life, a passion really, in detection. That passion didn't stop him from slipping back into drink occasionally, however, and the effect of his continuing notoriety was to make him unusually reticent. It would be just like him to pine after Polly for years while keeping enough ironic distance from her never to truly convey how he felt. What unhappiness had made him this way? Lenox sometimes wondered. There was nobody he would rather have seen settled.

Nor was there anybody he would rather work a case with. Polly, in fact, might have been the best of the three of them at their work—or would be, when she was less raw. She had wonderful instincts, combined with a terrifically practical mind; it was because of her that they had several specialists on call for the agency, in botany, in weapons, in forensic science. But Lenox and Dallington worked so well together.

At any rate. They probably wouldn't propose to each other at this meeting, the two of them. Lenox looked at his watch. “I should try to organize what I can, then.”

Polly nodded. “It's also a shame you have to go, because—I can't believe it, but I nearly forgot—because of your visitor.”

“Visitor?” said Lenox.

“I've been out all afternoon, or I would have told you sooner. It was while you were at lunch.”

Dallington looked at her curiously. “A case?”

She smiled. “Yes.”

“What was it?” asked Lenox.

The answer that Polly gave occupied Lenox's mind all the way back to Hampden Lane, later that evening. He would get to his desk at seven the next morning, just in case the gentleman called again—good Lord, how he hoped the chap would call again!

Lady Jane must have seen on his face that he was preoccupied. “Hello, Charles,” she said, kissing him on the cheek. “What is it?”

“Nothing—a matter of work,” he said, taking off his light coat.

They were in the front hallway of what had once been his house. For many years, Charles and Jane, close friends from their childhood in Sussex, had been next-door neighbors here on Hampden Lane, a narrow, leafy road, blessed with a decent bakery and an excellent bookseller's. When they had married, they had joined their two houses together—to almost universal exasperation, the architect's, the servants', their friends', their own, though the result was comfortable.

“A case?” she asked.

“Perhaps—but listen, I had lunch with my brother today.”

“I know you did. How is he?”

Lenox shook his head. Who could say? “I've promised us down at Lenox House for ten days,” he said. “From Wednesday. He's going down alone, and it simply won't do. It won't.”