The September Society clm-2

by Charles Finch

  “Thomas must be awfully happy,” Lenox said.

  “Oh, he is! He was sorry to leave Oxford when I called him down, but he is!”

  In Lady Jane’s face, which he could read so well, Lenox saw that she hoped the baby would be the panacea that Toto and McConnell needed to cure their marriage’s intermittent discontent-and he partook of both the overt happiness in the room at the news and this quieter, naturally unspoken happiness underlying it.

  The conversation moved on to baby names (Toto liked the thought of Henry for a boy, and the list of girls’ names she liked was close in length to a biblical genealogy-including Margaret, Anne, Anna, Elizabeth, Louise, and dozens of others, all of them to be immediately replaced by a dozen nicknames when they were actually implemented) and then to what schools the child would go to as a boy (Eton, though Lenox made a strong case for Harrow) and what sort of person the child would marry if it was a girl (one just like her father). The room was full of goodwill and happiness, and though Lenox was delighted for Toto and McConnell, a small, ignominious part of him was sad that he didn’t have the same kind of joy in his bones.

  At one point in their conversation, Toto asked Lenox what he meant to do for dinner.

  “I thought I’d go to the Devonshire and hunt up a companion or two,” he said.

  “Nonsense! Have dinner with Thomas-I’m going to eat with Duch and Jane later to celebrate, and probably a few other people. I can’t bear to think that he’ll be all alone, fussing over his poor dear dead animals. Won’t you take him out and have a bottle of champagne or something?”

  “Terrific idea,” Lenox said. “In fact, perhaps I’ll invite a few others, too-Hilary, Dunstan, perhaps my brother, that sort of a crowd.”

  “Brilliant!” said Toto and then resumed her exegesis on the perfect shade of yellow paint she would put into the nursery if the child was a girl.

  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. Le
nox. 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.”

  “But to be a detective takes more than that-it takes as well doggedness and humanity, John. And humility.”

  “You mean to remind me that I’m a dilettante, of course. I don’t deny it. Still, I feel deeply that this is the profession I’d like to follow. I wouldn’t take your time lightly.”

  “Your parents will be upset.”

  “No doubt-but then again, they might be pleased to see me settling to something, and of course there’s no worry over money.”

  “That’s the other thing that would worry me about your following this path, if I may be frank.”

  “Of course.”

  “The victims of murder are a variable lot, as variable as any set of mankind you’ll find. Finding justice for George Payson is well and good, but what about the cabman who beat his wife and died of a blow to the back of the head? Will you follow the clues in a case like that? What about the louse-and-dirt-covered body in a ditch by the side of the road?”

  Very openly, Dallington said, “I can only promise that I’ll try as hard as I know how to treat every case equally. At any rate, I mentioned Payson for a reason-he was a fresher in Lincoln when I was spending that fourth year at Trinity, and I saw some of him and always rather liked him. It was seeing a mutual friend of ours the other day that finally galvanized me to come make this proposal.”

  “Proposal?”

  “I’d like to apprentice myself to you.”

  There was another long pause. “I assumed you meant to ask for advice about joining Scotland Yard.”

  “Oh, no, of course not. For the same reason you didn’t. Men of our rank could never serve there, could they?”

  “Yes, I see that,” Lenox said. Again he paused, turning it over in his mind. At last he said, his words measured and contemplative, “I find it difficult to reject what you’ve asked of me. And it’s a large request-I can’t hand you a magnifying glass and see you off. The reason I find it difficult is that mine is a neglected profession. I would scarcely say so if you hadn’t asked me this question, but it is, in my mind at least, both one of the least respected professions among our kind of people and one of the most important and noble in its purpose. If you are a detective and a gentleman, expect to be unheralded-misunderstood except by your friends, and even by them sometimes-looked on as somewhat odd, if harmless. It will help that you have a position and money, as it has helped me, but it won’t save you from a certain, rather hard to bear kind of disrepute.”

  Dallington nodded. “I won’t mind.”

  “Won’t you? I hope not.”

  “I haven’t yet. You couldn’t fathom the things that are said of me, you know. The most incredible falsehoods!”

  “Yes,” Lenox said. He sighed. “You had it in mind to begin straight away?”

  “Yes, I did. As I say, because of Payson, poor chap.”

  “Would you mind giving me the morning to consider what you’ve said and what course of action to take?”

  “Oh, certainly,” said Dallington, suddenly jolly again. “I’m absolutely famished, and I thought I’d pop round to the Jumpers and have a spot of breakfast if any of the lads are there.”

  “You’re welcome to stay for breakfast here-”

  “Oh, no, I wouldn’t like to impose-and really, I think I had better let you alone. My absence, I reckon, will improve my campaign.”

  He laughed a high, youthful laugh and bade Lenox goodbye, promising to return at noon. Before the door was shut, however, Lenox knew that he would assent to Dallington’s request. For several reasons: because he believed what he had said about the nobility and neglect of the profession, because the solitary life of the detective at times weighed on him, because he really did like the lad, and most of all because he was generous, and found it difficult to decline any earnest and thoughtful appeal, whatever it might be.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  T he morning post arrived-Lysander’s note had been delivered by hand-and brought with it the coroner’s report on Major Peter Wilson’s suicide. The accompanying note from Inspector Jenkins offered whatever aid the Yard could muster, and Lenox found himself with two new and amenable colleagues in less than twenty-four hours.

  It was a dull document. The jury had been unanimous in its verdict and the coroner had strongly endorsed their decision, and to Lenox’s untrained eye there looked like very little that could possibly be askance about it. So he put the report in an envelope and sent it with a short note to Mc-Connell, to see if the doctor, better used to such language, could make anything out of it. Then he wrote to Jenkins and thanked him for the report. After a last gulp of coffee, he went into his study and answered the correspondence that he had received while in Oxford. There was a letter written in painstaking English from a French scholar inquiring about life in Hadrian’s court, a subject on which Lenox was something of an expert, and another from his old Harrow friend James Landon-Bowes, who in Yorkshire was happily raising his children and farming.

  Before he knew it noon had come, and there was a ring at the door that resulted in Mary’s presenting Dallington.

  “Hullo again,” the youth said cheerily, sitting down in the chair Lenox offered. “Have you thought much about what I asked?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Right-ho,” said Dallington, and while he seemed airy, there was a look of intentness about him that gave Lenox hope.

  “I’ll agree to it.”

  “That’s more like it!” said Dallington.

  “I’ll agree to it, but only if I have your word that this isn’t some passing fancy. Your solemn word, Dallington, with all due respect.”

  “I give my solemn word, Lenox, and delighted to do so.”

  “Very well. You asked me whether or not you might help solve the mystery of George Payson’s death. Well, it’s likely that you’d only prove a liability to me, but you’ll have your chance.”

  “Lovely!”

  Lenox jotted down a name and address. “This man’s friend claims that he’s gone out of town, though I find it highly doubtful. I’d like
you to try to find out whether it’s true. For heaven’s sake, though, don’t follow him to Pall Mall or his club-any of his clubs.”

  “Right-ho,” said Dallington, looking at the paper. “Theophilus Butler.”

  “Yes-and please avoid asking anybody if he’s there who might tell him that someone was looking for him.”

  Dallington nodded and laughed. “Clear enough,” he said. “Footwork-looking out-just the sort of thing I need to practice.”

  Lenox sighed. “It isn’t practice, though.”

  “Oh, no-of course not.”

  “And don’t push the matter. If you can’t discover where he is, leave it.”

  “Just as you say. Goodness, though, thanks.” Dallington grinned. “I’m dead excited.”

  “Do you read the police report in the papers?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Read them every day, all the papers. Crimes always repeat themselves.”

  Dallington noted it in a small leather journal he had brought out.

  “The agony column, too-those brief messages at the end of the newspaper, you know. More happens in those messages than in all the streets of East London put together.”

  “Agony column… police report… all papers. Got it,” he said, binding the journal again. He stood up and thanked Lenox profusely. They had a short conversation about what equipment he might need-the older man recommended a variety of the clothes that existed along the subtle scale of class, a pocket ruler, a pocket magnifying glass, good boots, and the friendship of a good doctor. He saw Dallington off with a hearty good-bye that masked his trepidation at their fledgling project. It was no time to disrupt the system he had, he thought-but the milk was spilled.

  At half past two that afternoon, Lenox presented himself at Lysander’s door. A man tending toward old age and with a military air answered the door, probably Lysander’s one time batman, Lenox thought. They went together into a snug but comfortable living room with a fireplace and chairs on one end. Nearby was a bookcase full of military histories. Glancing over the rest of the room, Lenox took one of the chairs and waited. Presently, Captain John Lysander came out and greeted the detective.