The September Society clm-2

by Charles Finch

  “Still, better than nothing. What did he leave as a forwarding address?”

  “Only a steam liner bound for India-which, it turned out, departed a month ago for Delhi.”

  “Was he tan?”

  “Pale.”

  “And not military by the look of him.”

  “No, not according to Mrs. Meade.”

  This conversation had taken place at the police station a little after one o’clock. Waiting for Dallington, Graham, and McConnell all to report back, Lenox had no choice but to resume his dull research at the Bodleian. Nothing else had come to light, and he had given it up as a bad job a bit after four. Now it was five, and a bellboy had brought in McConnell’s note with the evening post. Graham was still out on Hatch’s trail, but had assured Lenox he only needed one more day to see what he could find out about the elusive professor.

  The parcel contained three things: a short note on yellow writing paper, a more formal letter on long paper, which evidently appraised the coroner’s report, and then the report itself, which Lenox would have to return to Jenkins at Scotland Yard. The short first note turned out to be from Toto. It read: Hallo Charles! I’m with Jane (it’s about 9:00 in the morning here, when shall this get to you?) and she thought we ought to tell you that I’m healthy and that I mean to call the baby Malory if it’s a girl. Isn’t that a sensible and lovely name? Malory McConnell-I think it sounds awfully well. P.S. Do return soon, and stop Thomas poring over reports all day! Affectionately, TM .

  Lenox laughed and folded the note back in half. He paused for a moment, then put it in his leather correspondence case. At any rate Lady Jane had been there at its writing, so it deserved preservation. Smiling again at the folly of the mind in love, he turned to McConnell’s more serious note. Hello, Charles. Thanks for letting me have a look at this. I may as well say straight off the bat that I don’t think it’s the kind of thing that will instantly solve your case-in fact the coroner, Bellows, did quite well with a tricky matter . As near as I can tell, Peter Wilson probably did commit suicide. But there’s some room for doubt, which may perhaps be of interest to you. Wilson died in Suffolk, at the country house of a friend, Daniel Maran. It was September of last year, and the two men as well as half a dozen others were evidently escaping from London for the weekend-you can no doubt decipher all of that in the report yourself. Wilson went off on his horse one morning alone, taking his air rifle with him. He would have known how to handle guns himself, of course, having hunted since youth and served in the Suffolk 12th. The gun was a light one, suitable for small game. And in fact he was ultimately found in a thicket of mature woodland that Maran used as a pheasant cover. The horse returned home; Maran formed a search party, and they found Wilson dead. The angle of the gun is the one thing that forced Bellows to the conclusion of suicide, rather than merely accident. The gun was angled up slightly so that the bullet hit his right cheek-from a distance of two feet or so. This seems to mark a clear intent on Wilson’s part. However, a small part of me is uncertain that this was how he would have killed himself-it was a position which would have forced him into an awkward half-kneeling stance, as the gun would have had to rest on the ground. Looking over my files, I find that it’s almost unique as an angle of entry in most suicides by air rifle. On the other hand, murder in the same way would have been relatively easy for somebody in the undergrowth. Weighed against this, though, is the overwhelming fact of the position of Wilson next to the gun when Maran found him-Wilson was lying across the gun with his hand still tightly gripping the weapon that killed him. It would be very difficult to manage a body to make it fall in that way-a shot from the ground would have probably sent Wilson staggering backward. One other thing supporting the theory of suicide: Pheasant hunting doesn’t begin until October, and Maran’s gamekeeper insists he would have found it poor sport. Wilson went out there for a reason other than hunting, it would seem. Sorry this isn’t more helpful-Thomas

  Scrawled beneath the doctor’s signature, in less precise handwriting, was the following: Incidentally, you’ll find a note from Toto here-no doubt you’d do well to ignore its entreaties, but I’ll leave that to your discretion. TM.

  Lenox was grateful to McConnell for his diligence, but the results were disappointing; the detective felt as if he were reaching for something substantial, only to find himself grasping the air every time. Still, it might be that Dallington could find something useful about Maran.

  Maran. Didn’t he know that name? Tossing the letter on his desk, Lenox stood up. Hurriedly he put on his coat and left the room, leaving his candles burning.

  He left the Randolph and found himself on Broad Street, ignoring the students let off of their tutorials coming from Balliol and Trinity, striding past them toward the Bodleian. He went straight in and up to the Reading Room, where he pulled out Who’s Who from its spot on the bookshelf where he had left it. He found Maran easily in the book and read over the entry twice, copying it out carefully in his spiral-bound notebook the second time. Well. Daniel Maran was without a doubt a member of the September Society. The most important so far, perhaps. He had served in the 2nd Battalion, 12th Regiment of Foot, Suffolk, just as Wilson and Lysander had-a captain. Unlike them, though, he was no mere retired military man, in and out of his clubs.

  Back at the Randolph, Graham had returned. He was in Lenox’s rooms, laying out an evening suit; Lenox was to dine with McConnell’s friend Radley, the one who had telegraphed down to London about Payson’s death.

  “Any luck?” Lenox asked.

  “Perhaps, sir,” said Graham. “I thought I might organize my thoughts while you were at supper.”

  Having waited so eagerly for information about Hatch, Lenox was suddenly unconcerned. “Of course,” he said, waving a hand. What was this Society devoted to a long-forgotten battle? Why was anybody but an old codger or two at the Army and Navy Club worried about it? Above all, how was it related to Payson and Dabney? Dabney-there was the lead to follow, now that none of the others seemed to have panned out. He would speak to Goodson about it in the morning. Were Dabney’s parents even in Oxford at the moment?

  “Have you heard of Daniel Maran, Graham?”

  “No, sir, I don’t think I have.”

  “I just read up on him. A thoroughly undistinguished military career, followed by an unexpected and unexpectedly well funded stand for Parliament.” Putting a cufflink in, Lenox went on, “He’s a government official now. Works at the War Office Building on Whitehall Place, just by Scotland Yard. Do you know it? Opposite the Horse Guards building, if you’ve been down there. I imagine that he reports directly to the minister there.”

  “How did you hear of him, sir?”

  “He’s a member of the September Society. And the master-general of the Ordnance.”

  “If I may ask, sir-”

  “The master-general of the Ordnance is a Member of Parliament, usually in the cabinet, in fact-and the only member of the British military who doesn’t have to report to the commander in chief. It’s a tremendously powerful and influential position. He arranges for the procurement of artillery and supplies, manages our fortifications… millions of pounds pass through his hands every year. It used to be Baron Raglan, you recall.”

  This was a famous general who had done well in the Crimean War, and whose name was a byword for military integrity throughout the Isles. It disturbed Lenox that the quality of the man occupying the position had fallen off so precipitously. Maran had done little of note besides finding himself in Parliament before attaining the position.

  “My goodness, sir,” said Graham-for him as violent as language could become.

  “Yes, I’d reckon he knows every secret about the British government that’s worth the having. My brother described him to me once as the most dangerous man to cross in all of Whitehall.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  S upper with Radley was interesting, and better still it was distracting. A professor of biological sciences at Worcester, he had great
enthusiasm for McConnell’s work as an amateur biologist. His own passion was birds. For much of the meal he had laid out the objections to the theories of evolution that Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace had proposed a few years ago and that were still widely debated in the scientific community. Probably impossible, though very clever, was his conclusion. “The best we’ll say of Wallace and Darwin is that they gave us new ways of thinking about animal growth, which could spur on other, more plausible theories.” He appeared to be in a diminishing majority, however, and Lenox reminded himself to ask McConnell his thoughts on the matter. In all, though, Radley was a genial, undeniably good sort, and their conversation was pleasant, if heavy on birds.

  After supper Lenox had gone for a long, thoughtful stroll around Addison’s Walk, the path that wound narrowly around a small island within the grounds of Magdalen College. It was a beautiful ring that led away from and then back to the college, the ground level and only inches away from the quiet, rolling Cherwell River. He remembered its pristine beauty under fresh snow from his undergraduate days; once, despondent over some long-forgotten exam, he had gone to the Walk at dawn and come out feeling better, slightly better. This evening he had smoked his pipe and thought about the case, the cool air clearing the wine from his head, a don passing now and then, the view of Magdalen Tower up in the middle distance…

  Just back in his rooms now and removing his coat, he said to his butler, “Well, Graham, if you have any questions about the blue chaffinch or the gray-rumped swallow, I imagine I can answer them for you pretty exhaustively by now.”

  “Thank you, sir. Perhaps some other time.”

  “Sensible. Swallows and chaffinches are good in their way, of course, but too much of them is inadvisable.”

  Graham had given him a glass of brandy, and Lenox was sitting in his shirttails in a blue high-backed chair near the fire. He invited the butler to sit down opposite him and take a glass; Graham assented to the first offer but declined the second.

  “Hatch, then,” Lenox said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I hope you’ve found something interesting out?”

  “I think I have, yes, sir.”

  “Go on.”

  Graham looked at the notes in his lap. “The gentleman is called John Braithwaite Hatch, sir, Bingham Professor of Chemistry. Aged thirty-eight. Born and grew up in North London, a rural area near Ashburton Grove. Educated at Westminster College, having earned a scholarship. On to Lincoln, Oxford, after that. Stayed as a fellow after finishing his undergraduate coursework, and soon became a don.”

  “Much distinguished as a scholar?” Lenox asked, cradling his brandy in his hand.

  “He was, sir, yes, though he hasn’t published anything in two years.”

  “I see.”

  “His servants universally ascribe his current stagnation to his love of drink, sir.”

  “I’m not wholly surprised.”

  “What I have to report otherwise is concise but I hope useful, sir. You told me that you thought Mr. Hatch had lied to you twice, about George Payson’s cat and about the last time he had seen the missing gentlemen. I can add to your statement two extremely suspicious facts. The first is that he saw George Payson on the morning of his disappearance.”

  “Good Lord!”

  “Yes, sir, I was as surprised as you are.”

  “Where did they meet?”

  “At a coffee shop about halfway between Worcester College and the Ashmolean Museum, sir, a place called Shotter’s.”

  “Shotter’s? What sort of name is that?”

  “After the proprietor, sir, one Peter Shotter.”

  “Ah. How did you find this out?”

  “Mr. Hatch spends most mornings in the Lincoln College senior common room, according to a gentleman I met who works there, sir.”

  Every college’s professors had a senior common room, the graduate students a middle common room, and the undergraduates a junior common room. They were all similar, filled with couches, fireplaces, and always something to eat. Usually the senior room, though, held the college’s treasures-its single Michelangelo cartoon or notable Greek vase.

  “But that morning he didn’t?”

  “No, sir, he did not. I asked a maid in Mr. Hatch’s house where he had gone, and all she knew was that he had gone down Beaumont Street. I inquired at the shops on that road and struck lucky, sir.”

  “You’re a marvel, Graham. How long did they talk? How do you know it was Payson?”

  “According to Mr. Shotter, the two spoke for about fifteen minutes. He knew Mr. Payson, sir, and identified Mr. Hatch from my description, though he couldn’t say that he had ever seen him before that morning.”

  “It sounds almost as if Payson instigated the meeting. A spot he was accustomed to, where his face was known, I mean.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did you find out anything about a connection between Hatch and the September Society, by any chance?”

  Graham shook his head. “No, sir, I’m afraid I didn’t.”

  “No fault of yours. What clubs does he belong to?”

  “Only the Oxford and Cambridge, sir.”

  “Never served in the military, I take it?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Did you find out anything about his relatives?”

  “Yes, sir, though nothing which might help the case, I fear. His mother is living, father dead. He is an only child and has two living aunts in Yorkshire, both childless.”

  “Father’s profession?”

  “A barrister, sir.”

  “Successful?”

  “Not successful, sir, but not a failure.”

  “I see. Well, Graham, thank you.”

  “I have one more piece of information, sir.”

  “Yes?” Lenox had been poking at the fire, feeling suddenly sleepy, his brandy mostly gone, but now he looked up. “What else did you find out?”

  “Professor Hatch has an unassailable alibi for the time frame of the murder of George Payson.”

  “Given by?”

  “Numerous people, sir-to begin with, his servants.”

  “Go on.”

  “However, sir, the afternoon before the murder he went for a walk in Christ Church Meadow. It appears, sir, that he went beyond the meadow to the south, where you and Inspector Goodson had speculated the two young gentlemen might be hiding out.”

  “That’s right,” said Lenox. His whole attention was on Graham, and he had moved to the edge of the seat, his hands interlocking, his hair untidy, his face intent.

  “He reappeared in the meadow after about fifteen minutes, sir, according to a park guard there. When he had left through the lower meadow he had a parcel.”

  “And when he returned?”

  “He no longer had it.”

  Lenox sat back low in his seat, suddenly pensive. He stared at the fire for a minute, perhaps two, Graham silent as well. Then he stood up with sudden energy.

  “The question is whether he was taking something to Payson and Dabney, or just to one of them, or to… Geoffrey Canterbury. Or to some other person. The murderer.”

  “Precisely my thoughts, sir.”

  Lenox, pacing, his face red now from the heat of the fire, said, “Did anything else occur to you? About Hatch, about the case? Is there any other information about him? I feel as if I’m missing some small piece here… some key into the whole thing.”

  Graham coughed softly. “I have a little more information, sir, but that’s all, and none of it terribly helpful. Here,” he said, passing a sheet of paper to Lenox, “is a list of the people who usually attended Mr. Hatch’s parties. On its reverse you’ll find the dates of the last several.”

  Lenox nodded. “Thanks, Graham. I’ll track them down. That will be useful.” After another moment of silence, still pacing, he suddenly sighed and said, “Well, I suppose I’ll go to bed. Was there any late post, by the way?”

  “Only this, from London, sir.”

  He pa
ssed Lenox a heavy envelope. It was from Dallington. “Excellent. All right, thanks, Graham-first-rate work. Sorry to seem so distracted, you know. This case is bothering me, really bothering me. But you’ve opened up a whole new vista. I mean to tell Goodson straight away tomorrow morning, if you’ll come with me.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Lenox paused. “And when we’re done-all our thoughts toward Morocco!”

  “Indeed, sir,” said Graham, with the slightest of smiles. “Good night, then.”

  After Graham had withdrawn, Lenox sat at the desk by the window. He left the note for a moment and stared out into the sky. A clear night, a crescent moon. Another sigh, and he turned his attention to Dallington. The note was characteristic of Lenox’s new pupil. Good news, then, Lenox-or bad, as you choose-Butler was certainly in town on the evening you asked me about. The chap couldn’t have been more conspicuous if he tried, in fact. Attached find a list of his activities (dry stuff, but to each his own). Thanks for the chance of doing it, really. If there’s anything else I can help with, send word by return-or at your leisure. Cheerio, Dallington. P.S.: No charge for the services, though my mother’s desperate to see me paid. Droll, isn’t it? She sends on her regard.

  Lenox laughed at the postscript and scanned the attached list, which seemed to be in order. Admirable quickness on the lad’s part, as well. Perhaps an apprentice would be useful after all.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The next morning, Lenox saw Inspector Goodson. They spent about an hour aligning their knowledge of the case, Goodson working primarily in Oxfordshire, his energy at the moment devoted to finding the man who called himself Geoffrey Canterbury, while Lenox’s interest was now mainly in the September Society.

  Lenox wrote a note to Rosie Little, updating her and encouraging her to be brave, then went to see Timothy Stills, Jane’s cousin at Oriel, for a pleasant half hour. As he walked away, his mind turned to his own troubles: Lady Annabelle had reappeared on the scene and was speaking vocally to anybody who would listen about both Goodson’s and Lenox’s incompetence.