A Stranger in Mayfair

by Charles Finch

  Then came the fatal mistake. A caretaker of the place, Mrs. Wright, believed she had solved the problem when she turned off the furnaces. She left work. An hour later, the entire group of buildings was almost wholly in flames. The conflagration, even though citizens of London fought it valiantly, consumed almost all of the old Palace of Westminster.

  The new Parliament was spectacular. It contained three miles of corridors, more than a thousand rooms, and more than a hundred staircases. As he walked into the Members’ Entrance to go to work, all of this rich history crossed Lenox’s mind. He was a part of it now, too. Slowly but surely a serious burden, an intimidating sort of expectation, had settled on his shoulders.

  It made him wonder: What if this position for which he had so long yearned and which he had won at so high a cost was in fact wrong for him? A bad fit? It nearly broke his heart to think so. His brother and his father, both his grandfathers, had served long, distinguished years in the Houses of Parliament. It would be almost unbearable if he were the one to let them down.

  Still, still—he couldn’t stop thinking about Ludo Starling’s strange behavior, about the notes slipped under the door for Frederick Clarke, and about whether he had already discovered a truer vocation than politics could ever be.

  Graham was sitting at an upwardly sloped clerk’s desk in their cramped office, but stood when Lenox entered.

  “Good afternoon, sir.”

  “Hello, Graham.”

  “If I may be so bold as to ask, sir—”

  “You know what, I don’t think clerks here are quite so deferential as butlers,” said Lenox, smiling. “You can speak less formally if you like.”

  “As you please, sir.”

  Lenox laughed. “That’s a poor start. But what were you going to ask?”

  “Has Dr. McConnell’s child been born?”

  “Oh, that! Yes, it’s a girl, and you’ll be pleased to hear she’s quite healthy. They’re calling her George.”

  Graham frowned. “Indeed, sir?”

  “You find it eccentric? Her name is Grace, really—George is more of a nickname, if that improves it.”

  “It would hardly be my place, sir—”

  “As I said, I think these young political chaps are extremely brusque with their employers. Get used to treating me like a sheep to herd from appointment to appointment. And on that subject, I believe we have to discuss your pay. Your current salary is…is it a hundred pounds a year?”

  Graham tilted his chin forward very slightly in assent.

  “We must bump you up. Let me ask my brother what he thinks would be a suitable wage.”

  “Thank you, sir, but as you will recall these weeks were intended to be the probationary period of our new arrangement, and it seems premature to—”

  “I think it’s working out wonderfully. Probation lifted.”

  Graham sighed the mournful sigh of a man afflicted with a frivolous interlocutor just when he most wants serious conversation. “Yes, sir.”

  “What’s on today?”

  “You have lunch with various Members from Durham, to discuss your regional interests.”

  “I’m going as the man from Stirrington, then?” This was Lenox’s constituency, which was quite near the cathedral city of Durham. It was the rather unorthodox way of the English system that a man standing for Parliament did not need to have any prior affiliation with or residency in the place he hoped to represent.

  “Precisely, sir.”

  “Who are the other fellows?”

  “The only one whose name you will know is Mr. Fripp, sir, who has made a great deal of noise on the other side of the aisle on behalf of the navy. Otherwise they are a range of backbenchers with primarily parochial interests. Here is a dossier.”

  Lenox took the sheet of paper. “What am I supposed to get out of this luncheon?”

  “Sir?”

  “Do I have any aim, or is it merely an amicable gathering?”

  “From what I gather from the other Members’ secretaries, it has in years past been primarily a friendly occasion, always held just now, before the new session begins.”

  “Pointless,” Lenox muttered. “What’s after that?”

  “You have several individual meetings with Members of the House of Lords, as you see on the dossier, and a meeting of the committee for the railway system.”

  Lenox sighed, moving to the window. He held the list of his day’s events at his side. “I’m glad it’s soon that the session begins. All of this feels unhelpful.”

  “The alliances and friendships you make now will serve you when you begin to ascend within the party, sir, or if there’s some piece of law you would like to see passed.”

  Half-smiling, the detective answered, “You’ve taken to this much more readily than I have, I think. Friends with Percy Field, planning for me to be Prime Minister. All I can think about is old cases. I read the papers in the morning a bit too eagerly, I find, searching out the crimes that have confounded Scotland Yard. It’s a melancholy feeling.”

  “It has been an abrupt transition.”

  Unusually close though they were, Lenox would never have given utterance to the thought that passed his mind then—that it had been an abrupt transition into marriage, too, and not always an easy one. Instead he said, “My hope is that when the ball is truly in play, when people are giving speeches and defending their words and acting, that then it will all fall into place for me.”

  “I dearly wish it, sir.”

  “There’s nothing worse than going to work with that slight feeling of dread, is there, Graham?”

  “If I may be so bold—”

  Lenox smiled. “You must be quite to the point, remember, quite rude!”

  “Very well. Then I would say that this feeling will pass, and soon you will remember that you came to Parliament not only for yourself but for others. You do, in fact, represent the people you met in Stirrington. Perhaps that knowledge will lift your spirits.”

  “You’re right.”

  There was a pause. “And, sir, one last meeting, which isn’t on the list.”

  “Oh?”

  “It may ease the pressure, sir. Mrs. Elizabeth Starling sent a note, asking if you would care to take dinner there.”

  Lenox grinned. “Did she? Please, write back and tell her I would.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ludo, standing in his drawing room, looked miserable as he greeted Dallington and Lenox that night. Collingwood had brought them in (they shared a swift, questioning glance as he turned to lead them down the front corridor) and announced them, all in a mood that was both scrupulously polite and somehow obliquely dismissive. Perhaps he didn’t think of a detective as a suitable dinner guest at the house, or perhaps he had something to hide and regretted their presence so nearby. And there was one last possibility: that he was still jarred by the violent death of someone with whom he had worked in close proximity, and so not quite himself.

  One thing was sure. It had been six days since the murder, and if they didn’t make a breakthrough soon the trail might well run cold.

  Starling, perhaps for that reason, looked alternately flushed and pale.

  “Oh, ah, Lenox,” he said. “Good of you to come, quite good of you. And Mr.—er, Mr. Dallington, I believe. How do you do? You both received my wife’s invitations?”

  “Call me John, please.”

  “John—certainly. Yes, Elizabeth thought the least we could do to thank you for your work was have you to supper. It will be a family affair, only the seven of us—my sons, whom of course you know, Lenox, and my great-uncle, Tiberius. I think you met him.”

  “Yes—it was he who told us that Frederick Clarke had been getting money slipped to him under the door of the servants’ quarters.”

  This agitated Ludo. Pleadingly, he said, “Oh, don’t let’s talk about Clarke. I can tell you it’s cast a tremendous pall over life here, and I think we would all be much more comfortable if we kept to other subjects.”
/>   “As you please, of course,” said Lenox. Dallington smiled slightly.

  “In fact, one of the reasons I asked you here was to request that you drop the case. I have full faith in Grayson Fowler, and believe—”

  They all turned as a woman’s voice came from the doorway behind them. “Having amateur detectives wandering around London and buying drinks for footmen can only serve to draw attention to this unfortunate circumstance. Hello again, Mr. Lenox.” She laughed to show she wasn’t too serious.

  “How do you do, Mrs. Starling. I hope you know John Dallington?”

  With a wide, warm smile, Elizabeth Starling said, “My pleasure. I’m sorry if I sound rude on the subject, gentlemen, but Inspector Fowler’s discretion is far in excess of what we expected, and we feel we can count on him entirely. Consider Ludo’s request withdrawn. It was importunate to begin with, I think.”

  She had a charm to her that softened Ludo’s impoliteness, and Lenox found himself nodding slightly.

  “Where are the boys, dear?” asked Ludo.

  “Do you take my position, Mr. Lenox?”

  “Yes, certainly.”

  “Wonderful. I think Ludo told you about the honor that may soon accrue to us. We mustn’t put a foot wrong.”

  “Did you like the lad?” asked Dallington, whose tone came very close to impertinence. His next words spilled over into it altogether. “Not to turn the subject away from the honor that may accrue to you.”

  “I did,” said Elizabeth, “and Ludo, to answer your question, I believe I hear their footsteps on the stair.”

  In the event, it was not the Starling boys but the old uncle, Tiberius. He was wearing a hunting jacket with holes in the elbows, trousers that would have been more appropriate on a pig farmer than a gentleman, and shoes that, being orange and black, looked frankly peculiar. His ivory-white hair stood straight up in a stiff prow. Upon entering the room he took a large handkerchief from his pocket and loudly blew his nose into it.

  “Uncle, I had Collingwood lay out your dinner jacket. Did you miss it?”

  “Damn thing doesn’t fit. How do you do, fellows?” he said to Lenox and Dallington. “Have you found out who killed our footman?”

  “Not yet,” said Dallington. His own dinner suit was quite fine—he was something of a dandy—but he was smiling widely at Tiberius. A kindred spirit. “I must say, I admire your shoes.”

  “Cheers for that. They get some strange looks, but they’re quite comfortable. Fellow in India made them for me. Black as midnight.” He belched loudly. “When’s dinner?”

  Elizabeth Starling, only temporarily nonplussed, said, “Please, sit—some wine, gentlemen?” Lenox nodded his assent to the proposal.

  Two young men came clattering into the room, as if they had been racing downstairs. One was quite fat and tall and the other quite short and thin, with a sparse, queasy mustache that looked as if it had needed careful tending and cultivation in order to exist at all.

  The fat, tall one came forward first. “How d’you do?” he said.

  “This is Alfred,” said Ludo. “My oldest son. Paul, come forward.” The mustache approached. “These are two friends of mine, Mr. Lenox and Mr. Dallington.”

  “Cor, not John Dallington, is it?” said Paul, who appeared to be the more enterprising of the two. The older boy looked around hungrily, mouth open, and then, his eyes failing to alight on anything edible, turned hopefully toward the dining room.

  “It is John Dallington, yes. Have we met?”

  “No, but I know your name. You’re a legend at the varsity. James Douglas-Titmore said you once drank five bottles of champagne in an hour.”

  “Well—perhaps. Wouldn’t be to dwell on my accomplishments.”

  Elizabeth Starling looked anxious. “Paul, I certainly hope that you would never undertake something so frivolous and dangerous.”

  “I wouldn’t,” volunteered Alfred, his vowels heavy and jowly. “Shall we eat soon, Mother, do you know?”

  Paul looked at his brother scornfully. “’Course you wouldn’t.”

  Tiberius belched.

  “Oh, dear,” said Ludo, pinkening.

  Collingwood came in and rang a small bell. “Supper is served,” he said.

  “Lovely,” Alfred said and pushed toward the front of the line to get to the dining room.

  “What’d he say?” shouted Tiberius, as half-deaf men will.

  “Dinner is served,” said Elizabeth.

  “Good for him!” answered Tiberius with a cheerful smile.

  “No, dinner is served, Uncle!”

  “Always said he would come to good. Excellent lad. Dinner being served shortly, I expect? No, Elizabeth, it’s all right, you can’t be expected to remember everything.”

  As they sat to eat, Lenox observed a fresh face among the servants ranged at the side of the room. Clarke had already been replaced, then. Collingwood began spooning soup from a large silver tureen into bowls on the sideboard, which the new footman began to distribute. Very distinctly Lenox heard Alfred’s stomach grumble; they were sitting side by side.

  “How do you find Cambridge?” asked the older man.

  “S’all right.”

  “You’re at Downing, I hear? It’s a lovely college.”

  “S’all right.”

  “The soup looks nice.”

  “Oh, it’s lovely soup here,” said Alfred fervently, at last giving his dinner companion the benefit of his full attention. “They use real cream. At Cambridge the soup is too thin, if you ask me.”

  “What do you study?”

  “Classics.”

  “Oh?”

  “Father wanted me to.”

  Ludo said grace, and they began to eat. Lenox assayed a few more conversational gambits with Alfred but gave them up when they failed to earn a response. He turned to Ludo, on his left.

  “Did you study history, too?”

  “Look, Lenox,” said Ludo in a low voice, “I apologize for my speech, before. It’s a difficult time in the house, as you can imagine. Between this lad dying, Paul going up to university for the first time, and the prospect of this title…well, a difficult time, as I say.”

  “It’s quite all right.”

  “Will you leave the case to Fowler?”

  “You truly fear my indiscretion?”

  “No! Not that at all, you must believe me. It’s simply that the more people are involved, the more attention the situation will receive. I want the murderer found, but I want it done quietly.”

  “Isn’t that why you came to me at first?”

  Ludo again looked stirred, as if Lenox were misunderstanding him out of sheer obstinacy. “As I told you, Fowler has proved quite a good sort! Listen, will you leave it off, as a favor to me?”

  “Paul!” Elizabeth Starling, breaking off her conversation with Dallington, called down the table to her younger son, concern etched in her face. “Is that a flask of liquor I just saw you sip?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “Goodness!”

  “Not at all the thing,” said Alfred, his glabrous pink face screwed up in judgment. “You mustn’t get a reputation at Downing, Paul.”

  “What do you know, anyway? Douglas-Titmore said you haven’t any friends, and you hadn’t any at Shrewsbury either.”

  The detective’s heart went out to Alfred, whose face crumpled up as if he were going to cry. “I don’t think I had a single friend my first term at Oxford,” Lenox said. “That was years ago, but I expect it’s the same way now.”

  “It only starts in the second term,” agreed Dallington.

  “Is that true?” asked Paul, who apparently looked upon the word of a man who could drink five bottles of champagne in an hour as gospel.

  “Oh, very true.”

  “Hand over the flask,” said Elizabeth Starling.

  Tiberius belched. “Tiberius Jr! Tibby!” he called out in a high-pitched voice.

  “Not the cat, Uncle,” said Ludo despairingly.

  In
the cab back through Mayfair, after supper had reached its merciful conclusion, Lenox and Dallington laughed together over the night’s events.

  “That family is a mess,” said the younger man.

  “I don’t envy them that great-uncle of Ludo’s, rich as he may be.”

  “Amusing old git, if you have the right sense of humor. Anyway, do you plan to heed their request?”

  “That I leave the case alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “No, I don’t. Of course not. In fact I think we should go visit the dead boy’s mother in the morning.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Hammersmith was a genteel, factory-scattered borough of London, some five miles west of Mayfair and situated on a turn in the Thames. As Dallington and Lenox rode out early the next morning, they continued their discussion of the evening at the Starlings’.

  “Did you have a chance to spy on Collingwood?” asked Lenox.

  “Unfortunately I was occupied with Paul, the younger son. He asked me a thousand different questions about pubs at Cambridge. I’d be surprised if his innards survive a month of King Street, with all the drinking he seems to have planned.”

  Reminded by the word “drinking” that he had tea, Lenox took out his silver flask (a present from McConnell—its cloth case was in his family’s tartan) and took a long sip. “I wonder whether Collingwood is capable of violence. It seems so unlikely that he would kill Frederick Clarke over a few coins—a pound at the outside.”

  “Who knows how important his position might be to him, or indeed whether there was something else between the two of them besides the money Collingwood stole. I’m going to see Ginger, Clarke’s friend, after we finish here. Perhaps he’ll know something more by now.”

  They had pulled up to a low-slung sandstone building, which advertised itself on a small placard as the Tilton Hotel. This was where Mrs. Clarke had chosen to stay during her trip to London for the funeral. The entrance hall had a sort of shabby grandeur, with very nice furniture that was all worn at the edges, a floor of beautiful tiles that had gotten dingy, and attendants in fraying uniforms. Lenox registered the place in his head as a piece of evidence; it wasn’t the sort of place one stayed if one had tailored suits, as Frederick Clarke had.