The Vanishing Man

by Charles Finch

  “I cannot say.”

  “Are you not disturbed by her account of the night?”

  Lenox looked at Graham wryly. “I am, as it happens. But what is the second piece of news?”

  “Ah, yes, sir.” He handed over two pages of handwritten notes. “In reference to Captain Tankin Irvington.”

  “Oh, thank you! That is useful. I have not told you why I asked.”

  Lenox explained this situation briefly to Graham, too, and the telegram he had received from Edinburgh earlier. Then he turned to the investigation Graham had done for him.

  Irvington had been the only child of a prosperous seagoing family. He had cousins but no close relations. He had also had a wife: Mrs. Eliza Irvington. No issue. She had removed herself upon news of his death from the naval city of Portsmouth to Hampstead, in London.

  “Was there an address for her?”

  “Not in the naval archives, sir. Only a mention of Hampstead.”

  “No brothers, no sisters, no children, no living parents or grandparents, a cousin who is a lieutenant on a ship that is probably in the China Sea as we speak,” muttered Lenox, more to himself than Graham. “His body was never even found.”

  The simplest identity to wipe off the face of the earth. Was it in fact Belmont’s true one?

  He and Graham walked home through the breezy summer evening, discussing both cases. What remained of Dorset’s, of course, was the play. Lenox and Graham agreed that they would research the churchyards that evening—all those matching the geographical restrictions of the poem and dating back to at least the year 1600.

  He would call on Dorset House the next morning, he thought, though he had no idea at all of the reception he would receive there.

  At home they found Lancelot and Lady Jane playing checkers in the drawing room. “Look at this poor fellow!” said Lady Jane, rising and giving Lenox her hand to clasp. “Set upon by ruffians—and now losing very humiliatingly at checkers.”

  “I am not!” said Lancelot hotly.

  “I count that nine games in a row this time.”

  “Have you ever won yet?” asked Lenox.

  It was the wrong question—and even a hardened criminal of a twelve-year-old was still, after all, twelve. His eyes grew large and his face started to tremble.

  “Oh, Charles! Shame!” said Lady Jane. “You’re doing wonderfully, Lancelot. You almost won two games ago. And after the day you’ve had. Do you need more sherbet?”

  “Yes, please,” he said pitifully.

  She went to the door to poke her head out for Mrs. Huggins. As soon as she was out of sight, Lancelot instantly reshaped his face into a sort of diabolical grin, and Lenox realized that he had been fooled once more.

  He called to Jane to cancel the sherbet. “He’s pretending!” Lenox said.

  “Do be quiet, Charles,” she said distractedly.

  “Do,” said Lancelot in a quiet voice, nodding solemnly at him.

  “I’ll get you for this,” said Lenox.

  “Get him for what?” said Lady Jane, who had come back into the room. “Leave him alone. Decimus Spate, that barrel of lard—I have half a mind to go and speak to his mother.”

  “You are only four years older than he!” said Lenox.

  “I am a married and respectable person,” said Lady Jane.

  “That’s true,” said Lancelot.

  “Shut up,” said Lenox.

  “Charles! You’ll teach him the most ill-mannered kinds of—what would Eustacia say?”

  Lady Jane waited until Lancelot’s sherbet arrived. Then she asked Lenox if they might have a word in his study—she would return to finish their game, she promised Lancelot. She and Lenox crossed the hall. He had a few telegrams and numerous letters on his desk, but none of them were of immediate interest; none related to either Dorset or Belmont.

  “Is everything all right?” Lenox asked her.

  “I have led you up a garden path,” said Jane, full of regret. “It is not Violet’s fault at all, nor yours, obviously, but mine. She is engaged to be married. It’s a secret.”

  “Oh! I see.”

  “Are you terribly disappointed?”

  Lenox let a chivalrous amount of time pass. “Perhaps a bit. But it will be a quick recovery. We were not so very close.”

  She grabbed his hand, so firmly that it almost hurt. “I will find you someone.”

  He laughed. “Unfortunately I have very little doubt of it, knowing you.”

  “I promise.”

  “Is your aunt Moggs through her twelve and one?”

  This was a recently widowed relative of Jane’s, aged about seventy, and among the most unpleasant people alive; her primary pastime was sitting at the window of her cottage in Hampshire with a shotgun and firing it into the air when anyone came close, up to and including her ill-starred postman. (Lenox’s question was whether her husband—whose grave must have felt a merciful place—had been dead for the twelve months and one day that a widow was required to dress in full mourning.)

  “Oh, be quiet,” said Lady Jane. “No, I have in mind—don’t dismiss it out of hand—Miss Auburn, who will come out in the fall. She is young, but she is so lovely, Charles! And so accomplished, mature beyond her years.”

  It was no use at all to tell her that it was no use. In fact he had not even quite formed that knowledge into something he actively knew. It merely lived somewhere within him, forgotten. So he consented to hear more about Miss Auburn and her accomplishments, and eventually they recrossed the hall in full and fluid conversation.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  The Duke of Dorset was ensconced once more in his private private study. What could be more appropriate? The front hall of Dorset House was as busy as a village square on Saturday night, everyone either leaving a card (the Prime Minister’s stood at the top of the gleaming sterling rack) or, in the case of a few select friends, the Earl of Cadogan for instance, accepting an escort into the library, where they could smoke and read the ironed papers while they waited to see His Grace.

  Ward greeted Lenox. “He asked that you be seen straight up.”

  “This is quite a palaver,” Lenox said, as they walked up the stairs, leaving numerous people behind them.

  “Yes.” He leaned confidentially close. “He has gotten me a place as the Prime Minister’s second secretary. As thanks for sticking with him, he said.”

  “That’s a coup for you, Theo,” said Lenox. “Congratulations.”

  He had leapfrogged several intervals on his way to a seat in Parliament. Lenox was glad on his behalf. “Kind of him, yes,” said Ward with satisfaction.

  The duke’s door was open, and Lenox caught a glimpse of him before he knew they were there. He was bent over his desk, reading intently.

  Dorset looked up at their entry. “Ah, hello. Thank you, Ward. Please give us a few minutes.”

  “Of course, Your Grace.”

  Lenox sat down after the duke had gestured at a chair. There were now once again eight paintings on the wall behind him. Lenox had sent the missing one back that morning.

  “All resolved, then, Your Grace,” he said to Dorset. “Mostly.”

  The duke’s handsome, middle-aged face again bore a distinctive superiority. Lenox bridled against it; he disliked the whole thing.

  The duke did not respond for quite a while. When he did, it was to say, “You are now aware of several very closely guarded facts about my family.”

  “You ought to have hired a worse detective if you didn’t wish it so.”

  “You are the only one I know of.”

  “I could find you a worse.”

  “Ha.”

  The duke was in no mood for banter. He fell silent, but his imperious stare had lost some of its power over Lenox. “May I ask where Lady Violet is?” Lenox asked.

  “You took advantage of my son’s open nature yesterday, Mr. Lenox.”

  “I thought for all our sakes that it was best I learn the full details of the matter, Your Grace. I
still do not feel sure that I have them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Lenox shrugged. “There is a great deal of talk in all these accounts, Your Grace, of a scuffle with Mr. Craig. There is also the presence of a pistol, something I find more surprising still. Need I elaborate?”

  “Perhaps you had better.”

  He didn’t want to. So he asked again where Lady Violet was, and Mr. Walters. “I wonder if perhaps they are bound for some foreign shore together.”

  “In asking that question you go beyond your brief, Mr. Lenox.”

  “Well?” said Lenox.

  He was in a hard-hearted mood, and he met the duke’s stare with cold eyes.

  What he suspected was this: that Craig had not been in league with Corfe and Violet at all, but that his loyalty had remained to the duke all along; and that he had died for it. How? Only those who had been in the room knew. Perhaps there had been a set-to. Perhaps Violet had shot him in cold blood when he tried to stop her from taking the painting, and she and Corfe had agreed to claim that Craig was part of it all along. Perhaps the truth lay somewhere between these possibilities.

  But Lenox knew in his bones that something closer to murder than manslaughter had occurred, and he also knew that nobody would be punished for it.

  “My daughter is traveling to the Continent.”

  “To be married?” Lenox asked.

  “Stop pushing me.”

  “Or what?” said Lenox angrily. “Where is your loyalty to Craig, I ask you? If someone shot my valet—my friend—Graham, I would damn well push to find out who had done it.”

  “You are not a father.”

  “Nor am I a liar.”

  The duke stood up. “What did you say?”

  “You heard me.”

  Lenox remained seated, and they stayed in that position, staring at each other. The duke had, on his side, the immutable social laws of their society. On his, Lenox had the truth—the truth about Lady Violet, about Shakespeare. Even about Corfe, who was dim but sharp enough to lie for his sister about Craig’s involvement.

  The duke at last tore his gaze away from Lenox and said, “Give yourself thirty years. Have a daughter whom no amount of money can persuade someone of her birth to marry—who is a daily shame to her mother—to both their discredit—watch her fall in love with a gamekeeper, a young woman with Plantagenet blood in her veins, with a gamekeeper!—and learn, after all of that, that she is the person who has been attempting to steal your most precious possession. Then see how you react, Charles Lenox.”

  “A fine speech. Craig is dead.”

  “Craig would have died for me.”

  “Presumably he would have preferred the chance to volunteer for that task rather than be volunteered for it,” said Lenox. “Would you have died for him, I wonder?”

  “Stay here for a moment,” said the duke, and in three long strides he had left the room.

  He was absent for some time. It gave Lenox a chance to examine the river through the window—it was a bright day, lovely and soft—and to contemplate the string of stupidities that had led to all this.

  First was Lady Violet’s attempt on the painting. (And of course, it occurred to him, if Craig had really been in league with her, she could have had all the time she wanted in the duke’s study without stealing it. That ought to have told him from the start that Craig wasn’t involved.)

  Then came Dorset’s idiotic attempt at kidnapping. The tragic attempt to steal the second painting—whoever had been in the room. Corfe’s defense and alliance with his sister, though that was hardly surprising, if, as it seemed, reading between the lines, neither of them had had a very kind mother.

  And finally, the system clicking irreproachably into motion to exculpate the duke and Lady Violet.

  It galled Lenox that Lady Violet should get what she wanted—money, marriage—even though the week before he would have called the duke cruel in the extreme for denying it to her.

  At last Dorset returned. He was clutching a white piece of paper. “Here,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “The codicils to my will, last updated in January.”

  “And?”

  “You will see on the second page that upon either my death or his retirement, Craig was to receive ten thousand pounds and an extension of the lands already given him, and that his nephews’ schooling was to be paid for, age eight through university. That, naturally, will still be the case. They will be set on the path toward becoming gentlemen.”

  “I see.”

  “This is how I behave to one who has earned my loyalty.”

  High talk, high talk. Lenox leafed through the pages, and what the duke said was true. “Generous,” Lenox replied, indifferently.

  “I am as unhappy as you imagine me to be relieved, Mr. Lenox. Perhaps that will give you some peace. Craig was my brother and my confidant. I hoped that we would both live out our old age in Dorset Castle. My daughter has robbed me of half of all I ever loved. Including herself.”

  In bitter retaliation against his own autocratic ways, however, Lenox thought. Wasn’t this what Shakespeare’s readers called by the name of tragedy? A man destroyed by his own qualities.

  He looked at the painting of the writer—the sly, amused, sorrowful eyes.

  “I am sorry about that,” said Lenox, handing the pages back.

  He wished he had never taken the case. “Thank you, I suppose,” said Dorset.

  “And your daughter? Where has she gone?”

  “Corfe will accompany her to Biarritz. From there she will make her way in the world as she sees fit. I have settled a sum on her, if you want to know the crude details of the matter.”

  “I always do, I am afraid.”

  Dorset looked at him with a flash of revulsion, and Lenox realized how different their codes were—to the duke, Lenox had sullied himself; to Lenox, the duke.

  “She is independent now. She is welcome to return here as a single woman. As Mrs. Walters I will not receive her.”

  “The blacksmith in Markethouse disapproved of his daughter’s marriage, when I was a child. On his deathbed she was the only person he wanted to see. But she could not be fetched back in time before he died.”

  “A fascinating anecdote,” the duke said.

  Lenox shrugged. “Your pleasure, Your Grace.”

  His Grace sat down, looking Lenox in the eye yet again, wearily, warily. “I suppose the question now is whether we shall try to find this play.”

  “I see no reason why we should not,” said Lenox, though he felt equally tired. “When would it be convenient for you to go to Kent?”

  “I can leave tomorrow morning.”

  Lenox stood up. “So be it. Good day, Duke.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  When he left Dorset House, Lenox saw a young man in a summer suit lounging by the front steps, a foot propped back against the railing. One of Corfe’s friends, from the look of him. Lenox touched his hat and went on his way, mind back on Captain Irvington, lost at sea.

  “Sir,” the fellow said when Lenox had gone about ten paces.

  He turned back and, after a moment of what felt like an intense dislodgement from his own senses, realized that it was Bonden, of all people. “Bonden!” he said.

  “How do you do?”

  “Fairly well. You—you surprised me.”

  Bonden fell into step with him. They continued in the direction Lenox had been going. “I read this morning that your duke had returned. I wanted to see if his painting had followed him.”

  “It did.”

  “Yes, I saw. The matter is concluded, then?”

  “It is.”

  “To your satisfaction?”

  That was a more difficult question. “I don’t know that I would say that.”

  “Mm.”

  Bonden raised his cigar again, and Lenox thought that perhaps it was this prop that allowed his astonishing concealment (for the younger man had looked the older straight in the
face when he touched his hat, and Lenox would have sworn him to be no more than thirty or so). That, and the suit of clothes, and a fresh-shaven cheek.

  “You spent all morning here, then?” Lenox asked.

  “I often find that it pays to be careless with my time. In this instance I was curious.” They turned into the park (Lenox, at least, was walking automatically toward his home), and Bonden went on. “I observe that it was the butler who died. Not the duke, or one of the duke’s children.”

  “Yes.”

  “They used to sing a shanty at sea. There was always some tuneful soul who passed the third watch in song, quiet, you know, since it was after midnight, but keeping those on watch awake.” Bonden tossed his cigar into the cobblestones of the street, then sang, in a quiet and surprisingly mellifluous voice, “Same the world over, ain’t it a shame—the rich what gets the pleasure, the poor what gets the blame … That’s the part I remember, anyway.”

  So, then, Bonden had sniffed out what Lenox had taken until today to piece together: that Craig’s death had not been accidental.

  “True too often, I fear,” said Lenox.

  “I wonder if you would give me an hour of your time? Not more.”

  They were on one of the pathways in Green Park, and before answering Lenox nodded to a gentleman he knew, Sir Thomas Clapton, and wished him a good day. Clapton was walking toward Parliament, where he was greatly concerned with foreign affairs, cane under his arm. The year before he had written a long report on currency reform that nobody had read, and with whose ideas nearly every reasonable person in England vehemently disagreed; naturally he was knighted in the next honors list, and now considered in all the papers as a wide-ranging authority.

  Passing Clapton suddenly made Lenox rue every one of his decisions. Each single one. Clapton was only six years his elder! He was not very remarkably smart, not even amiable. He would be in the next cabinet.

  Meanwhile, Lenox was bound for God knew where with an old sailor who wouldn’t tell him anything straight, and the career he had chosen as a detective had already cut off, permanently, his path to Parliament, the other vague dream of his youth.