A Beautiful Blue Death clm-1

by Charles Finch

  Barnard ran this operation with great care. For instance, it had once been very common to see nicked coins, with little pieces cut out of the sides, not enough to render them worthless, but enough that if the nicks were in a pile they were worth something. Barnard was the first director of the mint to recall nicked coins and melt them back down into gold ingots. This was the sort of care he took.

  “Impossible,” Lenox said.

  “I’m afraid it’s true,” said Edmund.

  “That changes things a bit.”

  Edmund laughed. “A pile of gold is slightly more important than Mrs. Shattuck’s serving fork.”

  Lenox couldn’t help but laugh, too. “But why?” he said.

  “The mint was no longer secure. There had been attacks.”

  “Who attacked it?”

  “We don’t know. There’s an ongoing investigation. A very threadbare rumor says the Hammer Gang, who run by the docks and control a good deal of the prostitution and robbery over there along Canary Wharf, but that may be false. Probably is.”

  “But then why not a bank? Or the Parliament?”

  “Neither is safe. Neither has half the precautions of the mint, and they’re both too public.”

  “But Barnard’s house?”

  “The attacks on the mint were persistent and very careful. Whoever did them would get past several guards, giving them a sleeping pill or too much gin or a blow to the head, and then retreat when it became too dangerous. But they had penetrated farther and farther at each attack, and by the end they were close to the gold, no matter how many guards we put out.”

  “I see,” said Lenox.

  “Yes. We had to throw them far off the trail. Barnard also had a perfect room for it—difficult to get to, with only one access point, easily guarded. He is the director of the mint, Charles, and it is a closely guarded secret.”

  “That’s true.”

  “And Barnard cares too much for his position, and his reputation, to let anyone near the gold. He has men around it all the time who don’t even know what they’re guarding. He probably told them they were looking after a rare orchid.”

  “True too, I suppose.”

  “Perhaps that’s why he wanted the murder to be a suicide so much,” said Edmund. “Scared of an attempt on the gold.”

  “You may be right.”

  “At any rate, the gold will be there for the next two weeks, nearly two million pounds. Anyone who stole it would immediately become one of the richest people in the British Empire.”

  “Where in the house?”

  “In a secret room beneath his greenhouse.”

  Lenox whistled again, more loudly this time.

  “Well,” he said. “This is an entirely new case.”

  “It is, I think,” said Edmund. “But I hope you appreciate the utter secrecy which I must ask of you. For the next two weeks, that means the cost may rise as high as delaying the murderer’s arrest.”

  “I know,” said Lenox. “But you were right to tell me.”

  “You understand, needless to say, that the board of trade is having difficulties, and that our economy must hum along with regularity for the next year, for Lord Russell’s government to accomplish anything whatsoever.”

  “I understand. Though I am unused to hearing you speak so strongly about the government.”

  “We were both raised to serve, Charles.”

  They looked at each other.

  “Well,” said Lenox, “shall we have the trifle for dessert.”

  Chapter 10

  Edmund’s revelation about the mint’s gold had rendered the source of the bella indigo no less important, and as soon as he left Parliament Lenox took a cab to Jensen’s. It had begun to snow again, and Lenox looked forward to five o’clock, when he could have his tea. It was more the pleasure of the ceremony and the comfort of his fireside that he looked forward to, for of course he was still full from lunch.

  Jensen’s was not the chemist whose name Thomas McConnell had given him—the sole apothecary in the city of London who sold bella indigo, to his knowledge—but Willie Jensen was a man Lenox knew and trusted and one with whom he had consulted before. His apothecary was on a corner somewhat close to Hampden Lane, in Brook Street, and Lenox often passed it when, as was his custom, he took long walks after supper. The shop had a bright lantern hanging in front of it above a large chalkboard advertising its goods.

  He arrived at a little past two and pushed open Jensen’s door. The space inside was small but tidy and smelled of cinnamon and soap. There were rows of creams, hairbrushes, and powders on plain wooden shelves along the walls, and rows of small, apparently unmarked bottles behind the counter. Jensen himself was an old man, who smoked without cease throughout the day and spoke in a thick brogue. He had tufts of white hair in his ears, none on his head, and white whiskers on his cheeks.

  A customer was already at the counter. He appeared to be a footman, and he was, Lenox overheard, seeking a respite from the gout for his employer, one Lord Robinson of Bruton Street. Jensen told the footman that his master would need to see a doctor—to which the servant responded with a horrified shake of his head, betraying, no doubt, Lord Robinson’s own prejudice—and gave him a small bottle of medicine.

  “Twice a day,” he said, “and tell Lord Robinson to eat lightly.”

  This suggestion met with a reaction even more violent than the one to seek out a doctor, and by the time the footman hurried through the door, Lenox had begun to picture this lord as grotesquely fat and singularly averse to medical treatment and fewer than seven courses for dinner. Too fat to attend the House of Lords, or his name would have been familiar.

  “Mr. Jensen,” he said, approaching the counter, “I fear I shall be no easier a customer than that young man.”

  “What ails you, Mr. Lenox, sir?” said Jensen, in a strong Irish accent.

  “Something called bella indigo, I’m afraid.”

  “Wait a moment, sir, while I get my spectacles.” The old man reached beneath the counter for his glasses and put them on. “Ah,” he said, squinting through them.

  “What demands such close inspection?” asked Lenox.

  “You’re the first ghost I’ve gazed upon, sir.”

  Both men laughed, the detective with his head thrown back and the chemist in a thick, rasping voice.

  “Mr. Jensen,” said Lenox, still laughing, “I believe that’s the first joke I’ve ever heard you tell.”

  “I was savin’ her up, sir.”

  “It was worth the wait.”

  Lenox chuckled again, and Jensen lit a short cigarette, which fit snugly in his hand.

  “Now, sir, how’ve you come across a thing as nasty as bella indigo, if I might ask?”

  “In a case for Lady Jane Grey.”

  “Must be ugly business, Mr. Lenox.”

  “Uglier by the moment, Mr. Jensen.”

  “Tell me how I can help you, sir.”

  Lenox pulled McConnell’s piece of paper from his pocket. “Have you heard of a man named Jeremiah Jones? Another chemist?” he asked.

  “How did you get that name?”

  “My friend Thomas, the doctor you once met.”

  “Ah, Mr. McConnell. Knows a far sight more than many of the trade about their work. Yes, he would know of Jerry Jones.”

  “Is this Jones a man to deal with?”

  “He is,” Jensen said. “A peculiar man, Mr. Lenox, but honest.”

  “And not likely to bridle if I ask him whether he has sold a vial of poison recently and to whom?”

  “He might be, sir, he might be. Wait a moment, though.”

  Jensen turned around and wrote something on a piece of paper. Then he folded it twice and handed it to Lenox.

  “Give him this note and two pounds, Mr. Lenox, and be careful you don’t read the note.”

  “As you say, Mr. Jensen. Thank you, as always.”

  “A pleasure, sir.”

  “One of these days I’ll buy something, perha
ps.”

  “Well, sir, I’ve seen a ghost now, so my days of nonbelieving are over. But anything for Lady Grey.”

  Both men laughed again, and Lenox waved goodbye as he went out the door. He came back into the store a moment later.

  “It may be today after all,” he said, reaching into his pocket. He found the small brown-stoppered bottle of poison from Prue Smith’s desk and set it before Jensen. “Any chance of tracing this to its owner?”

  Jensen picked it up and looked carefully at the crest on the stopper, where a row of numbers were printed into the glass. “I could try,” he said. “Arsenic, is it?” “I think so. How did you know?” “Common, this sort of bottle. Let me keep it.” The old man put it into his pocket, and Lenox said goodbye again and went outside to a waiting cab, having foolishly elected to send his carriage home after the morning errands. He gave the cabbie the address McConnell had written for him and settled back in his seat.

  “Are you sure?” the driver asked. “Penny Farthing Place, sir?” Lenox looked at the paper. “That’s right,” he said, so the man shrugged and lifted the reins.

  They rode through Grosvenor Square and through the streets inhabited by those of Lenox’s friends who lived in large, freshly painted houses, with activity within and without; then, gradually, there was a subtle change and they were riding through streets slightly less well-founded, where perhaps the paint was a few years older; then, after those, through streets Lenox had never seen; and, at last, into the fringe of the Seven Dials.

  When people thought of London, they generally thought of the West End as aristocratic and East London as poor, and while this was generally true, the poorest part of London, the Dials, was in the West End, just a ten- or fifteen-minute drive from Lenox’s house.

  The neighborhood had gotten its name from a meeting of its seven largest avenues; it was the sort of place where the streets were so narrow that the sky looked dark, and the cobblestones were cracked and broken. There were dozens of pubs, called the Queen’s Arms or the Prince and Peasant, all badly lit, with pints of penny gin. Dogs ran in the streets, and scavengers traveled along the sewers, some of them children, looking for the glint of a spare coin, a pack of cigarettes, even a length of rope, anything to sell. Nobody had enough room to live.

  But the Dials wasn’t the worst part of London in Lenox’s opinion; that was the Rookery, by Bainbridge Street in East London. The vices here were drink and cruelty. The vices there were theft and prostitution. The Rookery was the home of the Hammer Gang, which Edmund had told him might have been involved in the attempts on the mint.

  The cab stopped in front of a tiny brick house with broken windows and no shingle declaring its business.

  “Will you wait?” Lenox asked.

  “Not likely, sir.”

  “This ride has cost a shilling, correct? Here’s a shilling. And now here’s another,” he said, pulling it from his pocket and showing it. “It’s yours if you wait for ten minutes. After ten minutes, you may leave.”

  The man looked at him warily and said, “Fine.”

  Lenox nodded and slid into the street. He looked at his pocket watch, said, “Ten minutes, beginning now!” and knocked on the door.

  Jeremiah Jones spent forty-five of Lenox’s precious seconds coming to the door, and another fifteen asking him what his business was. He was a thin stooped man, with wild white hair sticking up, an uneven collar, and spectacles on the tip of his nose. When the detective handed over the piece of paper and the money, the man looked at the paper, smiled thinly, pocketed the money, and walked inside, leaving the door open, which was, Lenox presumed, an invitation to go in.

  The room he entered was perhaps six feet high, so low that both men had to stoop. There was one table in the middle of it, and one chair. On the back wall was a door, which must have led to the living quarters and the storeroom. The potions were nowhere to be seen, but there was a large ledger on the table and a gilt silver pen on top of it. Other than the table, the chair, the book, the pen, and a small kerosene lamp, the room had only one distinguishing feature: an enormous boy of fifteen, strong, fat, and tall, who appeared to be eating an entire black sausage—or at least he had eaten half a foot of it and looked by no means ready to slow down. He was sitting on a stool.

  “Yes?” said Jeremiah Jones.

  “I need to know about bella indigo.”

  Jones took a snuffbox from his pocket, pinched a large amount of snuff, and stared at it, rolling it reverently between his fingers. Lenox felt his ten minutes melting away. But at last the chemist placed the snuff in his nostril and snorted it in. Then, mystify-ingly to Lenox, who still had one eye on the boy and his food, Jones simply left the room through the door in the back wall.

  Lenox counted to sixty before he asked the boy, as politely as he knew how to, where the man had gone. The boy looked up slowly and said, “He gone through that door.”

  This could have been more helpful. “What’s in there?” Lenox asked.

  “D’you ’ave summing to eat?”

  In the best society such an abrupt change of subject was unusual, but Lenox searched in his pocket and produced a piece of candy. The boy looked at it the way a lion might look at a bony old antelope, half hungry and half disappointed, as if he had been hoping that Lenox might produce a twelve-pound roasted chicken.

  “Another room,” he said, reaching for the candy. “That’s what’s in there.”

  Lenox gave up, and the two resumed their rather gloomy silence. After another half minute, though, Jones came out again, carrying a small turquoise bottle.

  “Fifty pounds,” he said. “But it’s nearly eleven months old.”

  “Why does that matter?”

  Jones looked up. “Because bella indigo only lasts for a year after it’s brewed.”

  “Where do you get more?”

  “Oxford.”

  “The university?”

  “The only place in England that grows it. Or in Europe, for that matter. It’s a famous poison, in my trade, from Asia, but only Oxford dares to grow it.”

  “And sells it?”

  “Oh, no—never. They wouldn’t sell it. Very closely restricted.”

  “Then how did you get it?” Lenox asked.

  “Well, not never. See now, would you like to buy it?”

  “Can you tell me when the last bottle of bella indigo was bought and by whom?”

  “Do you have two more pounds?”

  Lenox handed over the money, and Jones pulled open his book, which seemed to be cross-referenced, in a remarkably Byzantine way, by the potion’s source.

  “Four years ago,” Jones said.

  “So the bottle you sold would no longer be effective?”

  “No.”

  “And you’re the only person in London, or in England, who sells it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Except for the person who gives it to you from Oxford?”

  Jones slammed the book shut and carefully capped the pen and placed it back on top of the ledger. “Good day, sir,” he said.

  Lenox stepped forward. “Please, one more question. Here’s another pound.”

  He handed Jones the money.

  “One more.”

  “Why do they make it? At Oxford or anywhere?”

  “Why do they make any poison, sir?”

  “No other reason?”

  “Well,” Jones said, “it has one other use.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The chemistry dons sometimes mulch their flower beds with it,” he said. “It’s particularly good for roses and orchids.” And then he walked through the door again, without so much as looking back.

  Lenox said thank you as quickly as he could and ran outside to catch the cab before it left. When he stepped onto the curb, though, he saw that it was several blocks away already and looked ready to turn. A shilling didn’t buy what it had when he was a boy.

  “No!” he said, and waved his arm, and in his haste stepped into the road. Bu
t he was unaccustomed to the broken cobblestones of the neighborhood, and his foot plunged halfway up his calf into an icy pool of water beside the gutter.

  Lenox swore only rarely, but he did so now. The chill ran through him, and as he began to walk the wind battered his leg. But he made haste, and soon he was out of the Dials; perhaps there would be a cab, and then, he thought hopefully, it would be no time until he was in his library, sitting by the fire and eating something good.

  Chapter 11

  The man who walked up the stoop of 11 Hampden Lane that afternoon, just before four o’clock, was not, his friends would agree, Charles Lenox at his best. He had been forced to walk the better part of the way home, and a fringe of snow covered his coat, the brim of his hat, and his scarf. One of his feet, he was convinced, would fall off soon, and the other one, though near-perfect by comparison, felt as if it was stepping barefoot on the street as he walked.

  Add to that his perplexity about Prudence Smith’s murder, his eagerness to solve the case for his dear friend, and the fact that he was worn out and hungry from his walk, and one might begin to understand his circumstances.

  But when an upper maid opened the front door to him, he said hello as cheerfully as though he had been out for a lazy walk in late spring. She took his coat, his hat, and his scarf and asked if she ought to bring tea to the library, to which he assented. Only when he had walked through the hallway, turned right, and shut the doors of his sanctuary behind him did he sigh and wince and gingerly remove his mutinous boots.

  Things soon began to improve. The fire was warm, and he had changed into a spare set of hunting clothes—a houndstooth suit—that he kept in a drawer in the back of the room. And when the tea came, he felt warm enough, and cozy in his high-backed chair, watching the snow fall outside, with a paper in his hand that he might choose to read or not, as the mood took him, and a happy heaviness in his eyes, as of contentment.

  He asked the girl for his slippers, and she fetched them, and in the space of fifteen minutes, happiness had returned to his face, and before he had even had a chance to read the headlines the newspaper had fallen from his hands and he had dozed off pleasantly into sleep.