A Beautiful Blue Death clm-1

by Charles Finch

“He was unlikely to come into contact with Miss Smith at great length, sir, and when at home almost never ventured from his room except for meals.”

  “But he was in the drawing room after lunch yesterday? December twelfth?”

  “Yes, sir. He was painting a picture and conversing with Mr. Barnard’s newest guest, Jack Soames.”

  “Soames?”

  “Yes, sir, he arrived three days ago. As you know, I’m sure, he is a member of the House of Commons. He had come to stay with Barnard while the two men discussed issues of the mint, I believe, and also because they are close friends in the circles in which they move.”

  “Anything peculiar? I know him, more or less.”

  “One thing, sir. This may or may not be related to the case, but Mr. Soames, according to the latest reports, is in dire financial straits.”

  “Soames! But he’s a bachelor with a fair property, I believe. The House doesn’t pay him, of course, but his constituency must.”

  “I fear not, sir. And I hear his property is mortgaged.”

  Lenox frowned. He had known Jack Soames for two decades, perhaps longer: a large fair-haired man and former athlete who was well-liked, if not entirely respected, by his acquaintances.

  “There was also,” Graham said, “one more political figure in the house, sir.”

  “Who is it? Disraeli, I suppose you’ll say, and he owes his tailor two shillings.”

  “No, sir, Newton Duff.”

  Lenox frowned again. “Duff? Really? Seems so unlikely.”

  “He has been there a week. As you know, sir, he is not well-liked, even by members of his own party, but he has been, from what I understand, an effective politician—”

  “An understatement. He carried the India bill by sheer will.”

  “He may have some political business with Mr. Barnard, sir.”

  “He may. Is he meant to stay until the ball?”

  “Yes, sir. Although he has his own lodgings, too, from what I understand.”

  “I see.”

  Newton Duff was, like Soames, a large man, but the resemblance ended there. Soames was fair, Duff was dark; one was friendly, the other gruff; one was ineffective, the other was furiously effective; one was known to drink and dissipate, the other was of an iron constitution. Soames and Duff under one roof?

  “And is he impoverished, Graham?”

  “On the contrary, sir, he grew immensely richer this week because of the positive turn in the stock market.”

  “He trades?”

  “Heavily, I understand, sir. I believe his largest holdings are the Star Company and the Pacific Trust, two companies that deal in speculation on overseas goods. In fact, I think both Mr. Duff and Mr. Soames have some relationship to the Pacific company; it might bear looking into.”

  “No, I think the answer is probably closer to home. It doesn’t sound like much of a time, between Soames, who’s always drunk, and Duff, who growls if you look at him, and this lad Eustace Bramwell, who’s no doubt covered with spots and wears thick glasses. Did Barnard seek out any better company?”

  “There is the other nephew, sir.”

  “The other?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Lady Jane always says that nephews are a plague, sent to humble us before God, Graham.”

  “No doubt she is correct, sir.”

  “What’s this one called?”

  “Claude Barnard, sir. He is the son of Mr. Barnard’s younger brother, Stephen.”

  “I met him.”

  “Sir?”

  “This morning. He swore in front of me and said it was early, even though it was eight o’clock.”

  “The younger generation, sir, is notoriously lax.”

  “Is this other nephew bookish, as well?”

  “On the contrary, sir, he frequents the Jumpers at all hours, and it was he who paved his cousin’s way into the club. Otherwise Eustace Bramwell might have been blackballed, from what I learned, sir. Cambridge men are unpopular there.”

  “Claude is popular, then?”

  “Yes, sir. He is twenty-five and still studies at Oxford, but comes down to London to stay whenever the feeling takes him, or so it seems to the members of the household.”

  “What does he study?”

  “First he studied to enter the clergy, sir, then he changed to history and then to the study of literature.”

  “Not botany?”

  “No, sir.”

  “It’s a shame. Unless—are he and his cousin close?”

  “Not at all, sir. Beyond the effort of paving his way into the Jumpers, they barely know each other.”

  “Curious.”

  “Yes, sir. I understand there is some question of rivalry between Mr. Barnard’s younger sister and his younger brother, though both are on good terms with Mr. Barnard himself for self-evident reasons.”

  “Rich as Croesus, twice as old.”

  “Precisely, sir.”

  “Although really he’s only sixty or so.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Ten years ago he was only fifty. And fifty is quite young.”

  “Quite, sir.”

  “And who is the last guest, Graham?”

  “A surprising one, sir: Colonel Roderick Potts.”

  “Ah,” said Lenox. Potts. That complicated things. He was a steel manufacturer, and the richest untitled man in the whole of the British Isles.

  Chapter 13

  The first two days of the case had been cruelly cold, but when Lenox woke on the third morning the winter sun was shining through his windows and the sky was blue, crisp, and cloudless. The fire in his bedroom’s grate had died down, but he felt warm beneath his covers.

  He lay still for a few moments, unwilling to begin the day. But at last he roused himself with the prospect of eggs and kippers—and perhaps a pot of coffee—and descended the stairs to the dining room in his robe and slippers.

  Ellie, the cook, had not stinted with breakfast. Placed along the wide table, which was covered with a plain blue tablecloth, were the foods that had inspired him to get out of bed, along with toast, butter, marmalade, and a bowl of plums. Lenox happily ate his eggs, which he liked scrambled, and even took a second helping of kippers, which were, as befit Ellie’s own bias, slightly burnt.

  Only when he leaned back in his chair, with a second cup of milky coffee in his right hand, did he think about the case. He ignored the morning paper, which was tucked beneath the tray of toast, and he ignored the letters that sat on the side table, knowing they would find their way to his desk that afternoon if he had not yet read them.

  What did he know? A great deal and very little, it seemed to him. If he was going to speak to the residents of Barnard’s house he would have to ambush them, which was not a prospect he relished. It might be all right for Soames, and even for the gaggle of nephews, but not, probably, for Duff, although they were acquaintances. Potts was a trickier matter altogether. He might talk, and then again, as the mood took him, he might not. And clearly, Lenox had already received all the help he would get from Barnard.

  And yet he knew more than Exeter, to be certain, and if he had had a few days in Barnard’s house he felt he could have solved the case. He knew the means of the murder, and he knew the source of the poison, which was, in all likelihood, Oxford. But did that point to Claude, the wild young student? Or to Eustace, who was a botanist and might have visited his cousin at university? Or to Soames, who lived not far away, in Dulwich, and was well-known for his enthusiastic gardening? Or indeed to Barnard himself, who might have visited his nephew at Oxford and obtained bella indigo to feed some particular orchid? All these questions he could only answer by interviewing the houseguests.

  He would have to approach the case from the other side, at least in part, he supposed, until he could catch the suspects off guard. That is, he would have to analyze the motive of the case, rather than the means and the possible murderers.

  What did he have as motive? He walked around to the side of t
he table, picked up an apple, and sat back thoughtfully against the sideboard. There was, of course, the money. Who would have known about it? Barnard, to be sure. Perhaps one of his guests had learned it was in the house. Perhaps Prue Smith had stumbled on it.

  And then there was the possibility that she had had an affair with one of the men. Or that she had made enemies. He would know more when Graham gave his second report, perhaps—he had learned to trust Graham’s findings unquestioningly, without wasting time by asking how he got them—but what did it mean to say that she was exotic? That she was mysterious?

  And, of course, the possibility that it was something unknown—revenge, psychosis, unrequited love, another matter of money, anything under the sun.

  He decided that he would have to talk to each of the men, no matter how Barnard and Exeter reacted. He would continue to follow the trail from the back end as he had been, but he would have to seek out the suspects too.

  “Graham?” he called out, and took a bite of the apple.

  His butler came noiselessly through a side door. “Sir?”

  “When you find out what Miss Smith was like, Graham, be sure to find out whether she was exotic or mysterious or anything like that. And what those words mean.”

  “I shall try to do so, sir. I would be able to gather more information if I began right away, however.”

  “Take the morning, too, then. Do you need more money?”

  “If I am forced to bribe anybody, sir, I will tell you after the event.”

  “No, no, just take the money on my dresser before you go out.”

  “As you say, sir.”

  “Good hunting, Graham.”

  “The same to you, sir.”

  Lenox smiled and then wandered up the stairs, still eating his apple. He decided that he would run over to McConnell’s first to see about the glass from Prue Smith’s desk. Upstairs he bathed and dressed, and then asked one of the maids to call for his carriage.

  He had taken the glass with him from Prue Smith’s room two nights ago and given it to McConnell, although even as he did it he knew that he oughtn’t to have. Still, there was only a brief window of time in which he could have acted. Exeter was no doubt still interviewing the servants one by one, while upstairs the murderer played a rubber of whist and dressed for dinner at his club. Within that context, Lenox didn’t mind the dishonesty of taking the glass.

  A somber servant named Shreve, if he remembered correctly, escorted Lenox into McConnell’s vast dining room when he arrived at the house on Bond Street, which was so massive that it seemed to take up an entire block. McConnell himself was nowhere in evidence, but Toto sat at the end of the long dining table, eating a piece of toast that looked enormous in her delicate hand and reading a volume prettily bound in gold.

  “Charles!” she said when she saw him. She put down everything wherever her hands happened to be—the book on her plate, the toast on a nearby chair—and ran toward him. “Dear Charles!”

  “How are you, Toto?”

  “How is darling Aunt Jane? Why hasn’t she been to see me? I called two days ago, and still she hasn’t come! Oh, and how are you, Charles? I know you have a case. Thomas has been playing with some silly glass noon and night and talking excitedly about suspects and things, which is why he’s asleep and I’m forced to eat breakfast all alone at this huge table, like a princess locked in a tower.”

  She was like something fragile, small, and beautiful that you might find in a forest, living in perfect radiance no matter how torrential the monsoons or fierce the predators. No tempest touched her beauty. Lenox had known her since she was born. He was friends with her father from school—and even before that, now that he thought of it. Their own fathers had served in Parliament together, well before Toto was born.

  “Perhaps,” he said, “I can make the table seem less huge, my dear, by sitting with you for a moment.”

  “Oh, do! And Shreve, wake up Thomas and tell him to come downstairs as quickly as he can, or quicker, and bring out another plate and forks and things for Mr. Lenox, would you?” She whispered, as Shreve left, “It is a burden, Charles, to be stuck with the grumpiest butler in all of London, and to have him stare at one like a witless ogre, but Thomas says we must keep him, for some reason. My father gave him to us.”

  “And complains about it every time he gets a chance, my dear. He told me the other day he was damned if he’d do it over again.”

  “Well, he can have him back, then.” Toto picked up her toast from the chair and laid her book aside while she poured Lenox a cup of tea. “There will be coffee when Thomas comes down, but I only drink tea. He says it’s lower class not to like coffee, but I don’t, so there, don’t you think?”

  “I can’t stand coffee. We shall be lower class together, Toto.”

  “You liar, all you drink is coffee and I know it, but I agree to your offer nevertheless. Eggs?”

  “I only just had breakfast.”

  “Posh. Shreve, or whoever makes the eggs, does do that well.”

  They ate and chatted, and after fifteen minutes McConnell came in, up early, for him, and wearing a suit. He said hello, kissed his wife more tenderly than Lenox had known he did any longer, and then buttered a piece of toast and took a bite, all the while standing up.

  “Shall I show you?” he said to Lenox.

  “Of course.”

  “Oh, you beasts,” Toto said, “sit down and eat!”

  “We can’t,” said McConnell, “we have—”

  “I know, your rotten case. Well, goodbye, then.”

  She stood up and flung her arms around Charles and then picked up her book, which was lying on a stray sausage, and began to read again. Lenox felt that lift of his spirits that he always did when he was with her, as he and McConnell left the room and went across a hall and up a short flight of stairs to the study.

  As McConnell unlocked the door, he said, “Amazing, about her being illiterate.”

  “You got the note?” said Lenox.

  “I did.”

  “It is amazing.”

  “What does it show, do you think?” McConnell asked.

  Lenox thought for a moment. “Either that the murderer didn’t know her, or that he didn’t know her as well as he thought.”

  Chapter 14

  McConnell’s study was, like every other room in the house, slightly larger than one could conceive of a room’s ever being. The ceiling rose twenty-five feet in the air, and all four sides were paneled in dark red wood. On the far end of the room was McConnell’s laboratory, spread out over several tables, one of which was covered with chemicals and another of which had squids in jars and samples of algae and other things of that sort on it. To the left was a high stone hearth, surrounded by leather armchairs and ottomans, and a single couch, on which McConnell, in his darkest days, had dozed through the night, waking to drink or to stare into the fire. On the right, overlooking the street, was his desk.

  The room’s most distinctive feature was a thin spiral staircase made out of marble, with cherubim carved into it. The staircase led up to a balcony, which encircled the room on all four sides. A thin railing closed it off, but there were chairs and tables overlooking the lower level. Behind them were rows of cases, filled with McConnell’s books. Collecting first editions of early English and Latin scientific texts was his hobby, and he had managed to fill many of the shelves, so that standing in the middle of the lower level one could see an entire universe up the small staircase. It was where McConnell had his guests to tea, but he offered nothing to his guest this morning, rightly suspecting that Lenox had eaten with Toto.

  The doctor liked to say that this was the sole place in the house upon which Toto had never left her imprint, and while Lenox would never for a second have thought to comment on their marriage to either of them, he had noticed, recently, that in a small way Toto had begun to leave her imprint on the study. She had had the late rosemary sent in, Lenox guessed, the flower of remembrance—he couldn’t see McCo
nnell putting it there himself—and there were a few new paintings on the walls. They were of wild horses in the Scottish dales, Mc-Connell’s home country. Scotland had always divided the two, but she had had them commissioned, Lenox knew, which was just the sort of peace offering she was likely to make.

  They walked toward the laboratory at the end of the room.

  “The glass,” said McConnell, “was trickier than I suspected it would be.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Both men stood by a large black table covered with beakers full of chemicals and solutions, of which the centerpiece was the object in question, enclosed in a case, almost exactly as Lenox had last seen it.

  “Well, there was no doubt in my mind that bella indigo killed Miss Smith. Poisons, as you know, are one of my hobbies.”

  “Partly why I asked you to come,” Lenox said.

  “Of course. As I say, there was no doubt in my mind. I came back that evening and searched through my sources”—he gestured toward a stack of books in disarray by his desk—“and confirmed my first reaction. In conjunction with the small clues that you gathered, I assumed that the glass would yield up no more than what I had suspected. Murder. But there was a bump in the road.”

  “What was it?”

  “When I tested the glass, I found that the resin on its lip was not, in fact, bella indigo.”

  “Then what was it?”

  “It was identical to the contents of the bottle of poison it stood next to on the desk. Arsenic. Mixed with a dash of water, I expect, for it was fractionally weakened.”

  “That makes my work significantly harder,” Lenox said. “If arsenic killed her. Or significantly easier, if Jensen comes up with a name from his research into the bottle.”

  “Ah. Perhaps if you had sought another man. But I delved deeper.”

  “And found what?”

  McConnell pointed at the bottom of the glass. “Do you see anything?”

  “It looks clean, I should say.”

  “It does. But there were a few specks of poison at the bottom. There usually are—sometimes enough for a small sample if you do it cleverly, though my colleagues would declare that heresy. My own opinion is that one day even a single speck of something will tell us everything about it.”