A Beautiful Blue Death

by Charles Finch

  He was of middling height and weight, with curly blond hair, a face that was at the moment unshaven, and which told of his drinking. His eyes were lidded but occasionally sharp. He had been putting a golf ball across the cavernous ballroom in his house to a waiting footman when Lenox arrived to pick him up. Now, when Lenox beckoned him toward Prue Smith’s body, he roused himself out of observation and stepped in the room toward the bed.

  She was, Lenox saw, almost a beautiful girl, with dark hair. He put her age at around twenty-five, a good age to marry.

  McConnell leaned over her and then, before he touched her, said, “Do I need to worry about fingerprints?”

  “I don’t think so,” Lenox said. “The process doesn’t work well on bodies yet; it’s too new. In fact, I think fingerprinting will be lost here—too many prints all over the place. Except for the glass, which was wiped clean. Interesting, that.”

  Thomas stood up.

  “Do you assume, then, that the poison was what really killed her?”

  Lenox thought for a moment. “If it was suicide, which I gravely doubt, it was undoubtedly poison. If it was murder, the murderer would be stupid to masquerade the death as suicide by poisoning and then kill her in another way. There wouldn’t be any benefit to it.”

  “Unless he thought that the bottle of poison would go unquestioned.”

  “That’s why I brought you. But I imagine you’ll find it’s poison.”

  “So do I,” said Thomas. “Even so.”

  He pulled a pair of gloves from his breast pocket and put them on. The first part of the body that he examined was the face, which was drained of color.

  “We can rule out a few of the common poisons,” he said. “They would have left her blood close to the skin. She would have been flushed.”

  Lenox didn’t respond.

  Thomas unbuttoned her shirt as low as he decently could, to verify that the chest wasn’t flushed either. He then lifted her shirt and prodded her stomach, without any visible effect. Next he pulled her shirt back down, licked his thumb, and drew it across her neck and her lips.

  “No makeup on the neck,” he said. “Or lividity—that is, bruising. She wasn’t strangled. And the lips look normal.”

  “Would you like me to step out for a moment?” Lenox asked.

  “No,” McConnell said. “Not unless you feel you need to.”

  He then pulled her clothes off entirely, so that her body was naked except for her underclothes. He ran his hands over her ribs and looked up and down each leg. He lifted each leg to a 45-degree angle and ran his hand across the underside of her knees. Then he rolled her onto her side and examined her back.

  “Puzzling,” he said. “Most poisons—”

  “Yes?” said Lenox.

  “Never mind. I’ve got it.”

  McConnell lifted both of her arms and examined the vein at each inner elbow.

  “As I thought!” he said. “Red!”

  Lenox knew better than to answer. McConnell probed her body thoroughly, tested each limb for stiffness, and checked the back of her neck. Then he stood up, lifted her clothes back over her body, and removed his gloves.

  “What would you like to know first, Charles?”

  At this moment Jenkins reappeared in the doorway. “I’ve got the fiancé, James, in the kitchen. Mr. Barnard was none too pleased to have him pulled away, but I—what did you find out?” he said. “About the body?”

  McConnell looked pointedly at Lenox.

  “What killed her, Thomas?”

  “She was neither stabbed nor strangled nor shot. She was, in fact, poisoned. She ingested the poison between twelve and one this afternoon, because she died at around two, based on the stiffness of her body, and the poison used takes a little over an hour to kill. Between one-forty-five and two, I think. She fell asleep, I believe, which would follow logic, as the poison I suspect has a pronounced sedative effect. Her body has not been moved since her death, and she was not active in the hour between ingestion of the poison and death. Otherwise, her ankles would look puffy and red.”

  “I see,” Lenox said.

  “There is one further point. She was killed by a relatively rare poison: bella indigo, the beautiful blue. The name is ironic: the veins in the victim’s extremities, depending on their size, turn red. The idea is that to have blue veins is bella, or beautiful, because the fact that they haven’t turned red means you’ll live.”

  “Is it a common poison?” Lenox asked.

  “On the contrary, the murderer probably used it because it’s so much harder to trace than something like arsenic or strychnine. And in fact, if you will permit me a moment of theater, I have a suspicion.”

  Thomas pulled one of his gloves back on and walked to the desk. From his jacket pocket he extracted a miniature glass bowl and a packet of granules. It was a characteristic of Mc-Connell’s that he always had useful kits or medicines in his pockets. He placed the bowl on the desk, tapped a few grains of the powder into it, and picked up the unmarked glass bottle from the desk.

  “I believe this is the poison we’re meant to think killed the girl.”

  Lenox nodded.

  “Look for the color purple. That will be bella indigo,” he said, and tapped a drop of the liquid into the small bowl. For a moment nothing happened, and then suddenly the entire bowl was yellow.

  “Just what I thought,” he said. He looked at Lenox. “This is a bottle of poison. Probably arsenic or, if not, some related substance. Worth trying to trace, as you can occasionally find who bought it from the ledgers that apothecaries keep, especially if it was bought in London. But this much is certainly true: The contents of the bottle I am holding did not kill the girl on the bed.”

  Chapter 5

  It’s murder, isn’t it?” said Jenkins.

  “Yes,” said Lenox. He walked slowly back down the hall toward the kitchen, feeling tired. It was past eight by now and he had a good deal left to do. At the least, he had to talk to the fiancé and then to Barnard. Tomorrow he would begin in earnest. This moment was never altogether pleasant: when murder was confirmed and a case truly began.

  The kitchen was a very hot square room with a low wooden ceiling. It smelled heavily of starch and meat, but it was clean. On one side of the room there was a large open fire, whose flames were just beginning to die into embers. Hanging from pegs above it were cured ham, sides of beef, and baskets of onions and garlic, and other food was piled high in open cupboards all around the room. In the middle of the floor was a long wooden table, crudely made, where the food was prepared, with steam still rising from it because the maids had rinsed it with boiling water at the end of the day. Evidently Barnard was eating out. And sitting by it was a short lean man with his head in his hands, making muffled noises every now and then. Lenox stood by the table, while McConnell and Jenkins stood behind him.

  “James?” said Lenox.

  The man looked up with bloodshot eyes and said, “Yes, sir?”

  “I’m Charles Lenox.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m very sorry for you, James. I truly am.” It wasn’t quite proper to shake hands, but Lenox did it anyway.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Time is the only friend you have, I’m afraid.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I know you’ve had a difficult afternoon—beyond difficult, I daresay—but I’d like to ask you just a few more questions. For her sake.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Very well. Do you know of any reason why Miss Smith might have been unhappy recently? Had you two been quarreling?”

  “Gracious, no, sir. I was with her most of the morning, sir, and she was as happy as she could be.”

  The footman put his head in his hands again, and Lenox sat down next to him at the table.

  “Thomas,” Lenox said, “may I use your flask?”

  McConnell pulled a tall flask from his waistcoat.

  “Have some of this, James,” Lenox said.

 
; “Sir?”

  “It’s gin, I believe.”

  James took a quick sip and then a longer sip. “Thank you, sir.”

  “James,” said Lenox, “I will tell you the truth. There is a strong chance that Miss Smith died by someone’s hand.”

  “Not suicide?”

  “No, not suicide. In fact, between us, I’m sorry to say that it’s nearly certain.”

  “That she was murdered?”

  “Yes.”

  The young man bent forward over the table, and a lock of his hair fell across his forehead and into his eyes. He made fists of his hands but didn’t slam them down.

  “James?” said Lenox.

  “Yes?”

  “Can you think of any reason why this might have happened?”

  The young man was still looking at the table. His black hair had tumbled out of its shape and looked wild. He had interlaced his fingers and he was twisting his thumbs.

  “No,” he said.

  “Or anyone who might have done it?”

  “No,” he said.

  “How long had you been engaged?”

  “For four months, or near it. She came into service here to be—oh, damn it all.…”

  Lenox paused and then offered him another sip of gin. The young man took a deep sip this time and held on to the flask.

  “Who were her friends here?”

  “Just me,” James said. “She hated it here. Enough so she wanted to go back to Lady Grey’s employment. Her friends was there.”

  “She disliked the other members of the staff?”

  “Oh, hated ’em!”

  “James, which members of the staff in particular did she have quarrels—”

  “Charles,” McConnell said, “if I may interject?”

  “Yes,” Lenox said.

  “An ounce of bella indigo would be had cheaply at forty pounds.”

  James looked up at the mention of the sum. “What’s forty pounds?”

  “It’s no matter,” Lenox said. “Thank you, Thomas.”

  It was clear, when he looked up, that James had started crying during this interchange. He had tried to keep his head down but failed.

  “You loved Miss Smith, James?” Lenox asked.

  “Of course I—”

  “I did not intend to question it. I’m sorry to have been indelicate.”

  James looked at him and began to cry again.

  “Keep it together, man. Here, have another sip of gin,” Lenox said, and James did as he was told. Lenox sighed. “We can always speak again later.”

  He placed a hand on James’s shoulder and turned to go upstairs. Thomas approached the table and put two crowns in the young man’s hand.

  “Take a friend to the pub,” he said. “A doctor’s opinion.” He smiled, picked up his flask, and followed Lenox upstairs.

  “Forty pounds?” Lenox asked as they climbed the stairs.

  “If not more.”

  “It would be clever of a servant to use every halfpenny he could find to buy it, I suppose, but you’re probably right.”

  “I probably am.” Thomas took the last sip of gin in the flask. “Will you drop me a note when anything happens?”

  “Of course,” Lenox said. “Come to dinner this week, and we’ll talk it over.”

  “Just as you say.”

  They had reached the top of the stairwell, and the doctor stepped outdoors. He had forgotten his coat and came back in to retrieve it from the housekeeper. “Good luck!” he said, and went to the curb to find a cab.

  Jenkins and Lenox stood in the hallway. It was a vast corridor, with the myth of Bacchus painted around its walls, and a silver punch bowl on the center table that Barnard used only at parties, insisting it had belonged to Henry V.

  “Are you taking this case, sir?” said Jenkins.

  “I think I shall. For an old friend.”

  “I hope we can work together, then. The Yard must be involved.”

  “It must, I suppose.”

  “Yes.”

  “But all the same, it is fortunate for the dead that you did not leave here with Barnard’s verdict. I have no desire to reprimand—”

  “Of course, of course, you’re right,” Jenkins said hastily. “But I shan’t miss another trick, you may count on that.”

  Lenox smiled. “Then we’ll have it out yet.”

  He was lucky to have had Jenkins on the job this evening. High-ranking but young; one of the few people from the Yard who had anything approaching a good opinion of him. No doubt it would all change tomorrow.

  Barnard strolled into the front hall.

  “George,” said Lenox.

  “Have you reached a conclusion?”

  “Not quite yet. Shall we have a talk tomorrow morning?”

  “Lenox, I’m a busy man, you know—”

  “It is entirely necessary.”

  Barnard sighed in a martyred way. “Very well,” he said. “Shall we have breakfast here at eight o’clock?” He looked as if Lenox were asking him to chat with Daniel while the lions built up an appetite.

  “At eight,” Lenox said. “And before I leave, may I have a word with your housekeeper?”

  Lenox could see that Barnard was being pushed to the end of his tether, but Barnard walked over to the bell rope and pulled it. In less than a minute, a fat woman with an austere face and short gray hair, wearing a brown dress, came into the hallway.

  “Mr. Barnard?” she said.

  “This is Charles Lenox, and this is a man from the police. Answer their questions.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m going to my club for supper. I’m tired of this. Girl committed suicide.”

  “Good night, sir.”

  “Good night, George,” Lenox said; Barnard walked out. “May I ask your name, ma’am?”

  “Miss Harrison, sir.”

  “Very good. Miss Harrison, can you tell me who the current occupants of the house are?”

  “Mr. Barnard, myself, two footmen, two upper maids, one of whom was Prudence Smith, two lower maids, a cook, a chauffeur, and a boy. In addition, Mr. Barnard has five guests this week.”

  “Five? Goodness. I’ll leave them for later, but can you tell me if they were all here between ten and two today?”

  “All five, yes. They were all in the drawing room and then at lunch during those hours, including Mr. Barnard.”

  “And the staff?”

  “Everyone except the boy, who was running errands, was either downstairs preparing food or upstairs serving it.”

  “And were there any milkmen or salesmen or anybody of the kind who came to the door, either the upstairs door or the servants’ door?”

  “None. I answer the door myself. Mr. Barnard prefers a housekeeper to a butler.”

  “I have your word on that? None?”

  “Yes.”

  “You no doubt hired Miss Smith, is that correct?”

  “I am responsible for all hiring.”

  “And supervised her too?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Was there anything peculiar about her these last few months?”

  Miss Harrison looked as if it would physically hurt her to speak, but after a tense moment, she said, “No, sir. And now I really must be off to finish the evening’s chores.”

  Chapter 6

  The thin, winding path of Hampden Lane was trapped in shadows, but two lights gleamed shallowly into the darkness. Graham was still awake in Lenox’s own house, and Lady Jane was awake too, hoping for his visit. Tired though he was, he had the cab stop at her door, which looked so much like his: a white door to a gray house.

  “Jane!” he whispered through the side window.

  There was a flurry of quiet steps, and the door opened a crack.

  “Charles! Quiet, quiet, we mustn’t wake Kirk, he’ll be so cross!”

  But she had, perhaps, underestimated her butler, who was in his own way as dependable as Graham, for when they sneaked into the dimly lit drawing room, he was stand
ing there with a tray of spirits and sandwiches.

  “With your permission, my lady,” he said, “may I—”

  “Oh, Kirk, you darling man, yes, go to bed. Thank you so much.”

  She smiled at him and then sat down on the edge of her rose-colored sofa, in the middle of the room, to pour them drinks. Lenox saw a down-turned book alongside a chair near the window, and it was clear to him that she had been waiting there, where she could see when he returned. Lenox wandered toward her desk. She had a far more splendid one in the morning room on the second floor, where she wrote to her friends, looked out over the garden, and had her breakfast, but she used the desk in her drawing room for a thousand smaller things, and it was cluttered, like his own, with all the artifacts of a happy life—unread papers, silver trinkets, old books, pencils, and pens. It made Lenox feel as if he had come home to see it.

  “Charles,” she said, “I knew you would come. It doesn’t mean you aren’t good to do it, but still, I knew you would.”

  She finished pouring their drinks: a scotch and warm soda for him, blended to the color of amber, and a glass of sherry for her. They each took a sip and then, for some reason, perhaps the strain of the evening, perhaps their relief that it was over at last, looked at each other and laughed. She gave him a plate with several sandwiches on it and took one for herself.

  “Will you tell me what you learned?” she said.

  “As you can imagine,” said Lenox, leaning back, “Barnard was none too pleased with the whole matter.”

  “Of course not, the beast.”

  “He had enlisted a man from the Yard named Jenkins, which was a blessing, actually, because Jenkins let McConnell and me have a look at everything. There aren’t three other men on the force who would have.”

  “Thank goodness that man wasn’t there, the one—oh, I always forget his name.…”

  “Exeter.”

  “Yes!”

  “Exactly what I thought, my lady,” he said, and laughed.

  “Well, and what happened?”

  “George stomped around a bit and insisted that there was nothing at all mysterious about any of it, which raised my eyebrows right away. He asked about you, of course.”

  “Did he? What do you mean by of course?”