An Old Betrayal: A Charles Lenox Mystery (Charles Lenox Mysteries)

by Charles Finch

  The witness who had seen Archie Godwin earlier in the day was a young man named Arthur Whitstable, in town from Liverpool upon business; he was a broker of stocks in that city. He looked the perfect exemplar of quiet English rectitude, a tall, square-jawed, deferential gentleman, sitting on a hard chair and reading the newspaper in the hotel manager’s office. He stood and shook hands with Lenox and Dallington—Jenkins had shown them into the room and left—without any evident impatience.

  “I apologize for the inconvenience of another interview,” said Lenox.

  “Not at all. This is a dreadful business,” Whitstable said. “I’ve been staying at the Graves for years, and count upon it absolutely as my home from home in London.”

  “Had you ever met Godwin before, or seen him?”

  “No.”

  “But you saw him this morning?”

  “Indeed, twice.”

  “Can you tell us what happened?”

  “I can tell you all I told Inspector Jenkins, at least. At around eleven o’clock, Mr. Godwin knocked on my door, apologizing for the intrusion, and asked if I had a pen sharpener he could borrow. They didn’t have one at the front desk. He was just on his way out but needed to finish a letter before he went.”

  “He was alone?”

  “No, he had a companion, a tall gentleman with blond mustaches.”

  Lenox and Dallington exchanged looks. “Did he speak?” asked Dallington. “This other fellow?”

  “No, and Mr. Godwin did not introduce him. I gathered that he had come to fetch his friend for some errand—he looked impatient to be gone.”

  “The second time you saw Mr. Godwin was when he returned the pen sharpener?” asked Lenox.

  “No. I had to go out upon a matter of business—in fact, just as he knocked on my door I was readying myself to leave—and told him he could leave the penknife with the front desk, under my name.”

  “Did he?” asked Dallington.

  “Yes, I have it right here.” Whitstable patted his breast pocket. “I usually carry it upon my person, because in my business one signs a great many contracts. As it happens I didn’t need it this morning.”

  “What was Mr. Godwin’s demeanor when you first saw him?” asked Lenox.

  “He was a very friendly chap, apologetic for the intrusion, and quite solicitous that I had no immediate need of the penknife. He said he would go borrow one elsewhere if I did.”

  “And the second time you saw him?”

  “Ah, yes. As I say, I went out upon business shortly after he knocked on my door. When I returned at noon I met him on the street, on Gloucester Road. He was in a great rush, not at all eager to speak with me—even rather avoiding me, until it was clear that I had seen him, when he thanked me hurriedly. He was with two men this time, one of them the same as earlier.”

  “Did you get the sense that he was in danger?”

  “Not at the time. Now, knowing that he is dead—perhaps. He wished to avoid meeting me.”

  “Who was the third gentleman with them?”

  “I didn’t speak to him, or look at him—just a normal sort of person.”

  “You cannot think of anything physically distinctive in him?”

  Whitstable narrowed his eyes, thinking. “He might have been rather shorter than average.”

  “Fat, thin?”

  “Neither, I don’t think.”

  “You are sure he was with Godwin?” said Dallington.

  “Yes, quite sure.”

  “Did you have any sense of where they were going?”

  “No. Probably I haven’t conveyed how brief the encounter was—no more than five or ten seconds. I should have forgotten it forever, if the gentleman hadn’t been murdered. Now I’ve wondered all evening whether it was those two companions of Mr. Godwin’s who did it.”

  Lenox wondered the same thing. They asked Whitstable a few more questions, some in a futile effort to acquire a more detailed description of this unidentified third man. At last, Lenox thanked him and said, “We may find you here, if we have further questions?”

  “Upon my word, no,” said Whitstable. “I couldn’t stay in that room, after all that has passed. I’ve already had the porter remove my things to the Chequers, two streets down by Onslow Square.”

  “How long will you be in London?”

  “Another eight nights. It is my semiannual trip to London, always two weeks.”

  “Then we will see you out at the Chequers, if we have further questions. Thank you very much indeed for your patience.”

  Whitstable shrugged, his face philosophical. “I wish there were more I could do.”

  Lenox and Dallington made their way back upstairs and down the hall, headed for the hotel’s second staircase—the one by which, presumably, Archibald Godwin’s murderer had left the building.

  It proved a disappointment. Dallington sat on a rickety chair at the top, out of breath and ill, as Lenox spent twenty careful minutes examining the area both inside and outside, hoping the murderer had dropped some small totem or left behind some smudged footprint.

  There was nothing, however.

  “It has the look of a careful crime,” said Dallington.

  “Perhaps, but I cannot think why Godwin and his companion were together for so many hours before it was done.”

  “Murder must have been a last resort. Bargaining first, then threats. Finally violence. So often one sees that pattern.”

  “I suppose,” said Lenox, unpersuaded.

  They traced their steps back down the hall—Godwin’s door shut now, a bobby standing by it, the blankness of his face hiding either boredom or stupidity, or who knew, great internal self-sustaining brilliance—and went back downstairs. As they came to the front hallway they saw that four bobbies were leaving the hotel, together bearing the stretcher that supported Archibald Godwin’s corpse.

  They followed the body out of the door. On the pavement the crowd parted and grew reverently quiet, granting Godwin the prestige that belongs to the newly dead. Two or three men took off their hats. The local pub’s potman, roller of big cigars, with a wooden tray of beers hanging from a leather strap around his neck, had stopped here, attracted by the crowd no doubt, but now, perhaps out of respect, melted away, returning to his regular deliveries. This was death. Soon the body was out of sight, and the crowd, after the dissipation of tension that follows a long exhale, began to murmur again and then depart.

  Lenox and Dallington had seen this kind of scene, each of them many times. It was always strange, jarring, raggedly human. After watching for a moment they decided to leave. There was nothing more for them here; they would be more useful calling in at White’s on behalf of Jenkins.

  “Although you might go home if you like,” said Lenox as they got into his carriage. “If you’re ill.”

  “I shall manage,” said Dallington.

  He looked awful. “As you please.”

  They rode in silence. Lenox must have seemed preoccupied, for as they were nearing White’s his younger friend said, “Are you quite all right, Charles?”

  “I am,” said Lenox, shaking his head sharply to return it to attention, and smiling wanly. “It is only guilt that keeps me silent.”

  “Guilt? Over what?”

  “I sincerely hope that the young woman I saw at Gilbert’s—this Grace Ammons—is not in danger.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The windows of White’s were, at this hour in the heart of the evening, very bright, crowded with lively figures, all of them holding drinks. Dallington, a member of the club, tipped his hat to the porter—a different fellow than the one Lenox had met before—and led the way inside.

  “Shouldn’t we ask that porter about Godwin?” asked Lenox in the front hall.

  From upstairs came the merry noise of glassware breaking. “It will be Minting who knows,” said Dallington. “Let’s go to his office.”

  As they passed an open door someone cried “Dallington!” The young lord, face still pale, soldiere
d onward, and a moment later Lenox heard the same voice say idly, “Could have sworn it was Johnny Dallington.”

  He led Lenox up two flights of stairs and down a narrow passageway, lined with caricatures of the club’s members that had appeared in Punch and, lower to the ground, glass-topped cases full of old rifles belonging to past members.

  At the end of this passageway they came to a door marked HEAD WAITER. Dallington knocked at the door, and it was drawn open at once, revealing a jowly man, nearly as large as the tiny room he inhabited, with white hair and thick glasses. He sat at a desk covered with papers.

  “This is Minting,” said Dallington. “Minting, Charles Lenox.”

  “M’lud,” said Minting, just rising an inch or two from his seat and then, this tremendous exertion concluded, emitting one or two very heavy breaths as he sat again.

  “You are the head waiter here?” asked Lenox.

  “I doubt Minting has lifted a tray in fifteen years,” said Dallington. “He keeps the club bets.”

  Hence the paperwork on the desk. “With all due respect, how would Mr. Minting, in this office, know better than the porter who had entered and exited the club?”

  “He knows,” said Dallington simply. “Minting, we want to learn whether Archibald Godwin was here in the past day or two.”

  “Arrived at 12:40 this postmeridian, departed 1:50, on his own, placed no bets.” The velocity with which Minting delivered these facts seemed like a rebuke to Lenox for his doubts. “Sat alone for lunch. Spoke with several young men in the card room but played no hands.”

  “When was the last time he was here prior to this afternoon?” asked Lenox.

  Without hesitation Minting answered. “November 1873.”

  “Minting’s got an excellent memory, you see,” said Dallington to Lenox. “Everyone in the club rats to him, too, it’s a disgrace.”

  “False, m’lud,” said Minting complacently.

  “Did Godwin stay here?” asked Lenox.

  “No, sir. In ’73 it was the Graves Hotel in Pall Mall, not half a mile away. Quieter, he said. He’s a country gentleman. The lads can get a bit noisy in the lower rooms here. Carries into the quarters.”

  “Did he drink?” asked Dallington.

  “Half-bott of the Ducru-Beaucaillou with lunch. Deplorable vintage, if I’m being honest.”

  “Did he tell anyone of his plans, of what brought him to London?” asked Lenox.

  “Business, he said.”

  “Did you see him?” asked Dallington.

  “No, m’lud.”

  The two men standing exchanged looks, to confirm that neither had another question. “Thank you, Minting,” said Dallington and passed a coin to the man.

  It disappeared into one of the folds of his voluminous waistcoat. “Sir,” he said and then, as they were closing the door, added, “Congratulations on the Dwellings Act, Mr. Lenox.”

  Dallington smiled as they walked down the corridor again. “He’s a genius, Minting. Laziest chap you ever saw, though. Otherwise he might have been a very great man—perhaps in your line of work. Perhaps in business, for I know him to have a remarkable knack for figures. As it is I think he’s grown richer than half the club’s members over the years. He made a packet when Siderolite won the Goodwood, though he gave some of it back on Doncaster last year.”

  “Strange fellow.”

  The consultation over, and therefore his duty discharged, Dallington had gone from looking poorly to looking positively deathlike. “Would you mind if we sat down for a moment in the back bar? It will be quieter there.”

  “You poor soul. Come, let’s skip the bar. If you can make it into the carriage we’ll take you home.”

  “That might be for the best.”

  As they drove, Dallington slumped into the corner of the carriage, eyes closed and breathing reedy. He could barely make it up the stairs at Half Moon Street; Lenox hadn’t entirely realized the effort it had required for him simply to leave the house this evening. When he did reach his rooms he collapsed, gratefully, onto the divan in his sitting room. Lenox would have stayed to look after him, but Mrs. Lucas was already attending to it. A smell of sulfur lingered in the air.

  “I’ll be around in the morning,” said Lenox. “We’ll hope for some response from Godwin’s people in Hampshire before then.”

  Dallington lifted a hand in response, and as Mrs. Lucas hustled a bowl of soft broth up the stairs, the older man took his leave.

  At home Lenox said hello to Lady Jane—it had been a long day since he had seen her that morning, and he spent ten minutes acquainting her with its events, and another ten hearing of her own activities—and then scribbled a note to Jenkins, telling him what they had found at White’s.

  Now, both rather exhausted, Lenox and Lady Jane ate supper together, a comfortingly warm soup, to begin, and then a roasted pheasant with peas and potatoes. The best part of the meal, though neither was a nightly drinker, was the bottle of red wine they shared, quieting their brains, making the candlelight look soft and sleepy, dividing the buzz of the day from the peace of home. Slowly their voices relaxed, and their thoughts seemed to linger in the air. The conversation had nothing sharp in it. When the plates were cleared away they went to the sitting room, each with a small cup of coffee, and sat and read for a little while, hands occasionally touching—a reassurance. After a drowsy half hour upon the sofa they retired, both ready for sleep.

  When Lenox woke in the morning there was a telegram for him, handed in at Raburn Lodge, Hampshire. Both Jenkins and Dallington were copied. It read:

  Dear Sirs STOP I hope you have somehow mistaken your man and that my brother is alive, but fear that the worst is indeed true STOP Despite my distress I know that Archie would wish you to be in full possession of the facts of his trip to London STOP As such I will be in London by our 3:18 train and staying at the Graves Hotel STOP You may call upon me there at your convenience STOP Henrietta Godwin

  Lenox took down his copy of Bradshaw’s and looked up the timetables. The 3:18 would put Henrietta Godwin in central London at half past four, and from the station she might take another twenty minutes to arrive at her hotel. To permit her some time to settle he decided that he would call in on her at a little bit past five o’clock in the afternoon, teatime, and wired to both Jenkins and Dallington that such was his plan. This wasn’t quite his case; then again, he was involved and felt a measure of responsibility, and unless he was positively making a nuisance of himself he was determined to stay on and see it through to the end. He wanted a word with that light-haired man from Gilbert’s. Pride, he supposed. By that sin fell the angels.

  Graham was up, too, and having taken breakfast in his own rooms now called upon Lenox. Seeing his secretary sent a shadow of unease across the Member’s thoughts. He ignored it. There would be time to speak with him later, and the day was busy. “You are meeting with Lord Heath at nine o’clock,” Graham said, “and with Phillip Marsden at ten, both to discuss the naval treaty.”

  “Could you push them?” asked Lenox.

  “Marsden perhaps,” said Graham, frowning. He looked tired, and Lenox realized that when he slackened the pace of his work Graham was the one who took up the extra line. “Lord Heath is insistent that he must see you.”

  “There was a murder in Knightsbridge last night.”

  “So Kirk told me, sir,” said Graham, smiling faintly. “I recall a time when such affairs were your chief interest.”

  A very distant time, his tone seemed to imply. “Dallington needs my help.”

  “Very well, sir, I will change Mr. Marsden’s place upon the schedule. Lord Heath you will see at nine?”

  “Yes, fine,” said Lenox. “But in exchange I need a favor—I need you or Frabbs to find me a moment in the schedule at Buckingham Palace, to visit with a woman named Grace Ammons. She is one of the Queen’s social secretaries. She is in Mrs. Engel’s office.”

  Graham raised his eyebrows slightly but merely nodded.

  Th
roughout Lenox’s meeting with Lord Heath, which lasted three-quarters of an hour, his mind dwelled not, sadly, on the proliferating French navy, nor on the quantities of armaments that Heath was positive Parliament must vote to order, but upon Miss Grace Ammons and the corpse of Archibald Godwin. Halfway through the meeting Frabbs entered the room.

  “What is it, boy?” Heath asked with tremendous vexation, a huge lump of a man.

  “Pardoning myself, sirs, Mr. Graham wished you to know, Mr. Lenox, that you will be welcome upon your errand any time after ten o’clock.”

  “Yes, all right, thank you,” said Lenox, trying to match the peer’s tetchiness, though in fact he could have stood Frabbs a pint of ale, he was so pleased that they would finally find Grace Ammons that day. The rest of the meeting seemed a long blur of impossibly slow exchanges. When Heath was at last satisfied, Lenox shot from the room and went directly to Half Moon Street.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  His haste was not misplaced; when he arrived, Dallington was up and pacing his rooms. He looked ill, even febrile perhaps, but his jaw was set with determination.

  “Do we have an appointment?”

  “I’m not sure they’ll want you to introduce the plague to Buckingham Palace,” said Lenox.

  Dallington managed a smile. “I’m fit enough. Mrs. Lucas had me swallow some beef broth this morning.”

  It was the kind of moment when Jane would have said she wished that Dallington had married by now, and had someone to care for him. Of course, Jane was very close with Dallington’s mother, whose own interests also lay in that direction. Personally Lenox felt grateful that Mrs. Lucas was present. That was enough. “If you’re sure you can do it, let’s be on our way,” he said.

  They drove toward the palace by way of the Mall, green on either side of them, until they came to the roundabout that lay before the eastern front of the building. The carriage turned and they could see Nash’s grand facade, brick and painted stone, with the sovereign’s guards standing motionless at short intervals in the white gravel. Off to one side was a very small door that had a bit of bustle about it. Lenox took it for the visitors’ entrance.