The Inheritance

by Charles Finch

  “How—how?” said Lenox, unequal to the articulation of his many questions.

  Rowan, beneath them, was whimpering pitifully. Leigh, still breathing hard, shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe the luck of it himself. “It’s one of the first things you learn on board a ship, for some reason,” he said. “Thank God it was an old-fashioned pistol.”

  “And that was why the first shot went wide,” said Lenox. “Of course.”

  “Yes.”

  And why Leigh had borne on his face that strange look of confidence. “You’ve saved us, old friend.”

  “I knew if he shot once it would be wide; twice and it would explode, in all probability. I didn’t want to risk being wrong, however, and charge him.”

  They were both looking down at Rowan, who had gone quite pale. “I think we had better bandage him, and get him care,” said Lenox.

  They stooped down to do this. Rowan’s hand was a disaster: huge chunks of it missing or stripped away, blood everywhere. He had sustained a wound in his stomach, too. He tried feebly to push them away.

  They wrapped a dishcloth hanging from a nearby laboratory table around the wound as tightly as they could, and then Lenox stepped to a nearby window, opened it, and called out for a constable in his loudest voice. “Police! Police needed!” he called.

  Below him he could see the man who had driven Leigh and Rowan here, still dutifully holding Lenox’s horse, bless his heart.

  For a second the full exertion of the last half hour rose up in him all at once and he laughed, and then realized he was shaking, too. Shock.

  Cohen would arrive soon—must. Behind him, Leigh was sitting back on his haunches against the wall, gazing at Rowan, who had fallen into exhausted silence. On the table there was a typewriter, and Lenox, for want of anything better to do, typed the word “assessment” on it, having to hunt for each letter. The exercise gave him the confirmation he had been looking for: This was the typewriter with the weak s that had been the source of the original letter written to Leigh concerning his fictitious bequest.

  “Who is this Bartram?” asked Leigh.

  Lenox shook his head, recriminating with himself. “I should have told you. He wanted to speak to you about what he believed to be some kind of theft of your ideas.”

  “How could he have known?” asked Leigh, frowning. “I myself never would have suspected Rowan—never, in a million years. A more generous fellow had rarely come across my path, I would have said until fifty minutes ago.”

  “I cannot say. We must find him, clearly.”

  “Or ask Rowan.”

  Lenox looked down at their foe. “He will be up before the Queen’s Bench. I don’t know how forthcoming he will be.”

  “No.”

  “Meanwhile we are left with a question.”

  “What is that?”

  Lenox found himself laughing again, though more tiredly this time, the shock of the situation wearing off. His muscles were still tremulous. “The same one we have been asking for thirty-odd years. Who was the MB?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Leigh was not destined to make it back to France that evening.

  Cohen arrived in Chilton Street. He hailed a wagon from the local station and they were transporting Rowan to the surgery at the Yard. All the blood had drained out of the man’s face; but he had recovered consciousness, more or less.

  From his stretcher, Rowan made a final gambit, though it cost him an enormous amount of energy. “You mustn’t let Gerald Leigh claim credit for my work!” he cried. “He’s a thief!”

  It was hard to say whose benefit this was for—the constable did not look like someone who kept closely abreast of the latest researches into the nature of microbial organisms—but perhaps Rowan only wanted to plant the seed.

  Lenox wanted to harvest one, meanwhile. “You sent those letters with the farthings in them, Rowan?” he asked. “To Middleton? Two to me today?”

  Rowan, gazing at him impassively from the stretcher, didn’t reply. But a swift flicker in his eyes, before they moved away, told Lenox the whole story. The first farthing that morning as a threat; the second to distract Lenox long enough that he could isolate Leigh and lure him away from the protection of the crowds at the Society.

  After Cohen, Frost arrived. “What, then?” he asked. “Mr. Rowan? I’m baffled, I have to say.”

  Lenox nodded. “As am I.”

  “I have rarely met a more solicitous man. You believe he killed Middleton?”

  “I do.”

  They were in the solicitous killer’s drawing room, just beyond the front door of the residence. “Why?” Frost asked.

  Lenox explained the scientific ambition which had driven Rowan to madness. “The proximity of this place to the central turf of the Farthings cannot be an accident,” he said. “It must be how they came to be involved as Rowan’s hired intimidators. He couldn’t have guessed that we would be able to identify Anderson and Singh from their descriptions so easily.”

  “They ought to separate those two,” said Frost reflectively. “Too easy to spot when they’re together.”

  “Don’t tell them and I won’t.”

  Frost chuckled grimly. “No. Certainly not. And yet—I cannot imagine such a distinguished man living here! Who is this fellow?”

  Across the room, Leigh, who was reading a book, glanced up. “Here you are,” he said.

  The book was Who’s Who. Leigh had it open to Rowan’s entry.

  ROWAN, Alexander George; born 1834, 2nd son of S. Wellington Rowan and of Elizabeth Wright, daughter of Windsor Wright of Calamine Manor, Hants.

  Address: 28 Green Park Terrace, W.1.

  Educated: Eton College; Peterhouse College, Cambridge.

  Recreations: Historical research, botany, chemistry, hunting, chess.

  Clubs: Beargarden; Boodle’s; Carlton; Oxford and Cambridge; White’s.

  Arms: Ermine, 3 Rowan Trees Courant, argent; motto: Floreat Rowanensis.

  Lenox read this out loud, and then said, “You can see that his listed address is in the West End. This was his private, secondary place.”

  “Do you know anything of the family?” asked Frost.

  “I have always understood him to be very well-born,” said Leigh. “I’m sure he was elected copresident of the Royal Society partly on the back of that public school accent I loathe so much.”

  Lenox sighed. “Well—certainly the Wrights are well-known in Hampshire. They are connected to the Windsor earldom, which must be how his grandfather came by that name. I do not know anything of the Rowans, but all the signs are there. An aristocrat; pressed by his own ambition, and his own inadequacy, into this mad course. For more information I think we must speak to Bartram.”

  That was not his first priority, however. He wanted above all to see Jane, and tell her she was safe.

  As Frost and a small contingent stayed behind to investigate the contents of the house for information, Lenox wrapped himself in his coat. He had sent the fly and horse home long before, and wondered whether he would be able to get a cab—but Cohen, seeing the question in his face perhaps, informed him that there was a cabstand just around the corner.

  “Shall I go with you?” Leigh inquired.

  “By all means. Unless you want to stay here?” asked Lenox.

  “I see no reason to.”

  Frost, listening from across the room, only asked Leigh to remain in London so that they could speak with him again soon, and before long the school friends were in a rickety taxi bound for Grosvenor Square.

  “Tell me something,” Lenox said as they started on their way. “Did you ever confide in anyone else but me about the Mysterious Benefactor?”

  Leigh cocked his head, thinking. “I suppose I have over the years, three or four times. In any event I have never been secretive about it.”

  “Any of them in the Royal Society?”

  “No, I think not.” Leigh pondered this for a moment. “Wait—yes! I was once on a long trip to Java
with a fellow named Milstone. A surgeon, an indifferent lepidopterist, too. We were the only two English-speaking men in a Dutch company—many long hours together, though each of us picked up enough of their language to make do at the officers’ supper table. I did tell him of it. I recall that distinctly.”

  “And do you think he kept the secret?”

  Realization dawned on Leigh. “Do you think he told Rowan?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He was no great friend, Milstone, weak in many of the usual ways you find among seafaring gentlemen—a braggart, a drinker, lonesome at bottom. Decent company. I believe he’s in Plymouth now, grounded. But he might well have encountered Rowan in London a dozen times since our voyage.”

  “I wonder, then,” said Lenox, “if Rowan has been inquiring after you since last fall, looking for a point of pressure to draw you outside of your Parisian university. That would explain how he knew that you might give credence to such a bequest.”

  “Yes.”

  “And of course, too, the use of that phrase: ‘a friend,’” said Lenox.

  “How devilish. Yes, I would have told Milstone about those words. No doubt of it—they have always stayed in my mind.”

  “Mine, too.”

  London was quiet in the soft night, inwardly drawn, cold. When a case had concluded, Lenox always felt a certain melancholy. The futility of the crime was often part of it. The prospect of going without work, too. He dreaded his return to the papers and records of Chancery Lane. He half wondered if Dallington wanted a companion at his solitary vigil in Parliament.

  But this was a happy day, he forced himself to think: Leigh was safe, Frost had agreed that the Farthings were both far too scared and too self-interested to pursue a vendetta outside of their own precincts, and especially with Rowan now decommissioned. Indeed, it wasn’t even clear whether they knew of Lenox at all. London was safe for him again.

  At McConnell’s house, Lady Jane, whose face was stony when Lenox first appeared, greeted this news by relenting slightly: a promise kept! Leigh, for his part, immediately sat down cross-legged opposite Sophia and Georgiana McConnell and became engaged in the small construction project they had undertaken.

  “This is the portcullis,” he said. “Very nicely made.”

  “Yes, that’s the portus to be sure,” George agreed seriously.

  Sophia glanced nervously at her older cousin, and Lenox felt a huge torrent of tenderness for his daughter, who didn’t want to reveal her ignorance of this piece of architecture. But Leigh had moved on, and soon the girls were explaining every element of their castle: where the princess lived; where the princess’s father; where the dragons were to be docked.

  “I’m having a sister,” said George.

  “Well, she won’t fit in this castle.”

  The little girl nodded. “No.”

  Standing above them, Jane said, “Incidentally, Mr. Leigh—where are you staying tonight?”

  Leigh looked up. “I hadn’t thought of it. Not the place I stayed last night, anyhow. Nor the Collingwood.”

  “You must stay with us, of course.”

  Leigh looked prepared to offer some polite cavil, but at that moment Sophia leaned her head against his arm, absorbed in connecting two locking blocks, and he looked up, laughing. “Very well,” he said. “That would suit me perfectly.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  The three of them had a quiet but happy supper at Hampden Lane, all filled with delight to be alive, Lenox and Leigh replaying the scene in the laboratory over and over, correcting each other, filling in each other’s memories, Lady Jane a rapt audience of one. There was a cassoulet to eat, and a fine joint served with a mellow French wine, and for dessert, best of all, one benefit of this cold time in the year, a lovely ice cream, flavored with chocolate and with mint from the gardens at Lenox House. It was a day to appreciate how nice a small thing such as this one could be.

  As they were sipping coffee, two visitors came by. Both were close friends of Jane’s: the Duchess of Marchmain, who was Dallington’s mother, and Matilda Duckworth. The hour was an unusual one for a visit, but they both wanted to be sure that Jane was still alive.

  “We are, yes,” Jane said, “little thanks to my husband.”

  “Some thanks, if I might be permitted to correct you,” Leigh put in. “Though mostly it was my ingenious little wad of paper. I wish I could have taken it back in the aftermath of our encounter. I would have treasured it like the grail, whatever old crumpled state it was in—kept it under glass, and made a totem of it.”

  This enigmatic statement required, of course, a retelling of the afternoon’s events, which horrified their guests but had now been told over so many times that there was almost room for something like amusement in Lenox’s and Leigh’s voices as they described it.

  “I know Mr. Rowan’s cousin,” said Matilda Duckworth. “She is a very sweet girl. I think he’s meant to be very rich, Mr. Rowan—more than averagely rich.”

  Matilda, recently orphaned, was more than averagely poor, and as such judged these matters keenly. “Is he?” asked Lenox curiously.

  “From what Effie says, yes. All the parts of London that the Duke of Westminster doesn’t own are Rowan’s father’s—Bethnal Green, Bacon Street, Chilton Street, Liverpool Street, the East End.”

  Lenox glanced at Leigh, who took a second longer but then slowly realized the import of these words. Chilton Street. Was it possible that Rowan was a very landlord to the Farthings?

  Who held the gambling debt of Mr. Ernest Middleton. That would close the circle cleanly.

  Their visitors had hoped to entice Lady Jane to come to a musical evening they were attending—but she declined, pleading fatigue, and though it wasn’t yet nine o’clock when they had gone, all three of the remaining party agreed that they were very tired, at the end of this very long day. Lenox, for his part, felt as if his body was all at once loaded down with wet sand; he could scarcely wish Leigh a civil good night, and as he went upstairs he heard the blessed sound of Kirk extinguishing the candles of the forward hall. The surest sign of a day’s ending.

  He slept through the early sunlight of the morning, waking only when two deliverymen in the street outside began to argue. He let his eyes open slowly. A bright day, luxuriously little to do, the prospect of a good breakfast ahead of him.

  He went and enjoyed this, divvying up the newspaper with Leigh—Lady Jane, more enterprising than either of them, was already out visiting—and reading it in pleasant silence, broken only occasionally by a passing comment.

  “Nothing of Rowan in a single paper,” said Lenox.

  “How would word have spread?”

  “There are informants at the jailhouse, always interested in a boldfaced name. But I wonder if Rowan was able to spend more than the tip was worth to keep the papers silent.”

  Leigh frowned. “He cannot hope to emerge from this with his reputation intact, can he? Though I suppose it is only our word against his.”

  The idea troubled Lenox, too. He had been on the end of that pistol, as well. “We must go and see Mr. Joseph Bartram.”

  Lenox still had the amateur scientist’s calling card. It listed an address in Holborn, not far from his own offices in Chancery Lane. They set out fairly soon after breakfast.

  They found Bartram in his office. He answered the door himself. “Mr. Leigh!” he said. “This is a signal honor. I enjoyed your speech immensely. And Mr. Lenox—how do you do?”

  “I’m pleased to meet you again,” said Lenox.

  They followed Bartram into a cozy little room, with a fire blazing, a bookshelf lined with specimens and little framed drawings and silver instruments, and a strong smell of tobacco. There was a very old beagle on the rug in front of the fire, who looked at them and then yawned. “You are fortunate to catch me. In general I only spend the hours of ten to twelve here, to receive visitors, before dining at the Royal Society and passing my afternoons there.”

  “You are much
involved with the Society, I take it?” Leigh asked.

  “It is my passion. I told you I was semiretired, Mr. Lenox—nine-tenths retired would be more honest.”

  “What is your field, sir?” asked Leigh.

  They conversed for a few moments, Lenox catching most of it, he thought. Bartram seemed more given to the organizational work of science, classification, organization, than to original research, but Leigh responded to his descriptions of these projects with real warmth, and they were soon discussing minor technical points that threatened to venture beyond Lenox’s ken.

  At a very brief pause, he said, “But if you could resume this conversation later—Mr. Bartram, we are very eager to know about your suspicions.”

  Bartram, a thorough but not a rapid thinker, blinked through his half-moon spectacles. “My suspicions? Oh! Ah! My suspicions! Yes, Mr. Lenox—I am glad you have brought Mr. Leigh—I would have forgot—my suspicions, yes.”

  “You have heard that Mr. Rowan was arrested last night?”

  That caught Bartram’s attention more quickly. He looked astonished, and then quickly accepting, and then, to Lenox’s surprise, heartbroken. “Rowan, was it?” he muttered. “Our president. How very, very sad for the Society—what a stain. But not unexpected, I suppose—no, not unexpected at all, if I think about it.”

  “Come, Mr. Bartram,” said Leigh, “let us in on your thoughts.”

  “Oh? Ah! Yes.” Bartram sighed again, and settled back into his armchair by the fire, putting a hand down to scratch his dog behind the ear. Lenox and Leigh, waiting on a sofa opposite, attended him closely. “The situation arose three months ago, perhaps a little longer. It had to do with the periodical library at the Society.”

  “Pray go on.”

  “The library is the clearinghouse for all the papers received as submissions to the Society’s journal. They are registered, noted down by our librarian with author, name, and précis, and then left in orderly stacks, where they may be consulted by any fellow of the Royal Society. Recommendations—primarily endorsements—may be left with the librarian. A small committee, which I took a turn serving upon in the year seventy, decides in consultation with the editor which pieces will be published. It is a very profound honor, as Mr. Leigh knows.