The Laws of Murder: A Charles Lenox Mystery

by Charles Finch

Dallington did. In the addressee box had been Wakefield’s name; in the billing box, however, it had read Andrew H. Francis, 31 Mornington Crescent, London NW1. The H must stand for Hartley, all three men agreed. Perhaps it was the nickname by which Francis went among his friends.

  Mornington Crescent, a long curve of houses named for the brother of the Duke of Wellington, was in a nice, quiet part of London, just east of Regent’s Park. It probably wasn’t more than a fifteen-minute walk to Portland Place and Lord Wakefield’s house, though that walk marked the gap between affluence and genuine wealth; this was merely a fine part of the city, not a grand one. Dickens had once lived here, Lenox recalled.

  The three men walked down Carlow Street. “I’ve sent men back to confiscate the rest of the port,” said Nicholson. “From what I understand Wakefield’s son is there. I imagine he’ll be eager to assist us.”

  “I have a sample, at any rate. It’s off with McConnell right now, though he may not be able to look at it until the evening, since he’s at the hospital.”

  “Mm.”

  As they emerged onto the crescent itself, a natural silence fell over their small group. It gave Lenox a moment to think about LeMaire.

  What was clear to him now was that, above all else, Polly and Dallington must not be punished for their loyalty to him. Or more specifically, that Polly must not be. Dallington would never be worried for money. Polly was a widow, however, and her position was uncertain. By whatever means he had to do it, Lenox would make sure she did not depart the business—should it disband, should she wish to leave—with less money than she had when she arrived. At least he could be sure of that.

  The other thought that had been going through his mind was harder to bear: It was that LeMaire was perhaps correct.

  The three of them had talked very little after the Frenchman left, and fortunately the fillip of Pointilleux’s loyalty had made the conversation less strained than it might otherwise have been. Polly had acted as if nothing were changed, at least among the three of them. Dallington, meanwhile, had mentioned in the carriage how sorry LeMaire would be when he was drummed out of the business by their success.

  Lenox, for his part, wasn’t as optimistic. “Three cannot carry four,” LeMaire had said, or words to that effect, and it was true. The newspapers were the worst of it. His notability, which he had hoped would be an asset to the firm, had instead proven a disadvantage. Many of the newspapers had scores to settle with him; apparently so did the Yard. It surprised him, he had to admit to himself. He had made more friends than enemies in politics. There was something puzzling in the attacks, something troublingly out of balance with reality. Was some force behind them, some invisible mover? Or was that an unreasonably suspicious thought?

  They arrived at 31 Mornington Crescent. Nicholson led the way up the steps and knocked sharply at the door; it was a single-family house, not, like some others along the crescent, divided up into apartments.

  “Freshly painted,” Dallington murmured to Lenox, nodding toward the house’s front, and indeed, now that he looked more closely this house did seem to shine more brightly than its neighbors.

  “Money again,” said Lenox.

  “Yes, indeed.”

  There were footsteps audible behind the door. It swung open, and a housemaid appeared, dressed very formally. “May I help you?” she asked.

  Nicholson had his identification ready. “I’m Inspector Nicholson of Scotland Yard,” he said. “We would like a word with Andrew Francis, if you don’t mind.”

  “Andrew Francis?” she said.

  “Yes. Is he in?”

  The housemaid shook her head. “You’ve the wrong house, I’m afraid. Did you check the number? This is 31.”

  “That’s the house we want. You’re telling me that Andrew Francis doesn’t live here?”

  She shook her head again. “No. This house belongs to Mr. and Mrs. David McCaskey.”

  “How long have they been here?” asked Lenox.

  “Ten years,” she said. “I’ve been here seven of those myself.”

  “Does anyone else live here?”

  “Three other servants, and Mr. and Mrs. McCaskey’s child, Laurel. She’s six.”

  “Nobody by the name of Francis has lived here in the seven years you have?” asked Nicholson, skeptical.

  “No,” she said very firmly.

  “I hate to be rude, but would you mind if we confirmed that with your mistress?”

  On the contrary, the housemaid didn’t mind at all—she seemed eager to prove to them that they were wrong, and led them straight to Mrs. David McCaskey, who was sitting with several friends sipping tea. Nicholson introduced himself, Dallington, and Lenox, and then said he would be happy to speak to Mrs. McCaskey in private. But she was just as happy to have it out in front of her friends. No, she didn’t know anyone named Francis; not Hartley either; her husband’s business address was 141 East India Dock Road, near the wharf—he was an importer—and he would be more than happy to speak to them whenever they pleased.

  This was all distressingly convincing. Nicholson apologized for their intrusion, both to Mrs. McCaskey and the now-triumphant housemaid, and bade the women good day.

  “You’re not related to Lady Jane Lenox, are you, Mr. Lenox?” asked one of them as the three investigators turned to leave the room.

  Lenox turned back. “I have the honor of being married to her, madam,” he said.

  The faces of all four women seemed to light up. “Could you possibly pass my card to her?” asked Mrs. McCaskey, which earned her a deathly stare from the person who had first inquired whether Lenox knew his wife. “I feel very sure that she would be interested in my work with the West African Trust—she could come to tea any morning, could name her time.”

  Lenox accepted the card as politely as he could, and three more followed it instantly, though he assured them that Jane’s schedule was full, most unfortunately full, with barely room to breathe.

  “At least you’ve made Lady Jane some new friends,” said Dallington as they left. “I can only imagine how gratified she’ll be.”

  They came out onto the steps. “It’s all very well to joke,” said Lenox. “But if this house is brimming with McCaskeys, where on earth then is Andrew H. Francis?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The three men drove to Berry Brothers and Rudd, the venerable wine shop that had delivered the port to Wakefield. The clerk there, an older gentleman, was unable to help; he did consult the ledger, an immense leather-bound volume three feet across, and found the order for the case. But the bill had been paid in person and in cash, and the order then picked up by hand, so the shop had never run into the problem of finding Francis to charge him for the port—which was very fine, he noted, if that was helpful, among their most expensive.

  “Would you have a record of Mr. Francis’s account?” asked Lenox.

  “Not unless he’s ordered very often,” said the man, a Berry or a Rudd, presumably, as he flipped through a drawer full of customer cards. “No, no Andrew Francis. There’s Lord Francis, who was in India for forty years and now lives in Devon. We deliver wine to him every month.”

  “Not our chap,” said Nicholson. “Here’s my card—please see me if Francis comes in again, would you. Immediately. And don’t let drop to him that anyone asked about him.”

  “Certainly.”

  Lenox paused. “When you said earlier that the order was picked up by hand—does that mean you didn’t deliver it?”

  “Correct. The customer picked it up. In this case either Lord Wakefield or Mr. Francis.”

  “Then why glue an order form to the bottom of the crate?”

  “Standard practice.”

  Dallington and Lenox and Nicholson exchanged glances. If Francis had picked up the port, it meant he had delivered it himself, which would have given him time to tamper with it. Of course, they would have to see what McConnell said about the sample Lenox had taken.

  He’d had enough of Wakefield just f
or the moment, however; it was time, he thought, to go back to Jenkins and the missing papers.

  First, though, he was scheduled to have lunch with an old friend.

  He left Nicholson and Dallington together, promising to come by the Yard at three o’clock to see them, and then directed his carriage to Parliament, a place from which, he felt with a sharp pang of regret, he might easily wish it had never strayed.

  In the year 1854, Lenox had been a student at Balliol College, Oxford. His scout—that is, the person who kept his rooms in order, lit his fires, brought his tea, pressed his clothes—had been a slightly younger local man named Graham, quiet and efficient, tactful, intelligent. Their distant friendliness had changed very suddenly one night, when a trauma in Graham’s family, which Lenox witnessed, had brought them closer. After that experience they understood each other; certainly they trusted each other, implicitly on each side. When Lenox graduated from Oxford and decided to move to London, he had invited Graham to come along as his butler. Graham had agreed.

  Since then, twenty-one years had passed. In that time the butler’s roles had been various, ranging between the traditional and the unusual. Up until the moment of Lenox’s marriage to Lady Jane Grey and for some time beyond, he had run Lenox’s household with seamless efficiency; he had also, as the moment demanded it, acted many times as a helpful assistant in Lenox’s cases. Later, when Lenox entered politics, Graham had been a particularly effectual representative on his behalf, cajoling voters and planning political strategy.

  When Lenox had actually gone to Parliament, he had taken the highly unusual step of promoting Graham from butler to the position of political secretary—a job that most men handed to a young promising person from the upper classes—and when Lenox had left Parliament, he had eyed another promotion, very nearly an unimaginable one, for his old friend.

  Lenox’s carriage left him near Westminster Abbey, and he crossed the road toward the Guests’ Entrance of Parliament. (It was strange not to use the Members’ Entrance.) There he saw Graham, standing under a portico. Lenox could have recognized him from a thousand paces, even with his head turned away, as it was now. Graham had a particular stillness—a kind of readiness, his intelligence patient, never restless, but always prepared. He was a compact, sandy-haired man. He stood holding a pair of leather gloves in one hand and scanning the crowds.

  When he saw Lenox, he smiled and walked out to meet him halfway.

  “Good afternoon,” he said, and they shook hands.

  “How do you do,” said Lenox. “I’m glad at any rate that you haven’t grown too grand to have lunch with me.”

  “Never, of course,” said Graham. There were fewer “sirs” in his address now, though they seemed to lurk invisibly behind his words, a residual sense of formality. Yet there were probably not four people in the world who knew Lenox better, or for whom he cared more. It was one of the deep and true friendships of his life. Few enough are given to each of us. “Shall we go inside and sit down to lunch?”

  “Yes, by all means.”

  It was one of the peculiarities of the British political system that a man need never set foot in a district in order to represent it in Parliament. In other countries—America, for instance—one had to have some geographical connection to a place, however tenuous, to be its senator or congressman. Not so in England, where a rich Londoner could stand for a seat five hundred miles to the north without visiting it. Money and interest were the presiding factors.

  It was this strange fact that several years before had led Lenox to win the seat for Stirrington, a small constituency near Durham with which he otherwise had no connection. The leaders of his party had deemed him a worthy candidate to stand for some seat, and Stirrington had simply been the first to come open, on a by-election.

  When Lenox had left his seat in Stirrington, a brewer called Roodle wanted it; Lenox, for his part, had the rather mad idea that Graham might try to win it. It weighed against Graham that he was of low birth, and not connected to Stirrington other than by Lenox. On the other hand, his talent for politics had grown famous in parliamentary circles, where he had fought fiercely with the other secretaries. In the end it was just reckoned, in the absence of a viable alternative candidate, that Graham might run.

  But Roodle had won. After losing three times to Lenox, he had mounted a final assault, claiming that it was an insult that Lenox could leave office and simply expect to hand off his position to—of all people!—his former butler. It was an effrontery; it was a folly; it was an arrogance. Such was Roodle’s argument, and enough of Stirrington’s citizens agreed to send him, finally, to Parliament.

  In the aftermath of this disappointing loss, Lenox had felt terribly responsible for Graham’s failure, until, thank goodness, something unexpected had happened. It had been in early December, now four months ago. A man named Oswald Hart, the Member for a small constituency in Oxfordshire, had risen, upon his father’s death, to the House of Lords, leaving a seat suddenly vacant. Many men might have competed for it, but Hart had come to know Graham in the past, from his time as Lenox’s political secretary; indeed, they had always had a cordial bond, because they hailed from the same patch of earth, in between Oxford and the Cotswolds.

  He invited Graham to run for his seat, promising his full support if Graham still had Lenox’s financial backing; and Graham had won.

  So that now, not six months after his own departure from the Commons, Lenox could visit the House as the guest of his former butler. On its face it was one of the oddest transitions British politics had yet known, but anyone who had worked with Graham, who understood his qualities, knew that he had ended up in the position best suited to his abilities. In fact, Lenox knew from his brother that Graham had already begun to make his mark on the House, in a multitude of subtle, significant ways.

  The two men walked into the House together and toward Mr. Bellamy’s restaurant, where they sat and ordered. Then for forty minutes they simply exchanged news, their conversation easy and free-flowing. They still saw each other often, though for the first time in a long while they lived under different roofs, and so there was more to tell. Graham nowadays consulted with Lenox about the minutiae of Parliament at least every two or three nights, for he was finding that the stratagems and alliances he had deployed while working as a secretary were very different than those a Member could. A Member had to be softer at the edges, had to make friends, and there were many men in Parliament who didn’t care to make friends with someone who had come from service.

  Partly just to be seen with Graham, then, Lenox came here to lunch at least every fortnight. Then, too, he liked to discuss his cases with his old friend; Graham had always been insightful about these, a first auditor. Now, over lamb pie and redcurrant jelly, they discussed Jenkins’s death—Graham was very solemn in mourning their old friend—and then Wakefield’s, teasing out ideas about the possible connection, going over clues.

  “Have you spoken with Inspector Jenkins’s wife about his movements in the last week of his life?” asked Graham.

  Lenox considered this. “Not directly, you know. Nicholson spoke to her. I really ought to call upon her anyhow, to offer my respects. Perhaps I might see if she’s receiving visitors after I leave here.”

  “She may know something significant without realizing it.”

  “You’re quite right.”

  Their plates had been cleared away by now, and the waiter came with a small list of desserts. Lenox asked for trifle, and both men for coffee. When it came some moments later, the conversation had shifted again toward Parliament. There was a small bill up for vote that would add “Empress of India” to Queen Victoria’s long train of titles. Many members of the Liberal party were opposed to this act, which they called a kind of backdoor annexation, but Graham wondered whether it might be pragmatic to lend it his support. It wouldn’t make a difference to the ultimate outcome of the bill, and it might prove to some of the House’s most traditional Members that he was not a progre
ssive firebrand, eager to deprive them of their inheritances, but someone with whom they could reasonably deal. Lenox was forced to admit the savvy of the idea, though India made him uneasy. It was a large country, a long way from home. Who knew how long it would submit to the control of Queen Victoria—or how bloody the revolt might be when it came. They sipped their coffees and discussed the positives and negatives of such a vote at great length.

  After ninety minutes, Graham said he had to return to the floor for a vote. Before he left, however, he asked if they might quickly go up to his office together.

  “Of course,” said Lenox. “Why?”

  Graham had a valise, which he opened now. He took a folder from it. “There’s one last piece of business I’ve been intending to conduct as your secretary,” he said. “They’ve asked me more than once if you could fill out this form. You can do it at my desk, if you like—it shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes. As you know, there was never such a place for record-keeping.”

  Indeed, the form was bizarrely thorough. It ran to eight pages, and asked Lenox questions about all of the places he had once lived, about his sources of income, about his close and his extended family, about his personal habits (Do you take port or brandy in excess after supper?), and about his staff, including Graham.

  Graham read a blue book as Lenox filled in the pages, and when the form was done, congratulated him—he had rounded off the circle, at last, and concluded his final act as a Member of Parliament.

  “Unless you mean to stand again one day,” said Graham, smiling. “We could use you, of course.”

  Lenox returned the smile, and the sheaf of papers, with a feeling of lightness. “No,” he said. “I think I’m best off leaving it to you. And now you’d better hurry, if you mean to get to that vote.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Between the end of this midday meal with Graham and his scheduled meeting with Dallington and Nicholson at Scotland Yard, Lenox only had about an hour and ten minutes; it was perhaps just enough time to squeeze in a visit to Madeleine Jenkins. At any rate, he could be fifteen minutes late to the Yard without very much guilt, were it necessary.