A Stranger in Mayfair (26 page)

Lenox was silent for a moment. “You mustn’t always look to me, if you intend to learn anything for yourself,” he said. “Perhaps I’ve been too domineering an instructor. Would you like to speak to her yourself?”

The younger man looked surprised. “If you like,” he said. “I’ve no wish to jeopardize our chance of hearing the truth.”

“You’ve sat with me often enough as I spoke to people, and stuck in your oar once or twice. Be gentle, I think—she seems quite fragile—and more importantly, when she looks like she’s wanting to speak, for heaven’s sake don’t say anything.”

“Well—excellent, then.”

They waited for her in a cluster of armchairs in a private corner. Lenox ordered tea and sandwiches. When she arrived to meet them she looked terrible, wracked by grief. She declined food and let a cup of tea sit untouched on the table before them all.

“I fear I cannot help any of you,” she said. “Not Mr. Fowler, nor you, Mr. Lenox. What am I meant to believe? That Mr. Collingwood killed my son?”

“What do you think?” asked Dallington.

She turned her eyes on him. “If I had an opinion I would be a great deal less unhappy, young man,” she said. “And don’t think I don’t remember you, at my pub—breaking glasses—carousing—inviting loose women into the bar. Sent down from Trinity College, weren’t you? Lord John Dallington! Out of respect for Mr. Lenox—a man in Parliament, no less—I’ve held my tongue, but I don’t want you asking me what my
opinion
might be. I want help!”

He blushed furiously and stammered out something less than cogent. It was true that Cambridge had expelled him, not so long ago. “Younger days—terribly sorry—new leaf—broken glasses a terrible expense—please allow me—” and so forth.

“Your scout, Mr. Baring, paid for the broken glasses. Your tab as well. He took it from the pocket money your father sent him instead of you. You ought to be ashamed for it, too.”

“I am,” said Dallington in a low voice.

Lenox, who had at first been inclined to smile when Mrs. Clarke began her rebuke, saw how gravely affected the young lord was and stepped in. “I’m sorry we can’t help you,” he said. “I wish we could.”

“Yes—well.” Momentarily her fragility was covered up by something hard and angry.

“We had a question, actually. That might help.”

“About Frederick?”

“After a fashion.”

“What is it, Mr. Lenox?”

It was Dallington who spoke. “Who is his father?”

“Frederick Clarke Sr. Of course.”

With a gentle frown, he said, “Is that—is it quite true? Might his real father be Ludovic Starling?”

She first looked taken aback, then crumpled into tears. It was a moment before any of them spoke again, and as Lenox had advised, Dallington stayed quiet. It was she who broke the silence.

“Yes…but I can’t believe he told you.”

“He d—”

Lenox interrupted Dallington. “How did it happen?” he asked.

Crying again, she said, “Oh, when I was a pretty little fool in Cambridge. He was a student at Downing, where I was a maid.”

“There was no uncle, was there?” asked Lenox. “The money for the pub?”

“No. It was his money. Ludovic’s.”

Lenox remembered her calling him Ludovic the last time they spoke, a little too intimately. “Why did you go to work for him?”

“We were still—I thought we were still in love. I said he had to let me work there, or I would tell his new wife.”

“It must have been a miserable time,” said Lenox.

“Miserable?” She let out a sob. “How can you say that when Freddie came out of it all? Dear, wonderful Freddie?”

“And when you were—with child?”

“I was six months pregnant when I moved to London, and only stayed for about two months. It was a terrible ordeal to watch him build a new life without me, but I blackmailed him into letting me stay. I was always very cordial to Elizabeth, and she gave Freddie a job straight away when I asked. In the end Ludovic gave me the money I bought the pub with and sent me to the seaside, where a nurse looked after me. After I had the child I thought perhaps he would wish to speak to me, but he never did, and in my pride—in my foolishness—I decided I hated him. Though I love him still, God curse me for it!”

There was a long break in the conversation, as she cried and cried. The wound was still fresh, it was obvious, or had perhaps been reopened by her son’s death.

“There was a ring,” Dallington ventured at last. “A signet ring, with Ludo’s initials in it.”

Haltingly, she said, “He gave it to me—he—” She began to sob again.

“Then you gave it to Frederick?”

“Yes. When he was fourteen I sat him down at our kitchen table and told him the truth. From then on there was nothing in his head but the Starling family. Just like his mother—a pair of fools.”

“No.”

“A pair of fools.”

“So is that why Frederick went to work for Ludo’s family?” asked Lenox.

“Yes. I begged him not to, but he wanted to be close to his father.”

“Did his father acknowledge him?”

“Yes. Freddie told me they were getting more and more friendly. Freddie said he would end up a gentleman one day.”

“No wonder Ludo has seemed so agitated,” said Lenox.

Dallington merely raised his eyebrows; apparently he still considered Ludo the primary suspect. Lenox wasn’t quite as sure.

Something else, though, made sense: the intellectual reading, the philosophy and great literature; the tailored suits and shoes; the aristocratic boxing club, where he spent money freely; and the ring, most of all having his own initials engraved on the Starling ring. Frederick Clarke was setting himself up, in his own mind, as a gentleman. Raised in a pub, but apparently of some natural gifts, he had decided to emulate his father.
Freddie said he would end up a gentleman one day.

It reached a tender spot in Lenox’s heart, this idea of Freddie Clarke, the footman, striving to be so much more than himself—striving to be like a father who would never fully own him, indeed who would likely never fully love him.

“There was something else, too.”

“What?”

“Something even worse, for poor Ludo—for poor Freddie,” she said, sniffling into her handkerchief.

“Poor Ludo?” said Dallington with disdain.

“What is it?” asked Lenox.

“We—” She couldn’t go on, and for a tantalizing moment it seemed as if she were going to silence herself.

Then suddenly Lenox saw what it must be. “You and Ludovic Starling were married, weren’t you?”

She nodded and burst into further tears. “Yes. That’s it. That was when he gave me the ring! As a wedding ring. I thought his family would kill him when they heard, and they began to put an end to it quickly enough. Pretty soon after that they forced him to marry Elizabeth, though I know for a fact he didn’t love her, and in our little chapel in Cambridge!” A wracking sob went through her body, as if she could only now see just how much she had lost. “An arranged marriage.”

Lenox put a hand on her arm. “It will be all right,” he said.

“Why is that worse? What am I missing?” said Dallington.

“When is Frederick’s birthday?” asked Lenox of Mrs. Clarke by way of response to the question.

She looked at him, and he saw the truth.

Chapter Forty-Two

Lenox thanked Mrs. Clarke, promised to visit her again soon, and dragged Dallington out to the front of the hotel, where they picked up a new cab.

“Where in damnation are we going?” asked Dallington as they climbed in. “Don’t you have to be at Parliament soon?”

“I have an hour. We have to go see Ludo Starling.”

“Why?”

“To confront him. For the first time I think he may be guilty.”

“Finally!” Dallington exhaled. “What convinced you?”

Lenox smiled. “Let me have my little game—come and talk to Ludo with me.”

As they rode through the streets from Hammersmith to Mayfair, the buildings going past in a transition from shabby to genteel to pristine, Lenox tried to read his blue book, but there was no point. Nothing, not even Parliament, could match the excitement of the chase.

In a part of himself, though, he understood that this must be an ending. He would pass more cases on to Dallington now, and if Dallington needed help or advice Lenox would provide it, but only as a secondary figure. Cases of particular interest, or brought to him by those with a deep personal claim on him, would be the only ones he undertook to solve.

As they approached Curzon Street, Dallington leaned through his window to look up at the Starlinghouse.

“Look—he’s just leaving!” Dallington said.

“Probably on his way to Parliament. There, driver, leave us here!” called Lenox, rapping the top of the brougham with his fist. “Dallington, will you pay the man?”

“Yes—I’ll be behind you.”

Lenox stepped out of the cab and walked briskly down the street. “Ludo!” he called out.

He had begun to understand in the past few weeks how a tax collector must feel. Ludo’s face, expectant as he turned, fell into a look of disappointment.

“Oh. Hullo. Walking down to Parliament? Come along, I suppose—yes, come along. Same party, after all,” he said, with a forlorn shrug.

“I’m going there in a moment, yes, but I came here to speak to you. I’m glad I’ve caught you.”

“What is it?”

“It’s about Frederick Clarke.”

“Oh, for heaven’s—”

“Or more precisely, I should say, about your son Alfred.”

Ludo’s puffy pink face looked startled. “Alfred? What on earth could you want to know about him?”

“Only one thing—his birthday.”

Dallington came up to them now, and with that distraction Ludo managed to compose his features. “You, too?” he said. “Would you like to know the date of my wedding anniversary? Or old Tiberius’s saint’s day?”

“I’m as much in the dark as you are,” said Dallington. “What did you ask him, Charles?”

“Only his son’s birthday.”

“Paul?” asked Dallington doubtfully, perhaps suspecting that Lenox had returned to his quick departure for the colonies as a key point. “Why would it matter?”

“No. Alfred.”

“It’s taking a good deal of restraint not to snub you, Charles,” said Ludo. “Why should I submit to this intolerable invasion of my life? I’ve repeatedly asked you to leave the case to Grayson Fowler and Scotland Yard, and yet here you are for the fourth or fifth time, asking impertinently for help I’ve no desire to give you! I’m due in Parliament soon, and I would take it kindly if I could walk alone.” He turned away.

“Is Mrs. Starling home?”

“Yes—but she won’t want to speak to you, either!”

He began to walk away. Lenox waited a beat before he said, “Alfred—he’s almost a year younger than Frederick Clarke, isn’t he?”

Ludo turned back, white with either anger or surprise. It was hard to tell which. “I don’t see your point, and I don’t care to.”

“If you did get a title, it would have descended to Freddie Clarke.”

Dallington, suddenly comprehending all, whistled lowly.

The reaction of Ludo was much more pronounced. He gaped at them for a moment, then started to speak, then stopped, and finally just stood there, flabbergasted. “What do you mean?” he said at last.

“Freddie Clarke was your son, wasn’t he?”

“What—what possible—”

“Worse still, you were married to his mother. He was legitimate. Not a bastard. My question is this: How could you have let your own son work as a footman for three years, and in your house? What sort of man would tolerate such a circumstance?”

Staggered but determined to extricate himself from the situation, Ludo said, “I will take my leave now.”

“We’ll speak to Elizabeth, then,” said Lenox quietly. He had grown more certain in his own mind that Ludo was the murderer.

“She’s not home!”

“You said she was.”

He came back toward them in short, furious strides. “I was wrong! Now leave my family the hell alone!”

“You couldn’t bear the thought of depriving Alfred of his lordship, or of the Starling land up north. The Starling money is entailed, I believe? A system I never liked much, I confess. I doubt you would enjoy living out your days in the knowledge that a youthful indiscretion you made twenty years ago meant your two sons were disinherited.”

“You’re a liar! Leave them alone!”

But the truth was plain on Ludo’s face; Lenox had hit home.

The detective smiled faintly. “The real shame in it all is that Freddie Clarke would have made an admirable gentleman. He read philosophy, he boxed. He was quite plainly intelligent. Well liked.”

“It’s nothing to me what he was—he was a footman.”

“And Collingwood—for shame, Ludo. An innocent man. Who really did this deed?”

Ludo looked for the first time as if he were on the verge of confessing. The people going by on the pavement jostled him closer to Lenox, and a confidential look appeared on his face.

Just as he was about to speak, however, something entirely unexpected happened.

The position of the three men on the pavement was such that Dallington and Ludo were facing Lenox, and suddenly they both saw something he didn’t.

“Lenox!” cried Dallington.

He knew somebody was behind him, and with a quick step backward he saved his own life. (He had always found stepping
into
the attacker the most successful gambit, unbalancing the other person—a boxing lesson Freddie Clarke might have known.) Something extremely heavy and blunt grazed the side of his face painfully, tearing at his skin.

Even as he turned he saw from the corner of his eye Ludo, stock still, eyes wide with astonishment, and Dallington, springing forward to help him.

He felt a heavy blow on the side of his head. His last thought was to wonder where the person had come from so quickly, and then he forgot the living world.

Chapter Forty-Three

When he came to he was for a moment quite dreamy, but then the nature of the situation returned to his mind and he sprang away with all his might from whoever was grasping him.

“Lenox! Lenox! It’s only me!”

As he blinked his eyesight back, he saw that the person holding him had been Dallington, who had supported him to Starling’s front steps.