An Old Betrayal: A Charles Lenox Mystery (Charles Lenox Mysteries) (15 page)

As chance would have it, despite his late start Lenox beat Inspector Jenkins to the hotel by half a step. He checked his watch; 5:20. He was glad he hadn’t missed anything. Dallington wouldn’t have started without either of them there.

A bellman showed the two to a small tearoom, flooded with pink evening light, where a woman was sitting with a cup of tea, the remains of a light supper at her elbow. The plate had been pushed aside to make room for a notebook, in which she was writing intently, though when the door opened she put her pen down and looked up at them.

“Miss Godwin?” said Jenkins, removing his hat. Lenox did the same. “I am Chief Inspector Thomas Jenkins of Scotland Yard.”

She offered him her hand. “And you are?” she asked Lenox.

“Charles Lenox, ma’am.”

“Ah, Mr. Lenox,” she said, “yes. Yes, how do you do. I am Hetty Godwin. Thank you for coming to see me, gentlemen. I dearly hope that between the three of us we may find the man who murdered my brother.”

Both men apologized for their tardiness. She waved away their explanations and invited them to sit.

She was very clearly the older sister of the deceased man, was Henrietta Godwin; if he had been thirty, she must have lived ten or fifteen years longer than he had, and if someone had told Lenox she was fifty he wouldn’t have been surprised. She still had dark hair, however. She was a very thin, plain woman, with a sharp nose—in fact, sharp features in general, elbows and shoulders at angles to the world—but there was something indomitable in both her aspect and her speech. Her brother had died the day before and here she sat, far from home and in a great metropolis she might not have visited above once a year, calmly in command of this meeting already. Lenox admired her composure.

“Tell me of my brother’s death, if you please,” she said to Jenkins.

The inspector described, with appropriate restraint, Scotland Yard’s discovery and identification of the body. “We have men attempting to ascertain Mr. Godwin’s movements before his death yesterday. We know that he was in the company of a tall, fair-haired gentleman at ten o’clock, and a little while later they were with a third fellow, walking in a group down Gloucester Road.”

She frowned. “A group? Who was the third man?”

“We do not know the identity of either man—unless you know the second.”

“Not on such scant description. Is there a fuller account of this third man?”

Lenox shook his head. “Only that he was average-looking, dark-haired.”

A fretful look passed across her face. “I told him to stay at the Parchment, in Willoughby Lane. The Graves has grown too noisy. I myself shall move this evening; they are fetching my bags now.”

The Graves, whose tearoom at the moment was about as lively as a cemetery at midnight, seemed to sigh into even greater quietude, by way of solemn riposte. Here was another indication that Godwin had been a particularly retiring person, and Lenox asked his sister to confirm as much.

“Yes,” she said. “He was a member at White’s because our father was, and because he liked to spend half an hour there every year or two, but there was nothing my brother cared for less than visiting this city. We grew up quietly. Our father lived upon the land of his ancestors, which now, I suppose, must pass to my cousin Oswald.”

Lenox wondered whether this would mean she was turned out. “Archibald was unmarried?”

“Oh, yes, dear me. When he was at Oxford there was a brief affair, but the match was unfortunate, and my father stepped in. A girl from a stage show playing at the corn market. Fully half a foot taller than Archibald was, too.”

“When we came in you were making notes,” said Inspector Jenkins. “Have you formed a theory about your brother’s death?”

“Yes. I think his impostor killed him.”

A thrill went through Lenox. “His impostor?”

“For the past month, somebody here in London has been impersonating my brother.”

“Do you know what he looked like? Or his name?” asked Lenox, barely daring to hope.

“Neither of those things, no. But it was this man’s activities that fetched my brother here, and I should be very astonished indeed if they weren’t the reason that he died.”

For the first time she evinced some emotion now, a small sob into her handkerchief. Jenkins and Lenox said words as comforting as they could muster, which she acknowledged. When she had composed herself again, Lenox said, “Do you have some relation, here or in Hampshire, from whom you might seek comfort, Miss Godwin?”

“My brother was my closest friend. We spent nearly every evening together, playing cards or reading aloud to one another. I have cousins and nieces and nephews nearby, but they cannot make up for the loss. Obviously. Our father would have been distraught—I only thank the Lord that he is underground.”

It was damnable. Lenox glanced over at Jenkins and saw that he, too, felt a fresh anger at the murderer. The inspector said, “Perhaps you could tell us in more detail about this impostor. How did he come to your brother’s attention?”

Hetty took a sip of her tea, to settle her nerves perhaps. Then she spoke in a steady voice. “My brother’s tailors are Ede and Ravenscroft, and have been since he was a very small child and our father had his first suit of clothes made up. Generally he corresponds with them by letter, after a local tailor near us takes his measurements. They send us a complete catalog.

“Last month, Archie received a bill from them, though he had ordered no clothes; he generally only places his order just before Christmas, at the end of November. The bill Ede’s sent in was for half a dozen shirts, two suits, three pairs of trousers, and a few odds and ends, handkerchiefs, spats. The letter said they had sent the same accounting to his London address but copied it to Hampshire for Archie’s convenience.”

“Do you have a London address?” asked Lenox. “Or rather, did he?”

“No.”

“I thought not.”

“Needless to say, Archie wrote by first post to query the bill. The cost was substantial, but that was not the issue. My brother and I are comfortably provided for. The issue, of course, was the clear attempt at fraud that had been perpetrated in his name. The impostor hadn’t counted on Ede’s sending a duplicate of the bill, but then they’re very thorough, very professional.”

“Of course,” said Jenkins.

“My brother, too, was a very thorough man,” said Hetty. “Along with his letter to Ede’s, he wrote to half a dozen of the other merchants in London that he uses.”

“Who are they?” asked Lenox and Jenkins almost simultaneously, pens poised.

“That is precisely the list I was making when you entered. There is Berry Brothers, his wine merchant. His hatmaker is Shipp’s. His saddler is Hunt’s. His gunmaker is Mr. Parson, near St. James’s. I am forgetting one or two. At any rate, to consolidate several weeks of anxious correspondence into a brief tale, he wrote to each of them to tell them about the fraud at Ede’s, and to ask them what the last charge upon his account had been.”

“And they replied?” asked Jenkins.

“At four of the six places there had been no activity. At Berry Brothers and Mr. Parson’s, however, there were recent and, of course, improper transactions. The bill at Berry’s was particularly stiff.”

“Parson’s is a gunmaker,” Jenkins murmured, looking at Lenox.

“They do not make small arms, however,” said Lenox, “and a hunting rifle did not kill Mr.—did not murder your brother, ma’am.”

The door of the tearoom opened, and though the light, in the last fifteen minutes, had gone from brilliant to shadowy, Lenox saw that it was Dallington. The young aristocrat, making his apologies to Henrietta Godwin, sat down, after asking for a cup of hot water with lemon, and bade them continue; Lenox would provide him with the earlier aspects of the narrative after they were finished here.

“How did your brother proceed, Miss Godwin, when he heard from Parson’s and the other merchants?”

“He wrote to the police immediately, and of course to Berry’s and Parson’s, telling them that the items for which they had billed him were not ones that he had ordered. They were apologetic. Since my brother conducted most of his business through the post, it was apparently easy to deceive the clerks at these shops as to his appearance.”

“What strikes me,” said Lenox, “is that this person must have somehow known your brother—his habits, where he shopped—in order to impersonate him. Who were Archibald’s acquaintances?”

Hetty, with a frustrated shake of her head, said, “That was precisely what so vexed us. My brother had few friendships outside of the valley. The one time that brought him into contact with the broader world—the London world—was his time at Wadham, I suppose, at Oxford. It is the only period of his life when he did not live in Hampshire.”

“Could any of the shops provide a description of the man? Or the address he left?”

“The address he used was a false one in South London. Rather than have them delivered he sent a man, by his description his valet, to pick up the goods he had purchased upon my brother’s name.”

“I am amazed it was so easy,” said Jenkins, perhaps thinking of the stingy lines of credit extended to members of the lower classes in England, who might find it difficult to buy ten shillings of groceries without ready money.

“A genteel manner goes a very long way in this country,” said Lenox. “Did the clerks describe this man physically?”

“Yes. They all agreed that he was a tall man, well turned out, with a trim mustache and light hair.”

So. It was the man from Gilbert’s, or somebody of such a similar physical aspect that it was a very great coincidence. What relation could he bear to Grace Ammons?

Lenox still had one important question. “If your brother handled these matters of business by mail, Miss Godwin, may I ask why he ventured to London?”

“Three days ago my brother received a letter from his school friend Michael Almerston, who lives in Grosvenor Square. In his letter, Mr. Almerston mentioned that he had thought to write because nearly every night he saw a man dining alone at Cyril’s Restaurant, whom the waiters all called Mr. Godwin. Mr. Almerston takes most of his meals there, too, from all I gather. Hearing the name had reminded him of Archie, living down in the country, and he wondered whether Archie might get up this season for a visit. Well, Archie, whose suspicions were already high, of course, wrote back by the next post to ask what the man looked like.”

“Yes?” said Jenkins.

“Almerston’s description fit the man who had been shopping at Berry’s, Ede’s, and Mr. Parson’s,” said Hetty. “My brother came up to confront the man at Cyril’s, to see this charlatan with his own eyes. He thought it would be a simple matter for the police, once he could be sure.”

“Would he have consulted a police officer when he arrived in London?” asked Jenkins.

“I do not know—but I wouldn’t think so. Now as a result, as of course you know, he is dead.”

Upon saying this Miss Godwin, who had been strong indeed to tell her story so clearly and carefully, broke down again into tears. It was some time before the gentle words of the three men could tame her agitation, and in the end Jenkins, an experienced hand in such matters, was forced to resort to the expedient of a tall glass of sherry.

Henrietta Godwin, her tale delivered, said that she thought she would now go to the Parchment and rest: She and her brother kept country hours.

Jenkins, his whole manner beautifully tactful, asked if she might have the strength, it would only take the briefest moment or two, to view the victim’s body, and confirm that it belonged to her brother. The sister hesitated, plainly pained, but at last agreed to make the trip.

“You will remain in London?” asked Lenox.

“For a day or two, more if I am needed. It was always very hard upon our nerves, both of us, coming to London. Archie is spared that, anyhow. I wish he had never come to this beastly place.”

Dallington, unoffended by this slur upon the city that had nursed him from childhood, said, “Did you ever hear the name Grace Ammons?”

“Who is she?”

“The same fellow who practiced upon your brother may have had other victims.”

“I’m sorry to say that I do not know the name. How did you find her? I pray she did not meet the same end that Archie did?”

“She is still alive, and when we catch this blackguard will feel safe again,” said Dallington.

There was vehemence in Dallington’s voice—and Lenox perceived for the first time that for his young protégé, the fact of George Ivory’s existence might not seem the unalloyed delight it did for Grace Ammons.

“You have business with Inspector Jenkins,” Lenox said to Miss Godwin. “Thank you so much for your patience, and your admirable equanimity. Were it my brother I doubt I could have done half as well.”

“Hear, hear,” said Dallington.

As soon as Jenkins led Henrietta out of the room, Dallington plummeted into his chair and took a gulp of cold water. “Damn,” he said.

“Are you still so very ill?”

“Yes.”

“You should consult with McConnell again.”

“There is a doctor at my door every morning at nine, there to interrupt the first peaceable half hour of sleep I’ve had all night, thanks to my mother. Anyhow McConnell is busy, from everything I hear.”

Lenox ignored that. “You should go home, then.”

“Are you not curious why I was late?”

“Because you are ill, I assumed. As it happened all three of us were late—no great credit to Jenkins or ourselves.”

“You said that Grace Ammons lied to us.”

Lenox hailed a passing waiter. “Bring my friend another glass of water, please,” he said. “I’ll take a whisky and soda.”

The waiter left. “A whisky? Aren’t you in the Commons this evening?”

“You think I should have made it a double?”

Dallington grinned, a little more color in his face now that he was seated, and not making any special effort to keep his spine straight. “Back to Grace Ammons. I wondered all through lunch what you meant, and I decided to start with George Ivory. You were correct. She lied to us.”

“Oh?”

“First tell me what you meant—the suspense has been long enough.”