The September Society (14 page)

Two large tears trembled in her eyes. “Yes.”

He put his hand softly on her arm and said, “Oh, my dear, I’m so terribly sorry.”

At these kind words her composure collapsed and she buried her head in Lenox’s chest, sobbing and sobbing.

Presently he asked, “Would you like to tell me what happened?”

She sniffled. “Yes,” she said. “I want to help.”

“Were the two of you—”

Hastily, she said, “No, no, Mr. Lenox, there was never a breath of impropriety. He was the finest gentleman I ever saw! So friendly, and so gentle with me, and such lovely manners. Once—once—he kissed me on the cheek. But oh, how I loved him, Mr. Lenox! I knew he was only polite, but Lord! How I loved George Payson!”

“Do you mind going backward a little? How do you come to manage these dances?”

Regaining some of her composure, Rosie answered, “It’s charitable work, Mr. Lenox. Half of the subscription prices go to the local orphanage. A few of us girls who grew up here do the work to prepare the dances.”

“How often do they happen?”

“There’s one every Friday evening in term. They rotate around the colleges by twos—that is, each college has two dances and then passes it on. This will be Jesus’s second dance; then it will go on to Magdalen.”

“The dances rotate through the colleges alphabetically?”

“Yes, Mr. Lenox. George and Bill took out subscriptions from their first week last year, and came to dance.”

“Did you dance, too?”

“Heavens, no. I serve punch and tick off names on the subscription list.”

“And over time you had a friendship with George,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes again. “But I didn’t write to tell you about this, I wrote to tell you about Friday.”

“What happened?” he said.

“The first odd thing was that his dance card was blank, Mr. Lenox. That never happened.”

“What did he do?”

“He stood off to the side, occasionally speaking with his friends, and occasionally having a word with me.”

“Did you notice anything else?”

“One other thing, actually—toward the end of the evening—”

“What time would that be?”

“Oh, quarter till eleven, perhaps.”

“Go on.”

“Toward the end of the evening, I saw him out in the quadrangle here at Jesus arguing with a man older than himself.”

“Can you describe him?”

“I can’t
really
, no, I’m afraid, because it was dark out. I saw that he wasn’t a student straight away from his dress, you see, and from the way he carried himself.”

“And you didn’t overhear them?”

“No, I’m afraid I didn’t. I’m sorry I can’t help more. But with what came afterward, it began to seem so strange!” She burst into tears again.

“On the contrary, you’ve been a great help. And you can trust that we’ll do whatever we can.”

“I’ve been so lonesome, Mr. Lenox!” she said, looking up at him with wet eyes.

Lenox didn’t speak for a moment, and then said, “How about this, Rosie: You and I shall be friends. Whatever I know, you’ll know. I’ll write you notes every other day or so and tell you what’s happened. A proper friendship.”

“Thank you,” she said, unable to say anything else.

A few minutes later they parted. Lenox thought of her, all alone over the past days with the terrible secret of her love and its defeat, aching to help, unequipped by her upbringing
or her experience in the world to cope with her emotions. And felt at once a great pity for and admiration of her.

He had to catch his train in twenty minutes, but first he went back to the hotel and left Graham a note that read,
Will you please find out whether Hatch attended the Jesus College dance last Saturday? An older man reported there. Thanks, CL
.

W
ith unwelcome force, the question of Lady Jane returned to Lenox while he was on the train. To distract himself he took his bag down from the rack to find a book—he was alone in his compartment, the train being relatively empty—and found atop his clothes Theophilus Butler’s entry in
Who’s Who
, copied out in Graham’s precise handwriting. He must have done it that morning, remembering that Lenox had forgotten to look into the book. It read:

Lenox noticed that he was from an Irish family, perhaps one that had emigrated to England some time back, at least on his father’s side. It was odd for Butler, given his background, to have served in the East Suffolk. Of course, from the profile it was difficult to tell how he would be—either a bluff, courteous old soldier, completely ignorant of anything to do with George Payson, or the mastermind of the whole thing. He had the Distinguished Service Order, so he was brave, and he had been knighted, so the chances were that he had connections either in court or in the upper stratum of the military hierarchy.

Turning the page over, Lenox saw that Graham had also copied out the entry for John Lysander, the Society’s admissions director, and written below it that Peter Wilson, the cofounder of the Society with Theophilus Butler, wasn’t listed. Lysander’s looked like this:

Interesting that he lived just two houses down from Butler—from the look of it they had probably served together quite closely, a friendship bred in the officers’ mess and only allowed to flourish when both were decommissioned and allowed to meet again on a slightly more equal footing. Thinking it over, it seemed odd that a club should be devoted to such a small group of men, but Lenox decided to reserve judgment until he found himself on Pall Mall.

His first destination when he left the train, though, was Hampden Lane and home. He wanted to check the post, have a cup of tea, and change his clothes before he went out again, and he wanted as well, though he wouldn’t admit it to himself, to check in on Lady Jane. When he arrived at their slender, homey lane, however, she wasn’t there, and according to Mary, who was in charge of the house in Graham’s absence and seemed to be filled with a mortal terror of her new and lofty position, Lady Jane had been away the entire day. It was vexing: For so many years she had simply been at hand, and now, in these days when he most wanted to see her, she was nowhere to be found. Who was the lean man in the gray coat that he had seen emerging from her house? Why had her carriage been in the Seven Dials?

It was the middle of the afternoon by the time Lenox left for Pall Mall. He decided to take the trip on foot, stale as he felt from the train. London looked its best, too, austere on its high horizon, the cold, white, ancient stone of its buildings agleam in the fading sunlight. On the ground the city traded austerity for intimacy, a kind of companionship in the mass of people along the streets, the shuffling red leaves under the carriage wheels, the brightly lighted rooms just above street level. The briskness in the air was refreshing to Lenox, snapping some red into his cheeks and clearing the fuzziness travel always gave him from his brain. By the time he had turned into Carlton Gardens, the site of the September Society, he felt ready again to clear the corresponding fuzziness of George Payson’s death and Bill Dabney’s disappearance.

Two small, rectangular brass plates were affixed to the door. One said
THE BIBLIUS CLUB
plainly enough, while the other only said, rather cryptically,
THE SOCIETY
. The building was a Regency town house. Its first floor extended behind to about twice the length of the upper floors, so the areas of the two clubs must have been roughly similar. The door was of
barred glass and bore one unfamiliar crest (which must have belonged to the Biblius) and one with the familiar cat on it. Lenox only had a moment to gather all of these impressions, because as soon as he paused in front of the building a doorman in a morning suit had stepped out through the door. Behind him Lenox could see a small but tidy entrance, about five feet by five feet, which had two doors plainly leading to the two clubs. The doorman had been having his tea, Lenox saw. He was a middle-aged fellow with graying hair and an intelligent, humorous face.

“Sorry to interrupt you,” Lenox said, “but I wondered whether I might pop up to the September Society.”

“Are you a member?”

“I’m not, no, I’m afraid. I’m investigating a young lad’s death, though, and thought I might be able to see either Theophilus Butler, Peter Wilson, or John Lysander.”

“Well, sir, you won’t find Mr. Wilson.”

“Why not?”

“He’s dead, I’m afraid, sir.”

“Is he? How did that happen?”

The doorman cleared his throat. “Well, sir, it was suicide by gunshot.”

Lenox was surprised. “I see,” he said. “Any chance of Major Butler or Captain Lysander?”

“No, sir, the club does not permit nonmembers within its rooms.” More confidentially—he was quite clearly a chatty chap who had grown bored with his five-by-five cell—the doorman said, “Neither of them is in, anyway, sir. Both of ’em come most mornings.”

Knowing that his interlocutor wanted more to while away a few minutes than to handle the building’s business, Lenox only said, “Regular practices, eh? I’m much the same.”

“Oh, yes, sir, set your clock by them. Come at ten, they
both do, and leave again after lunch. Major Butler goes to the British Library, and Captain Lysander often sees a show.”

“Do they? And neither of them ever comes in to get out of the rain, perhaps, and sit by a warm fire?”

“No, sir, as Major Butler goes to White’s and Captain Lysander to the Army and Navy.”

“Ah, I see. I know the type—like a certain routine—never vary from it.”

“Yes, sir. Though mind,” said the doorman, reaching back in through the door to fetch his cup of tea, “there are the meetings.”

“Meetings?” said Lenox, perhaps a touch too innocently.

“Yes, sir. They come in quite late, sir, even after the Biblius closes at eleven, and meet up in their rooms. And neither Chapman, who serves at the Society, nor me, nor the cooks, nor the charwoman is allowed to be in the building.”

“How peculiar!”

The valet tapped his nose. “It is, sir, though mind, they’re military folk, and have their own ways about them.”

“Any other peculiar mannerisms?”

“Not to put your finger on, sir, though they’re a sight more ornery than the Biblius.”

Lenox sighed. “Well, I suppose I’d better try to see them in their homes.”

The doorman was anxious to prolong the conversation another moment or two and remembered Lenox’s errand. “If I may ask, why did you need to see one of the two gentlemen? Did you say?”

“I’m a detective.”

“So is it a murder, sir, that you’re investigating?” he said eagerly.

“Perhaps—though I’d ask you not to mention it to anybody. Quite confidential.”

The doorman tapped his nose again furiously and in general did so much winking and nodding in such a confused manner that Lenox knew his secret was safe. “Scotland Yard, then, sir?”

The “sir” was a bit more hesitant—Lenox looked like a gentleman, but of course an inspector wouldn’t deserve quite the same intensity of nose-tapping and sirring. “Oh, no,” said Lenox, “merely a friend of the family.”

They were on the right ground again. The doorman gave his nose a final, emphatic tap of secrecy. Lenox left his card behind, found out the man’s name was Thomas Hallowell, and promised to return soon. As he walked back to Pall Mall, once looking back and up to see whether he could decipher anything from the curtained windows in the top two floors, he thought over what he should do. He could try the two houses at Green Park Terrace, though from the sound of it Lysander and Butler both kept odd hours. Then there was Peter Wilson, the suicide. That had an air of suspicion about it.

The detective took a hansom cab to Scotland Yard and was closeted briefly with Inspector Jenkins, a young chap on the rise in the force with whom Lenox had once briefly worked in the matter of a murdered parlor maid, though Inspector Exeter had quickly taken over the job. Jenkins asked about George Payson and offered whatever help he could give Lenox. He also said that he would send over the coroner’s report and the Yard’s file on the case as soon as he could lay his hands on them.

Though he had been uncertain of whether he knew Jenkins well enough to ask him for the favor, Lenox was glad that he had. Like many favors, it had bound the two people involved a little tighter, and Jenkins had made it plain that he was happy to lend a hand now and then where he could, while Lenox had made it equally plain that he was always good for
a consultation. There were one or two people who trusted Lenox at the Yard, but he felt it was good to have a real friend in situ there, at a place where his work had mostly generated suspicion and surliness over the years.