A Stranger in Mayfair (18 page)

“They won’t! Did you hear a word I said? The imminent danger of it all?”

“I know, I know. It’s only a feeling. I hope I’m wrong.”

At home Lady Jane was full of a dozen questions, and Graham—whom Lenox studied closely for signs of anxiety—was full of good cheer and shook his hand solemnly, before going straight back to work into the night with Frabbs. There was an ominous pile of blue books on Lenox’s desk.

“Now, how
was
it?” asked Lady Jane when at last they had settled on the sofa, her hands clasping his.

They spent an hour in close conversation, absorbed in each other as they had been that morning but so rarely in the past week. He fell ravenously upon a shoulder of lamb and fresh peas, having been unconscious before it appeared on a silver salver how hungry he had been. He felt cared for again.

“It’s almost cool enough to have a fire tonight,” Lady Jane said. “I’d like to stay in and be lumps here on the couch, and read. What do you say to that?”

“I say yes, of course. I wish it could be
Cranford,
but it must be blue books, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll call the footman to light it.”

As she left he wandered into the dim dining room, restless. His eyes alighted on a watercolor of the London skyline. It had replaced that Paris painting, which was in a guest room now—it had made him feel uneasy, despite how he had liked it in France. In the skyline was St. Paul’s, and Westminster Abbey, and there, just above a middling of roofs, the Palace of Westminster: Parliament.

He had been pulled in so many directions during the fortnight since his honeymoon ended. There were Toto and Thomas McConnell, there was Jane’s distance, there was the case, there was first his disenchantment with Parliament and then the galvanizing realization of the public danger cholera presented, and beyond all that the hundred meetings to attend and duties to discharge. It had been impossibly fraught. Now his life clarified before him. Parliament was where he belonged. Everything would be all right with Jane, and he would do his work there. Seeing the Queen, hearing her order them to execute the business of the people, standing among lords, bishops, cabinet ministers, in the mix of power and possibility…here he was. It was time to work.

This new resolve lasted until the next morning. The pledge lingered with him—he meant it—but when Dallington came to see if he wanted to visit Freddie Clarke’s boxing club, he couldn’t decline the offer.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

In the trip to Kensington, where the boxing club was situated along an old work road, Lenox described his day. To his initial disappointment and subsequent amusement Dallington could barely keep his eyes open.

The building itself was a large converted store house; as they entered, the instant tang of sweat and blood filled their nostrils, despite the draft of air among the high rafters.

“Hardly the back room of a tavern, is it?” murmured Lenox. “I had always heard these contests took place there.”

“Those colored lads in the far ring are giving each other a walloping, aren’t they?”

“It seems there’s betting on it.”

There were four rings spread around the room, and perhaps two dozen people in and around them. Fifteen of these were crowded around the match Dallington had mentioned; two were in a different ring, gently sparring with each other as they received technical advice. Close to the door several men were exercising on mats. An old, white-haired man, who was supervising, stopped when he spotted the detectives. He came over to them.

“Help you?”

“How do you do? My name is Charles Lenox, and this is John Dallington. We hoped to speak to somebody about Frederick Clarke.”

“Freddie? Decent fighter. Shame what they did him.”

“You knew him, then?”

“I’m the trainer. I know all the young gentlemen. The one you want to talk to is there, the one in the blue suit.” He pointed out a tall, slightly paunched fellow with black hair who was watching the match. “He’s the secretary of the club.”

“Could you get him?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it until the fight is over. He and Mr. Sharp-Fletcher have a pound on the bout.” He turned to watch. “The bigger lad, Castle, ain’t got much science—but what a brute! The smaller one doesn’t have a chance. Poor Mr. Sharp-Fletcher is going to lose his money, what can scarcely afford to.”

“I know them both,” muttered Dallington, after the trainer had gone.

“The bettors?”

“Yes, they’re wellborn lads. Sharp-Fletcher was sent down from Brasenose. The other one is called…I can’t remember.”

“Neither of them is a footman, I daresay.”

“Unless they’ve changed professions, no. And I hardly think Sharp’s mother would like it. Her father was a marquess.”

“These pugilists move in pretty rarefied circles.”

They walked idly about the club, waiting for the match to end, glancing over occasionally to see whether there was a winner. To their surprise, after they had heard the trainer’s opinion, it was the smaller fighter who knocked the larger one out. More science, perhaps. Lenox saw Sharp-Fletcher grab his money excitedly from the hand of a third party and count it to make sure it was all true. The two boxers, exhausted, staggered to the corners and had water from their bottle-men. The winning gamblers went to the corner of the smaller boxer to congratulate him, while the losing fighter sat alone.

Soon they found the secretary of the club. “Sir?” Lenox said.

“Yes?”

“I’d like a word, if I might. The trainer pointed you out to us. We’re looking into Freddie Clarke’s death.”

The black-haired man clicked his tongue. “Terrible thing, that. Have you found out who killed him? Wait a moment—Dallington?”

“Yes, it is. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name.”

“Willard North. We met at Abigail MacNeice’s aunt’s house, several months since.”

“That’s it—I knew we’d met.”

“You’re a detective, then?”

“After a fashion. An amateur—it’s rather a hobby of mine.”

North snorted. “Well—to each his own.”

Nodding slightly at the bloodied fighters, Dallington said, “Indeed.”

North didn’t notice. “I’m afraid I can’t help you—about Clarke, I mean. He was a damned good fighter.”

“Was he a member of the club, or a fighter for hire like these men?” asked Lenox.

“A member, of course.”

“Wouldn’t that have been expensive?”

North shrugged. “It depends for whom you mean.”

“For a footman?”

“For a footman—well, of course. It’s a pound to join and ten shillings a year after that. Why do you ask about a footman?”

North didn’t know what Freddie Clarke did. The lad had been putting on a show—or at any rate hadn’t volunteered his profession. Obviously the money from under the door financed the lie.

“How much do you pay these men—the colored fighters?” asked Dallington.

“A sovereign each.”

“Is that all?”

“They’re grateful for it, I can promise you. The winner usually gets tipped a shilling here and there. No doubt that rat Sharp-Fletcher is buying the littler one champagne and truffles with my money.”

“Can you tell us anything else about Clarke?”

“I wouldn’t have thought so. He always stood a round in the bar after we trained—there’s a bar through that door,” he added, pointing to the back of the gym. “I once saw him near Green Park, and he rushed away as if he hadn’t seen me right back, which I found galling.”

“What was he wearing?”

“What a strange question. A suit of clothes, of course.”

Footman’s clothes, it would seem from Clarke’s reaction. But people see what they expect to.

“Did he have much money to splash around?” asked Dallington.

“Some, of course. Yes, I would have said more than most. He gave us to understand that he had quite a rich father.”

“How?”

“Oh, something like ‘Drink on the pater?’—he would say that when he offered to buy us a round and hold up a pound note.”

“Was anyone here close with him?”

“Besides me? Our vice president, Gilbert, was pretty pally with Clarke, but he’s been up in the country for three months.”

“Not Eustace Gilbert, from Merton?” asked Lenox. “He took a boxing blue at Oxford while I was there.”

“That’s the one.”

It was to all appearances a club entirely for gentlemen. Lenox asked, “How does one go about joining the club? Is there a system of reference?”

“Oh—we know our own crowd, don’t we, John? If anyone fancies a bit of exercise he comes and sees us. We rent this space quite cheaply, and our trainer, Franklin, finds all the equipment cheaply and manages the place. In all it pays for itself with our big matches. The dues go toward our bar and club house.”

“So how did Clarke get in?”

“I don’t remember. May have been through Gilbert—they used to have drinks together. Gilbert thought him very dapper.”

The suit. Show up in a well-cut suit at Claridge’s bar, with the right accent, and you could generally fall in with the proper crowd. Had Clarke been a talented mimic? What had been the aim of all this?

“You can’t remember anything else?” asked Dallington.

“No,” said North. Then he turned and called loudly to the rest of the people in the room, “These men are here for whoever killed Freddie!”

There was a low chuckle at this. “It was me!” called out a joking voice.

Then, to the perfect astonishment of everyone there, a short man with light hair separated from the group and sprinted for the door as fast as he could. By the time Lenox and Dallington had reached the door he was gone.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Who was that?” shouted Dallington at the crowd of people who all stood together now, mute and stunned. Lenox, who had run down the street to see which way the man had turned—a futile attempt—returned.

There was a long silence.

“I’ve never seen him before in my life,” said Willard North at last. “Have any of you lads?”

There were murmurs in the negative and much headshaking. Lenox couldn’t tell if they were protecting one of their own or if their mystification was genuine.

But then another voice chimed in.

“I know him. Fella who sometimes comes to see me fight.” It was the losing boxer, the large one without much science. He spoke in the accent of the West Indies, but with a disconcerting cockney tinge mixed into it. “Butcher. I know because he bring me a steak if my eye is swelled up.”

Dallington and Lenox looked at each other: a butcher. The piece of evidence incriminating Collingwood had been a butcher’s apron.

“Where is his shop? Where does he live?”

The big man shrugged. “Don’t know.”

“Did you catch his name?”

“He told me, but I can’t remember it.” He looked exhausted and took a gulp of water. “S’all I know.”

“Thank you.”

Out on the pavement Lenox and Dallington both started to speak at once. “You first,” said the older man.

“I was only going to say—this man, this butcher, may have come with Clarke.”

“It could be,” said Lenox thoughtfully, “but what about his disguise? Would Frederick Clarke the ‘gentleman’s son’ want to introduce a butcher as his particular friend?”

“You’re right.”

“Did you get a good look at the man?”

“I didn’t, unfortunately.”

“Nor did I,” said Lenox. “Still, I think I could choose him from a group of three if I had to. The next step is to go to all the butchers’ shops around the alley. I’ll do that.”

“What if he’s hiding?”

“We’ll see.”

“And what shall I do?”

“It’s time we split up, I think. I have two tasks in mind for you: First, you can see whether you do any better with Fowler than I have. He may have imagined some slight against him from me, or some condescension. Otherwise I can’t explain his behavior.”

“Second?”

“We haven’t spoken to Mrs. Clarke since Collingwood was arrested.”

Dallington whistled sharply between two fingers. A cab started to pull up to them, its horse an old plodder. “Anything else?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Fowler—Mrs. Clarke—excellent.” He swung up a leg into the taxi and soon was on his way.

Lenox soon was on his way, too, back to Curzon Street. In truth he had always disliked butcher shops; it might perhaps have been because his family had never on either side been great hunters, or because Lenox House, while it had a working farm on its land, was set at a distance from its own barns. He went into the first butcher’s that he saw near Ludo’s house, and there were the familiar sights—two deer, their eyes glassed, skinned and slung up on the wall. A jar of pigs’ hooves, being slowly cured on the countertop. The tidiness of the red-checked curtains and the large roll of wax paper in counterpoint to the bloody hunks of cow and pig everywhere. He could eat what came from these carcasses readily enough, but he didn’t care to look at them.

“Does another gentleman work here?” Lenox asked the man behind the counter, who looked about 150 years old and could no more have attacked Ludo Starling than he could have swum the Channel.

“My son,” answered the man.

“Is he here?”

“He’s in York for the week, which he’s visiting his wife’s parents there.”

“I see—thank you.”

Then it occurred to Lenox that he might easily ask Ludo who the family butcher was—perhaps that would be the man.

He knocked at the front door, and as Elizabeth Starling opened it he remembered that of course their butler was gone.

“Hello, Charles,” she said. “I would have had the housemaid open the door for you, but she’s busy in the kitchen, I’m afraid. At any rate Ludo is out.”

“Perhaps you can answer my question, in that case.”

“Oh?”

“Do you know what butcher Collingwood employed?”

With a deep, sorrowful sigh, she said, “Does your meddling reach no end? Would you not leave us to our lives? Our footman is dead—our butler in prison—my husband attacked—and still you annoy us with your impertinences! Have you heard nothing of the honor which may shortly be bestowed upon my husband, and the very real danger of losing it by indiscretion?” Again she sighed. “I’m not a hard-worded woman, you know. It pains me to be so vehement. Please forgive me.”