Soon enough Lenox was walking around Washington Square Park under his own strength. He cut a feeble figure, moving at a snail’s pace, generally leaning on Graham’s arm. For long stretches the most pleasant thing to do was sit upon a quiet bench and bask in the nourishing sun, eyes closed—which was all to the good, for he could not make it much farther than a few hundred yards from his front door without running short of breath.
He grew to love the little house on Washington Square. Caroline Astor had let it to him for two weeks at first, a term now extended to two months by Graham’s offices, the length of time the doctors agreed Lenox must wait before attempting to travel.
Finally—if not on any schedule he had planned—he was seeing America.
“People are being terribly kind,” said Lady Jane one morning over breakfast, sorting through the post. “I have had two notes from Alva Belmont just this week.”
She was at a circular table with a pretty white lace cloth, a teacup and a piece of toast with blueberry jam in front of her. It was from Maine; and she had already ordered two dozen jars to take back to London. Lenox was in a softer chair, in the corner of the room, reading. He had found that right now he could tolerate only Sir Walter Scott.
“Who is Alva Belmont?” he asked.
“You sat next to her brother at the Astor ball.”
“Oh.” He paused. “I do not see that as a very profound claim on our friendship. She wants to gawk at me.”
Lady Jane glanced up and smiled. “Only someone who loves you as much as I do would want to gawk at you in your present state.”
He chuckled, though it hurt his ribs. There had been complications recently with his wound, unhealthy discharge; too much exercise. “You might be surprised.”
Inevitably, word had trickled out into society about the confrontation at the ball. For a week, true, the stories from Newport had all been about what Caroline Astor served for dessert, whom she had excluded from her invitations, the engagements that had been decided by the end of the night.
But soon there were other, more troubling rumors abroad about that evening, and while they were too unclear to appear in the papers—and Blaine’s father too powerful for most journalists to risk his wrath—these rumors were nevertheless busily multiplying across New York.
Lenox had accepted no visitor yet except for the Allinghams. To them he had told the unvarnished truth about Blaine. All others, with the exception of a visit from Mrs. Berry, in her best bonnet and bearing a new quilt as a present, he had declined; even Caroline Astor, grateful though he was to her, he preferred to write.
Lady Jane had been more sociable. But the real triumph had been Sophia and Clara’s—with Miss Huntington, the girls had set out to discover the various parks of New York and seemed to return each time with tales of new playmates. The trip had turned into a delight for them: American children had much worse manners, Sophia said, which turned out to mean that they were not stiff or formal but ran about in heaps and had the kind of fun Sophia always longed to have. If her parents, even her governess, indulged her, perhaps it was forgivable.
Lenox had fallen back into Rob Roy when O’Brian entered the room. “A visitor, sir—or rather, quite a lot of visitors.”
“Excuse me?”
“It is mainly Mr. Blaine, sir. The elder one,” he added hastily, realizing it might have sounded as if Lenox’s assailant was returning to finish the job of killing him.
“Who is with him?”
Jane had gotten up and was peering outside. “A small army.” Then she corrected herself. “Not that small.”
Reluctantly, Lenox roused himself from the chair, went to the window, and peered through the slats toward the park, which was a lovely green in this morning hour, dappled with shade.
There was Archie Blaine, it was true, standing, staring at nothing in particular, smoking, and with him perhaps twenty people, some of whom looked like business associates, others whose notable qualities looked to be more in the physical than the mental line.
“If he is still here in fifteen minutes, you may show him into the lower parlor,” said Lenox, and sat down again.
Teddy Blaine himself had vanished. His knife, his walking stick, his limp; he had taken all three and since remained invisible to the law, which had been seeking him. No one knew whether he was in China or California or a boardinghouse on Broadway.
It was an uneasy feeling. Only the two intimidating guards stationed at the doors by the Astors made Lenox feel secure.
The elder Blaine waited him out, and in due course the two men sat opposite each other in the lower parlor, a small room furnished for card playing. They were alone.
“How is your health, Mr. Lenox?”
“Improving, thank you,” said Lenox.
Blaine missed the coldness in the detective’s voice. “I’m relieved to hear it.” He glanced up and around the room they were in. “This is a very fine house.”
“To one such as yourself it must seem modest.”
Archie Blaine smiled and met Lenox’s eyes, albeit briefly. “You could only say that as one who has never lived truly modestly, Mr. Lenox. I never knew a floor could be made of anything but dirt until I was ten.”
At the moment Lenox was uninterested in this line of conversation. “Where is your son, Mr. Blaine?”
“I don’t know.”
“You must think me stupid.”
Blaine shook his head impassively. “No, I do not. You pieced together what he had done. Nobody else did.”
“But you will not say where he has gone.”
“I know that he is safe somewhere and is being watched. I could have a report on his every step within ten minutes, should I choose. But I have asked not to be told anything directly just yet.”
“So that you do not have to tell the police?”
“No. Because I would be tempted to tell the police.”
Lenox waited. Mr. Blaine, though, was immune to this trick, happy to sit in silence for some time. He was one of the most peculiar people Lenox had ever met, somehow—not in his dress, or even his conversation, but in the way that it seemed to Lenox that he was living in an entirely different world. Making money was evidently very easy for him; making sons rather harder, bewildering even, perhaps.
“Then why have you come to see me?” said Lenox at last.
“I want to know what I can do for you.”
“Do for me?”
“You seem to have good quarters—family close—good care.” Some of the best doctors had been sent by Blaine’s people in fact, no expense spared. Lenox had been unconscious; sometimes in his ill-humored moments, now, he imagined turning them away. “What else can I provide?”
“The question insults me, as I’m sure you know.”
Archibald Blaine looked at him, startled. This time the coldness in Lenox’s voice must have been unmistakable. “Insults you? Oh—because it’s money. I see. No, I am not trying to buy your cooperation, Mr. Lenox. I am distraught at what Teddy has done to you.”
“Less distraught than I am, or the Allinghams, I would have to imagine.”
Blaine nodded at the justice of this, but did not reply directly. “I also wished to explain.”
“Explain?”
“About Teddy. He has always been troubled, my younger son.”
“You don’t say.”
“The difficulty is that he’s exceedingly bright.”
“Yes,” said Lenox. “I saw that for myself.”
“I hoped that a good education might salvage him from his worst tendencies. It has not, obviously. I see that now. One imagines—well, a marriage, a career, such things can settle a person. I was even ready to let him become a detective, though it would have half killed my wife.”
The great mogul had apparently forgotten that he was speaking to a detective—and for that matter, one who did not hold Blaine’s wife in especially high regard, based on their brief acquaintance.
“Were you?”
Blaine leaned back. Outside he had smoked incessantly, but he was unhurried now, his full, immensely powerful attention on the matter at hand. “I ventured into his bedroom at home for myself yesterday. I wanted to confirm what my men had told me.”
“And?”
“There were hundreds of articles about you in his desk, on his walls. Hundreds.”
Lenox felt that chill again. “About me.”
“My son had ample means to pursue his interest, alas. A clipping agency in France sending news of you from Paris. London was easy.”
Lenox shifted in his seat. He winced, wishing his skin and flesh would knit again, whole. He had taken his body for granted. Well—he would not make that error again.
“Was there anything about Lily Allingham among his possessions?”
“Eh? Oh—quite a bit. Yes, quite a bit. She was a subject in many of the society columns, of course, and he tracked her assiduously.”
Despite hearing this, though, Lenox felt a guilt that went deeper than his mere mind, that went somewhere into his soul. He had come on this trip—had embarked on this very career—so confidently, and now he wondered whether this had been the inevitable outcome of that choice: the obsession of a madman, an innocent person’s death.
“You asked if you could do anything for me. I would like to see the materials Teddy gathered.”
Blaine hesitated, then nodded. “I shall have them sent over by the end of the day if you really mean it.”
“I do. I would also like to know where Teddy is.”
“I’m afraid I cannot tell you that.”
“Then I and my family are in danger.”
“No. Not now, not ever.”
The words were uttered so decisively—with such might of wealth behind it—that Lenox was, in fact, reassured, though he did not let on. “Then I may ask one more thing of you.”
“Anything.”
“I would like to speak to Winthrop.”
Archie Blaine looked surprised. “Win? He’s sailing in Wellfleet, I believe. But certainly, certainly. I will have him visit you as soon as he is back in New York—indeed he shall come down directly, if it is not in his plans.”
Suddenly, Lenox realized that he might not have one of the world’s ten richest men sitting in front of him again. It was vanity to throw away the chance. So he said that there was one more thing, too.
“Anything within my power,” said Blaine.
“I have a young valet here, an Irish boy named O’Brian. I know there is a bias against his race in America, but he is extremely intelligent and kind, honest too, and his mother and younger brothers and sisters rely on him. When I leave, I would ask that you find him some employment.”
Blaine inclined his head. “So it shall be.”
“I don’t mean that I would beg a place in service for him, Mr. Blaine. I think he has higher capabilities than that. He—”
Blaine held a hand up. “You have my word. His way is made. On this one subject, at least, you may put your mind to rest. I am sorry that I cannot do you the same service on the matter of my son, Mr. Lenox. Most sincerely sorry.”