At eight o’clock the next morning, five people gathered in the office of Sir Richard Mayne. Besides Lenox and Sir Richard, there were Hemstock, who looked forlorn to be up at such an hour; Dunn, with his shining black hair and wretched angry look; and an official from the railway, whom Mayne did not introduce by name. This gentleman sat off to the side of the room, a heavy, silent presence. He carried himself as became a man of influence. He was well dressed, and gold glinted from his watch chain and his cuffs.
“Good morning,” Sir Richard said when his efficient young secretary, Wilkinson, had ushered the last of them in. “Thank you for coming. No doubt you have seen this morning’s papers. What we supposed to have been a matter between two villains from Manchester becomes more grave in the light of Lenox’s discovery.”
Lenox inclined his head.
Mayne went on. “The second body has indeed been identified as that of Norman Haase. I am informed that Mr. Haase was a loyal servant to the rail line, a deacon at St. Mary’s Church in Epping, a widower, and the father of four children, adult now. We must exert ourselves doubly on his behalf and theirs.”
All present nodded—Lenox alone doubting, perhaps, whether the second murder was any additional incentive to pursue the murderer, but remaining silent about this particular reservation.
“We’ll get him, sir,” said Hemstock.
“Yes, no doubt,” said Mayne. “Now, I have two questions. The first is how we are to discover the identity of the man in the carriage.”
“We are circulating his description in London and in Manchester,” Dunn said.
“Good. The second is why on earth this fellow murdered Haase.”
“Sir?”
“The motive for the murder in the third-class carriage could be anything under the sun: money, a woman, drink. We all know the disputes that arise in that class. But why Haase?” said Mayne. He was no fool, Sir Richard. It was the question Lenox had been carefully pondering that morning as he shaved. “Did the conductor recognize him? A picture from the illustrated papers perhaps? Is he a known criminal?”
Dunn replied, “We are also circulating a description of the man who passed himself off as a conductor, based on the descriptions of the men who met him. Including Lenox. We know that he was about five foot and nine or ten inches, with dark hair, large eyes, a strong chin, and no visible scars. He carried himself respectably.”
“Though perhaps that is what we were all prepared to see,” added Lenox. “Though I know I could pick him from a group, my memory of his particular features grows dimmer the harder I try to remember them.”
“Sir Richard,” said Dunn, “I must again question why Mr. Lenox’s presence is necessary here.”
That seemed rude.
“He identified the murderer and found the dead conductor, Dunn. Any progress we have made belongs in his credits column—not the Yard’s,” Mayne said, with a pointed smack of his desk.
“Someone would have found the body,” Dunn muttered.
The representative from the railway moved forward in his chair. “That is not necessarily the case. It is a section of the line close to no village, and as Mr. Lenox observed, gravel and dust covered the body quickly, and might have concealed it further as time passed.”
“Mm,” said Dunn.
“Moreover, Mr. Haase lived alone,” the man said. “Of course, he would have been missed after three days at a minimum. He was assigned to be the conductor of the 858 overnight train to Edinburgh on Friday.”
Dunn looked murderous. “I was not informed that every man in London capable of scheduling a train to Bournemouth or gambling on cards at Cambridge had suddenly become a detective,” he said, glancing between the railway’s man and Lenox.
“Watch your tongue,” said Sir Richard. “I mean it, Dunn.”
Dunn, apparently realizing that he had shaded beyond complaint into insult, begged their pardons—with what some keener observers of nature, Lenox thought, might have called less than complete sincerity. But the words would have to suffice. It didn’t seem the moment to mention that he had been not at Cambridge but at Oxford.
“I have one observation, Sir Richard,” said Lenox.
“Go on.”
“The clothes must be our most important clue.”
“The victim’s clothes?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because at a time when the false conductor had just committed murder, and every fiber of his being must have yearned to put as much distance between himself and the body as possible—”
Dunn interrupted. “Not if he was one of these brutes from Manchester. As good as a cow carcass to them, a human body.”
“Please continue, Lenox,” said Mayne.
“At a moment when every instinct he had was most probably to run, our criminal took the time to remove all traces of the origins of the victim’s clothing. Down to his boots and his hat.”
Mayne considered this. “I assume he didn’t want us tracing them back to some specific tailor. Was our victim very—what’s the word—stylish?”
Lenox shook his head. “He wore the average attire of a man in second or third class, Sir Richard. And the murderer removed every single label, not just one. It leads me to believe that all the clothes pointed to a specific location, wherever that might be.”
“London,” said Sir Richard.
“Manchester,” said Dunn.
Lenox didn’t think so. “But he was on a train between those two cities. Why bother to conceal that he was from one of them? There are only two possible answers that I can see: One, his identity is absolutely crucial; two, his clothes come from a place that would reveal who he was.
“In fact,” Lenox went on, “I suspect this may be the reason for the murder of Haase. So that the killer could be assured of the time alone to perform this very task after the second murder without the conductor entering the carriage and interrupting him.”
“Or the reverse,” Hemstock said. “Perhaps Haase was the intended victim, and the poor chap in the carriage saw it happen.”
“It’s possible,” Lenox replied, “but I do not think likely. It is the second victim’s clothes that were disfigured. And what would the motive be for killing an aging train conductor leading a quiet life in Epping?”
“What do you propose to do with all this theorizing, Lenox?” asked Dunn.
“I don’t know,” Lenox admitted. “But it cannot be bad to think through the murderer’s motivations.”
“I agree,” said Hemstock, encouragement from an unexpected source.
Lenox nodded to him, grateful.
For the rest of the meeting, he was silent as they discussed Scotland Yard’s normal procedures. There would be questioning of witnesses here and in Manchester, and the railway representative said that they would post notices offering a reward for information in all trains running between the two cities.
Mayne asked them to report to him each day. Dunn and Hemstock were to work together. Lenox was free to pursue his inquiries, provided they did not interfere with the official investigation.
“Or reveal additional information to the press,” said Dunn severely.
Lenox thought that a bit rich, given that Dunn himself had spoken to the Morning Illustrated. But he only assented. “Certainly not.”
“It would be good to know what you plan to do,” the Yard’s commissioner said to Lenox, tapping his pencil on his desk.
“There we agree,” Charles responded regretfully. “I am not quite sure. It is close—I know that something is lurking in my mind.”
“What cause for optimism,” Dunn said.
“That is enough, Dunn,” said Mayne. “As for you, Lenox—less lurking, if you wish to remain involved. This is no game.”
“No, Sir Richard.”
The meeting ended at 8:35. Lenox left the pale, imposing building that housed the Metropolitan Police and walked east. He was due to meet Graham at nine. He might be slightly late, for it was halfway across town in the Strand that their rendezvous was planned, but he needed the walk to think.
Though it was sunny, it was cool enough that the streets were still damp, orange leaves pasted stubbornly to the pavement, a smoky scent in the air. Lenox passed the usual fellows: men hawking newspapers, children selling cigars and tobacco, ladies and gentlemen shopping in the quiet midweek morning.
He had hoped that he might solve the case—ambition never hurt!—on this walk. Instead he found that his thoughts kept returning to Deere.
Lenox had once imagined himself, briefly, to be in love with Lady Jane. It had made things uncomfortable, until Jane, with her characteristic sensitivity, had contrived to put her husband and her old childhood friend in each other’s way more and more frequently over the course of a few months while Deere was at home.
Lenox had rejected the military as a career—and this had perhaps, unconsciously, created in him some prejudice against Lord Deere.
But he had been wrong. This realization had been slow, but in the end unambiguous. In its aftermath it came to seem obvious—for of course Lenox ought to have known from the start that Lady Jane would never marry anyone unworthy of herself.
He was glad they were friends now, very glad. Still, it left Lenox with a residue of sorrow. For he had proved, in a way, his own unworthiness of Lady Jane; and in truth, some dormant part of his heart still did, perhaps, just flash with love for her.
Was this life? This lack of resolution, and unease? To begin seeking a marriage while old memories still lingered?
It had not seemed as if affairs of the heart would be quite so involved when he was younger. Love, proposal, marriage, happiness: Such was the progression he had expected.
But he was twenty-seven now—rather old, he thought wisely, as he walked up Carting Lane, his cane thumping lightly alongside him—and knew something of life. He resolved (as so many do, and so few do) to leave the past behind. With that settled, closed in his mind, he walked into the Saltire Inn to meet Graham.