In the next three days there were fits and starts of progress. Frost reported that the constables keeping watch over Anderson had observed him meet with Singh and go to King’s Cross Station at the hour the train from the Dover ferry was expected on two days consecutively.
“I find that deeply puzzling,” said Lenox after a moment, when he heard this news.
“Why?” asked Frost. “It seems the most obvious thing in the world.”
“Does it?”
“Plainly they are waiting for Mr. Leigh’s arrival. I’m inclined to arrest them now.”
Lenox nodded. “Yes, it might be for the best.”
“But then why are you puzzled?”
“Because it isn’t clear to me how they know that Leigh is returning.”
Frost started to formulate an answer, then stopped short. He thought for a moment, and then nodded, grimly. “Yes, you’re right, though I hadn’t seen it. Somehow they’re keeping a pair of eyes on him, and know he’s set to return this weekend.”
“Precisely.”
Frost shook his head. “That’s bad indeed. We’ll need to watch them closely.”
Meanwhile the young solicitor who had taken over Middleton’s business, an ambitious fellow named Greyscale, without chambers himself but with a father who had long known Beaumont, informed them that he could find no papers regarding a large recent will, nor anything connected to a person named Townsend.
“The missing valise,” Frost said to Lenox as they exited this interview.
“The missing valise,” Lenox agreed. That was quite obviously where their answers lay. “I am not optimistic that we shall recover it.”
So the days passed. On the Friday evening before Leigh was due to return, Lenox dined alone at his club. His house was off-limits—Jane was having supper with a small circle of friends, including Toto, the Duchess of Marchmain, a fair, plain, and penniless young person named Matilda Ludlow, whom Lenox liked tremendously, and one or two others.
After he ate it was very dark out, black. He went into the streets, thinking to kill time and perhaps ponder his case over a cigar, with the vague intention of stopping in at a small performance of chamber music that his friend Baltimore was hosting.
The air felt mild; above freezing, certainly. But the streets were still quiet after the storm, the sallow light of the street lamps falling on huge empty banks of melting dirtied snow, this indomitable city for once disheveled.
It was the kind of walk to make you look into your own heart—and Lenox felt a strange inkling there, and knew that his wife was still unhappy.
At Baltimore’s, Lenox sat and listened to a lovely rendition of Albinoni, then, at the intermission, met a few old acquaintances and exchanged news. There was a great deal of interest in Middleton’s death. He ran into his creaky but upright friend Lord Cabot, who was a father of seven.
“Would you care to see something genuinely remarkable?” Lenox asked.
“Yes. But it has been seventy-four years and I find myself waiting still.”
Lenox felt in his breast pocket for a small object that had remained secure upon his person continually for two weeks now. “Look, there you are.”
Cabot peered close. “What is it?”
“Why, any thickhead dullard ignoramus could see that it is a penwiper. Sophia made it for my Christmas present. She made it! Look, there, at how she has scored the edge with little daisies.”
Cabot inspected the little scrap of cloth closely. “I admit that it is fine. And how well does it perform its function of wiping pens?”
“As goes without saying, I have not degraded it with the ink of a pen. It’s more in the line of a decorative object, you see.”
Cabot’s eyes twinkled. “In all sincerity I think it a handsome penwiper.”
Lenox folded the little bit of cloth in half and put it in his pocket again. “Yes, thank you. I will pass on your approbation to Sophia.”
“These great artists do not tend to work for praise, though. It’s the act of creation itself.”
Lenox smiled. “Very true.”
Lenox left Baltimore’s before the third act started, cheered by his little burst of sociability; he and Cabot had made plans to dine together at the Travellers’ Club the next Wednesday.
He walked down Pall Mall, mulling over Middleton’s death.
Suddenly a thought came to him. They ought to intercept Leigh at Dover the next morning, he realized. He hailed a cab and directed it to Chancery Lane, where he found a few remaining clerks. Hard at work on a Friday night! It was to Polly’s credit—she being the person who managed their employees.
A young detective they had hired from the constabulary in Liverpool was there. He was a little undernourished sprightly person named Cohen, Jewish, which rather set him apart from the common run of fellow, only middlingly clever but very energetic.
Lenox asked if he would take the morning train to Dover with a note and meet a man at the train station named Gerald Leigh; gave Cohen a detailed description of his friend; and sat down and wrote a note for Cohen to deliver, signed with Lenox’s schoolboy nickname.
“Bring him back by coach, if you would,” said Lenox. “Here, I have the money for it in my office desk. Is that all clear enough?”
“Clear as a bell,” said Cohen in his heavy scouse accent.
“Two men would probably try to kill him if he came into King’s Cross with the Dover train.”
“Blimey.”
“So bring him straight here if you would. Or if he kicks up a fuss, take him to his hotel—but tell him I would like to see him when I can.”
“Done,” said Cohen.
Feeling better, Lenox returned home. The women were still up, noises of laughter emerging occasionally from the sitting room where they were lingering over their coffee, and Lenox slipped by the doorway without interrupting them. He tried to stay awake to see Jane when she came upstairs, but fell asleep in the attempt.
The next morning he was woken early by Kirk’s gentle knock on the door. He went to see what it was, and the butler told him. “A visitor, sir.”
“Who? What time is it?”
“Just past seven, sir. An Inspector Frost.”
“Oh. Offer him tea, please. I’ll be down directly.”
Frost was pacing nervously in Lenox’s study, and accosted the detective when he entered, still cinching his tie. “There you are. I’ve just had a wire. The constable following Anderson had to let him go.”
“What? Why?”
“He and Singh went to King’s Cross Station this morning. After a brief conference at the ticket window, Singh boarded a train for Dover.”
“Oh, no.”
“Yes. Anderson stayed behind. My constable decided to follow Singh. He wired from the first station to explain and apologize—”
“No, I think he did well.”
“The result is that Anderson is lost. Three men are crawling over King’s Cross but he’s not there.”
“Hell.”
“Yes. They’ll have two shots at him.”
Lenox thought for a moment. “Can you wire down the line to tell your man to arrest Singh?”
“I have,” said Frost.
“Good. Because Leigh won’t be arriving back in London by train.”
“No?”
Lenox explained how he had sent Cohen down to Dover to catch Leigh. He was glad he had, now, obviously.
The question was what Anderson would do in London. “The time has come to arrest them, I think,” Frost said.
They had waited because it would be difficult to send either Anderson or Singh to jail without a more direct attempt on Leigh’s life.
But Lenox agreed—better to settle for a short sentence and save Leigh’s life. “I doubt we’ll be able to smoke Anderson out again, though.”
“Why?”
“He knows from our last meeting that we haven’t got him nailed down. What’s the point of putting his head above the ground?”
“What to do, then?”
Lenox shook his head grimly. “We have to figure out who is willing to murder Leigh for the sake of twenty-five thousand pounds. I hope Pointilleux has discovered where Townsend’s son is. I would like to speak with him. As for Anderson and Singh—I have an idea. Perhaps we can set them a trap they won’t be able to squirm out of.”