This was one of those facts that changed the complexion of the entire case. (Just the sort of enormous discovery, ironically, that thirty years before Leigh and Lenox had been desperate to uncover in their amateurish investigations of the MB, when they had sat in Leigh’s rooms, spinning tales for each other. What if his real father was an Assyrian prince? What if there were 999 identical students sprinkled over the British Isles, and some bizarre philanthropist was playing the same game with all of them at once?)
“And both of you feel certain that there is no way this is merely an error?” he asked Pointilleux.
The younger man glanced at Phelps, a hunched fellow with uneven teeth and wide eyes, rather Dutch in appearance. It was he who answered. “I should have said that the clerk, Robbins, was extremely competent. Sober and reliable. I don’t think there can have been a mistake.”
“Or a circumvention of the courts?” asked Lenox.
Pointilleux frowned at the long word, but Phelps shook his head. “Unless the money was in ready notes or gold, no. All banks, no matter how small, are obliged to register any transfer of property, and certainly a solicitor such as Middleton would only have worked on a will that was legally registered.”
“I see.”
“To quote Mr. Robbins, the system has no gaps except cash.”
Lenox tilted his head, thinking. “Yes, and Middleton specifically referred to a banking transfer to Leigh.”
“There you are.”
“You are off to see Frost next, I assume, Mr. Phelps?”
“Yes, indeed, Mr. Lenox.”
“Pass him this note, would you?” Lenox quickly scribbled a letter telling Frost where he was going to meet Leigh. “Thank you.”
This new information exonerated Salt Townsend. That much was clear. What about Terence Fells? He remained an unknown.
And without the motive they had presumed this whole while—a second beneficiary, eager to knock Leigh out of contention for that fortune—the case opened up in a dozen new directions.
Lenox already had one strong idea.
What was clear was that he needed to discuss the matter with Leigh. Unfortunately his old friend wouldn’t be at the Royal Society for another hour.
Lenox put on his coat and hurried out, lifting a distracted hand to Polly, who had given him an inquiring look. In the street he was greeted by an icy wind; there were no cabs, and he realized, walking up Chancery Lane, that he was starved. He stopped at a cart where a husband and wife stood, selling skilly—porridge’s London cousin—from a huge vat over a burning wood fire. For an extra penny the wife threw in a generous scoop of currants. He ate as he walked, the hot concoction making him feel a little warmer in the cheeks, a little thicker between the ribs of his coat. When he had finished, he gave the bowl to a passing boy, who thanked him, running off to hand it in at the cart, where he would be able to redeem it for a serving of his own.
At home in Hampden Lane there were bright lights on, and as Lenox entered the house he heard Lady Jane and Sophia, with the nursemaid nearby, discussing lunch. He would have liked to stay to eat with them, but instead he gave each a hurried kiss and then went to his study, where he hunted down a volume of his old notes. He had an inkling that this was where he had written Terence Fells’s name once. But he was frustrated in his search, and finally, in a rush, changed into a new collar and tie and left by carriage for the Royal Society.
Nearly the first people he saw there were Leigh and Lord Baird (Rowan’s copresident), sipping champagne, and Lenox realized that in the back of his mind, he had been worried throughout the night. But here was his slight, smiling friend, greeting him. Cohen stood at a respectful distance nearby.
“Lenox!” said Leigh. “We were just discussing a mutual hero of ours, Lord Baird and I were.”
“Who is that?”
“Francesco Redi,” said Baird.
“A painter?”
Leigh shook his head. “A natural philosopher of the 1600s. I wish more people knew his name. Aristotle, the fool—”
“Come now!” said Baird, an old and distinguished-looking specimen.
“Well—in this matter, at least, I mean, a fool, but otherwise passably intelligent—Aristotle put forward a theory called ‘spontaneous generation,’ and somehow or other it endured for nineteen centuries. He thought that living matter simply appeared from nothing.”
“Most misguided,” said Baird, shaking his head.
“It was Redi who doubted that a rock could produce a bug. One evening he put little morsels of his supper—meat loaf!—in three glasses, one sealed, one covered with gauze, one open. As you might guess, maggots appeared upon the latter within a few days. The sealed glass generated none. Very consequential meat loaf!”
Baird laughed, and Lenox joined in politely, though he would probably have agreed, two hundred seconds before, that any theory other than spontaneous generation was claptrap, had these two men averred it.
After a few moments he was able to get Leigh alone. “Listen, Gerry,” he said. “Something strange has come up.”
“What?”
“Frost and I asked two men to go and find out who left you that money in the courts—approaching it from the other end, you see. They returned with some odd news.”
“Well?”
“Nobody left you any money at all.”
Leigh looked perplexed. “What?”
“There was no inheritance.”
They were standing in the rotunda, drawing glances from the men who were entering, all of them looking forward to Leigh’s informal remarks, no doubt. “But … Middleton,” he said.
Middleton. Lenox nodded, grimacing. “Yes. I have been thinking about him all morning, and I suspect we must move him in our minds from one category to another—from victim, to conspirator.”
“Conspirator! He was so eminently respectable.”
“Precisely his utility, perhaps. He convinced you that there was a legitimate bequest to you. The question that you must answer now is a much broader one. Why create this odd pretext at all? Who wishes to do you harm, and for what reason, if not over an inheritance?”
Leigh shook his head. “I cannot think of anyone.”
“You have no enemies? Nobody whose interests you have trampled, or whose progress you have prevented?”
Leigh looked bewildered. “Must it be such a sinister causation?”
“Yes, I think it must. Because if there was no bequest: What was the motivation of Middleton’s actions? There can be only one answer. To bring you to London. Hence his insistence that you could not sign the papers he had through the mail.”
“Hell.”
“All morning I have been considering what you told me of your life in France. ‘The university is a fortress,’ you said, and that you rarely leave its grounds.”
“That’s true.”
“Your very valet is a member of their army’s special services.”
Leigh nodded. “They needed me on open ground, you believe, to make their attack. But who? Who?”
Lenox shook his head. “We are behind in our investigations—fatally behind—because of this charade with the inheritance.”
Leigh glanced at his pocket watch. “I can scarcely believe I have involved you in all this. And I have to give this blasted speech now.”
Lenox shook his head. “The sooner you are back in France, the easier I will rest. I can continue the investigation here. What will your movements be for the rest of the day?”
“I’m meant to take the train to Dover at six past five.”
“You must hire a special.”
Leigh nodded. “Yes, of course. Between now and then I shall always be in company—I have promised to go down to Rowan’s lab in the east, and look over his own work on the microbe, and after that he and I and Baird have arranged to have tea at the Collingwood. I had hoped I might pay a call on Lady Jane before I left. But I find that I am a contaminated sample at the moment—not fit for use.”
Lenox shook his head. “As long as you are not alone. Keep Cohen and the constable with you. Look, there, I see Frost coming in. He and I will figure this out. Search your mind, though, Gerald. Can you think of nobody who bears you enough animus to kill you?”
Leigh thought for a moment. It was a hard question, to be sure: murder! How out of the run of common things. But he pondered it carefully, before at last saying, “Honestly, I cannot. I still feel as if it must all be some sort of cosmic error, and the truth, when it comes out, should we all remain safe until that time, will look almost comical.”