Could it possibly be as simple as that: an error?
The luncheon was a tedious, long-winded affair, at least in Lenox’s nervy mood. In a different temper he might have found it more congenial. As it was, the chore of being pleasant to his neighbors, sawing through his cut of meat, and attending the various sonorities of the fellows who rose to speak together made for almost more than he could take, given that all he wanted was a moment to think in complete silence.
But this was difficult to come by. As Lenox looked despairingly on, fellow after fellow rose to praise Leigh—and Rowan, for enticing him to speak—in their toasts. Most also paused to take credit on the Society’s behalf for something that likely would have existed anyway, Lenox thought, first Neptune (“I am proud to say that we predicted it in 1843, confirmed it in 1846!”), then cholera (“we’re close to ending it!”), then Galen (“He died in the year 199, but I think he would have found us a happy company, gentlemen.”)
Amid these encomia, Leigh was at a raised table, with several illustrious figures around him. Just as coffee was being served, Lenox checked that his friend was still installed in his chair and that Cohen was nearby, then excused himself.
He found a little alcove near the bathrooms. There was a leather bench there, between two doors, and low yellow lights in a pair of sconces above it. With a sigh, he leaned back upon the bench and closed his eyes, promising himself two uninterrupted moments of contemplation.
What they had to go on was an odd nexus. Both Ernest Middleton, a wholly respectable solicitor, widely known in the courts, and Messrs. Anderson and Singh, two of the most violent, conscienceless men in London, a blight upon the city’s claims to peaceable civility, were involved in a conspiracy to harm Gerald Leigh: an inoffensive, not especially wealthy British scientist living in France.
What could have united the interests of those two parties against those of the third?
It must be money. Leigh couldn’t think of a single enemy he had who was bitter enough to have stretched himself to these outlandish efforts, and the Farthings were motivated by little but financial gain, unless you counted revenge.
And yet, and yet … Lenox, sifting the facts in his mind, could almost discern a pattern. It was like looking at the reverse of a Persian carpet as it hung to dry—in the threads there was the ghost of its true shape, the hint of a figure, the contours of an outline, stippled in ragged white strands.
“Lenox. There you are.”
He snapped his eyes open and sat straight up. It was Frost. “You caught me thinking.”
“Anything useful?”
Lenox shook his head, troubled. “I’m groping in the dark. And yet I know it’s there. I can feel it in my hands.”
Frost nodded, familiar with that feeling. “I thought you should know that we just picked up Wasilewski three blocks from here.”
Lenox felt a flutter. “The Pole who replaced Anderson and Singh.”
“The Pole who replaced Anderson and Singh. I had instructed my men to arrest him before he got any closer, and they did. Took him by surprise, I’m pleased to say. He had a pistol and a knife on him. No doubt he meant to use them on Leigh.”
“That’s damning.”
“He protested that he always carried them—they were in his line of work.”
“Which is?”
Frost smiled thinly. “Wallpaper hanger, by his own previous account. But he forgot that he had told us that the last time he was arrested and said just now that he was a night watchman at a factory in the East End.”
“Not impossible. The Farthings own several.”
Frost nodded. “Yes. Regardless, I’m pleased to get him off our tail.”
Lenox was more than pleased, he thought. It was possible that his idea had saved Leigh’s life.
On the other hand, the tenacity of the gang’s interest was disturbing. “Phelps found you?”
Frost nodded unhappily. He had his pipe out, and clamped it ruminatively in his back teeth, unlit. “Yes.”
“The field is wide open now, I’m afraid,” said Lenox.
“Could you grope any faster?”
“Let’s both.”
They walked out toward the luncheon, whose speeches were still audible in a muted drone from two doors away, and Frost said, “We’ve found something else.”
“What’s that?”
“Do you remember the stationery you spotted in Middleton’s desk—at home, not in his chambers—which had his name and the address 24 Aldershot Place printed upon it?”
“I do.”
“This morning we finally sent someone there. It’s a gambling parlor, as it happens. A very high-end one, Milton’s.”
Lenox saw the link immediately. “He was in debt.”
Frost nodded, surprised. “We think he might well have been, yes. How did you guess?”
“If he gambled there frequently enough that Milton’s gave him complimentary cards—to correspond with his fellow players, I’m sure—then he cannot have been ahead over the course of his career. What did he play?”
“Hazard.”
Lenox winced. The game involved not even the mathematical skill of the card player—it was one of pure chance, in which the dice were cast again and again, until they came up two or three, “crabs,” or in the new parlance occasionally “craps,” and the player was out. “How bad was the debt?”
“We do not know, except that they would no longer extend him credit from the start of last summer.”
“And he stopped playing there?”
Frost shook his head, “On the contrary, he was away only a few weeks after they closed his house account, according to the steward. He returned with ready money.”
“Did you ask Beaumont about this?”
“We still haven’t managed to find him.”
That was odd—and anything odd attracted Lenox’s eye, at this point. He nodded, thinking. “I wonder if it was a secret from him, too. They were financial partners.”
“It doesn’t seem like it, if Middleton had the stationery of 24 Aldershot Place, after all,” Frost pointed out.
“Yes, but no doubt only to communicate with his fellow gamblers, as I said. It’s quite customary. Sometimes these men don’t want each other to know their home addresses.”
Frost nodded. “Yes.”
“Classes cross at a place like that. The Duke of Beckham used to play penny faro at a brothel, according to the rumors of the ballroom.”
“Middleton’s stakes were very much higher.”
Lenox nodded. Suddenly he had a thought. “I can guess where he got his money.”
“Where?”
“Do you remember telling me that Terence Fells’s name was connected to Gerald Leigh’s, in Middleton’s ledger?”
“Of course.”
“You assumed, reasonably, that because Fells’s name and the initials TF began to appear at the same time, it was one of Middleton’s usual abbreviations—they’re all over the ledger. But I think they may be unrelated.”
“Why?”
“Because TF—it could stand for ‘The Farthings,’ couldn’t it?”
Frost stopped and turned to Lenox, whistling a low whistle. “You think a man of Middleton’s position would go to the Farthings for money? That would be madness. And well out of his usual sphere.”
“If he was a bad gambler, he might have exhausted all other avenues of income. Think of Charles Fox—one of the most distinguished orators in the history of Parliament, and a hundred and forty thousand pounds in debt over cards. Or Byron’s daughter, the Countess of Lovelace, who used her mathematical abilities to devise a system for betting horseraces and ended up penniless.”
They had arrived just outside the doorway to the luncheon room, and a burst of applause broke out. “The Farthings must have decided that he was more use to them alive than dead. Until—the contrary.”
Lenox nodded slowly. “Yes. I still have my doubts about that.”
He was about to elaborate when there was a soft cough behind them. A porter whose jacket had the seal of the Royal Society on its breast was standing with a letter on a silver tray. “Mr. Lenox?” he said.
“That’s me.”
“A letter, sir.”
Lenox took the letter, which had his name upon it in a bold hand, frowning. “Who delivered it? Nobody knows I’m here.”
“I don’t know, sir. My apologies. It was left upon the front desk a few moments ago, just when the porter had stepped away to assist a gentleman with his luggage.”
Lenox tore open the letter in a ragged strip—and as he did so a small object fell with a ping onto the marble floor.
A farthing.