Everything there was to know about Rupert Clarkson was not very much.
The only time Lenox had seen the elderly engineer, he had asked him to write, on a pad, his addresses in Dulwich and London, the names of all his household staff and his most frequent companions, along with any other information that might be of value.
Graham had looked into all of this thoroughly. The list of household staff consisted of a valet, two maids, a cook, and a boy, who was the valet’s first cousin once removed. Except for the boy, none of them had been in Clarkson’s service fewer than six years, and the boy, who was twelve, and whose annual salary was fifty pounds plus board, was hardly likely to have benefacted thirty pounds anonymously upon his employer, even had he not been working under the exacting supervision of his relative.
Lenox recalled that Clarkson had also mentioned a charwoman. “Did you find her?” he asked Graham.
“There was one in each location, sir,” Graham answered, consulting a notepad, “but Mr. Clarkson rotated them out in the midst of this ongoing trouble, and had all his locks changed. It altered nothing. The two new charwomen were hired out of the clear blue sky, after three envelopes had already been left, so they are beyond suspicion, of course, and the first therefore seem to be as well.”
“I see,” Lenox murmured, thinking. “Hard on them to lose their jobs. You have been to Dulwich?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The servants’ stories match Mr. Clarkson’s?”
“They do, sir.”
“I see.” Lenox tapped his fingers on the breakfast table, and took a sip of tea. “Have there been any more envelopes?”
“None. Mr. Clarkson has remained in London, sir, with his whole staff. The new charwoman in Dulwich, a Miss Maria Horsepool, has wired Mr. Clarkson daily to inform him that nothing new has happened there.”
“And what about his companions, his friends?”
“I’ve looked into them thoroughly, sir.”
There were three men with whom Clarkson was fond of fishing, and perhaps a dozen with whom he dined in London. (Fishing and food: his dual passions, in semiretirement.) Graham had spoken to the three fishermen, and to a man they had been baffled. They were deeply fond of Clarkson, one of them going so far as to say how much he wished his friend might marry again, another that he looked upon him as a brother, if a slightly irascible one.
As for Clarkson’s dining companions, they were a more varied lot, but Graham had looked closely and found nothing untoward. Many of them chaffed Clarkson for his lack of taste (he had an almost illogically stubborn aversion to wines of the Rhône valley) or his stinginess (he counted a supper bill closely), but all were affectionate. Nor were they in any way dramatic or interesting people, not a single one of them, no gamblers in their number, no adventurers. The steady burgher class, rather—the one quickly becoming the face of Victoria’s England.
Lenox sat back, thinking. “What to do, then,” he said at last.
“I am curious as to your thoughts on that subject, sir, as you can imagine,” said Graham.
Lenox stood up and started to pace. “Four things are clear.”
“Are they!”
Lenox laughed. “Anyway—seemingly clear. First, it is someone with access to the house, access that was not interrupted even by a change of locks. Second, it is someone who wishes to send Mr. Clarkson a message. Third, it is someone with a comfortable amount of money. Fourth, it is someone intimately acquainted with Mr. Clarkson’s daily movements.”
Graham nodded. “My thoughts, sir. And yet those with an intimate knowledge of his plans are his staff, and they are not rich. Nor can I imagine them wishing to send him a message.”
“What was your impression of the servants?”
“They are a very dull, faithful lot, about averagely compensated, none in the least bitter or … intriguing, sir, I would have said.”
Lenox frowned. “Interesting.”
“Vexing, sir.”
Lenox was still standing. He tapped his pipe against the table thoughtfully. Finally, he said, “I have a suspicion, Graham.”
“Do you, sir?”
“What is your own guess?” The valet looked as if he were going to answer, but hesitated. “You can speak as freely as you like. Any idea at all.”
Graham looked pained but said, “I have wondered whether perhaps he might have made it all up, sir.”
Lenox nodded. “A lonely old man, not happy in retirement, intriguing against himself.” He pondered this for a moment. “But he seemed too genuinely anxious, I think, for that to be our best guess.”
“What is your suspicion, then, sir?” he said.
“Well—as to that.” Lenox tapped his pipe one last decisive time. “The thing to do would be to set up a trap. But I think we can save ourselves the trouble of that. I’m going to Dulwich.”
“Dulwich, sir.”
“Please come if you like. The likelihood that his fishing companions are there is high, correct?”
“Overwhelmingly high, sir.”
Lenox nodded. “Good enough.”
“What do you propose to ask them, sir? It is a daily habit.”
“We shall see. You may recall that when we first met Mr. Clarkson, I said there were two possible explanations I could imagine, one benign, one sinister. It is time to find out which it is. I have a suspicion, as I say.”
They took an early afternoon train. There was a new kind of building going up all along this northbound rail line; made of dark red brick, turreted and dormered so that they looked like castles, in their odd way, but situated upon plots of land smaller than the average castle’s stable.
“What do you think they call those?” Lenox asked Graham curiously.
“Houses, sir.”
The young aristocrat rolled his eyes.
It was true that they were something new—they lay between the closeness of the city and the emptiness of the country, but they couldn’t be said to belong to villages. Villages had always been there; that was what a village meant, at least to Lenox, who came of a village, in his own way.
As they neared Dulwich, the rural pastures of Lenox’s father’s childhood slowly took over the landscape, however, unmowed, dotted with modest yellow dandelions, edged with woodland. They passed a pond with children splashing in it. Lenox smiled, thinking of himself and Edmund and their friends at that age.
It was a short walk from the train station in Dulwich to the gentle incline by the town’s river where Clarkson fished. Graham led the way. “They call it Lord’s,” he told Lenox. “A joke referring to the cricket ground.”
It was certainly peaceful. Trees spread their quiet branches over the lazy stream, which was spotted with pools of gold light.
Two men were sitting in slatted wooden chairs there. “It’s Mr. Graham,” one said when they were near.
“Hello, gentlemen,” Graham said. “This is the employer I mentioned to you—Mr. Charles Lenox.”
The two men were both of Clarkson’s age. Neither stood. “How are you?” Lenox asked.
“Passable,” one answered.
He was a leathery old chap, short. Ex-military, Lenox would have bet. The other was a bit softer in the middle. Both were carelessly expert in the way they cast their flies. “Did you need something else, Mr. Graham?” the second fellow asked curiously.
Lenox patted the thin leather case over his shoulder. “Actually, I proposed the trip. I thought I should hear it all from you, though it seems as if there’s not much to hear. To be honest, fishing didn’t sound a bad way to pass the afternoon.”
“You’ll have to settle for the grass,” said the first fellow. “I’m Joshua King. My friend here—Rupert’s friend, too—is Jack Stuart. Cast away!”
Lenox did. Graham (as they had agreed) went into town to order lunch from the public house there, leaving them with two bottles of a very fair Sauternes that had been packed in London, chilled and delicious. The conversation drifted by like the river, slow and pleasant; Stuart proved easily the best fisherman of the three.
“This is England,” said Lenox, sighing happily.
“It’s not Brazil,” said King.
Two hours passed, when finally Lenox, who was thoroughly enjoying himself, at last set down his rod. He stood, stretched his arms high—his shirtsleeves were up, his jacket long abandoned, the remnants of a meal of cold chicken and brown bread nearby—and said, “Well, gentlemen, I wish you would tell me something, if you please.”
“What’s that?” said Stuart.
“Why are you leaving these five-pound notes for Mr. Clarkson? The sport has gotten out of hand.”
King—the military man—remained impassive, eyes on the river, but Stuart started, and turned to Lenox, wide eyed, lulled, through the drowsy afternoon, into thinking he was no figure of suspicion.
In that moment, Lenox had them—and it was an exhilarating little victory, exactly what he had imagined being a detective might be like.
An hour later, when he and Graham boarded the train to return to Waterloo, they had their answer, or at least enough of it to be going on with. They discussed Clarkson’s case on the return trip, teasing out the details.
Lenox’s intention was to go straight to see his client, but at home, where the cats greeted him, there was a note that immediately commanded his whole attention.
Charles,
Come to the Marchmains’, would you? I shall be there between six and nine o’clock—they will give you supper, I’m sure, if you’ve not eaten and have no plans.
Elizabeth