CHAPTER TEN

Each of the four principals of the detective agency—Lenox, Dallington, Polly, LeMaire—had dragged some of his or her old workplace into this new association. For Dallington that meant erratic hours and an aversion to paperwork; for Lenox the occasional use in his (now scarce) work of supernumeraries, chief among them McConnell. Polly had Anixter always fixed to her side, the burly ex-seaman whose brawn complemented her quick wit. Moreover, from the start of her career she’d had the idea to employ, as the need arose, a well-organized array of forensic experts, of whom all four partners now made intelligent use. It was an innovation that was valuable nearly every day for one or the other of them—the sketch artist, the chemist, the gunsmith, the botanist.

As for LeMaire, he had brought two people along with him. The first was his nephew Pointilleux, a handsome young fellow of seventeen who served as apprentice and clerk to the office; the other was an Irish woman of fifty named Mrs. O’Neill, who had been LeMaire’s first landlady in the English capital and was now his permanent charge.

When Lenox arrived in Chancery Lane the next morning just before eight, Mrs. O’Neill was the only person there. She was on her knees in front of the fireplace, “How d’you do, Mr. Lenox?” she said.

“Fine, thanks, Mrs. O’Neill. Could you have the Coach and Horses send up breakfast, please? And we’d like a pot of coffee, too. I can make up the fire while you arrange it.”

“You and Mr. LeMaire, sir?”

“No, Dallington’s coming in.”

“Oh!” Her eyes widened. She was generally a practical woman, but a title set her heart a-flutter. “I’ll go straight away.”

She beat Dallington back to the office—he came in five minutes after she did, wet from the rain. “Sorry to be late,” he said, glancing at a clock on the wall. “What a storm there is outside. I should have paid attention during the swimming lessons at school, for as it stands I’m liable to drown if I go back out.”

Lenox smiled tiredly. He had been up late. “I asked Mrs. O’Neill to get some food. I think she’s in the pantry, putting it on plates.”

“That was sporting of you,” said Dallington, brushing the water off his charcoal-colored suit. “I’m starved.”

“I take it you spoke to Jenkins’s team at the Yard, after we left?”

“We did, we—”

Just then the Irishwoman pushed her way into the room, a tray in hand—which made her attempted curtsy for Dallington a uniquely awkward one. “M’lud,” she said.

“Let me help you,” said Dallington. “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted a cup of coffee more.”

“I’ve brought you extra bacon,” she said.

“Thank you,” said Dallington. “Marvelous.”

She looked at him critically as he poured himself coffee and ignored the bacon. Whenever he was in the office she pushed food on him, seeming to imagine that, as a bachelor, he was always more or less upon the precipice of starvation. “Are you going to eat the bacon?” she asked after a moment.

“There’s not much else to do with it.” Dallington picked up a piece with two fingers. “Look, excellent. Lenox, shall we talk?”

Mrs. O’Neill was deaf to this hint, however; she went to the sideboard and tidied needlessly. “The poor, brave dear,” Lenox heard her whispering to herself as she spooned extra sugar into Dallington’s coffee.

“That’s all,” said Lenox sharply. “Thank you.”

She hesitated in the door—but eventually departed. Lenox shifted some eggs onto his plate. There was something oddly comforting about this meeting room to him, for the first time, after Jenkins’s death. It was certainly handsome: painted a light blue, with a long oval table that had been shined to a high brightness with beeswax, and big windows overlooking Chancery Lane. Dozens of raindrops were dawdling down them, moving infinitesimally until one would decide to fall all at once in a split second, as if dashing for a forgotten appointment. A melancholy day outside. But the office, the eggs, the coffee, Mrs. O’Neill, even the rain, conspired to make things seem faintly less desolate.

Now to capture the killer. Lenox set his mind firmly forward. “So. The sergeant,” he said.

Dallington nodded. “Yes. Polly and I waited. The two constables arrived first, about fifteen minutes after you left. The sergeant, Bryson, followed them by another ten minutes. He lives farthest out.”

“Where do they all live?”

“All of them far south.” Dallington smiled. “I had the same idea.”

“That one of them might have been involved?” said Lenox.

“Yes, precisely. So I did some checking. All three of them were on their usual trains at six o’clock, going in the opposite direction of Regent’s Park and therefore, of course, of the scene of Jenkins’s murder. None of them—according to Nicholson, who checked the records—had filed any type of grievance against him. And certainly all three seemed distraught.”

“What information did they have?”

Dallington grimaced. “Not much, unfortunately.”

“No?”

“The two constables hadn’t seen Jenkins all week.” It was Friday now. “And Bryson barely had either. Apparently on Monday Jenkins called all of them into the office and divided up his open cases among them. Bryson had the Bayside burglaries, and did say that Jenkins came with him to Bayswater on Wednesday morning. Otherwise he was away from the desk.”

“And the constables?”

“They were working on the less serious crimes individually. Taking names, gathering information. One of them’s very nearly solved a robbery in Mayfair, as he was only too pleased to tell me. I think he knew Polly and me—perhaps even wanted a job.”

“Was it usual for Jenkins to delegate this way?”

“I was coming to that—no. Not at all. Customarily these four work very closely together. They’re all very chummy.” Dallington lifted a corner of toast and took a bite, staring down at his notes as he chewed. “In general they go to the scene of any major crime together, and then Jenkins and Bryson conduct the case in concert, while the constables do … well, constable work.”

“Canvassing, questioning.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“To what did they attribute the change?”

“None of them is a fool. They all imagine that whatever made him go on his solitary way is also what killed him. They’re all raring to investigate, too. They’ve joined Nicholson’s team. Have you seen the papers this morning? Maybe out for blood.”

Lenox nodded. “Yes.”

The London newspapers were full of the murder, each one calling more loudly than the next for its immediate solution. Nicholson, with his amiable face and gangly frame, looked unequal, in the pictures published of him by the cheaper papers, to the task.

“If it comes to it, so am I, I’m afraid.” The young lord shook his head. “It’s the saddest damned thing I ever saw. He was a fine fellow at bottom, I always thought. Never mind that bother he gave us in January.”

“Did any of the three remember a file upon the desk, in the spot I showed you?”

Dallington shook his head. “No, though they couldn’t remember the papers not being there, either. But it may be worth mentioning that Bryson, who’s been with Jenkins for two years now, said that he almost always carried his notes about London with him.”

“His note to me makes him think he was keeping them separate on purpose—out of caution. It didn’t work, unfortunately.”

Dallington’s eyes narrowed with concern. “Wait—why do you say that? Was the file not at his home? I assumed that you had retrieved it from his house. You should have told me straight off.”

“It wasn’t in his study at home. No papers were, from the Yard. And Madeleine Jenkins didn’t recall him bringing any papers home. Said he never did.”

Dallington’s face was grave. “I’d like to know where those notes are, then.”