“Is there ever a response after death?”

“For ninety minutes or so there is a reflex in the cornea.”

Soon McConnell had moved on to the hands and forearms of the body, which again he studied with great care. Lenox meanwhile was checking to his own satisfaction Jenkins’s suit pockets. They were empty, as he would have expected, even the small ticket-pocket in his waistcoat. Jenkins had carried his identification as a police inspector as a matter of course, but Lenox imagined that it must be in the box in Nicholson’s carriage, together with the rest of the property that had been on Jenkins’s person.

They spent ten minutes with the body. Finding little enough, at last they permitted Nicholson’s constables to conduct it to the police wagon, where it would sit until the police were certain they were finished with the scene and it could be transported to the morgue.

“Did you find anything?” asked Nicholson.

McConnell answered. “Only a rather shallow cut on the left hand. It is about three days old.”

“He didn’t mention any kind of incident to me,” said Nicholson, “and I saw him every day this week. Several times each day, in fact.”

The doctor shrugged. “It could easily have happened with a letter opener, or a kitchen knife.”

“Will you go to the morgue?” asked Nicholson.

“To see the bullet. Otherwise there isn’t much point. I’ll glance over the body again.”

“Lenox? Did you find anything?”

“Did you or one of your men unlace one of his shoes?”

“No. I don’t think so, anyhow.”

Lenox frowned. “Peculiar.”

“What?”

“One was laced, one nearly unlaced, that’s all. It’s probably not meaningful.”

“It must simply have come undone,” said McConnell.

“I don’t think so. The right shoe was triple-knotted.”

McConnell looked surprised. “That is odd.”

“I thought so.”

“What would you like to do now?” asked Nicholson.

“I want to see what Jenkins had on his person, then go look at these notes he wished me to see,” said Lenox. “But tell me, first, has anyone asked at this house about the incident?”

“Yes,” said Nicholson, flipping open his pad. “It belongs to someone called William Travers-George, a marquess, the lucky blighter. Only staff is present at the moment. They didn’t see anything.”

“Where is the owner?”

“They don’t know. He left in haste two days ago, an unplanned trip, taking no servants, and hasn’t returned. They couldn’t tell us his whereabouts.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

There was a great deal that Lenox hoped to accomplish that night, but he forced himself, now, to take a deep breath and survey the scene. Wakefield had vanished two days before, and now Jenkins was dead twenty feet from his house. It was a situation that required very great care.

“You’ve canvassed every house in the area?” he asked Nicholson.

“Yes, and spoken to the few remaining vendors in the park, too. The written report will be ready in the morning—you shall have it when I do—but the constables didn’t learn anything of note, alas.”

Lenox looked at the vast facade of Wakefield’s house (the marquess’s intimates called him by his surname, Travers-George; his acquaintances and his family called him Wakefield; all others, My Lord or Your Lordship or Lord Wakefield) and saw that on one of the alabaster columns in front of it was stenciled, in elegant black lettering, 73. Portland Place’s addresses ended at 80, if he recalled correctly—there the park began, Regent’s Park. Wakefield’s was a particularly large house, but all of its neighbors were just as distinguished in their construction and maintenance.

Stylistically they were all the same except for 77, two doors down from where Jenkins’s body had fallen; this was a low-slung brick edifice, rather of the last century. What caught Lenox’s eye was that it looked almost dementedly protected, guarded. There was a wrought-iron fence that reached higher than the house’s roof, its gaps far too small for even a child to squeeze between, and on its small gate were two heavy locks. All of the windows were barred. From the steps a figure, an older woman, was gazing at them. She would have had a good view of the crime, if she had been out there then.

“Who lives in 77?” asked Lenox.

Nicholson waved over Armbruster, whose task of managing the crowd had eased with the disappearance of Jenkins’s body into the wagon. On the otherwise unbroken expanse of his white shirt there was a wet brown stain. Soup, Lenox would have wagered. “Armbruster, who was in 77?”

“It was a convent, sir,” said the sergeant. “Or rather, it is a convent.”

“Who answered the door?”

“A lady porter, sir. She said the sisters and the young novices and them were at prayers, sir, at the time Inspector Jenkins was killed. Nor did she see anything or hear anything, except when the commotion out here started. She said she wasn’t a papist, for her part, she was quick to mention that. Only the porter of the place.”

That explained the reinforcements on the house. Lenox wondered if they knew anything of Wakefield’s history there. If they did the abbess might have contemplated moving away from the street.

“Did you look carefully around the body, to see if anything was thrown from it?” asked Lenox.

Nicholson smiled wearily. “We are not rank amateurs, you know. We looked at the entirety of the scene, in expanding concentric circles. Jenkins’s own method.”

In fact this was Lenox’s method, though he said nothing. “And found?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary. There was the usual London mix. Discarded food and trash, cigar ends, bits of string.”

“Nothing with writing on it?”

“No.”

Lenox believed Nicholson but did his own methodical review. After ten minutes he, too, had found nothing.

He looked across to McConnell, who was standing by the van, speaking to its driver. This fellow was pressing a hand to his stomach and saying something with great animation, and the doctor felt the spot, palpated it for a moment, and then, speaking sternly, began to take out his prescription pad. At any rate some good might come of this night, Lenox thought. The living always do go on.

He went to Nicholson, who was consulting with his constables; two of them would remain near this spot overnight, observing. Lenox asked if he might see Jenkins’s possessions now.

“Yes, come to my carriage. I ought to have shown you on the way.” Nicholson’s face was grim, gaunt. “But listen, Lenox, I’m afraid I can’t stay with you all night. I’ve brought you in, as Jenkins wished, but I have superiors to whom I must answer, an investigation to begin building on my own. It’s nothing personal.”

“I understand. Perhaps you could leave Armbruster.”

“Where do you want him to take you?”

“To the Yard—to Jenkins’s office.”

“I’ll take you there. After that we can go off our separate ways.”

“Understood.”

“It’s nothing personal at all,” said Nicholson again. His face, always angular, looked very wan now, too, in the sallow light of the streetlamps. “For my part I would like to work together.”

“We might meet tomorrow and compare notes.”

“Yes, let’s do just that,” said Nicholson.

They went then to the inspector’s carriage, its bored horse flicking its tail every so often, and Nicholson found the small black leather box into which he had put all of Jenkins’s possessions. He opened the box. “Not much,” said Lenox.

“Here’s the list I asked Sergeant O’Brian to make.”

Lenox took the list.

Taken from the person of Inspector Thomas Jenkins

4 April 1876

Scotland Yard Box 4224AJ