“Well, of course, none of us could have done it, you know, in reality.”
“Of course.”
“Suicide, I have no doubt.”
“That’s how it will end,” said Lenox. “But as a parlor game—”
“Oh, Duff.” Soames finished his wine. “All the characteristics. Dark chap.”
“Dark as midnight.”
“Yes.”
“But then, why not you?” said Lenox, smiling. He hated to, but he did.
Soames stared for a moment, but then laughed. “Indeed, why not? Only, in a game, you know, it’s the mental part of the thing, the motive. I’m not too likely.”
“Probably not.”
“Maybe as a surprise ending.”
“You mean, where Duff seems like the man for it but it turns out to be you?”
“Yes,” said Soames, and laughed. His face was red. “But in real life—”
“Never, in real life.”
“No, no. Preposterous.”
“Yes.”
There was a silence.
“Well, I’d better get inside,” said Soames.
“Good to see you, though.”
“Thanks for the wine and all, Lenox.”
“Of course.”
“Are you meeting your brother?”
“Yes,” said Lenox. “In a little while.”
“Say hello. Old Edmund. We were at university together.” A sad moment passed. Then the two men shook hands, and Soames went into the chamber.
Chapter 24
After he had interviewed Soames, Lenox was at loose ends. He was to have lunch with his brother in only an hour, give or take a few minutes, so it would be pointless to go home. He decided that he would take a walk.
The new snowfall was already trodden underfoot, and the city had again taken on a dingy aspect, but the air was clear and, if cold, not unbearably so. He decided he would go down by the river.
Every few hundred yards, in this part of London, there was a staircase leading down from the sidewalk that overlooked the Thames. Lenox went down one of these staircases and soon found himself even with the water, on a little promenade lined with short trees that ran for a while just next to the river, much more quietly than the busy street above.
The water was gray and running fast, with drifts of ice eddying down it and snow fringing its sides. A few birds were flying close to the water, and Lenox stopped to sit on a bench and watch them skimming the small waves. The sky was gray and the river was gray. It was the sort of thing he loved, though a sudden ache where he had been hit called him back to the world.
Soon it was lunch time, and he walked back slowly, looking at the buildings of Whitehall.
Lenox’s interest in politics dated back nearly as far as his memory. Lady Jane’s father had often taken his seat in the Upper House, where Lenox and Jane would watch him speak from the spectators’ gallery, and while Lenox was unimpressed with the trappings of power, he was fascinated by the power itself. It amazed him, after his schoolboy lessons of the monarchs and a deeper look into history at Harrow, that the bodies of Parliament controlled the fate of their countrymen. The discourse, which he read in the papers, was seldom elevated, occasionally very low, but once in a while sparkling. He had grown up with the ideal of the great statesmen, Burke, Fox, Peel, and Palmer-ston, in his mind. And then, he felt, as he grew toward adulthood, that he had fallen into a singularly lucky time, when both Disraeli and Gladstone were coming into their strength as leaders of men. It was a time of great debate.
But it had been a fascination from afar. Sir Edmund, as both brothers had always known, would be the member from Market-house. The baronet always was. Charles, their father thought, would buy an estate near Lenox House, or, if it were absolutely necessary, a house in London. But leisure would fall to him, whichever it were, as the consolation for having lost a career.
And yet there were times when Lenox walked among the members he knew, or spoke confidentially with his brother or with the half-dozen politicians he had known since childhood, when it occurred to him that there still might be a chance; he still might enter the House. He knew their minds, though suited to politics at the moment, were in the end no sharper than his. He felt that he might be equal to the job.
But for now he was content to walk the halls of power, to ask his brother for morsels of information, to read the paper in the evening, and to say hello to Disraeli at a party or to Russell at a country house where they found themselves together—to move partially in the political set.
No matter, no matter. The case at hand, that was the important thing. He walked back in the direction of the members’ entrance at Parliament and then to Bellamy’s, with its low windows and old portraits, to meet his brother.
Lenox had been sure he could take Soames unawares and question him almost without his knowing. That such was not the case put Lenox on his guard. And then, Soames’s manner had been so peculiar. The way he grasped at Duff’s character, his uneasiness at certain questions, and his insistence that none of them would be found to have done it when the facts came out in the clear.
But surely not Soaps the clubman, whom Lenox had known to say hello to for decades, since he and Edmund had been at university together? No, it was the drinking that had rendered him so inarticulate and ill at ease and of such an unhealthy pallor.
Lenox waited for his brother, and at last he arrived in the dining room. They each ordered a slice of hot game pie with sauce, chips, and peas. Sir Edmund, who was in a cheerful mood because he was returning to the country soon, ordered a bottle of port after lunch, and the two men shared it happily, talking not of the case but of Lenox’s own nephews, who were good lads, and of minor matters about the estate: its rolls, the steward’s complaints, and Darrow Farm, which was the largest tenant farm on their land. Sir Edmund had a living in his hands and wondered whether he should sell it to the highest bidder or, at a lower price, to a cousin of their mother’s; both decided that the cousin should have it and come to Markethouse as the rector. The two men occupied themselves with problems such as these, which brothers who are lucky enough to be close may discuss. At the end they talked over Charles’s visit, which would come at Christmastime.
“I had hoped to go to the Riviera, you know.”
“Oh, Charles, you will plan, won’t you? I remember when it was Portugal last year, but you had that case with Meyer the German—oh, and I remember your short-lived dreams of crossing over to America, as well.”
“Well, well, one of these days.”
“I daresay.” Sir Edmund laughed. “But it won’t do to get your hopes up again. Be happy to come to the country; we can hunt a bit, you know. I’ve finally managed to convince Crump”—the butler at Lenox House since time immemorial—“that we need real fires while anyone at all is awake. Though you would have thought I’d suggested we set the old portraits ablaze.”
Lenox laughed along with his brother. “I look forward to it so greatly, you know. To see Molly and the boys.”
“Yes, well, they only wish you’d come more often. Particularly the boys.”
“Yes,” said Lenox, and smiled to himself. “Where are you off to?”
“The law and order committee in the House. The Royal Academy’s report on banned poisons is coming in.”
Lenox had an idea. “Who was responsible for it, in the House?”
