attraction. But she had played a hand of cards and had stayed late with Toto, talking over the new season—the young girls were coming out now—and where it might be fun to stay in the country after Christmas.
“Oh, but Charles,” she said at last, cutting him a slice of treacle tart, “you must tell me, have you found anything new?”
“Perhaps,” he said. “But it is a difficult case, of course, and it has barely been three days.”
“I mistrust that man Duff, you know, and the nephew sounds like the limit, but so does the other one. I bet they all three did it together, just to be awful.”
“I’ll look into it,” said Lenox, laughing.
“Must it have been one of them, though?” she asked.
“Or Potts, or Soames. Or indeed Barnard.”
“Nobody else?”
“I grow less sure by the moment. But I am beginning to think that it may have been Soames.”
“Not Jack Soames? He’s so gentle!”
“It seems possible.”
She looked at him wide-eyed.
“Oh, but you’re right,” he said, “it seems impossible as well, of course. Duff seems more likely.” He murmured this last thought.
“No,” she said. “You know what you’re doing, Charles.”
“It’s only that it’s maddening.”
“But you have to solve the case—I know you can—and your getting hurt makes me want it even more.”
“I thought you said you’d rather I quit.”
“Not anymore. I don’t want you to be afraid.”
“Thank you, Jane.”
“What will you do next?”
“I’m waiting for word of Potts, and I ought to interview Claude Barnard again. And then I will have to wait for the ball, to see if I can have a look at the people.”
Barnard’s ball was in two days, and Lenox had firm ideas about what he would do there, but he decided not to share them with Lady Jane—which was, indeed, a good decision, because when she remembered that it was nearly time for the ball, she began to speak about another set of subjects entirely, including the possible attire of one Lady Wendall; the prospects of a young girl with great beauty and birth, but without fortune; and the possibility that Lenox, who preferred to stay off to the sides, might be persuaded for once to dance.
Chapter 26
In reality, Lenox was even less hopeful than he told Lady Jane he was. Events seemed to have arrived at an impasse. He had very little access to the suspects, and very little reason to suspect any of them individually—other than Eustace’s knowledge of botany. But Eustace was exempt, according to Graham’s undoubtedly reliable information.
The only real hope, Lenox felt, was the ball.
He sat down at around eight o’clock to supper, though not in the dining hall, choosing instead to sit at his desk in the library, where he could read. A new book about Peru had come from the bookseller across the way. After the previous evening, when the Devonshires’ party had slipped his mind altogether, he had double-checked that there was nowhere to go tonight; and there wasn’t. He felt restless again, as he laid aside his fork and knife, but had no impulse to go for a walk, which was natural, one night after his attack, and neither did he much feel like reading or answering letters. Perhaps it was, after all, time to go down to the St. James’s Club, where he could read the newspapers in the front room and look at the park through the window, or have a quiet chat.
But the doorbell rang just as he was standing up from his desk so that he might go upstairs and change, and Graham brought forth a most unexpected visitor, one whom Lenox had never thought would dare to ask admission to his house: Inspector Exeter.
“Mr. Lenox,” said the tall man, bowing.
His bobby’s helmet was tucked beneath his arm, and with his other hand he absentmindedly twirled his mustache. It looked as if he had spent a day on the streets; his cheeks were red and he had snow and mud around his boots, Lenox noticed, although he had tried to wipe them off.
“I see you’ve come from Barnard’s?” Lenox said.
Exeter carefully studied his entire person, searching out the clue that had betrayed him, but it was a game he inevitably lost.
“How do you figure?” he asked.
“The lemon,” said Lenox.
“What lemon?”
“Giving off a slight smell. You’ve had your tea there, I imagine.”
“I have.”
“George is one of the only men I know who serves lemon whether or not women are present.”
“Others might, though.”
“And yet I should have guessed you were come from him even without the lemon, you know—which made it slightly easier.”
“Tricks,” said Exeter, pompously, “are an excellent pursuit for the leisure class.”
“They are indeed. Cigar?”
“With pleasure, Mr. Lenox.”
The two men sat down facing each other and smoked in silence for a few moments.
“Mr. Lenox,” said Exeter, at last, “you are not a workingman.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“A workingman has pressures on him, you know.”
“Yes,” said Lenox. “It’s true.” In one way ridiculous of Exeter, he thought, but in another way true enough to give him a moment of inner embarrassment. What poor manners to make Exeter feel stupid about the lemon— about anything.
They fell again into silence. Again, it was Exeter who broke it.
“Would you care for half an hour inside of Mr. Barnard’s house when all of its residents are out?”
This was so surprising to Lenox that first he coughed and then he tried to stifle his cough, which led to much more coughing.
“Why are you here, Inspector?” he finally managed to say.
“To make you that offer, Mr. Lenox.”
“You will forgive me for saying that it seems improbable.”
“Yes, yes,” said Exeter, “very improbable. Nonetheless.”
“You’ll have to explain what you mean just a bit more.”
“That’s all there is to it.”
“A half hour in the house?”
“Perhaps a bit less, if I should change my mind.”
“To roam about freely?”
“Yes. I know you’re on the case, Barnard’s word aside.”
“I have never raised this point, Inspector, but I feel that now I must: You seem more likely to hinder my efforts in that direction than to help them. Such has been my experience, at any rate.”
“Mr. Lenox, I’m a simple man,” said Exeter, leaning back in his chair and shrugging. “I seek no glory, no riches, nor any of the like, you see, and I don’t mind a bit of collaboration, if the situation calls for it.”
Lenox knew, on the contrary, that Exeter did seek glory and riches and that collaboration was the equivalent, to him, of giving away a pound. Not ruinous, but not intelligent either. But now he saw. There was only one thing that could trump his unwillingness to let the amateur detective into the case.
