A Beautiful Blue Death

“Well, well, I had to cancel. But Graham came by with fifty pounds, did he not?”

“Aye, aye,” said Mr. Kerr, begrudgingly but slightly mollified.

“Excellent. Now, what have you got in the way of Persia? I was thinking of a four-city tour, if you can manage it, with a native guide. I may go off the beaten path a bit.…”

The conversation began to grow concrete, and very slowly Mr. Kerr pulled out the proper maps and said that yes, perhaps he knew a man who was familiar with the Persian countryside. Gradually, as he always did, Lenox drew the grumpy old man out, until by the end they were equally excited. Often people told him he should go to a different agent, but Lenox liked their ritual and stubborn Mr. Kerr’s gradual acceptance of Lenox’s good cheer. And then he had one quality that Lenox judged him for beyond all others: Mr. Kerr, too, loved to plan trips. He had found his metier by being the sort of dreamer Lenox was when it came to travel.

Lenox left an hour later with several papers in hand and promises to return after the New Year to plan things more specifically. Who knew if he would get to Persia—but as he planned, he always believed that this time he really would.

On the way home, he asked to be dropped at the end of Hampden Lane and walked happily up the street with a little arrangement of flowers in his hand. They were forget-me-nots, and he left them with Kirk, along with a note that said, Thank you for everything, and see you soon!

He then walked back to his house, next door, still gratefully warm of foot, and walked up his own stoop contentedly. He received a telegram when he came in.

Claude Barnard had just pled guilty to charges of murder at the Assizes, saving himself a trial, and received twenty-five years in prison, commuted from hanging on the strength of Lenox’s private advocacy of compassion to the judge.

It may as well do to explain his fate now, as his cousin’s has already been determined. Claude did in fact receive 200,000 pounds, his shares and Eustace’s, when the board of the Pacific Trust voted again—despite the public’s futile insistence that Jack Soames’s memory be honored by his last vote. The cousins had arranged that ownership of their joint stock would transfer to the remaining cousin upon the death of one, or, upon the death of both, would be split equally between their families.

The money tantalized Claude for the first year in prison, when he could only spread a pound here and there for better meals and a private room. But gradually, after the passage of some years, he grew content with his lot and even wrote a treatise, “On the English Prison,” which was well received, for there was only a dim memory of his crime and ample evidence of his contrition.

Then, in his tenth year in prison, Claude began to distribute his money among charities he chose quite carefully. When he was released after nineteen years for good behavior, he had given away all but forty thousand pounds. There was conjecture that he was trying to pay his way out of his memories, and this may well have been true, but the orphans and troubled women who received the money looked for very little motive, and even if he was guilty of assuaging his guilt with his gild, it didn’t change the fact that he did an immense amount of good.

He was forty when he again became a free man. He took small but comfortable rooms in an obscure part of the city and traveled to warm climates in the winter. At forty-five he wrote another treatise, called “On the Alteration of Man’s Will”; it is not too much to say that it became a minor classic in its time and was still occasionally being dusted off, even after his premature death, of drink, at fifty-three.

Lenox saw him only one more time, on the streets of London. It was on a warm sunny day in June, near the entrance to Hyde Park. Claude seemed unable to speak, and when Lenox said, “I’m glad to see you’ve turned your fortune to the benefit of the city,” Claude merely nodded and then ran off very quickly, stooped over, carrying a number of books under his arm.

Chapter 48

Lenox arrived home in his new boots and went into his library. There he carefully tidied his desk and pulled out a last books he had forgotten to ask Graham to pack. Then he gave the room a last good look and shut the doors.

Graham waited in the front hallway. After Lenox had looked here and there to make sure things were in order, and even gone up to his bedroom, the two men left for Paddington, where they caught the evening train to Markethouse.

Graham had sent their luggage forward the day before but had brought the morning papers, which he read, while Lenox gave another effort to De Rerum Natura, which he had detested at school, where he had been forced to learn it by rote, but now thought he ought to try again.

Faithfully, he read a great deal of the volume, laying it aside only when evening began to overshadow the landscape and the train drew into Sussex, the part of the country he recognized the best. For half an hour he looked out of the window, his thoughts strumming quietly along.

When they were close to Markethouse, Graham said to him, “Have you looked at the Daily Telegraph today?”

“I flipped through it earlier.”

“The business section, sir?”

“Well, no.”

Graham raised his eyebrows ever so slightly.

“Tomorrow,” Lenox said, waving a hand.

“There’s an article just here, sir, which might be worth looking at.”

“I’m not really in the mood.”

But Graham insisted in his quiet way. “I can’t quite put my finger on it, sir. Perhaps you might.”

Lenox took it reluctantly and scanned the headlines, then turned inside, where he read the agony column and the notes on London crime. Finally, keeping his promise, he turned to the financial page. He read the long stories and even glanced at the smaller ones, so that the most remote names of people and companies in the news would be stored away in the attic of his mind.

But the article that truly grabbed his interest was what Graham had pointed out, a very short column of print at the bottom of the last page. This he read again and again, with his brow furrowing, clutching the paper close to his eyes, for the light had all but failed.

He scarcely took his attention from it even when Graham and he left the train and stepped into the waiting carriage. And in the carriage he doggedly studied the little corner of the paper until at last, halfway through their journey to Lenox House, which was a good twenty minutes from the station, he threw the whole thing down and buried his face in his hands.

“Sir?” said Graham.

“By jove, what a fool I am, Graham,” Lenox said. “You were absolutely right. Give me a kick in the trousers if I don’t listen to you again.”

“What is your opinion, sir?”

Lenox read it aloud, as much for himself as Graham.

The Daily Telegraph has learned that the nation’s money was in good hands for two weeks: Mr. George Barnard’s. Most readers will say that this has been true for some time, to which the Telegraph replies that we mean the statement literally. After the series of assaults on the mint, which police now think was done by members of the Hammer Gang, quick-acting members of the government, including Lord Russell and Mr. Gladstone, consulted and decided that the money due to be released for circulation would be best concealed in a strongroom in Mr. Barnard’s house. There it resided safely until Tuesday, when it was released under supervision into popular use. Indeed, ?19,100 was lost, though Mr. Barnard attributed this to assaults on the mint, saying the government was lucky not to lose more and the preservation of the remainder of the money was due to their quick action. The missing amount was coinage stored in one crate. The Spectator adds that while ?19,100 would be a large amount for most individuals, in matters of government it is insignificant, bearing in mind that the total sum of the gold successfully stowed away was approximately ?2,000,000.