A Stranger in Mayfair - Charles Finch [14]
They retired early, laughing lightly and holding hands, to bed. The next morning was bright and wet, with a big wind shifting all the trees on Hampden Lane. Lenox ventured out for another day of meetings (Graham was noncommittal all morning, and Lenox sensed he wanted some time) and arrived home late and soaked to the bone from the short walk.
Apparently McConnell and Dallington had been busy, too; freshly arrived, they had towels and were patting their faces dry.
“Hullo, both of you,” said Lenox. “I bet you had a more exciting day than I did.”
“What about corridors of power and all that nonsense?” asked Dallington, lighting his cigar. The usual neat carnation sat in his buttonhole, and despite the rain he looked well put together.
McConnell, on the other hand, looked weary but had an unmistakable glow on his face—the pleasure of work.
“It can be exciting,” said Lenox thoughtfully, “but at the moment all I want is to sit in the chamber itself, rather than listen to a long, haranguing lecture about taxes.”
“Be a brick and make them lower, all right?” said Dallington.
Lenox laughed. “Yes, all right.”
“Good chap.”
There was a pause, and all three men waited expectantly. “Shall I go first?” asked McConnell after a moment.
“By all means,” said Lenox. “No, wait! In all the activity of the day I plum forgot to write Inspector Fowler. He keeps late hours, though, so perhaps a note will still catch him. Just a moment.”
The detective went to his desk and scribbled down a few lines, then rang the bell for Kirk.
“Take this down to Scotland Yard, would you?” he asked.
Kirk, looking taken aback, said, “Shall I leave it with the morning post?”
“I’m afraid I need it taken now.”
“At this hour? If you please, of course.”
Lenox had forgotten for a moment how used Graham was to all of his idiosyncrasies, and how different life would be without that luxury. “Wait a minute, though—perhaps Mr. Graham could take it.”
“Certainly, sir,” said Kirk, looking relieved.
Graham came and took the note, and in due course Dallington, Lenox, and McConnell were all seated again.
“Now, Thomas. I apologize.”
“Not at all. There’s not much to say, really. I went down and took a look at Frederick Clarke’s body this afternoon, as we agreed. It wasn’t a pretty sight. His wound was on the right side of the back of his head, and it was consistent with the corner of a brick as far as I could ascertain. I conferred with the coroner, and he agreed.
“I did notice one thing, however, that he hadn’t picked up. There were barks and scrapes on both of his fists. I’m not entirely sure what that means. Perhaps it’s unrelated to his death. At any rate they were a day old or so—scabbing up a little, not fresh.”
“So he had been in a fight the day before he was killed?” Dallington asked.
“A day or two, yes.”
Lenox made a note on the small pad he took from his jacket’s breast pocket. “Dallington, if you go to the house on Curzon Street—hold on a moment, have you already?”
“Not yet.”
“If you do, keep an eye out for anybody with similar markings. I should have told you before, by the way, always look at hands. It was Thomas who brought to my attention the importance of fingernails when we were working on a case together some years ago. The dead woman had pink soap under her fingernails, and from that fact we deduced her unfaithfulness to her husband.”
“How?” asked Dallington.
McConnell chuckled bleakly. “She was a poor woman. Scented soap would have been well beyond her means. I should far more easily have believed it if she had lice. She worked in a