A Stranger in Mayfair - Charles Finch [15]
“After that it all came tumbling down around the man’s head. Josiah Taylor. He hung for it, I’m afraid.”
Dallington looked taken aback. “Goodness.”
“It’s something I try to avoid, but occasionally…at any rate, hands and fingers. A valuable tip.”
The young lord took out his own notebook and jotted a few lines in it. “Thanks,” he said. He was always on the lookout for these informal suggestions.
“What about you, then? You didn’t go to the house?”
“Not yet, no. I didn’t know whether Ludovic Starling would appreciate it.”
“I told him you would come.”
“Yes, but I thought it best to be forearmed. I compiled a list of all the house’s inmates.”
“Ah—excellent,” said Lenox. “Let’s hear it.”
“Starling himself. He’s forty-two and an MP. Spends much of his time at the Turf Club. Wife Eliza or Elizabeth, thirty-eight, son of a Scottish lord whose borough Ludovic sits for. So far none of this is new, of course. At the moment his children are home. There’s Alfred, who is nineteen.”
“The same age as Frederick Clarke,” said McConnell.
“Alfred is at Downing College, Cambridge, doing Greats. A second year.”
“It’s just called classics there, you know, not Greats,” said Lenox. “That’s Oxford terminology.”
“He’s home for the summer holidays but leaving in two weeks to go back. Then there’s his younger brother, Paul. He’s seventeen, and he was at Westminster until two months ago. He’s going up to Downing, too, at the same time as his brother.
“Rounding out this chummy household is an old man—Tiberius Starling, Ludo’s great-uncle. He’s eighty-eight and apparently deaf as a post. His best friend is a cat, which he apparently calls Tiberius Jr. From the sound of it he doesn’t greatly esteem his niece-in-law, or even his nephew, really, but they keep him around because they want his money. They’re afraid he’ll leave it to the cat—no, really. I swear. No children, and he made a mint in the mines about a thousand years ago.”
McConnell laughed. “How did you find all this out?”
“Asked acquaintances of mine, snooped around the neighborhood.”
“What about below stairs?” asked Lenox.
“Five live in—it’s quite a large house. There were two footmen, though now of course there’s only the one. Aside from Frederick there’s a chap named Foxley, Ben Foxley, a huge strapping fellow. I’ll be sure to look at his hands.”
“Could you tell anything about the assailant’s height from Clarke’s body?” asked Lenox of McConnell.
“Yes—we can identify him as being of roughly the same height as Clarke, give or take three or four inches in either direction. The blow didn’t come from a sharp angle, up or down.”
“So anyone of virtually any height,” said Dallington wryly.
McConnell shrugged. “I wish it were more conclusive.”
“Who else, John?”
“Sorry. Two footmen. One housemaid, Jenny Rogers; one cook, Betsy Mints; and a butler, Jack Collingwood. I couldn’t find out much about these three. In addition there are a scullery maid and a stableman who don’t live in but are at the house most days.”
“Seven in all, then. Six now.”
“That’s right.”
“Plus five family members. That’s eleven suspects,” said McConnell.
“Old Tiberius couldn’t lift a feather over his head, much less a brick,” said Dallington.
“And Ludo was at cards at the time of the murder. The rest of them, Dallington?”
“All at home, strangely enough, except the scullery maid, who was at her own home in Liverpool Street.”
“Then we can safely discount her. Still, that leaves eight. Without even mentioning the possibility that it’s someone entirely outside of the Starling circle.”
Just then Graham came in, trailed worriedly by Kirk, who looked ready either to stop him or announce him. Graham informed the group that Fowler had gone home for the evening. After a few minutes’ further discussion, the three