A Stranger in Mayfair - Charles Finch [52]
Collingwood’s face fell when he saw Lenox and Dallington. “Hello,” he said, the “sirs” dropped from his speech.
“How do you do, Collingwood?”
“I had hoped it might be Mr. Starling, or perhaps my brother.”
“No, I’m afraid not.” Lenox didn’t have the heart to tell him that prisoners could only receive two or three visits a year, and that unless his friends had ready money only his lawyer would visit. “We came to ask you whether you murdered Freddie Clarke.”
For a tense moment, everything hung in the balance. Then the man spoke. “No, of course not. The idea is outlandish.”
“Did you attack Ludo Starling?”
“Mr. Lenox, my father was butler to Mr. Starling for twenty-five years. I myself ascended to that position upon his death and considered it the fulfillment of my only professional ambition. Both my father and I, and my brother, who is a butler in Sussex for the de Spencer family, take tremendous pride in our work. The answer, you’ll have deduced, is no. I did not stab the man who has employed me these dozen years.”
The words were civil but the tone of derision in them acidic. It was convincing. “Who besides you has the key to the larder?”
Collingwood’s self-belief seemed to flicker for a moment. “I—nobody else.”
“None of the other servants, you mean. Perhaps Mr. Starling has it? Mrs. Starling?”
With transparent relief, he said, “Oh, of course.”
“Master Alfred?” Lenox said in a speculative tone.
Collingwood reddened. “I’ve had a soft spot for Mr. Starling’s sons for many years now. I’m not sure who told you—”
“No, no, only a guess.”
“Did Paul have a key, too?” said Dallington.
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“No! Paul wasn’t involved, I tell you.”
Lenox thought for a moment. “Very well. As for Alfred…I hardly think it was a serious dereliction of your responsibilities to give him the key. And since any one of them might have lost theirs…”
“Yes! Precisely what I thought—precisely. I’m being plotted against. This was all prearranged.”
“Do you own a green apron?”
“Absolutely not. Am I a woman?” he asked bitterly. “A butcher?”
“A knife?”
“There are knives in the kitchen, of course, but I’ve never had need to use them.”
“We’ll have to check whether any are missing from the cook’s set,” Lenox murmured to Dallington.
“Yes!” said Collingwood. “Do that! Please, check!”
Lenox decided to shift tacks. “What did you think of Freddie Clarke?”
“Think of him?”
“Were you friends? Did you clash?”
“We didn’t clash. He kept to himself, very diligent in his duties. Can’t say we were friends, though.”
“Did he have much money?”
Collingwood laughed and rubbed his tired eyes, taking some genuine pleasure in their company for the first time. “That depends how many envelopes came under the door, doesn’t it?”
“You know about that?” Dallington asked incredulously.
“The older Mr. Starling—Tiberius—he told me about it the moment it happened. He often came to me for a measure of brandy, and we had many conversations.”
The man had been bosom friends with everyone in the house, Lenox thought. Why would the Starlings ever have believed Frederick Clarke’s word against the butler’s? And therefore why would Collingwood have felt the need to take such drastic action in order to protect his job? It didn’t add up.
“Where do you think the money came from?” asked Dallington.
Collingwood shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Delicately, Lenox put the crucial question to the butler. “Mr. Collingwood, if I might ask: Did you ever take anything, small change, trinkets, from your employers?”
“Never! And whoever told you that can go straight to hell!”
“If you’re worried we’ll tell, you—”
“Never!” he bellowed, standing up and slamming his fists on the table. “Who told you that?”
“Frederick Clarke saw you taking coins from Mrs. Starling’s dresser. Admit it.” Dallington, shrewdly, had taken on the role of the