A Stranger in Mayfair - Charles Finch [81]
“McConnell,” said Lenox when he came in, with Lady Jane. “We’ve barely had a chance to speak.”
“This sort of thing is never for friends, is it? Friends you see on any old night—this is for cousins and acquaintances, I think.” He smiled. “Still, would the two of you drink a glass of champagne with me?”
“With all my heart,” said Lady Jane.
McConnell stopped a servant and sent him to fetch three glasses. “To Grace’s godparents!” he said when they arrived, and held up his own champagne.
“And to his father!” added Lenox.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a figure enter the room; he turned and recognized Dallington. “Will you excuse me, both of you?” he said and walked off.
“Lenox!” said Dallington when he spotted the older man walking toward him. “I don’t mind telling you that it’s five hundred degrees out there—really, I wouldn’t be surprised if some natives set up a colony on the banks of the Thames. There—a glass of champagne, that will cool me.” He swiped one from a passing tray.
“How was Fowler?”
“Bloody-minded old bastard.”
With a reproving twist of his eyebrows, Lenox said, “This is a baptismal party, you know.”
“True enough, and more to the point there’s a real bastard involved, isn’t there? I don’t want to confuse us.” Dallington grinned. “Well—call him an old fool, then.”
“Did you even speak?”
“Oh, we spoke. He asked if I had lost my mind, interfering with Scotland Yard.”
“And you said?”
“That I wasn’t interfering. I asked him if he knew about Frederick Clarke’s relationship with Ludo Starling—their secret—and he said yes and slammed the door in my face.”
“I wonder if he does know.”
“But not before saying ‘Tell Lenox not to darken my door again, either.’ I thought that was pleasant.”
“I’ve news as well. The butcher.”
“Oh?”
“For a moment I thought he meant to skin me alive, but it turned out better than that.” Lenox laughed ruefully. “Though it’s all even more puzzling than it was before.”
He told Dallington the story in detail, speaking in a low voice so as not to be overheard. With increasing astonishment the younger man listened, but at last felt compelled to break in.
“Charles, this can mean only one thing!”
“What?” asked Lenox.
“That Ludo Starling killed Clarke!”
Chapter Forty
Lenox’s eyes shifted across the room, checking to see if anybody had heard the outburst. In fact someone was nearby, a pretty, rather large girl of twenty named Miranda Murray, red-haired and pale-cheeked. She was one of McConnell’s cousins, distantly. Toto disliked her for being humorless, but Thomas loved her dearly for her intelligence and pride. Dallington had cause to feel more strongly than any of them, because for a brief while they had been engaged. The end of the engagement, some years before, had been the talk of London, and in truth it was he who had jilted her. Quite unreasonably he hated her for it, in particular because she tried to be friends with him, putting a brave face on things.
Approaching them, though, she must have seen something closed in their visages, and veered away as she was about to reach them.
Dallington turned back to Lenox and in a lower voice said again, “Ludo must have killed Frederick Clarke. He needed an alibi from the butcher.”
“I wish it were as simple as that.”
“Why isn’t it?”
“Ludo has flaws, but do you think he would kill his own son? And more perplexing still, come to me within an hour or two of it happening?”
“Why not? What better to make him seem guiltless than to come to you and ask for help? I remember how he acted when we were inside Freddie’s room, as if he had a guilty conscience.”
Lenox sighed. “I don’t know.”
Dallington paused. “I discovered something else, too.”
“What?”
“I hope you don’t think I overstepped my duty. I went to see Collingwood.” He went on in a rush. “I felt he might need a visitor—some company. I should have asked you, I daresay, but it occurred to me while I was on the other side of London—and it was useful, as I say.”
Lenox allowed