A Stranger in Mayfair - Charles Finch [89]
“Starling? I spent the morning on it. Something occurred to me.”
“Oh?”
“The method of attack—it was the same as killed Freddie Clarke.”
Lenox inhaled sharply. Of course it was. How could he have missed it? “Good Lord, you’re right. That must mean it was an attempt—a real attempt—to murder me.”
Dallington nodded gravely. “I think so, yes. Or else Ludo wanted again to transfer the blame away from himself. After all, a similar attack rather conveniently removes suspicion from someone we both saw didn’t do it.”
“And less conveniently away from Collingwood.”
“Precisely. In any event, I checked the alley.”
“Yes?”
“There was a different chunk of brick missing from it.”
“The same weapon.”
“Exactly.”
Lenox was still holding a blue book on corruption in the Indian army; he tossed it aside lightly, brooding on the new information.
Suddenly something occurred to him, and he stood up.
“What is it?” asked Dallington.
“I’ve thought of something. We need to go see Inspector Fowler.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Lenox had a wide enough acquaintance scattered through Scotland Yard that he could still walk through the building unchallenged. Several people eyed his bandage curiously, nodding cautious hellos to him, while others stopped to make some small joke about the Member of Parliament returning to his less reputable (or more reputable?) old haunt. Dallington, however, was stopped at a front desk, so Lenox went to see Fowler alone.
The door to his office was ajar. Lenox braced himself for a stream of vitriol before he knocked, and got about what he expected.
“Mr. Fowler?” he said, knocking the door and pushing it open.
“Mr. Lenox,” said Fowler with dangerous calm.
“I’m afraid it’s about the Starling case. We must speak about it.”
Fowler reddened. “I would ask you kindly not to tell me what I must do, sir!”
“I—”
“Really, this infernal and constant intrusion into official matters of the Yard cannot stand a moment longer! Good Lord, Mr. Lenox, do you have no sense of boundary? Of decorum? Of—”
“Decorum?”
“Yes, decorum!” He stood up behind his desk and began to cross the room with a menacing air. “You would do well to learn it, rather than presuming upon our past contact to make a nuisance of yourself.”
Then, rather quietly, Lenox said something that stopped him in his tracks. “I know you’re being bought off.”
The transformation in Fowler was extraordinary. He tried to bear up under the truth of the accusation for a moment, but it wasn’t possible. As he spoke initially a domineering, imposing man, he now drew inward, seemed to get smaller, looked tired and, most of all, old. Lenox was right. The burst of insight had come, funnily enough, from that unreadable blue book—the one on corruption.
“Of course not,” he muttered.
“The truth is in your face, Mr. Fowler—and I can think of no reason on earth why you would behave toward me as you have, when our relationship has always been cordial.”
“Paid? Don’t talk foolery.”
“Yes—by Ludo Starling, to look the other way.”
“No!”
“About a day after the murder, I would hazard. I’m here in part to speak to someone about it.”
The dam broke. “You can’t do that!” cried Fowler.
“Oh?” said Lenox coldly. “I understand that you were going to let an innocent man go to trial, Jack Collingwood—testify against him—perhaps even send him to hang. That I do understand.”
“No! It’s not true, I swear on Christ’s name. For God’s sake, shut the door, come in, come in.”
Lenox entered the office, reluctant to be alone with Fowler but certain the man had information. “He paid you, then? Ludo Starling?”
“Yes.”
Lenox had resisted heretofore believing that Ludo was the killer. Based both on the man’s mien (his rather hapless, debauched life was nonetheless lived without cruelty to others) and the facts (it was his son, for God’s sake), it had never seemed like the likeliest truth. Now the final barriers to his credulity fell away. How unknowable man is, he thought.
“I can’t believe you accepted money from him.”
“You don’t know the circumstances, Lenox.” The inspector