“How do you know?”
That was what the detective asked his apprentice as they rolled through Whitehall in a hired brougham.
“Fowler caught him last night after you left.”
“Fowler?”
“He pretended to leave-this was Starling’s plan-and fetched back quickly to the alley door to take everyone by surprise. He was convinced it might be Collingwood, apparently.”
“Perhaps he’s spoken to Ginger, too. Did you ask him?”
“Damn, I didn’t. That’s true. I thought we had an advantage.”
“It’s not a competition,” said Lenox. “I would be just as pleased if Fowler caught the murderer as if we did.” This wasn’t true at all, but he felt he needed to say it.
“In any event, Ludo ordered the entire staff to wait in the living room, and Fowler went through all of the rooms.”
“What did he find in Collingwood’s?”
“It wasn’t in Collingwood’s room. That was what Fowler hoped, and he searched it high and low, but no such luck.”
“Well?”
“Among the staff only Collingwood has a key to the larder. It was in there. A bloody knife, a black wool mask, and a green butcher’s apron. It was you who saw the flash of green, wasn’t it?”
“It was I, yes.”
“He arrested Collingwood straightaway, for assaulting Starling. The house was in a stir about it, of course.” Suddenly there was a silence, and Dallington stared moodily at the carnation in his buttonhole, fiddling with its stem. “Charles, I’ve told you a lie.”
“What?” said Lenox, shocked. “It wasn’t Collingwood?”
“No, no-not that. About Ginger. It wasn’t he who came to me at the club.”
“Then who-” Suddenly Lenox remembered with perfect clarity the light banter, the looks of curiosity, that had passed between Dallington and the young housemaid. “Jenny Rogers, was it?”
The younger man nodded guiltily. “Yes.”
“It’s bad-very bad. Not so much that you lied, though you ought to deplore any action of the sort, but that you have a-a friendship with a suspect.”
“A suspect!” cried Dallington. “Surely not!”
“Not a very likely one, of course-but certainly she had the opportunity, and she knew the alley well enough to find that loose brick. The weapon.”
“But-but motive!”
Dallington looked pale, and Lenox decided he had been hard enough on the lad. “It’s unlikely, as I say. Almost impossible. Still, it was unprofessional of you.”
“I don’t get paid,” said Dallington miserably. “I’m not a professional.”
“It’s not so bad. Look-we’re here. Wait, before we go on we must think for a moment. Hold here a second, sir, and it’s a shilling for you,” he called out to the cabman.
“What is it?” asked Dallington.
“Well, only this-do we believe Collingwood murdered Frederick Clarke? Or that he attacked Ludo Starling?”
“It certainly seems likelier now.”
“Let’s take this as part of your education, John. Think! Why would Collingwood have attacked Ludo Starling? How could it have benefited him?”
Dallington frowned. “Perhaps Starling knew Collingwood had killed Clarke?”
“Then why on earth wouldn’t Ludo have told us? All he wants is for this scandal to end!”
“Still, you must admit Starling is acting peculiarly.”
“There! That’s certainly true. We have to think about his motivations in all this. But then, listen-is there anything strange about what Collingwood hid?”
“What?”
“Even granting that he may have had a green butcher’s apron-which I feel far from sure of-why would he have worn it?”
“To keep the blood off?”
“Fair point. Still, I find it a singular piece of evidence. Then, last of all, the larder.”
“Well?”
Lenox shrugged. “Why choose a place in the house so closely associated with himself? Besides which certainly Collingwood isn’t the only person with a key.”
“Ludo!”
“That’s one. Or, for that matter, another member of the family whom we’ve both observed at the trough.”
“Alfred-but why on earth would he attack his father?”
“I don’t say he did, just that he may have had a key, somehow, and if so he may have lost it-misplaced it-given it away. Anything.”
“It’s true.”
Lenox stepped out and paid the driver. “Bear that in mind as we interview Collingwood. If we have a chance to, that is.”
“I doubt he’ll still be here.”
Dallington was right. They saw Ludo, who looked heartily sick of them, and he recapitulated briefly what they already knew.
“Do you believe Collingwood was capable of murdering Frederick Clarke?” Lenox asked.
“I don’t know, to be honest. Look, I’m late for a game of whist.”
“The Turf?”
“No, we’re playing at the house of a chap I know. I must be off.”
“How’s your leg?”
“My leg? Ah, that-it’s painful but healing, thanks.”
When they had walked a block away, Dallington said to Lenox, “Maybe we should go to the Turf.”
“His club?”
“We agree that his behavior is strange. Shall we see whether he was playing cards during the time Frederick Clarke was killed?”
The Turf was a very new club-it had been founded in 1861-but already a very exclusive one among the younger generations. The game that had taken London by storm in the past several years, whist, had actually been invented there and then certified by the much older Portland Club, a more staid place where the game of choice was generally contract bridge. The Turf had a comfortable house in Bennett Street in Picadilly, with many small rooms for cardplaying, a fine cellar full of wines, and a notably discreet staff. Many of the surfaces in the building, the doors, chairs, and tables included, were embossed with the club’s emblem, a centaur.
Dallington, who was a member, asked the porter if he could look through the sign-in book, passing him a coin; everyone who entered the Turf, member or guest, had to sign the book. After they had signed it themselves he and Lenox looked back to the date when Ludo had been playing cards. “For ten hours or more,” Lenox recalled him saying, or something like that. It wasn’t at all uncommon for these games of cards to go on for days, with players dropping in and out to eat or sleep for a few hours, and then returning to see a mix of old and new faces at the table.
Ludo’s name wasn’t in the book.
They checked the date twice, and for good measure each day on either side. “There, Frank Derbyshire,” said Lenox. “That was the group he said he was with.”
“He was lying!”
“He might have been. Or he might simply have walked in with a crowd and not bothered to wait around for his turn to sign the book. Still, it is suspicious, I’ll grant you that.”
“This is it!” said Dallington excitedly. “Ludo is involved, even if we don’t know how!”
“Patience. Let’s go see Frank Derbyshire.”
Dallington flipped to the front of the club book and studied the names on the most recent page. “We may not need to leave the building,” he said after a moment. “Derbyshire signed in an hour ago.”