S hreve, the McConnells’ funereal butler, admitted Lenox that evening without explicit reluctance, but with a kind of mute reproach nevertheless. It was remarkable that he and the irrepressible Toto lived in the same universe, much less the same house.
“Mr. Lenox, sir,” Shreve announced.
The doctor was sitting in a tiny ornamental wooden chair, in a small alcove along the front hallway but almost hidden from view. He was reading the newspaper, with a glass of gin in his hand and his hair falling untidily over his forehead. The cuffs of his pants were splashed with mud, though he seemed not to notice. He stood up and grasped the detective’s hand.
“Why are you sitting out here?” Lenox asked.
“The place is crawling with my wife’s friends.”
“Really?”
“They’re like rabbits, you know. They keep multiplying. Every time you think they’re gone, another six of them jump out and ask what you think about some horrible scarf or hat or something. It’s absolutely harrowing.”
Lenox laughed.
“You won’t laugh so much when they start to close in on you.”
“Why are they here?”
“For supper. And to try on their dresses.”
“For the ball.”
“You’re going?” McConnell asked.
“Of course. Are you?”
“I shall have to, I think.” A look of grim determination came over his face. “But they won’t catch me looking at their dresses. Not for all the tea in China.”
“I may need your help at the ball, Thomas.”
McConnell nodded.
“I need your help now, as well,” said Lenox. He pulled the small glass jar out of his pocket. “I found what’s on this cotton in Potts’s room.”
“Is it Potts, then?”
“No, actually. I think it may be Soames.”
“Soames!”
“Keep it strictly quiet, Thomas. Only my brother and Jane know.”
“I shall. But Soames!”
“I know. At any rate, I may be incorrect, and I need this analyzed.” He pointed to the cotton. “Can you do it?”
“Of course,” said McConnell.
He took a sip of gin; Lenox almost wished he could say something to stop him.
“How soon?”
“Well-since it’s a limited sample, I’ll have to be careful. Two days, to be thorough.”
“Perfect. That’s what I told Exeter.”
“Exeter?”
“He let me into Barnard’s house. That’s how I took the sample.” Saying this, he handed it over to McConnell, who held it up to his eyes.
The doctor laughed. “You and Exeter. Miracles will never cease.”
“I would have bet ten pounds that they had ceased, right before the moment when Exeter offered me help-but evidently not.”
“Let’s take this up to the lab, eh, Charles?” said McConnell, shaking the glass jar.
“Certainly.”
They spoke as they went up the stairs. It was a narrow back staircase, with cartoons from Punch on the walls.
“What do you know about the Pacific Trust?” Lenox asked.
“I don’t pay any attention to it.”
“Neither do I.”
“I keep our fortune beneath the floorboards.”
Lenox laughed. “Of course.”
“But I know that something happened recently.”
“My brother said so, too.”
“I couldn’t say if it was for good or bad, only that it happened.”
“It’s probably not an issue, anyway.”
They had reached the library; Lenox looked up at the familiar railing that encircled the room, fifteen feet up, and the second level of books behind it.
McConnell walked to the tables with his lab equipment. A strong smell of charcoal lingered in the air, and he said, by way of explanation, “An experiment, you know.”
“Successful?”
“Hard to say. The kit I gave you worked, did it?”
“Yes. In fact, I need another.”
McConnell nodded. He unscrewed the top of the glass jar, took a pair of tweezers, and pulled the cotton out. Then he transferred it to a waiting beaker, which he shut with a rubber stopper. He stepped back and paused.
“Let’s see,” he said.
There was a huge cabinet above the desk, perhaps thirty feet long, which Lenox had never seen opened, but McConnell opened it now, swinging out door after door after door. Inside were long rows of bottles, the majority of them marked only by a number, arranged neatly. They must have numbered in the thousands. McConnell looked for a moment and then began to walk to and fro, searching for bottles, pulling one down now and then from the other end of the room until an idea brought him back. It was exhausting to watch. By the end he had a small mountain of bottles sitting on the empty table.
He turned and grinned at Lenox. “May as well be thorough,” he said.
“Good lord, where did you get all these?”
“There’s a bit less under the floorboards because of them. But when one is passionate.”
“I understand entirely.”
“I’ve even got a bit of bella indigo, just a bit, although it’s two years old. Only good now for plants.”
“I know your love for botany.”
McConnell grinned again. “Well, well. Each of us has an eccentricity. Look at you, when you don’t have a case, wandering around and trying to spot Hadrian.” He pointed at the sample Lenox had given him. “Two days-or perhaps less.”
“Thank you.”
McConnell ordered the bottles to his satisfaction, and the two men walked toward the door and downstairs by the same back staircase, ducking whenever they heard women’s voices echo through the house.