The Woman in the Water--A Prequel to the Charles Lenox Series Read online

“Mr.—are you an acquaintance of Mr. Kennington?”

  Lenox, his eyes always moving, had noticed the name on the masthead of an open copy of the Challenger they had passed. “He’ll want to see us.”

  She hesitated, but a Briton could nearly always be counted upon to pay obeisance to class, and she said, rising, “Follow me.”

  A bulldog-looking person behind an absolutely enormous desk, a desk the size of many maids’ bedrooms in London, glanced up as they entered. “Who’s this?”

  “This is Mr. Charles Lenox,” the woman said. “And—sir?”

  “Oh, only his valet, madam,” Graham said, with a hard t.

  “Valet,” repeated Kennington. He accepted the card from his secretary. Between the valet and the card, he was as impressed as the secretary, ready to give them a moment. “I see. What is it that brings you across town, Mr. Lenox?”

  From more salubrious precincts—was implied.

  Lenox handed over the clipping of the letter about the perfect crime. “We’re here about this letter.”

  Kennington looked at it briefly and handed it back. “Well?”

  “Is it real?”

  Kennington got a cautious look on his face. “It is, as it happens.”

  “Might we ask how it came into your possession?”

  He glanced at his pocket watch. “Miss Adams, fetch the cart of incoming letters.”

  The secretary left. “Does that mean you still have it?” Lenox asked.

  “Should do.”

  There was a silence. “It’s a handsome office,” said Lenox.

  “What’s your concern with the letter?”

  “Ah.” He had been ready for that question. “There is a family whose son has disappeared. No doubt gambling in Monaco, but we have promised to follow every lead.”

  Kennington frowned. The valet and that explanation didn’t add up. “You’re doing this for money?”

  Lenox shook his head. “No, not at all. Just curiosity. I’ve always been interested in crime. Take them as they come. I assisted late last year on the Marbury case.”

  This was a curious matter of some six months before, tangentially involving a friend, which Lenox had helped solve by slipping information anonymously to the Yard. (Now he wished he had done it in person.) It was the case he thought of as his “first,” even though he hadn’t been the primary detective. It was after Marbury that he had decided once and for all to follow his instinct and pursue this line of work; after Marbury that he and Graham had begun clipping the newspapers.

  The editor’s curiosity was evidently satisfied by this explanation. “I was in gutta-percha for a while, myself, then rubber. Bought this thing last year. Circulation has doubled. We’ll be moving up the street in the next year or so.”

  Lenox raised his eyebrows. “Congratulations.”

  “Bloody stories and tearjerkers—that’s what people want, you know.”

  “I don’t think there’s any question about that.”

  “Easier than gutta-percha. Ships sink.” He paused. “You’re very young.”

  “I thank you.”

  Kennington laughed and pointed at Graham, though he had barely appeared to notice him. “Anyhow, you’d have to walk awhile to find the man who’s going to fool this valet of yours. I’ll just tell you that for free, since you aristocrats never know anything yourselves. But I’ve looked into a few faces in my day.”

  Just then Miss Adams came into the room, pushing a file box on wheels. It appeared that the Challenger kept thorough records. It wasn’t what Lenox would have expected.

  Thorough, and thoroughly organized, too. Within just a moment, Kennington had found the letter.

  He held it out and then, as Lenox reached to take it, pulled it back. “A trade.”

  “A trade?”

  “One story. A crime story. Put me onto it sometime. In the next month or two, say.”

  Lenox thought, and then nodded. “I accept your terms.”

  “Word as a gentleman?”

  Graham no doubt noticed the way that Lenox’s posture stiffened slightly—the anger he felt at the question even being posed—but Kennington and Miss Adams would have missed it. Lenox nodded once more. “Yes, you have my word as a gentleman.”

  Kennington nodded in turn at the deal he’d struck, then passed the letter to Lenox. “It arrived four days ago, I believe.”

  Four days!

  That was a piece of absolutely crucial information. Also a frightening one.

  Lenox did some quick calculations. He had reckoned that the one-month “anniversary” referred to in the letter would be four or five days off, at the earliest, May 7 perhaps—today being the second.

  But it might be much, much sooner. It might be this very day.

  The idea chilled his blood. “You waited to publish it?” Lenox asked.

  “Figured the fellow for a crank. Still do, but we had a few spare column inches to fill, and it’s excited a fair bit of reader interest. We’ll probably run a follow-up head on it in the next day or two.”

  “How did the letter arrive?”

  “Miss Adams?” Kennington said.

  Evidently the secretary was responsible for such matters. “Unstamped, under our door, sir, in the middle of the night. Must have been very late, as we don’t generally print until three. Between four and six, nobody is in the building.”

  Lenox nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Not at all, sir.”

  “Is there a spare desk where we could look the letter over?”

  Kennington said there was. “Miss Adams will show you. Don’t forget my crime story, Mr. Lenox. Goodbye, valet.”

  A moment later, Lenox and Graham were at an empty table in the newspaper’s main room, both standing, leaning over to stare at the thrice-folded letter and the small blue envelope it had arrived in. Miss Adams had left them to their own devices.

  The text was identical to that which the Challenger had printed. “Cheap paper,” Lenox noted.

  “Perhaps for anonymity,” Graham suggested.

  Lenox shook his head. “No. Because it’s a cheap pen, too.”

  “Can you tell, sir?” Graham asked.

  Lenox pointed. “Look how often he has had to go back to his inkwell. The splotches come every other word, almost. One of those metal nibs that are a dozen-a-penny. The ink’s no good either.”

  “I see.”

  Lenox frowned. “Admirable penmanship, however.”

  “Yes, indeed, sir.”

  “And you see the other clue that goes along with admirable penmanship, of course.”

  “Sir?” said Graham.

  Lenox, all of his twenty-three, was not free of arrogance, the undergraduate vice. “Come, you can see here, Graham, where he has erased his pencil lines. Faint but distinct. Beneath each line of the letter.”

  Now Graham frowned. “I cannot see the significance of that, sir.”

  “Oh. Oh.” In what he hoped was a delicate way, Lenox said, “We never had lines beneath our—we were smacked on the hand if we wrote crookedly, at Harrow, with the chalk. In its chalk-holder, a great long wooden rod. I can still feel it.”

  “Sir?”

  Lenox elaborated. “Well, it’s only at the free schools that one is taught to write line upon line.”

  “Is it, sir?”

  “I think because it is considered useful if your field is clerking.” Lenox thought back to his lessons. “A gentleman’s writing mustn’t be too—too perfect, you see.”

  “Ah. Yes, sir,” said Graham. “I see.”

  His face remained impassive. He was a fellow, Lenox’s valet—or butler, perhaps, if you wished to use the slightly grander word—who learned from every direction, indiscriminately, his mind as sharp as the head of a newly fledged arrow. He would absorb this piece of information as he had every other one (that asparagus was eaten with the fingers, for instance, that one said “sofa,” not “settee”) and store it away forever.

  Lenox felt a twinge of guilt. He smoothe
d the paper under his hand. “I think we have a picture of our man, at least,” he said.

  “Sir?” said Graham.

  “Come, we’ll discuss it in the hansom. We must go to Scotland Yard as quickly as possible. If the writer of the letter keeps his promise, they’ll have only a day to prevent a murder. Not five or six, as I’d thought. It may even be a matter of hours.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lenox shook his head grimly. “It’s bad, very bad, that we are the first to follow up. If the Yard cannot solve the matter, we may only hope that the next murder is not so brutal or random as the one at Walnut Island.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Walnut Island—that was the case described in the clippings that Lenox had pulled from their oak filing cabinet in St. James’s Square before they left for the Challenger.

  The six articles were spread from across three days: three on the first, April 5; two on the second; and one on the third, only the Telegraph pursuing the story into the morning hours of April 7.

  It had perhaps passed through the newspapers so quickly because, despite having several sensational elements, it had produced no clues, no leads, no identifications: nothing to add to the splashy first accounts.

  Did that make it a perfect crime?

  The most reliable of the three newspapers that had reported on the matter was the Times. Their piece had appeared on the first page of the densely typeset newspaper, datelined to London.

  Thames Mystery

  _______

  Inspectors Sinex and Exeter charged with investigation

  _______

  Identification considered difficult; public assistance sought

  _______

  The body of a woman was found early Thursday morning by Jacob A. Schoemaker, charman of Randall House, a residence situated upon the small islet near Twickenham known locally as Walnut Island. Schoemaker reported to police that he had discovered a sailor’s trunk among the rushes near the island’s east end, heavily sodden, apparently fetched there by the tide.

  The trunk was clasped but not locked. Inside was the body of a woman, estimated in age as being between 20 and 40. The trunk had no identifying marks and the body was unclothed. The cause of death was strangulation. The deceased had long black hair, a prominent brow, and well-kept teeth, according to Inspector Sinex of Scotland Yard.

  These and other details match no known missing person for whom the London police are actively searching, Sinex confirmed to the Times.

  He added that the Yard is pursuing several promising leads. Inspectors Sinex and Exeter will jointly handle the matter going forward.

  Descriptions matching those of the deceased may be forwarded either to the Times or to Scotland Yard. No statement was released by Sir Winston Kellogg, owner of Randall House, previously home to the Randall family. Sir Winston and his family are presently in Scotland.

  No reward has thus far been offered.

  “‘Several promising leads,’” Lenox quoted angrily as he and Graham read over the article together again, heads huddled, on the way to the Yard.

  It was a fairly common kind of article. London had birthed babies and buried bodies beyond counting since its foundation. Once every two or three days, it produced an unidentified corpse. Some of these corpses caught the public imagination, but few of those that involved foul play were ever solved.

  On the other hand, this was the body of a young, or relatively young, woman, which was the sort the press liked to dramatize. The mention of her teeth was also a subtle indication that perhaps the police believed her to be wellborn—not a prostitute, that is, the most usual victim of violent crimes, alas.

  There was also something macabre in her discovery on Walnut Island that might easily have stimulated the public imagination. It hadn’t caught, however—it just hadn’t. So it went.

  The other five articles offered variants of the same information, none so thorough as the Times. The final one, in the Telegraph, volunteered only that Inspectors Sinex and Exeter had fielded several public visits.

  Before their visit to Mr. Kennington at the Challenger, Lenox and Graham had combed carefully through their files from the week preceding and following March 2. There were numerous crimes contained across these 150-odd articles, including a dozen murders, but most of them had been solved, and only one other, an odd stabbing in Romford, presented features of unusual interest.

  In their hansom cab on the way to the Yard, Lenox said, thoughtfully, “April fifth. A sailor’s trunk is buoyant. So we may assume that it was floated down the Thames—in other words, would not need to have been dropped anywhere near the island. In fact, could have floated for days before it arrived at Walnut Island.”

  “Indeed, sir.”

  “On the other hand, such a trunk floating downriver wouldn’t be likely to survive the small fry for longer than a quarter of an hour.”

  There were hundreds of skiffs and other flat-bottomed boats, perhaps thousands, that floated daily upon the Thames, serving every purpose imaginable. Some ferried sailors between the huge corvettes and brigs anchored near the docks. Some sold meat pies, rum, blue pictures, newspapers, anything of imaginable interest to these same sailors. Some were after river fish.

  Some were merely pickers—trawling the great waterway, scavenging what they could sell, down to paper at a halfpenny per ten pounds.

  “Perhaps that indicates that it was placed in the river the night before, sir. Darkness would have given the murderer cover, and the trunk a better chance of remaining undiscovered.”

  Lenox nodded. “My thought too.”

  “After midnight best of all, sir.”

  “Our fellow is a nocturnal soul. Slipping letters under doors at four in the morning, dropping trunks in the river after dark. Very well, then. It is dawn of April fifth that Mr. Schoemaker discovers the body.”

  They looked at each other, both knowing what this meant. Lenox felt sick.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Today is the second of May. Which means that the anniversary of the murder itself could well be tomorrow.”

  “At the latest, the next day, sir.”

  A second victim might already be dead, Lenox thought. “Yes.”

  “Optimistically, we could hope that it was the early morning of April fifth, sir,” Graham said. “The trunk might have floated only a very short while.”

  Lenox nodded soberly. “Yes.”

  But in his heart he knew there was every chance they were already too far behind. He had never worked on a murder, and the stakes felt too high, too high.

  Their hansom stalled, and Graham peered out through the window. “Two carriages stuck, passing too close, sir,” he said.

  Lenox pulled his notepad from his breast pocket, forcing himself to slow down and think. “Who is the murderer, Graham?” he said. “Let us assume that the letter is real—let us assume that the Walnut Island trunk is his perfect crime—who is he?”

  Graham, who had been looking at the mix-up in traffic, turned his attention back to Lenox. “Why, it could be anyone in the world, sir,” he said.

  Lenox, brow dark, shook his head. “No, that’s quite incorrect.”

  “Well, in London, I mean to say, sir, anyone in—”

  “No,” said Lenox again, forcefully. “We know a great deal.” He looked through the window, and then said, under his breath, “Move, damn it all, move.”

  Their only hope was getting to the Yard as quickly as possible and forcing someone there to listen to them.

  He tried not to think at all the jollity they had had at his expense in the last seven months—a relationship he had hoped at first might be collegial, then at least neutral, but which had proved more comic, to the inspectors there, than anything else.

  Partly his own fault. If he wanted to be one of them badly enough, he would have applied for a job there. But his family could never, ever have countenanced that—and nor could he have, in fact. That was the shameful truth, that his pride came before his desire to work.
So that he had become a running joke among the inspectors of the Yard, even the constables, all of whom could no doubt intuit his condescension; the gentleman detective who hung around the building, hoping to catch word of some crime he could poke his unwelcome nose into.

  They would have to listen to him now. That was all there was.

  “What more is it that we know about this criminal that I have missed, sir?” Graham asked curiously.

  Lenox inhaled deeply. “Well. We have two sets of facts from which we may draw conclusions. The contents of the letter, and the physical object itself, which Mr. Kennington was kind enough to show us. If only he had run it earlier, a great—but anyhow.”

  “Sir,” said Graham.

  Suddenly the hansom lurched forward. They both looked through the window—the traffic had cleared. Fifteen minutes to the Yard, twelve with a rub of luck.

  Lenox went on. “The question becomes where the two things line up, the letter and the letter. Leave the trunk to the side for a moment. Every letter sent in the history of the world could be traced to a single author, of course, were we only brilliant enough to untangle its minutely telling signatures. Each of us leaves a dozen on any random note of thanks, I’ve no doubt.

  “As it is, we can do a rough job.” He took that morning’s clipping from the Challenger out of his breast pocket. “Examine the language: I would characterize it in the main as—what is the exact word? Pretentious, I suppose. And more dangerously, in my experience, grandiose as well. Take this line, about how murder is treated in England. ‘Too seriously, if we are honest with ourselves about the numerousness and average intellectual capacity of our population.’ Then there is the false modesty of ‘my own small effort.’

  “Look at the pride in that line, too. ‘The generally sluggish energies of England’s press and police.’ In the signature, further false modesty—‘A correspondent.’

  “The picture seems clear enough to me.”

  “A pretentious person, sir, then,” said Graham.

  “Even more than that. The author of this letter thinks himself far, far above the average run of man. That is confirmed, of course, by the letter’s leading piece of superciliousness—this claim about a perfect crime, that he has committed a perfect crime, and will commit another.