The Vanishing Man Read online

  “Yes, sir.”

  They sat in silence for a little while, Lenox tracing triangles of geography in his mind, going over and over what Mayne had told him about the massive police effort to find the duke.

  At times like this he felt a sort of nausea of confusion, the feeling a doctor must have when a diagnosis lies just beyond his grasp, a writer when the plot won’t come together.

  It inclined him to a broad and undignified kind of despair. He was twenty-six—how soon hath time, that subtle thief!—and he had achieved nothing, he thought glumly. The police despised him, and any man or woman of his own class might dismiss him without a thought for this odd folly of his profession.

  “Sir,” said Graham, after a long silence.

  “Yes?” Lenox replied, looking up after a beat out of the oceanic lethargy of his thoughts.

  “I’m going to fetch a glass of water from the kitchen, if you’d like one.”

  “Oh. Why, all right. Thank you, Graham.” He mustn’t give in to melancholy. “I would eat some of that cold plum pudding if it happened to be in the larder, too.”

  Graham smiled. “Of course, sir.”

  Lenox pulled the little leather book of quotations from Shakespeare out of his pocket—he had found himself carrying it around all day—and, after stroking its soft cover with his thumb, opened it at random again.

  Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit and lost without deserving.

  —Othello

  He read this carefully, but it did not strike him as particularly interesting. When he closed the book, rather, he thought of the duke’s son, Corfe, whom he had visited earlier that afternoon.

  He was a tall, fit lad, who was dressed but still very pale and keeping well back of the crowd, coughing, reclined on a sofa. Still, he had not seemed delirious, despite Ward’s statement. He had been with the duchess and with his sister, Violet.

  This daughter, who completed the quartet of the family, had returned from their house in the country by private train car when she heard the news of her father. Few women could have been more eligible socially, but at thirty it seemed exceedingly unlikely now that she would marry. Lenox had heard of her—of this misfortune—before the duke had ever solicited his aid. Meeting her, Lenox observed that she was very sweet but painfully shy, with a large nose and small eyes: none of her mother’s beauty and perhaps twice her kindness. Of the three it was she who had asked the most intelligent questions. It was also evident that her brother loved her dearly.

  As Lenox went over the meeting in his mind, Graham returned with a tray bearing two glasses of water and two plates of cold plum pudding. “Would it be presumptuous of me to join you, sir?” he asked.

  “No. Imagine asking that, Graham! How many times did we go divvy on a plate of chips from the caravan outside Balliol?” Lenox took a mouthful of the pudding, deliciously sweet and cool. “Ah, that’s good.”

  They sat up for a while longer. At around one o’clock, Lenox at last went back upstairs and fell into an overheated rest, sheets kicked aside. At four he vaguely sensed, through sleep, that the heat had broken; it was raining.

  The relief of the rain was enormous. Half still in sleep, skin cool, he knew that he could find the answer if he was just patient and didn’t think too hard.

  He lay there, listening to the hard rain, watching the branches lash around outside.

  And then he had it.

  He rang the bell for Graham’s room—the hour be damned—and got dressed as quickly as he could. The valet appeared soon, dressed himself.

  “Sir?” he said.

  “Would you come with me somewhere?”

  “Of course, sir,” said Graham. “Shall I have the carriage taken out?”

  Lenox looked into the rain. Rousing the groom and warming the horses at this hour would take twenty minutes. “We’ll chance a cab if you have two umbrellas and a pair of decent boots.”

  If the duke hadn’t been in South London, if nobody in the all-seeing population of Battersea had spotted him in a single one of its nooks and hideaways, then—he wasn’t in South London.

  That was the crucial fact.

  And where else could doubling back to Bury Street have led the kidnappers? Suddenly it all seemed as clear as the water of a stream, the clues snapping into place: 1) that improbable bloodstain, 2) the ransom note tapped against Mayne’s knuckles, and 3) the driver’s account.

  The only thing he still didn’t understand was how the stolen painting fit in.

  A few moments later they were walking hunched under umbrellas down Hampden Lane, looking up and down the street for a taxicab. At last a slow old rambler passed by on Brook Street, its horse in very little hurry.

  They got in. “Dorset House, please,” Lenox said.

  “V’good, sir,” said the driver.

  It was an open cab. “Not tired?”

  He was an old man, who had an umbrella himself, hooked into his trap. “Sleep less, a’ my age, sir. Specially on a night so infernal ’ot as this one used to be.”

  It was a wet but uneventful cab ride—until, just as they were turning through St. James’s Park, Graham said, in a low voice, “I believe we are being followed by a hansom.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “We’ll step out here,” said Lenox to the driver of the hansom.

  “Here?” said the man in a doubtful way. He turned back to look at them from his seat on the box.

  Lenox handed him a coin. “Thank you,” he said, then added, “It’s not like that.”

  “Please yourselves,” the old man muttered, tucking the coin into his small waistcoat pocket.

  St. James’s was the trysting ground of the least savory characters of the upper classes—Lenox’s own. Any constable could levy an immediate fine of a pound—an immense sum, as much as a working-class family’s budget for the week—if he even suspected someone of “loitering” there, such was its ill reputation. At White’s, his club, Lenox had often heard men say before supper that they were going to draw a few pound notes from the bank before it closed.

  They took off on a rapid clip down one of the stone pathways. Under the moonlit rain, the park looked a bright beautiful startled green, wild and innocent.

  “Anyone following now?” muttered Lenox.

  “No,” Graham said.

  “What did you see?”

  “A young man, sir. Just a glimpse. He must have seen us hail the cab and pegged us for easy marks, followed us in his own.”

  Lenox stopped and looked around. There was only the rainy night behind him, but it was hard to see far. He held his cane firmly in his hand and surveyed the park.

  They emerged from the garden and turned down Abingdon Street. Here there was no mistaking it, under the combination of moonlight and brilliant streetlamps: They were alone. Lenox breathed a little easier.

  The enormous silhouette of Parliament stood behind them; soon they had arrived at the duke’s house. Both young men moved as quiet as the grave. They approached the southwest corner of the great marble house and stood there for a moment. One story up its sheer white face, a window of the duke’s study was ajar, despite the rain. There was no light on inside.

  Lenox smiled to himself.

  He turned to Graham. “Let’s try the stables.”

  The door to the stables was unlocked. Stupid. The only person there was a small boy, sleeping among the horses, whose fault it was not.

  “Where is Perkins?” Lenox said.

  That was the driver’s name—the one who’d been present at the duke’s kidnapping. “At home,” said the boy, rubbing his sleepy face. He peered at the heavy rain behind them, which Lenox and Graham were shaking off. “Blimey if it’s not tipping down, isn’t it?”

  “At home?” Lenox said.

  “He don’t live in.”

  “We’re going in to see Lord Vere,” said Lenox. “The door is unlocked?”

  The boy nodded obediently. He was too young, or it was too dark, fo
r him to catch the subtle differences in attire that marked Graham as a valet. They must have all looked—men in suits—the same to him, like friends of the duke’s son, Corfe, Lord Vere.

  Lenox handed the boy five shillings, a princely sum. It was intended to mimic the aleatory tips of the drunken rich. He patted a flawless mare with a white diamond on her nose who was looking at them mildly. “Go back to sleep,” he said to both horse and boy.

  The detective and his valet slipped inside quietly.

  Only when the door was closed behind them did Graham speak. “Is this wise?” he whispered.

  “I’m wondering too,” said Lenox.

  There was nobody downstairs. They passed on the balls of their feet through the hard marble entranceway, leaving an unfortunate trail of moisture, before taking the carpeted steps upstairs.

  Lenox led, turning left down the long hallway at the top.

  They went into the duke’s study. Empty. When his eyes had adjusted, Lenox could see, from the moonlight reflecting brilliantly off the Thames outside, old Shakespeare, undisturbed in his frame, fifth from the left, next to the empty spot where painting number six should be.

  He struck a match against a brass candleholder and lit the new candle it held. That was life as a duke: new candles, continually replenished by an unseen hand, burning as cleanly as the conscience of the Christ child.

  They stood there for a moment, and then Lenox said, in a voice low but distinct, “It’s Charles Lenox, Your Grace.”

  There was a long, tense pause.

  Then, from a closet at the far left end of the room, the duke emerged. He was in a tight-wrapped burgundy dressing gown, holding a pistol.

  “What in seven hells are you doing here?” he asked, his face visibly furious even in the dim candlelight.

  “I would be interested to know what you’re doing here,” Lenox responded.

  “You’re lucky you weren’t shot. I have a pistol. My man Craig has a blunderbuss.”

  “Since we have survived, Your Grace, perhaps you could tell us why a man who was kidnapped earlier today is alone and quite at ease in his own private study.”

  What had come to Lenox in his half-sleep was something simple, prompted by Graham. If the carriage that had taken the duke had gone down Bury Street without crossing into South London, there was only one place other than Parliament on this side of the river that was closer by that route.

  Here, Dorset’s own home.

  Now Lenox went to the duke’s desk and pulled open the top drawer.

  “What are you doing?” asked Dorset. “Who is this man?”

  “This is my valet, Graham,” said Lenox, looking with a frown of concentration through the drawer.

  “What does he know about … about Shakespeare?”

  Lenox paused and looked at Graham. “Graham?” he said.

  Graham frowned. “Shakespeare, sir?”

  “Shakespeare. What do you know about Shakespeare, His Grace would like to know.”

  “I recall that he wrote Pericles, Prince of Tyre, sir.”

  Lenox tilted his head. “It wouldn’t be the first play I thought of.”

  “A company came to our town with it when I was a child, sir. A very engaging performance.”

  Lenox looked at the duke. He seemed mollified at least on this one subject; Graham was a persuasive actor. Lenox looked down into the second drawer he had opened.

  He took out a notecard and inspected it—heavy, cream colored, unmarked.

  He tapped it against his knuckles. “Very, very fine paper for a ransom note, isn’t it?” he said. “Such as no thief or kidnapper could afford. A duke could, of course.”

  “Please leave,” the duke said.

  “That was the first thing that struck me as curious. The second was that there was so much blood inside your carriage, staining the cushion. If you were interrupted before getting in, as your driver and the porter testified, why would it have been there?”

  “I asked you to leave,” the duke said.

  “You have cost the police force untold hours and your family untold worry with this absurd scheme,” said Lenox. “You admit that you faked your own kidnapping?”

  “Get out.”

  “What was it, pig’s blood?”

  The duke looked at him grimly. “I still believe that someone is after my family’s most important secret—and very possibly after me,” he said, glancing at Graham. “I thought my absence would embolden the thief to make a second attempt.”

  “So you arranged the kidnapping, and left your window open to entice him.”

  “Yes.”

  Paradoxically, this act of deceit proved one thing to Lenox, he thought: The duke himself was not guilty of the original crime, a possibility he had considered.

  “Who were the two men in cloaks?”

  “Loyal servants,” said the duke brusquely.

  “Did you not consider just going to the country? Wouldn’t the thief be incredulous that a second criminal was after you?”

  The duke, though briefly nonplussed, waved away this objection. “A man of my stature is under continual threat.”

  It was here that Lenox had a surprising revelation: The 15th Duke of Dorset was—though temperamentally suited to his rank—perhaps not especially intelligent.

  “I see. Maybe. But who do you believe actually is after you, Your Grace?” asked Lenox. “It is not the Queen, nor Sir Charles Eastlake. Do you have enemies?”

  “No.”

  “I would like very much to know how the Dorset family acquired this picture, Your Grace,” he said.

  Fury erupted in the duke’s expression. Lenox had touched a nerve. “Please leave.”

  The duke knew no more than he did, but it must be possible that he entertained some suspicion, some inkling, based on the story of Shakespeare’s portrait. Yet the question remained: Why the wrong painting?

  Lenox looked at him for a long moment. He was still holding the notecard, and tapped it against his knuckles. He glanced outside. The rain had slackened, and the trees were swaying above the river.

  He put the notecard in his pocket. “I am going to inform the Yard right now that you turned up at home safely overnight, without any idea of what happened. They will be able to stop expending their thinning resources on the search for you.”

  The duke smirked. “Do what you please.”

  “I consider it a courtesy to you, in fact, Duke. If you want any further assistance, you may let me know,” said Lenox.

  There was a subtle change there. “Duke” was how one addressed a social equal of that rank—and anyone might be a social equal to Dorset, by virtue of the subtle calibrations of money, fashion, and taste that dictated society’s preferences. Lenox used the word with a feeling of recklessness. He was, in his young person’s way, in a terrible haste to find the truth, and he hated the duke right now for slowing his way—for this sham of a path toward justice.

  They left the study and then departed by the front door, the duke standing halfway down the steps, watching.

  It would be up to him how to tell his family that he had arrived home safely.

  Outside, the rain was reduced to a scattered drizzle, wonderfully cool. Across the way from Dorset’s front door, leaning against the stone railing overlooking the Thames, was a man in a dark cloak. A little orange ember marked him out, not much more.

  Lenox started across the empty street, under the gleam of the gas lamps. “You were right, Graham. We were being followed. Hello, Mr. Bonden.”

  “Good evening,” said Bonden, the old seaman removing the pipe in his mouth. “I couldn’t help my curiosity.”

  “I would be delighted to have your assistance,” said Lenox. There were rays of dawn appearing between the buildings across the river. “We find ourselves in deep waters. It is a painting that we’re searching for.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The next morning was a Saturday, which meant, per his custom, that Lenox was due, at eight o’clock exactly, in th
e most feared place in England.

  At seven he sat in the little drawing room where he took his breakfast, a chamber directly opposite his study in which he occasionally entertained friends and family, if they numbered fewer than half a dozen. It had a fireplace and a cabinet piano, which, closed, showed a painting of Lenox House set in the countryside surrounding it.

  Here he sat, a steady rain still whispering against the windowpanes, eating eggs, toast, and porridge and having his tea. The morning’s newspapers were in front of him.

  PEER ALIVE AND WELL!

  Duke of Dorset Recovered Safely; Police Mystified

  No suspects taken into custody, questioned;

  Duke recalls no details of captivity;

  Ransom unpaid;

  Reward of 500 pounds offered for capture of criminals

  That was the loud, confused, and rather confusing set of headlines stacked above a drawing of the 15th Duke of Dorset in the Illustrated London Morning News. This was a paper of greater vulgarity than the Times, and therefore often much more interesting. Not just to Lenox.

  He looked away through the window and sat, eating his porridge and thinking. He and Bonden had spoken at length the night before and were going to meet again after the weekend. The young detective was determined to find the lost painting.

  It was one of those mornings—the rain trickling down the windows, the gray skies—when for whatever queer reason he felt the loss of his father.

  As he was meditating on this, Mrs. Huggins and Lancelot entered the room.

  Lenox put down his fork. “What have I said about this room?” he said.

  “That only Graham may enter it in the antemeridian, sir, but—” said Mrs. Huggins.

  “And you told me that you’d use a shotgun on anyone who comes in but Graham, especially me,” Lancelot added scrupulously.

  “Sir!” Mrs. Huggins exclaimed. “Did you really? For shame, sir.”

  “I hate an informer,” Lenox said darkly to Lancelot. “What is it, Mrs. Huggins?”

  “Your brother is here, sir.”

  “Oh! Send him in.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Mrs. Huggins.

  Lancelot ran after her, no doubt to ask Edmund for money—which he would receive, since Edmund was, in the first place, a soft touch and, in the second, deeply grateful that he had not been imposed upon to house Lancelot for two weeks himself.