Charles Lenox Mysteries 07 An Old Betrayal by Charles Finch

Author:Charles Finch [Finch, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Both men looked at Lenox blankly for a moment and then simultaneously shook their heads and began to speak. It was Jenkins whose voice won out.

“My dear fellow,” he said, “there are so many places in London, so many thousands, from which it would be easier to steal.”

“Can you point them out to me?” asked Lenox. “There is great risk in entering a private residence, and no guarantee that it will hold much treasure, even at the finest address. The museums and societies keep everything of value under lock and key. By contrast, Dallington, consider the paintings we saw on the wall—or the medieval Bible stand in the East Gallery, with gold and rubies in it, with which we were allowed to remain alone for twenty minutes.”

“With guards on every side of us.”

“At a party of eight hundred, would they be such a problem? Heaven alone knows the value of the jewels in the Queen’s vaults. Think of the boy Jones, gentlemen.”

The example of the boy Jones silenced the other two men. Three decades before, Jones, a lad of not more than fourteen or fifteen, had gained entrance to Buckingham Palace, disguised as a chimney sweep. Guards caught him after only a short while, with an eccentric collection of the Queen’s personal items, garments, letters, and knickknacks, none of it very valuable.

They expelled the boy and warned him not to return. Not much later, he scaled the walls of Buckingham Palace and wandered it for hours, sitting on the throne, lying in Victoria’s bed, and stealing food from the larder. One of the wits of the age had dubbed the child “In I Go Jones.”

At any rate, the palace was not unimpeachably secure.

Jenkins rose from his seat. The light was declining into shadow outside, and he lit a lamp recessed into the wall, making the room brighter. “But then we come to Grace Ammons,” he said. “No intelligent thief would leave behind such a trail. If he merely wished access to the palace as a social matter, this light-haired gentleman could deny Miss Ammons’s story. That would be very much harder if he stole something.”

“Perhaps he counted upon her intimidation.” Lenox saw that it was a fair point, and he fell into silence for a moment, as the other two men contemplated him. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “There are too many questions—why our Mr. Smith gave his name out as Godwin beyond the shops at which he used it, whether and why he killed the real Godwin, what he wanted to do at the palace.”

“The behavior of Miss Ammons,” added Dallington, eyes narrowed in contemplation. “Until we are sure of her story we are sure of nothing at all.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Lenox softly.

It was this problem—Miss Ammons’s character, her honesty—that preoccupied Lenox all through the remainder of the evening. Soon he and Dallington left the Yard, agreeing to reconvene with Jenkins the next afternoon. (Hopefully Skaggs would have finished his canvass by then.) Lenox dined alone

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