“Thanks so much for coming by. Let me know if you need help.”

“Any initial thoughts?” said Jenkins, walking to the door.

“Wait,” said Lenox. There was a pause.

“What is it?” asked Jenkins.

Lenox thought for a moment. “I’ve got it.”

“Yes?”

“He had a son, didn’t he? Poole?”

Jenkins stopped in his tracks. “Oh?”

“I just remembered. Poole’s son, he’s back. He’d be nineteen, twenty, thereabouts, wouldn’t he? His grandparents took him to the Continent, but there was a small item in several of the papers about his return. Living by St. James’s Park.”

Jenkins sighed. “What a prodigious memory you have.”

“Thanks.”

“We have no evidence whatsoever to link him to Pierce or Carruthers, though.”

“Christ. I wonder if he could have done it.”

“Inspector Exeter has sent out a canvass to find him.”

Lenox shook his head. “Asinine. If you’re to find him you must do it subtly.”

“I agree,” said Jenkins, shrugging.

“Well-good luck at any rate. Keep me informed, won’t you?”

“I shall.”

“Good-bye.”

The inspector left, and Lenox sat in an armchair thinking. What puzzled him was the second murderer-for there must have been one, if the murders were so close together in time. How could Poole’s son, who had been out of the country, know anybody in London well enough to enlist them in such a plot?

CHAPTER THREE

Two days later a mild late December sun set over Hampden Lane. Lenox sat with Lady Jane Grey on the sofa in her rose-colored sitting room-a chamber famous for the exclusivity of the evening gatherings it hosted and for its inaccessibility to all but Jane’s favorite people-fixing his cuff links. She was telling him about the dinner party they were to attend that night.