A Beautiful Blue Death by Charles Finch

ability, and hard work had allowed him to rise even higher. He was now one of the half dozen most prominent detectives on the force, and also among the least naturally talented or intuitive of his rank.
    There was no point, for Lenox, in trying to tell himself that he did not dislike Exeter. The man was a snob toward those beneathhim, and a cloying sycophant to those above, unless they happened to come under his power, when he dropped all pretense of respect and became merciless. And yet, thought Lenox, I don’t envy him, having to deal with a man like Barnard. That beastly talking-down to. He thought guiltily that he was glad he could afford—literally—not to put up with a man like Barnard. If only Exeter had been slightly more intelligent.… But then, he thought, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
    The housekeeper brought Lenox his hat and his coat, and as he put them on he said a final word to Exeter.
    “If I may give you one piece of information, Inspector—the girl was murdered.”
    “That sounds like an opinion to me, Mr. Lenox.”
    “It is not, Inspector. Good day.”
    And he walked out through the heavy doors, trying to imagine a way in which he could solve Prue Smith’s murder without access to any of the suspects, for he knew he had probably entered the house in a professional capacity for the last time during this case.

Chapter 9
    L ondon on a winter midday held few pleasures for Lenox. There was smoke in the air, which made his eyes tear, and there were too many people along the sidewalks, fighting for the thin path of cobblestone without snow piled atop it. And yet he felt more determined today than he had yesterday evening. In part because Exeter was involved.
    He had set himself just one task for the day, or at least until Graham told him what he had discovered, and that was to see if he could trace the bella indigo that had killed the young maid. In the meanwhile, he was walking toward the Houses of Parliament, after having run a morning’s worth of overdue errands, to have lunch with his older brother, Edmund.
    His brother held the seat of Markethouse, the town attached to their family’s estate, Lenox House, and while he was not active in the Parliament, exactly, he attended when he could and could be counted to vote along party lines. He was, like Lenox, a liberal, and he approved of the reforms of the last thirty years, but he was also a baronet and held a good deal of land, which made him generally well-liked on both sides of the aisle—or at least accepted as a known quantity.
    His full name was Sir Edmund Chichester Lenox, and he lived with his wife, Emily, a pretty, plump, motherly woman whom everyone called Molly, and his two sons, in the house where he and his brother had both grown up. He had two distinct personalities, Lenox always felt: his more businesslike demeanor, in the city, and his truer self, the man who resided at home and felt most comfortable in old clothes, out for a day of shooting or riding or gardening. He was two years older than Charles and, while they looked alike, Lady Jane always said they were instantly recognizable as themselves. Edmund was the same weight and height, but he looked softer, and his manner, while equally polite, was somewhat more eccentric, a trait no doubt cultivated by the solitude of Lenox House in comparison with London.
    The two brothers were immensely fond of each other. Each envied the other his pursuit—Lenox followed politics passionately and longed, from time to time, to stand for Parliament himself, while Edmund adored the city and often felt, rather romantically, that to crisscross it wildly, searching for clues and people, must be next to bliss. Occasionally he tried to solve the local crimes at Markethouse from his armchair, but the newspaper rarely yielded up anything more spectacular than a stolen policeman’s helmet or a missing sheep: poor fodder, he felt, for a budding detective. As a result, the first thing he always