Home by Nightfall: A Charles Lenox Mystery

Gentleman sleuth Charles Lenox returns in his 13th adventure as a one of England’s first private detectives. It is 1876 and Charles, now past 45 years old, has left Parliament and along with two partners has opened a private detective agency.

Although Charles has always dabbled in investigating felonious misadventures, usually murder, of England’s upper classes, opening his own firm is stepping over the line from not quite respectable amateur to actually engaging in “trade,” which is not respectable at all. “—a gentleman by birth, with a private fortune, in his previous life he had been an amateur detective, working from his town house in the West End, taking cases as it pleased him.”

After a shaky beginning and the departure of DeMaire, one of the agency’s partners, Charles finally admits that he is indeed “in trade,” and proceeds to use his various contacts, both social and those from his career in Parliament to build a client list. Recently he has seen those clients defect from his agency to that of his former partner, DeMaire. Charles needs a case that has defeated the skills of Scotland Yard, and will catch the notice of both the general public and his former clients. While Charles has a private fortune, his firm employs several inquiry agents who are dependent upon their salaries to survive.

Such a notorious case as Charles needs is already generating talk in London. “Across every class that autumn, in the butchers’ stalls at Smithfield market, on the crowded buses full of clerks and respectable widows, in the glittering drawing rooms of Hanover Square, Muller was the only subject of speculation.” Muller is a famous pianist from Germany who after playing a piece by Mendelssohn, goes to his dressing room and disappears.

Unfortunately for Charles, Scotland Yard hires DeMaire to aid them in investigating Muller’s disappearance. That doesn’t stop Charles from beginning his own investigation independent of Scotland Yard, but family obligations must come first. Since the unexpected death of his wife, Sir Edmund Lenox, Charles’s brother, has been in a depressed state. “He had become a ghost of himself, and Lenox had realized to his horror that it wasn’t impossible to imagine that Edmund might follow, soon, behind his wife.”

Despite Sir Edmund’s protestations, Charles accompanies his brother to the Lenox family home near the small village of Markethouse. Charles plans to stay only a few weeks until Sir Edmund can come to terms with his grief over his wife’s death. He certainly doesn’t expect what he finds in the village. Books have been stolen from the library; blankets taken from the church; and animals are disappearing. Most strange of all is a break-in at the home of a local life insurance agent, in which nothing is stolen.

Charles advises Mr. Hadley, the insurance agent to take the matter to the police, but Sir Edmund urges Charles to take the case. “I am exceedingly curious about what on earth all of this can mean. In Markethouse, too, as he says!” If running about the Sussex countryside in pursuit of answers to minor mysteries will divert Sir Edmund from his grief, than Charles is happy to take Mr. Hadley’s case.

As Charles and Sir Edmund investigate further, Charles begins to suspect that Mr. Hadley’s mysterious break-in, as well as stolen books, blankets, and animals in the village, might be more serious than he originally supposed. Then there is the odd chalk drawing of a small girl on Mr. Hadley’s porch, which is repeated at city hall where Markethouse’s mayor is assaulted and left for dead. Whatever is going on in the village, it is not minor.

Charles cannot spend all his time in Markethouse; there is also Muller, the missing pianist in London. That mystery, like those in Markethouse, is becoming darker and more sinister when Charles discovers a dead body in the attic above Muller’s dressing room at the theatre. The body is not Muller’s, but that of an unknown woman. Who is the woman? Where is Muller? What about the sinister events in Markethouse?

Home by Nightfall by Charles Finch is one of the author’s best efforts in his Victorian mystery series, a perfect blend of domestic details and descriptions of sights, sounds, and smells of both London streets and village cottages and lanes.

Finch creates a believable historical background without overwhelming the narrative with insignificant details that will slow the pace of the story without furthering the plot. Charles Lenox is a charming protagonist who reminds one of a 19th century Lord Peter Wimsey. Kudos to Mr. Finch for creating such a likeable character even though Lenox sometimes is a bit too stiff upper lip.