Lenox checked his pocket watch frequently, so often that it would have been conspicuous in any other setting, though it was more natural in a rail station. It passed 8:10 and there was no sign of Dallington’s correspondent. Lenox forced himself to read the paper. It was dreary work, until he noticed, with a smile of surprise, a certain advertisement. It was a quarter page and lay just below a half-page advertisement for Carter’s Little Liver Pills. It read:
Miss Strickland’s Detective Agency
No problem insoluble to our dogged staff
Former bobbies and military men
References provided. Satisfaction guaranteed. Strictest Confidence.
Thefts Mysteries Puzzles Missing Persons
Live in doubt no longer
119 High Holborn WC1V
He would have to show Dallington. A competitor! It was time someone set up just such a business. He could picture Miss Strickland, too—she was probably a shade over six feet, with a barrel chest, a seaman’s tattoo on her forearm, and a black, bristly beard. When inquired for she would have stepped briefly out of the office, leaving her capable assistant, Mr. Smith, or Johnson, or Wells, in charge. It was an old ruse. Customers, especially men, felt they were getting a better bargain when a woman was in charge of a business.
The line that made him smile was second to last: “Live in doubt no longer.” Nearly every person of his acquaintance ought to avail him or herself of Miss Strickland’s services, he thought, if she was capable of such conclusive deliverance.
He did wonder what kind of cases such an ad might draw. Many petty ones, no doubt, but perhaps, here and there, something of more serious moment. The agency would have to consult with Scotland Yard if it wished to pursue a murderer, that much Lenox knew with certainty, from long experience.
The waiter looped back to him at 8:18. “Will there be anything else?” he asked. “We have a fine tart, sir.”
“I’ll take toast and jam,” said Lenox.
“Very good, sir.”
He was losing hope that the man who had written Dallington would arrive. A loss of nerve, perhaps. A fellow who wouldn’t sign a letter no doubt had trepidations about meeting in person. Or perhaps he had looked in the window, failed to see Dallington’s face, and gone on his way.
Just as he had this thought, the door opened and a man came in. This was more promising—at any rate he was fair, with light hair.
To Lenox’s astonishment, however, it wasn’t he who reacted to the newcomer’s entrance first. The woman sitting near him—the one who had been sitting and scrutinizing her diary—looked up and started. Then, without saying a word, she dropped a coin on the table, stood up, and, gathering her things haphazardly in her arms, fled through a side door, just as the newcomer spotted her. With a flare of recognition he called out, “Wait!”
Only as she was leaving did Lenox notice, cursing himself for his narrow-mindedness, that she, too, was light-haired—and then, more telling still, that she was carrying hooked upon her forearm a black-and-white striped umbrella.
CHAPTER FIVE
The gentleman in the door of Gilbert’s—dressed well, with a recent shave that had left his blond mustache in fine trim—made no movement to pursue the woman. He stood and stared after her for a moment and then sighed and turned back through the door.
Lenox stood up and, just as the woman had, dropped a few distracted coins on the table. “Sir,” he called out.
He might have given chase to the woman, but in all likelihood he wouldn’t have caught up to her, and if he had it might have frightened her. If only she had left a return address with Dallington.
“Yes?” said the man, who had paused in the doorway upon hearing Lenox’s voice.
“May I impose upon you to ask that young woman’s name, sir?”
“You may not,” said the man coldly.
“Is it too much trouble?”
“I do not believe we are acquainted, and I cannot imagine that she would wish her identity trusted to a stranger. Plainly, since you were seated only a table apart from each other and therefore had the opportunity to speak, she did not desire conversation with you.”
Nor you, thought Lenox. Time to pantomime harmlessness, however; after all, this man might be the danger of which the young woman was afraid. “I thought her exceptionally pretty.”
“You are not the first.”
“But then, perhaps it was some lovers’ quarrel that drove her away at the sight of you.”
“You are impertinent, sir. Good day.”
“Will you take my card?” asked Lenox.
The man hesitated. He was well bred, clearly, his voice aristocratic, his features even and strong, his watch chain and shoes both finely made, and as clearly as Lenox could perceive these small signs in him, he could no doubt perceive them in Lenox. The rules were the rules. “Very well,” he said, taking Lenox’s without looking at it, then reaching into his own pocket. He couldn’t find a card, checked another pocket with no more success, and then, his face puzzled, searched all of his pockets, pulling out a billfold, until at last he gave up the task as a bad job and said, “My name is Archie Godwin. You may find me at White’s.”
This was a gentleman’s club. “As you can see, letters to the Commons will reach me,” said Lenox. “Whatever your relation to the young woman, I would like to meet her again.”
The man nodded curtly and stalked away.
Lenox could have cursed. It had been a blundering performance all around—first in missing the young woman, then in the faintly ridiculous pretense that he, a man past forty, would pursue a young woman of twenty. To be sure, such marriages existed, but they rarely began at Gilbert’s. She would never have condescended to meet him—no matter that he was a Junior Lord of the Treasury now, as his card said—if the introduction did not come through her friends or family. Beyond that, even the most cursory investigation into his background would reveal that he was a married man. Men had affairs, it was true, but to initiate one after such a fashion would have been bizarrely indiscreet for a man of his position.
He returned to the table. The whole situation left him deeply uneasy: He had revealed himself to this Godwin out of a misplaced sense that he must act. In fact, it would in all likelihood have been better had he remained quiet. Dallington would have handled it more adroitly. Or even Miss Strickland, with her agency for detectives. Damn it all.
As he tore moodily at his toast, Lenox thought the encounter over. Was it suspicious that Godwin had been unable to find a card? Was it a name that he ought to have known? He would have to check in at White’s.
At least he could do the intelligent thing now. He remained at his table and sat for another ten minutes. He was impatient to leave for every second of them, but if he had returned to his carriage too quickly, and Godwin had stayed to watch, it might have given away that his presence in the restaurant where the young woman took her breakfast was not accidental.
Finally he went out to his waiting carriage. “Half Moon Street,” he said. “Quickly if you can.”
The driver did his work well, and soon Lenox was at Dallington’s flat. The young lord looked even worse than the day before, pale and perspiring, with a white film around his lips. For the first time Lenox felt half-worried, and for a moment forgot Gilbert’s. Perhaps he ought to consult with McConnell. It would be best to chase down the doctor anyway, to see what might be found out—discreetly.
Despite his condition Dallington rose when Lenox arrived. “How was it?”
“Disastrous, I’m afraid.”
Lenox took five minutes to describe the sequence of events, careful to be very specific about the dress and appearance of both the man and the woman. At the end of the story Dallington, who had been closely attentive, smiled ruefully. “The first pretty girl to light along in all the years I’ve been doing this, and I have the galloping consumption. What rotten luck.”
“I’m sorry I mishandled it, John.”
“It can’t be helped. I don�
�t doubt I would have done as you did.”
“No, you’re in better practice than I am.”
Dallington waved a hand. “These situations are unpredictable.”
“It was particularly foolish of me because a woman is so much more likely than a man to carry an umbrella of such a description. Can you think of a man who possesses an umbrella in any color other than black?”
He admitted that he could not. “I would have made the same assumption, however. You cannot let it prey upon your mind.”
“Tell me, do you recognize the name Archie Godwin?”
“No. Or perhaps just, some minor echo—but I couldn’t tell you a single detail about him.”
“Do you have your Who’s Who handy?”
Dallington brightened. “I do! Look on the mantel above the fireplace there.”
Lenox went and fetched the book, thumbing through it to the G section. “Here it is,” he said, then read out loud.
Godwin, Archibald Paget, b. May 19, 1846, s. of Hon. Ernest Godwin and Abigail Paget, educ. Tonbridge School and Wadham College, Oxford. Wadham Cricket Club vice-captain, past president. Dir. Chepstow and Ely, Ltd. Recreation: Angling; cricket. Bugler, Hampshire Hunt. Clubs: White’s, Clinkard Meon Valley Beagles (Hants). Add. Raburn Lodge, Farnborough, Hants.
Lenox looked up. “An address in Hampshire, and none but his club in London. Perhaps we know why he frequents train station restaurants.”
“Hm. Do you know Chepstow and Ely?” asked Dallington.
“No, but it shouldn’t be difficult to find out what it is.”
“Nine to one Graham will know.”
“No doubt about it.” Lenox looked down at the book he was holding and glanced over the entry again. “Well, what do you make of Godwin?”
Dallington shrugged. “He seems quite ordinary, I suppose. I’ve yet to have the pleasure of meeting the beaglers of Clinkard Meon Valley, but I don’t question their general character. Their intelligence, perhaps, to go chasing about with dogs on cold mornings.”
“It’s really too bad that Hampshire is on the opposite end of England from Kent, where we suspected your correspondent might be going by train. It would have been tidier if Raburn Lodge were near Canterbury.”
“Quite.”
“No London address, either,” said Lenox again, looking at the book still. “I have a school friend who lives not far from Farnborough, Peter Hughes. Huge medieval castle and not a penny to his name to pay for its upkeep—they live in three of the rooms and keep the rest dark. Perhaps I’ll write and ask him about Godwin.”
“I would guess that he’s up in town briefly, and this girl felt some threat from him—that’s why she wanted to meet me.”
“Mm.”
“You say he didn’t give you a card?”
“He didn’t. I thought it rather odd.”
“I’ve been caught without mine often enough. It may be that this is merely, as you suggested to him, a quarrel between two estranged lovers.” Dallington took a sip of water, looking exhausted. Lenox realized he ought to leave. “It would explain why she felt she could not go to the police.”
“Yes, true,” said Lenox. “But lie down, would you, John—I will look into White’s this afternoon. Make sure you drink a great deal of water. It makes me uneasy to see you so ill. I think I had better send around a doctor.”
Dallington looked ready to object but then weakened. “You might as well, I suppose. Mrs. Lucas will fetch him if you tell her.”
“I will.”
A few minutes later, Lenox walked out into Half Moon Street and climbed into his carriage again. Dallington’s explanation was the most likely. A lovers’ tiff. Still, he wondered at the vagueness and fear of that initial letter, its strange tone, its enigmatic origin. Before getting into his carriage he paused on the pavement and smiled. What if Archie Godwin and the young woman who didn’t want to see him had nothing to do with the letter? The metropolis had offered forth stranger coincidences in its time, many of them.
CHAPTER SIX
Graham knew, of course.
“The Chepstow and Ely is a partnership that manufactures health tonics and scented soaps. They are based in the Ely River valley, sir, in Wales.”
“Scented soaps. We are confronted with the classic criminal mastermind, then,” said Lenox.
“Sir?”
“Only a joke. Do they do well, Chepstow and Ely?”
“Very well, sir. There are only one or two larger such manufacturers.”
They were in Lenox’s office in Parliament. It was a substantial, airy room with a view of the Thames. As the two men contemplated the Chepstow and Ely, the pen of young Frabbs was audible, scratching in the anteroom. “If he is listed as a director, I take it he has no express participation in the day-to-day operations of the place?”
“Oh, none, sir. Given Mr. Godwin’s youth I would suppose that he is no more than a city name, appended to their rolls to drum up interest in shares. Did you look up his father, sir?”
“Dead.”
“Some familial or personal connection, I would speculate. It is not uncommon for young men who possess position without wealth to exchange a quantity of the former for the promise of the latter.”
“How delicately you put it, Graham. In essence you mean that Godwin provides the lineage and some drunken Chepstow or Ely son is permitted to lose money to him at cards?”
“Chepstow is a town in Wales, sir.”
“I was being humorous.”
Graham smiled wryly. “Ah—no doubt, sir.”
“What do I have between now and lunch?”
“You are meeting with Lord Cabot, sir.”
“Push him till tomorrow if you could.”
“Of course, sir.”
“You think there will be a vote tonight?”
“At any rate I shouldn’t miss the session, in case there is.”
Lenox sighed. “Thank you, Graham.”
“Sir.”
Lenox did three hours of hard work then, focused intently on drafting a memorandum about the mining bill that was to come before the House the next week. There were also visitors every fifteen or twenty minutes. Once he had made such pilgrimages himself, to the upstairs offices, but as he had grown more senior he found that it was the junior members who called upon him. They wanted any variety of thing; some came to him with ideas, others with requests. Often enough they only wanted to see Graham. In league with the other front-bench secretaries, he controlled the schedule of important meetings, and all of them brokered their masters’ votes like experienced men of the turf.
Just after one o’clock Lenox took his hat and cloak and went down to his carriage, which was waiting in the lane outside, alongside a dozen similar ones; nearby was the beautiful pale rise of Westminster Abbey, a whiter shade of stone than the golden Parliament buildings, its intricate details somehow reminiscent of the folds and multiplicities of the world, indeed of God. Lenox stopped and looked for a moment, then got into the carriage and tapped its side. He intended to have his luncheon at home, because he needed some of the papers from his desk. Of course, he might have sent Frabbs or one of the other clerks to fetch them, but it would give him a chance also to look in on Jane and Sophia.
When he arrived home Lady Jane was busy in the long dining room, which she had decided to decorate anew; as far as he could recall she had been engaged in this activity roughly since the dawn of time, when men first stirred forth upon the plain. It had been the subject of one of their many stylistic disagreements upon joining households, though he always immediately ceded to her taste. (“Sideboard jammed stiff with dishes,” she had said, teasing him, “and the same red flocked wallpaper the gentleman who sold you the house assured you was fashionable twenty years ago.”) She had changed the curtains out for lighter ones, the dark carpet for a pale blue one, and the smoky mahogany cabinets for plain shelves of fresh rosewood. Lenox had to admit it made the room seem cheerier. At the moment workmen were painting the walls a plain
Regency white.
“Hello, my dear,” said Lenox, as she came halfway down the front hall to meet him. “How has your morning been?”
They kissed and sat down upon a small blue sofa in an alcove near the door.
She was in a cross mood. “Oh, it was wonderful, except for the six gallons of tea. Really, I call it absurd. If you so much as look in upon someone to wish her good day you are forced, by convention, to sit to a cup of tea, no matter how urgent your business elsewhere is—six teas an hour—the Chinamen may take it back, for all I care. No Englishman ever died of drinking water.”
Lenox smiled. “In point of fact, that is false. We are nearly certain that cholera is waterborne. Tell me, though, did you see Toto?”
“No. I thought it best to leave her alone for the morning. I’ll stop in this afternoon.”
“What did Duch think of it all?”
“How did you know I went to her?”
“There was never a greater tea giver. Besides, you see her nearly every day. Does she know Dallington is sick?”
The Duchess of Marchmain was Dallington’s mother. “Yes, and she’s worried sick over it herself. I can’t think how she found out, for I know that he wouldn’t have told her himself.”
“Mrs. Lucas, I don’t doubt,” said Lenox.
“As for Toto, Duch predicts it will pass. I told her that it seemed more serious than usual to me.”
They chatted on for a few moments, a husband and wife fluent with each other’s minor concerns and minor errands, and then Lenox pressed her hand and said he had better do a bit of work. She said she would go make sure that there was something for him to eat.
An Old Betrayal: A Charles Lenox Mystery (Charles Lenox Mysteries) Page 3
