An Old Betrayal

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

There was a whole morning wasted. Lenox could happily have seen Audley hanged from London Bridge. He cursed.

Yet even as he heard Padden’s laughter trailing off, Lenox understood that the truth made more sense than the lie, in the cold light of this new information. Why would the young woman have left a card at Audley’s when her note to Dallington was anonymous? Why would Audley go as far as to give him a name but help him no further? In the initial keenness brought on by a new piece of the puzzle, Lenox had forgotten to properly query its reliability.

Still, here was Padden. “I appreciate you coming to see me,” said Lenox. “Are you hungry?”

“A mite, perhaps.”

The footman was already at the door with a tray of tea things — albeit without hot water, which he said was boiling downstairs — and Lenox asked him to fetch up a plate of sandwiches. He had the sense that Padden would be happier if he ate his fill, if he felt he had achieved some transactional parity with Lenox. It was an understandable impulse, for someone walking into a house in this rarefied part of London. As Silas was leaving the room, Lenox added, “And cakes and all of that.”

“Thank you,” said Padden.

“Not at all. Tell me, when we spoke you said that you knew this passenger’s Christian name, if not her surname. It was not Laurel, I presume?”

“No, it was Grace.”

“Grace. And who called her by that name?”

Padden frowned, as if he hadn’t considered the relevance of this question. “Now that you pose the question, I cannot recall. Some fellow passenger.”

“She has been traveling long enough, I may then assume, to have made some acquaintance upon the train?”

“About a third of my passengers on the 8:38 take it daily.”

“I find that surprising — take the train out of London? Surely the opposite course would be more likely?”

“There are many small businesses in the countryside near London, within a short walk of the train station so they can take advantage of the labor force in the city. In my third-class carriage are the factory workers. Solicitors and investors in the second-class carriage.”

“And Grace?”

“She took a second-class ticket.”

“Not first?”

Padden smiled. “On her initial trips she took a first-class ticket — but the second-class carriage is roomy and half-empty, and first class rarely has more than one or two passengers in it. I suppose she felt she could economize.”

Lenox was making notes as the hot water and sandwiches came in, and Padden took advantage of the silence to fall upon both the food and drink with ravenous appetite. Every conductor Lenox had met could have eaten for England — something about snatching a bite between stations, perhaps, and the continual ambulatory exertions that came with the position.

The question about which Lenox was most curious — where this young woman left the train — he wanted to approach delicately. For some reason he was still afraid that he might startle Padden away.

“Has she ever traveled in the company of another person?” Lenox asked.

“Once. A young man.”

“Tall and fair-haired?”

Padden shook his head. “Tall, but dark-haired, with a dark beard.”

Lenox’s pen scratched over the pad of paper in long careless lines, recording as much as possible. “Age?”

“Near enough to hers.”

“Which is?”

“Beyond twenty, anyhow. Twenty-five?”

Lenox looked up at the conductor, who was himself perhaps thirty or thirty-five. He knew from experience that it became more difficult to judge the age of young people as one departed their ranks. “What was their relationship?”

“I didn’t inquire.”

“But could you not say, based upon their demeanor?”

This seemed like another new idea for the young man, who was more methodical in his mind than the ideal witness — not much imagination. “They talked very friendly.”

“Was her arm through his?” asked Lenox.

Padden, a new sandwich halfway to his mouth, paused, furrowing his brow, trying to recollect, and then gave it up for a bad job. “I can’t recall,” he said. “I should have paid more attention had I known it was significant.”

“Of course.”

“Could I take another half cup of tea?”

“Have another whole one, my dear fellow,” said Lenox, leaning forward to pour it for him.

For the second time Padden spooned a shocking quantity of sugar into his cup, stirred it in, took a gulp of the concoction, and sat back with a satisfied sigh. “Don’t feel human till I’ve had my ninth cup of the day,” he said.

It was a very modest witticism, but Lenox laughed generously. At last, gently, he said, “Did you mention that she went all the way down your line, to Canterbury?”

“No, no, she’s for Paddock Wood. Returns by the 6:14.”

“Paddock Wood. How far is that from London?”

“Forty-seven minutes,” said Padden and took another sip of the tea.

Lenox had a hasty taste of his own, eyes over the rim of the cup because he was still writing, and said, “So then from the 8:38 it arrives—”

“Twenty-five past the hour. Usually a minute or two before.”

Lenox knew something of Paddock Wood. It was a small brewing community, where they grew most of the hops in Kent. He had a university friend who had grown up not far from there, outside of Maidstone. “Is the Canterbury line the only one that goes there?” he asked Padden.

“No, nor the most frequent. The line from London to Dover, via Redhill, also goes there.”

It was possible, then, that young Grace went to Paddock Wood more often than once a month. He hoped so — he meant to have a word with the stationmaster at Paddock Wood as soon as possible. With this in mind, he asked Padden who that was.

“It’s Eustace Wainwright. He’s as blind as six bats, sorry to say, but a personable enough sort of fellow.”

“May I tell him that I know you?”

“Oh, yes,” said Padden. “As I say, we’re stopped there a moment or two every morning. I give him the mailbag.”

It was a common sight — the conductor of the train slowing it just enough to pass a light blue bag into the waiting arms of the stationmaster, then speeding off. Some took it slower than others. “This young woman,” Lenox said, “has she any distinguishing article of clothing, or item of luggage, that you can recall?”

“She often carries a black-and-white striped umbrella.”

“Anything else?”

“She dresses uncommonly well.”

Lenox asked a half-dozen more questions in this line, none of them very fruitful. Padden, satiated at last, sat back, hands circling the warm cup that contained the last of the teapot, and tried to recall anything else he could about his passenger. He added a few small details, which the older man dutifully transcribed — but nothing of particular notability.

When it was clear that the conductor had nothing more to offer about the case, Lenox thanked him effusively and then sat with him for fifteen long minutes, discussing the minor problems of the railway system that Padden felt a Member of Parliament ought to fix. Lenox promised (sincerely) to have a look at them and then, with a warm good-bye, walked Padden out to Hampden Lane.

Alone again, he raced back to his study and looked into the Kelly’s for Kent, which was still sitting out on his desk. There were apparently just above four thousand adults resident in Paddock Wood, and he scrolled through their Christian names, looking for anyone named Grace, or initialed with a G. There were a few of the latter, none of the former.

Now he looked up at the clock in his study. It was not quite two o’clock. “Kirk!” he called.

The butler appeared in the doorway. “Sir?”

“Fetch my light cloak if you would, the gray one, and pack my valise with these things.” He gestured at the blue books and Stirrington dispatches that sat piled near the edge of his desk. “Some kind of sandwich to eat, too, I suppose, if I get stuck in rural Kent. But tell Jane, if she returns, that I expect to be back before supper.”