An Old Betrayal

CHAPTER TWENTY

The windows of White’s were, at this hour in the heart of the evening, very bright, crowded with lively figures, all of them holding drinks. Dallington, a member of the club, tipped his hat to the porter — a different fellow than the one Lenox had met before — and led the way inside.

“Shouldn’t we ask that porter about Godwin?” asked Lenox in the front hall.

From upstairs came the merry noise of glassware breaking. “It will be Minting who knows,” said Dallington. “Let’s go to his office.”

As they passed an open door someone cried “Dallington!” The young lord, face still pale, soldiered onward, and a moment later Lenox heard the same voice say idly, “Could have sworn it was Johnny Dallington.”

He led Lenox up two flights of stairs and down a narrow passageway, lined with caricatures of the club’s members that had appeared in Punch and, lower to the ground, glass-topped cases full of old rifles belonging to past members.

At the end of this passageway they came to a door marked HEAD WAITER. Dallington knocked at the door, and it was drawn open at once, revealing a jowly man, nearly as large as the tiny room he inhabited, with white hair and thick glasses. He sat at a desk covered with papers.

“This is Minting,” said Dallington. “Minting, Charles Lenox.”

“M’lud,” said Minting, just rising an inch or two from his seat and then, this tremendous exertion concluded, emitting one or two very heavy breaths as he sat again.

“You are the head waiter here?” asked Lenox.

“I doubt Minting has lifted a tray in fifteen years,” said Dallington. “He keeps the club bets.”

Hence the paperwork on the desk. “With all due respect, how would Mr. Minting, in this office, know better than the porter who had entered and exited the club?”

“He knows,” said Dallington simply. “Minting, we want to learn whether Archibald Godwin was here in the past day or two.”

“Arrived at 12:40 this postmeridian, departed 1:50, on his own, placed no bets.” The velocity with which Minting delivered these facts seemed like a rebuke to Lenox for his doubts. “Sat alone for lunch. Spoke with several young men in the card room but played no hands.”

“When was the last time he was here prior to this afternoon?” asked Lenox.

Without hesitation Minting answered. “November 1873.”

“Minting’s got an excellent memory, you see,” said Dallington to Lenox. “Everyone in the club rats to him, too, it’s a disgrace.”

“False, m’lud,” said Minting complacently.

“Did Godwin stay here?” asked Lenox.

“No, sir. In ’73 it was the Graves Hotel in Pall Mall, not half a mile away. Quieter, he said. He’s a country gentleman. The lads can get a bit noisy in the lower rooms here. Carries into the quarters.”

“Did he drink?” asked Dallington.

“Half-bott of the Ducru-Beaucaillou with lunch. Deplorable vintage, if I’m being honest.”

“Did he tell anyone of his plans, of what brought him to London?” asked Lenox.

“Business, he said.”

“Did you see him?” asked Dallington.

“No, m’lud.”

The two men standing exchanged looks, to confirm that neither had another question. “Thank you, Minting,” said Dallington and passed a coin to the man.

It disappeared into one of the folds of his voluminous waistcoat. “Sir,” he said and then, as they were closing the door, added, “Congratulations on the Dwellings Act, Mr. Lenox.”

Dallington smiled as they walked down the corridor again. “He’s a genius, Minting. Laziest chap you ever saw, though. Otherwise he might have been a very great man — perhaps in your line of work. Perhaps in business, for I know him to have a remarkable knack for figures. As it is I think he’s grown richer than half the club’s members over the years. He made a packet when Siderolite won the Goodwood, though he gave some of it back on Doncaster last year.”

“Strange fellow.”

The consultation over, and therefore his duty discharged, Dallington had gone from looking poorly to looking positively deathlike. “Would you mind if we sat down for a moment in the back bar? It will be quieter there.”

“You poor soul. Come, let’s skip the bar. If you can make it into the carriage we’ll take you home.”

“That might be for the best.”

As they drove, Dallington slumped into the corner of the carriage, eyes closed and breathing reedy. He could barely make it up the stairs at Half Moon Street; Lenox hadn’t entirely realized the effort it had required for him simply to leave the house this evening. When he did reach his rooms he collapsed, gratefully, onto the divan in his sitting room. Lenox would have stayed to look after him, but Mrs. Lucas was already attending to it. A smell of sulfur lingered in the air.

“I’ll be around in the morning,” said Lenox. “We’ll hope for some response from Godwin’s people in Hampshire before then.”

Dallington lifted a hand in response, and as Mrs. Lucas hustled a bowl of soft broth up the stairs, the older man took his leave.

At home Lenox said hello to Lady Jane — it had been a long day since he had seen her that morning, and he spent ten minutes acquainting her with its events, and another ten hearing of her own activities — and then scribbled a note to Jenkins, telling him what they had found at White’s.

Now, both rather exhausted, Lenox and Lady Jane ate supper together, a comfortingly warm soup, to begin, and then a roasted pheasant with peas and potatoes. The best part of the meal, though neither was a nightly drinker, was the bottle of red wine they shared, quieting their brains, making the candlelight look soft and sleepy, dividing the buzz of the day from the peace of home. Slowly their voices relaxed, and their thoughts seemed to linger in the air. The conversation had nothing sharp in it. When the plates were cleared away they went to the sitting room, each with a small cup of coffee, and sat and read for a little while, hands occasionally touching — a reassurance. After a drowsy half hour upon the sofa they retired, both ready for sleep.

When Lenox woke in the morning there was a telegram for him, handed in at Raburn Lodge, Hampshire. Both Jenkins and Dallington were copied. It read:

Lenox took down his copy of Bradshaw’s and looked up the timetables. The 3:18 would put Henrietta Godwin in central London at half past four, and from the station she might take another twenty minutes to arrive at her hotel. To permit her some time to settle he decided that he would call in on her at a little bit past five o’clock in the afternoon, teatime, and wired to both Jenkins and Dallington that such was his plan. This wasn’t quite his case; then again, he was involved and felt a measure of responsibility, and unless he was positively making a nuisance of himself he was determined to stay on and see it through to the end. He wanted a word with that light-haired man from Gilbert’s. Pride, he supposed. By that sin fell the angels.

Graham was up, too, and having taken breakfast in his own rooms now called upon Lenox. Seeing his secretary sent a shadow of unease across the Member’s thoughts. He ignored it. There would be time to speak with him later, and the day was busy. “You are meeting with Lord Heath at nine o’clock,” Graham said, “and with Phillip Marsden at ten, both to discuss the naval treaty.”

“Could you push them?” asked Lenox.

“Marsden perhaps,” said Graham, frowning. He looked tired, and Lenox realized that when he slackened the pace of his work Graham was the one who took up the extra line. “Lord Heath is insistent that he must see you.”

“There was a murder in Knightsbridge last night.”

“So Kirk told me, sir,” said Graham, smiling faintly. “I recall a time when such affairs were your chief interest.”

A very distant time, his tone seemed to imply. “Dallington needs my help.”

“Very well, sir, I will change Mr. Marsden’s place upon the schedule. Lord Heath you will see at nine?”

“Yes, fine,” said Lenox. “But in exchange I need a favor — I need you or Frabbs to find me a moment in the schedule at Buckingham Palace, to visit with a woman named Grace Ammons. She is one of the Queen’s social secretaries. She is in Mrs. Engel’s office.”

Graham raised his eyebrows slightly but merely nodded.

Throughout Lenox’s meeting with Lord Heath, which lasted three-quarters of an hour, his mind dwelled not, sadly, on the proliferating French navy, nor on the quantities of armaments that Heath was positive Parliament must vote to order, but upon Miss Grace Ammons and the corpse of Archibald Godwin. Halfway through the meeting Frabbs entered the room.

“What is it, boy?” Heath asked with tremendous vexation, a huge lump of a man.

“Pardoning myself, sirs, Mr. Graham wished you to know, Mr. Lenox, that you will be welcome upon your errand any time after ten o’clock.”

“Yes, all right, thank you,” said Lenox, trying to match the peer’s tetchiness, though in fact he could have stood Frabbs a pint of ale, he was so pleased that they would finally find Grace Ammons that day. The rest of the meeting seemed a long blur of impossibly slow exchanges. When Heath was at last satisfied, Lenox shot from the room and went directly to Half Moon Street.