An Old Betrayal

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

His haste was not misplaced; when he arrived, Dallington was up and pacing his rooms. He looked ill, even febrile perhaps, but his jaw was set with determination.

“Do we have an appointment?”

“I’m not sure they’ll want you to introduce the plague to Buckingham Palace,” said Lenox.

Dallington managed a smile. “I’m fit enough. Mrs. Lucas had me swallow some beef broth this morning.”

It was the kind of moment when Jane would have said she wished that Dallington had married by now, and had someone to care for him. Of course, Jane was very close with Dallington’s mother, whose own interests also lay in that direction. Personally Lenox felt grateful that Mrs. Lucas was present. That was enough. “If you’re sure you can do it, let’s be on our way,” he said.

They drove toward the palace by way of the Mall, green on either side of them, until they came to the roundabout that lay before the eastern front of the building. The carriage turned and they could see Nash’s grand facade, brick and painted stone, with the sovereign’s guards standing motionless at short intervals in the white gravel. Off to one side was a very small door that had a bit of bustle about it. Lenox took it for the visitors’ entrance.

He and Dallington applied here for entrance to the palace and were told they must go around the corner. This they did, and after a very cross-grained porter looked up their names in several different ledgers, he locked the door of his post and beckoned them inward. The fate of any visitors who might arrive in his absence was apparently of negligible interest to him.

“They could sell one of these paintings and hire another chap,” muttered Dallington, gesturing at the brightly adorned walls.

Indeed, the entire building, even in these back channels, bore a kind of heroic concupiscence, like a child adding twenty spoonfuls of sugar to his tea. They were walking on a red and gold carpet of intricate design, and it was so thick that one’s footsteps wobbled into it. (Lenox thought of Sophia, who would have enjoyed it for crawling.) A less charitable Englishman might have believed that he discerned a certain German richness of taste — or absence of taste, supplemented with richness — but it was doubtful that the Queen had ever thought of these halls, much less designed them herself. As they walked, Dallington steadied himself upon a succession of priceless French side tables.

“Here you are, sirs,” said their guide, rapping snappishly against a heavy door. “Mrs. Engel.”

The door opened immediately, a sinewy woman with thick glasses and white hair standing behind it. “Yes?” she said.

“My name is Charles Lenox. My colleague and I made an appointment to call upon Miss Grace Ammons.”

“I am Grete Engel,” she said. “Come in.”

The room the Queen’s social secretary had for her use was tiny, but there was a small Rubens upon one wall, a Winterhalter portrait of Prince Albert upon another, and best yet a lovely view of the palace’s large interior courtyard, crisscrossed with a complex geometry of paths. On a cloak stand in the corner was a smart jacket, which Lenox guessed that Mrs. Engel might wear over her rather plain smock when she went to see the Queen.

The largest object in the room was the secretary’s desk, an oak and mahogany object the size of a small seafaring vessel. There were dozens of tiny cubbyholes in it, each brimming with paper. Only a madman or a genius could find organization in such profusion. Then again, Mrs. Engel took credit, one heard from those in the Queen’s circle, for being a genius. Victoria’s own version of Mr. Minting, as it were — likely with a slighter attentiveness toward horseracing results, however.

The actual surface of the desk was clear, except for an inkstand and a single sheet of paper. Lenox sneaked a look: It was a menu. Mrs. Engel, standing by her chair, must have seen his eyes, because, with a faint smile, she said, “Pigeons in jelly, hare soup, galantines de veau, and saddle of mutton. And plum tart, Her Majesty must have plum tart.”

“Do you plan the food at the palace, too?” he asked. “Surely your responsibilities are heavy enough.”

“I check the menus against the guest list.” Her English was excellent, albeit with a slight German crispness around the vowels. “The Prime Minister cannot abide onions in any hot dish.”

That was actually a useful bit of information to Lenox, and he filed it away in his mind to tell Jane later. “This is Lord John—”

“I know both of your names, Mr. Lenox,” she said. “Why do you hope to see Miss Ammons?”

Lenox’s face became serious, and his voice confidential. “You may once have heard my name connected with criminal investigations,” he said, “though perhaps not. Lord John is still involved in the field. Together we have reason to believe that Miss Ammons may be in danger.”

Mrs. Engel looked at them both with an appraising eye. Then she nodded. “Give my regards to your mother,” she said to Dallington. “Miss Ammons is waiting in the East Gallery now. The door into it is at the end of the hallway. There are guards at all the other doors. I tell you this simply as a matter of course, not because I expect you to leave the room.”

They thanked her, and she set one foot into the hallway to watch them go down the corridor. At the end of the hallway Lenox tried the door; it was open, and together they stepped into one of the most beautiful rooms, he thought, that man had ever produced.

It was a long, thin gallery, with a curved glass ceiling. Because the Queen and her guests processed down it before official state banquets, it was empty in the middle other than a rich, slender carpet, but along the walls were long couches, upholstered in white with a very thin gold stripe. Then there was the art: High on the vaulted walls were massive paintings by Van Eyck, Rembrandt, Lawrence, and Constable. In the center of the gallery were two doorways, and all along it were ranged a series of marble fireplaces, carved with cherubim.

The two nearest were lit, and sitting on a sofa between them, looking very small in these surroundings, was a beautiful young woman: Grace Ammons.

She stood; there was already something defiant in her posture, and Lenox said, a propitiatory hand held in the air, “Miss Ammons, I’m afraid I owe you—”

“You cannot harm me here,” she said. “There are guards at every door, who will be here in an instant should I call for them.”

“You have my solemn word that we would never harm you,” said Lenox.

“It’s my fault,” said Dallington, coming forward. “I wish you would let me explain. Here, sit.”

Each fireplace was flanked by chairs, and Lenox pulled two forward, so that they could all sit, though he left them at an angle to the sofa, not wanting this young woman, whose nerve he already admired, to feel surrounded.

Slowly, and interrupting each other, Lenox and Dallington laid out the facts of the case in their entirety: Dallington’s illness, the missed signal in Gilbert’s, the roundabout way that Lenox had found out her identity, and finally, though it might frighten her, the death of Archibald Godwin at the Graves Hotel.

“What do you mean, that Archibald Godwin is dead?” she asked, leaning forward eagerly. “The man who came into Gilbert’s?”

“No,” said Dallington. “A different gentleman, whom perhaps your foe was impersonating.”

She slumped back into the sofa. Her face, though still wary, had relaxed slightly, and Lenox sensed that she believed their account, or wished to believe it. “Will you tell us your story?” he asked.

She shook her head. “It is too great a coincidence that Mr. Godwin — the man I know as Mr. Godwin — appeared in Gilbert’s at the same moment as you.”

Gently, Lenox said, “Is it not possible that he tracked you there, or knew your habits? Had you been dodging him?”

From her face he could see that this was a plausible suggestion, but she shook her head again. “It’s no matter. I’ve hired a different adviser.”

“Who?” asked Dallington.

“Miss Strickland. Her agency has been excellent so far.”

Lenox suppressed a sigh. “Miss Strickland.”

“Yes.”

“We don’t need payment,” said Dallington, “and as we’re helping Inspector Jenkins at Scotland Yard with his murder investigation, you needn’t even hire us on. We’re simply investigating a case related to your own. Here is Jenkins’s card, if you wish to contact him.”

She took the card from Dallington and looked up at him, hesitating. At last, she said, “My friend — you may as well know it was Emily Merrick — said you were very reliable.”

“You can trust us, Miss Ammons, I promise.”

“Very well,” she said, then began to tell her story.