An Old Betrayal

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Skaggs asked if it would be all the same to Lenox if they stayed there. “I’ve been in such a lather, rushing about London,” he said, “that I’ve barely managed a meal, and there’s such a lot of food here.”

“We can offer you more substantial fortification than this.” Lenox turned back into the hallways and hailed one of the many runners who waited at each gate. “Bring us a horseshoe gammon and a pint of porter from the Coach and Horses. As quickly as possible, up to my office. Will that do for you, Skaggs? It’s the best thing they do at the pub.”

“Perfectly, sir, thank you. I’ve run myself five-fifths empty.”

Skaggs was large, and Lenox wondered what constituted starvation for such a creature — but there was no doubt that even if it would have composed a hearty day’s meals for Lenox himself, Skaggs looked pale and ragged.

Parliament’s runners were very pushing at the pub, because they provided so much business, and the gammon nearly beat them upstairs. Skaggs took a bite and then another, and within a minute much of the color had returned to his face. After he swallowed the meat he took a prodigious draft of porter, nearly three-quarters of the pint pot in one gulp, and then set it down, settling back into his chair with a look of bliss on his face.

“How did you get along, then?” asked Lenox.

“Not badly. Here is the list.” Skaggs pulled a much-consulted piece of paper, battered into softness at every crease where it had been folded, from his breast pocket. “You gave me forty-seven names. Of these, forty I eliminated by a simple test of sight.”

“Well done.”

“I approached most of them in the disguise I was wearing when you saw me. About half at their homes, and for the other half it wasn’t very difficult to find their offices. I would tell the maid that I had a telegraph for Mr. Harrison, or whatever the gentleman’s name might be, that must only be delivered directly into his hands, and then when he finally came to the door of his house or office, I would feign where I had lost it, you see. There were a great number of exasperated men — some downright angry. I told them I would be back around with the telegram soon.”

“And when you never appear?”

Skaggs shrugged. “Life is full of mysteries.”

“Are you dead certain that none of these fellows could have been the man I’m looking for?”

“Of those forty, none had light hair as you described except one, and he was both very stunted and very unfortunate-faced, not at all the handsome type you described.”

Lenox nodded. “The remaining seven, then.”

“Those were harder, but I think I have eliminated three of them. I mean to try again tomorrow, but I am fairly sure I glimpsed all three — call it nine-tenths sure — one coming out of his club in Pall Mall, one at his residence in Belgravia, one in his office in the city.

“That leaves four men. Three of these are tall, fair-haired, relatively handsome gentlemen. One I cannot recommend as your suspect, Mark Troughton. He is a man with a family of six, extremely pious, and would not, in my opinion, sir, be especially compelling to a female eye.”

Lenox nodded. “Good. Go on.”

“The other three gentlemen are worth a visit. Of course, neither may be your man — your man may not have come from Wadham at all, as I understand it — but here are their names and addresses. Troughton’s is there as well, if you want to have a look at him.”

Lenox took the piece of paper and looked at it, wondering whether at this late hour Jenkins would still be at the office. Even if he had left for home, he was not the sort to consider his Saturday morning sacred. “What about the forty-seventh fellow?”

“He is an enigma. He would not answer his door. I staked it out for some time, and nobody emerged.”

“What is his profession?”

“He listed none. His address, as you can see at the bottom of that sheet of paper, is a good one — the forwarding address he left at his last residence, which was where I visited first, a lodging house.”

“He has perhaps had a rise in fortune, then?” asked Lenox.

“I thought that might intrigue you, sir. He has only taken his new rooms in the past two months. Mitchell, the fruit-and-vegetable man across the way, keeps close track of all the houses in his street and says this fellow is tall and fair-haired. But I fear Mitchell saw the prospect of a coin, and might have picked up on my suggestions to please me.”

Three names, then, perhaps four. Lenox felt a quickening of excitement. It was just possible they were circling closer.

Skaggs finished his supper then, and the two men spoke, offering up conjectures back and forth as to the motive of Archibald Godwin’s murder. When he was finished with his last potato, his last dab of gravy, Skaggs thanked Lenox and took his leave, reminding Lenox as he went that he was available for any further work.

When he was alone, Lenox sent a wire to Jenkins and Dallington. In it he suggested that, with a few constables for support, they all might call upon the four gentlemen whose names he listed at the foot of the telegram. For his part, Lenox added, he could do it tomorrow morning.

Jane wouldn’t like it, the chance of his coming face-to-face with a murderer. Lenox looked at his watch when he had finished and saw that it was now past nine o’clock. The season began on Monday; she would be among her dresses, finding nothing to wear, or sitting to plan out in her tidy script their schedule. It seemed ages since he had laid eyes upon Sophia. He looked at the mess upon his desk and decided, rather suddenly, to leave, standing up and taking his cloak and hat down from the stand at the door. Within half an hour he was sitting by the fire at Hampden Lane.

Lady Jane seemed particularly tired after the social exertions of her day, which she had spent moving between the houses of friends and commiserating with them about plans gone awry, servants who had given notice, daughters who refused to wear the proper dresses, all the gravely important trivia of the season.

“Are we at least finished planning our own party?” he asked her as they sat on the sofa, each reading a book.

She marked her spot with her thumb. “I find that word ‘we’ exceedingly droll, Charles.”

“You’ll recall that I had very definite opinions in the great debate about meringues or ices for dessert.”

She smiled. “And that your side was routed in the end. Even your own brother took against you.”

“I consider that sort of loyal opposition essential to a successful party, however. In fact, to any communal endeavor whatsoever. When we first married, you might recall, I wished to paint this room blue. No, don’t shudder. Anyhow it was a thought.”

“To answer your question, the planning for the party is all but finished,” said Lady Jane. “Kirk has been a saint. The silver will be polished on the morning of the party, and the tablecloths laundered, the food delivered, but everything else is ready — where people will sit, the menu, and of course all the invitations have gone out. Have I forgotten anything?”

“What will you wear?”

“My yellow dress, with the gray trim.” She smiled. “Have you begun to take an interest in my wardrobe?”

“A very slight interest, perhaps.”

“At any rate I won’t be wearing any roasted onions. I warned everyone in the kitchen that if I saw so much as one upon the table I would turn them out into the streets. I hope they are suitably afraid. Kirk will look at each plate as it goes out, and of course the Prime Minister’s own plate will be the most strictly examined.”

“Thank you, my dear.”

“I only wish Coleridge had accepted.”

“Oh! I’ve forgotten to tell you! Graham has arranged for me to lunch with him!”

“He hasn’t.”

“Yes, it’s true.” Lenox thought for a moment about telling his wife of the defamations circulating against Graham but decided that he would rather not burden her with another anxiety, at least not yet, not until he could set it straight. She was already preoccupied. Toto had been around earlier in the day. “I don’t know how he did it.”

“What a coup!”

“Yes — I was very surprised. I don’t know exactly how to thank him.”