An Old Betrayal

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

“Miss Strickland?” inquired Dallington innocently.

She paused for a moment and then burst into laughter. “An excellent attempt, Lord John,” she said. “We’ve only been in the same room thirty or forty times, after all.”

Dallington smiled, too, beaten. “Are you really she?”

“The very same. Please, come sit. Letitia, now that you’ve made the catastrophic error of admitting these two gentlemen without my permission, you may as well bring them a cup of tea. Mr. Lenox, please, you sit, too.”

Lenox came to the sofa, his gloves in one hand, his face no doubt betraying his consternation. “Are you really Miss Strickland?” he asked.

“Did you think it was Anixter here?” asked Polly Buchanan in turn.

Lenox smiled. “I admit that I thought the name was a blind, used by some ex-member of the Yard looking to attract women as clients. If there was a Miss Strickland at all I assumed she would be… I don’t quite know. An actress, perhaps.”

“No, it was my idea — it’s been my money, my advertisements. I couldn’t use my own name, of course. It is scarcely respectable in you two gentlemen to pursue a career in detection, but it would be ruinous for a woman.”

All at once Lenox realized what had been happening in Hyde Park. “You asked Thomas McConnell to work for you,” he said.

For the first time Polly’s charming face lost its lightness. “He told you that?”

“No,” said Lenox.

“You will grow more accustomed to these sudden insights if you spend time with Lenox,” said Dallington.

“I did ask Dr. McConnell to come work for the agency,” said Polly. “There are very few men in London with an aptitude for criminal medicine, and certainly he is one of their number. He declined, though he put me in the way of a gentleman in Fulham of whom I have high hopes. I mean to modernize this business of yours, you know.”

Dallington looked delighted at the news. “Yes, we heard about the charcoal portraits. In fact, we were full of admiration for everything you did on Miss Ammons’s behalf, before we knew who you were. Now we’re forced to withdraw that admiration, I’m sorry to say. Hard cheese.”

Dallington could smile if he liked; Lenox could not. He felt as if, without her knowledge, he had wronged Polly Buchanan. He also felt irritated. “There are no successful female detectives of whom I’m aware.”

“We can deliver milk, and for that matter babies,” said Polly. Tea came in, and with all the appropriate and feminine grace of her birth, she began to serve it to them, her elegance in stark contrast to Anixter’s silent, glowering East End bulk. “There aren’t two more difficult tasks than that, physically. As for brains — I prefer Miss Gaskell or Mrs. Humphrey Ward to any of your male novelists. Well, possibly excepting Trollope. I have a terrible weakness for Planty Pall.”

“Not Burgo?” asked Dallington, feigning disappointment.

She laughed. “I am too much Burgo myself. And with Alfred such a Glencora, too.”

It was this kind of talk — rather daring, even flirtatious — that had earned Polly her reputation. She had a spark of originality in her voice and mien. Lenox had learned when he ran for Parliament that people didn’t like one to do anything new — they sat upon their lily pads, and knew which lily pad belonged to everyone else, and preferred no change. It made them uneasy, perhaps envious. Polly was always doing something new. Here was an example. People hated her for it.

Once the tea and biscuits had been distributed, Polly began to ask questions. She was sharp, no mistake about that, and as she drew more and more information about the Godwins out of them — determining to her own satisfaction, finally, that Grace Ammons was in all likelihood out of harm’s way — Lenox half-forgot that she was such an unusual sort of detective. Then he thought, when his mind recalled the fact to him, why not? If Audley could maintain a practice, half-soused, why not this young woman? He worried about her physical safety — but then here was Anixter. Plainly she had solved that problem.

When her questions were concluded Lenox looked at his watch. He was due in Parliament soon for a meeting. “I hope to see you again soon, Miss Buchanan,” he said, rising. “If you ever need professional advice I would be happy to offer it. Mr. Dallington can, too, of course.”

He bowed slightly, a stuffy, uncertain gesture, and she inclined her head. “Thank you, Mr. Lenox.”

“John, shall we be on our way?” asked Lenox.

“I might stay for another cup of tea, if you’re going toward the Commons — and if it is not disagreeable to Miss Buchanan and Mr. Anixter, of course.”

“Never in life,” said Polly. “I have a whole raft of questions I should like to ask you about this business.”

Anixter’s consent was less graceful, but he nodded, stiffly. “Right.”

So Lenox left his protégé there — with his own protégé, it might come to pass, albeit in a strange, distaff line.

He took his steps slowly, through Green Park, skirting near Buckingham Palace, and then down toward Whitehall. It was a long walk; on normal days he would have hailed a hansom cab, but he liked to have the time.

For the terrible day had come: He had to let Graham out of his employment.

He could have resisted his peers, the members of his party, James Hilary, Lord Cabot, even his brother. Gladstone was a different matter. The opinion of the world is set against Mr. Graham, he had said, and threatened the back benches. Lenox hadn’t come to Parliament to provide another sleepy vote, another desultory speech.

He reached his office twenty minutes after leaving Polly Buchanan’s house. Graham and Frabbs were in deep conversation, and both looked up to greet him, briefly, before returning to the memorandum upon which they were collaborating.

Lenox’s early afternoon was filled with meetings. General Bott wanted more armaments allocated to the Blues and Royals, Lord Monck bethought an alliance they might make on Ireland between the Commons and the Lords, and so on and so forth.

At last at three, Lenox had a moment to himself. “Graham,” he called out to the outer office.

“Sir?” said Graham, appearing at the door.

Lenox looked at his face and saw that there were wrinkles around his secretary’s eyes, a slight sallowness in his complexion. Of course, if Lenox had heard the rumors about Graham, Graham himself had heard them two days earlier. Had he remained silent out of consideration? Reticence? Guilt?

No; not guilt. That was not possible.

Lenox’s mind flashed to a day that now seemed long in the past, nine or ten years before, when Lady Jane Grey had been merely his closest friend and confidant, and when his interest in politics had been a spectator’s, unburdened by the reality of daily life in Parliament.

It had been the bleakest part of February, an icy rain harrying everyone indoors toward the fireside — except for Lenox, who was out upon a case. It was a matter of burglary, one shopkeeper stealing from another. Even now he could recall the details perfectly.

Lenox had arranged that morning to meet with one of the shopkeeper’s clerks in St. James’s Park. Anywhere would have been better — the arcades in Piccadilly nearby, whatever public house you cared to name — but the clerk had insisted upon this plan, as being most natural.

Unfortunately the lad was late in arriving. Lenox, seated miserably upon a bench in the empty park, watching the wind whip the branches from the trees, almost left after ten minutes. Then he saw a figure approaching.

It was not the clerk but Graham — at that time still Lenox’s butler. He was carrying a parcel, apparently out upon some errand of his own for the household, tucked into a warm greatcoat and protected by a large umbrella.

“Hello, sir,” he said, smiling faintly, as if they were meeting in the quiet halls of their own house.

Lenox smiled, too. “I liked the idea of a walk.”

“A salubrious day for it, sir.”

“It’s for the case, I’m afraid — the dressmakers.” For it was the feud of two successful and enterprising women, in this instance, that led to the burglary. “Waiting for that dratted Jacoby.”

“I’ll wait with you, sir,” said Graham and sat down upon the bench.

“No, you must get along home.”

“I’ve nowhere particular to be.”

Lenox had insisted, but Graham, quietly imperturbable, had remained there with him nevertheless, parcel in hand, for another twenty minutes, until at last the dressmaker’s clerk, fearful for his job, skulked into the park and exchanged what information he had for a few shillings from Lenox’s pocket. Then the two men together made the short walk back to Hampden Lane.

He wondered what had become of Jacoby. Or his client, for that matter, Anna Armitage. Was she still making dresses?

Recalling all this, Lenox must have remained silent for a moment longer than he intended — for Graham said, prodding him out of his reflections in a tone of minor reproof, “Was there anything urgent, sir?”

Lenox shook his head. “Sorry, sorry. Mind was elsewhere. Yes, shut the door if you would, come sit.”

Graham closed the door. “Is it about your luncheon with Coleridge tomorrow, sir?” he said.

“No, no,” said Lenox. “In fact, you had better cancel that. The reason that I wished to speak with you is that I’ve decided it’s time for me to leave Parliament.”