An Old Betrayal

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

As Lenox walked home along Regent Street he passed a wandering onion man, who wore a crimson bowtie, muttonchop whiskers, and a long strand of braided onions around his neck, and chanted, in a singsong voice, “Here’s your rope, to hang the Pope, and a penn’orth of cheese to choke him.” Lenox smiled and, reminded of supper and of Disraeli’s aversion, walked more quickly. There was much left to do that day.

None of it for him, however. When he arrived home and offered to throw himself into work, both Lady Jane and Kirk (the latter almost angrily) told him that he was underfoot and needed to absent himself from the sitting rooms and the dining room at all costs. There were men garlanding the walls with flowers, others moving furniture to Jane’s specifications, and servants lining up silver tureens along the old marble hunting table in the hall. With humble haste Lenox made his way upstairs.

For half an hour he sat at the escritoire in the third-floor guest room — he sometimes liked to work in parts of the house he visited less often, a new view refreshing his mind, permitting him to work longer — reading blue books and parliamentary memorandums. Then, almost with the force of revelation, he realized he didn’t need to know about American railroads any longer. He was leaving politics.

With a feeling of liberation he strolled about the upper corridors of the house. They were empty; the whole energy of the staff was concentrated downstairs. After a moment he realized that he had directed his footsteps, unthinkingly, toward the nursery. He knocked at the door.

Miss Emanuel was reading to Sophia, a book given to her a few months before by Toto. Lenox couldn’t stand the book. It was about a horse that got lost. The horse, even by the low standards of his species, was incalculably stupid, capable of confusing a lamppost for his master or meandering onto an ocean liner at random. Lenox understood that this was meant to be funny, and it was, indeed, the kind of humor that went straight to Sophia’s simple heart, but it irritated him. As Miss Emanuel went on reading, he determined to ignore the horse and thought instead about the Godwins.

There were questions that only they could answer, at this stage. Dallington’s story had satisfied both Lenox and Jenkins as to the motivation of the brother and sister, a long cathectic hatred of Queen Victoria, bred into the bone by their ancestors and their father, and flourishing, perhaps, without the soft guidance of a mother. Still: How had they discovered Grace Ammons’s history? Why had Godwin killed the homeless man, beyond the convenience of pinning it to Wintering?

Killing Wintering was more understandable — trouble and dissent among criminals was common in Lenox’s line of work — but he still would have liked to know the details. Unfortunately neither of the Godwins seemed likely to offer them. It was unclear how much Henrietta knew at all, for that matter.

Sophia’s book had finished (“Again!” she cried, to Lenox’s distress), and he had begun to speak to her nurse about the possibility of a walk in the spring sunshine, when there was a knock on the door of the nursery.

It was Kirk; he couldn’t say, “There you are, you fool,” to Lenox in an exasperated tone, but his face approximated the effect of those words. What a mood he was in! “A visitor, in your study, sir.”

“Probably the horse,” said Lenox to Sophia, who giggled. He turned to Kirk. “Who is it?”

“A Mr. LeMaire, sir.”

LeMaire was seated on one of Lenox’s red armchairs, reading from a small volume in French. When Lenox came into his study the French detective put the book into the breast pocket of his coat and stood, smiling and bowing slightly. “I hope you will excuse the intrusion, Mr. Lenox.”

“Not at all. Can I get you a drink?”

“Have you a brandy?”

“Of course.” Lenox went to the small lacquered table where he kept his spirits in crystal decanters and poured the drink for LeMaire. He took a small quantity of whisky and a large one of soda for himself, and the two men touched glasses. “Please, sit,” said Lenox.

“I have a piece of information that I think you wish to know,” said LeMaire, his voice no less accented outside of his office.

“About the Godwin case?”

“Ah! No,” said the Frenchman sadly. “There I think you need more help, but I cannot offer. It is about your other line of work. Your Parliament.”

Lenox gave him a quizzical look. “A piece of information?”

“In these battles there is a great element of gossip — and of course gossip is my trade, Mr. Lenox.”

Lenox suppressed a sigh, covering it with a sip from his glass. It would be about Graham — that Graham was embezzling money. He had yet to tell anyone other than Jane and Graham that he was leaving Parliament. His brother would be devastated, he feared. “How kind of you to come to me.”

“I will not insult your intelligence by pretending you are unaware of the rumors concerning your secretary, Mr. Graham,” said LeMaire. He set his glass down, and in his face Lenox saw, again, a sharp, darting intelligence. This was a formidable fellow. “What I have learned is their origin.”

Here was a surprise. “Their origin? Have you really?”

“It was Mr. Disraeli.”

There was a long pause. Lenox sat in silence, his gaze level upon the visitor. At last he said, “How did you hear that?”

“The day after you visited me, I heard your name at the house of one of my clients — a friend, now, I would venture to say. He sits in the House of Lords. A newer earldom. He sits on Mr. Disraeli’s side of the benches. When I inquired about the trouble you were facing, he informed me of your secretary’s predicament. I took it upon myself to discover the truth.”

“May I ask why you so decided?”

LeMaire shrugged in that Gallic fashion that seems to contain all meanings and none at once, a shrug that acknowledges the absurdity, the inevitability, the comic disloyalty, of the world. “I was sorry not to help you — and I think it is more than coincidence, Mr. Lenox, to hear your name again so quickly. Your career in London is, before which I advance here to the city myself, an inspiration. The Mad Jack case appeared in the French papers the week I entered the Sûreté. A private detective, beating the police! Not in a memoir, like Vidocq, but in the newspaper, the proper newspaper.”

“How did you discover that it was Disraeli?” Lenox asked.

LeMaire smiled. “The Frenchmen in this city must stick together.”

Lenox was in no mood for evasion, however, or charm. “Can you be more precise?”

“The French consul here is in the confidence of many men in your government. I asked him to make inquiries. Apparently Mr. Disraeli called Mr. Graham ‘the most inconvenient man in Parliament,’ at a small meeting of leaders of this party, his party, and stated his determination to be rid of the trouble.”

This surprised Lenox at first — but immediately he heard the ring of truth in it. That very morning Graham had come to him with a way to kill the naval bill, a small procedural step they might take. Lenox had passed it on in a memorandum to Edmund. “I see.”

“I asked my friend why he did not try to discredit you, instead. According to Mr. Disraeli, it wouldn’t have been gentlemanly.” LeMaire smiled. “I thought my own country a rigid place, but class — it is the English disease, truly.”

They sat for a moment or two, the Englishman indignant and unhappy, the Frenchman quiet — permitting Lenox time to absorb the news. At last, Lenox said, “I must thank you very much for the information, unwelcome though it is.”

“I have a favor to request, in return.”

“Oh?” Lenox’s guard went up.

“I am in a battle with Mr. Audley. Your friend Lord John Dallington is off to the side — his own kind of detective; it is Audley with whom I am concerned. He is your countryman.”

“He’s a Scot.”

“He is close enough to being your countryman. I know your influence within the Scotland Yard, among the detectives, with Lord Dallington.”

“Lord John,” corrected Lenox, absentmindedly.

“I would like a fair opinion from you if ever my name arises, sir.” LeMaire stood and passed a card across. “This is my friend. He will verify the information for you, if you like — he has names, sources. I must beg you to be very discreet if you call upon him. You may be certain that he speaks the truth, or you may follow your own line of inquiry. Regardless you will arrive at Mr. Disraeli. Good day, Mr. Lenox.”