Graham frowned. “Indeed, sir?”
“You find it eccentric? Her name is Grace, really-George is more of a nickname, if that improves it.”
“It would hardly be my place, sir-”
“As I said, I think these young political chaps are extremely brusque with their employers. Get used to treating me like a sheep to herd from appointment to appointment. And on that subject, I believe we have to discuss your pay. Your current salary is…is it a hundred pounds a year?”
Graham tilted his chin forward very slightly in assent.
“We must bump you up. Let me ask my brother what he thinks would be a suitable wage.”
“Thank you, sir, but as you will recall these weeks were intended to be the probationary period of our new arrangement, and it seems premature to-”
“I think it’s working out wonderfully. Probation lifted.”
Graham sighed the mournful sigh of a man afflicted with a frivolous interlocutor just when he most wants serious conversation. “Yes, sir.”
“What’s on today?”
“You have lunch with various Members from Durham, to discuss your regional interests.”
“I’m going as the man from Stirrington, then?” This was Lenox’s constituency, which was quite near the cathedral city of Durham. It was the rather unorthodox way of the English system that a man standing for Parliament did not need to have any prior affiliation with or residency in the place he hoped to represent.
“Precisely, sir.”
“Who are the other fellows?”
“The only one whose name you will know is Mr. Fripp, sir, who has made a great deal of noise on the other side of the aisle on behalf of the navy. Otherwise they are a range of backbenchers with primarily parochial interests. Here is a dossier.”
Lenox took the sheet of paper. “What am I supposed to get out of this luncheon?”
“Sir?”
“Do I have any aim, or is it merely an amicable gathering?”
“From what I gather from the other Members’ secretaries, it has in years past been primarily a friendly occasion, always held just now, before the new session begins.”
“Pointless,” Lenox muttered. “What’s after that?”
“You have several individual meetings with Members of the House of Lords, as you see on the dossier, and a meeting of the committee for the railway system.”
Lenox sighed, moving to the window. He held the list of his day’s events at his side. “I’m glad it’s soon that the session begins. All of this feels unhelpful.”
“The alliances and friendships you make now will serve you when you begin to ascend within the party, sir, or if there’s some piece of law you would like to see passed.”
Half-smiling, the detective answered, “You’ve taken to this much more readily than I have, I think. Friends with Percy Field, planning for me to be Prime Minister. All I can think about is old cases. I read the papers in the morning a bit too eagerly, I find, searching out the crimes that have confounded Scotland Yard. It’s a melancholy feeling.”
“It has been an abrupt transition.”
Unusually close though they were, Lenox would never have given utterance to the thought that passed his mind then-that it had been an abrupt transition into marriage, too, and not always an easy one. Instead he said, “My hope is that when the ball is truly in play, when people are giving speeches and defending their words and acting, that then it will all fall into place for me.”
“I dearly wish it, sir.”
“There’s nothing worse than going to work with that slight feeling of dread, is there, Graham?”
“If I may be so bold-”
Lenox smiled. “You must be quite to the point, remember, quite rude!”
“Very well. Then I would say that this feeling will pass, and soon you will remember that you came to Parliament not only for yourself but for others. You do, in fact, represent the people you met in Stirrington. Perhaps that knowledge will lift your spirits.”
“You’re right.”
There was a pause. “And, sir, one last meeting, which isn’t on the list.”
“Oh?”
“It may ease the pressure, sir. Mrs. Elizabeth Starling sent a note, asking if you would care to take dinner there.”
Lenox grinned. “Did she? Please, write back and tell her I would.”
Chapter Seventeen
Ludo, standing in his drawing room, looked miserable as he greeted Dallington and Lenox that night. Collingwood had brought them in (they shared a swift, questioning glance as he turned to lead them down the front corridor) and announced them, all in a mood that was both scrupulously polite and somehow obliquely dismissive. Perhaps he didn’t think of a detective as a suitable dinner guest at the house, or perhaps he had something to hide and regretted their presence so nearby. And there was one last possibility: that he was still jarred by the violent death of someone with whom he had worked in close proximity, and so not quite himself.
One thing was sure. It had been six days since the murder, and if they didn’t make a breakthrough soon the trail might well run cold.
Starling, perhaps for that reason, looked alternately flushed and pale.
“Oh, ah, Lenox,” he said. “Good of you to come, quite good of you. And Mr.-er, Mr. Dallington, I believe. How do you do? You both received my wife’s invitations?”
“Call me John, please.”
“John-certainly. Yes, Elizabeth thought the least we could do to thank you for your work was have you to supper. It will be a family affair, only the seven of us-my sons, whom of course you know, Lenox, and my great-uncle, Tiberius. I think you met him.”
“Yes-it was he who told us that Frederick Clarke had been getting money slipped to him under the door of the servants’ quarters.”
This agitated Ludo. Pleadingly, he said, “Oh, don’t let’s talk about Clarke. I can tell you it’s cast a tremendous pall over life here, and I think we would all be much more comfortable if we kept to other subjects.”
“As you please, of course,” said Lenox. Dallington smiled slightly.
“In fact, one of the reasons I asked you here was to request that you drop the case. I have full faith in Grayson Fowler, and believe-”
They all turned as a woman’s voice came from the doorway behind them. “Having amateur detectives wandering around London and buying drinks for footmen can only serve to draw attention to this unfortunate circumstance. Hello again, Mr. Lenox.” She laughed to show she wasn’t too serious.
“How do you do, Mrs. Starling. I hope you know John Dallington?”
With a wide, warm smile, Elizabeth Starling said, “My pleasure. I’m sorry if I sound rude on the subject, gentlemen, but Inspector Fowler’s discretion is far in excess of what we expected, and we feel we can count on him entirely. Consider Ludo’s request withdrawn. It was importunate to begin with, I think.”
She had a charm to her that softened Ludo’s impoliteness, and Lenox found himself nodding slightly.
“Where are the boys, dear?” asked Ludo.
“Do you take my position, Mr. Lenox?”
“Yes, certainly.”
“Wonderful. I think Ludo told you about the honor that may soon accrue to us. We mustn’t put a foot wrong.”
“Did you like the lad?” asked Dallington, whose tone came very close to impertinence. His next words spilled over into it altogether. “Not to turn the subject away from the honor that may accrue to you.”
“I did,” said Elizabeth, “and Ludo, to answer your question, I believe I hear their footsteps on the stair.”
In the event, it was not the Starling boys but the old uncle, Tiberius. He was wearing a hunting jacket with holes in the elbows, trousers that would have been more appropriate on a pig farmer than a gentleman, and shoes that, being orange and black, looked frankly peculiar. His ivory-white hair stood straight up in a stiff prow. Upon entering the room he took a large handkerchief from his pocket and loudly blew his nose into it.
“Uncle, I had Collingwood lay out your dinner jacket. Did you miss it?”
“Damn thing doesn’t fit. How do you do, fellows?” he said to Lenox and Dallington. “Have you found out who killed our footman?”