“James Payson.”
McConnell looked appropriately taken aback. “The lad’s father? How does he figure into it?”
“He would have been one of the tiny number of men eligible for the September Society, had he lived.”
“I’ll write him tonight,” said McConnell. “If you go by tomorrow morning, he’ll certainly have gotten my note.”
“Thanks, Thomas.”
“Not at all.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
A fter several sunny, seasonable days, the next morning was gray. Just as Lenox stirred into a first, dreamy kind of wakefulness, rain began to drop softly against his windows. It reminded him somewhere deep in his mind of his first days at boarding school, when as a thirteen-year-old he had sat at the desk in his tiny room feeling lost in the world. Soon enough he had made friends, but the desolate feeling of that rainy autumn had always remained with him.
The late night seemed like a dream-it had been almost one o’clock when he had put Jane, Toto, and McConnell in a carriage. Afterward he had restlessly inhabited his study for another hour or so, but at last he had gotten to sleep.
At just past nine he went downstairs. He wrote a few notes, including one to Rosie Little, and then went to the table in his dining room. His eggs and toast were waiting there, and he dug into them hungrily, relishing their buttery taste and following it with swallows of hot tea. The rain had gotten louder, and by the time he finished eating it was lashing across the empty streets on a high wind. He decided to run across to the bookshop and risked doing it without an umbrella.
“Well,” said Mr. Chaffanbrass, sitting by his hot stove reading when Lenox entered, “look what the cat dragged in. Has Noah started to load up his ark yet?”
“No talk of cats, please, if you have a heart. Too frighteningly apt.”
“Quite a noisy affair last night, wasn’t it? It was lucky that Annie was only scratched.”
“Do you know her, then?”
“Oh, yes. She often stops by for a word or to pick up a book for Lady Grey.”
There were several customers patrolling the bookshelves that ran from floor to ceiling, and one of them came up to the front desk now. He had the look of a genuine bibliophile, something intangible in the way he held the book just so, lightly but at the same time as if he never wanted to lose his grip.
“How much for this, sir?” he asked, his eyes keen.
Peering over the man’s shoulder, Lenox saw that it was a battered but ancient edition of Lavater’s Physiognomy. “Three crowns, and a bargain at that price,” said Chaffanbrass.
The transaction took place, and the man left.
“Do you know who that was?” Chaffanbrass asked.
“Who?”
“Charles Huntly.”
“I don’t think that rings a bell.”
“Do you remember Princess Amelia?”
“George III’s daughter? Something of her-she died during my father’s lifetime.”
Chaffanbrass nodded. “When I was a boy. They wouldn’t let her marry her true love, Charles Fitzroy, but they had a child anyway. Illegitimately. That son was Charles Huntly’s father.”
“So then-”
“Yes, exactly. Great-grandson in the direct line to George III. Mad King George. They’ve kept him as a commissioner in some part of South Africa, but now he’s made his fortune and returned. It all would have been a great palaver in your grandfather’s time.”
“Is he a book lover, then?”
“He certainly is. When he was poor his uncle’s manservant came in to pay his tabs now and then. Old Prince Adolphus, the Duke of Cambridge.”
“Does he have any children?”
“Oh, a dozen, I expect.”
Chaffanbrass rambled on about the royal family a little bit longer-a favored subject of his-and then Lenox was able to ask about a book. Something recent, he said, and not quite as taxing as Erasmus. Chaffanbrass said he knew just the thing, then presented Lenox with about ten books. After a few minutes the detective left with a new volume under his arm, Felix Holt, the Radical. It had only just come out.
When he left he saw that the rain had subsided, and he was able to dash across the street without getting too wet. Just as he reached his own door, however, he saw something disheartening: The same tall, thin man in the long gray coat he had seen coming out of Lady Jane’s house before was there again. This was the second time. Who was he? Could he be the cause of that sorrow Lenox had detected in his friend?
It was in a duller mood that he ordered his carriage and departed to see Harry Arlington, McConnell’s friend at the War Office.
Arlington received Lenox in his usual jovial way. They had met once or twice before, though they had never spoken at length. He was a large man, tall and broad-shouldered, who had been forced into the military by his father straight out of school and spent his lifetime flourishing there. He had become a general three years ago, and two years after that become the military secretary, the senior military assistant to the secretary of state for Defense. He spent his days appointing colonels, considering court-martials, judging applications to Sandhurst, and overseeing Her Majesty’s Bodyguard of the Honorable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms, who protected the Queen, performed ceremonial duties, and also still, 350 years after their creation by Henry VIII, served on regular duty. He called the work dull but in fact was perfectly suited to the somewhat nebulous position he occupied between Parliament and the armed services. He was about fifty, in the pink of health, with five daughters and a string of horses in the country. In all he had done very well for himself. His best friend had once been Arthur McConnell, Thomas McConnell’s uncle, with whom he had entered the Coldstream Guards as a lad of seventeen. Arthur McConnell had died in the Crimean War, and since then Arlington had kept a close watch over his (as he called McConnell) honorary godson.
His office was massive and daunting, with a large window behind the desk overlooking Whitehall. The flag of the Lily-whites was on display next to the Union Jack on one wall, and on the other was a row of full-length portraits of former military secretaries. Arlington put Lenox at ease straight away, offering him a cigar and a handshake.
“Toto’s pregnant, then, Mr. Lenox? And I hear you’re to be the godfather? Well, well, congratulations.”
“Thank you, General. They seem awfully happy.”
“Call me Arlington, call me Arlington. Are you related to Edmund Lenox, by any chance? I come across him in my work in Parliament here and there.”
“He’s my brother,” said Lenox, once again marveling at Edmund’s hidden life in government.
“Wonderful fellow. Now, I have the file here which Thomas wrote to me about.” His manner became suddenly grave, as he took a folder out of the top drawer of his desk and tapped it thoughtfully against his palm. “And I can’t help noticing that the name is a familiar one.”
“The lad at Oxford?”
“Exactly, Lenox, exactly.”
“You won’t be surprised to hear that the errand I’m on is related to his death. I’m investigating it, helping the police there.”
“I see. And how do you think that the death of the boy’s father however many years…” He peered into the folder. “Nineteen years ago-how do you think that may be involved?”
“Have you heard of the September Society, Arlington? For retired officers of the 12th Suffolk 2nd?”
“I haven’t, no.”
“A small club of men. But they keep turning up in unlikely places. Daniel Maran-you know that name, I’m sure?”
Arlington’s brow darkened. “Yes, yes I do. We run on parallel lines, and the less I deal with him the better, as I find it.”
“He’s a member of the Society. It would be too complicated to explain it now, in full anyway, but I think George Payson’s death may have some link to his father’s death, and I wanted to look into the file.”
Arlington turned so that he was in profile to Lenox and looked out through his window. “In this room I make decisions,” he said, “which affect my country-my Queen-every day.”