It was New Year’s Eve when Lenox finally arrived again in London. He was happiest to see Graham, who had taken six days in Oxfordshire to visit his family. Now they were back in their usual places at the breakfast table, going through identical stacks of newspapers across the table from each other.
Each had a cup of tea, and it was a day when one wanted a cup of tea, for outside it was again awfully cold, so cold that even a minute outdoors began to cause a strange dizziness. The Thames had frozen.
Lenox wrapped a hand around his teacup and felt its warmth. There were charities for those without a home; officers of the church traveled poor areas, offering shelter to anyone outside, or blankets and hot soup if they would not come.
Yet he had felt the whistle of the cold cruel wind through tenements ten miles east of here, and guilt occupied him. In the end, which of them was a Christian who lived in warmth while others were freezing? And yet who was virtuous enough to trade away their place in that warmth?
In the midst of these contemplations, he had lost pace with Graham. Hearing the crisp shear of his scissors (Graham’s articles were always cut very precisely; it was his that went into the archive, not Lenox’s), he turned his attention back to the papers.
There had been a rash of petty thefts in Bethnal Green.
“Have you ever felt inclined to steal, Graham?” Lenox asked. “As a boy perhaps?”
“I do not remember it if so, sir,” said Graham. “Although there was an orchard near our house where all of us took apples now and then.”
“You can hardly call that a career of crime. Edmund once stole another boy’s cricket bat. I think we both thought we were going to be taken to the Tower of London and beheaded. There’s an awful lot of beheading chatter when you have a tutor just down from Oxford and writing a history of the monarchy.”
“Did Sir Edmund need a cricket bat, sir?”
“No—but the other boy was a scrub and a taunt.”
“I wonder if he still has it, sir, your brother.”
“I don’t think so. I recall hazily that we left it in a pub or a shop somewhere, somewhere that it would be found and returned to the boy. Geoffrey Gogg. He had painted his name on the handle in black.”
“What prompts the question, if I may ask, sir?”
Lenox took another sip of the dark and fragrant tea, slowly waking out of the deep sleep he had fallen into after his cold journey home from Sussex. “I suppose because of this article. But it has been on my mind. Due to Hollis, actually.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“Yes. We were at lunch not long ago, you may remember. As we left, I saw him slip one of the teashop’s spoons into his pocket. Nothing special—a spoon you might find anywhere.”
“It might have been absentmindedness, sir.”
“No. It was the second time I saw him doing such a thing.” Lenox paused. “And yet in all other respects he seems an honorable man.”
“Strange, sir.”
Lenox nodded. “Mm. Well, he has gone back to America now. I shall never know why he did it, unless by some unlikely chance our paths cross again.”
It was a long, quiet day. Lenox relished the solitude after the bustle of Markethouse, sitting in his study and catching up on reading. As for Graham, with most of the staff given the day off, he was organizing Lenox’s wardrobe to his satisfaction, a job that was never finalized but that brought him great joy.
It began to get dark early—at only half past four or so. Lenox fell asleep in front of the fire before dinner. When he woke he was cold, even as the embers burned next to him, and he knew that it must have fallen off another few degrees outside.
This was why it surprised him when not long afterward there was a knock at the door.
Graham went to answer it. Lenox stood, curious, near his desk, almost venturing into the hall. It was a bad day to be outside.
Graham entered a moment later. “You have a caller, sir, who wishes to present himself to you.”
“A caller!” said Lenox.
“Yes, sir.”
“Who?”
“He would not confide that in me, sir.”
Lenox gave Graham a look of consternation. “Is he respectable?”
“Very, sir. Though he seems angry.”
Lenox thought. “I will meet him in the hall I suppose. Will you stand close by?”
“Certainly, sir.”
In the hall was a man of perhaps thirty—a gentleman by his dress and bearing. Yet Graham was correct, the man’s expression was full of a strange furor.
“Good evening,” said Lenox. “I do not believe I have the pleasure of knowing you.”
“Nor shall you,” said the man.
With dark hair and dark eyes, he was good-looking in an overweight, brutish kind of way. “You have come to see me, not the reverse.”
“I will not trouble myself by remaining here long. I have come to demand that you leave off your attentions to Miss Catherine Ashbrook.”
“Miss Ashbrook?”
“Yes.”
“Now I must ask your name,” said Lenox. He drew himself up, crossing his arms. “It is already the demand of a blackguard—made anonymously, it becomes also one of a coward.”
Rage flared in the man’s face. “You have heard what I said. I cannot answer for the consequences if you disregard me. Or if you call me a coward again.”
He turned and went back into the cold, slamming the door behind him.
“Quick, Graham—what do you see of his carriage?” said Lenox, running up to the window.
Graham had already gone into the breakfast room, across the hall from Lenox’s study. “A coat of arms, sir—but impossible to make out.”
Lenox crowded in behind him. “Four horses. We shall have to ask Mrs. Huggins if he was here before. You heard the exchange?”
“I could scarcely prevent myself from doing so, sir.”
“What an absolute madman!” Lenox shook his head wonderingly. “If I’m murdered, give them a description of that person.”
“I will, sir.”
“You’re supposed to reply that I’m not going to be murdered.”
“Ah! Of course, sir. In all likelihood you won’t be murdered.”
“In all likelihood!”
Graham nearly smiled, and Lenox did; the exchange with the visitor had been absurd enough that he needed some kind of relief after it.
Four horses, and a coat of arms: money. A title, too, probably. Anyone who had one might put their family’s coat of arms on their carriage, but in general only those who held or stood to inherit titles did so. If it were a second or third or eighth son or daughter who did it, they were either quite pretentious or came from the very, very upper reaches of the aristocracy, the children of dukes and royalty.
Bewildered and a bit overawed, Lenox returned to his study. He was to dine in half an hour or so, but he was composing a letter to Deere, who had written from Gibraltar. (Nobody on board plays chess, Deere had written, nor of course is any of the gentlemen in the stateroom my wife—meaning that the diversions of Hampden Lane are still, whatever the joys of shipboard life, unsurpassed on these travels as yet.)
Lenox had become deeply involved in his reply once more, with all the news he had of London and of Deere’s friends, when he heard another knock on the door.
His body went taut. This was really too much—an impossible intrusion. Graham was in the hall, and Lenox immediately went to the door of the study. He was ready to see this impudent person off very harshly.
But to his surprise, the visitor sounded—sounded, at least, from the study’s doorway—like someone different.
Lenox glanced at the clock on the wall. Half past six, and now two unexpected visitors on the last and coldest day of the year; strange indeed.
Graham came into the study, and from his bemused look it was clear that he was no less surprised than Lenox. “It’s not the same chap?” Lenox said.
“No, sir.”
“I hope this one’s not as angry,” Lenox said.
“No, sir.” Graham held out a card. “He’s a detective. He called two days ago hoping to meet you, but was informed by Mrs. Huggins that you would be away from London until today.”
Lenox took the card from Graham. “A detective? He called himself that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But not one that you know? It seems impossible.”
“If I’m not mistaken, sir, he’s American.”