Their American visitor turned out to be an idiosyncratic fellow, at least in his unobtrusive way. The next day he came over early (Graham was already out visiting Lady Elaine) and after repeatedly declining breakfast, at last he requested—at Lenox and Mrs. Huggins’s joint insistence—a glass of cold milk and a piece of brown bread; but only the crust.
“I’ll eat the middle part,” said Lenox to Mrs. Huggins.
She shot him a fierce look. He suspected her of fearing Americans. “I shall return directly, sir,” she said.
She did so—with a plate so heaped with brown bread crusts that it would have taken a month to eat them all.
“Thank you very, very much,” said Cobb.
“Are you sure it’s enough?” Lenox asked.
“I think it should be more than sufficient—thank you,” said Cobb earnestly.
“And there’s plenty more if it’s not,” added Mrs. Huggins.
Lenox sighed internally at the loss of his little joke. But he liked Cobb, a serious, modest man, but one whose modesty never devolved into meekness. Their conversation was lively with disagreement and disputation.
And Lenox had realized, with dawning excitement, that Cobb’s own stores of knowledge about crime were as evolved as his, if very different. “This reminds me of a murder in Blackpool in 1845,” Lenox might say, and Cobb would nod, listen, and say that it reminded him of an attempted murder—with several witnesses—in Pittsburgh, not eighteen months before.
A meeting of minds, in other words. For Lenox, who had encountered so much resistance in his vocation, it was a welcome change.
As Cobb worked his way through the pile of crusts, Lenox read once more through all his notes about Bert Smith, hoping to find something in his careful observations from his interviews that he had missed before. Cobb, meanwhile, was going over the list of contents of Gilman’s trunk. Two of Hemstock’s men had brought it there this morning, and now it stood in Lenox’s dining room, where they had set up at the long table, which was spread with piles of paper.
They worked steadily and unstintingly. At around half past ten, Lenox glanced at his watch. “Would you mind if I left you for an hour?” he said. “I want to ask someone a few questions.”
“Of course.” Cobb looked at the clock over his shoulder. “What time do you expect Mr. Graham to return?”
“Soon, I hope—though knowing him, it might not be until this evening, or even tomorrow.”
Cobb held up a sheet of paper. “I have a question about Gilman’s schedule.”
“Yes?”
He handed the paper, which was divided into three columns, to Lenox. “Am I right in saying that in the left-hand column are important members of the government, and in the center, people acquainted with Her Majesty, belonging to the court? I deduced as much from the book you lent me, but I may be wrong.”
Lenox scanned the lists. There were about a dozen names on the left, starting with the Prime Minister’s, and five in the middle. “No, that’s correct. What about these names in the rightmost column, though?”
“That’s my question.”
Lenox looked at the names: Wilton Sheridan, MP for Camberwell; Forsythe Witt, MP for Rivington-on-Tyne; Samuel Jonas, MP for Spall.
He felt a quick anger at seeing Sheridan’s name—his horses, his wax-tipped mustache, his casual manner. But he could not see anything sinister in the person, only superb indifference to others.
He knew Witt and Jonas by reputation, nothing more. “They’re all Members of Parliament, as you obviously know. Shouldn’t they go in the first column?”
Cobb shook his head. He tapped the book that he had asked Lenox to show him: Who’s Who, which had come out annually for six years now and quickly become famous, a compilation of the background, education, and careers of Great Britain’s most prominent men.
It was a wide-ranging publication. Lenox had grown up with Debrett’s, which listed the peers, but the WW (as everyone called it) included peers as well as artists, politicians, civil servants, and judges, and there were aristocrats it omitted. The only criterion was notability: achievement in life. It reflected, Lenox thought, a new attitude that had started to weave its way into England’s fabric and must feel familiar to Cobb: the belief that a person’s birth was secondary to his or her qualities.
“All eleven men in the left-hand column have extensive entries,” Cobb said. “So do the ones in the middle. Only one of the three on the right does—Forsythe Witt, and that’s because of his career in shipping. It scarcely mentions his political career.”
“Yes,” Lenox said. “He was only returned to Parliament as a Member last spring. The rich man’s retirement—a seat on the green benches.”
“Would it be correct to say that all three are backbenchers?”
Lenox nodded. “The very definition of them.”
“Then why would Gilman have arranged meetings with them, when the rest of his contacts were of the highest caliber?”
“It’s an excellent question. I don’t have an answer.”
At that moment there was a knock at the door. Lenox excused himself and answered it—concomitantly with Mrs. Huggins, since Graham was out—to find Lady Jane.
“Why have you sent over for all of my brown bread, Charles?” Jane asked. “Are you trying to starve us out?”
She was curious, not irritated, but Mrs. Huggins looked guilty. Lenox gave her a glance. “Our guest only eats brown bread and milk,” he told Lady Jane.
“Is he four?”
“No, I would put him at forty or thereabouts. Mrs. Huggins?”
“I believe I hear Ellie calling me, sir, excuse me.”
“She heard no such thing,” Lenox said, when the housekeeper had vanished downstairs. He turned back to Lady Jane. “Did you come just about the bread?”
“I was going to ask if you wanted to have lunch, but now I see that you have company.”
She said it in such a light, offhanded tone that Lenox knew immediately—for he understood the people he loved by an instinct that preceded logical deduction, the same way he sometimes understood clues before he knew why—that she was lonely.
“As a matter of fact, if you could accompany me to Paddington Station for ten minutes first, I can give you lunch at the coffeehouse there.”
She looked glad. “Such glamour that would be! But are you really on your way? I’m not inconveniencing you?”
He pointed behind her. “No, no! You can see for yourself that I called for the carriage a few minutes ago. Here it comes round from the stables.”
At Paddington, Lenox and Lady Jane stopped at the stationmaster’s small brick hut. None other than Mr. Joseph Beauregard Stanley was there. Lenox asked him if he was off the night shift, and Stanley said that they’d been kind enough to give him mornings, since he was still perturbed by the events of the 449.
Lady Jane said she didn’t blame him; the stationmaster blushed, apparently not having registered her presence, and asked in a hurried way what had brought Lenox back. Lenox said he was in search of Willikens.
“He’ll be on Platform 1 this time. The 222 from Glasgow arrives in nine minutes. But you’ll have to look—he has a new coat.”
They found the little boy sorting and tidying his newspapers and tobaccos and breath-sweetening mints. He was still in the suit Lenox had given him; he declined all other clothes, seemingly out of some superstition, even when Lenox said it would be terribly hot in the summers; that was a problem for summer, the boy said dismissively, and Lenox realized that life had taught the lad not to look as far ahead as most people did.
He greeted Lenox without any particular favor, and Lenox did not feel he ought to ask about the room above the station in which Willikens was now boarding, or the breakfast and supper that his landlady, Mrs. Hudson, was meant to give him.
Instead, he said, “I need to ask you again about the fellow who bought all your papers.”
“Bert Smith?”
“You know his name?” said Lenox.
Willikens pointed at the newspapers. “Yes, there’s been a bit of news about him.”
Lenox hadn’t known he could read. “I need to ask you if you remember anything else about him at all. A scar—perhaps on his face, or hands?”
“No scars on his face or hands.”
“Take your time,” Lenox said.
“No scars,” Willikens repeated firmly. “I told you everything else.”
Lenox knelt down. “Joseph, I need you to do me this one last favor. Close your eyes and think. We’ll watch your papers. Just think.”
“Who is that lady?”
“Don’t talk … she’s … it’s very rude—”
“I’m Lady Jane Grey,” said Lady Jane, and put out her gloved hand.
Willikens raised his eyebrows. “You’re not.”
“I’m almost sure I am.”
“You hosted a ball for the naval fund last week at the Longleat Club with the Duchess of Marchmain.”
Lady Jane laughed. “Did I? I suppose I did.”
“It was in the papers.”
“Willikens!” said Lenox.
“Fine, fine,” said the boy.
He shut his eyes, and they waited. To his credit, he kept them closed, and in his tight little face, lightly freckled, the muscles of concentration flickered.
At last he opened them. “Nothing,” he said. “Well—one thing. I do remember coughing when he leaned over. There was a kind of powder off him.”
“Powder? Talc?”
“Something like that, maybe. Musty and white, like.”
“Did it get on you?”
Willikens shook his head. “Not really. Maybe. But I don’t think so—it just filled the air for a moment and then went away.”
“Hm.” Lenox made nothing of that whatsoever, unless perhaps Bert Smith had shaved to disguise himself. He sighed. “Well, thank you anyhow. If you think of anything else, send word. Otherwise I’ll see you next time I’m here. Or you can always reach me at the address on that card I gave you.”
“Righto. How many papers do you want before you leave?” Willikens asked, and Lenox thought that took some cheek. But Lady Jane bought one of each, and some mints as well.