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Toby drove along the coast road from Brighton to Southwold Hall with his mind reeling from the shock of Alderton’s death. Someone had entered through a window, or so the police believed, and delivered a blow to Alderton’s head; a blow that had killed him. The motive was not the theft of Mr. Alderton’s valuables. The only thing missing from the office was the Southwold file. He had no idea what that file had contained, although he suspected that Mr. Champion knew more than he was telling. Now he was making his way toward Southwold Hall for a meeting with the Earl on a matter that seemed to have cost Mr. Alderton his life.
He rebuked himself for being dramatic. This was nothing to do with the Southwold file. Alderton had a reputation as a lady-killer. His end had probably come at the hands of a jealous husband. The police would soon get to the bottom of it, and the missing file would turn up in someone else’s filing cabinet.
The day was clear and sunny with a cold wind blowing in from the Channel. The chill wind cut through the thin fabric of Toby’s overcoat as he stood on the doorstep of Southwold Hall. He took off his glasses and wiped them clean before pulling on the rope that he assumed would ring a bell somewhere within the cavernous interior of the Hall.
The great oak door opened slowly, revealing a plump smiling girl in a gray dress and white apron. He had expected a butler, but perhaps butlers were in short supply along with everything else in postwar Britain. Apparently, even the Earl of Southwold with all of his royal connections had been unable to find a suitable retainer.
“Hello,” said the girl. Her smile was warm and welcoming, and she was very young, perhaps no more than fifteen, making her only half the age of Toby.
“Toby Whitby, Champion and Company, to see the Earl,” said Toby.
A thin woman in a similar gray dress but minus the apron elbowed the smiling girl aside.
“I’ll take care of this.”
The woman was old enough to have been the girl’s mother, but there was nothing maternal about her pinched face and disapproving frown. She looked Toby up and down noting, Toby was sure, his inexpensive and ill-fitting suit, and the thickness of his glasses betraying the extreme shortsightedness that had kept him out of the war.
“I have an appointment with the Earl,” Toby said.
“Really?”
The housekeeper, if that was what she was, seemed not only suspicious but also somewhat affronted. Toby wondered if he should have gone to the tradesman’s entrance. No, he reassured himself, he was a fully qualified solicitor, albeit very newly qualified, and he had every right to use the front door.
“Where is Mr. Alderton? We usually see Mr. Alderton.”
Toby knew he would have to tell someone what had happened to Robert Alderton, but telling the housekeeper would be inappropriate. He would tell the Earl and only the Earl.
“Mr. Alderton was not available, so I’m here.” He took a step forward and crossed the imposing threshold. “Mr. Champion has asked me personally to take care of the Earl’s affairs for the time being.”
He took another step and established a foothold in the marble-tiled entryway.
The housekeeper, forced into a retreat by Toby’s determination, rounded on the young maid.
“Go about your business, Maisie, and don’t be listening to your betters.”
The rebuke was like water off a duck’s back to the cheerful child, who maintained her breezy smile as she curtsied and disappeared from sight.
Having established that both she and Toby were higher in the pecking order than a mere maid, the housekeeper ducked behind Toby and closed the front door.
Toby looked up and saw an imposing stairway leading to a wide landing lit by stained-glass panels that had somehow survived the bombing raids. He squinted to bring the panels into better focus and made out the crest and shield of the Southwold family, an honor awarded for service to some long-dead monarch.
He reined in his wandering thoughts of monarchs and war damage, handed his hat and coat to the housekeeper, and smoothed his unruly brown hair.
“If you could tell the Earl that I’m here ...”
A voice floated down to him from somewhere above. “It’s all right, Mrs. Pearson, I’ll take care of this.”
She was tall and dark haired, dressed entirely in black apart from a small string of pearls around her neck. With a sinking heart, Toby realized his mistake. He should have worn a black tie or a mourning band. The whole nation was mourning the death of George VI, the king who led them through the war. This woman was an aristocrat; she probably knew the King personally, and no doubt she knew Princess Elizabeth, who was now queen, and here he was wearing a red tie. Why hadn’t Mr. Champion warned him? He could have purchased a black tie in Brighton before he set out.
Mrs. Pearson looked at Toby’s tie as though it was an object beneath her contempt, but she took a step backward and acknowledged the woman in black with a respectful gesture.
“Lady Sylvia.”
Lady Sylvia paused on the bottom step of the grand staircase and looked at Toby with a mixture of suspicion and condescension.
“We were expecting Mr. Alderton.”
“Mr. Alderton was ... unwell. My name is Whitby, Toby Whitby. I am a fully qualified solicitor.”
Lady Sylvia offered him a tight smile. “Newly qualified?”
“Yes, but—”
Lady Sylvia descended the last step and held out a slim white hand.
“I’m sorry to hear that Mr. Alderton is ... unwell.”
Toby thought that Lady Sylvia had hesitated over her use of words. Did she know something? Did she already know that Alderton was dead; and not just dead, murdered? Had it been on the radio?
Her Ladyship was still speaking, still holding out her hand. “I’m glad that Mr. Alderton has sent me a young person. Mr. Champion and Mr. Alderton seem so set in their ways. Perhaps you will be more flexible than they are.”
Toby’s studies under the tutelage of Edwin Champion had not covered the possibility of any flexibility in the law. Mr. Champion had, however, emphasized the importance of the patronage of the widowed Earl of Southwold and his only child, his daughter, Lady Sylvia. Toby took Lady Sylvia’s extended hand and gave her a noncommittal smile.
Lady Sylvia freed her hand. “Tea,” she said. It was not a question, simply an instruction to Mrs. Pearson.
The housekeeper, who had not yet managed even a hint of a smile, nodded sullenly and turned on her heel. Toby followed Lady Sylvia into a book-lined room that she identified as her father’s library. She seated herself on a chintz-covered sofa and indicated that Toby should make himself comfortable on a battered leather wing chair drawn up close to the glowing coal fire.
“Unfortunately,” said Lady Sylvia, “my father is unwell and will not be able to see you today.”
She could have phoned, Toby thought. She could have given us time to find the file; maybe go to Alderton’s flat to see if he had left it there. He tried to suppress his irritation. He had no prior experience of the aristocracy, and he was not sure whether it was reasonable to expect an aristocrat to make phone calls purely for the convenience of insignificant, newly qualified solicitors.
“I’m sorry,” Toby said, struggling to keep his irritation from showing. “Perhaps I could return another day.”
Lady Sylvia’s voice was firm and determined. “Oh no. We must do this today. Enough time has been wasted already.”
She leaned forward fixing him with a wide-eyed gaze. Her eyes were bright blue in contrast to her pale skin and midnight-black hair. He thought that she could have been pretty, maybe even beautiful, but there was a quality of aloof coldness in her eyes and a determined set to her mouth that created a zone of hostility around her.
“Cigarettes,” said Lady Sylvia.
Toby anxiously considered the contents of his pockets. He had left home with half a packet of Woodbines, and he’d smoked a couple in the office and one in the car on the way to Southwold Hall. How many were left? If there was only one left in the packet, should he offer it to her? Would a lady of her breeding even smoke a Woodbine, the cheapest cigarette on the market?
“They’re killing him,” said Lady Sylvia. “That’s what killed His Majesty.”
“Cigarettes?”
“Yes, cigarettes. No one is going to actually say it; no one will say the C word, but that’s what it was; lung cancer. His Majesty was a smoker, always had a cigarette in his mouth, not in public, of course, but on social occasions.”
She sighed. “It’s too late for the King, and it’s too late for my father. He’s going downhill fast and still puffing away on the cigarettes. I doubt if he will be around for the coronation.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, her face assembled into an expression of sorrow, although Toby saw no softening of her features. He reminded himself that her ancestors would have led the troops at Waterloo and Gallipoli, maybe even at Agincourt. Lady Sylvia was made of strong stuff.
She sighed again. “It will all fall on my shoulders; I’m the only heir. Fortunately, the estate has no ridiculous stipulations about the title only descending to the men of the family.”
“So you will be ...” Toby hesitated, his mind suddenly blank. She wouldn’t be the Earl, so what would she be?
Lady Sylvia supplied the answer without Toby asking the question. “I will be Countess of Southwold. It will be my responsibility to hold Southwold in trust for future generations.”
Her eyelids closed briefly, the dark lashes fanning out across her pale cheeks, her expression unreadable.
The door of the study banged open, and Mrs. Pearson entered followed by the young maid who was pushing a laden tea trolley. Lady Sylvia, the future countess, opened her eyes and regarded Mrs. Pearson and her offerings.
“I’ll pour,” she said. “Perhaps you could take a cup of tea to Daddy. Please do it personally, Mrs. Pearson, you know how much he likes your company.”
Mrs. Pearson’s smile was small, tight, and spiteful as she brushed her helper aside.
“You can go back into the kitchen, Maisie. You’re not needed here.”
The girl bobbed a curtsey and abandoned her post beside the tea trolley. Lady Sylvia poured milk into a bone china cup, added tea from the silver teapot, and handed it to Mrs. Pearson.
“Tell him I’ll be up shortly,” she said, and Mrs. Pearson removed herself from the room, closing the door behind her.
“So,” said Lady Sylvia, her hand steady as she poured Toby’s tea from the heavy silver pot, “we come to the delicate part of our discussion.”
Toby took the proffered teacup and decided to remain silent. Perhaps she would tell him what he needed to know, and he would not have to reveal the loss of the file or the unfortunate fate of his predecessor.
“It’s a question of the future succession,” Lady Sylvia said, “of what will happen when I am gone.”
“Oh, but you’re young,” Toby protested.
Lady Sylvia’s voice was cold. “If you consult your files, you will see that I am thirty years old. You will also see that I have no husband.”
With no file to consult, Toby found himself blustering inappropriately. “There’s plenty of time. You’ll find a husband.”
He could hardly believe that the words had come from his mouth; that he had implied that Lady Sylvia would go out like some pagan huntress to find a husband.
Lady Sylvia threw him a chilling glance. “Please do not presume to know my future. You’re here in a professional capacity, and I have no need of comforting or consoling words.”
Toby felt the blood rise in his cheeks as he stammered an apology.
“Allow me to continue,” said Lady Sylvia.
“Of course.”
Toby sipped his tea and kept his eyes fixed on the carpet, a faded oriental, no doubt the spoils of some empire-building endeavor by one of Lady Sylvia’s ancestors.
“I will not produce children to inherit the estate,” said Lady Sylvia. “I am not able.”
Toby shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and the tea spilled into his saucer.
Lady Sylvia sighed. “Does this embarrass you? I had hoped you would be able to be professional about this.”
Toby fought down a desire to stalk out of the room and leave Lady Sylvia to her own devices. However, he was not here on his own account, he was here to represent Champion and Company. He would swallow his pride and stay.
He lifted his eyes from the teacup and looked her full in the face. “I am not embarrassed.”
“Are you married, Mr. Whitby?”
“No,” said Toby, thinking about how little success he had achieved in his relationship with women.
Lady Sylvia raised her delicate eyebrows. “I would prefer to discuss this with a more experienced man. Mr. Alderton was not married, but he was a man of the world.”
Toby caught his breath. She was referring to Alderton in the past tense. She knew something. Maybe it had been on the radio.
“Mr. Alderton has ...” He could not think of the polite way to express what had happened to Robert Alderton. Passed away? Met his maker? Kicked the bucket? Shuffled off this mortal coil?
Lady Sylvia raised inquiring eyebrows.
Toby abandoned euphemisms. “Mr. Alderton is dead, and I’m the only solicitor in the office apart from Mr. Champion.”
He waited for her to question him. How had Mr. Alderton died? Had he been sick? Was it an accident?
Lady Sylvia showed no emotion beyond mild irritation. “In the circumstances, I suppose you will have to do. I am willing to set aside the unfortunate fact that you are so very inexperienced. Let us continue with our discussion.”
She paused and sipped her tea.
“I had already discussed the inheritance with Mr. Alderton, and we had already made some preliminary inquiries.”
“I see,” said Toby, although he would be hard put to say exactly what he could see. He reached into his pocket for his notebook. “What kind of inquiries?”
“Mr. Alderton prepared a file.”
Toby thought of Miss Clark’s hurried search of the bloodstained papers on the floor of Alderton’s office. “I ... we ... were unable to locate the file. It was not in his office.”
“I would hope not. This is a private and confidential matter requiring the utmost discretion. Are you capable of discretion, Mr. Whitby?”
“Of course.”
Toby set the teacup down on the filigree side table and uncapped his fountain pen, determined to appear professional, discreet, and well informed.
“So in the event of your ... demise, the title would pass to ...?”
“The title will pass to my daughter.”
Toby stared at her. “Your daughter, but ...”
“I was not always infertile; it is a new occurrence and one that cannot be reversed.”
Toby felt an unwelcome blush rising up from his collar.
“Oh really,” said Lady Sylvia. “Are you able to treat this in an adult fashion, or will you have to ask your mother for an explanation?”
“No, of course not,” said Toby, stung into a sharp response. “Whatever you say to me is confidential. I give you my word.”
“Are you certain? I know that the activities of high society are always of interest to the lower classes.
Toby’s rapidly growing dislike of his client allowed him to look her in the face, no longer embarrassed by her references to her reproductive organs.
“I have given you my word. Now, if we could continue ...”
Lady Sylvia raised her eyebrows, apparently unused to anyone standing up to her.
“So,” Toby said, “you say that you have a daughter?”
“Yes, I do,” she confirmed. “You may have noticed, Mr. Whitby, that I said that I can no longer have children; I did not say that I have never had a child.”
Well, Toby thought, if you could just have told me that when I first sat down, we could have avoided this whole embarrassing conversation. It occurred to him that Lady Sylvia enjoyed embarrassing people and that the conversation was planned ahead of time to make him feel inadequate and inferior. He returned the notebook to his pocket and started to rise.
“Well, I can’t see that there will be a problem. If the title can be passed through the female line, and you have a daughter—”
“I don’t know where my daughter is,” said Lady Sylvia, “and that is why you are here.”
Toby sat down again. “You don’t know where she is?”
“No.”
“But ...”
“If I knew where she was, I wouldn’t need your services.”
“Your husband, her father—”
Lady Sylvia was outraged.
“Of course my husband was her father. Do you imagine that the child is a bastard?”
“Oh no, of course not.”
Toby was amazed at the way Lady Sylvia could keep him off balance and unable to do anything but stammer questions and apologies.
“My husband was Jack Harrigan,” said Lady Sylvia, “an officer in the U.S. Army. He died in Normandy.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” said Lady Sylvia, with a hint of bitterness breaking through her aloof exterior. “Such a waste. He was so looking forward to coming back here and helping us to rebuild.”
She doesn’t sound sorry, Toby thought. She sounds angry, as though her husband had let her down by having the misfortune of dying in the invasion of France.
“So many of them died,” said Lady Sylvia. “Were you in Normandy, Mr. Whitby?”
The question was familiar and always unwelcome. Toby shook his head, flooded with an old shame. No, he wasn’t in Normandy. He hadn’t crossed the Rhine. He hadn’t even crossed the Channel. He and his pathetically shortsighted eyes had spent the entire war behind a desk in Whitehall with no rank, no uniform, and no possibility of making an overt contribution to the war effort.
“Well, no doubt you did your part,” said Lady Sylvia in what Toby chose to believe was a tone of disbelief.
“If we could return to the subject of your child, I don’t understand how—”
Lady Sylvia set her teacup on the trolley and rose abruptly. As Toby struggled to stand, she waved her hand dismissively. “No, no, stay there. I’m going to get the file from Daddy’s desk. I can’t bear to keep repeating things.”
She had the file! That was why it was not in Alderton’s office. The explanation was simple. But if Lady Sylvia had the file, why was Robert Alderton lying on the floor of his office in a pool of blood?
Toby set the question aside. It was up to the police to look into Alderton’s life and find out who wanted him dead. He was just glad to know that the file still existed.
He sat back and looked around the room. He found himself reassessing it in the light of Lady Sylvia’s remarks about Jack Harrigan, her American husband, helping her to rebuild the estate. The weak afternoon sunlight filtering through the windows showed a layer of dust shrouding the spines of the leather-bound books. The red velvet drapes at either side of the tall windows were faded to rusty brown along the edges, and the leather chair on which he was seated was not just old and comfortable, it was also ripped, with horsehair stuffing peeking through the padded armrests. Even the teacup that sat beside him on the table was chipped along the gold rim. The war had been hard on everyone, even the Earl of Southwold.
Lady Sylvia swept back into the room, carrying a stiff red cardboard binder of the kind reserved for the use of Mr. Alderton. Mr. Champion’s files were blue, while Toby kept his papers in plain brown binders.
“These are the documents you’ll need,” said Lady Sylvia, “marriage license, birth certificate, and so on.”
Toby hesitated. “I’m sorry, but you said that you don’t know where your daughter is ...?”
Lady Sylvia tossed her black curls impatiently. “No, I don’t, Mr. Whitby, and that is why you’re here.”
Toby struggled to make sense of what he was hearing. Lady Sylvia’s husband, Jack, had been killed in the Normandy landings. That was six years ago, which meant that the child of the marriage was no more than five years old, or maybe even six if the marriage had been a rushed affair to cover up a pregnancy. Whatever the case, this daughter was a little child, certainly not capable of running away and disappearing. There had been nothing in the newspapers, nothing said in the office, not even a hint of gossip about a missing child.
“You don’t know where she is?” Toby repeated.
“No, I do not. She’s been missing since the day she was born. I entrusted her to someone; someone who stole her.”
Lady Sylvia thrust the folder into Toby’s hands. “It’s all in there. I gave Mr. Alderton a full statement. Daddy was with me; he heard everything. We have to find her, Mr. Whitby. We need to make certain that the succession is secure.”
Toby was at a loss for words. This woman’s child had been kidnapped on the day of her birth, and it had taken six years for her to mention this fact.
“What about the police?” Toby asked.
“We will not involve the police. I am not accusing anyone of a crime.”
How could it not be a crime? Toby asked himself.
“I thought she died,” said Lady Sylvia, as if to answer the questions swarming in Toby’s brain. “There was an air raid, flying bombs, the first of the V-2s.”
Toby nodded his understanding. How could he forget; how could anyone who had been in London forget the horror of the V-2s? Launched from the French coast, silent and unmanned, they had rained devastation indiscriminately across the south of England.
“The maternity clinic was destroyed,” said Lady Sylvia. “Total confusion, of course, smoke, flames, people screaming. They told me she’d died, but she didn’t die, and now I know it for a fact. Mrs. Pearson was with me, of course. She knows what happened, and now we know who took her.”
Toby untied the red bindings on Robert Alderton’s folder and found only a few legal documents; a marriage certificate, a birth certificate, some papers that seemed to have originated with the U.S. Army. He flicked through the papers, looking for Alderton’s notes. Nothing. Alderton was a taker of copious notes; his files were usually stuffed full of notes written in Alderton’s distinctive turquoise ink. Office rules required that all notes be hole punched and secured in the file by metal prongs. Mr. Champion did not permit loose papers. Everything was kept in chronological order. So where were Alderton’s notes? They could not have fallen out of the file.
“Celeste,” said Lady Sylvia
Toby dragged his mind away from the missing notes. “Is that the name of the person who took her?”
“No, Celeste is my daughter’s name, Celeste Victoria Blanchard Harrigan. It’s on the birth certificate.”
“And the person who took her?””
“Vera Chapman.”
Toby opened his mouth to ask another question, but Lady Sylvia rose abruptly.
“The documents are all in the file. You have no need of any other proof. You are not required to find the child, I have made other arrangements, you are only required to verify the facts as I have stated them and to draw up the appropriate documents. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to see to my father.”
Toby hastily gathered the papers back into the file folder.
“Yes, of course, I’m sorry.”
He felt as though he had been in a constant state of apology since he first entered the room. Lady Sylvia had an uncanny ability to throw him off his stride and leave him feeling as though he had done something wrong; as though he was too gauche and uneducated to approach her with the hundreds of questions that he was longing to ask. He had no idea how he was going to get to the crux of this situation if he could not even frame a question without also adding an apology for his impertinence in asking.
“Mrs. Pearson will see you out,” said Lady Sylvia.
Toby pulled himself together. “I’ll need another appointment, after I’ve read the file. There are obviously a number of questions—”
“Obviously.”
“So ...”
“You may telephone for an appointment when you have something to tell me. Good day, Mr. Whitby.”
She swept from the room, leaving Toby to gather up the scattered papers and his equally scattered thoughts.