Charles Finch - A Stranger in Mayfair

“Yes, as a footman. His mother, Marie, was our housekeeper briefly, about fifteen years ago. Almost as soon as she came into our service she inherited something from her family and moved back to her hometown to open a pub. Apparently her son wanted to come to London, and she wrote asking if we might take him on, so of course we said yes.”

“Decent of you.”

“Elizabeth has a long memory for these things-you know how kind she is. He’s been with us for four years now, but I spend so much time at the House and at the Turf”-this was his club, whose membership consisted largely of sportsmen and cardplayers-“that I don’t know all the faces.”

Four years! thought Lenox. It seemed impossible to live under the same roof as a person for so long without knowing him through and through. “You didn’t know him, or you didn’t know him well?”

“Didn’t know him well, I should have said. Of course I knew his face and exchanged a few words with him here and there. But Eliza is very upset, and I promised her that I would ask for your help. She’s the reason I’m here, in fact. Although we were both relieved when we remembered you had just gotten back into town.”

“Oh?”

Ludo’s face flushed, and his tone became confidential. “In truth I wouldn’t mind it quietly handled, and I know I can count on your discretion. Quite between you and me, there has been some talk of a title.”

“A title for you?” asked Lenox, surprised. A title usually capped a career. Ludo was still young, or at least middle-aged.

“I’ve been a guest at the palace quite often recently, and play whist with one of the royals almost every night. I won’t say his name. But apparently my service in Parliament has been observed and may be commended.”

“I congratulate you.”

“It would please me immensely, I don’t mind saying. It always rather rankled in our family that the old King didn’t hand us something in that line. God bless him,” he added as an afterthought.

This was puzzlingly intimate, thought Lenox, and then asked, “Why must it be quiet? Surely there’s no implication that you killed the boy?”

“I? Never!” Ludo laughed. “Besides having no reason on earth to do it, I was sat firmly at the card table for ten hours last night, with Frank Derbyshire and a whole host of others.”

“Of course. I didn’t mean-”

“It’s only that the slightest breath of scandal or infelicity can shake this sort of thing. It’s all so fragile, you know.”

“The title?”

“Yes, exactly. Also, as I say, Eliza is quite upset-most upset-and asked me to come.”

Lenox was puzzled by Ludo’s behavior. Did he care about this lad, Frederick Clarke? Why not let the Yard handle it? And why was he bursting with all this information about his prospects for an elevation to the House of Lords? It seemed in awfully poor taste. Then it occurred to Lenox that perhaps Ludo couldn’t share any of this potential good fortune with his friends, or even his family, lest it fall through and make him look like a liar or a fool. It might be that he needed an audience, someone who would listen with appropriate gravity to the news but who would keep it to himself. Yes, Lenox decided, it was because the man had run over the tantalizing facts so often in his mind and needed to blurt them out to stay sane. Had been bursting with the news. Strange indeed, though, to deliver it as he simultaneously delivered news of a murder.

He was terribly restless. “Here, sit,” said Lenox. At last Ludo settled into the armchair Graham had only recently occupied, opposite Lenox and in front of the cold hearth.

“Thanks, thanks,” he said. “Now-may I bring you back with me? My carriage is outside.”

“I’m honored that you came to me, but it’s the worst possible moment for me to take on any new responsibilities.”

“You mean you can’t come look?”

“I wish I could, but I cannot. The leaders of our party have made allowances because of my marriage, but as you well know the House reconvenes in a little more than a week’s time, and there are meetings for me to attend hour after hour before then.”

“If it’s about money…?”

Shocked, Lenox drew himself up in his chair and said, “No, it isn’t.”

Ludo saw straightaway that he had made a blunder. “I’m so terribly sorry. Of course it isn’t about money. Forgive me.”

“As I say, my responsibilities at the moment scarcely permit me any return to my old field. You of all people can understand how daunting it is to be a new Member.”

“Yes, of course.”

“The Yard is competent in these matters, I promise.”

Ludo, still agitated, said, “Are you sure you couldn’t come and have a quick look?”

In fact Lenox was sorely tempted to do it. He missed his old work and, excited though he was about his new career, contemplated with mute dread the idea of giving detection up forever. Even while he had been on the Continent, absorbed by Jane and the local life, his mind had often turned back to old cases. Still, he said, “No, I’m afraid-”

“Oh, please, Lenox-if only for my wife. She has no peace of mind at all just now.”

“But-”

“We must look out for each other, Members of the Commons. I wouldn’t ask if I weren’t distressed.”

Lenox relented. “Just a look. Then perhaps I’ll pass it on to my student, John Dallington, and he can delve into the matter if he chooses. Come along, I must hurry. That meeting about the colonies is in two hours.”

As he had one foot hiked up into Starling’s carriage (a massive black conveyance with the family crest worked into its doors-a slightly low thing to have if you weren’t a duke, perhaps) Lenox had the novel realization that for the first time since he was a boy he had a duty to keep someone apprised of his whereabouts. Stepping back down, he grinned to himself. He was a married man now. How wonderful to contemplate.

Jane was on one of the thousand social visits that occupied weekday mornings, making the rounds in her own old, slightly battered, and extremely homey carriage. She would be back soon, however.

“Just one moment, Ludo,” said Lenox and dashed inside. He found Graham and asked him to tell Lady Jane where he was going; between this and the meeting it would be nearly supper before he returned.

“Yes, sir,” said Graham. “Here, sir, your-”

“Ah, my watch. Don’t think I’ve forgotten our conversation, by the by. Will you think about it?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Since you’re still a butler for the moment, however, don’t forget to tell Jane where I am.” Lenox laughed and stepped quickly back out to join Ludo. He realized as he laughed that his spirits had lightened with the prospect of a new case.

They went through Mayfair at a rapid trot. It was Lenox’s home neighborhood, the one in which he felt most comfortable, and much of his adult life had been spent inside this stretch of London from Piccadilly to Hyde Park. As it had been for the past century or so, it was a fashionable place, the most expensive part of the city, with faddish restaurants, white glove hotels, and a gentle, calm aspect: The boulevards were wide and uncrowded, the houses well kept, and the shops tidy and pleasant. In some parts of London one felt quite hemmed in on the narrow streets, with carriages brushing by each other and mongers shouting to sell their fruit or fish, but Mayfair seemed somehow more civilized. It certainly wasn’t a quarter of London that Lenox associated with murder. Though the practice was all but dead, you’d still be more likely to see a duel between gentlemen in Green Park than any bloody-minded killing.

The carriage stopped a few hundred feet short of Curzon Street, where the Starling townhouse stood just off a corner. Ludo, who hadn’t spoken during the trip, rapped the side of the carriage with his walking stick.