A Stranger in Mayfair - Charles Finch [26]
“That must be the boy’s mother,” he whispered to Dallington as they took their seats several rows back. “The place of honor.”
“Don’t you feel a bit dodgy here?” asked the young lord. “We didn’t know him.”
Lenox nodded gravely. “Even so, we owe him our best, and this is a singular opportunity to see who he knew and what he was like.”
The funeral took place in a small, appealing Mayfair church, St. George’s, which Lenox knew the Starling family had generously endowed over the years. It was a distinguished building with tall white columns in front, steep stairs to the front door, and a high bell tower overhead, part of the Fifty Churches Act that Parliament had passed in the early eighteenth century at the behest of Queen Anne, to keep up with London’s expansion in population. A pious woman, Anne had wanted to ensure that all of her subjects were close to a church. In the end the project fell well short of its target—a dozen churches or so had gone up—but they had left their mark. The great architect Nicholas Hawksmoor had built many of them, and even the ones he didn’t build (like this) were in his style. They were called Queen Anne’s Churches now—all much of a piece, beautiful, high, very white, and somewhat severe. Given Ludo’s newfound affinity for discretion, it was surprising to find the service held in a firmly aristocratic church.
The most striking occurrence at the funeral happened just before the service began. With the church already full, six footmen in identical livery marched somberly down the center aisle and took an empty pew. They made for an arresting picture.
“I’d like to speak to them,” said Dallington.
“Perhaps they were his real friends. It wouldn’t surprise me. He couldn’t have been proper friends with either of the women in his house or Collingwood, his superior among the staff.”
“True, and he lived along that row of houses. All the footmen would have been in the alley constantly.”
“Precisely.”
The service was a modest one, without music save for Bach’s St. Matthew Passion at the recession. Funerals in London tended to be grandiose (at one last year, Lenox had seen a procession of mutes and jugglers before the coffin), but this was a plain old English service—rather touching in its simplicity.
One rather strange absence was that of Inspector Grayson Fowler of Scotland Yard. Perhaps the feeling of propriety that had nettled Dallington kept him away, but Lenox doubted it. Fowler was a particular type—old, grizzled, disagreeable to most people, and extremely sharp-witted. He was well past fifty years of age, and in his many years on the force had been one of the few people at the Yard of whom Lenox had entirely approved. In turn he had always liked Lenox, who had talked over cases with him many a time, interpreting clues and prodding theories to find their soft spots. Lenox decided that he would visit Scotland Yard that night, despite the curt note he had received when he tried to contact Fowler before. Perhaps it had been a bad day.
As they stood on the steps of the church after the funeral, nobody seemed quite sure what to do. A reception would have been appropriate, but Ludo hadn’t mentioned one, and the boy’s mother was from out of town—and an old family servant! It was shabby of Ludo, actually, and thus it made Lenox doubly glad when one of the six footmen did something gallant. He was a red-haired, freckled, very young-looking man.
To the group he said, “Since we appear to be at loose ends, may my friends and I invite you all to the second floor of the Bricklayers’ Arms? It’s one street down, and Freddie often enjoyed a pint there. Mrs. Clarke, may I take your arm?”
“Oh—yes,” stammered Ludo. “Here, I insist upon buying a round.” He fumbled through his pockets and came up with a note, which the footman had the good manners to accept.
“Freddie,” murmured Lenox to Dallington.
“Maybe I’ll buy a round as well. Come along?”
“Graham will murder me if I don’t get back. Come see me tonight though, will you?”
“Yes, of course.”
A ragged procession had already begun down the street,