A Stranger in Mayfair - Charles Finch [35]
“You have several individual meetings with Members of the House of Lords, as you see on the dossier, and a meeting of the committee for the railway system.”
Lenox sighed, moving to the window. He held the list of his day’s events at his side. “I’m glad it’s soon that the session begins. All of this feels unhelpful.”
“The alliances and friendships you make now will serve you when you begin to ascend within the party, sir, or if there’s some piece of law you would like to see passed.”
Half-smiling, the detective answered, “You’ve taken to this much more readily than I have, I think. Friends with Percy Field, planning for me to be Prime Minister. All I can think about is old cases. I read the papers in the morning a bit too eagerly, I find, searching out the crimes that have confounded Scotland Yard. It’s a melancholy feeling.”
“It has been an abrupt transition.”
Unusually close though they were, Lenox would never have given utterance to the thought that passed his mind then—that it had been an abrupt transition into marriage, too, and not always an easy one. Instead he said, “My hope is that when the ball is truly in play, when people are giving speeches and defending their words and acting, that then it will all fall into place for me.”
“I dearly wish it, sir.”
“There’s nothing worse than going to work with that slight feeling of dread, is there, Graham?”
“If I may be so bold—”
Lenox smiled. “You must be quite to the point, remember, quite rude!”
“Very well. Then I would say that this feeling will pass, and soon you will remember that you came to Parliament not only for yourself but for others. You do, in fact, represent the people you met in Stirrington. Perhaps that knowledge will lift your spirits.”
“You’re right.”
There was a pause. “And, sir, one last meeting, which isn’t on the list.”
“Oh?”
“It may ease the pressure, sir. Mrs. Elizabeth Starling sent a note, asking if you would care to take dinner there.”
Lenox grinned. “Did she? Please, write back and tell her I would.”
Chapter Seventeen
Ludo, standing in his drawing room, looked miserable as he greeted Dallington and Lenox that night. Collingwood had brought them in (they shared a swift, questioning glance as he turned to lead them down the front corridor) and announced them, all in a mood that was both scrupulously polite and somehow obliquely dismissive. Perhaps he didn’t think of a detective as a suitable dinner guest at the house, or perhaps he had something to hide and regretted their presence so nearby. And there was one last possibility: that he was still jarred by the violent death of someone with whom he had worked in close proximity, and so not quite himself.
One thing was sure. It had been six days since the murder, and if they didn’t make a breakthrough soon the trail might well run cold.
Starling, perhaps for that reason, looked alternately flushed and pale.
“Oh, ah, Lenox,” he said. “Good of you to come, quite good of you. And Mr.—er, Mr. Dallington, I believe. How do you do? You both received my wife’s invitations?”
“Call me John, please.”
“John—certainly. Yes, Elizabeth thought the least we could do to thank you for your work was have you to supper. It will be a family affair, only the seven of us—my sons, whom of course you know, Lenox, and my great-uncle, Tiberius. I think you met him.”
“Yes—it was he who told us that Frederick Clarke had been getting money slipped to him under the door of the servants’ quarters.”
This agitated Ludo. Pleadingly, he said, “Oh, don’t let’s talk about Clarke. I can tell you it’s cast a tremendous pall over life here, and I think we would all be much more comfortable if we kept to other subjects.”
“As you please, of course,” said Lenox. Dallington smiled slightly.
“In fact, one of the reasons I asked you here was to request that you drop the case. I have full faith in Grayson Fowler, and believe—”
They all turned as a woman’s voice came from the doorway behind them. “Having amateur detectives wandering around London and buying drinks for footmen can only