Lenox started. “Who?”
“My aunt.”
Lenox laughed. “Go ahead, of course. Keep your secrets from me.” Turning back to the mirror, he touched the cuts and bruises on his face, which were pretty bad looking, then laughed and stepped outside to his carriage.
He directed the driver to Parliament. There was to be a vote that day, and speeches beforehand, of course, and he hoped to catch Soames on the way in. He knew the man well enough to detain him for a few moments and knew also that Soames so little liked the life of a backbencher that he might even agree to sit for a while.
He went again to the members’ entrance, facing the river. On the walkway on either side of the door were two awnings, one green-striped and the other red-striped, the green for the Commons and the red for the Lords. In summer they retreated under their awnings and sat outside with cool drinks.
On this day he went inside, nodding to the doorman, who recognized him, and again faced the choice of going right, to the rooms of the House of Lords and the Queen Empress, or left, to the rooms devoted to the House of Commons. He took a left.
At lunch he had simply gone to the first room, the dining room, but now he went past it. Down here, where there was a whole series of rooms overlooking the Thames, were the places that various members sat in between sessions, to broker deals or talk with their friends or simply have a drink.
There was a large empty library, followed by a periodical room with all the day’s papers and journals, and a smoking room, with a billiard table in it and several men waiting about, talking listlessly.
Past that was a refreshment room, which was abandoned now but would be filled that evening with people after a pint of ale or a glass of shandy. Then there was a tearoom, which was more populated, for many people were having a late breakfast, and finally there was a large chamber with many comfortable couches, and waiters here and there, which didn’t have a name but was closer to a clubhouse than anything else. It was the room with a door to the hall that led into the House of Commons, and he decided to wait here, where Soames was most likely to pass before he went into the chambers.
He retired to a large leather sofa and read the
While he was carefully reading a report on the conditions of London slums, Soames came along at last, walking side by side with Newton Duff. They had evidently come together from their host’s house; Soames seemed to be talking at length about a horse named Adagio.
Duff, who looked as if he was sorry he’d ever heard of horses—or of Soames, for that matter—said a cursory goodbye and stalked toward a group of less frivolous members. Lenox wondered briefly whether a man as smart as Newton Duff could make the error of leaving a bottle that led back to him at the scene of a murder. Yes, he thought—but before Lenox knew it, Soames turned, temporarily at a loss, and saw him.
“Charles!” he said. “Hallo, old chap.”
“Jack,” said Lenox. “Good to see you.”
Now Soames was of a specific type among the English gentry, not altogether a good type or a bad one, but rather one who lived on the periphery of these categories, half in and half out.
He had earned the title of captain some years past, in the army, and he was known to his friends by and large as Captain Jack, or Soaps to his close friends. But he was a gentle man, not at all militant. He had earned his rowing blue at Oxford, in the years before Lenox’s time, and his ability with an oar was by all accounts prodigious. He had secured a place in Parliament shortly after coming down, out of a pocket borough belonging to an old oarsman who had admired the young Soames, and from then on he was received throughout London, but in a way he had never quite equaled his early promise, and his life now, though happy enough, was marked, among those who knew him, by the peculiar sorrow of unfulfillment.
He was the sort of man who stayed at his club much of every day, playing billiards or cards as people floated through the room, eating good meals and making much of himself, encouraging talk of days in the old crew or the old regiment, but without any particular present glory to balance it; he was quick, in the way that men of the clubs are quick, but like them he had lost, whether by drink or lassitude, the ability to focus his efforts over a long time or on a large subject. Gradually his interests had begun to turn to the turf; he was now considered an authority on horses and could tell you of this trainer or that jockey. But serious men, some of whom had looked up to him twenty years earlier, no longer took him seriously.
Lenox felt a deep sorrow, in a way, to know that he was in financial trouble, for whatever his decline, Soames was an institution of a sort, and, moreover, his family’s money had all been entailed upon an elder cousin, who was unlikely to let it leave his pocket.
But still, all in all, he was a good man and tried to do his duty in Parliament, even amid talk that he would be replaced. His only committee work now happened to involve the mint.
“How are you, Charles?”
“Aside from this,” said Lenox, pointing to the cut on his face, “quite all right.”
Soames laughed. “Have you been boxing?” he said.
“Rather against my will.”
“Have a cigarette?”
Lenox accepted, and gestured toward a pair of armchairs. The men sat down. A waiter came by and asked if they’d like a drink. Soames declined, but Lenox asked if he wouldn’t join him in a glass of hot wine, early though it was, and Soames said that perhaps he would after all.
They had been talking of horses, the expert having found a more willing listener in Lenox than in Duff. But in the lull when Soames took his first sip, Lenox said, “And what is this about the murder?”
“You ought to know, from what I gather.”
“Why?”
“You were around that evening, weren’t you?” Soames said.
“Ah, but Barnard asked me to step back.” This was not a lie.
“He did? Tough bird, Barnard. Good man, but tough.”
“What do you think of it?”
“The girl?” Soames shifted uneasily in his seat. “I daresay it was one of the servants. One of them started to cry during supper two nights ago, just for an example. Never seen anything like it. Probably felt guilty.”
“Perhaps the fiance?”
Soames looked away. “Perhaps,” he said.
“I hear there are two nephews there?”
“Both horrid, old man, really horrid. One of them is a sort of Casanova or something, and the other disapproves of me, I rather think.”
Lenox gestured to the waiter for another glass.
“Thanks, Charles,” said Soames, watching his cup as it was filled. The wine steamed and smelled of lemon and cinnamon. “Cold out, you know. Got to endure a day of these things on the benches, now. The wine will make it pass. They’re asking me to show up more often, you see, even though I don’t know much.”
“Is there anything at the mint, right now?”
“Oh, no, not really. I only help Barnard, you know. That’s why I’m staying with him. Close work.” He blushed and didn’t say anything else.
“I really am curious,” said Lenox, “about what happened to the girl. Spectator’s interest, you see.” This was closer to a lie.
“I haven’t really got any idea.”
“What about Duff? He’s a hard one.”
“Duff? Do you think?”
“Why not?”
“You may be right. In fact, if I were an inspector, he should be where I started.”
“Really?”
Soames took a sip and then put the glass down unsteadily. “Oh, yes. Can’t think why it didn’t occur to me before, actually.”
“Perhaps we’re overstating it.”
“Nothing of the sort.” Soames coughed. “Just as a parlor game, of course, it would have to be him.”
“Just as a parlor game.”
