He took down Debrett’s Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage and Companionage. There were the Cassingtons again, and this time there was more information about the peer’s second wife. She had previously married Captain William Ingleby-Lewis, whom she had divorced in 1907 and by whom she had had a daughter, Lydia Elizabeth. He looked up the Langstones, and there she was again, wife of Marcus John Scott Langstone. She had been born in 1905. So she was twenty-nine; she looked younger. Marcus was older. No children, as yet. They lived at 9 Frogmore Place, Lancaster Gate, when they were in London-not as grand an address as the Cassingtons, Rory thought-and at Longhope House in Gloucestershire. Langstone had been at Marlborough.
Rory swore under his breath, and a slumbering tramp sitting across the table from him opened one eye. He and Lydia Langstone might at present live under the same roof but they belonged to different worlds. Not that it mattered, since she was married and besides he still considered himself engaged to Fenella, whatever Fenella might say. What galled him was the disparity between them. He was forced to live somewhere like Bleeding Heart Square because he was poor and getting poorer. But, given her background, Lydia must be playing with poverty. The French had a phrase for it as they had a phrase for everything: she was living en bon socialiste, toying with being poor, being ordinary, and it was a damned patronizing insult to those who were really poor and really ordinary.
Just like that fellow Dawlish that Fenella is so fond of.
Was that the real reason he was angry-simple, unjustifiable jealousy? Rory closed the book with a bang. The tramp opened both eyes.
As Rory stood up, Lydia Langstone herself came into the reference room. For an instant he felt like a guilty schoolboy caught in the act of something dreadful and clutched the book to his chest as if to hide it from her. She caught his eye, nodded to him and turned away to select a magazine, The Lady, from a rack by the window. He put the book back on the shelf, seized his hat and went out. She didn’t look up.
A gray pall of rain hung over the city. It suited his mood. He walked aimlessly down to Holborn and allowed the flow of pedestrians to draw him steadily westward. So why the devil was Lydia Langstone living in Bleeding Heart Square when she could have been living in comfort in Bayswater? It was quite a puzzle, and if nothing else a distraction from his inability to work out what to do with his own life.
By the time he reached Regent Street, the rain was petering out. He crossed the road and drifted into Mayfair. A taxi jolted in and out of a pothole, spraying water that soaked the bottoms of his only respectable trousers. He swore aloud. The spurt of anger shifted the direction of his thoughts. Suddenly he was curious to see where Lydia Langstone had lived, to glimpse the sort of world she had turned her back on.
Upper Mount Street was lined with Georgian houses that might have started life looking more or less the same as each other but had long since diversified according to the wealth and whims of individual proprietors. Number twenty-one had a bow window on the first floor, a Daimler parked outside and a purple door whose brass furniture gave off a soft, moneyed gleam. Tubbed and perfectly symmetrical bay trees stood like sentries on either side of the doorway. The Daimler had pale blue curtains on the rear windows. A uniformed chauffeur was buffing the windscreen.
Rory strolled along the opposite pavement to the end of the street. Like a character in a detective story, he pretended to post a letter in the pillar box to disarm the suspicions of anyone who might be watching. He crossed over the road and paused to light a cigarette. As he was flicking the match into the gutter, the door of number twenty-one opened and two men came out.
The first was small and elderly, with a deeply lined face. He was wearing a top hat and a dark overcoat. The second was taller and much younger-blond-haired, with broad shoulders, a florid complexion and large blue eyes that glanced carelessly at Rory and away.
The chauffeur opened the rear door. There was a delay as a maid rushed out of the house, holding an attaché case which she gave to the younger man.
“You’re always forgetting something,” his companion said to him with a bray of laughter. “I tell Ellie that your memory is worse than mine.”
Rory turned the corner. Lord Cassington, he thought, and Marcus John Scott Langstone, the husband of Lydia? How odd to be able to put probable faces on names that an hour or so ago had been no more than words in a reference book, abstractions and nothing more. Ellie must be Elinor, Lady Cassington. He had heard of none of them a few days ago-none of them knew him, none of them had harmed him-but still he felt a blind aggression that made him clench his fists inside his coat pockets.
Perhaps Sergeant Narton and Fenella’s Bolshie friends had the right idea after all. Hang the bastards from the lampposts. But perhaps spare a few of those already living en bon socialiste?
Lydia drank her tea, which was sweet, strong and apparently flavored with boot polish, smoked a cigarette and then continued with the task that Mr. Shires had given her that morning. Her job was to work her way down a list of unpaid accounts, telephoning each client to inquire whether they had received Shires and Trimble’s invoice. Whether or not they claimed they hadn’t, Lydia was to tell them that another was on its way and that Shires and Trimble would be obliged to have the matter settled without delay.
“Then we give them another fortnight to stew in their own juice before we threaten legal proceedings,” Mr. Shires had told her, a peppermint bulging like an unpleasant swelling in his left cheek. “It’s a tiresome business, Mrs. Langstone, I don’t mind telling you. It’s not the law that’s the problem. It’s the damned clients, excuse my French. Off you go now, and I want the list back at lunchtime. Mark on it how you get on with each one. Half of them will say the check’s in the post. Must think we were born yesterday, eh?”
Lydia stubbed out her cigarette and picked up the telephone. It was connected to the little switchboard in the outer office, which also served the partners’ line from the private office. The connections were erratic and she heard Mr. Shires’ voice in her ear. There was a crossed line.
“…one can’t rule out the possibility,” Mr. Shires was saying.
“Why not?” Lydia recognized the voice as Serridge’s.
“Sorry,” Lydia said and put the receiver down.
The door of the private office opened.
“Mrs. Langstone? In here a moment, please.”
She followed Mr. Shires into the room.
“Close the door.” He sat down at his desk and waited until she had obeyed. “How are you settling in?”
“All right, I think.” Lydia tried a smile. “I’m probably not the best judge.”
“So far so good on that front, I understand. Early days yet, of course.” He looked at her and blinked his watery eyes. “I assume it was you on the telephone then.”
“Yes.” She paused, and added, “Sir.”
“We must get an engineer to deal with it. Ask Mr. Smethwick to get on to it right away.” Shires gave her a wintry smile. “By the way, I was having a confidential conversation. Did you overhear anything?”
“No, sir. As soon as I realized you were on the phone, I broke the connection.”
His eyes held hers. She fought the temptation to shift guiltily from one foot to another and stared back at him. He seemed to approve of what he saw because he nodded and gave her a smile.
“Very well, Mrs. Langstone. You had better get back to your work. Be sure to pass on my message to Mr. Smethwick.”