“No,” said Lenox.
She didn’t hear, and went on, chattily, “Nobody could stand London for a minute longer than you have, either, the whole place smells exactly like brimstone — which I consider a very strong sign that it’s the devil’s own, though I will admit that my cousin Prudence had a fine time at the exhibition, in that great crystal palace, even if twenty-five years does seem a long time to be talking about it, and of course, as I told her, the—”
And so on, the social round of Markethouse for a Lenox, half exasperating, half humorous, half enjoyable, half exhausting, all of it home. They walked on a little ways through the square, and then Edmund, hands in pockets, said, shaking his head, “I knew you’d move back to Markethouse.”
“Oh, shut up.”
It was Edmund’s fault. In other towns the squire was a figure of terror, scarcely to be approached, from whom a nod after church was considered an unsurpassably graceful social generosity. But Edmund, like their father, felt a strong sense of duty to the village and its inhabitants, a strong sense of love, too.
Still, it was with some relief that they passed through to the opposite side of town and found themselves on a familiar old dirt road. Soon they came to the wide stone gate of Lenox House, and as they passed it the house itself came into view.
It was a lovely Georgian building, white stone, with three long sides around a courtyard, and a vast black wrought-iron gate on the fourth side, standing open as it usually did. Lenox felt a skip in his heart. This was where he had grown up. Its flower beds, along the avenue as they walked, were as familiar to him as the faces of his friends, and off to the left he could see the pond where he and Edmund had fished and swum as boys, and rising on a gentle upslope of grass beyond that, the steps that led up to the small circular family chapel. To the right of the house as they faced it were the gardens, and framing them a great deal of lovely green springy Sussex turf.
The dogcart stood by the gate, and after a moment there was a commotion at the door, and four dogs came tearing out, falling over each other, barking with happiness. Three of them were little black-and-tan terriers, the fourth (much slower) an old retriever that dated to Edmund’s children’s childhood. Edmund and Charles stooped to greet them, and as they walked the last hundred yards to the house the dogs milled around their feet, urging them to go faster.
In Edmund’s tired smile as he greeted the dogs, Lenox felt the whole sorrow of the past five weeks. It was so difficult! Lenox dealt in death — it was his stock-in-trade, as surely as tin was a tin peddler’s. And yet, strangely, when someone died that he had known personally, this familiarity didn’t decrease the surprise of it. If anything, the surprise was greater. It was as if he had annexed death strictly to the professional region of his mind, over the years; when it crossed back into his own life it seemed a bizarre thing, terribly sad and wrong. How was it that Molly was dead? A few months before, they had played piquet all through one evening in Hampden Lane, chattering about what it was like to have children. Where could that person have gone?
Heaven, perhaps. He dearly hoped so; there were people he would like to see again. For all his faith, though, it was hard not to experience a feeling of loneliness when he thought of his sister-in-law.
And given that, what must his brother, trying not to trip over the dogs, hands in his pockets, be feeling?
At the door to the house, they met Leonardson, a stout middle-aged man who came each week to do the blacking in the kitchen. He touched his hat to Sir Edmund, congratulated Lenox on moving back to the countryside from London (“a terrible place, v’always said so”), and then waved good-bye as the brothers went inside.
CHAPTER SIX
The next morning, just as they were finishing their breakfast, the bell for the front door rang. Edmund looked up from the papers he was perusing — matters of the estate — and Charles from his newspaper.
“Are you expecting anybody?” Lenox asked.
Edmund shook his head. “No.”
A moment later the butler came in. Waller was his name, a young man, just past thirty years, the best part of them spent in some capacity here at Lenox House, until finally two years before he had ascended to his current august position. He was part of a new guard; with one thing and another there were no old staff left from their youth. Lenox rather preferred it that way. It meant there was no fust of olden times upon life at the house, as there was at so many country houses. To be sure, their father’s steward — the older Mather — lived in the village, as did the astonishingly ungifted cook of their childhood, Abigail, upon whom Lenox called every Christmas with a goose. (She was probably the last person alive who called him “Master Charlie”—though she did it with mischief in her eye, an astute older woman, seated every day of the winter by her daughter’s fire, knitting and telling stories to her grandchildren, emphatically not cooking.) Otherwise the people had all been here only since Edmund had inherited the house and the title.
“A Mr. Arthur Hadley, to see Mr. Charles Lenox, sir,” said Waller.
Edmund and Charles exchanged glances. “I don’t know anyone by that name. And I don’t think I’ve told anyone I was coming to the country, either.” He looked back at Waller. “What is his business?”
“He has not said, sir.”
“What sort of fellow does he look like?” asked Edmund.
“Sir?”
“Does he look likely to point a pistol at us and ask for our money?”
“Oh, no, sir. A respectable-looking gentleman, sir.”
“Charles?” said Edmund.
“Show him in, by all means.”
After the butler had left, Edmund said, “You have more faith in Waller as a judge of character than I would,” then turned his eyes back to his tenant rolls.
Mr. Arthur Hadley was, though, a very respectable-looking gentleman, it was true. He wore a twill suit of clothes, the cloth an ideal weight for this brisk autumn day, and had in his right hand a walking stick with a brass knob on its end. The bottom was covered with fresh mud — from the look of it he had walked here. Lenox put his age at about fifty. He was clean-shaven, with a strong, square face. Under his right arm was a folded newspaper; his right hand was in the pocket of his jacket.
Lenox rose, and after a beat so did his brother. “How do you do, Mr. Hadley?”
“Mr. Charles Lenox?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
Hadley, still standing in the doorway, said, “I hope I don’t call upon you at an inconvenient time.”
Lenox smiled. “I suppose it depends on the purpose of your call. Are you collecting taxes?”
Hadley’s open, good-natured face broke into a smile, too. “Not at all, sir, no. In fact, I was hoping to gauge your professional opinion of a small peculiarity I have experienced.”
Lenox was astonished. “My professional opinion?”
Hadley unfolded the thin newspaper he had been carrying, and read from it. “In residence at Lenox House,” he quoted, “Mr. Charles Lenox, eminent consulting detective of Chancery Lane, London, for an undetermined amount of time.”
“Is that this morning’s paper?” asked Edmund. “May I see it?”
“Yesterday evening’s,” said Hadley, handing it over. “The Markethouse Gazette.”
“My gracious,” said Lenox. “They do move quickly.”