According to him, Mr. Sackville regularly visited the house across the street from his in Lambeth, usually shortly before dinner. He remarked Mr. Sackville because he was a fine-looking gentleman and didn’t seem to belong to the district. The most interesting thing he said, however, was that the house burned down some six weeks ago—which fits nicely with the occasion of Mr. Sackville’s final trip to London, the one from which he returned early and distraught.
To be thorough, I showed the man a picture of the staff at Curry House. To my surprise, he immediately identified Hodges the valet. I asked if Hodges ever accompanied Mr. Sackville, he said not that he’d ever seen, but he remembered Hodges because once Hodges knocked on his door and asked if he knew what went on in the house Mr. Sackville visited.
I will interview others in the neighborhood to see if they have seen either Mr. Sackville or Hodges.
MacDonald
Clandestine entry into a suite of rooms at Claridge’s should be a straightforward affair: One bribed a porter or two and proceeded.
Apparently not, especially if one’s debut in breaking and entering was to take place under Lord Ingram’s watchful eyes. There was a protocol, which consisted of handing the matter over to Lord Bancroft Ashburton, Lord Ingram’s second-eldest brother and Charlotte’s one-time suitor, a man of many responsibilities and almost as many means of achieving his ends—and waiting until Lord Bancroft issued a suitable time for the burglary to take place.
“It takes the fun out of the thing to have approval from high places,” Charlotte complained to Lord Ingram, as they walked into Mrs. Marbleton’s large, empty suite. “This ought to feel more . . . illegal.”
Instead they’d been given a perfectly safe window of three-quarters of an hour from the man who defended the empire against threats from without and within.
Lord Ingram only shook his head.
“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,” Charlotte said, feeling a little apologetic. “You called in a favor, I take it?”
In spite of his brother’s assurance that no Marbleton would return during the allotted forty-five minutes, Lord Ingram approached a window and peered down to the street. “It’s the only currency Bancroft understands.”
“You can’t possibly have that many favors left to call in.” Charlotte knew something of this trade between brothers.
A faint regret tinged his answer. “Used my last.”
From time to time he would leave England for a while, ostensibly for a dig. But Charlotte could always tell whether he’d been to an excavation—and when he’d been somewhere else entirely.
Archeology, as it turned out, was an excellent excuse for all kinds of foreign jaunts. Once he returned on a crutch and attributed his injury to a large statue falling over. Another time he came back with a heavily bandaged hand and said that there had been feral dogs at the site.
The scar on his hand hadn’t remotely resembled the marks of canine teeth or claws.
Does your wife never have any suspicions? she’d asked him once.
No.
To have suspicions, one would have to pay attention. After their falling out, Lady Ingram had not bothered with any more false affections.
There must be ways to find temporary escape without risking your life, Charlotte had told him.
You have fewer choices, Charlotte, he’d answered. It doesn’t mean I have many.
She let her gaze linger on him another second, then ventured farther inside the suite, carefully opening drawers, wardrobes, steamer trunks. When she’d taken a mental inventory of everything, she went back to a cupboard that housed a portable darkroom, several cameras, and a large stack of photographs.
Mrs. Marbleton did not stay alone. Also registered to the suite were two young people, Stephen and Frances Marbleton, her children, ostensibly, with Frances Marbleton being none other than Miss Ellie Hartford from the Dog and Duck in Bywater, the woman who had wanted to claim Mrs. Watson as her mother.
And judging by the photographs, the young Marbletons had been traveling.
Many of the pictures featured only scenery but some had captured one of the young Marbletons in the frame—they were probably traveling alone, taking each other’s pictures.
In those images they seemed to have deliberately chosen not to include any landmarks. There was the sea and there was open landscape. But the coast could have been any stretch of British headland. And the rolling countryside was as likely to have been plucked from Sussex as Derbyshire.
“If you can afford to live at Claridge’s Hotel,” called Lord Ingram from the next room, “would you still seek employment?”
He had found a list of employment agencies. “I believe they specialize in helping women, don’t they?”
Charlotte sucked in a breath. On the list was Miss Oswald’s employment agency, where Miss Oswald had all but accused Charlotte of being a journalist going about trying to write an exposé on similar agencies.
Briefly, she recounted that conversation to Lord Ingram. “I wonder whether Frances Marbleton went around to all these fine establishments—and what she might have been doing there.”
“Since they have a portable darkroom, they must have photonegatives. I can make prints of her images and find out.”
“You do that, dear sir. I’m afraid I must go and prepare for my next client,” says Charlotte.