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  For the mar­velous, mag­i­cal, mys­te­ri­ous

  Annabel,

  with her per­mis­sion, and a fa­ther’s deep­est love!

  CHAP­TER ONE

  Thou­sands of years had passed since the Ro­mans turned this small Eng­lish har­bor into a port city, and she had never for even an hour since ceased her mar­itime ac­tiv­i­ties—yet still, af­ter all this time, when a ship ap­peared on the hori­zon, Portsmouth’s eyes turned in uni­son to the sea.

  Charles Lenox ob­served this fact from the win­dow of his rooms on the sec­ond story of the Bo­sun’s Arms. This was a pub­lic house and inn fac­ing the wa­ter­front, with old cross­beams on the ceil­ing, its walls scratched with sailors’ names and dark­ened nearly black with pipe and fire smoke.

  He was a Lon­doner him­self, but had been com­fort­ably in­stalled here since his ar­ri­val late the evening be­fore. What was left of break­fast lay on the ta­ble nearby, en­cir­cled by badly folded news­pa­pers. There was a cup of strong tea in his hand.

  “Marie Grace ahoy,” a deep voice rum­bled from down­stairs, just lag­ging the bell that had been struck quay­side at the sight­ing of the sail.

  On the cob­ble­stone street, peo­ple peered out to sea. As for Lenox, he couldn’t make out the ship, in the sheared-up misty dis­tance, un­less—yes, there it was af­ter all, he saw, with a lit­tle leap in his heart. He stud­ied her dis­tant ap­proach for a long minute be­fore turn­ing back in to the small room. A coal fire was burn­ing in the grate; a stub­born white frost lin­gered on the win­dow­panes of the car­riages out­side. It was the early win­ter of 1879, nearly the end of No­vem­ber. He could only imag­ine how cold it must be on board.

  He opened the door and called for the porter who was posted in the inn’s up­per hall­way.

  “Yes, sir?” said the boy, a wiry, un­der­sized per­son of fif­teen or so.

  “Is that very def­i­nitely the Marie Grace?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” the lad replied, barely glanc­ing. “You’d rec­og­nize her fore­mast at twice the dis­tance.”

  He spoke with such con­fi­dence! “Have you sailed upon her your­self?”

  “Oh, no, sir. I’ve never left Portsmouth, sir. Never been on a ship, for that mat­ter.”

  Lenox paused at this sur­pris­ing in­for­ma­tion, then said, “And how long till she’s here?”

  The boy, who was in a dou­ble-breasted navy blue jacket with a long row of rubbed-down vaguely mar­itime golden but­tons bi­sect­ing it ver­ti­cally, squinted ex­pertly at the sail.

  “Fifty-one min­utes, give or take,” he de­cided. “The wind ain’t much.”

  Lenox nod­ded. “Thank you. It amazes me to hear that you have never been on a ship.”

  “No plans, ei­ther,” said the boy with sat­is­fac­tion, pleased to have amazed a cus­tomer. He was clear­ing away dishes as they spoke, with the in­vet­er­ate use­ful­ness of his type. Down­stairs the tremen­dous row of the ship’s ap­pear­ance con­tin­ued, steve­dores and busi­ness­men shift­ing them­selves away from the com­forts of the bar and to­ward the sta­tions of their var­i­ous trades, in prepa­ra­tion for the ar­ri­val.

  “Are you not cu­ri­ous, liv­ing and work­ing so close to the sea?”

  “Not cu­ri­ous enough to fall in and drown, sir.”

  “Not ev­ery­one who sets foot on a ship im­me­di­ately falls into the wa­ter.”

  “Enough do to have put me off it.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Not a wa­ter­borne fel­low, you see, sir—haven’t learnt to swum yet, and don’t in­tend it.”

  There was the sharp ring of a bell at the other end of the hall­way, and the lad’s eyes bright­ened. Lenox knew that the op­po­site room was taken by an open­handed mer­chant who bought silk from In­dia di­rectly at the wharf each month.

  “Is there some­thing else, sir?”

  “No, that’s all, thank you. Oh—but do please see that the room I re­served is ready for the stay of a young woman.”

  “Of course, sir,” said the boy, le­nient with the ner­vous­ness of those who didn’t see ships come in ev­ery day. “Mar­garet will look it over again.”

  Lenox gave him a shilling, which the boy de­posited into the cloth of his soft cap—for in this city, more than any other he had vis­ited across Great Britain, there was no such thing as an im­plicit later gra­tu­ity. You tipped when the per­son was in front of you. Per­haps it was grow­ing up amidst the tales of so many drown­ings and pira­cies and van­ish­ings at sea; the shilling was for that day.

  When he was alone again, Lenox re­turned to the win­dow. So she would be here soon! Not more than forty-five min­utes now.

  He was a man just past the mile­stone age of fifty, and still not quite sure how to com­pre­hend that blunt re­al­ity. Gen­er­ally he felt rather spry. He was tallish, trim of build, with hazel eyes and a short, dark beard. As was his cus­tom, he wore a dark gray wool suit, well-cut, and a shirt of the soft, snowy white that would have been enough for any Eng­lish man or woman, with their unerring eye for class, to place him no lower than the level of gen­try.

  In his fig­ure and his face one saw great en­ergy, but his eyes at the mo­ment were blood­shot, and his ex­pres­sion both a lit­tle wary and very weary. The truth was that it had been a hard year; per­haps his hard­est. Lenox was a de­tec­tive by trade, and that spring, while trav­el­ing in Amer­ica in the line of work, he had been stabbed, an ugly brute of a hunt­ing knife pierc­ing the mus­cle be­tween two ribs on his right side.

  For a few strange, bit­ter, ter­ri­bly real sec­onds he had been sure his life was over. When he had awo­ken, it was much later, hav­ing al­ready been op­er­ated upon. Not even a dream sur­vived to him of the in­ter­ven­ing hours. The quick work of that Yan­kee sur­geon had saved his life, but in the days im­me­di­ately af­ter­ward he had suf­fered from strange hal­lu­ci­na­tions, chills, fever, and ter­ri­ble pain in his right ribs.

  The other symp­toms had even­tu­ally gone. But that pain lin­gered ob­sti­nately still, the mus­cles gnarled and in­censed, some days seem­in­gly as far from healed as ever.

  There was a rap at the door. “Come in.”

  It was Mar­garet. “Here is some fresh tea, sir. Al­fie said you wanted to see me?”

  “I wanted to be sure the room I hired was ready.”

  “Yes, sir. For one guest be­sides your­self, a cold lunch to be set, hot wait­ing? I did it this morn­ing.”

  “But the guest is a young woman,” said Lenox, with spe­cial em­pha­sis on the last word. He halted there, sud­denly un­sure of what it was that made a room suit­able for a young woman. He had two daugh­ters, but nei­ther was yet ten years old. “What is the cold lunch?”

  In a sin­gle-breath mono­tone, Mar­garet re­peated what must have been the daily menu. “Cheese bread roast beef sliced toma­toes hot cross buns young onions and oys­ters, and the hot is brown pota­toes and lamb pot pie. With an­chovy sauce.”

  Lenox nod­ded. “And there’s a mir­ror, I sup­pose?” he asked, feel­ing a bit fool­ish. “And a basin of wa­ter and soap, and all that kind of thing?”

  “Oh, yes, sir.”

  Mar­garet, who had a big, blank face with two pig­tails fram­ing it, stood there look­ing pre­pared to an­swer equally stupid ques­tions un­til sun­down, if it was re­quired of her.

  “Thank you,” said Lenox. He peered out the win­dow. “How long un­til the ship’s here, do you think, Mar­garet?”

  The girl fol­lowed Lenox’s gaze to the ship. “Forty-three min­utes,” she said af­ter an in­stant. She de­parted with an­other of his coins.

  There was a great deal Lenox could have done with forty-three min­utes. For a start there was his cor­re­spon­dence, neatly pre­pared by a foot­man into a packet tied with heavy string at his house in Lon­don the day be­fore.

  But he couldn’t quite face it—for the first time in his life, he was hope­lessly be­hind in let­ter-writ­ing, and it filled him with a griev­ous fa­tigue to think of un­ty­ing that string.

  Then there was the agency. Lenox had done his work alone for al­most twenty years; when he started, he had been the only de­tec­tive of his kind on this side of chan­nel. These days, how­ever, there were dozens like him in Lon­don, and the agency, which he had es­tab­lished with two friends, had to keep a keen edge to stay atop the busi­ness. Thus, with him he had, in a small leather trav­el­ing port­fo­lio the notes from four cases cur­rently puz­zling his part­ners, one of them a par­tic­u­larly nasty black­mail. He knew he ought to look at them. Cer­tainly Polly and Dalling­ton would ap­pre­ci­ate it if he pitched in.

  But here, too, he found him­self be­set by the un­wonted las­si­tude that had char­ac­ter­ized the months since his in­jury—and in­stead of pick­ing up the port­fo­lio, which he had also ig­nored the night be­fore, and the sev­eral days be­fore that, he took a small bowl of ap­ple slices left over from the break­fast and sat down by the fire.

  What was it? His ex­hausted heart thumped, thumped; and as he ate the ap­ple slices, his thoughts turned to home, to his wife, Lady Jane, and their two daugh­ters, Sophia and Clara; and with a lit­tle long­ing, to his com­fort­able study over­look­ing Ham­p­den Lane, where he could be as­sured that no mat­ter how many let­ters he left unan­swered, how badly he let down Polly and Dalling­ton, he would still find his books, his fire­place, and the soft brown chair where he had his best sleep these days.

  A quick, whip­ping sort of rain was be­gin­ning to fall out­side, barely enough to mark the street. A typ­i­cally Eng­lish greet­ing for the pas­sen­gers ar­riv­ing on the Marie Grace. Lenox went to the win­dow and stood mo­tion­less, watch­ing the faces of the peo­ple pass­ing be­low. Over the years he had learned faces, and with an old, al­most un­con­sid­ered skill, he be­gan to study these, most of them turned down against the rain. He saw what he would have bet money were two bla­tant liars; any num­ber of in­no­cent men and women hur­ry­ing along to worka­day tasks; a new mother with that pe­cu­liar lu­mi­nos­ity that meant it was her first baby; a gang of cack­ling sailors whose leader’s dark rest­less gaze sig­ni­fied no good to the cap­tain of the ship he sailed on; and dozens more, in­clud­ing at one point Mar­garet, who rushed out­side to de­liver a pot of ale to a man in a lit­tle hut across the quay.

  Af­ter sev­eral min­utes of this sur­veil­lance Lenox’s eyes heav­ied, and he went and sat. Thirty min­utes or so and a new per­son would en­ter his life. He felt the warmth of the room’s lit­tle fire on his out­stretched legs. An evanes­cent sense of ease at last was re­stored to him just be­fore he fell asleep. He was awo­ken only when an­other bell an­nounced that the ship for which he was wait­ing had ar­rived.

  CHAP­TER TWO

  But not his pas­sen­ger.

  The Marie Grace tied on to the wharf at just af­ter ten in the morn­ing and let down two gang­ways, one for first-class trav­el­ers, one for steer­age. Lenox stood with some ner­vous­ness at the first-class gang­way, ac­com­pa­nied by Al­fie, who had a cart for the lug­gage.

  A dan­di­fied cu­rate and his fam­ily led the de­scent of the first-class pas­sen­gers. They were fol­lowed by an el­derly gen­tle­woman on the arm of a naval of­fi­cer, with a small bark­ing dog that must have been heartily glad to say good­bye to the sea, and a pro­ces­sion of fam­i­lies, cou­ples, and sin­gle gen­tle­men, many quite chummy with one an­other, hal­loo­ing their good­byes around the wharf.

  But Lenox was wait­ing for a young woman, and he didn’t see any among the dis­em­bark­ing crowd.

  He hailed a fore­mast jack up on deck, who was se­cur­ing a large crate with deftly wo­ven knots. “Is any­one left in first class?” Lenox asked.

  “No, that’s the lot of them, sir,” said the young fel­low.

  “Not a girl of about twenty?”

  “No, sir,” said the sailor, with a cheer­ful grin that sug­gested he would have been least likely to miss that sort of pas­sen­ger.

  Al­fie with the lug­gage cart gave Lenox a sus­pi­cious look.

  Where could she be? He sur­veyed the scene with a crit­i­cal eye. Even down at the sec­ond- and third-class gang­way it had cleared out a good deal, fam­i­lies re­united, sea­men hoist­ing rucks up onto their backs. There were jolly boats crowd­ing the hull of the ship, try­ing to en­tice the nearly lib­er­ated sailors’ ac­cu­mu­lated pay away from them in ad­vance. One had three or four women in it, un­blush­in­gly pro­pos­ing var­i­ous acts to the men on the rail, a steady young lad with a cask of wine by the tiller steer­ing them. An­other boat promised to whisk the sailors straight to the gam­bling par­lor, a third to a “clean and sober young gen­tle­men’s ho­tel”—though this propo­si­tion was at­tract­ing less at­ten­tion than the other two.

  Lenox felt in his breast pocket for the let­ter that had brought him here, even though he knew its con­tents by heart. It had ar­rived three weeks be­fore.

  22 Au­gust 1879

  Messrs. Coutts, Je­jeb­hooy, and Spear

  Welling­ton Pier, Bom­bay, In­dia

  Dear Sir,

  It is my duty to write you with the un­for­tu­nate news of the death of Lieu­ten­ant Jasper Lenox (ret.), aged fifty-one, on July 9th of this year. The cause was cholera. As you will see from the en­closed re­port, reg­is­tered by Dr. Re­iter with the gov­er­nors here, the ill­ness was mer­ci­fully brief.

  Please also find en­closed the last will and tes­ta­ment of Lieu­ten­ant Lenox; of which he has named you sole ex­ecu­tor. His es­tate is to be set­tled in Eng­land. At the dis­cre­tion of the con­sis­tory coun­sel, he has been buried in the Of­fi­cers’ Ceme­tery of Bom­bay. His fi­nal three months’ pen­sion from the army has been used to pay for his fu­neral and the fu­ture main­te­nance of his plot.

  The few funds left to Lieu­ten­ant Lenox’s name af­ter the ful­fill­ment of these obli­ga­tions have been used to de­fray some of his out­stand­ing debts; what re­main of his mov­able goods have been packed and will ar­rive in Eng­land by the steamship Cort­landt be­fore the end of this year, where they may be claimed us­ing the en­closed re­ceipt.

  A sub­scrip­tion has been raised by the Friends of Her Majesty’s Guards, and with the funds, first-class pas­sage has been booked for Miss An­gela Havens Lenox to re­turn home to Eng­land. The de­tails of her travel aboard the Marie Grace are the fi­nal doc­u­ment en­closed.

  Any ques­tions you have may be di­rected to­ward our branch of­fice in Clar­idge Street, Lon­don, or by let­ter to Bom­bay.

  I am hon­ored to be, sir, with con­do­lences and best wishes,

  Your ser­vant,

  William J. Coutts, Esq.

  Lenox folded the let­ter. The girl must have missed the ship, he re­al­ized—or, just as likely, dodged it. Per­haps she’d stayed be­hind for some young gen­tle­man. Or sim­ply a wish to re­main in the coun­try where she had passed her whole life.

  He had never met An­gela Lenox; he knew noth­ing about her.

  Poor Jasper! His sweet cousin, buried five thou­sand miles away, in­terred in that strange soil, for­ever. Lenox had come to loathe the let­ter for the sad im­pli­ca­tions be­tween its lines—the lack of money (“few funds,” “some of” the out­stand­ing debts) and the lack of friend­li­ness. Ev­ery fa­vor to Jasper, down to his burial, had been per­formed out of naught but duty.

  And now, though he felt the re­spon­si­bil­ity of car­ing for this young cousin of his so solemnly, he had failed be­fore he even be­gan.

  But just then there was a tap on his shoul­der. “Mr. Charles Lenox?”

  It was a young dark-skinned girl of per­haps eigh­teen or nine­teen. In­dian, he was all but sure, and not only be­cause the Marie Grace had posted from Bom­bay. She was small, neat, with even white teeth, and warmly dressed in an over­sized heather-gray sweater that looked as if it had been made for some­one else, pos­si­bly a sailor. But a good­will ra­di­ated out from her bright, ap­peal­ing eyes.

  “That is I,” he said.

  She pointed down the dock, which had cleared with re­mark­able speed; two months at sea, and now, not fif­teen min­utes af­ter ar­ri­val, the pas­sen­gers nearly all gone, al­ready scat­ter­ing to dif­fer­ent parts of these isles.

  But one young lady was left. Lenox had missed her be­cause she was sit­ting low on a trunk, in such a for­lorn pos­ture that she seemed to sink in on her­self—and of course be­cause she was at the other gang­way.

  When she glanced up, how­ever, Lenox saw in­stantly, in her wil­lowy frame, her long blond hair, and even the faintly ab­sent look in her pale blue eyes, his cousin Jasper.

 

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